The man recoiled slightly, and the gun barrel receded from Susan’s ribs.
The man in front of Susan spoke quietly; at least it sounded quiet in the wake of her shout. “The men who shot your father obviously didn’t know what he was, even after they left the scene. Susan, by the time we got here, he was already…damaged beyond repair.”
The man beside Susan cleared his throat. “There’s no time for explanations.”
Susan needed to hear more. She could not die without knowing the truth of what had happened in her father’s last moments. “I have to hear this. I need to know. Give me this, and I’ll tell you what you want.” She added carefully, “I can buy us all the time we need.”
“How?” the side man asked suspiciously.
“Let me call my…dispatcher,” Susan said, creating a position to handle a nonexistent problem. “If I tell him I’m not coming in for call, they won’t expect me.”
The man in front narrowed his dark eyes, studying her. “Didn’t you say residents were slave labor?”
“I just lost my father,” Susan reminded them. “Even residents are allowed time to grieve, to get affairs in order. They offered me time off. I refused it. At the time, I didn’t want it. I thought I could lose myself in my job, that if I worked myself to exhaustion, I’d never have to deal with what happened. I now realize how foolishly I acted. No one will be surprised if I change my mind.”
The man in front of Susan gestured to his companion. The two moved away, talking among themselves.
Susan did not strain to hear. Instead, she busied herself trying to figure a way out of the situation. Eventually, they would realize she had nothing, no code, no idea of the information they wanted. If they allowed her this phone call, she had to find a way to use it to her advantage. She wrestled helplessly with the ropes binding her wrists. She could not break free, at least not quickly enough. The call was her only reasonable hope.
The men returned shortly. When they stood together, Susan could finally see slight differences between them. The one who had held the gun on her was several inches shorter and a bit heavier than his companion. He had a thicker face and larger hands, and he wore boots to the other man’s shoes. He returned to her side, but kept his gun holstered.
The taller man placed Susan’s Vox in front of her. “We’re going to allow the call, but we’re keeping it on conference. You’re going to say only what needs saying. If you do anything to alert anyone, not only will you die, but we’ll stay here and kill whoever comes to help you. Understand?”
Susan nodded. Her heart pounded. This was probably her only chance, and she had to play it perfectly. “Do I get my hands?”
“No. Just tell us who to call.”
Susan fixed her gaze on the Vox, uncertain what to do. There was no such thing as a hospital dispatcher, and she had lied about being on call. She needed to call someone who could not only help her, but would also catch on quickly and play along. It could not be Lawrence Robertson or anyone from USR. The gunmen would know those names and that they were not medical dispatchers. “It’s under…Jake.”
“Jake who?”
“Just Jake.” Susan did not know why the detective had not entered his full name on their Vox exchange. A strictly first-name entry seemed inappropriately intimate for a person she hardly knew, a status usually reserved for parents, siblings, or lovers. “We’re only acquaintances. It’s not like I call him to chat. I don’t know his last name.”
The man pressed the appropriate buttons, and Susan heard the buzz of Jake Carson’s Vox. Her heart rate quickened so suddenly, pain shot through her shoulder. She had no idea how he might answer.
“Hey, Susan. What’s up?” The familiar voice came crisply over the speaker.
“Hey, Jake,” Susan said, trying to keep her tone level. “I’m not going to be able to make it in to work tonight. Can you find a replacement?” Susan’s life hinged on his response. Terror swam down on her, but she kept her face a blank mask, forced herself to breathe evenly.
“Are you all right?” Jake said, with appropriate concern.
It was a hedged answer that revealed nothing. Susan could work with that. “Yeah, I’m just feeling down about my dad.”
“Understandable. Do you need me to come by?”
The men shook their heads warningly. Focused on the Vox, Susan could see them only from the corner of her eye. The urge to shout, “No!” seized her, and she had to make herself pause before saying nonchalantly, “No, I’ve got a couple of friends keeping me company.” She made sure not to look at the men as she spoke, trying not to clue them in to the hint she had just given Jake Carson. “Sable’s free tonight. She should be able to fill in for me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jake said. “I’ll handle it. You just take care of yourself.”
Susan appreciated that response. Either he got the message or, at least, was playing along. She dared not give him any more hints. “Thanks, Jake. I’ll do that.”
The man leaned forward and tapped off the connection.
Susan pursed her lips. “Now there’s no time limit. No one will come looking for me tonight.” She honed in on the man in front of her. “What happened to my father?” Her tone, forceful without a trace of fear, surprised her. She wanted the information too badly to allow anything to stand in the way.
If either of the two men suspected the Vox exchange was anything other than what she claimed, they did not show it. Perhaps her abrupt redirection of the conversation kept her from focusing on it, from revealing what she had done with nonverbal cues, sidelining their qualms.
“He was shot,” the man beside her said gruffly.
The one who had spent most of his time crouched in front of Susan turned his companion a withering look. “Can you let me handle this?” He dropped back down in front of her.
“Fine,” the other said with a grunt. “You’re on your own. I have to take a leak.” Without asking for permission or directions, he headed directly for the bathroom.
Susan trained her focus fanatically on the man in front of her. Though still bound and cornered, she felt a strange sense of relief, at least temporarily, at losing the one who had kept the barrel of a presumably loaded gun in her ribs, the one who had suggested torture and death. She wondered if they played a strange and cruel game of good assassin, bad assassin. “My father,” she reminded.
“We planned to come and get the uncoupling information from him.”
“At gunpoint,” Susan spat out.
“If necessary.” At least the man seemed willing to discuss the matter honestly. “But we hoped it wouldn’t come to that. We thought if we explained we worked for the government, he might choose to cooperate.”
Susan saw the flaw in that argument. “But you knew he was a robot.”
“Not at the time.” The man turned Susan a sincere look, as if it really mattered to him that she believed him. “We had no idea until after we searched the body.”
“The body,” Susan repeated. “So you killed him, then searched him.”
“We didn’t kill him,” the man insisted, not for the first time. “He was dead when we arrived.” He amended, “On the ground, with bullet holes in lethal places. Blood on the floor. No pulse. Eyes wide open. Nearly dysfunctional.”
Susan pounced on the important word. “Nearly?”
“We searched him and the apartment, hoping to find the code.”
Susan made a thoughtful noise, revealing nothing. She had to maintain the fiction that the code existed, that she had it.
“He opened his eyes, and I almost had a heart attack.”
Susan sat up as much as she could with hands tied and back against the wall. “So he was still alive.”
“Functional,” the man corrected. “Barely. We were able to talk to him for only a few moments. He said you would have the code. And to tell you he always loved you with”—he considered a moment—“how did he put it?” His eyes rolled upward. “With a love as clear and pure…”
A movemen
t in front of and to Susan’s right caught her attention. She started to suck in a breath and caught herself as the door to the apartment edged slowly open.
Her reaction gave her away. The man in front of her whirled, rising, as Detective Jake Carson shoved the door open, gun in hand. “Police! Don’t move.”
The man went still, holding his hands partially outstretched, palms up, “Whoa, hold it. FBI. I’m on the job!”
Jake started to lower his pistol.
Susan struggled, trying to get to her feet. “No! He’s lying! They’re going to—”
The bathroom door slammed open, and shots rang out. Susan heard at least two, saw Jake stiffen. His free hand clutched at the left side of his chest as he stepped to the right and returned fire. The man collapsed into the bathroom doorway.
Susan saw the other thug grab for his gun. She flung herself toward him, managing only to slam into his leg as he moved. Apparently, that unbalanced him a bit, because his draw was sloppy, allowing Jake to get off two shots. Susan could hear the thud of their impact, saw him jerk. The rounds had hit their target, but they seemed to make less impression than her own feeble strike.
Jake lunged forward, firing into the man’s face. Blood and tissue splattered Susan, and her captor stumbled backward, sprawling over her. She lay pinned beneath him, drenched with warm liquids and semisolids she did not want to identify. She had seen blood and injuries and death many times before, but never so suddenly, so horribly. She felt her guts churning and swallowed hard. She had never lost her lunch, even during the most invasive surgery, and did not intend to do so now.
Prone beneath the body, arms tethered behind her, Susan wriggled like a fish to get free.
“Any more?” Jake asked.
“That’s all of them,” Susan reassured him.
The gun still in his right hand, Jake clutched his left over his chest and slumped to the floor. Susan could see him visibly shaking as he thumbed his Vox, “Central, cop shot. Nine-four-five East Ninth and C. Apartment 10 Boy.”
Susan could hear a distant voice over the speaker. “Signal 10-13, 945 East Ninth Street and Avenue C, apartment 10B.” The voice grew louder, more direct. “Units responding. K.”
More noise came over Jake’s Vox, sounding like several voices carrying on a conversation in another room. Susan could not hear the exchange, but whatever they said relaxed Jake. He seemed to gain some control over his trembling and pulled his hand away from the wound, revealing less blood than Susan expected. She increased her struggles, freeing her torso and arms, still bound together, from beneath the corpse.
Jake kept his gun trained on the man lying near the bathroom as he spoke into the Vox again, “Manhattan South Homicide, urgent! I have two perps shot, civilian hurt, and a cop shot at this location. Get me three buses and a boss here forthwith.”
Susan continued to work her legs from under the weight, deliberately avoiding considering the identity and content of the warm slush she kicked. For the first time ever, her medical training seemed like a curse.
A reply came over the Vox: “Units on the way, Homicide. Any perps outstanding? Where are you hit?”
“Both down, Central,” Jake responded. “I’m hit in the left chest.”
Susan finally managed to wriggle loose. She dropped down beside Jake. “Untie me.”
Jake pulled a knife from a sheath attached to his belt with paracord, and slashed the ropes with a few deft strokes. The instant the ropes fell away, Susan grabbed Jake’s hand and pulled it away from the wound. Blood flow, raw agony, rushed back into her fingers. Dizziness swam down on her. The only thing that kept her from collapsing was the realization he might think less of her, that she could not handle difficult situations. “Ow, ow, ow,” she said as normal feeling gradually returned and the ache diminished. “Let me get some water.”
Carefully clambering to her feet, so as not to risk fainting, Susan headed for the kitchen. Ignoring the water pouring out of the pipes below, she vigorously washed the dead man’s blood from her hands, filled up a bowl with warm, soapy water, and grabbed a large shred of relatively clean dishrag.
Jake had his hand clamped to his chest again.
With a glare, Susan pulled it away once more to examine the wound. “Give me that knife.”
Jake turned positively pale. “You’re not planning to muck around in there, are you? Because ‘bus’ is slang for ‘ambulance.’”
Susan remembered him asking for three buses. “Well, those two don’t need any buses. They can grab the express straight to the morgue.” She took the knife, which slid into her hand, leaving the sheath dangling from his belt by its cord. It had a four-inch-long tanto blade and the brand name, Strider, where the blade met the cord-wrapped hilt.
“Are you absolutely sure? Because our lives may depend on it.”
Susan rolled her eyes. “I’m a doctor, but if you’d like a second opinion, you can check pulses yourself.” Not that Susan had bothered to do so. A man who had just had his brains blown out the back of his head was clearly no danger. As for the other thug, if the shot through his upper chest had not killed him, the one through the neck certainly had. Susan could see damaged trachea and bone, and no air bubbles emerged from the blood. He was not breathing, and she had no intention of performing a tracheostomy or administering CPR.
Without waiting for a reply, Susan deftly sliced Jake’s shirt in half. As the pieces fell away, he defensively covered his wound again. “Don’t you think we should wait for the—”
“Paramedics?” Susan gave him a look as sharp as the blade. “So, let me get this straight. You want the trained medical doctor to watch you bleed to death waiting for the transport team?”
Jake did not move his fingers. “Didn’t you say you were a psychiatrist?”
Susan resisted the urge to slap him. For all they knew, the bullet had passed clear through his heart, with only rushes of adrenaline keeping him conscious. He could die in front of her eyes. “Are you going to make me dig out my license? I apologize for not having it posted on the damned wall!” She made a gesture to indicate the shattered ruins of her home. “The State of New York granted me a license to practice medicine and surgery. I took all the same classes and rotations as Diego freaking Webster.” She named a fictional surgeon on a popular primetime medical show. “Just because I prefer mucking around in people’s brains doesn’t mean I forgot everything I learned.” She brandished his knife. “Now, if you don’t move your damned hand, I’m going to cut it apart the same way I did your shirt.”
Swiftly, Jake moved his hand.
“And you can put away the gun. Twenty thousand volts couldn’t make either of them twitch a muscle.” Her motion far gentler than her words, Susan pushed him down onto the floor and dumped the soapy water over the wound. She wiped away the drying blood with his ruined shirt to reveal a minimal amount of bleeding. Either the bullet had not penetrated any vital vessels and organs, or clots had formed quickly to prevent further bleeding. From the shape of the abrasion collar, she could easily tell the angle of entry was oblique. Carefully, she turned him over, examining his back and sides without finding anything abnormal. She checked his vital signs and several pulses. Finally, she superficially probed the wound with her fingers, careful not to sweep blindly.
The sound of distant sirens wafted to them through the terrace door.
Susan looked up, re-creating what she had witnessed in her mind’s eye. With the additional information gleaned from her examination, she had no difficulty finding the bullet, which she triumphantly handed to Jake.
The sirens grew louder, closer.
Jake watched everything Susan did in silence. “You do know you’re tampering with evidence.”
Susan snorted. “I’m not terribly impressed with your precinct’s evidentiary sleuthing. We both could have been gunned down, disemboweled with rusty scimitars, and hanged from the rafters, our skulls bludgeoned, and your great detectives would label it natural causes.”
Jake drew br
eath. He probably wanted to argue, but he winced in pain instead. “So, Doc, what’s your brilliant diagnosis? Am I going to live?”
Susan had something to prove. “He shot you twice. The first came in here”—she demonstrated on herself—“low and to the left. Went through your shirt; you can see some residue here.” She indicated some darkening on his skin. “The second bullet came in this way”—she indicated the angle it penetrated—“struck the point of your tenth rib, and bounced off. You’re now holding it in your hand. The X-ray will show the rib is cracked but no other damage. I’m sure it hurts like hell, but you are going to live.” She could not help adding, “And the next time I tell you I have a couple of friends keeping me company, take my word for it. You didn’t see that guy coming at all. Did you?”
“I didn’t expect him from the bathroom,” Jake admitted, allowing Susan to wrap a makeshift bandage made from his shirt around his chest. He examined the bullet. “Nine millimeter.”
“Is that significant?”
“Well, it is what the FBI uses now, but it’s what we use, too. Lighter, faster, cheaper. Short of the military, it’s hard to find a government agency that uses anything else anymore.” Jake turned pale. “You don’t suppose they really were—”
“No,” Susan said, more to reassure him than out of any real certainty. “I certainly hope the FBI doesn’t kidnap and threaten to kill U.S. citizens.”
The sirens grew louder.
Jake grabbed Susan’s arm and hauled her toward the door.
After the manhandling she had just escaped, Susan found the touch, though firm and painless, strangely unpleasant. “Where are we going?”
“To the hallway.” Jake shoved open the door. “By the way, you need to get yourself a new lock. They’ve got this one rigged to open for any thumb, including mine.”
Susan could not help pondering the simple genius of that strategy. As long as the lock worked properly for him, an owner would likely never consider the possibility. Who tested locks by having friends or strangers try them? She allowed herself to be led into the hall. “Why not wait inside?”
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