Authors: Jay Giles
Time on the Wire (12 page)
Hanna knew immediately it was gun shots she’d heard and close by. She peered out her window, saw a man’s body lying on the sidewalk in front of the building, blood pooling under his head.
She grabbed her cell phone as she ran for the stairs, called 911 first, a Bureau alert second. In the lobby, she began issuing instructions, telling Bureau personnel to form a crime scene barrier. “Get Milt over here, immediately,” she yelled to the receptionist.
Outside, she looked at the body. Recognized Lohse from what was left of his face. Her gaze swept the rest of the scene, spotted a leg poking out of the shrubbery, discovered it was Miles. Hanna felt for a pulse, was surprised to find one. He didn’t appear to be breathing, was starting to turn blue. Hanna pulled open his shirt, discovered a Teflon bulletproof vest with a noticeable dent right where Miles’ heart would be. Hanna hit him in the chest as hard as she could, trying to restart his heart.
“Hey, she’s hitting him,” she heard someone in the crowd yell. She couldn’t be concerned with that. She gave Miles another thump, didn’t see any change, began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As she worked, she was aware Miles wasn’t getting any bluer. She kept at in until the EMS team took over. She watched as the medics slipped an oxygen mask over Miles’ nose and mouth, started an IV in his right arm, loaded him on a stretcher.
She scanned the scene. FBI personnel were keeping the gawkers back. She spotted Tom Crandell, an analyst. “Tom,” she called over to him, “Take charge. Keep the scene intact until Milt gets here.”
Crandell looked white. “Where are you going?”
Hanna was already following the stretcher to the EMS vehicle. “I’m going with him. He may have seen the shooter.”
The stretcher was loaded in. Hanna climbed in after the tech. He slammed the doors shut. The siren wailed as the vehicle pulled away. In the cramped ambulance, Hanna kept watch over Miles, two questions running through her mind: Why would anybody kill the money guy?
And why would they do it at the FBI’s front door?
As Tom drove, he handed his cell to Marike in the passenger seat. She hit speed dial, put the phone to her ear. She heard the Ping, even before she heard his voice. “It’s done,” she said.
“Excellent. Any Ping complications?”
“None.”
“Good. I’ll contact you when we move to the Ping next phase.”
Marike pressed the end button, handed the phone back to Tom.
He looked over at her, took it, grinned.
Marike’s face was flushed, her eyes wild. She’d almost had an orgasm after she pulled the trigger, still felt highly aroused. “He never suspected, never saw it coming. I pointed the gun in his face, pulled the trigger and—poof—the great Wernher Lohse is history.”
“And the other one? The salesman? The one you thought was cute?”
Marike shook her head. “He was cute.”
Hanna perched on a little jump seat, her knees almost touching Miles’ shoulder. She tried not to be in the medics’ way as the EMS van sped to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, tried to tune out the noise of the siren, the rattling of equipment inside the van. Her eyes were focused on the rise and fall of the oxygen mask over Miles face. She watched each breath, measuring it against the last, trying to find improvements. Miles twitched. His body moved spasmodically. “Why is he doing that?” She shouted over the din.
The closest EMS tech, a black man with a shaved head and large gold hoop earrings, looked at Miles, hollered to her, “His body’s fightin’ back. That’s a good sign. He’s trying to come out of it.”
Miles gave a violent twitch, Hanna thought she saw his eyes open for a second.
“Five out,” the other tech, a heavy-set, middle-aged woman, yelled.
The minutes counted down. The van stopped, the rear doors were flung open, the gurney rolled out. They moved quickly into the ER. Hanna held her FBI badge in the air.
Triage nurses worked on Miles as the gurney went down a hallway. It never slowed until it came to rest in a small, curtained bay. Nurses gave way to doctors, who barked orders, talking in code. As she had in the van, Hanna kept watch on the oxygen bag. She was startled when she saw Miles’ eyes open.
“He’s conscious,” one of the doctors called out. Immediately, they put a light in his eye to see if there was evidence of concussion.
“Clear,” the doctor pronounced after looking at both eyes.
Another doctor listening to his chest with a stethoscope, said, “Heart sounds good. Lungs are good. Let’s see how he breathes on his own.”
The mask came off and Hanna held her breath, trying to see how Miles would do. His breathing was choppy, sounded raspy.
“Look at the discoloration on his chest already,” one of the doctors said, “he took a hell of a hit.”
“Get him to x-ray, see if anything’s broken.” Off they went again. Down the hall. Up an elevator. Through two sets of doors. Down another corridor.
This time, Hanna walked by the head of the gurney, where Miles could see her. His face showed pain, but when their gazes met, he tried to smile.
She showed her badge at the entrance to X-ray. They stopped her anyway, wouldn’t let her go beyond the waiting area. She watched him disappear beyond double sliding doors. As soon as the doors closed behind him, Hanna focused on the waiting room wall chock, watched each minute tick by.
Thirty-eight ticks happened before they brought him back through the double doors. The attendant told Hanna, “He’s very badly bruised, but nothing is broken. They’ll take him to a room now, let him recover.”
Again, Hanna walked where Miles could see her. In the room, as they moved him from the gurney to the bed, his face contorted in pain. When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes, said to Hanna in the barest of whispers, “Thanks for staying with me.”
“I’ll be here,” she said back.
His eyes were already closed. She wasn’t sure he’d heard her.
A voice prompted Dennis Casper’s return to consciousness. “Mr. Casper, wake up. Can you hear me?” He forced his eyes open, saw Kirby the kid doctor standing over him. “One artery was 90% blocked, the other 70%. I was able to stent them both. No complications, you’re going to be fine.”
Casper mumbled a thank you, felt his stretcher start moving. In his room, they carefully transferred him from stretcher to bed, paying special attention the sandbag pressing on this groin. “What’s that?” He wanted to know.
“It’s keeping pressure on the hole in your artery where they put the wire in,” the male attendant told him. “They’re going to want it there eight to twelve hours. So make friends with it.”
Casper nodded, slipped into a twilight sleep, vaguely aware of sounds and movement around him. At one point, he heard a voice say, “—the man shot and killed in front of the local office of the FBI has been identified as Wernher Lohse—”
Suddenly awake, Casper searched for the source of the voice, realized it was coming from a television in a room across the hall. He found his remote, turned the TV on, found news. “—in breaking news, two men were gunned down just yards from the front door of the FBI. One man is dead, one man taken to the hospital, no word on his condition yet. The dead man was identified as Wernher Lohse. Earlier in the day, Lohse, a representative of Daimler AG, made an appeal for the release of kidnapped associate and Mercedes marketing executive, Jens Beck. The FBI has cordoned off the area where the shooting took place but has not yet released a statement. It is believed the shooter escaped. Beck, the—”
Casper clicked it off. The announcer’s voice still playing in his head: Two men gunned down just yards from the front door of the FBI.
It might as well have been him.
Hanna paced in the hospital corridor outside Miles’ room. She’d been on her cell multiple times, talking with the crime scene team. When her phone rang this time, Hanna saw it was from a D.C. area code.
She lifted the phone to her ear. “This is Agent Chance.”
“Deputy Director O’Neill,” an angry voice said. “The news is reporting a shooting? Why was I not told? Why am I not able to speak with Agent in Charge Casper? Where is he? No one seems to know.”
Hanna looked at her watch. 11:02. The jungle drums beat fast. “Sir, there was a shooting—”
“Don’t tell me what I know. Where’s Casper?”
“I’m not certain, sir,” she said honestly.
“What do you mean? He didn’t just disappear.”
“Agent Casper texted me that he was attending to an urgent matter, later I got another text that he wouldn’t be at the press conference. That’s all—”
“You don’t know what this other matter involves? Or where he is?”
“No, sir.”
“If you have contact with Agent Casper, have him call me. Immediately. That’s an order,” O’Neill barked. “Agent Chance, I expect a complete report on this shooting emailed to me by end of day.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’m at the hospital with the other person who was shot. My time might be better spent working with him, developing an ID of the shooter.”
“Fine. Do that. Then a complete report.” He rang off.
Hanna wondered what Casper had done to earn that wrath. Decided she didn’t want to know. No matter what it was, the man deserved a warning. She sent him a text: Lohse shot dead in front of our building. DD O’Neill wants to know where you are. Advise.
Hanna waited for a reply. Got nothing.
Miles woke, immediately felt a stabbing pain in his chest. He tried to be very still, take shallow breaths, make the pain subside. When he blinked his eyes open, he found Hanna standing by his bedside.
“Hey,” he said with a weak smile.
She reached for his hand. Held it. “Hey, yourself. Glad you’re awake.”
“Last thing I remember was that woman, a gun.”
“Your vest saved you. You’re just badly bruised.”
“Lohse’s dead, isn’t he?” Miles could still see the bullet striking Lohse in the face, his head exploding.
“I’m afraid he is,” Hanna said softly. “As soon as you can, we need you to work with Paul Chang—remember him, he was the sketch artist you worked with before—to put together a composite of the shooter.”
“We don’t need him. It was her. Perlman. She was the shooter.”
Hanna flipped open her phone, called the Bureau, reported what Miles had told her, listened a minute before she rang off. She looked at Miles. “The FBI needs to notify Mr. Lohse’s next of kin. Do you know who that might be?”
“No idea. The guy who might know is—was—Lohse’s boss at Mercedes. His name and number are in Lohse’s hotel room.”
“Good.”
A nurse looked in, saw Miles was conscious, used her cell phone to let the doctor know. Almost immediately, a short, squat woman with salt-and-pepper hair and dark circles under intense brown eyes, strode in the door. She walked to the sink, washed her hands, dried them as she looked at the read the chart at the foot of Miles’ bed. Her lab coat identified her as Dr. Ellington.
“He just woke up,” Hanna offered, letting go of his hand.
Finished with the chart, the doctor leaned over the bed, used a light to look in Miles’ eyes. “How are you feeling, Mr. Marin?”
“Lucky.”
Ellington smiled, put her light back in her pocket, pulled down the sheet that covered Miles’ chest. “Let’s get a look at you.” She pressed to fingers to his sternum. “Does that hurt?”
Miles winced. “Yes.”
“How much on a scale of one to ten? Ten being the highest.”
“Five.”
She pressed a spot three inches over. “How about here? One to ten.”
“Two.”
She pressed a spot six inches to the side. “How about here?”
“Doesn’t hurt there.”
She got out her stethoscope, placed it on Miles’ chest. “Deep breath.” He winced as he did it. She listened. “Again.” She moved the stethoscope. “Again.” She straightened up. “Mr. Marin, you took a hit to the chest that would have killed most people. You are in such good physical shape, you appear to have weathered the trauma and are recovering nicely. We’ll want to keep you here overnight for observation, but if you continue to recover, there’s no reason to keep you longer.” She looked over at Hanna, smiled. “Mrs. Marin can take you home.”
Kirby the kid breezed into the room. “How we doing today, Mr. Casper?”
Actually, Casper felt pretty good. They’d removed the sandbag, taken out the catheter, let him get out of bed, go potty, sit in a chair. He gave Kirby a wan smile, “I’m okay.”
Kirby bent over him, listened to his chest with his stethoscope. “Big breath,” he said a couple of times. Casper complied. Kirby raised his head up. “You sound good to go.”
“You’re releasing me?” Casper asked. This was day two after a major heart procedure. Surely, they didn’t boot you out that quickly.
“Yep, you shouldn’t have any problems. I do want you to take it easy, no strenuous activity or exercise for six weeks.” He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a prescription pad. “I’m going to put you on a couple of medications. He wrote out one, handed it to Casper. “That’s a Zocor generic. That’ll get your cholesterol down.” He wrote another, ripped it off the pad. “That’s for Toprol, it’s a Beta Blocker that’ll slow your heart rate. And this one is for Altace, it’s an Ace Inhib—”
“Wait,” Casper pleaded, stopping him in mid tear. “That’s for blood pressure.
I’m already taking three blood pressure medications.”
Kirby listened, nodded dismissively. “I’m taking you off of all that other stuff. Let’s see how you respond to this course of treatment.”
“Will it make me sun sensitive?” Casper’s expression was wary. “With what I’ve been taking, I couldn’t be in the sun at all.”
Kirby made a face. “If you tolerate this medicine, you shouldn’t have any problems. Your sun sensitivity should fade.” He grinned broadly. Added a rimshot. “Badum-ching.”
Casper frowned. If there was a joke there, he’d missed it.
Kirby handed him the final prescription. “I’ll want to see you in a month. Between now and then, if you feel anything out of the ordinary—and I mean anything—I want you to call my office and be seen immediately.”
Casper nodded.
Kirby reached out, shook his hand. “You’re free to leave, Mr. Casper. Go home, enjoy the first day of the rest of your life.”
Casper reflected on the unanswered texts from Chance. Worse, the ones from O’Neill. Rest of my life, Casper thought. What life?
