Lethal Reaction

by S A Gardner

  And he was still standing there, beloved and bereaved, lost in memories and regrets. Lost to me.

  Everything inside me snapped. I couldn’t keep my distance anymore. I staggered towards him.

  He stiffened. Then without turning, his bass voice washed ice over me. “Couldn’t resist, could you? Had to show me that you take no orders, that you’ll always do what you unilaterally see fit? Here, over Mel’s dead body, a casualty of that most charming trait? Well, Calista, I just hope you don’t reap more lives—all of your lives—the same way.” He straightened his formidable shoulders, exhaled. “I’m leaving you the car. Throw away my suitcases.”

  Then without a look back, he disappeared into the gloom.

  One

  “It’s not like it’s all doom and gloom anymore.”

  I almost scoffed at my own words as we swayed out of Emergency.

  We’d just lost two more colleagues. And no, not to death. To resignation. Ayesha’s grimace in response was eloquent.

  I shook my head, trying to reassure myself more than her. “No, really. Things in general are looking up…”

  “Losing two thirds of our workforce is the definition of looking down—an abyss.”

  I again tried ignoring her verdict. “Our new Sanctuary is up and running…”

  “Yeah, right along with the running-away personnel.”

  I gritted my teeth, plowed on. “You’re back to normal…”

  “And normal is being ready to drop after only a couple of hours in Emergency, and forgetting the dosage of drugs for rapid sequence anesthesia?”

  I gave up. “Just shut up, Ayesha.”

  She did. For about a second. “And who do you think you’re kidding, anyway? Doom and Gloom would be the title of the TV series based on your mood of late.”

  Not again. She wasn’t bringing up my deepening depression. I bet this conversation took a steep turn towards Damian and deep insights into my IQ. Or lack of.

  Right on cue, I saw the coddling/scolding session building in her eyes.

  Oh, no. She was ready to pour. I needed a diversion…

  “Calista—we have a huge problem.”

  You asked for a diversion, moron?

  I didn’t even have the energy to wince as Lucia’s panting declaration turned the dimmer of my mood down a few notches. As if we ever had anything but those.

  I creaked around, wrecked with insomnia, fatigue and heartache, squinted into her almond-shaped and colored eyes. I winced at the anxiety and depletion putting out their beauty and animation.

  My gaze escaped hers, moved down and past the ten-inch scar where we’d put her bullet-blasted arm back together, towards the tapering fingers holding out a cell phone. It took me thirty seconds to realize whose it was. Mine.

  At least mine as Holly Swanson. The last identity I’d been using before Colombia. I’d given this number to people to get hold of me in an emergency. Problem was, I’d given it, and many other numbers, to far too many, disregarding the fact that I didn’t possess binary fission abilities.

  The solution to this problem was Lucia. She wasn’t only the best surgical/trauma nurse this side of Ayesha, and a hell of a warrior, too, she was my systematic wonder. She kept my assorted cell phones in working order and amassed missed calls and SMSs. Not knowing which calls warranted prioritizing, I called back on a first-come first-served basis. I dealt with them on a who-was-likely-to-sustain-most-damage-or-die-first one.

  It wasn’t a perfect system.

  Perfect schmerfect. It ranged from barely-in-time, to too-damn-late. Came with this hell of a deal, of being human, and able to exist in one place at a time.

  I reached for the phone. “So—who’re we gonna call?”

  A zippy chorus of Ghostbusters boomed in my head.

  Seemed Lucia had the same compulsory response.

  Weird. Some pop culture references were really pervasive and timeless.

  Her full lips twitched. “We’re taking, not making this call. At least, you are. It’s a breaking news sort of thing.”

  “And my life is now complete.” I sighed. “Ever wondered who the Ghostbusters called when they needed help?”

  Her shrug was all buck-stops-here. Yeah, didn’t I know it.

  We exchanged a grimace then she turned away. I turned to Ayesha, but she too was receding, called to another chore, leaving me to take the blast of responsibility full in the face. Great.

  I binged on a steadying breath. Then I took it. “Holly Swanson speaking.”

  “Dr. Swanson—thank God! It’s Mona Newton.”

  Mona. Using her maiden name now. Of course. I remembered her. Too well. Strange how each and every person I’d ever snatched from a violent end resided in my memory with such immediacy. Her image had an extra jagged edge, roused every protective instinct I had into riot mode.

  She’d called out to me before, a blood-soaked gurgle drowning in the cacophony of her husband breaking down her last barrier against his psychosis. I’d listened to him spouting lunacies, heard the sounds of him pummeling her in his latest, and what would have been last, bout of abuse.

  Matt had gotten to her, if not to him. He’d rushed her in. I’d seen serious car crash casualties with less injuries. We’d put her back together. Then I’d taken her husband apart. It had felt good. Still did. Mostly knowing that he’d never bother her again. Hell, I doubted he even dared think of her.

  What if I was wrong?

  Anxiety flared. “What’s wrong, Mona? Is it Darrel?”

  “Oh, no, no.” Her tones spilled through the connection, dread overriding their innate tranquility. “I hadn’t heard from him since you—took care of him. It’s—it’s much worse.”

  Much worse than an abusive monster? Goodie.

  “Where are you, Mona? I’m coming in.”

  “I’m at the night school.” So that was the project she’d chosen. We’d given her our last Sanctuary to use as whatever community service she saw fit. I thought she’d open a women’s shelter. Seemed she’d opted for her vocation as a teacher. Made me want to go dismantle her ex some more.

  She was going on. “It—it was h-horrible—those masked men blasting their way in here, armed to the teeth—we thought they were going to gun us all down. But they didn’t even look at us, just threw two bloody people in and marched out again. I—I didn’t know what to do—was afraid to come near the victims—couldn’t call the police—my school isn’t legitimate…»

  She was sliding into hysteria. No time for the indulgence. These men could come back.

  “Mona, deep breaths—now.” I waited until her whimpers morphed into snatched breathing. Would have to do. She wasn’t getting any calmer this month. I pushed on.

  “Are they alive?”

  “I’m-I’m not sure…” she hiccuped. “I—I think so b-but it doesn’t—doesn’t look like th-they’ll be for long.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Describe the armed men to me.”

  “Big…scary…” I had to be satisfied with those wailed descriptions for a whole minute until she managed to produce more specific ones. “Very fit—y’know, lots of muscles—and very organized—seemed like they were part of an army of some sort.”

  PACT men, anyone? Damian’s uber-trained killing machines. At least the rogue ones he’d had pushed on him to train after Russia. The ones who’d betrayed him, who’d given him to Jake. Too stupid to think otherwise.

  So Ed had given me and my team to them, too. Or had tried to. Another gross measure of stupidity would be thinking he’d stop at exposing the location of our last base.

  Damian had said he’d stop at nothing, that he’d use us all as bargaining chips if the need arose. Seemed it had.

  How had I constructed this conviction that he’d draw a line somewhere? When he hadn’t at the ultimate line; Damian?

  I knew how. I’d been staggering under my friends’ afflictions, scrambling to hide them, heal them. I’d been afraid I’d collapse under any extra worry and be no good to any of
them. I’d shut down my mind so I wouldn’t acknowledge the possibilities. I’d shut Damian out.

  But he’d proved to be the superior judge between us. Again. Wasn’t a surprise. Never had been. He was the one whose life had stamped him with comprehensive foresight.

  But even had he been totally wrong, I shouldn’t have let him walk away…

  Stop it. Focus on PACT’s calling card.

  It had been delivered in duplicate for effect, had “bait” written all over it. But for whom? Me? Did they know I was still alive? Did Ed?

  Unlikely. Highly. Still, I had to consider any possibility.

  Not that it mattered whether they were trying to force me, or just my team to resurface. Nor did it matter who the victims were. There were victims and getting to them was the priority. They were bait I couldn’t wait to gobble up. But first…

  “Listen to me, Mona. Vacate the place—now. Remove any trace of your activities there and head to this restaurant.” I gave her the address. Marconi would take care of her and anyone else I needed taken care of. He’d made it clear he owed me forever for his son’s life. He’d been using his mafia connections to pay me back, no questions asked ever since. “After I take care of this, I’ll make sure you don’t have to worry about these men, and to provide you with a new place for your school. I’m sorry I gave you this one in the first place, exposed you to all this.”

  Her words stumbled over each other, exonerating me, reiterating her eternal gratitude for all we’d done for her. Nice of her to say it. But then again, she was a nice woman. A pure soul. Didn’t mean she was wise. Or could see the truth.

  The truth was, I’d been a fool. No matter the extenuation.

  Where are you Damian? To tell me how big a fool I’ve been.

  But Damian was gone. I’d had more hope of seeing him after he’d kicked me out of GCA, medicine and his life after Darfur than now. At the time, I’d thought I’d had none. It took real despair to show me how hopeful my earlier hopelessness had been. Damian had been gone, as if he’d never existed, for three months now. It felt like three centuries.

  I’d tried everything to find him. I’d found nothing.

  Not a trace. And I wouldn’t find it. I now realized I’d found him before Colombia because he’d wanted to be found.

  He didn’t want to be found now. Or ever again.

  And now I had something to drag my focus away from the agony of his loss. A catastrophe as usual. With a probably bigger one in the making. I’d prayed for diversions, hadn’t I? I should have been more specific.

  It didn’t matter now. Now I had to handle the PACT-powered backhanded blow of fate. I had to come up with something good.

  My brain was starting to run out of my ears.

  It had been forty-five minutes since Mona’s call.

  Forty-five minutes while two people, who’d been injured in an indirect assault on me, lay dying because I couldn’t charge to their rescue. I’d had to waste time, their time, to plan their retrieval without endangering my team, to ascertain the safety of those I’d directly endangered first.

  God! What I’d give for the days of having only myself to worry, or rather not to worry, about.

  Yeah, like that hadn’t accumulated body count. In Darfur I’d gambled on a simple trade-off. My life for my patients’. But gambles never played fair. My life hadn’t been the price. And damn it, it should have been. I wasn’t gambling ever again.

  But it hadn’t been easy kicking the habit of charging without thinking cold turkey when I’d banded up with the core members of my outfit. It was then I’d had to forfeit the freedom the delusion that it was only me at stake had afforded me.

  I mean, I loved my team, sure. What I hated was this leader business. I’d once told Damian it had tempered me. Not true. It had only tethered me. Right now, it was choking me.

  My cell phone vibrated in my jeans pocket. Doug’s agreed on missed call. Our innocent bystanders were safe.

  I’d sent him and two others to monitor their exodus.

  I’d predicted PACT’s men would split. A group would follow them, hoping they’d lead them to us while another would lie in wait for us at the scene of the crime, anticipating our arrival to pick up their calling card. I knew Marconi would make sure Mona and the others would vanish right under PACT’s noses until I made sure their involvement in all this wouldn’t go beyond their incidental presence in my last sighting place. We wouldn’t know this for a while. For now they were safe. It had to be enough.

  I squeezed the steering wheel, restraining the boom of relief at my release from helplessness. One minute more and I would have needed a straight-jacket.

  I turned to the man beside me. His glossy black hair and bronze profile stabbed in my head and gut.

  Jeez. For such a slight resemblance to hurt this much. At least the resemblance, and the pain stopped there.

  Apart from being Argentinean-born and having Latin physical traits, Rafael was such a relief to be around. He transmitted no vibes to mess further with my hyper-charged nerves. When he was around computers, and that was most of his waking hours, only his physical form existed in this realm, the rest of him inhabiting cyberspace where he reigned supreme.

  That was why my father had given him to me on an open-ended loan since Colombia. You need help getting your operations back on track, he’d insisted. I’d grabbed at Rafael and all he could offer. It didn’t mean I wasn’t constantly worrying how the absence of his right hand was impacting my father’s operations.

  Rafael was mine right now. More. He was everything. To my current plan. It was built around his ability to pull off its crucial component.

  I touched his shoulder. “Do the honors, Rafael.”

  Phased-out eyes rose from his laptop communications set-up, rebooted into this world, re-entry reanimating their warm brown. He tapped his mousepad, handed me his headset, his effortless appeal back online.

  “You’re on, Cali.”

  A ringing tone echoed in my head. The call to the LAPD through the 24-Hour Anonymous Tip Line. As if anything in this day and age was anonymous. Or untraceable. It would be crazy in current climates for anything to be. This call was. Rafael had made sure. Or rather, he’d made sure it would be traced to the area it was supposedly originating from. A public phone near our old Sanctuary. The scene of the crime I was reporting.

  I gave the operator a performance of a scared witless witness. And then came Rafael’s real contribution.

  He cast his cyber net over the operator’s outgoing call, followed its path through the central Public Service Answering Point run by the LAPD, intercepted the one I wanted. The one to the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

  I took the call.

  I gave the operator, and through her the police dispatch, a ten-minutes ETA of the nearest paramedic unit to the scene. Us. We’d be there far sooner. We were a few alleys away from the Sanctuary. Then I terminated the call, breathed. We were going in. As the City’s EMS services.

  Under heavy LAPD forces protection no less. Let the sons of bitches PACT’s men come after us now. Hell, they wouldn’t even know it was us. It would have felt good if it wasn’t all so horrendous.

  I turned the siren blaring, floored the accelerator.

  I tore through the familiar alleys, reached our old Sanctuary in under five minutes. I burst out of the ambulance the second I rammed it to a skidding halt—and almost got knocked off my feet. It was unmistakable. The malignant vigilance boring into the back of my brown wigged head.

  We were disguised beyond recognition. Still, those were PACT men out there. They might suspect something, decide not to take chances. Get some insurance.

  I called out to those of my team who’d followed me down. “Police says to go in. Their ETA is three minutes.”

  Should give our enemies pause. Engaging police forces wouldn’t be on their menu. This also reinforced our legitimacy.

  Lucia, Fadel and Sam ran ahead of me, laden with folding stretchers and emergency bags.
I directed Rafael who’d taken my place at the wheel until he backed the ambulance to the Sanctuary’s obscure alley entrance. Then I followed.

  One look told me the first thing I needed to know. I didn’t know the victims. A quick consensus of shaking heads said none of my companions recognized them either.

  A twenty-something Caucasian woman and a sixty-something Hispanic man. Pulped, only their faces untouched. The sons of bitches wanted them to be instantly recognizable. To which members of my team?

  Didn’t matter. Saving them did.

  My team rushed into readying resuscitation measures. They didn’t fool me. They were letting me make first contact, first exam. Make mutilating decisions. Then make these.

  I swooped down on my casualties. A closer look had my blood crashing against the confines of my arteries, my skull.

  The filthy monsters had pinned both with a message.

  You know what we want. This is your first message.

  A frantic palpation to their carotid pulses detailed the level of their danger just as sirens lamented. Police.

  “They’re in deep shock,” I said. “Initiate aggressive resuscitation protocols, and strip them of ID’s. Smear blood over their faces and hair—make them unrecognizable. And take these damn pin-ups off. I’ll deal with the police.”

  Four blue-clad men burst in, guns-first, three spreading, searching the premises, securing the perimeter, the last one heading directly towards us.

  He was shouting. “Don’t you people have half a brain between you? What if the assailants were still here? Don’t they train you in the rudiments of hazardous situations?”

  Expose us to any eavesdroppers, why don’t you? I intercepted him before he reached my team. My elevator shoes-enhanced height and bodysuit bulked-up frame provided a physical challenge I never obtained from my five-foot-five, one hundred thirty pounds self. I expanded a prodigious false chest, met his grey eyes on the same level, mine covered in azure contacts that made them look vicious. He stopped mid-stride.