(1995) By Any Name (8 page)

‘Here.’ He pressed the cold muzzle of the gun against her temple.

‘What did you do to with last one?’ her anger at her humiliation momentarily transcended her fear.

‘I left her – unhurt – in an office on the floor below. Take off your tights?’

‘No.’

‘Take them off,’ he repeated savagely.

Paralyzed by fear she hesitated.

‘Get them off – now.’

She pulled them down.

‘Get dressed.’

She stared at him numbly.

‘Put on your sweater and skirt.’

She didn’t need to be ordered a third time.

‘Now get in the wheelchair.’

‘It’s you who’s hurt not me.’

‘Into the chair.’ He prodded her temple with the barrel of the gun. She fell on to the seat.

‘You won’t be able to get out of the hospital.’ She realized that empty as her life was, she desperately wanted to live.

She heard the discordant tearing of fabric. West lashed her wrists to the arms of the wheelchair and bound her ankles against the steel frame at an awkward angle. He concealed the bonds with a blanket that had been folded on the seat. The fibres bit cruelly into her flesh when she tried to move.

John slipped on her doctor’s coat. Moving behind her, he rested the hand that held the gun on the back of the chair. She could feel the muzzle cold against her neck when he manoeuvred the chair to the door.

‘One sound and you’ll be dead, and whoever else is around. I can take eleven with me.’

His voice was soft, controlled and she believed every word. ‘Just tell me one thing. Did you lose your memory?’

He didn’t answer her. Reaching across with his free hand he opened the door, and pushed the wheelchair through it.

Despite her fear, she remembered something her husband had once said.

“If you have no control over a situation, the only thing to do is sit back and allow events to take their course. The outcome will be the same, whether you worry or not.”

But then a fireman would say that. It took courage and blind faith in your strength and ability to survive, to walk into a burning building, and that same faith had killed Joseph. He must have known that the roof of the burning house was unstable, but he’d also known there were children inside. And Joseph would never ask one of his men to go anywhere he wouldn’t go himself.

Joseph had suffered the worst that could happen, maybe now it was her turn. But would death be so terrible if Joseph were waiting for her? And if he wasn’t, there’d only be nothingness. A nothingness that suddenly petrified her.

The corridor was deserted. She could hear the television droning in the canteen and wondered if there was an audience to hear it.

West hesitated and the pressure of the muzzle against her neck increased slightly.

‘Lifts either end of the building with stairwells running alongside?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but the ones behind us are out of order.’ She wished she could stop shaking.

He pushed her towards the stairwell ahead of them.

One of the wheels on the chair continued to squeal like a kitten in pain. Elizabeth saw their reflection mirrored in the windowpanes. West was turning his head from side to side, constantly monitoring the corridor. She wished she could read his thoughts.

West knew that if Elizabeth had alerted the army or the police they would have set an ambush. He didn’t know how the police would react, but he knew army methods. Doors would be slightly ajar in the corridor and behind them would be men armed with guns, gas canisters and stun mechanisms ready to move in on him the second the signal was given. The ambush would take place in an area which a lone man with a gun couldn’t cover. Somewhere like a stairwell.

He reached the lift but walked past it. If he used it, he’d be trapped and immobilised the instant they cut off the electricity and dropped a gas canister down the shaft.

He reached the end of the corridor and noticed a shadow lurking in the stairwell. He hauled the chair back.

‘They’re covering the stairs,’ he hissed.

‘I warned you that you’d never get out of here. The hospital is being searched.’

He looked at the glass door, and realised he had no choice. If he was going to reach the ground floor, he’d have to face the army at some point. He put his back to the door, opened it and dragged Elizabeth and the wheelchair through behind him. There was no sign of the shadowy figure he’d spotted and he assumed the man was patrolling further down the staircase.

‘If you intend to take me down the stairs, I’m going to have to get out of this wheelchair.’ Elizabeth managed to keep her voice steady. Apart from the gun barrel caressing her neck, West ignored her. He stood with his back to the wall, his eyes ranging wide as they focused first on the stairwell, then on the corridor behind them.

Suddenly he lurched forward. Elizabeth braced herself against the sickening, bone-crunching jolts as he bumped the wheelchair downwards. A figure appeared below them, and West fired without hesitation. A gasp was followed by the crash of a door slamming back on its hinges.

‘I have a hostage,’ West shouted. He gripped a handful of Elizabeth’s hair and yanked hard. If he’d hoped to elicit a scream, he was disappointed; all she could manage was a choking sob. ‘The next shot goes into her head.’

A disembodied voice floated up the stairwell.

‘How do we know the hostage is still alive?’

‘Tell them you’re all right,’ West ordered.

‘I’m all right.’ Mechanically, Elizabeth repeated his exact words.

‘Dr Santer? Is that you?’

Elizabeth recognized Major Simmond’s voice. ‘He has a gun… ’

‘Try to keep calm. We’ll soon resolve this situation.’

‘Only if you let me take her down to the ground floor,’ West qualified. ‘Back off. If as much as a shadow crosses my path I’ll kill Dr Santer. You have thirty seconds to clear this stairwell.’

‘We need more time… ’

‘You don’t have it.’ West twisted his thumb into the soft flesh at the base of Elizabeth’s neck. A shaft of pain shot through her spine and she screamed.

‘Everyone back! Clear the stairwell!’ was repeatedly echoed below them. West knew that all the exits on the ground floor would be heavily guarded but all he could think about was negotiating his way down. He proceeded slowly one step at a time, studying every inch of ground he’d have to cross before he came to it.

Elizabeth gripped the wheelchair’s arms with her fingers, barely aware of the pain in her wrists and ankles. Closing her eyes, she concentrated with all her might on an image of Joseph, alive, and smiling. If only he could be there, waiting for her when they reached the ground floor. She conjured an image of his mouth curved into a smile, remembered the laughter lines at the corners of his green eyes…

The steel muzzle knocked against her skull bringing her sharply back to the present.

She opened her eyes. They had reached the bottom. The grey afternoon light had been superseded by murky black night, transforming the windows into misty wavering mirrors. They faced a plaster wall. A red arrow pointed to the basement. Alongside were painted the words SERVICES and MORTUARY.

West nudged the wheelchair against the door, and yelled, ‘Fall back.’

Muffled footsteps scuttled away.

He hit Elizabeth lightly with the gun. ‘Which is the quickest way to the outside?’

‘Straight ahead, then first right.’

‘If you’re lying… ’

‘You’ll shoot me?’ She hoped she sounded braver than she felt. ‘I can only die once.’

‘It’s not death but the way you die that matters. I could leave you a brain damaged, dribbling, incontinent wreck.’ He pushed the wheelchair out into the ground-floor corridor. ‘Cross my path and she’s dead.’ He raised his hand so the Browning could be seen.

Someone ahead shouted, ‘Fall back!’

They moved on and Elizabeth read the names on the doors and the signs on the wall, as though she were seeing them for the first time; PATHOLOGY, X-RAY, ORTHOPAEDIC CLINIC. She looked down and saw the lines on the floor; blue for X-ray, red for pathology, yellow for… What was yellow for?

Another sign, TREATMENT ROOM. West halted and kicked in the door without warning. ‘Move out.

Now!’

A soldier in fatigues emerged. He lifted his gun above his head.

‘Drop it,’ West ordered.

He complied and West shot him. The man crumpled to the floor, clutching his knee. West opened the door with his back, kicked the soldier’s gun inside, and heaved the wheelchair in behind him.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, and wished the nightmare would end.

She heard West breathing heavily behind her.

Directly in front of them was a treatment cubicle containing a couch and a trolley set out with swabs, scissors and the familiar paraphernalia of casualty.

She recognized the grating of bolts being thrust down into the floor when West secured the door. The pressure of the gun on her forehead eased as he leaned forward and picked up a scalpel from the tray.

‘I’d rather you killed me with the gun.’

The razor-sharp metal slashed downwards. He freed her from the wheelchair. But when she tried to rise, he pushed her down before gathering up bandages and plaster from the tray.

‘No! In God’s name no!’ It was the last sound she made. Her eyes widened in terror as he wound a bandage tightly around her head and between her lips.

He forced her teeth apart and the material rasped against her tongue, its antiseptic taste fouling her mouth.

He fixed the bandage in place with a plaster, before covering her with a suffocating blanket that blotted everything from view. Wrenching her unceremoniously to her feet, he hauled her hands high behind her back and secured them with strips of plaster that cut into her flesh. The last thought to cross her mind, before a sudden painful pressure on her neck thrust her into unconsciousness, was that she had been left with no more dignity than a chicken trussed for market.

West switched off the light and moved to the window.

He pushed Elizabeth ahead of him, using her limp body as a shield. He knew the darkness wouldn’t affect his stalkers. The men outside would be wearing infra-red sights and lenses that would highlight him and Elizabeth. He pulled the bolts on the door and pushed her ahead of him into the corridor. With his back to the wall, still using Elizabeth as a shield, he inched forward, following the exit signs, until he came to an arrow pointing downwards marked BASEMENT.

Beyond it lay another stairwell – and possibly a door to the outside? Time to take a chance; there’d never be a better moment. He wrenched a fire extinguisher from the wall and hurled it against a window pane. The air was filled with the sound of splintering glass. Clutching Elizabeth’s blanket swathed body in front of his own, he threw himself and his hostage through what remained of the window.

He landed on his back in a flower-bed, Elizabeth on top of him, his outstretched hand still closed firmly around the Browning. He took a deep breath. He’d done it. He’d managed to get outside the building, and he still had his hostage and a weapon.

A tinny voice, echoed from a loudspeaker. ‘You are surrounded. I repeat, you are surrounded. You cannot escape. Release Dr Santer and surrender. I repeat, you are surrounded… ’

West grabbed the blanket he’d wrapped around Elizabeth’s head and hauled her upright. She sagged limply in his arms. He threw her over his shoulder and dived back into the shadows at the side of the hospital.

Knowing they expected him to strike out through the gardens West remained close to the building. He spotted a door set below ground level. A flight of steps led down to it. It proved pathetically easy to open. Its lock had obviously been forced at some time and ill-repaired. All he had to do was prise out the new wood that had been hammered into the frame using the scalpel he’d pushed into the pocket of his torn tracksuit. Replacing the piece of wood around the lock, he closed the door softly behind them. He stole down a flight of stairs, heading for what he hoped would be the mortuary. What better hiding place than amongst corpses.

He reached another locked door and pulled out the scalpel again. He discovered that he knew as much about picking locks as he did about firing guns. It wasn’t difficult to turn the tumblers with a narrow, sharp instrument with a curved end. After opening each door, he relocked them from the inside, stooping low to push the bolts into the floor. For the first time since the corpse of the sergeant had been pushed into his hospital room, he began to relax.

He removed the blanket from Elizabeth’s head, laid it on the floor then placed her on top of it. He was operating in pitch darkness, but didn’t dare switch on a light. He hadn’t noticed surveillance cameras in any of the rooms in the hospital, only in the corridors, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

Sliding to the floor he placed one hand on Elizabeth’s neck to check her pulse. She was alive, but the rhythm of her breathing told him she remained unconscious. His eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he looked around for a gleam of glass that might indicate a window. Not that he expected to find any in a basement mortuary. Reassured that there was no way for anyone wearing infra-red glasses to see in, he tried to forget the pains in his ankle and head and plan his next move.

The hunt for him would have probably moved on by now, out of the hospital building and into the grounds. They’d keep up the search all night, but by morning people would be growing tired, shifts would change, and the passing of hours without a single sighting of him would bring a slackening of vigilance.

If he were lucky they might assume that he’d slipped through the cordon. He doubted they’d expect him to return to the hospital, but if they checked all the doors again, they’d find the one he had broken through.

Would they assume the damage was old damage as he wanted them to?

All he could do was sit it out. That was the hardest.

It had always been the hardest; the sitting and waiting.

Why did he recall that? Had he endured similar situations in the past life he could no longer remember?

He didn’t allow himself to sleep. He discovered that was also something he could do without. Instead he slipped into a still, almost meditative state, listening to Elizabeth’s low, steady breathing. When she tried to cough he finally loosened the gag around her mouth.