Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) (45 page)

Reed flew down the stairs two at a time and raced to the ER. Pushing open both double doors, he was stunned by the chaotic scene. Every available space in the treatment area was crowded with makeshift exam tables for those patients needing immediate care. Gurneys lining the hallways like planes on a runway held the less acute—headaches, fevers, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and minor burns. The staff appeared totally overwhelmed.

“Place was empty an hour ago. What happened?” Reed asked.

“Radio said to stay indoors tonight. Apparently they all decided this is the indoors to be,” Lou answered as he handed Reed several patient charts. “Crushing chest pain, exam room three, pulmonary edema with cyanosis in five, and the ‘impending apocalypse’ in one.Take your pick. The interns and residents are bombed tonight.” He gestured at the doors leading to the waiting area. “We’re even calling in derm.”

Reed peeked through the glass windows, aghast. Every seat in the waiting room was taken. The overflow sat on the floor or lined up against the walls.

An agonized scream erupted from exam room one, followed by a high-pitched shout, “The end is nigh, the reckoning has begun. It is the end of the world. Tonight everything changes.”

Reed raised an eyebrow. “Y2K?”

Lou rolled his eyes. “Our seventh tonight. This is worse than the fires. Plus we have all the transfers from Orange County coming through.”

Reed quickly eyeballed the woman who hurled a few predictions of doom his way, scribbled a note onto her chart and tossed it at Lou. “Call Psychiatry STAT and tell them to bring Haldol. Get room five started on IV Lasix and O
₂
mask. Titrate to pulse ox at least ninety-two percent,” he told one of the nurses, “I’ll be in room three.” Reed set off double-time toward the patient with a likely heart attack.

Twenty minutes later, Bishop was back on the phone with Julia. This time she’d called him. Her voice was decidedly agitated.

“You were right. The tower collapse was no accident.”

As if he were reliving an old nightmare, Bishop felt his neck muscles tighten and his head begin to ache. “How do you know?”

“When you told me Neil was missing, I tried his cell. He took the call, probably because he saw it was me on his caller ID. Said he thought I was going out for New Year’s so he hadn’t wanted to bother me, but that you’d just discharged him to some private rehab facility miles away from the fires. Told me he was shutting off his phone to get some rest, and he’d call in the morning. He hung up before I could get a word in edgewise.”

Her shrill laugh was full of resentment. “Over the years, I’ve been fed so many of Neil’s cock-and-bull stories that I guess he just figured I’d swallow this one too. You know, I’ve always respected his privacy, but I thought about our conversation last night, Frank, and I couldn’t let it go this time. So I walked into Neil’s office and broke into his desk.”

For an instant, Julia paused to take a breath and Bishop thought he sensed relief in her silence, as though she’d needed to complete her confession before she changed her mind. Then she plunged on. “I actually picked the lock on the file drawer with a hairpin. Like in a spy novel,” she laughed again. “Routine paperwork mostly, but, at the back, I did find a report to his Armed Services Committee labeled Weapons Systems, Experimental, Desert Storm.”

Now it was Bishop who held his breath.

“A few pages describe a new weapon being tested that could bring down buildings. I don’t understand all the technical jargon, but it seems as if the weapon makes structures shake until they collapse. Apparently, there’ve been a couple of trials in Basra, Iraq in the spring of ninety-one.”

“Did this weapon have a name?” Bishop asked, afraid to hear the words he already knew.

“Yes,” Julia said. “Frequency Resonance Enhancement Device. They called it a resonator, according to the signer of the report—let’s see, an Albert Miller of the DOD, Department of Defense.”

Miller. Bishop’s head throbbed with the memory of the man who’d always been close by when desert winds blew down buildings and innocents died in Kuwait and Iraq seven years ago. The same man who’d lurked in the shadows, pulling strings when Bishop’s career began its spiral toward collapse. Especially after Bishop had tried to decipher one young soldier’s whispered warning: resonator . . . murder.

Was Miller the man Reed had heard outside Prescott’s room that night, talking about an Operation Y2K? Was that why Prescott seemed so anxious to leave the hospital? Worried he’d be at risk if he’d stayed? Bishop felt a shiver down his spine.

“Frank? Are you there?”

“I’m still here,” he said. “Listen, Julia, if Neil calls, promise you won’t let him know we’ve talked. Certainly not about this.”

“I’m not about to let him know, Frank.” She lowered her voice. “What do you think could be going on?”

Bishop saw no point in alarming her further. “Nothing, I hope. But just in case, there’s a fire shelter in Seal Beach. With Newport in flames, you might be safer spending the night there. And keep your cell phone. I’ll call you if I have any news. Happy New Year.”

No point in telling her that if Miller was planning something for Y2K, no one was safe.

You’re kidding!” Pappajohn sat up in his hospital bed, nearly pulling the corded hospital phone off the end table and waking Jeffrey. “I owe you big time.”

“What? Sammy asked when he’d hung up.

“Keith was kicking himself for not thinking of it first,” Pappajohn began, “but when I mentioned GPS, he did some DARPA sniffing.”

“DARPA?”

“Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its mission is to protect national security and maintain our military’s technical superiority.”

“Did Keith get answers?”

“Those numbers,” Pappajohn pointed to the text message, “are GPS coordinates.”

“So you were right.”

“That’s the good news, Sammy.” A troubled look settled on Pappajohn’s face.

“Should I ask for the bad news?”

“The numbers are longitude and latitude coordinates for the Schwarzenegger Hospital. Whatever Operation Y2K is, it’s apparently going down right here.”

Sammy’s eyes widened. “January first? That’s tomorrow.”

“Y2K could mean tomorrow, or even tonight.”

“Can I see that message again?” Jeffrey asked.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Sammy said.

“I was thinking with my eyes closed. Let me see those last numbers.”

Sammy handed her father the paper.

“31, 12, 99, 23, 59.”

“We thought it might be a telephone number or a safe combination,” Sammy told him.

“No, it’s a date. It’s the way they do it in Europe. Trina always used that system.”

Pappajohn put a hand to his head. “Of course! It’s the same in Greece.” He frowned. “If that’s a date, then the last two numbers: twenty-three and fifty-nine could represent military time.” He looked at Jeffrey and Sammy with alarm. “Something called Operation Y2K is going to take place here tonight at one minute to midnight.”

“How about a little early celebrating?” Ana asked, walking into the hospital room holding up a bottle of sparkling cider. “I didn’t think the doctors would allow champagne, but—” Looking from Sammy to Jeffrey to her father, she stopped mid-sentence. “What’s wrong?”

Before Pappajohn could respond, the floor nurse marched in with a frown and a fax. “Tell your friend—” she checked the cover sheet, “Keith McKay, that with Y2K just a few hours away, we can’t be jamming up the hospital phone lines sending pictures.” She handed it to Pappajohn, disappearing out the door before he could thank her.

Sammy and Ana both moved to stand over Pappajohn’s shoulder while he read Keith’s scribbled note on the front sheet out loud. “Call when you receive. Fahim al-Harbi on government watch list. Alleged arms dealer. Entered U.S. on international flight from Dubai to D.C. December twenty first. Now under the radar. Could be in L.A.” Pappajohn pulled out the second sheet to reveal a hazy black-and-white scanned image of a middle-aged Middle Eastern-looking man.

“That’s him!” Ana cried, grabbing the picture with shaking hands. “Sylvie’s john. At the party. The night she died!”

“Midnight, tonight,” Pappajohn warned Bishop, after the cardiologist returned to the hospital room. “Whatever Operation Y2K is, it happens right here in less than three hours. That’s why I paged you. Figured you’d be the one to connect us with the hospital security team. I’ve just talked with my friend Keith McKay in Boston who alerted the feds.” Pappajohn held up Fahim’s picture, “Name’s Fahim al-Harbi. He’s a known arms dealer and he’s on their watch list. And he may be in L.A.”

“You don’t think he’d come after me and Teddy, do you, Baba?” Ana asked, her voice trembling.

“Unlikely,” Pappajohn said, offering his daughter a reassuring glance, “but we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Al-Harbi may be involved somehow in this Operation Y2K.” He exhaled a deep breath. “Especially with Prescott so desperate to get out of here before tonight.”

Bishop pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call in Security Chief Eccles. Your worst case?”

Pappajohn shrugged. “Arms dealers have open access to weapons—guns, explosives. It’s possible al-Harbi or one of his buyers might set up an active shooter scenario, and invade the hospital. Or plant some type of incendiary device.”

“You mean a bomb?” Ana’s eyes widened with fear. “Could that bring down this whole building?”

“Of course not.” Sammy shook her head. “Reed told me Schwarzenegger’s built like a fortress, right?”

She’d directed her question to Bishop, whose neutral expression had slowly morphed into a mask of horror. “God damn. Miller. This is his doing.”

Pappajohn arched an eyebrow. “You know who Miller is?”

“Albert Miller,” Bishop said. “Met him in Kuwait during Desert Storm. He was developing and testing a new weapon for the U.S. Army. I thought the project had been abandoned after—” He bit his cheek and winced as if self-induced pain would somehow overcome the pain of this revelation, “after the early trials resulted in terrible accidents.”

Sammy verbalized the “But?”

“But now I have a bad feeling that he’s continued the trials and,” Bishop cleared his throat, “and maybe already tested this weapon right here in L.A.”

“Ghamo to,” Pappajohn muttered. “What kind of weapon?”

Bishop speed-dialed the security chief’s number before responding, “One that brings down buildings. A resonator. Makes them shake and sway until they collapse.”

This time they used the speakerphone on Sammy’s cell to conference Keith. Though his questions were matter-of-fact and analytic, Keith’s growing concern was clear from the tightness in his voice. “So based on what you’ve told me, Dr. Bishop, the Canyon City tower collapse may have been a trial run of this resonator?”

“Yes, but I honestly have no idea how it works and I doubt it could bring down our hospital. This facility was built with every modern specification and then some—hermetically sealed, bioterror-resistant fire doors, lead shielding, steel foundation, core struts. They even took steps to ensure it’d be able to withstand a nine Richter scale earthquake—a force a thousand times more intense than the ninety-four Northridge quake.”

“Base isolation system? Active seismic control?” Jeffrey interruped.

“Of course,” Bishop said. “They put in a base isolation system above the foundation, right below the ICCC in the basement. And a seismic-control system on the hospital’s top floor. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think I know how that resonator weapon might work.”

Sammy turned to her father. “You said you had nothing to do with the tower collapse.”

“I didn’t. But after you made your accusations, I had my engineers do an architectural autopsy, to see if we could determine exactly what happened. Unfortunately, most of the computer records of the seismic-control system sensors were destroyed when the Canyon City tower came down. They don’t have absolute proof, but they suspect that somehow the seismic-control system was disabled or reprogrammed. Instead of the base keeping the building from shaking in those heavy winds by dampening the sway forces, the control system actually seemed to intensify them.”

He appealed to Sammy. “I’m not proud of the fact that I never questioned my good luck when the hotel in Newport came down. Prescott reassured me it was just an accident—especially after the DA’s investigation was dropped. But the tower collapse made me sit up and take notice. Along with a little nudging from you.”

Keith’s voice over the speaker interrupted. “Theoretically, with the right instructions a control system could amplify ground forces from a sizeable earthquake or really heavy winds. Making them strong enough to collapse a building. Your engineers are right, though. You’d have to either program the system to do that or plant some kind of worm in its software.”

“We’ve still got that devil wind tonight,” Pappajohn said, “but nothing like the day of the tower collapse. Suppose this guy al-Harbi planted some kind of—” again he looked to Ana who seemed frozen with fear, “device like a bomb. Could that be strong enough to produce the forces you’re talking about? “

“Yes, I think so.”

Pappajohn jumped out of bed and headed for the closet where his clothes were hung. “You better call in the FBI.”

“Where are you going?” Sammy asked.

“To the ICCC with Dr. Bishop.” Pappajohn put up a hand to stop any protest from Bishop. “Until the feds arrive, Keith and I can give your security team a technical hand.” Pappajohn grabbed the phone. “Keith, can you stand by? I may need you to walk me through some details.”

“It’s past midnight here and so far our own Y2K preps have worked well. It’s pretty quiet. I’ll keep my phone line open.”

Pappajohn turned to Sammy. “Call De’andray and have him put out an APB on Prescott. Find the congressman and we might be able to nail this Miller. Tell Dee to get an LAPD team over here as soon as he can, bomb squad, too, but not to send out a general radio alert. If potential terrorists are monitoring the police bands, we don’t want them speeding up their schedule or doing anything rash.”