~o~
Alexander called out to Suzanne over the roar of the engine: "Ignore the siren we can explain later. Just keep on going; we don't have time to stop for anything, including the police." Suzanne did not reply, she had absolutely no intention of stopping, not for anyone. With the blaring siren behind their car, the other traffic was making way for them, opening up a gap which Suzanne took advantage of by increasing her speed. There was just a right hand turn to make at the roundabout and it was a straight road to the hospital entrance. Looking far ahead, Suzanne had already committed herself to her line when another car unexpectedly pulled out in front of her. Suzanne had none of her son's natural driving talent and after braking heavily her car bounced over the curbing and balanced on two wheels crossed the centre of the traffic island. They clipped the plastic bollards sending one flying into the stream of oncoming traffic. Struggling to regain control Suzanne eventually resumed the path she had intended taking. It was a close call. It could all have ended in tragedy but, for once, luck was on their side. The police driver had not expected the sudden turn and lost control of his own car. He skidded sideways, over-corrected and ended by snaking up the wrong exit road. By the time he had got his car under control and on the right road again, Suzanne was disappearing over the crest of a rise in the road. The hospital building was now in sight but they still had to negotiate the busy entrance gates. Alexander looked across at the wide eyed woman who was leaning forward and gripping the steering wheel so hard that her fingers were squeezed white and bloodless, he held on to the sides of his seat and closing his eyes willed the journey to be over.
John Mason walked up the entrance stairs to Biddenfield General with a casual gait. Just an acquaintance come to visit a friend no one could possibly expect anything else. He eased through the swing doors and up the brightly lit corridor that led to Emily's room. At this time of day there were plenty of people around. Mason knew that invisibility was best found in a crowd and he welcomed the throng of busy jostling visitors. Without difficulty and unimpeded, he found his destination. The door to Emily's room was closed but the glass observation window showed him that the young, unconscious woman was alone and exquisitely vulnerable in her nest of wires and tubes.
Silently he slid into the room. He looked down at the pretty face, the innocent life about to be cut short and felt pity for her. But still he searched his hand into the inside breast pocket of his leather jacket and withdrew a steel tube. He unscrewed the cap and slipped out a syringe of poison with a deadly, razor sharp needle waiting to inject the last moments into the young life. It was a poison chosen to act quickly and then break down rapidly so that it would be extremely difficult to find any traces of it if an autopsy were to be called for. In this case, since the target was expected to die at any moment, Mason knew that it was unlikely that the cause of death would be the subject of any serious inquisition.
Mason could be a violent man, but only when his situation pressed him to be so. Now with gentle gloved fingers he squeezed the fluid in the intravenous bag as if he were intimately caressing a loved one. The bag's contents were slowly being fed through a needle in the sleeper's arm directly into her blood stream. His face was expressionless as if he were engaged in some trivial every day task. He was completely disassociated, a state of mind rather chilling but one that he had mastered as a necessary aid to maintaining his stance as a dispassionate professional assassin. He held the syringe up to the light, the transparent glass refracting the sun from the window into a ray of light that danced and flashed across the white painted walls of the room.
"May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." He said and meant every word.
Comatose Page 29