Sleeping Dogs

by Tony Vanderwarker

  Sharon stays out of sight up until the shift change, changing her uniform and assembling a bag of drugs and medications that the major would need. At nine, she calmly pushes an empty wheelchair into the darkened ward. Leaning down beside him, she shakes his shoulder and whispers, “Wake up, Major Risstup, we’re going for a ride.”

  His eyes snap open, filling with alarm as they race around the unlit room.

  “It’s okay, Major Risstup,” Sharon reassures him, patting him on the arm. “We’re just going downstairs.”

  “I don’t understand, I don’t understand,” he repeats, sitting up in bed and looking around helplessly. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

  “It will be okay, you have to trust me.”

  “Leave me alone, I need to sleep,” he protests, pushing her hands away. I can’t have any more of this business, she thinks.

  Around the ward, her colleagues jokingly call her The Sharpshooter, as her aim with a needle is uncanny and she can find veins where others only strike muscle and bone.

  She quickly flips Risstup over, lifts his gown, slips out her needle and deftly jabs it into the only square inch of flesh on his butt. She has two more hypodermics prepared. But one should do the trick. As she monitors his pulse waiting for him to go under, she keeps glancing up at the camera mounted on the wall praying no one is watching her. When Risstup slips into dreamland, she loads his limp body into the wheelchair and rolls him out.

  Letting the door to Ward 3 slowly shush shut behind her, she checks one way down the dark hallway and then the other. Quickly pushing the chair, she makes a right and then a left, speeding toward the elevator bank. One more corner to go.

  Hearing footsteps echoing off the bare walls, heading in her direction, she comes to a dead stop. Backing the chair out of the light, she stands motionless in the shadows.

  At the far end of the hall, a figure rounds the corner and stops. It’s a guy, she’s sure but it’s too dark to see who it is. The footsteps begin again, he’s walking toward her. In the dim blue glow of the security lights, she can tell he’s not in uniform. A big guy in a suit, burly. She’s never seen him before. Who is he and why is he here?

  His flashlight suddenly clicks on, its beam flitting around the inky corridor. Sharon flattens her back against the wall, hoping the beam of light doesn’t catch her.

  She’s holding her breath, back pressed to the wall, hoping the dose she gave Risstup keeps him under. The last thing she needs is for him to wake up now. The shaft of light creeps down the corridor, passes them, then stops.

  The footsteps get louder. He’s coming closer.

  All of a sudden the flashlight glints on the chrome wheelchair, then a second later spills all over her. Sharon blinks in the sharp light.

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing, ma’am?” He walks up to her, the light from his flashlight playing on her and the old man in the wheelchair. He is wearing an ill-fitting, off-the-rack suit. Young, short haircut, muscular-looking.

  “Just taking my patient down to Imaging,” trying to sound casual but sweating bullets. “He’s having issues and I need to check an X-ray.”

  “Imaging isn’t open, you know that.”

  Sharon thinks fast and holds up her car keys, “I have a key.”

  The guard focuses his flashlight on her raised hand. Her heart is pounding. The car keys don’t fool him. He steps forward, “You’re going to have to come with me, ma’am.” His tone of voice quiet but threatening, “Give me the wheelchair,” he says, elbowing his way in front of her and taking the handles of the chair. His body bumps against her, solid as a rock.

  “We’re going to take Major Risstup back to his ward and then you and I are going downstairs,” he tells her, his voice all business.

  Oh shit, he knows the major’s name, he must have been watching.

  As he starts to wheel the chair away, in a flash Sharon reaches into her pocket, slips the plastic tip off the hypodermic, whips it out and jabs the needle deep into his carotid. Before he can react, a double-dose of the powerful sedative is surging through his body. Leaving the syringe dangling, Sharon scoots back and watches the drug do its work.

  Motionless, frozen, he begins to wobble. Lifting his arm to pull out the needle, his knees go to jelly and he does a slow-mo header onto the linoleum, skull and bones clattering on the floor like a bunch of muffled drumsticks.

  Sharon grabs the wheelchair and races off down the corridor, rounding the far corner, grabbing the handle of a fire alarm and jerking it off the wall.

  A wailing siren shatters the tranquility outside. Lights snap on all around the building, flooding the area in a greenish-yellow glow. Howie grabs his cell off the seat, focusing on it, waiting for the call.

  C’mon, Sharon, call, fucking call me, c’mon.

  More lights flick on. A second siren sounds, a shrill series of blasts pulsating in waves out from the building. Howie stares at his phone screen, his eyes begging it to light up.

  Where the hell is she?

  The first ring isn’t finished before he’s punched TALK.

  “The package is ready—at the loading dock in back,” Sharon says.

  He tosses the cell on the seat and guns the engine, tires screeching as he wheels through the parking lot in front of the hospital with his lights off, holding the napkin with directions over the steering wheel to guide him to the loading dock. No point in trying to be quiet with all this ruckus going on, just stay out of sight as much as possible. Pulling around the back, he stays out of the streetlights arching over the center of the lot.

  A third siren goes off. Howie’s ears are burning. So much for the patients’ sleep for this night, he thinks, craning his neck searching for the loading dock.

  He sees a figure rushing out from the shadows of the building, racing across the lot toward him at a dead run steering a wheelchair.

  It’s Sharon. Changed clothes, now she’s wearing green scrubs and cap, her hair tumbling out as she sprints in his direction. He accelerates toward her, jams on the brakes and throws open the side door as she pulls alongside.

  Sharon’s at the rear door of the Honda, steering the chair in close, a bent over form slumped down in the seat. Howie pops the trunk, then hops out and hustles around to the passenger’s side.

  “I’ll get him in the car, you stow the chair,” he says, flinging open the rear door and leaning down to scoop Risstup up. He’s surprisingly light, Howie thinks as he jockeys the out-for-the-count patient into the backseat. Guy can’t weigh over a hundred pounds soaking wet. Sharon collapses the chair in a few quick motions and slides it into the trunk, slamming the door and hurrying around to hop in.

  Howie jumps into the driver’s seat, Sharon pulls her door shut. Howie slams the Honda into gear and tromps on the accelerator. He hears shouts from the loading dock. If they have cameras outside, they could ID the car. We’ll have to find a new one or steal some plates.

  “Head out that way,” Thorsen says, pointing at a playing field bordering the parking lot as she slams the door.

  “Where?”

  “Over there, across the grass, hurry the hell up.”

  Howie jumps the curb and steps on the gas, squinting to see the way as he steers the Honda off across the turf, its wheels spinning, rear fishtailing around seeking traction on the soft ground.

  “There’s a blocking sled up ahead,” Sharon says, poking Howie in the shoulder to indicate the direction. Howie doesn’t see the long low football machine until he’s almost upon it. She grabs the wheel and suddenly wrenches the Honda left, leaving the obstacle behind them. Howie keeps the pedal to the floor. He hears more sirens.

  “You’ll come up this hill and see the road, make a right,” she shouts. He guns the car up the hill, seeing the street ahead just in time. The Honda bottoms out, crashing against the curb. He spins the wheel hard to slide sideways into a ditch, then steps on it to pull the car out. The Accord jumps up on the pavement. He straightens out, following the road.

&
nbsp; “Now you can slow down,” Thorsen says, pulling off her cap and letting out a sigh of relief. “We’re okay.”

  “Are you sure? What about the sirens?”

  She interrupts, “That was me. I pulled a bunch of alarms to keep them occupied. They won’t have a clue until they do a head count. It’ll be a good hour before they find out. Just act like we’re a couple heading home from dinner with gramps in the backseat.”

  “How is he?” Howie asks, nodding in their passenger’s direction.

  “We’re lucky we got him out of there when we did. He wouldn’t have made it through the night.”

  “Good work,” Howie says.

  “I had a little run-in back there, someone tried to stop me.”

  “How did you handle it?”

  “Told him it was time to go beddy-bye.”

  When Howie’s expression turns quizzical, she takes the remaining syringe out of her pocket, holds it up and adds, “I shot him full of enough sedative to stop a train.”

  “So would you mind putting that away?” Howie nods at the hypodermic. “Needles make me nervous.”

  Sharon tucks the syringe back in her pocket as she looks down at her wrinkled scrubs, “I’m going to need some clothes, can’t wear these for too long.”

  “We’re not going to find anyplace tonight. I’ve got an extra pair of jeans and a UVa sweatshirt you can wear in the meantime.”

  “On second thought, maybe I’ll stay with the scrubs. So you’re a Cavalier?”

  Howie is about to reveal his class when his vanity gets the better of him. He nods instead.

  “Bet you were a jock.”

  Howie smiles. “What makes you think that?”

  “The way you carry yourself, got jock written all over. What sport?”

  “Football—placekicker.”

  “Any good?”

  “I got off a few nice ones in my day. You a fan?”

  “My dad was a coach for years. I grew up on gridirons. So where are you taking us?” Sharon asks.

  “We need to look for a parking lot. We need to borrow some plates in case they caught us with a surveillance camera.”

  “Then where?”

  “Any place we can find a computer. Got any ideas?”

  “As a matter of fact . . .” Thorsen says, pointing at a sign for Pittsburgh International. “Turn right up here, we’ll head for the airport. We’ll get the plates off a car in the parking lot. Then I’ll dig up a computer for us.”

  Right off the bat he’s impressed by her resolve and ingenuity. Plates and a laptop, two birds with one stone. I can’t wait to see how she pulls this one off.

  For an hour and a half Collyer has been fighting to stay awake. Only two cars have parked on his floor, both close to the elevator. He’s on the far side, his Accord hidden behind a low wall, new plates front and back swiped from a car out of range of the security cameras. No point in stealing plates if someone catches it on tape. The next thing he did was locate another way out of the parking garage. The gate was up at an unmarked employee exit, he was in luck.

  Risstup hasn’t moved a muscle since Sharon’s been inside. Howie stared into the old man’s wizened face for a long time. What secrets does he have hidden away? Which bomb does he know about? Could it be the Jersey bomb? And will we ever get the information out of him?

  He had to admit Sharon’s idea was damn good. At first he thought she was off her rocker when she told him to head for the Pittsburgh airport, that’s the first place they’d check for us, he told her.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” she explained. “We’re going to lift a laptop from some road warrior. With no connection to either of us it’ll be untraceable.”

  She was right but they would still have to stay on their toes. In the last five years, the National Security Agency has been fine-tuning its surveillance procedures and capabilities to catch terrorists. NSA deliberately leaked one story to improve its image inside the Beltway and for a week it was the talk of Washington. A cutting-edge software program had pulled up the email addresses of all the senders of emails containing the term “quartersawn mahogany” and promptly labeled them suspicious since mahogany doesn’t grow in Lebanon, Sudan or Libya. Four hours later, security forces were kicking down doors in three countries.

  Howie’s startled by a loud thump. Then another. He peers out. Sharon’s leaning down, gesturing at him to unlock the door. Howie clicks the button. Sharon jumps in beside him, pulls out a gray laptop and slides it across the seat to him, “Dude, you got a Dell!” she says proudly.

  “Good work,” Howie says, realizing that’s the second time he’s said that to her in less than three hours. He opens the laptop. “How did you get it?”

  “Borrowed it from a friend. It’s got a wireless card, Bluetooth, it’s loaded.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “Guys don’t just hand over their laptops, you have to put some English on it.”

  “What kind of English?”

  “Nothing racy, I can assure you. These guys get a few drinks in them and they all want to take you for a test drive. It’s like being back in high school.”

  “Don’t you have to cozy up to them a bit?”

  Thorsen gives him a look that immediately tells Howie he shouldn’t have gone there.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  “What kind of a girl do you think I am?” Sharon asks, acting affronted.

  “Damn clever one, I’d say. How did you get it away from him?”

  “He was like a little kid with his new Dell. Practically begged me to try it out. When he had to go to the men’s room I pretended I was in the middle of a long email to my mother and I told him, ‘Go, I’ll take good care of it for you.’”

  “You sure did that.”

  “Laptops get lifted every ten seconds in airports. Read a story about it recently, that’s what gave me the idea. It’s no big deal to him, the guy will have his company FedEx another PC tomorrow—cost of doing business these days.” Sharon twists around to check the backseat. “How’s our patient?”

  “Haven’t heard a peep.”

  “He should be out for a while more. But we’d better find someplace and get him settled in. If he comes to in the backseat of a car with two strangers, it might be too much for him to handle.”

  “First we need to put some miles between ourselves and Pittsburgh.”

  Howie starts the Accord and pulls out of the space, heading in a different direction.

  “We didn’t come in this way,” Sharon says.

  “I found another way out. We’re not taking any chances. As long as we have Risstup they will be looking for us. Make you nervous?” he asks.

  “I’d be lying if I told you no.”

  “My friend Winn Straub will help us out, my roommate back in UVa days. He’s a top guy at the CIA. There’s not a lot of love lost between him and the Pentagon.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Inside the Beltway politics. CIA and the Pentagon have been at loggerheads over who should control intelligence—civilian or military—for years. And the recent reorganization of the entire setup has everyone on edge.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Turf battles. A lot of money and control at stake. Every agency is back on their heels except the Pentagon. Right now they hold the high card.”

  “Because of Iraq?’

  “Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror. But the whole picture is much more complicated.” He doesn’t take it any further, there will be time for that. Working at high levels at the Pentagon, Howie had been in the thick of the political intrigue swirling around the agencies involved with national security. Now he understands from talking to former colleagues the hurly-burly has been jacked up to new levels. Howie has said many times how relieved he is that he’s out of it. Or is he suddenly back in again?

  Sharon looks over her shoulder at Risstup. “I’m sure glad we got him out of there. The poor thing.”

  “They must have par
ked him there years ago.”

  “And forgotten about him until I woke him up.”

  “I tell you, it’s the break I’ve been waiting for.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Howie is wishing he could take them back. The temperature in the front seat is soaring. Sharon Thorsen slowly turns and gives him a cutting look. Howie’s seen it before. On the faces of colleagues at the Pentagon, on Winn Straub’s face, even on the faces of his wife and daughter. The look that says he’s gone one step over the line and turned into a sanctimonious whistleblower. One of his closest friends at the Pentagon made the most cutting remark, it still rings in his ears, “You’re so goddamn self-righteous about this lost bombs thing, Collyer, makes me want to puke.”

  Sharon swings her head away, staring out the window at the passing landscape. Howie knows what’s coming.

  She turns back to face him, her eyes firing indignation. “So this is not about saving someone’s life, it’s all about Howie Collyer’s quest for lost bombs.”

  He’s already backpedaling, “I didn’t intend it to come out that way.”

  “But that’s what you meant. We’ve got a little bit of the Crusader Rabbit thing going on with these lost bombs, don’t we, Mr. Collyer?”

  Howie winces. He’s heard the word crusade used before but Sharon has found a cutting new context.

  “Your website reeks of it. Recover the nukes and make the world safe for humanity. Look, Mr. Collyer, I’ll play along with your little game. But my priority is Major Risstup—his well-being. And I’m not going to put up with you grilling him 24-7 about lost bombs. Get this message loud and clear: the minute I see an opportunity to get the major to a safe place then you can count me out of your little adventure.”

  Howie keeps his attention on the road. There is not much he can say that won’t sound lame. He’s hoping she’s the kind of person who’ll back down after blowing off some steam.