Déjà-BOOM!
Page 26
He struggled to his feet and began to dial the cell phone. The crowd stopped yelling. The president began to speak.
Do something!
I swung the barrel of the rifle like I was hitting golf ball with a driver. I hit my target, catching him flush on the side of the head with the gun’s stock. It sounded like I hit a hollow pumpkin.
He crumpled to the floor.
Kicking the phone away from his hand, I smashed it again and again with the butt of the gun. I kicked the remnants of the phone away from him.
“Bet this wasn’t part of your master plan, smart guy.”
I staggered over to the railing and dropped the rifle into the next suite.
My legs gave out. I fell against the empty seats.
And then, there was blackness.
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I opened my eyes. A woman wearing a white lab coat over a green scrub suit held on to my right arm.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“In the United Center’s first-aid station,” she said.
The smell of alcohol irritated my nose as she swabbed my arm with a wet cotton ball.
I struggled to sit up.
“Hold ‘er, girl,” she said. “I really need to get this IV started.”
“What happened to me?”
“I think something happened to your abdomen. You got a midline scar. Did you have surgery before?”
I waited for a searing wave of pain in my belly to pass.
“I was blown up five years ago. My bladder and liver were ruptured.”
Her face blanched. “Oh, shit.” She turned to someone behind her. “We need a surgeon right now!”
She turned back to me. “This is gonna sting a little.”
I felt her jab my arm as she started the IV.
“Great,” she said, as she applied tape over her handiwork.
“How did I get here?”
“A man covered with blood staggered out of one of the three hundred-level suites. A janitor saw him. She called security. They checked inside the room and found you passed out. They carried you down here.”
My head began to swim.
“I feel dizzy,” I croaked. “My husband is here with the president. Call him.”
I’m tired. I think I’ll take a nap.
Her voice sounded far away. “Stay with me, sweetie.”
“Better start another IV,” I heard a male voice say.
“Might need a subclavian,” the female said. “Her pressure is dropping.”
Could you guys quiet down? I want to go to sleep.
I felt hands pushing on my tummy. “Her abdomen is tight,” the male voice said. “She’s got at least one unit of blood in there.”
I went to sleep.
Part 6
134
When I woke up, I blinked a couple of times and found myself staring into Carter’s blue eyes.
“I’m glad they called you.” I blinked again. “Am I still in the first-aid station?”
“No, you’re at the MidAmerica Hospital,” Carter said.
What? Why?
I tried to sit up but was slammed by lower abdominal cramps. I stopped moving. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a unit of blood dripping into the IV in my right arm.
Been here before.
I nodded toward it. “Looks like I had a little problem.”
“You could say that. The surgeon told me you were hit in the abdomen. That blunt trauma tore scar tissue in your liver and bladder and caused extensive internal bleeding. Thank God, the surgeon was able to stop it.”
I gently ran my fingers over my belly. “The last time a surgeon operated on me I had a big bandage and staples. Why not now?”
“The surgeon used a scope and was able to cauterize the bleeders without totally opening your abdomen.”
I digested that information.
“Huh,” I said.
My mind was foggy from the pain meds.
“Huh,” I said again.
Carter held my hand.
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday morning, actually.”
“I’ve been out for a while.”
“You have.”
“Where is Kerry?”
“With Alicia. She has been since this happened. I’ve been here with you.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Looks like I’ve come full circle,” I said.
“Do you mean with David?”
“How did you know it was David who did this to me?”
“The FBI agents told me.”
“Well, they were right. It was David. And this is the second time I’ve had abdominal surgery because of what he did to me. I can’t wait to write this story.”
My husband didn’t say anything.
“I said, ‘I can’t wait to write this story.’ ”
“About that.”
“Carter, I am going to write this story! I have to. He’s tried to kill me twice! I can’t have risked my life for nothing.”
I had pain and brain fog, but not so much that I couldn’t comprehend what my husband was saying to me. “The Secret Service, right?”
“The Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and every other federal agency that deals with anyone potentially making an attempt on the president’s life.”
This was the end. I was never going to write the bomber’s story. I could bitch and moan, but it wouldn’t do any good. It was over.
I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry or laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Instead, I shifted around in bed and became aware of the irritating hospital smells. I braced for a PTSD attack, but it didn’t happen.
Huh?
Maybe David had finally knocked it out of me.
“How did the interview go?” I asked.
“Really well. The president provided a lot of material.”
“What about the speeches?”
“The parts I heard were well-received. I didn’t hear them all, because the FBI agents came and pulled me into the first-aid station to see you.”
“Did all those priests protest?”
“When Micah began his talk, they stood up but remained silent. When he announced his discovery of the cure for MS, the audience erupted with cheers and the priests sat down.”
“Now what?”
“You won’t be allowed to write about David, so no one will ever know what he intended to do or what actually transpired.”
“Except me — and David.”
“Indeed.”
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“What about my friends?” I asked.
“The FBI told me you can tell them everything, but if they breathe one word of it, they will risk federal prosecution,” Carter said.
“Have you told them what David did to me?”
“No, I thought you should do that. I told Cas you had a touch of food poisoning and were admitted to the hospital to receive IV fluids. She told Molly and Linda the same thing.”
Though my abdomen was aching, my mind was clearing.
“I miss Kerry. When do I get to go home?”
“The trauma surgeon wants to recheck your blood count tomorrow morning, and if it’s back up to acceptable levels, he will discharge you.”
“That’s a relief. Is Kerry okay?”
“She misses her mommy. I wanted Alicia to bring her up here to see you, but Linda suggested I not do that.”
“Linda? I thought you talked to Cas.”
“I did, but Linda called me just before I walked into your room.”
“Why?”
“She’s on the OB floor. She had an emergency C-section about the same time your surgeon was beginning your case. You were in the OR the same time she was.”
“Small world.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“I want to see her.”
“I knew you would, but your doctor nixed that until tomorrow.”
“One question. What did she have?”
“A boy.”
“Name?”
“One more question.”
He waited.
“David. Did they catch him?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“He’s still out there.”
“But you don’t have to worry. There are two police officers stationed outside your door. You are totally safe in here.”
136
Carter left to relieve Alicia and take care of our daughter, but the nurses and lab people kept bugging me. The old joke about not being able to sleep in a hospital was true — again. It bugged me over five years ago, and it was worse this time. I couldn’t wait to go home and hug my husband and Kerry.
And sleep in my own bed without any interruptions. At least the hospital smells were masked by the flowers that had been delivered. They were from my parents, my brother, and Carter and Kerry.
And the President of the United States. He not only had someone send flowers, but he included a handwritten note of thanks. And he arranged for the two guards, this hospital, and the room I was in. It didn’t seem possible, but it was even nicer than the one Linda was in the last time I was here to visit her.
Sniffing the aroma of the now-familiar fragrance of the room, I remembered what Molly had said during that visit to Linda. I could detect cedar and sandalwood, maybe even roses.
Lying back in bed, I shut off the lights and thought about David. His planning had been meticulous, even to the point of using the cameras and audio to follow everything I did. I shut my eyes and tried to relax.
But that doesn’t make sense.
Why did David need the cameras and listening devices? He was in on all of our meetings. He knew exactly what we were going to do. I yawned, suddenly overcome by exhaustion.
I’ll think about that tomorrow.
The cloying scent in the room began to intensify, and my nose began to burn. I blindly reached out for the nurse’s call button to have someone come up and fix it. Groping around in the dark, I couldn’t find it, but I found something else instead.
It was a man’s hand.
137
“At last, we finally get to be alone,” the man said. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this moment.”
It wasn’t David’s voice.
I sat straight up, which caused intense burning in my abdomen. “Who are you?”
“Tina, I’m devastated that you don’t recognize me,” he said. “Have I changed that much?”
I stared at the man in the darkness of the room. He was short, slender, and completely bald.
And then it came to me.
“You’re the lab tech who’s been drawing my blood. You did with Linda too.”
“You are correct, but I was once so much more than a lowly laboratory technician. I used to be one of the most famous and sought after physicians in the world.” He moved closer to my bed. “But then that false story you wrote about me took that all away.”
Who is this guy?
“I can see by the look on your face that you still don’t remember me.” He held out his wrist. “Take one more sniff.”
“I don’t have to. It smells like you took a bath in that stuff.”
“That would be a very expensive bath, for sure. It is still the most expensive cologne in the world. It’s Clive Christian No. 1.”
He flipped on the room lights. I was no longer uncertain about who the voice belonged to.
Dr. Mick Doyle stood next to my bed.
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“It can’t be you!” I said. “You’re still in prison.”
“Correction,” Doyle said. “Was in prison. You’ve been so busy with your new life that you completely forgot about me. If you knew I had been released, you might have been more alert.”
“But it can’t be you! You don’t have an accent.”
“The other prisoners who made me their bitch while I was incarcerated didn’t like it. They literally beat it out of me.” He stepped closer. “It’s time for me to keep my promise to you.”
I whipped my head around, searching for a weapon, but the quick move caused a burning pain to radiate through my abdomen.
“Dear girl, you shouldn’t do that. As a physician, I can assure you that it will cause severe pain.”
I had to barter with him, hoping to stall him until someone came into my room to save me. “You’ve been to prison once. You don’t want to go back. Let’s be reasonable here.”
“Reasonable? I’ll tell you what would have been reasonable. For you to tell the truth in the story you wrote about me. It was all lies.”
“I can write a retraction.”
“And what about my fourteen years in prison with the monsters who ravaged me on a daily basis? Can you fix that too?”
He glanced at his platinum Piaget, similar to the one he wore the last time I saw him over a decade ago.
“I’m sorry I’m going to have to cut this short, but I must finish up before the drugs that I put in the coffee of the two police guards in the hall outside wear off. I’ve been watching you and your friends all this time, trying to decide what would be the best way to kill you. When I heard that you were here in this hospital, I knew I had the solution.”
I held up my trembling hand. “How did you hear that?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I assumed you knew, since you visited my apartment behind your home. I was watching through your back window. Listening, too, but I have those men who used to live across the street from you to thank for that. I used their listening devices to monitor you and your friend’s and husband’s conversations.”
“There was no way you could have known I was in that apartment.”
“I had a security camera in one of the computers that recorded your visit. I moved out the next day. I had all the information that I needed and didn’t want you to realize I was the one watching you.”
“It wasn’t David’s apartment?”
“Oh my, no. He was much too busy blowing up buildings and shooting doctors to have time for that. And from what I observed, you two were so close that he knew every move you were going to make anyway. You thought you were a smart journalist. What sweet irony that you won’t be able to report this story.”
I had been so fixated on Jamie and the abortion clinic story that I completely missed this third, equally real, threat in my neighborhood: Dr. Mick Doyle.
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“But you had at least one helper,” I said.
“Those women never existed,” Doyle said. “The disguises were useful until your friend Cas got a good look at me as I entered that apartment. I was afraid that if she saw me again, she would realize I wasn’t a woman, so I put my wigs away.”
“But my mole said his group had killed both of them, and David was the mole. Were you two working together?”
“Never. In prison, I created a plan to get even with you and had to find a way to implement it, so I learned all about computers. I hacked into David’s last mole response to you and added that. Clever, don’t you think? The perfect way to confuse things a bit more. Oh, that and the Post-it note I stuck to the window for you.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a syringe and knife. “This injection won’t hurt at all, but it will paralyze you so you can’t move while I slice you up with this.” He waved the blade close to my face and then reached down for my arm.
I inched backward in my bed and cocked my fist. “Not in this lifetime, asshole!” I screamed as loud as I could, hoping a nurse or someone would come running in to see what was happening.
I beat you before. I’ll do it again.
As another searing pain went through my abdomen, I saw a red dot unexpectedly appear in the middle of Doyle’s forehead.
A window to my left broke. A small black dot replaced the red one. The back of his head exploded against the large flower arrangement behind him.