“Yes,” she snapped, then her tone softened just a little. “At least, I’m sure.”
As long as she denied that anything of substance had happened between them or existed between them, he couldn’t go any further. Pride wouldn’t allow it.
“Well, then there’s nothing more to talk about, is there?”
A sadness washed over her even as she expected to feel a flare of triumph. The flare didn’t come.
“No,” she agreed evenly. “I guess there isn’t.” She hesitated. “Except that I hope your uncle’s surgery goes well.”
Reaching for his jeans, he tugged them on before getting up. Maybe it was time he got his mind off passion and onto the business of living. And saving his uncle’s life.
“Thanks.” On his feet, he closed the snap on his jeans. “It will.”
His voice was distant. Just as she wanted it to be. She had no idea where this sudden wave of frustration and annoyance that surged through her was coming from.
“I’d better go,” she told him, beginning to back away from Lukas.
She was reaching for her pager when it went off.
As did his.
Chapter 13
“Say again?”
Suddenly feeling numb, Lydia covered her left ear as she listened intently to the voice on the other end of her cell phone. Hoping that she’d somehow misheard. Rodriguez had been the one to page her. When she’d returned his call, he’d come on the phone almost breathless and extremely agitated, although he was doing his best to control himself.
He took a deep breath now. “Two of Conroy’s men disguised themselves as orderlies and managed to slip past the guards.”
She tried to read between the lines, anxious to get to the point of the young special agent’s call. “They took Conroy?”
“No.” In his haste to tell her everything, he was getting ahead of himself. “They’re still here. One of the orderlies they stole the uniforms from managed to stagger into the hall and alert security before passing out. The other orderly is dead.” His young voice was grim. “When they couldn’t escape, Conroy and his people barricaded themselves in the coronary care unit. They’re holding the other patients there hostage.”
“Do we know who they are?”
“We played back the surveillance tapes on the fifth floor. Crime lab lifted some partial prints. Their names are Marlon Fiske, age twenty-one, and Bobby Johnson, age forty-three.”
“Known felons?”
“No, that’s the strange part. They’re both clean as a whistle.”
She didn’t understand. “Then how do we have their prints on file?”
“You’re not going to believe this. Fiske is a federal employee at the courthouse and Johnson’s with an aerospace company that works on the space station.”
She’d completely forgotten about federal employees being fingerprinted. Lydia shut her eyes, running her hand over her forehead, massaging a headache in the making. “Terrific. Just what we need. Educated racial supremacists.”
Rodriguez broke with protocol and described the scene as he saw it. “All hell’s broken loose here, Special Agent.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lukas’s shoulders stiffen as he responded to his own page. At any other time, idle curiosity would have made her wonder what was up. But right now, there was only one thing on her mind.
“What about Elliot?” She needed to know.
There was silence on the other end of the line. Lydia felt a tightness in her chest. She refused to allow herself to think the worst. “What about Elliot?” she repeated, each word underscored.
“They took him hostage.” She heard Rodriguez swallowing. “He’s wounded.”
“How?” she demanded.
“He tried to stop them and Johnson shot him.”
She pressed her lips together, grateful for small things. At least Elliot wasn’t dead. They still had a chance to get him out of there alive.
“I’ll be right there,” she promised, not waiting for Rodriguez to say anything further.
Flipping the cell phone closed, Lydia shoved it into the pocket of her jacket. She was already wearing her holster and service revolver.
Damn it, why had she allowed her hormones to seduce her into asking Elliot to trade with her? Why hadn’t she been thinking with her head rather than with her other parts? She should have stayed at her post.
Guilt ran riot through her. It was her fault Elliot was in there now in God only knew what condition. If Conroy’s men were willing to kill innocent orderlies without compunction, just for their uniforms, what would they do with the patients, with Elliot, once they really became desperate?
She couldn’t let herself think about it. It would only paralyze her.
Steeling herself for what was ahead, she turned around. And saw Lukas. His face was a mask of stone. Instantly, Lydia knew he had to have gotten the same message that she had when he’d called the hospital in response to his page.
But she didn’t have time to discuss it. Every second counted. Every second could be Elliot’s last. She had to get down to the hospital.
“I have to go,” she told him as she hurried by him toward the door.
“They’ve taken my uncle hostage.”
Lydia stopped dead. Guilt ridden about Elliot, she had completely forgotten that his uncle was also in the coronary care unit. Damn, this was just getting worse and worse.
She paused to squeeze his arm. “We’ll do everything we can to get him out safely.”
He wasn’t naive. Promises weren’t enough. He knew how these things could go. And even if things could be resolved eventually, Henry didn’t have “eventually.” Henry needed surgery in a matter of hours, not “eventually.”
Grabbing his jacket, Lukas was right behind her. “I’m going with you.”
Lydia knew how he had to feel, but he was a civilian and the more civilians around, the more things could go wrong. This was a time when even professionals got in each other’s way.
She tried to reason with him. “There’s nothing you can do, Lukas. This is a matter for professionals.”
His eyes darkened, riveting her in place. “Like the professionals who let them take patients hostage in the first place?”
Lydia blew out a breath. She couldn’t argue with him, couldn’t waste the time or find the heart. She knew that in his place, nothing in the world would have kept her on the sidelines.
She turned on her heel and threw open his door. “C’mon, I’ll drive.”
He fell into place beside her.
For once, Special Agent Rodriguez hadn’t exaggerated. If anything, he’d understated the scenario unfolding Blair Memorial Hospital.
The smell of panic, vehicle exhaust and excitement mingled in the air, growing stronger the closer they came to the sprawling compound that encompassed the hospital. Word had already leaked out to the media. News vans and trucks from all the local stations filled the area. Negotiation through early morning traffic had gone from difficult to almost impossible.
For as many reasons as there were vehicles, everyone wanted to be at the heart of what was going on.
Frustrated, Lydia maneuvered her car in as close as possible and left it double parked beside a Channel 12 news van.
“If they want to get out, they’re going to have to run over my car,” she declared testily as she got out.
There was a sea of people everywhere she looked. In the distance, she saw a dark van opening up and members of a swat team begin to emerge. Reporters making love to the camera as they recited their piece could be seen scattered throughout.
“It’s a damn circus,” she stormed, angry that tragedy was so marketable. “Don’t these people have some meaningless award shows to cover or a celebrity to hound to death?”
Lukas heard the anxiety in her voice. He’d overheard part of her conversation earlier, enough to know that her partner was one of the people who’d been taken hostage. He didn’t have to ask to know that she was blaming herself. He would have done t
he same in her place.
“Looks like for this morning, the supremacists are the celebrities,” he told her.
The throng, comprised of reporters, camera personnel, curious onlookers and, more than likely, some family members of the hostages, was thickening to the point that getting through was almost impossible. Lukas saw Lydia elbowing someone out of the way, only to be confronted with another human wall.
“Get behind me,” Lukas instructed. Not waiting for her to comply, he stepped around Lydia so that his body was in front of hers. Taking her hand, he forced his way through the crowd, growling a terse, “Get out of the way,” to anyone who didn’t immediately move as he forged a path for the two of them.
The police stopped them just in front of the front doors. A man who looked as if he were a twenty-year veteran of the force blocked their entrance.
“You can’t go in there.”
Lydia took out her badge, holding it up to the man’s face. “FBI. That’s my prisoner upstairs.”
“Right now,” the policeman said, backing away, “your prisoner has prisoners.”
“Dr. Lukas Graywolf,” Lukas identified himself, flashing his plastic hospital ID at the man. He left it around his neck. “Those are my patients being held hostage.”
“Good luck to both of you.” The policeman nodded them on their way, throwing himself in front of the doors the instant the crowd began to swell forward.
Reporters were firing questions at them from all angles, wanting to know everything from the names of the people being held to how something like this could have happened and how did they feel about it.
Lukas’s response to that was something that would never make the air waves.
“Does this mean your job?” a woman asked, shoving her microphone at Lydia.
Lukas shoved it away as he ushered Lydia through the door. “No, but it’ll mean yours if you don’t get that out of her face. Now,” he growled a moment before both he and Lydia disappeared into the building.
Inside, the situation was no better. Nurses, orderlies and several doctors were all milling about, amid the police who had been immediately called in once the assaulted orderlies were discovered.
Lydia sidestepped a woman who had her arms wrapped around herself and was crying. As quickly as possible, they made their way to the elevators.
“I can take care of myself,” she told Lukas.
“Nobody’s disputing that,” he stated in the same tone she’d used.
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. No one had thought to behave like a white knight toward her for a very long time. A small part of her rather liked that. Being looked after. If that was weak of her, she figured she could be forgiven, just this once.
Her tone softened. “Didn’t mean to jump all over you.”
Lukas shrugged. Maybe he shouldn’t have snapped, either.
“Forget it,” he told her. “We’re both under a lot of pressure.”
And it was going to get worse, he thought, before it got better.
Though there were fewer people, the scene on the fifth floor mimicked the one on the ground floor. There seemed to be people everywhere in the hall.
Lukas saw one of the nurses he recognized standing to the side, looking stricken. There were tears streaming down her face. It took him a moment to remember that the woman’s husband was an orderly at the hospital. Had he been the one who’d been wounded, or the one who had died? His heart went out to her, but there wasn’t time to ask. There was only time to try to save the living.
A policewoman was coming at them, waving them back before they could get very far. “Sorry, this floor’s restricted.”
Holding her badge up for the woman’s benefit, Lydia pushed passed her. She spotted Rodriguez and made her way toward him. Agitated, worried, she was only vaguely aware that Lukas was following in her wake.
“How the hell could this have happened?” she demanded of Rodriguez before she was next to him. “We had people stationed downstairs.”
The younger man lifted his shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know, Special Agent Wakefield. I was just coming on when someone came up behind me, screaming that people had been killed and that the terrorists were barricaded in the CCU.”
“‘People’?” she demanded. “Be specific. How many dead?”
Rodriguez tried to compose himself. His inexperience shimmered in his voice. “So far, we only know about the orderly.”
Facts, she needed facts. “You said Elliot was hurt. How do you know if you weren’t here?”
“One of the nurses on the floor saw him go down when the two orderlies—I mean, terrorists, stormed the corridor in front of the CCU. They dragged him inside with them as the doors closed.”
To be used as a bargaining chip. She fought back the angry tears that had sprung to her eyes. Tears weren’t going to help Elliot.
“How do you know he’s not—how do you know he’s just wounded?” Rodriguez said nothing. He didn’t know the answers to her questions, she thought, exasperated. The realization stung. For now, to get through, she concentrated on procedure and not on what might be happening behind the barricaded doors. “Did you notify the assistant director?”
“He’s on his way down with more manpower. And I called Special Agent Peterson’s wife.”
Thunderstruck, her eyes widened. “You did what?”
The demand echoed loudly enough to momentarily evoke silence around her as everyone turned toward her and the young special agent.
“I—I called Special Agent Peterson’s wife,” he repeated, fearfully this time.
“Why in God’s name would you do a thing like that? I don’t want her here, going through hell—”
“Lydia?”
It was too late. Janice, a small, earthy-looking woman, was hurrying toward her, her face a pale, drawn mask of terror. Behind her, the elevator was just beginning to close.
The policewoman stepped toward her, but Lydia waved the uniformed woman away. “It’s all right, she’s with me.”
“Lydia, is it true?” Janice cried. “Is Elliot in there?”
“Yes.” Crossing to the older woman, she embraced her as Janice began to cry. Lydia took a moment to try to comfort her, then motioned a nurse over. “Take care of her,” she instructed. “We’ll get him out, Janice. I swear to you we will.”
Janice could only nod bravely as she pressed her lips together to keep the sobs from emerging.
Lydia turned back to doing what she did best, analyzing the situation. There was no question in her mind that the supremacists had cut the power to the electronic doors that separated the CCU from the rest of the hospital. Otherwise, they would have opened the moment she’d stepped into the sensor’s path.
The chair where Rodriguez had sat last night was unoccupied. His desk was devoid of the file box and the visitor registry book that had been on it earlier. The only thing that remained in place was a telephone.
She looked at Rodriguez. “Does the phone still work? We need to be able to communicate with those bastards.”
The novice dragged his hand nervously through his dark hair. “I—I don’t know.”
Raising her voice, she asked, “Anyone know the number?” as she looked around.
Lukas came up behind her, reciting the seven digits that would connect her to the telephone.
“Hold it.” Lydia took out her cell phone. “Okay, again.” She punched in the numbers he repeated.
A second later, the phone on the desk behind the barricaded glass doors began to ring. It rang a total of twelve times before she saw the doors on the right wall just beyond the desk opening.
At first it looked as if no one was coming out, and then she became aware of movement along the floor. Whoever had come out was snaking his way to the desk like a guerrilla soldier out of a grade-B movie.
Shifting from foot to foot, she waited impatiently for him to pick up the telephone. The second she heard a voice on the other end, she began talking.
It didn�
��t surprise Lukas that the first words out of Lydia’s mouth were a demand. “Let me talk to Agent Peterson.”
Lukas could almost make out the man’s expression. He was scowling and looked as if he’d just started to shave on a semi-regular basis. “Who?”
Was he playing dumb? Lydia wondered irritably. “Peterson. Elliot Peterson. The FBI agent you have in there with you.”
It was obvious that the man didn’t care for the tone she was using. “Look, lady, you’re in no position to make any demands.”
She wanted nothing more than to get her hands around the man’s neck.
“There’s a SWAT team getting off the elevator,” she told him. “And a combined force of a hundred guns pointed in your direction from all angles. I’d say you’re the one who’s not in a position to make demands.”
The information didn’t rattle the man behind the barricade. On the contrary, it seemed to infuse him with more bravado.
“We can kill everyone here before you can get to us,” he bragged.
Terrific, she was dealing with someone whose mind had never made it beyond an elementary school playground. “I’m not about to get into a spitting contest with you. Let me talk to Agent Peterson and then you tell me what you want for Christmas.”
He looked up. For a second, despite the distance, their eyes locked. “Sorry, he can’t come to the phone right now.”
The defiant tone unnerved her. “Why?” she demanded. An answer came to her. Oh God, please don’t let him be dead.
Lukas saw the look on her face, heard the glimmer of fear in her voice an instant before she valiantly banked it down. There were other patients in there, not just his uncle, and since he was the only doctor who was this close to the scene, that made them his responsibility.
Without asking, he tilted Lydia’s cell phone so that he could hear what the other man was saying, as well.
Understanding Lukas’s reasons, she didn’t even look at him quizzically.
The baby-faced supremacist, whom she assumed had to be Marlon, didn’t bother to answer her question. Instead, he made his first demand. “We need a doctor in here. Conroy, he’s not doing too well.”
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