Читать книгу Code Name: Dove - Judith Leon - Страница 14

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, Joe rammed open the double doors. The fourth-floor corridor was empty: no terrorist, no civilians. Logic argued that his new partner had drawn the full house and was this instant on the hot trail.

Still, there must be exits leading outside that had to be checked. And sure enough, three-quarters of the way to the hallway end he found a stairwell and an elevator—coming up. He sucked in his breath, flattened against the wall, slammed the stairwell door open. Nothing in sight. No sounds. He pounded his fist against the wall.

He swiveled to backtrack and Jacobson crashed into him. Stabilizing the Fairbanks’ detective, Joe muttered, “Bastard went out the other wing.”

Still furious he’d been dealt a busted flush, he sprinted to where he and his new partner had split up, Jacobson lumbering behind him. At the other wing’s stairwell they galloped down, two and three steps at a time. Agent Nova Blair lay stretched flat on her back on the ground-floor corridor, those big eyes closed. As he’d feared, no sign of a terrorist.

Three panicked civilians and Duncan, the Alyeska man from pipeline security, clustered around her. God, she looked so fragile. A halo of red blood framed a fan of black hair spread over ivory linoleum.

Duncan looked up at Joe from a kneeling position beside her with frightened eyes. He said, “Stivsky’s gone after him.”

“Blair…?” Joe snapped. The rest of his question stuck in his suddenly dry throat.

Duncan read his mind. “Just unconscious.”

Relief muddled with fear and anger. Joe felt his jaw muscles tightening. He was going to be taking orders from a part-time agent. Whatever her talent might be, it wasn’t capturing terrorists.

Duncan could take care of Nova Blair. Joe waved for Jacobson to follow. Together they bolted toward the exit.

Outside, two hospital security men ran with guns drawn through what was now a light rain toward a part of the parking area hidden behind the hospital wing’s shoulder. A burst of gunfire erupted from the same direction. With Jacobson at his heels, Joe dashed after the guards. He skidded around the corner, heard another triple burst of fire.

A couple hundred feet away, the FBI man, Stivsky, gun drawn, squatted behind a yellow school bus, peeking around its fender. Stivsky waved to the guards, indicating they should flank the target left and right. The terrorist fired again, another triple round. Joe took off to the left, Jacobson close behind him.

Stivsky shouted, “Keep him pinned down. I radioed for backup. I located him behind the big blue van.”

Cardone and Jacobson found cover at opposite ends of a black Cadillac. The lieutenant gave him a look of amazement. “Shit, man,” he muttered, “you’ve got no weapon.”

“Afraid not. But our friend doesn’t know it. I can still draw fire. Let’s get closer.”

Jacobson nodded. Together they raced another fifty feet fast and low. A quick burst from the terrorist’s automatic riddled the air. A bright green Plymouth provided cover. Joe clenched his teeth, wryly cursing his misfortune that IBM reps weren’t required by law to travel armed.

He figured that by ducking and dodging in a 180-degree loop, he and Jacobson could get behind the mark. But why had the SOB stopped running? Stivsky had it right; he was holed up behind a big blue van. Where was his transportation or his pickup man?

With Jacobson, Joe moved again. When they’d circled ninety degrees and only five cars separated them from the terrorist, Joe spotted the tops of heads and the gun hands of three men in plainclothes sticking out from behind an unmarked car.

They were local police. Maybe FBI. Whoever. The SOB hadn’t fled because their car blocked the exit. Joe whipped out his ID folder, flopped it open. The fine, cold drizzle pearled drops on the plastic cover. Peeking over the Plymouth’s fender, he aimed the folder in the direction of the three plainclothes men, waved it in the air. “Police,” he bellowed.

The assassin let loose another triple burst. A bullet zinged past Joe’s left ear just as he turtled his head behind the fender. The dampness on his brow wasn’t just rain; his underarms were hot and wet. He bellowed again, in the direction of the plainclothes types who’d squatted out of sight. “He’s one of the terrorists. Keep him pinned down.”

The terrorist fired off a single round. Stivsky yelled, slowly and in clear words, “This is the FBI. You cannot get away. Throw out your weapon, raise your hands and walk out so we can see you.”

Silence.

“I don’t like it,” Joe muttered. “Let’s try drawing fire again.”

Jacobson nodded.

They rose and scuttled two cars closer to the bull’s-eye of their deadly little circle.

Joe put his head against the ground, scanned under the blue van and found what he was expecting. The man was sprawled flat on the ground. It might be a trick. He sorely doubted it.

Stivsky gave the order and they all rushed the van. With Stivsky’s gun trained on the prone man, Joe felt for a pulse at the base of the man’s neck. The guy was dead. But no bullet wound anywhere. The autopsy would probably find cyanide or some other quick way out. So much for an interrogation. The FBI lab boys could get information out of him in other ways. If he had a record. If the organization he belonged to wasn’t all that professional. All in all, however, not a good day for the good guys.

A dark silence was receding; sound was filtering back to Nova. She trembled with terror. Please, don’t hurt me. Her eyes pinched tight to blot out the hated face, she struggled to pull into a fetal position. She should protect her stomach. Her stepfather, Candido, was very likely to kick again. The effort brought a wave of nausea.

“You probably shouldn’t move.”

That wasn’t right. The voice—a man’s—was soft like Candido Branco’s but it was full of concern, not lust, not anger. She felt, instead, her father’s presence. The man who had loved her, whom she had adored and who had died so unfairly. Way too soon, and in a stupid, meaningless accident.

Nova forced her eyes open. Saw pale yellow walls. But not her father. She saw the face of the Alyeska man.

A great sadness of loss tightened her chest—through the years that crushing weight had caught her many times and she was always unprepared for it. She would never stop missing her father.

And then suddenly relief washed over her in a warm flood. The terror wasn’t real. Childhood fears could be pushed again to the depth of her mind.

She sat up and the Alyeska—what was his name? Yes, Duncan—scooted so he could support her back.

“Do you feel dizzy?” a male attendant in white asked her.

Her struggle with the assailant flashed in front of her in all its violence. God in heaven, she’d blown it! She looked at Duncan. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“The assassin!”

“He ran out that way.” Duncan pointed down the hall to her right. “Stivsky and Jacobson and your partner went after him.”

The throbbing at the back of her head was growing hard to ignore. She put her hand to it. Mistake. Her palm came away covered with blood. Her skin crawled.

The attendant put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You should sit a bit longer. Are you sure you don’t feel dizzy? Someone’s getting a nurse and a wheelchair.”

Sitting like a slaughtered lamb with an audience to observe her humiliation was unbearable. She put her bloodied hand to the floor, pulled her legs under her till she was on all fours and, feeling like a defeated prize-fighter, began to rise. The attendant and Duncan rushed to take an arm each. A wave of dizziness left her swaying.

She clenched her fists. The dizziness receded, but the pain in her psyche did not. God help her, she’d blown it. The others simply had to catch the assassin. She’d still have to face her failure, but at least the Company would have a critical lead. The worst thing she could imagine now was that the assassin had killed both witnesses and then escaped.

Maybe I was overconfident. Maybe afraid. Her psyche took another blow. It was true. There at that critical moment, fear had ruined her concentration. But the man had been so strangely, weirdly strong.

A woman handed her a white towel. “For your head,” she said. Nova put the towel to the throbbing spot, then checked for damage. There had to be blood all over the back of her head, and a generous smear of bright red indicated she was still bleeding. A nurse arrived, pushing a wheelchair. “Let me take a look at that,” she said in a cheery voice as she took the towel from Nova’s hand. “Mmm. We’re going to need stitches. Come along, sit down, and I’ll take you to the emergency room.”

“First I need to check what’s happened upstairs.” Nova pressed the elevator button.

The nurse frowned. “You need to come to the ER with me. A doctor must check you out. You can’t just start wandering around.”

The lady in white was missing the point. “I’m still on the job. First I have to check upstairs. Duncan, you explain to her.”

Most of her spectators had wandered off. Only the male attendant, Duncan and the nurse stood gaping at her as though she were a sideshow freak. Mercifully, anger finally kicked in and pushed out her anguish. No use lamenting what she couldn’t change.

What she could hope was that he’d failed. And hopefully she’d find the witnesses still alive.

At the fifth-floor nurses’ station, a rain-drenched Joe was handed a towel by three nurses who informed him that both the terrorist and pipeline employee were dead, as were the two guards, that the desk nurse had merely been knocked unconscious, that the candy striper would probably never recover from what she’d seen, and that his partner was having her head stapled by Dr. Graywing in the third room down the hall, on his left.

He thanked them, gave them a warm smile, then headed down the hall.

When he knocked on the door, Graywing called, “Come in.”

Nova Blair sat on an examining table, her back to the door and her head tilted slightly down so the long hair draped her face. Dr. Graywing was daubing the back of Blair’s head with gauze.

At the sight of the wound, his anger rekindled. He was angry that by bad fortune Nova Blair had been the one to pursue the assassin. “Legendary,” his phone contact had said. Legendary for what? He moved to the other side of the room so he could see their faces.

“The assassin’s dead,” he said. “Suicide capsule I’d guess.”

His partner didn’t say anything.

Graywing shook her head and said, “Ghastly.”

“How’s your head?” he said to Blair.

Without moving she said, “It’s nothing.”

Graywing clucked. “Not so. It is a deep, two-inch long scalp wound. She insists she won’t remain here for observation, but I’ve told her for the next twenty-four hours she must look out for signs of concussion. Drowsiness or nausea.”

“How’d it happen?”

Blair shrugged. “I took the elevator and managed to beat him to the first floor, but I couldn’t hold him.” She spoke softly, her answer dragging like a whipped dog. Very unlike the confident woman he’d met a couple of hours ago.

“I suppose he just barged right past you?”

Nova Blair raised her chin slowly. She straightened her shoulders and her hair fell back from her face. “There was a bit more to it than that.” Her eyes had taken on a glacial, emerald chill.

He stuck his hands into his soggy suit pockets. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that quite like it sounded.”

“Yes, you did. Exactly like it sounded.” She lowered her head again and Graywing clamped another staple. A sickening sound. He was glad he couldn’t see what the doctor was doing. His partner said, almost as if to herself, “There was something bizarre about him. I’ve never felt that kind of strength in any man.”

A loud silence followed, as if the room was holding its breath. Agent Blair finally broke it. “You were telling us, Dr. Graywing, before we heard the screams, that there were three things Wiley said. First, that the terrorists had gas masks. Second, that Wiley smelled burning coffee. We’d like to hear the third. Agent Cardone, you’ll find my recorder inside my purse, on top. What was the third thing, Dr. Graywing?”

The doctor let her gloved hands hover in the air a moment, obviously thinking, while Joe found and started the recorder. After a brief pause the doctor plunged ahead, stapling as she talked. “It was the oddest part. I regret very much he can’t tell you himself, because I’m not absolutely sure I remember exactly how he put it.”

Joe said, “Do your best.”

“Well, Wiley said when he was a kid he loved dinosaurs. He’d memorized most of their names. He said he swore that when the man in the gas mask ran past his door he yelled out the name of a dinosaur. Terratornis. You’re stapled,” she finally said.

Nova raised her head, twisted around and the look of puzzlement on her face matched his own feelings perfectly. “A dinosaur name?” she repeated.

“That’s what Wiley said. He said he thought Terratornis was a kind of dinosaur, and he was sure that was what the man yelled out.”

“Well, it’s as good a lead as we’ve got,” Blair said. She stood and faced him with a new confidence in her eyes and said, “Let’s see what headquarters has to say about all this.”