by G. K. Parks
A bullet impacted against the wood frame, making the entire thing rattle and tremble. O’Connell shoved me to the side just as another shot rang out. This one hit just to the right of where I’d been standing.
“Police. Throw down your weapons,” O’Connell ordered. Another bullet flew in our direction. O’Connell hit the radio. “Shots fired at police. Send all available units.” O’Connell gave our location, knowing backup was already en route.
We stayed hunkered down, scurrying in a crouch in opposite directions into the bar and away from the door, moving in the direction the shots had been fired. In the dark, I couldn’t see who had fired, but it had to be Steele.
The bastard had some balls to shoot at us in the middle of broad daylight. I gripped my nine millimeter tighter, both worried and relieved when no other projectiles flew in my direction. But from the continued reports of gunfire, Steele hadn’t stopped firing, which meant he focused all of his attention on O’Connell.
“Nick, take cover,” I yelled. Even though I kept heading in the direction the bullets originated, I had yet to glimpse Francisco Steele or anyone else for that matter.
“Parker,” O’Connell bellowed, but whatever he said after that was drowned out by the sound of another gunshot. In the enclosed space, it echoed and boomed like a cannon. I jumped over the bar, which acted like a barrier, and that’s when I saw him.
Francisco Steele had positioned himself in an alcove at the end of the bar between the l-shaped curve and the swinging aluminum door which led into the kitchen, forming a perfect sniper’s nest. Steele was protected on three sides. The only weakness was the opening where the bar and door separated. I couldn’t get to him without being spotted, and from here, I didn’t have a good angle to return fire.
He remained concealed behind the barrier, lifting his gun overhead and firing in O’Connell’s general direction. Since his focus was on the detective, I threw caution to the wind.
“Put your gun down,” I said, and Steele turned to stare at me. “I said drop it.” I stepped forward, fully exposing myself to him.
“Not this time, chica.” He glanced behind him, as if waiting for something. I just didn’t know what. I fired right at him. My bullet chipped the top of the countertop, coming close but not quite reaching my target. He gave me a venomous smile. “You have to try harder.” He licked his lips suggestively. “Luckily, I’m already hard.”
“Stand up.”
He kept the smile on his face, but his eyes burned with rage. “I’m not ready for it to end like this. I have so much in store for you. But if you force my hand, I will kill you now. Is that what you want?”
I didn’t answer. I edged closer, but Steele turned to aim at me. Unlike him, I didn’t have the corner of the bar to use as a bulletproof vest. “You’re done. This is over. You’re trapped. Give up or die here. It’s your choice, Francisco. Frankly, I don’t care either way.”
“Give up? I’ll never surrender. I won’t go back to prison.” Steele glanced behind him again. “Hang on to that phone. I’ll talk to you again soon.” He fired in my direction, hitting close enough that the bullet tugged against my open jacket and ripped it backward. I hit the ground hard. By the time I sat up, Steele had vanished.
Where did he go? I pressed one hand against my side while I aimed with my other, searching the area. In that little nook formed by the end of the bar and the open kitchen door, he had the perfect vantage point. And shooting at me had given him enough time to disappear. O’Connell came up beside me.
“He went into the kitchen,” I said.
Nick jumped over me and slammed into the kitchen door, gun raised. “Shit.”
I pulled myself off the tile floor and followed O’Connell. The kitchen door remained wide open, and in the alley was an open manhole cover. “He’s down there,” I said, already prepared to climb down.
“Alex, no.” O’Connell tugged me backward, away from the hole. “He could have killed you, but he didn’t. That wasn’t a miss. It was a warning shot. You go down there, he will kill you. And I can’t let that happen.” He lifted my shirt, exposing the graze that had decimated my jacket, leaving it in tatters but me with merely a scratch.
“No. He’s mine. This ends here and now.”
Officers ran to us in formation, guns drawn. O’Connell led a team into the sewers. I took up the rear.
Ten minutes later, we gave up the search. The sewer tunnels branched in too many directions, and with no feasible way to track Steele, we’d never find him. Smelly and disgusted, I climbed up the ladder and returned to street level. I failed again.
Twenty
“Francisco Steele was inside the hospital. We still don’t know how he got in, but we will find out,” O’Connell declared to the officers clustered around the hospital security office. “Steele slipped past security, made it to the ICU, attacked Nurse Andrews, and stole his ID. According to the surveillance cameras posted on this floor, Steele exited the elevator, hid in the men’s room, and waited for an unsuspecting hospital employee to enter the locker room. From there, Steele changed clothes. We got lucky he only wanted to send Parker a message. He could have done anything.”
O’Connell rubbed his mouth, pacing in front of the assembled troops and giving each of them the evil eye. Lt. Moretti took over at that point, probably afraid his lead detective was about to lose it. Not that I blamed him.
“From now on, everyone is keeping his and her eyes open. This can’t happen again,” Moretti said.
“No, sir,” came a few mumbled responses.
Moretti ignored them. “The manhunt to find Steele continues. The BOLO’s been updated with our latest intel, but we need to know how he got inside. He didn’t drive, so how did he get here? These are questions we need answered. Even the tiniest detail might lead to his current location or indicate who his next target is. According to Parker, the threat is imminent. In fact, we might already be too late.”
I shuddered. “How’s Andrews? Did he remember anything else?”
“The nurse is shaken up, but he’ll be okay. He hasn’t been able to tell us anything we didn’t already get from the ICU surveillance footage.” Moretti glowered at the FBI agents who lingered in the back of the room. “Don’t you find it convenient Jablonsky had been moved to the SDU and the detail had been pulled prior to Steele stepping foot on the ICU floor?”
The agents didn’t say anything. They continued to stare straight ahead. Moretti didn’t trust the Bureau not to have leaks, but no one there would help an animal like Francisco Steele.
“He’s been watching us,” I said, “like he did from the boarded-up shop across from Cooper’s apartment. We need to find out when he arrived at the hospital. He might have been here for hours, maybe longer, biding his time and waiting to strike. Originally, I thought, since I went to pay him a visit in prison, he wanted to return the favor, but now I’m not so sure.”
“There’s a lot we need to figure out. And we have to do it fast. We have patrols and guards set up for a reason. We can’t let this happen again,” Moretti said, repeating himself.
I leaned my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling. This was my fault. Steele knew where I’d be and wanted to send me a message. I can get to you anytime I want.
Turning, I scanned the security logs. No one reported a missing or stolen access card, except Nurse Andrews. I asked the tech to show me the footage from the information desk and the lost and found from earlier. I watched the images flicker in reverse on one of the small monitors.
“Right there.” I pointed. “Put that on the main screen.”
The tech switched it to the center display, and the LEOs in the room fell silent. Steele dropped the phone off downstairs, but while he was speaking to the woman at the desk, a nurse intervened. He followed her into the elevator and up to the ICU. By then, the FBI and security presence were gone, and he had avoided the cops in the lobby by keeping his distance.
“That’s him.” I pointed. He wore a baseball
cap and windbreaker over a pair of jeans. “Why didn’t anyone notice him?”
“He didn’t come through the front doors,” a patrolman insisted. “We IDed everyone who entered.”
“Can you run it backward and find out where he came from?” Moretti asked.
The footage played backward. The tech maneuvered from camera to camera as he searched the footage. “He came from the cafeteria.”
“And before that?” O’Connell asked, but I already knew the answer to that question. Steele had changed clothes and his appearance while in a blind spot. We had no way of tracking him before that.
“Sorry,” the tech said.
“We need copies of your footage for the entire day. Our system might be able to get a hit off facial recognition, his build, even his gait.” Moretti met my eyes. “Actually, make that two copies.” Cross Security could get the job done faster, assuming Lucien was still in a cooperating mood.
“What about after he changed into Andrews’ clothes?” O’Connell asked. “Did he take any detours or do anything else before escaping through the emergency room?”
“With the mask and cap covering his face, IDing Steele won’t be easy,” the tech said. “He blends in with the rest of the hospital staff.”
“And he kept his mask on,” I pointed out. “Show us whatever you have.” But that effort turned out to be fruitless. After Steele spoke to me on the phone, he waited just long enough for the coast to be clear before making a break for the exit.
I went back to the previous footage of Steele in the cafeteria. From what we could tell, he sat in the cafeteria eating and reading the paper for nearly an hour and a half. That wasn’t behavior I expected to see from a cold-hearted killer.
“Nick, a word.” I went out the door and waited for him to follow me. “Do you think he saw us searching the dress shop?”
“It would have been hard to miss the crime scene vans. He might have come straight here once he spotted us poking around.”
“Since he can’t hide from us, he wanted to make the point we can’t hide from him either.” I inhaled a shaky breath. “With Martin, Jen, and hundreds of innocent people around, he could have done anything.”
“But he didn’t,” O’Connell said, more for his own benefit than mine.
I clutched the phone inside my pocket. “We don’t even know how he got inside. It’s not on any of the security feeds. None of the officers or security guards have confessed to falling asleep at their posts, so I don’t think Steele came in the front. You’ve seen the lobby. It’s crawling with police and FBI agents, some of which I’m sure are probably on his hit list. I don’t think Steele has the self-control necessary to walk past them without doing something heinous.”
“You’re wrong, Parker. He has self-control. He exhibited it when he didn’t kill you.”
“That’s because he’s not finished yet.”
“Be that as it may, he’s not killing indiscriminately. Mickey Andrews is a testament to that.”
“It’s all part of his plan.”
O’Connell didn’t argue, but I wasn’t sure he agreed either.
“He’ll change his appearance again. It’s getting too hot for him. We have his ugly face plastered all over every media outlet and posted throughout the hospital, precinct, and federal building. He’s going to do something to change it up,” I said. “He’s determined to stay one step ahead of us.”
“Easiest thing to do is shave the beard.” O’Connell narrowed his eyes. “He trimmed it down quite a bit since leaving prison. And from what I recall from the recorded interviews, Steele never used to have a beard.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He’ll get rid of it then. But until we have confirmation of that, we stick with what we know – beard and shaved head. It’s the most reasonable assumption,” O’Connell said.
I turned my attention to the emergency evacuation diagram pinned to the wall. It showed every route in and out of the hospital. “Check the ambulance bay. Emergencies bypass ER intake and go straight into the ER. Since Steele couldn’t waltz in through the front door, maybe he had EMTs bring him inside.”
“That’s a good thought.” O’Connell turned before heading back into the room. “See, this is why Moretti keeps you around.”
“Well, it’s better than the other reason.”
“What other reason?”
I snorted, giving him a wicked look, but didn’t say anything. Now wasn’t the time for inappropriate jokes. Director Kendall, Agent Lucca, and several OIO and FBI agents I recognized emerged from the elevator and headed toward us. “That’s my cue to leave,” I whispered. “I’ll check into the EMT theory. You got this, Nick?”
“Yeah, just do me a favor. While you’re there, check on Jen.”
“Will do.” I pressed against the wall, allowing the federal agents to pass. “Director Kendall.”
He nodded at me. “Parker, anything I should know?”
“Moretti has the facts. I’m sure he’ll update you. Jablonsky’s safe. And no one else has been seriously hurt. Right now, that’s all that matters.”
“Indeed.”
Lucca hung back, grabbing the crook of my elbow and whispering in my ear, “Wait for me in Jablonsky’s room. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. We need to talk.”
I stopped by the ER to make sure Jen was okay and asked about patients who’d been brought in. While Jen did her best to get me answers, she cleaned and patched my side. After my trip into the sewers, I wanted to stave off possible infections.
“Alex, you know I can’t give out that kind of information,” Jen reminded me, “but it’s been a busy day. Ambulances brought in several elderly patients and a few kids.”
“Anyone in between? Like thirty to thirty-five?”
“Only one that I remember.”
“What happened?”
“A car accident. Guy got rolled into one of the trauma rooms, but I didn’t see him. The nurse went in to take his vitals and assess the damage. She ordered x-rays.” Jen bit her lip. “Give me a second.” She waved down another ER nurse. “Emma, what happened with the car accident guy?”
“I don’t know. He took off. I assume he must have been drunk or high and didn’t want the cops to find out when we ran his blood.”
“Did you take a sample?” I asked.
“No, we didn’t get a chance. After the initial assessment, I stepped out for a moment so he could change into a gown, and when I went back to his room, he was gone.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
Emma glanced at Jen, who nodded. “Shaved head, disheveled. He kept a towel pressed against the side of his face, so I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“And you don’t know where he went?”
“Nah, but that’s not new. We always lose one or two every week,” Emma said. “The EMTs probably have his info. Y’know, for billing and insurance purposes. It just depends on the circumstances.”
“Thanks.” Jen dismissed her, and Emma went into one of the rooms. “Does that help?”
“More than you realize,” I said. “In the event you spot anyone matching that guy’s description, steer clear, and get help. Nick’s upstairs if you need him.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Jen asked, nodding at my side.
“Nothing to worry about. I just got into a bit of a scuffle and took a trip into the sewers. Have you ever been down there?”
“Eww, no.”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Oddly enough, not nearly as disgusting as I thought it’d be but still plenty disgusting.”
“At least you don’t smell and your clothes look clean.”
“I had a spare outfit in my car, but I’d love to wash my hair. I just don’t have the time.”
“You always have a spare outfit in your car.”
“That’s because I’m prepared.”
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of business, but first I have to speak to a
boy scout.”
She gave me a curious look. “Is that where you get the always prepared thing?”
“No, the scouts stole that concept from me. That’s why we’re having a conversation.” I winked and went upstairs to the SDU, updated Samuels and Kwan, and spoke to Martin while I waited for Lucca.
“Alex,” Martin watched as I paced back and forth at the foot of Mark’s bed, “you need to relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“Liar.” He crinkled his nose. “You weren’t wearing that an hour ago.”
“So?”
“What happened?”
“The short version. Nick and I chased Steele into the sewers, but we lost him.”
Martin swallowed and looked down at Mark. “Okay, so now what? Do we move him? Get additional security? What’s the plan?”
“Move him?” For some reason, I hadn’t thought about that. “Is that even possible?”
“He’s out of the woods, so to speak. Obviously, he needs constant monitoring, but it should be feasible.”
“When do you think he’ll wake up again?”
Martin shrugged. “Hard to say. If they stopped pumping him with drugs, he’d probably be awake now, but unlike you, Jabber would prefer comfortable oblivion to pain.”
I smiled. “Pussy.”
Martin laughed. “Guess you didn’t get your masochistic streak from him. Why? Is there something you want to ask him?”
“Nothing that can’t wait. I just figured he might want some say on what we do next.”
“For what it’s worth, he knew who shot him and what that meant for you. He trusts you to handle it.”
“In that case, let’s wake him up so he can tell Kendall that.” I shook away the anger. “As long as Mark’s okay, that’s all that matters, unless Steele finds a way to get to him.”
“I told you I won’t let that happen.”
I blew out a breath. We weren’t having that argument again. Martin would do what he wanted. He could take care of himself. He’d do what was best for Mark and me. I just had to believe it’d be okay. “Steele scares me,” I admitted.