“He slammed his sports car into the back of her and shoved her beneath a semi.”
“I’m so sorry, Paul. What was her name?”
“Betsy. She was the one who brought me back when the nightmares started. She was light and sweetness. She was carrying our son.”
His anguish tore at her heart. To lose a wife and unborn child would destroy any man. Send him over the edge for revenge. Maybe getting him to talk about her would make him see what he was doing was so wrong.
“Would she want you to be doing this?” she asked hesitantly, hoping to keep him focused on her and not Bill, who had his foot finally tangled in the cords.
“No. But she’s not here.” He turned from the bedside back toward Judy, every muscle in his face and neck tight with anger. Gone from his eyes was the despair of a man still grieving for his family. They’d shuttered, closing off everything but his rage.
Her heart stuttered as he narrowed the space between them.
“She’s dead. Cold, in the ground, dead.” He waved his gun hand at Dr. Hodges’ corpse and the inert patient on the table. “And they took her from me!”
A loud crash sounded behind her. They both jumped. He pushed her to the side and rushed past her toward Bill, his gun aimed at her friend. “What the hell are you doing?”
Judy, didn’t hesitate a second. She pulled the syringe out of her pocket and whirled, slamming the needle into the exposed skin where Wilkes’ shoulder met his neck and pressing the plunger down fast.
“Ah!” The gunman swung around with his gun arm, clotheslining her in the shoulder and knocking her hip into the metal operating table. She lost her balance and hit the floor with a grunt.
“What the hell…” he grabbed at his shoulder where the syringe was still imbedded.
Scrambling backwards out of his way like a crab on hot sand, Judy prayed the medication would work before he shot her. She watched him as if seeing a movie in slow motion.
Stumbling, he caught himself on the OR table. Waving his arms like a windmill, he listed sideways, a confused panic spreading over his face as his body faltered and he began gasping for air. His feet slid out from under him and he sunk to his knees, one hand at his throat, his eyes widened with fear as his airway constricted. His gun arm shook and he dropped the weapon on the floor.
“Judy, come undo my hands quick!” Bill yelled as he struggled to his feet. “I’ve got to get a tube down his throat before his throat closes completely.”
Snapped out of her daze, she pulled her gaze from Wilkes’ wobbling body and kicked the gun away from him. She grabbed the bandage scissors from the Mayo stand and hurried to the anesthetist’s side.
“You’re going to intubate him? Why?” Dr. Smith asked behind them.
“He may be a murderer, but we’re not,” Bill said to the resident, as Judy snipped through the tape binding his wrists. “We’ve got to get him intubated before his airway closes completely and somehow onto an anesthesia machine.”
As Bill grabbed a laryngoscope and ET tube, Judy cut Karen’s bindings then set Dr. Smith free, too.
“We have to get out of here,” the resident said. Eyes wide with his barely controlled panic, he pushed out the door to the OR hallway.
“Wait! Stop!” Judy ran after him, shoving him to the wall mere inches before he hit the door-open button for the main entrance. Her forearm pressed against his throat so he understood she meant business, just like Dave had taught her. “We can’t leave yet. The bombs are still set to go off if any of the doors open.”
“I can’t stay here, I can’t.” Smith tried to struggle away from her grip on him.
“You have to for now. See that man out there?” She pointed to the main OR doors and Dave standing on the other side, his rifle once again aimed inside. “You go anywhere near that door and he’ll shoot you.”
“You don’t know that.” Smith shifted his stare from her to the door and back.
“Yes, I do. He’s my husband.” She paused for the words to affect the young doctor. “You put my life in danger by going near that door, and he will stop you.”
And she knew deep down in her soul Dave would do just that. She looked out the door, her gaze meeting that of the man she loved. She gave a little nod to reassure him and he nodded back.
“What are we going to do?”
Glancing the other direction, she saw Bill and Karen drag the gunman’s body to the empty OR. She assumed they plan to hook him up to the machine to keep him breathing while the Succs was in his system.
“What we do best. You’re going to go back in the OR, act like the surgeon you’re trained to be and try to save the Senator’s son.”
The doctor’s body seemed to relax beneath her hands. “What are you going to do?”
“What I do best. Solve the problem.”
***
Katie stretched out on her stomach in front of the back operating room door. There was just enough space to allow her expanding scope to slide beneath. It would’ve been better if she could’ve shimmied it through the doors near the handles, but they were sealed tight. The space between the doors and the floor was all she had to work with.
“See anything?” Matt asked from above.
“Just a second.” She wiggled it forward then put her eye onto the face piece that allowed her to look through the fiber-optic lens.
“Where did you get this thing?” Castello asked. He stood lookout to her left.
“Don’t ask her,” Matt said in a near groan.
“Why not? Don’t tell me you let her do something illegal.” Castello said.
Katie shook her head at them. The pair was always ready to argue. She used to believe it was just about her, but now that she was happily married to Matt, she realized they just liked to argue and each always thought he was right.
She couldn’t help but smile. Like her sister-in-law Sami always said, “Men. You can’t live with them and you can’t bury them in the backyard.”
“No, I didn’t let her do something illegal. Not like I have that control over my wife, but it’s just gross.”
“Hush, you two. I’m trying to see in here and the arguing isn’t helping my concentration.”
“Where’d she get it?” Castello whispered.
“A medical supply company,” Matt whispered back a little more harshly. “It’s the same docs use to look at people’s guts during surgery.”
“Gross.”
“Hush,” she said, turning the knob to extend the fiber optics farther and then upward. She paused and studied the bottom of the explosives. “Looks like he has C-4 compound on both sides of the door. Wires connecting both.”
“So if we open the door and break the connection—” Matt started to ask.
“The door blows.” She twisted the knob to study the wires coming out of the far side of the clay-like explosives. “And he’s got wires running all along the wall, interspersed with more C-4, probably all the way to the next entrance, just like he told Judy.”
“And once one entrance is breached, all of them will explode.”
She collapsed her scope and pulled it back through the door. Wiggling backward onto her knees she grasped the hand Matt offered and stood. “There’s good news, though.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“There’s no timing mechanism on this entrance.”
“He gave us a time limit. We have to assume there’s one someplace.”
She slipped the scope back into the bag full of tools she had strapped across her body. “The best place would be the main entrance, in plain sight to scare Judy and anyone else thinking to escape that way.”
“Makes sense. Let’s try to meet Dave and Jake up front.” Matt eased her in front of him. “Castello?”
“I’ll guard this door. Don’t want anyone getting too anxious to go in or out.”
Suddenly a gunshot thundered beyond the door.
The trio crowded to the windows and peered down the hallway. No movement. They could hear sc
reaming and yelling. Some of it sounded like Dave calling for Judy.
“You two go. I’ve got this covered.” Castello said and they took off at a dead run around the corner.
***
He stood behind Senator Klein, half hiding from the gunman when he made his appearance and half to keep the trembling politician from bolting.
Jake had basically dragged the bastard up from the ER, his entourage in tow. They’d been arguing the whole way and only stopped when Dave had stepped between them and their boss, sniper rifle in hand. He’d given them no uncertain terms—shut up and back off or he’d do it for them. He’d also reminded the senator that his son was also a hostage in this mess, and quite possibly the catalyst.
That did the trick in getting his cooperation.
Over the senator’s head, Jake’s gaze met his. He gave his brother-in-law a go-ahead nod. He was ready for whatever happened.
Jake lifted the wall phone and dialed into the operating room where Wilkes was holding Judy and the others hostage.
As he listened to Jake talk, Dave’s heart thudded loudly in his ears.
He needed to calm down. This would be the most important shot in his life.
Judy needed him.
Inhale.
Exhale.
He willed his body to relax.
Suddenly, there she was.
Halfway down the operating suite’s hall, she stood stiff just outside the open door to the operating room, her skin pale against the dark-blue scrubs, the surgical mask hanging loosely around her neck, her hair pulled back in the blue paper shower-type cap she wore, dark eyes wide with fear. He could see the gunman’s fingers wrapped around her arm.
Rage, hot and heavy, gripped him.
No one had the right to scare his wife or hold her in their grip. No one had the right to threaten the mother of his children. Ever.
She was his. His to love. His to touch. His to protect.
Jake pulled the senator forward and handed him the receiver.
Dave moved in behind the senator, his gun raised. His eyes locked on Judy’s, he nodded, hoping she’d try to maneuver the son-of-a-bitch out the door and give him a clear shot.
She shook her head no.
No?
What the hell was she thinking?
As he watched, her head whipped to the left, back into the operating room. She pulled back slightly.
What was going on? Did the bastard threaten her?
The silence was shattered by a gunshot, the sound echoing out of the room and down the hall.
He felt it like it had pierced his soul.
“Judy!”
Shoving the senator out of his way, he lunged for the door, Jake’s body stopping him before he could jerk one open. “Stop!”
He struggled against Jake, the need to get to Judy clawing at him. “Get out of my way, Carlisle.”
“No, Dave! You’ll set off the bombs!”
The words were like a slap to the face. He froze.
Arms come around from behind, pulling him back from the chasm that separated him from his love. “Dave. Try to get it together, bro,” Matt’s voice in his ear cut through the pain, bringing him back out of his panic.
“It wasn’t her, Dave. He didn’t shoot her. We could see her. She’s okay,” Jake said.
“But for how long?” He looked at his family standing around him, his heart gripped with pain, silently asking them what they were all thinking. How long before the bastard decided to shoot the others or her?
A loud crash sounded down the OR hallway.
He tried to lurch towards the door once more, only the steely arms of his brothers holding him back. “Wait. We don’t know what that was.”
“Fuck it, I have to get in there!” He struggled once more.
“Look!” Katie said, pointing at the window.
A man in scrubs darted out in the hallway, Judy right behind him.
Dave shook off the arms holding him and raised his weapon, taking aim.
Judy slammed the man into the wall, her arm at his neck, just like he’d taught her when she’d been helping him learn a self-defense course years ago. He paused his finger from pressing the trigger, watching them through the scope.
She was talking to the man, stopping to point out the window at him. She nodded at him.
He didn’t lower his aim as he watched, but he returned her nod.
Slowly she eased her body back, looking behind her. Two others dragged a man with a tube hanging out of his mouth across the hallway.
“Is that the bomber?” Katie asked.
Still focused on Judy, Dave lowered his weapon as she released the other man and let him head back into the operating room. Then she strode to the door, stopping a foot away. He met her there, his hand pressed to the glass. Stretching her arm out, she placed hers on the other side, their fingers spread.
“Are you okay? Did the bastard hurt you?”
She gave him a soft smile, the kind that made him want to pull her into his arms and hold her tight. “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me, just has me scared shitless.”
“We’ll get you out of there quick. What did you take him down with?”
“A syringe of Succinylcholine. Bill’s hooking him up to an anesthesia machine. He’ll be completely paralyzed for a while.”
“Judy,” Katie stepped up to the window. “Can you tell me what you see on the door handle?”
Judy slowly turned her eyes away from them to step back a bit, lowering her hand from the glass. He wanted to force her to keep it there, to keep looking at him, her dark eyes reassuring him she was okay.
“I can send you a picture to Dave’s phone.”
Stepping back, she pulled the smartphone from where she’d hidden it in her scrubs pocket and focused on the door. A moment later his phone buzzed. He slid his finger over the text-message icon and a picture of the door with C-4 compound wrapped around it appeared. Centered on it was a cell phone with wires coming from it into a small device imbedded in the explosive material.
“Crap.” Katie shook her head.
“What?” he asked, his gaze meeting Judy’s worried one through the glass.
“See this?” Katie enlarged the photo. “The guy has the cell phone as the timer. It’s probably rigged to send a signal to the detonator below.”
“Can’t we just pull the wires?” he asked, not liking the tension around his sister-in-law’s lips and eyes.
“I’d have to be in there and really look at it. He could have a second trip wire to prevent that. See these five dots?” She pointed to the dots on the page.
“What are they?” Matt asked.
Katie looked at Judy. “Are they blinking?”
She leaned in without touching the bomb. “Yes. They appear to flash on and off in a sequential order.”
“What does that mean?” Dave asked, his chest tightening with renewed fear.
“They’re a code sequence,” Katie said.
“Code sequence?”
“He’s got it set so that if the right kind of code is entered the timer shuts off. Once that circuit is broken we can safely dismantle it. The problem is if we don’t have the right numbers to enter the code in the right order…”
“Well, we’ll just wake the SOB up and force him to tell us.”
“I don’t think we can,” Judy said through the glass.
“What do you mean, we can’t?”
She turned her head and yelled, “Bill!”
The long, lanky anesthetist stuck his head out the door. “What?”
“How long did you say that Succs would keep him paralyzed?”
“The Succinylcholine? It’s going to keep him out for twenty minutes. Longer if I hook him up to the gasses. Right now the ventilator is just making him breathe.”
“You’d best find some way to get you all under some cover then.”
“Oh, shit.” Bill stuck his head back in the operating room, the door closing behind him.
Judy stared into
Dave’s eyes a moment then she looked down at the timer. Everyone else studied the picture. According to it, they had less than five minutes.
With a sinking heart, Judy raised her gaze from the cell phone timer to meet Dave’s across the glass. Unshed tears filled his eyes, making her own spill down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t say that,” he said, his hand once more on the glass. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I did. I gave him the Succs and now he’s useless to us.” She fought back the panic. She knew what she had to do. “David, tell my babies how much I’ve always loved—”
“No! Don’t go there, Judy. We’ve still got time. I can come through the ceiling panels to you and Katie can talk me through disarming it.” He was already pulling the rifle strap off his arm and over his shoulder. “Luke, move those panels out.”
“David.” She pounded on the glass with her fist, shaking her head. “There’s no time. I need to know my babies won’t be left alone. I need you to leave, so you’re safe and can love them for me.”
“Jude…” His shoulders slumped.
God, she wanted to touch him. To cradle his beautiful, rugged face in her hands, kiss him and feel his strength one more time. To give him some of her own.
“Please. If you love me, you’ll do this for me.”
“You know how much I love you.” He was openly crying now, every tear tearing a hole in her heart. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”
“David.” She put on her mom voice. “There’s only four minutes left. You have to go. Now. All of you.”
Matt and Luke grabbed his arms. He shook them off. “Leave me the hell alone!”
“Sweetheart,” she placed both hands on the glass. “Ella, Lily and Wyatt need you. Please, go.”
He placed his hand over hers and whispered, “I love you, babe. You are my life. You are the most important thing in it. I can’t leave you to do this alone.”
“I’ll stay.” Castello said from behind him. “She’s right. Your children need you. No one will miss me. I’ll stay behind.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Judy said.
“You don’t get a choice in this one, Judy. Dave and the others go. I stay.”
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