The Camelot Code

by Sam Christer

In the corridor, he catches sight of Amber running through a mass of people. He lets off two high shots and they bring down part of the ceiling. Everyone but the girl hits the ground. An alarm goes off behind him. He ignores it and tries not to rush his shot. She’s twenty yards away weaving left and right. Smart kid.

  But not smart enough. He squeezes the trigger.

  A roar bowls down the corridor.

  Amber throws up her arms and falls face first.

  An alarm goes off in front of him. More people spill into the corridor. They’re coming from all directions. He has to get out of there. Has to make it to the parking lot and the waiting car.

  Wilkins snatches another shot at the fallen body and runs.

  167

  LONDON

  More than anything, Mitzi wants to shower.

  She lets the hospital medics stitch up her shoulder and give her a booster jab, then she grabs a luxury white robe from a brass hook on the back of an expensive oak door and tells them all to scram.

  The en-suite bathroom to the private room where she’s being treated has one of those waterfall showers that she’s seen in expensive hotels.

  Mitzi turns it on full, dips her head under the warm water and stands there with one hand on the wall to make sure she doesn’t slip or pass out. Once she’s acclimatized, she grabs shampoo and pours out enough to soap a field of sheep.

  Her face is greasy and tender. Blood has dried and clogged inside her nostrils. For almost a minute, the water runs red while she cleans herself up. Inevitably, she gets her shoulder-dressing wet. She’s too sore to wash anything below knee height and too stiff to raise her legs. Right now, she’d pay a thousand bucks for someone to scrub her feet.

  The cubicle glass is completely steamed up by the time she gingerly steps out and eases her battered body into the fresh-smelling white robe.

  With some difficulty, Mitzi manages to towel surplus water off her hair and opens the door to the hospital room.

  Dalton is stood there.

  ‘Holy fuckola!’ She puts a hand to her heart. ‘I thought you Brits were supposed to have real good manners.’

  He knows there’s no kind way to break the news. ‘I’m afraid your daughter Amber’s been shot. She’s in surgery fighting for her life.’

  Mitzi doesn’t take it in. ‘No, that can’t be. I spoke to her. I called her on your phone. That’s not —’

  ‘The man who abducted her went into the hospital and shot her. He killed a nurse, too.’

  Her legs turn to jelly. She puts a hand on the wall but her knees fold and she collapses against the side of the bed.

  Dalton rushes to her side. Tries to pick her up.

  She pushes him off. She’s on her knees and she can hear herself praying to a God she’s not sure even exists.

  He stands patiently next to her. Waits for the moment when she’s ready for him to help her up and then hurt her some more by telling all the details.

  168

  SAN JOAQUIN HOSPITAL, STOCKTON

  Fresh alarm bells sound as Chris Wilkins hits the horizontal metal bar on the red door and kicks open the Emergency Exit.

  He’d hoped to catch the kid clean. A quick kill in a quiet corner of the hospital, then slip out while people were still in shock. Now he’s leaving in a hail of alarms and he’s not sure he’s done enough to finish her. Even worse, he’s noticed a security camera on the way out that he didn’t see on the way in.

  By his reckoning, unless he’s away from the hospital grounds and out of sight within the next ten minutes he’s going to end up in a police body bag. He walks briskly around the building and turns sharp right. At least his sense of direction is good. The staff parking lot is straight ahead. Within five strides he sees the Ford he’s broken into and left ready.

  He skids down a short grass bank, clatters into a green Chevy and clambers around the back of it. When he gets to the blue Ford he yanks open the driver’s door, tumbles in and pulls it shut. He sits and drips sweat while checking the windshield and rear-view mirror.

  So far so good.

  He wipes his brow with his forearm and jams the cables together. The engine growls. Before driving off, he takes another beat to compose himself. This isn’t the time to make stupid mistakes. He has to appear just like any other driver. Law-abiding. Careful. Maybe shocked by all the noise and activity around him.

  He pulls on his safety belt and adjusts the rear-view. People are spilling out of the building. The panic is starting. He stays calm. Drives slowly around the lot and onto one of the hospital’s service roads. Coming up to the exit he sees a police cruiser screaming towards him. Its rooftop blues are flashing disco crazy.

  Wilkins coolly indicates. He pulls over and gives the squad car maximum room to blast past. Other drivers in front and behind follow suit. He’s lost in the crowd.

  Once the cruiser has gone he tags behind the car in front and leaves by the main exit.

  Now he has to think.

  For the next half-hour, the cops will be glued up gathering details. It’ll be all about the nurse and the Fallon girl. Gradually, they’ll get their shit together and pull pictures of him from the CCTV and wire them to patrol cars across the county. Soon after that, someone at the hospital is going to report their car missing and then the Ford will be useless.

  A red Chrysler Crossfire with police lights strobing its grille flashes past him.

  Wilkins has a bad feeling. Local cops don’t drive cars like that.

  It must be Feds. It means it’s no longer safe to catch the flight Tess has booked him on. He’ll have to try another airport, or find a new way out of the country.

  169

  CALIFORNIA

  Tess Wilkins puts the jerry can in the RV and returns to the shack. Her hands stink of gasoline. She goes to the sink, soaps and scrubs.

  She dries on a hand towel, tosses it on the floor and walks to the grubby sofa. She picks up a stained cushion and wraps it around the muzzle of her pistol.

  Less than two feet from her, Jade Fallon is curled up against the other arm of the furniture. The kid’s hands are still tied behind her back, her mouth taped and head hooded. She’s so motionless that Tess guesses she’s asleep.

  Or dead.

  Maybe she suffocated. Tess watches the youngster’s chest and sees it slowly rise and fall.

  Pity.

  If the girl had been dead, she’d just burn the place and be gone. In the last few minutes, she’s been growing squeamish. Even gotten to wondering if she could let the kid live. The proposal still appeals to her conscience. But not her sense of self-survival. And Tess Wilkins is ruled by self-preservation.

  She swallows hard, lifts the muffled gun and looks away as she shoots Jade in the head. It’s louder than she expected. Like an echo. The recoil more powerful than she’d imagined.

  Then the pain and realization kick in. She’s not only fired a shot, she’s been shot.

  Fire spreads through her chest and back. Tess stumbles and sees a small, thin woman in the doorway, hands outstretched and a gun clasped between them.

  She must have got a round off at the same time.

  Tess Wilkins coughs blood as she hits the floor. At least she killed the kid. It’s one less witness against Chris.

  170

  SAN JOAQUIN HOSPITAL, STOCKTON

  Eleonora Fracci follows the screams.

  She finds two lone cops in X-ray playing King Canute with a tidal wave of panicking patients. She flashes her shield at the older police. ‘I’m looking for Amber Fallon, a teenage girl, daughter of a colleague.’

  He shakes his head. ‘She’s in ER – they’re operating.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Guy busts into here, shoots a nurse, chases the girl down the corridor and pops her before he cracks a fire exit and disappears.’

  ‘How badly hurt is she?’

  He shrugs. ‘I dunno. Bad, I guess.’

  Eleonora notices blood pooled in the doorway to the X-ray room. As she gets cl
oser she sees the body of the nurse. It’s been turned. There are smears on the floor where someone tried to save her. Bloody footprints lead away. They’re small. A woman’s, not a man’s. No doubt made by someone professional enough to have known that once death was certain the body would have to be left in situ for the cops and ME.

  Eleonora looks at the gunshot wound. It’s left of chest and looks like it was made from no more than three feet away. It takes a special kind of animal to kill like that. One that’s killed before. One that feels nothing when he looks into the eyes of another human being and takes their life.

  She makes the sign of the cross and says a quick and silent prayer for the dead woman’s soul, then she heads back to the cop. ‘Did anyone get a description of the gunman?’

  He points to a camera above the reception desk. ‘We’re searching the tapes. That little baby should have a clean shot of him.’

  ‘That’s what I want,’ says Eleonora. ‘A clean shot at this bastard.’

  ‘There’s a queue,’ says a tall, dark-haired man who has appeared just a few yards from her.

  She looks at him suspiciously.

  ‘I’m Ross Green and I guess you’re Agent Fracci.’ He jabs a thumb over his shoulder to the corridor. ‘Can we talk outside?’

  171

  CALIFORNIA

  SSOA agent Eve Garrett drags the woman’s body off the sofa so she can get to the girl.

  Blood seeps from the black hood pulled tight over Jade’s head. She grabs the drawstring, unties it and carefully pulls off the cloth.

  Jade is unconscious and unresponsive. Her mouth still taped.

  Eve guesses there’s a wound around the temporal or parietal bones on the left side of her head. She pulls off the tape, puts her fingers into a river of red and feels for a pulse.

  There isn’t one.

  She puts her hand to Jade’s mouth and can’t feel any breath. Eve’s not ready to give up. She presses the button on her radio. ‘I need paramedics and I need them Superman fast.’

  Control has her coordinates so she doesn’t waste time waiting for a reply. Eve digs out a Swiss Army knife from her pocket and uses the blade to sever the thick plastic band around the girl’s wrists. She picks her up, lays her on the floor and checks her airway before she starts CPR.

  Two beats in, Eve spots the muzzle-flash burns on the cushion. She can’t help but wonder what kind of woman could execute a young girl like that. Death was too good for the bitch.

  She checks again for a pulse. There still isn’t one.

  ‘Goddamn it, come on!’ She starts another cycle of chest compressions. ‘Don’t give up on me, girl.’

  Eve knows that the statistics are stacked against her. CPR seldom saves the lives of people shot and bleeding like this.

  But there’s always a chance.

  The wound is fresh, less than five minutes old, and that means there’s a slim hope of saving the brain from damage and keeping the heart pumping.

  Sweat pours down Eve’s face. Muscles in her wrists and arms ache. But she doesn’t stop.

  The door to the shack has been hanging open ever since she walked in. Through it she hears the thwack of helicopter blades. ‘They’re coming, honey,’ she whispers to Jade. ‘The paramedics will be here any minute.’

  Dust blows in the doorway. The hum of rotors makes the floor vibrate.

  She looks up and sees two medics. One has a defib machine, the other an oxygen kit and medicine case.

  172

  CARDIGAN, WALES

  Inside the church of Our Lady of the Taper, one of the dog handlers respectfully calls an all clear. A watching inspector gives a thumbs-up. Another handler and his sniffer dog weave in and out of rows of seats.

  Owain leaves them to it and walks the building on his own. He knows everyone is going to be searched and no one can get in here without prior vetting and electronic scanning. But he has a bad feeling – the kind Myrddin taught him never to ignore.

  The service is being filmed, relayed to crowds outside and broadcast live to the world, but only three camera points have been allowed and none are on the altar. Covert but armed police are stationed at all three points and at the sound control desk. All the televisual crews have been thoroughly validated and will be body-searched each and every time they pass through the church.

  Owain walks outside and watches officers direct onlookers to strategic areas behind street barriers. There are two cordoned-off sections specifically for photographers, journalists and camera crews. Over his head a trio of police helicopters circle high, wide and near.

  Carrie Auckland walks through a checkpoint. She’s now more suitably attired for a church service, in a knee-length blue dress with high neckline.

  As soon as she reaches him she breaks the news. ‘The Vatican helicopter has just touched down and the Guard are making the transfer to the Popemobile.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Ten minutes. No more.’

  173

  SAN JOAQUIN HOSPITAL, STOCKTON

  Eleonora makes Ross Green stand outside her car while she checks with Donovan that he is who he says he is, some PI from a hotshot international company she’s never heard of with special clearance from the FBI director to work on the case.

  She rings off and shrugs. ‘My boss says you can help.’

  ‘Glad I passed the test.’ The SSOA operative leans against Eleonora’s Crossfire. ‘The shooter is called Chris Wilkins, aka several other false names. We believe his real identity is Charlie Wood, an unspectacular name for a very special breed of killer, kidnapper and all round bad guy. He’s married to an equally obnoxious waste of human DNA called Theresa Wood, née Tobin.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’

  ‘It’s my job to know it. Like I said, we’re on the same side. My colleagues are trying to help your colleague, and right now Wilkins is getting away.’ Ross dips into his jacket pocket and pulls out a fold of paper. ‘He’s booked on a flight out of Stockton in an hour. My betting is that after all this heat he’s going to skip it.’ He sees her going for her phone. ‘I’ve already got someone at the airport. And at Byron and Livermore Tracy and Camp Parks. Then I’m blown. Fresh out of personnel.’

  ‘And you want me to fix cover at the other airports?’

  He nods. ‘I have a feeling he’ll try for a small private plane out of the state, then go international for a while.’

  ‘I can do this. I’ll call my office again.’

  ‘Good. Then give me your cell number and I’ll get moving. I see anything I’ll call you.’

  She pulls a card from her jeans. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘South.’

  ‘Mexico?’

  ‘Uh-huh. If he drives hard and straight, it’s six hours, max. I have to cover all bases.’

  174

  CALIFORNIA

  The airlift from Mount Diablo to the John Muir Hospital helipad takes only a few minutes.

  Eve Garrett flies with Jade. She stays until paramedics roll her into the ER. As the surgery doors shut a mortuary crew trundles past with a gurney to pick up the corpse of the female kidnapper.

  The SSOA agent cleans up in a washroom and is about to make herself scarce, when a stubble-faced young medic in scrubs catches her arm. ‘You best hang on; the sheriff is going to want a word with you.’

  She shakes him off. ‘Don’t touch!’

  ‘My bad.’ He lifts a hands apologetically. ‘Just doing my job.’

  The brunette dips into her pocket and produces a false ID. ‘I’m a PI. His office already has my number.’ She starts for the exit.

  ‘Wait!’

  She turns and scowls.

  ‘Please. Is there anything you can tell me about the shooting – anything that might help us treat the victim?’

  She stops and gives what little she’s got. ‘You’re still well within the Golden Hour. I was there when the shot was fired.’ She mentally chastises herself. ‘If I’d been seconds earlier the kid wouldn’t even h
ave been hurt.’

  He eases up on her. ‘Paramedics said you did a good job. Gave her a fighting chance.’

  ‘Did my best.’

  He clicks a pen and prepares to write on a clipboard. ‘How long did you have to work her heart?’

  ‘Five, six minutes. Felt a whole lot longer.’

  ‘It always does.’ He makes a note. ‘How soon before they got oxygen to her?’

  ‘Less than ten. I was still working her when they arrived.’

  ‘That’s good. A lack of oxygen to the brain is always our biggest fear.’

  ‘You said fighting chance – you think she’s gonna make it?’

  He weighs up how to respond and in the end goes for honesty. ‘Usually a head wound is the kind of trauma you don’t get over.’

  Her face falls.

  ‘That said, the shot wasn’t straight on.’ He bends his wrist to demonstrate. ‘The kid has lost a lot of scalp and bone but no brain.’

  ‘So she’ll be okay?’

  ‘I can’t say that. Giving CPR and getting oxygen to her so quickly are big pluses though. At the moment, they’re dealing with shock and swelling, so she’s a long way from okay. That said, she’s hanging in there and if she’s a fighter then anything’s possible.’

  ‘She’s certainly that. We done here?’

  ‘We’re done. Thanks.’

  Eve takes her cue and hightails it out of the main entrance.

  She spots a taxi rank and grabs a ride back to the shack. With any luck, there’ll be something there that gives her a clue as to where the other kidnapper is.

  175