Alpha Kill - 03

by Tim Stevens

  Also in the stash were three grenades which Drake thought at first were fragmentation devices, but which turned out on closer inspection to hold CS gas. They could be useful. He ordered them stowed on board.

  Herman, Skeet and Walusz the Pole helped themselves to a handgun each. Rosenbloom was keeping watch out by the vehicles. In any case, he didn’t use guns. He was opposed to them, had told Drake once that he supported gun-control laws. Which was ironic, considering the company he kept.

  Gudrun smiled sweetly when Drake tipped his head at the stash. “No thanks, Gene,” she said. “You know me.”

  He’d never seen her use a gun, or even hold one. She seemed just too... elegant, too much of a lady, to sully her hands with something as crude and primal as a handgun.

  Her methods of killing were altogether more refined.

  Drake stood, brushing the dust off his knees. “Okay. Load up and let’s go.”

  The three vehicles rode back up the dirt trail, many pounds heavier. Once more, Drake considered that this was overkill. All this firepower, pistols and shotguns and a rifle, just to take down one man.

  But, like before, Drake reckoned a little excess was no bad thing. He didn’t know New York, had never been there before. It was unfamiliar territory, and although he didn’t anticipate any real problem locating his target - he had all of the addresses he needed - he wasn’t going to blunder in like some rube and get himself busted before he had a chance to achieve his goal.

  To exact his revenge.

  Revenge on the man who’d taken six years of his life.

  On the man who’d put him away.

  Chapter 7

  The waitress in the coffee shop was hovering at Beth’s shoulder once more, looking antsy. At first Beth wondered whether the shop was about to close, but she saw it was nine-forty. The place stayed open until midnight, even on a Sunday.

  Then she realized: they’d been nursing empty coffee cups for the last fifteen minutes.

  Beth ordered the same again for both of them - hers a latte, Venn’s a black filter coffee, no sweetener, no frills - and waited till the girl had retreated before turning back to Venn. She leaned across the table.

  “Venn, I’m at a loss here.”

  He said, “I’ll look into it.”

  Beth had known he was going to say yes. But a small voice inside her, a contrary, mistrusting, hateful aspect of her psyche, had been nagging at her all the while. He’s changed. Your attitude has poisoned him. He’ll tell you to get lost.

  He hadn’t changed. Nobody ever, fundamentally, changed. It was something Beth was starting to learn, and while she didn’t particularly like the realization, because it went against everything she’d accepted as gospel in her optimistic, naive twenties, she was beginning to come to terms with it.

  Venn, damn it, Beth thought, watching his eyes, and hoping her thoughts weren’t showing in her expression. Why does it have to be so difficult between us?

  He was a good-looking guy, she thought for the thousandth time. Not conventionally, not with a movie star’s pretty-boy looks. But he had the face of a man in his late thirties who’d lived life, on his own terms and without compromise. Who’d been willing to risk making mistakes rather than shy away from the world and from his own opinions. For the past couple of years he’d kept his hair either buzzed a half-inch from his scalp, as now, or completely shaved. His goatee was sparse to the point of being almost non-existent. Years ago, as a Marine, he’d had his nose busted, and while the repair job had been a good one, there was a slight crookedness there. He’d been hitting the gym since they’d separated, she noticed: his shoulders were a fraction broader, his chest tauter beneath his shirt.

  Her favorite photo of Venn was somewhere at the bottom of one of the suitcases she’d yet to unpack fully in the apartment she was now renting. She’d taken it on her phone when he was walking toward her on the street, meeting her for dinner one summer evening last year, with Radio City Music Hall in the background. Beth wasn’t much of a photographer, but this particular picture had been a lucky one. She’d caught him in mid-stride, his head lowered, his gaze toward her, and it looked like a poster from an action movie, one in which you’d normally see an explosion behind the nonchalant hero.

  She’d insisted on framing that photo and keeping it on the bookcase beside the fireplace in their house. In fact, she’d noticed the picture even as she’d been staring around at the wreckage of their living room, trying to comprehend the fact that they’d been burglarized -

  The muzzle of the gun rammed into her temple and Beth recoiled, crying out.

  She was flung sideways, toppling, as the hot breath rasped in her ear, something in Spanish.

  Something smashed, and there were gasps, screams, some of them recognizable as her own.

  Men’s legs moved into her field of vision. A home invasion, her mind shrieked at her. You’re going to get raped. Killed.

  Rough hands were on her arms, her shoulders, and she twisted away.

  “No... leave me...”

  She felt the cold of a draft from somewhere over to one side and tried to scramble toward it, intuiting that there was an escape there.

  But it was no use. The hands hauled at her, lifting her to her knees, and she stared into one of the attackers’ faces.

  Venn’s.

  Wait. That didn’t make sense...

  Someone was shouting her name. She heard it as though through several fathoms of ocean.

  Before her, shockingly close, Venn’s mouth was open, moving in slow motion.

  Forming a single syllable.

  Beth.

  With sudden clarity, like a kaleidoscope clicking into focus, Beth came back. She gazed around her. Saw the people on the periphery, half-worried, half-fascinated. The tables, the chairs. The fragments of crockery scattered around the floor.

  Venn was kneeling in front of her, his hands gripping her shoulders.

  “Beth, talk to me.”

  With a sigh, as if it were the last breath she could ever hope to exhale, Beth sagged against him.

  *

  They stepped out into the cold air. Venn had tried to support her around the shoulders but she’d gently disengaged his arm, to show him she could stay upright all by herself. And maybe for another reason, too.

  She allowed his hand to rest lightly on her arm, though.

  “My God, Beth,” he murmured. “What the hell?”

  She shook her head, embarrassed. “A panic attack. I get them, sometimes. They just come on.”

  “Since when?”

  Briefly, she considered lying. Saying she’d been prone to them all her life, that it was an inherited thing. But they’d lived together for a year and a half, without anything like this happening. He wouldn’t buy it.

  He was, after all, a cop.

  “Since Salazar,” Beth said.

  Venn stopped, drew her aside, turned her to face him.

  “Panic attacks?” he said quietly.

  She nodded.

  “Flashbacks?” he went on. “Hyperarousal?”

  She said nothing.

  In his eyes there was appalled understanding. “Beth, I know about this stuff. I saw guys with PTSD back in the Marines. On the force. It corrodes you if you leave it long enough. You’ve got to get help.”

  She faced him squarely. “I am getting help. I’m a physician, Venn. I recognized the symptoms.”

  “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to...” He looked awkward, and Beth felt a stab of regret at the way she’d spoken. “That’s good. I mean, it’s good that you’re getting help.”

  Beth turned and they continued walking away from the coffee shop. This time Venn didn’t touch her arm.

  “It’s not disabling,” she said after a moment. “I can function at work. I sleep at night, most of the time. But yeah, it’s a problem.”

  He gave it a beat, then said: “You should have told me.”

  “It’s not the kind of thing you feel like talking about.”

&
nbsp; They walked in silence for a minute, somewhere in the direction of the river. Beth thought she could hear Venn’s mind ticking over. She imagined he was making connections. Realizing that he was one of the triggers for her attacks.

  “Anyhow,” Beth said. “About this other thing. The weird statistics at the hospital.”

  Venn seemed to come back from a faraway place. He blinked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  “There’s not enough for me to get a warrant to seize any hardware,” he said. “There’s no evidence even of a crime. But I can nose around. Find out a little more about Bruce Collins and his involvement with the hospital.” He glanced at Beth. “Can you find out any more about the patients who were shipped out? You know, the ones Dr Collins transferred to other facilities?”

  Beth grimaced. “There’s a problem there. Every time a member of staff accesses the records database, it leaves a notification on the system. Normally that’s of no consequence. It’s just a way of keeping tabs, making sure that unauthorized users aren’t gaining entry to confidential medical information. But now that Bill Soper knows I’ve been snooping around in the database, he’ll check to see if I’m still doing it. If he finds I am, I’ll have broken my promise to him to back off. Who knows what he’d do then.”

  “Does the hospital keep paper records on patients?”

  “Not any more. We went completely paperless a year ago. Sure, we scribble notes all the time, but the data gets scanned and digitalized immediately and the original paper destroyed.”

  “Huh.” Venn lapsed into silence. Then he said, “Do you have any data on any of the patients Dr Collins treated? I mean, do you remember any names, or anything like that?”

  “Yes.” Beth brightened. “I took screenshots of some of the lists of patients and their dates of discharge, death or transfer. I don’t know why, it just seemed like an idea at the time. Eventually I stopped doing it because I wasn’t detecting any patterns. I have those screenshots on my laptop.”

  “You got it with you?”

  “It’s in my apartment.”

  A question hung between them. Before Venn could ask it, Beth said, “I’ll email the screenshots to you.”

  He nodded. Was there relief in his expression? Relief that he hadn’t had to ask: Can I come up to your apartment and get the data?

  Beth said, “Is there any special reason why you want the details of Collins’s patients?”

  Venn tipped his head. “Nothing in particular. There might be a clue there. Maybe not.”

  Ahead of them, a group of rowdy young men spilled out of a bar. One of them dropped a bottle on the sidewalk and cursed loudly, to bellows of laughter from his friends.

  Beth’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She considered ignoring it, but her doctor’s instinct made her fish it out.

  “Excuse me.”

  She looked at the display.

  Paul.

  Venn was looking at her. She realized her face was betraying her, and knew she couldn’t let the call go to voicemail.

  Beth thumbed the ‘receive’ key. “Hello.”

  “Hey. Where are you? Can you talk?”

  “Heading home.” She was aware of Venn out of the corner of her eye, didn’t glance at him. She added, “Just by the hospital.”

  “I’m in a cab, crossing the bridge. I’ll pick you up.”

  Beth didn’t think Venn would be able to hear the words. But he’d know it was a man’s voice.

  She said, “Oh, that’s okay. Don’t worry. I’d prefer to walk. Need to stretch my legs.”

  There was a slight pause. “Beth, are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she muttered, desperate for the call to end. “Just had a long day. See you.”

  “Your place?”

  “Sure.”

  She rang off before he could say anything else.

  Still avoiding looking at Venn, she said: “Work colleague.” She meant her tone to be light, but it came out as absurdly fake, at least to her ears.

  “Uh-huh.” Was that skepticism in Venn’s voice?

  Beth’s face burned. Damn. The timing was terrible.

  She and Venn were drawing level with the drunks milling around on the sidewalk in front of the bar. They were engaged in a mock fight, shoving each other good-naturedly.

  Venn said, “You really don’t have to explain when somebody calls you, Beth. It’s your business.” His tone was neutral.

  Oh no, she thought.

  One of the drunks started coughing violently. Then he groaned, “Shit,” and lurched away from the group. Before Beth could jump back, the guy doubled over and puked copiously on the sidewalk, beery vomit fanning across the stone and splattering Beth’s shoes.

  She felt Venn tense beside her, and realized what was going to happen next.

  With two strides Venn reached the drunk. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with one hand and hauled him upright and shoved him back against the wall. The guy bounced and stumbled, and would have fallen if Venn hadn’t slammed a hand into his chest, pinning him.

  Venn’s other arm hung by his side, the fist clenching and unclenching.

  Beth heard him say, between his teeth: “Apologize.”

  The man’s head bobbed, and Beth wasn’t sure if he’d understood, or was even capable of understanding.

  One of the other drunks, who’d stopped their noisy horsing around and were gazing in incomprehension, stepped forward. “Hey, asshole,” he slurred. “You got a problem?”

  Still keeping the first guy pinned to the wall, Venn turned his head. “Back off,” he said, in a voice that was low and menacing. “All of you.”

  Slowly the others seemed to draw together, as if they were one organism with unruly parts that didn’t function properly individually but could combine into an effective whole. Their faces were belligerent, and Beth knew they were the type of drinker whose cheeriness could switch to aggression in the blink of an eye.

  Five of them, not including the man who’d puked.

  Venn pulled his hand away and the guy slid down the wall, landing on the sidewalk on his butt and slumping sideways. He didn’t try to get up. The other five men closed in on Venn.

  He faced them with his head lowered, his arms by his sides. Beth noticed that he eased across the sidewalk a little so that he was putting himself directly between the men and her.

  “Venn,” she said from behind him.

  He ignored her, looking at each of the five men’s faces in turn, shaking his head slowly.

  “You do not want to do this,” he murmured.

  “Venn,” Beth said again, more insistently. “Forget them. It’s just vomit. I’ve had worse –”

  “Yeah,” said one of the men, the guy who’d spoken before. “Bitch is right. Listen to her.”

  At the mention of the word, Beth closed her eyes for an instant.

  Venn didn’t begin with any fancy moves, any feints or flourishes. He simply took a step forward and punched the man full in the face.

  The guy was drunk, but not that drunk, and he saw it coming and tried to duck. He was too slow. The blow snapped his head back and sent him cannoning into the shoulder of the man just behind him, knocking that guy sideways.

  “Hey, shit...” somebody yelled. Beth felt terror flood her veins. Were they armed with knives or anything? But they looked like college kids, and not especially athletic ones.

  Venn didn’t pause. He grabbed two of the men by the ears, one on either side, and cracked their heads together so hard Beth heard the thud of bone on bone. Another guy got in a frantic punch to Venn’s torso. Venn let out a grunt, but the blow had been weak and off-center and didn’t do much. Pivoting on one foot, Venn swung his other knee up into the man’s belly, doubling him over and causing him, too, to spew beer and stomach acids into the air.

  On the sidewalk, a crowd was gathering. Many of the onlookers were shocked, though several started up an enthusiastic chant.

  One ma
n was left standing. He stared around him, looking utterly bewildered.

  Venn grabbed his arm.

  “Venn,” Beth hissed for the third time. “For God’s sake. Leave him alone.”

  Venn twisted the man’s arm deftly behind his back. The guy began to blubber and stammer.

  Next to his ear, but loudly enough that Beth could hear, Venn said, “Your lowlife buddy on the sidewalk there is too out of it to apologize to the lady. So you’ll have to do it.”

  “Sorry,” the guy whimpered.

  His face wrenched as Venn twisted his arm further.

  “Louder,” said Venn. “Like you mean it.”

  “S-sorry, ma’am,” he managed.

  Venn let go his arm and the guy lurched away, rubbing his shoulder. He stared wild-eyed at Venn, as if expecting another assault, and began stumbling away down the street, the crowd parting to let him pass.

  Venn took out his detective’s shield and held it up for the crowd to see. Without a glance at the pile of groaning bodies on the sidewalk, he strode over and grabbed Beth’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She let him drag her round the corner before she shook herself free from his grasp. “Let go of me,” she said.

  He turned to face her. “You all right?”

  She was aware that she was shaking, and that her face must be pale despite her anger. The delayed impact of the encounter was setting in.

  Please, she thought. Not another flashback. Not now.

  Because it would mean she’d have to rely on Venn’s support. And what she wanted right now was to get as far away from him as possible.

  “No,” she whispered. “I am not all right.”

  He took a step toward her but she backed off.

  “This is what I mean, Venn,” Beth said, her voice catching in her throat. “Wherever you go, people get hurt.”

  He gazed at her for a second, his expression unreadable. He said: “Those guys needed taking down a peg.”

  “They were a bunch of drunk kids, Venn. Not enemy combatants. One of them splattered my shoes with vomit. That’s all. They were obnoxious. They weren’t a threat. They didn’t deserve to get beaten up like that.”