Kapitan Fucking Obvious, Barton thought to himself.
“Who?” he asked. “Ambrose was the best I had. I can’t use my regular guys for a job like this. Neither can you.”
“Boss thinks he has someone,” Müller said. “But we are okay. It would have been good to get it ourselves, but right now I will settle for no troublesome fallout. As long as Ambrose does not begin remembering I think we have nothing to worry about.”
How and where did he get that little tidbit? Müller having information about the Boss he did not could not be good. More and more he feared his alliance with the German benefited the German more than himself. It was time to start preparing for contingencies.
“We’re only okay as long as we can know for sure he can’t tell anyone anything,” he suggested, hiding the distaste and the beginnings of self-loathing churning like acid reflux.
And if Ambrose did start to remember things, would Müller be able to act quickly enough on that, too? Maybe that should be prearranged, he decided. The line had to be crossed. He couldn’t turn back now.
“But he still has said nothing about even one memory coming back,” Müller insisted with a frown.
“You willing to put your life on that?” he challenged the German. The waitress was even further away now, delivering food to a couple in the corner near the fire exit. “I’m not. What’s it gonna take to make him dead?”
“I have enough resources within the police to help with that,” Müller suggested. “I can have the police watch duty reduced to only during the day. Then I can get someone in there overnight. How hard can it be to help a paralyzed man choke on his own saliva or something?”
“I don’t need to know how,” Barton warned. “Just make sure it happens, and that it looks natural so nobody asks questions. Take enough time to get it right, but not too close to the trial either—that’d look suspicious, too.”
“I can make that happen,” Müller said. “I have just the man.” Müller slid out of the booth and stood up. “Do not worry, your man is as good as dead already.”
Barton stayed at the booth a little while longer after Müller left. Something still wasn’t sitting right with him, but he did not know what. Something other than condemning an old friend to die. Something to do with Müller, probably. By the time he had finished his water he had not gotten any closer to figuring it out. He dropped a twenty on the table and left. There was other business to attend to.
CHAPTER 4 – “I’M JUST MISUNDERSTOOD”
The lawyer said six weeks. If he figured a way out before then he might have a chance. Once the trial started, he would be under more effective guard. He would be found guilty. No, it might as well have been escape or die.
He was not ready to admit to doing the crimes he was accused of. Could he really be a criminal? The lawyer rattled off quite a list of evidence though. The more times he replayed the conversation in his memory, the more it seemed it had to be the truth, as much as he did not like it. It would be enough for a jury. A lot of evidence supported it, and nothing at all proved his innocence. Whether he felt like it or not, whether it felt like something he would do, he must have robbed those banks, orchestrated bank robberies—plural. He saw no hope of convincing a jury otherwise.
That meant he had six weeks of freedom left, such as it was. But he was a telekinetic. He could control his arms and hands telekinetically—he had proven that to himself. He did not know what his limits might be, but he was not helpless. That gave him some measure of freedom to start from.
After several days of practicing using his hands and arms, and starting to practice lifting and moving his legs, he had an idea. If he was strong enough with it, and had enough control, could he control his whole body enough to walk? If so, he could puppet-walk himself right out. The idea alone gave him a greater degree of hope and had changed his thoughts about freedom. Walking free now seemed possible, not something permanently taken away from him. If nothing else, it gave his mind something to focus on other than who he was—who he had been.
How to test it though? Heart monitor lines, an IV line, and a catheter all tethered him in place. He did not dare risk removing any of those until the absolute last minute. Trying to walk to see what happened was not an option. No, he would have to find other ways to test his abilities and their limits first.
If he indeed planned seven bank robberies, and gotten away with six of them, then he could figure out how to spring himself from a hospital under light security.
But before he could walk out, he would need a plan. He also needed a fair degree of control over his telekinesis and he needed to find out what his limits were. How much could he move? For how long? What would he need to practice first? What if it took too much concentration? There was so much to figure out.
So it was time to try something bigger than arms and legs, he decided. He focused his attention inwards, finding the blood flowing through his whole body. Then he narrowed his attention to his shoulders and back. Slowly he lifted himself upright, adding more attention to holding his head up as he moved. And then he was sitting. He held that.
He turned his head, reluctant to turn it too far. He could not feel enough in his neck to know if he was turning his head to the danger point. The snap of going too far rang in his imagination. In his mind he shuddered at the thought.
Holding himself upright took a lot more concentration. His body was easier for him to sense when it was moving—he could perceive the glow of motion—but that stopped when his body stopped. Applying motion in a direction was easier. But holding himself up, holding anything up, was more complicated. It took constant tiny adjustments one way or the other, a delicate balancing act.
But, he supposed, so was sitting up normally. He tried to think of it as using a different set of muscles. It would take time and practice to learn and get accustomed to. In time, he supposed, it might come as naturally as using his physical muscles had. Could he do it within six weeks?
But he could look around freely, and that was another important piece of freedom. How long must he have taken that for granted? He could hardly guess how long; he did not even know how old he was.
He was still keeping himself upright. It was taking effort and concentration, but several minutes and he was still managing it. He had to keep his mind from wandering too much. He brought a hand up to his mouth, trying to pantomime eating. Oh, how he looked forward to being able to feed himself again! Another tiny piece of dignity he had surely taken for granted. This time he would not take any of it for granted. He would cherish and relish every moment of freedom.
It took a few days of practice before he was able hold himself sitting upright with little enough focus he dared spare attention for moving other things. Once he got to that point he found himself looking around the room, finding things to practice his telekinesis on.
He lifted the chair and moved that around. He also practiced holding it off the floor, and standing it up on one short leg, balanced, although it thumped hard on the floor when he put it down, not gingerly enough. He turned the handle to the bathroom door, then opened and closed it. Opening drawers and brining bins of supplies to his lap for him to rifle through helped occupy his mind. That also let him practice picking up a handful of objects at once. He could move, as a group, every object in a set he could see. He could not manage to reach down into a lower layer and lift a stack of things unless he could see the entire stack.
Finding the drawer with his diapers and wipes gave him an idea. He looked down and cautiously lifted his whole body off the bed. His body rose. He held himself a foot or so over the bed. He was heavier than the chair; it was harder to hold himself hovering than the chair had been. The chair was also a solid object, he realized, where holding himself up meant controlling all of him. He lowered himself back down and tugged at the sheet and blanket to straighten them out.
Days passed while he practiced. He moved his body about, within the confines of his bed. He touched his fingers to his face to practice
applying specific amounts of pressure with his fingers to prepare for picking things up, or at least presenting the appropriate appearance of picking things up. He worked on trying to move himself more fluidly and more naturally looking, wishing he had a mirror.
He moved other objects to work on developing fine control. He used the whiteboard markers to write and then used the eraser to erase what he had written. After more practice he made the eraser follow the marker. He could manipulate multiple objects at once although writing with two markers at once was too much for him.
There were days where it seemed he made fantastic progress and days that were harder. Those were the days the court date deadline seemed most looming. Sometimes he changed the nurses’ names on the whiteboard, trying to mimic other people’s handwriting. If he took his time with it he could make pretty good copies. Now and then one of the nurses or other staff would notice it with a confused, “Huh.” Most of the time they simply corrected it with a bewildered shrug. Most of them still ignored him more often than not. Angela in particular treated him as an object rather than a person. As if he were a chore she had to attend to rather than a human being. He tried not to resent her, but he looked forward to leaving more and more.
One night he circled one of the flat expression pain faces during the night shift change. Another time he turned the bin for used linens around. Angela reached with her foot for the pedal to open it, her arms full of bedding and resentment. She snarled when she had to plop the load on top of the hamper to turn it around.
Sometimes he would hear the staff complaining about it in the hall, speculating on who the prankster on the floor was. Unsurprisingly, none of them ever suggested him as the culprit.
When changing time came around, he paid more attention now. Eventually he changed himself telekinetically. That made him feel a lot more human and returned a lot of his dignity. It made letting the orderlies do it for him hard, but it also signaled to him he was ready to live independently now. Now he might be ready to start actually planning his escape. He could do it. Gently and carefully he pulled at his own ribs to take a deep breath. That was even more unreal than watching himself move without feeling it. He worried he would damage something, so he set that idea aside for later.
His days of feeling helpless were over. He still felt trapped and lonely and neglected, and the hospital walls started more and more to resemble prison come early. He wanted more control of his environment, and he wanted more confidence he would be able to handle unexpected obstacles during his escape and afterward. Pulling little pranks more often, needing the sense of control over things to lift the trapped feelings, needing a little misbehaving, lightened his mood.
He worked on moving things he could not see with his eyes, relying on his motion sense. It was not easy practice. He could only detect things that were moving, so he took opportunities when they came. Eventually he sensed an orderly pushing a cart down the hall. He waited until the right moment and steered the cart into an oncoming nurse.
He chuckled at the resulting cursing and apology. His little bits of passive-aggressive misbehaving raised his spirits on the harder days. Maybe he was a dangerous criminal, he supposed. Or maybe he was not.
“I’m just misunderstood,” he assured no one in particular.
In time, he developed a list of what he would need to enact his escape. Shoes and clothes seemed the highest priorities. Diapers and wipes were a need, but he would be able to get those on the outside. He could not effectively escape in a hospital gown. Things he needed for his escape were a higher priority than the things he would need afterwards.
One day the guard outside his door stopped being replaced at night. One was only present during the day. Those first few days the police had kept him cuffed to the bed, and the officer would have to uncuff him for changings or being taken for tests. Somewhere along the line they must have finally become convinced he genuinely was no threat to anyone, that he was not capable of escape.
He would leave at night when there would be no cop sitting or flirting or complaining outside his door. Plus there would be fewer people around at night in general, although that might also mean those who were would draw more attention. If he changed into scrubs or something similar, he should be able to walk around without anyone paying too much attention to him.
Another option was to knock out one of the orderlies and take his clothes. How did he feel about that option though? It seemed like something a bank robber or criminal mastermind would have no qualms about, but just did not feel right to him. While there were enough people on the hospital staff he disliked, it did not seem to him any of them had done anything to warrant being mugged for their clothes. Angela’s would not fit well enough. He set that idea aside, not completely disregarding it, but considered it a last-resort option.
Other patients sometimes paced the halls with their rolling IV stands. As long as no one looked at him too closely they’d be unlikely to recognize him. What was another patient struggling with insomnia stretching his legs? More and more he felt confident he would not be recognized at a quick glance. Plenty of the staff still avoided looking him in the eye. To them he was just some faceless criminal who would eventually be taken away under police escort. To the rest of the staff he was little more than the quadriplegic in 310A. Even when he could hear them talking about him he was just “Three Ten.” Other patients had names. Smith, Wilkerson, Chambers, Adams. He never heard anyone else referred to as a room number.
Of course, anyone seeing him walking out of his room would wonder who he was and put it together. While their expressions would probably be priceless, his chances of walking out uncontested would be gone. He could probably think of some diversions to get nurses to look in specific directions at strategic moments.
It took more long days of practice before the last part of his plan came together, and the trial date was looming. A neighbor arrived in the room next to his. The orderly that brought her into that room assured her clothes and belongings would be in her closet. His room had the same kind of tiny closet for personal effects. His was empty, so he had pretty much ignored it once opening and closing it had become routine enough. Now and then it had led him to wonder what he had been wearing when he had arrived, but now the significance changed.
While his little closet was empty, other patients’ would not be. Another man with a similar build to his had a room three rooms down. He was one of the regular nighttime pacers. His insomnia seemed to be an issue in the evening and early night, rarely too late.
That man should have some clothes in the miniature closet in his room. That would be enough to get him outside. Once he was outside, he would be fine. He would be free. At last, all the pieces to his plan were in place, and they were all within reach. He was ready. Tonight would be the night.
CHAPTER 5 – CARL
Carl scoffed to himself as he strolled into the hospital, shifting the small backpack slung over his left shoulder. Easy money, he thought to himself. He walked through the two sets of double doors, passing an elderly woman with a four-footed cane walking out. He faked a cordial “Ma’am” and a nod as they passed each other. Game face.
“Hi. I’m here to see my wife,” he lied to the heavy-set man at the reception desk. His wife was safe halfway across the country. “She’s up in oncology. Yesterday they said I could come in any time. I brought some clothes for her to change into.” He shifted the little pack again for emphasis although it was by no means heavy. There wasn’t even a gun in it. The hospital had metal detectors after all.
“Of course, I just need you to sign in, Mr...?”
“Juarez.”
His boss gave him a cover name to use, a patient registered in yesterday. Müller seemed to have quite a few people at the hospital working for him. He wondered if the reception man was one of them. It did not matter. He signed the logbook with the false name.
He even called to confirm the woman had not checked out. Müller would not screw him, but that did not guarantee ther
e would be no surprises. Carl believed in being prepared for contingencies. Planning and preparation kept things neat and tidy, which was just the way he liked things. In his line of work, it was the little mistakes that got people caught. No reason to take stupid chances. He had seen often enough the results of that.
The receptionist gave him a blue and white VISITOR sticker and directed him down a hallway to a bank of elevators where a directory of the building showed him where he needed to be. He was too soon, he knew, but that was not a problem. Nobody would question a man coming in the early evening to visit his cancer-stricken wife. He had even watched a woman with a basket walk in not far ahead of him. More people would notice, and more likely remember afterwards, someone walking in at two in the morning. He was confident he angled his approach so the camera by the ambulance entrance did not have a line on his face, but even still he would rather no one could tell who he was. Once they figured out what happened, they would go over footage from half an hour, maybe even an hour beforehand to see who entered the hospital. Now he was far enough outside the window that he would, if nothing else, be just one of many visitors tonight.
An obese woman with thin, badly dyed red hair and three bloated children stepped out of the elevator. He moved aside out of their way before stepping into the elevator after them. The smell of stale sweat loitered. He sighed, just wanting to get it over with.
He picked a nearby waiting room with about a dozen other people and ignored the lone woman at a registration desk; she did not look up. He picked a less-stained green chair where she would be unlikely to see him. Seven other people wiled away their time with varying degrees of patience. No one paid him much attention nor seemed to notice his name never got called. An enormous black man picked his nose with his pinkie. Nice. After a while he got up, stretched, yawned for effect, and headed for the men’s room.
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