by Roy Johansen
Now he had to see a doctor.
The Columbia Cartersville Medical Center was a sterile complex of buildings on Joe Frank Harris Parkway, and it was easily the largest hospital within twenty-five miles. Sixteen-year-old Gaby Rawlings had died there.
Joe's questions to Crystal had clearly triggered some deep and disturbing memories about her daughter. He was pretty sure that in a town as small as Cartersville, someone at the hospital would remember Gaby Rawlings. He was right.
“It shouldn't have happened.” Dr. Stanley Gelson shook his head. The surgical resident was an impossibly young-looking man with short, frizzy hair and round wire-rimmed glasses. He held Gaby Rawlings's patient file in his lap.
Joe was talking to him in the cramped waiting area of the hospital emergency room. Mama's Family was blaring from the television as a reminder of what a hellish experience those waiting rooms could be.
“Was there anything suspicious about her death?”
“Not suspicious, really, just needless. The kid's appendix ruptured. It's something we can fix these days.”
“Why didn't you?”
“It was too late. Peritonitis had already set in. They should have brought her here hours or even days earlier.”
“You think the parents were negligent?”
Gelson shrugged. “In this case, what's negligence? Driving your kid straight to the hospital when she has a tummyache, or waiting it out to avoid a two-thousand-dollar emergency room tab? It's happening more and more, I'm afraid. Without insurance, most people can't afford to be sick.”
“The Rawlingses didn't have insurance?”
Gelson checked the file. “Nope. Tell me, are her parents still together?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I've seen a lot of these cases. In my experience, it's usually the husband who doesn't want to come in. If a child dies, everyone else in the family blames him. And he's usually even harder on himself. It rips families apart.”
“Well, that hasn't happened to them yet.”
“Hmm. Do her parents live on a farm?”
“No. Why?”
Gelson lowered his voice. “When they brought her in, she was wearing a pink pajama top. It looked like there were traces of blood on it.”
“Blood? From where?”
“I don't know. She didn't have any external injuries. I asked her father about it, and he said she'd been using it as a painting smock.”
“Did it look like paint?”
“No, and I do know what blood looks like. Anyway, it seemed strange to me, and afterward I decided to run a test on it.”
“Did it match the girl's blood type?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Detective, it was the blood of a pig.”
Garrett Lyles strode into the First United Baptist Church, where he was one of the few Caucasians present. He'd always prided himself in his ability to blend in with his surroundings, but that clearly wasn't going to happen here. He was wearing a slightly dressier version of his TV cameraman disguise, so if any of the news crews outside happened to recognize him, it would appear that he was just following the story.
Six-fifteen P.M. The congregation was gathering for the Wednesday evening service, and he knew Latisha and Jesse Randall would soon be walking through the church's rear entrance. He'd followed them most of the trip from their house, peeling away only when it appeared their police motorcycle escort was taking notice of him.
Nice of the cops to put a man on Jesse. It helped Lyles feel a little more comfortable when he had to leave to grab a bite or catch a few Z's.
He watched the rear of the church, and finally he could see movement in the baby box, a small enclosed compartment where parents could watch the service with their screaming infants. Latisha and Jesse must have arrived. He'd been present last Sunday morning when the minister had asked them to sit there to avoid disruption of the service by journalists and photographers.
Tonight Lyles chose a seat in one of the rows that lined the side of the church. It offered him a good view of the baby box.
Yes, Jesse and Latisha had indeed arrived. They sat between two women holding infants.
Lyles reached in his pocket for his carved squares. He knew they were there, but it was good to feel their smooth finish and ever-so-precise markings. The church made him uncomfortable. One day soon, these houses of worship would be extinct, replaced with something far stronger than blind faith.
And the boy sitting in that little room would lead the way.
A high, raspy voice penetrated the din of the crowd, and the congregation quickly quieted. It was always the same: The minister would appear where the congregation least expected it, leaning against a doorway or seated in the back of the pews, speaking softly into his tie-clip battery microphone. Only after everyone had spotted him would he move through the church, speaking as if he were talking to guests in his living room. Very effective, Lyles thought. If his old pastor had been more like this guy, he might have ended up in another line of work.
After fifteen minutes or so, the minister nodded to his forty-member choir, and a beautiful female voice pierced the air:
Friends may fail me
Foes assail me
He, my Savior makes me whole
Hallelujah!
An organ and drumbeat kicked in, and the entire forty-member choir joined in.
Lyles had no particular liking for gospel tunes, but he couldn't help but be fascinated by the performers’ energy and enthusiasm. He suspected this was the real reason for the church's high attendance; his religion would never need such a pathetic ploy to attract believers.
Jesus! What a friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul
Friends may fail me
Foes assail me
He, my Savior makes me whole
Lyles smiled as the followers around him began clapping to the fast beat. He was sure that Jesse Randall wouldn't be taken in by this display. He glanced toward the baby box.
The room was dark.
Lyles stood, and the people around him took that as a cue to jump to their feet. It caused a ripple effect throughout the church, and within moments the entire congregation was standing, clapping and dancing to the music.
What the hell was going on in that booth?
Lyles slid down the side of the church, his eyes darting furiously, assessing the situation.
Friends may fail me
Foes assail me
He, my Savior makes me whole
Hallelujah!
A faint shaft of light appeared in the booth. It was the streetlamp from the parking lot, he realized. The baby box's outer door had opened and closed.
He moved closer. He could make out the booth's occupants, cloaked in the shadows. They were motionless, slumped in their seats. Latisha Randall was sprawled over the woman seated next to her.
Jesse …
Lyles peered through the plate-glass window, and by then the people nearby had noticed him and the dark baby box.
Jesse wasn't there.
Lyles bolted for the door. It wouldn't budge. Barricaded from the outside.
Without hesitation, he hurled himself through the baby box's plate-glass window. He quickly rolled clear, knowing that the real danger came from the large pieces of glass falling from the frame's upper edge. He pulled out his Lanchester as he scrambled over the inert bodies.
Latisha, the young mothers, the babies … How could this have happened in only a few seconds?
He threw open the door to the parking lot and crouched low. The uniformed cop was dead, flat on his back on the pavement, chest blown to hell, with a still-lit cigarette wedged between his index and middle fingers.
Fucking unbelievable.
Gunshots raining down around him.
Lyles rolled behind a rusty white church bus, squeezing off two bullets along the way. He hadn't seen the gunman, but he'd heard the shots; often that was all he needed, to zero in on the shooter and pick him off. Years of t
raining with a little instinct thrown in.
A bullet whistled past his ear.
Too bad it didn't always work.
The bullets were hitting the wall and pavement with a dull ring that told him they were being fired from above. Lyles scoped out his surroundings.
Apartment buildings, but they were almost half a block away. Trees, but without leaves. No one there. A one-story school building on the other side of the parking lot. The shooter had to be there on the roof.
Another shot. People screamed inside the church.
Lyles looked around. Where was Jesse?
A high-pitched whine sounded behind him on the other side of the church. He knew the sound. A helicopter. Probably an Aerodyne 1400 series.
Here?
They must have trucked it in and set it up in the deserted office park across the street. Jesse was probably being boarded, they'd take off, and then …
Lyles ran back into the church. He held his gun high over his head as the crowd screamed and ducked in their seats. He didn't have to tell anyone to get out of his way. The gun did that for him.
He ran up the main aisle, leapt onto the pulpit, and charged through the doorway that he guessed would take him through the administrative offices. He ran through the dim, sparsely decorated rooms.
The chopper blades were rising into the air.
He burst into a dark room and ran toward the back. He threw open the door. Storage closet. But there, in faded white letters, were the words he was hoping to see: ROOF ACCESS.
He climbed the creaky wooden rungs as the chopper roared overhead. It was moving in to pick up the sniper. Stopping just short of the small trapdoor that opened onto the roof, Lyles listened for the gunman. Gotta plan this just right.
The door vibrated and shook from the chopper's downdraft. Another few seconds … The chopper drew closer and the door shook harder.
Lyles struck the door full force, knocking it off its rusty hinges. The sniper, a small, wiry man, was climbing an aluminum chain ladder up to the helicopter's passenger compartment.
Lyles glanced up. Jesse was up there in the helicopter, unconscious. A bearded man was injecting him with a hypodermic needle. No!
Lyles fired three quick shots into the sniper's back. The man dropped ten feet, stopping only when his left foot became entangled in the bottom rung. He hung upside down, facing Lyles, his face frozen in a death mask of excruciating pain.
The chopper pilot saw it all. The bird lifted off.
Lyles holstered his gun and leapt for the dead sniper's dangling arms. He gripped the man's nylon jacket, hanging on for his life as the helicopter rose into the sky.
For you, Jesse.
The chopper roared over the church steeple. Lyles climbed over the dead man, gripping his belt and using his chin as a toehold.
He grabbed the man's trouser cuffs and pulled himself up to the chain ladder. The chopper was swaying to and fro as the pilot tried to shake him loose.
Not a chance, buddy.
Lyles grabbed the lowest rung and hoisted himself up. The chopper roared over the nearby residential neighborhoods, its ladder violently swinging back and forth. The bearded guy was firing at him.
Lyles planted his feet on the ladder's bottom rung. He pulled out his gun, which served to get the bearded guy back into the passenger compartment.
Lyles cursed. Now what? He couldn't fire; if he shattered a rotor, the chopper could crash. He couldn't risk it, especially with Jesse on board. And even if he did make it to the cockpit, he knew he'd have to kill the guys to take control. He was used to risky moves, but at the moment his options were severely limited. He couldn't take the chance of Jesse getting hurt.
The chopper dipped low as it neared the Coca-Cola headquarters building. Oh, shit. They were going to try to splatter him against the building.
The idiots. Helicopters were tricky machines even for the most skilled pilots. He'd worked with some of the best chopper jockeys in the business, and even they wouldn't try to skim six feet over a rooftop at full throttle. One gust of wind and the party's over.
Lyles climbed higher, higher, higher…. Because of these assholes, the boy could die right here, right now.
The helicopter lurched downward, almost causing him to lose his grip. He looked up, and his entire field of vision was filled with the building's white granite face.
Crack.
The sniper's body, still dangling from the bottom rung, slammed full force against the building. It tumbled from the ladder to the plaza below.
Lyles lifted his legs and tried to press himself against the chopper's underside as it roared over the building's rooftop plaza. He knew what he had to do. Dammit.
I'm sorry, Jesse. There's no other way.
Lyles let go of the ladder and dropped to the rooftop courtyard, rolling as he landed in a bed of exotic flowers. He turned and stared at the helicopter, now riding more smoothly as it cleared the building and headed west.
His left arm was bleeding. He clutched it with his right hand as he stood.
“Don't move!”
Lyles turned to see a security officer in his early twenties. The kid had a revolver leveled at him, and his hands were trembling. Probably the first time he'd ever drawn his gun, the poor bastard.
Lyles struck the guard's forearm, breaking his radius. The kid shrieked in pain, but only in the brief instant before Lyles drew his own gun and put a bullet into his heart. The guard fell facedown into a reflecting pool.
Lyles gazed up in agony at the helicopter as it disappeared into the night.
Hear me, Jesse. Do not be afraid. I am your soldier, your agent of destiny. I will bring you back to fulfill the prophecy. And I promise you, anyone and everyone who stands in my way will die.
Joe ducked under the yellow police tape and stepped onto the blacktop parking lot of the First United Baptist Church. The place looked like a war zone. Large work lights illuminated the frantic scene, and cops and paramedics swarmed around with an air of confusion. Four infants, three women, and a man were spread out on the lot, only a few yards from the downed officer's covered body.
They were alive, but ill and woozy from whatever had knocked them out in the baby box. The children were crying, and two adults were curled up and vomiting.
Latisha Randall stood when she saw Joe, jerking free of a female paramedic. “Where's Jesse?”
“Ms. Randall—”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know. I came as soon as I heard.”
Tears ran down her face. “You have to find him, Mr. Bailey. What the hell are you doing here, when my Jesse's out there somewhere?”
“We'll find him. What exactly happened?”
“I don't know. I was listening to the minister speak, and there was a strange smell, kind of like when you turn on your heater the first time in the winter. Then the woman beside me fell off her chair. The next thing I knew, I was lying here on the parking lot.” Her lips trembled. “Without Jesse.”
Joe nodded. It was pretty much as he'd heard it described by Lieutenant Gerald when he got the call.
“Dammit, the police were supposed to protect him,” Latisha shouted.
“We did our best.” Detective Howe walked over to them and motioned toward the covered corpse. “Maybe you'd like to discuss it with the officer. He's not quite cold yet.”
“I'm sorry about that, but what are you going to do to find my boy?”
“The entire state will be looking for him,” Joe said.
“Oh, great,” Howe said as he looked past Latisha at someone coming toward them. “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water …”
“Ms. Randall, be careful what you say to these men,” Stewart Dunning said.
Joe winced. The day was getting grimmer by the minute.
“What's he doing here?” Howe asked.
“Making our lives miserable,” Joe said. “He's Jesse Randall's attorney.”
Dunning put a comforting arm around Lati
sha. “I came as soon as I heard.”
She shrugged him off. “Please, Mr. Dunning, I have enough to deal with right now.”
“I should be here when you talk to the police.”
“Your client has been kidnapped,” Howe said. “Do you really think you're helping him by impeding our investigation?”
Dunning flashed him a tight-lipped smile. “I assume you fine people will bring him back, and when that happens, your investigation into Robert Nelson's murder will continue as before.”
“It's continuing now,” Joe said.
“Of course. Then you can appreciate my vigilance.”
A police photographer pulled back the tarp and exposed the slain officer's corpse. Dunning tried to turn Latisha away, but she wouldn't budge. She stared at the officer's lifeless face.
She spoke in a whisper. “I didn't even know his name, but I know that he was a nice man. He came into the house to use the bathroom. He told me he had two little boys.”
Howe nodded. “Twins.”
She closed her eyes. “Why … ?”
Dunning once again put his arm around her and spoke to Joe and Howe. “What happened to that officer is a tragedy, but perhaps it could have been avoided if your department had assigned more officers to protect the boy.”
Joe was incredulous. “You're saying it's the department's fault that he's dead?”
“Maybe. And some may also hold your department responsible for Jesse's abduction.”
Howe leapt toward Dunning, ready to grab him by the throat, but Joe held him back. “That man died trying to protect Jesse!”
Before Dunning could respond, four unmarked Ford Explorers roared into the parking lot and stopped at the police line. Every cop on the scene knew what it meant.
The feds were involved.
Although technically the FBI had jurisdiction only on kidnapping cases in which the victim was taken across state lines, the bureau had a habit of horning in on high-profile abductions. The mere possibility of a border crossing was enough to involve the feds whenever they wanted a piece of the action.