Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) (47 page)

The young officer nodded. “Third double shift in two weeks. Man, I’ll be glad when midnight strikes and all the Y2K nonsense is over.” He waved his flashlight haphazardly around the fake utility equipment while Miller held his breath. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff people predicted would happen.”

“Don’t I know,” Miller laughed, moving to block the view deep inside the van.

A moment later, the policeman had completed his cursory survey. “Thanks for your cooperation,” he said, pocketing his flashlight, “Gotta finish my rounds.”

Miller waved him off and was about to reenter the van when he heard his alias. “John?”

“Yes?” His heartbeat quickened as he slowly turned to face the policeman.

“Good luck tonight.”

This time Miller’s smile was genuine. “Yeah, thanks.”

Within a few minutes, Reed had activated the medical disaster response protocol and was coordinating assignments from the nurses’ station in the ER. With Pappajohn and De’andray listening, he’d explained that the computer systems were all acting up and that the hospital administration felt an immediate evacuation to be the safest approach. While some of the team appeared skeptical, most accepted the situation—perhaps because the expectations of Y2K computer failures causing trouble were so high already.

“We’ve halted all nonemergent medical services and started evacuating patients to the holding area in the open parking lot beyond the building.” Reed shouted over the blaring intercom announcement, “Dr. Firestone, Dr. Firestone, code red in the ER.”

“How many patients still in house tonight?” the on-duty nursing supervisor asked.

Reed looked to Lou, whose tracking of the daily census was legendary. It was how the clerk managed to jockey patients from the ER to hospital beds so efficiently. “Lucky for us we had lots of pre-New Year’s discharges, but we’re still pretty full,” Lou responded. “As of ten p.m., there were three hundred twenty-two patients on eight floors. And that’s not counting friends and family since we extended holiday visiting hours.”

“It’ll take hours to get them all out if the elevators are down,” the derm resident said.

Reed forced himself to appear calm, aware they might not have hours. “We’ll have to do the best we can. I need everybody to help the response team if we’re going to have a chance to make it. Housestaff,” he ordered, nodding at the scrub-clad interns and residents, “you’re assigned to back up the evac team for ICU and CCU.”

“Just finished the last surgery an hour ago,” a surgical nurse told Reed. “We can shut down all the surgi-suites.”

“What about Peds?” interrupted a charge nurse. “We’ll need help moving babies from NICU and children from the floors.”

Pappajohn stepped forward. “I’ll lead that group,” he said through a loud wheeze.

“No,” Reed said. “You can’t climb seven flights of stairs. You’ll go into full-blown respiratory failure.”

De’andray volunteered. “I’ll go get your daughter and grandson, Gus. You stay here and help my sergeants direct patients outside.”

Pappajohn reluctantly agreed.

“Thanks, officer. I’ll prepare the acute ER patients for transfer,” Reed continued to the group. “The rest of you divide into teams of two, each taking a floor. Grab a flashlight before you leave. Start spreading the word to evacuate. But please, try to stay calm. We want to avoid a panic.”

Lou muttered, hugging away his own shiver. “Especially among ourselves.”

When the hospital lights went out, Fahim, al-Salid and his two men were already sequestered in the elevator maintenance room on level B2 in the midst of their evening prayers. For Fahim, it had become a ritual he did by rote because of peer pressure, not with the kind of dutiful allegiance to their faith these three shared.

Touching his brow to the prayer rug, his thoughts wandered far from the whispered words of the Qur’an. How had he had let himself be suckered into getting his hands dirty like these men? He was a dealer, delegating to the soldiers at the front lines. He wasn’t one of them. Killing the whore had been a momentary indiscretion, an accident really, but had given Miller a murder he could use to pull his puppet’s strings.

Well, Fahim had had enough. Once this operation was over, he resolved to cut those strings, even if it meant forgoing Vegas and the United States for the tamer confines of a four-star hotel in the Principality of Monaco. Exile wouldn’t be fatal—Monte Carlo was filled with beautiful blondes.

Adrenaline pumping, Bishop dashed into the ER and snaked his way past harried staff escorting patients and visitors from the hospital. To his surprise, most seemed to take the evacuation in stride, a few even making a joke of it. If the building started shaking, though, he wondered how long it would be before pandemonium erupted. At 11:10, he knew they didn’t have much time to find out.

Bishop searched the crowd until he spotted Pappajohn standing by the triage nurse. “Come with me.” He led the way into the doctors’ lounge before Pappajohn could object. “You still got your friend on the line?” he asked when they were alone.

Nodding, Pappajohn punched the speaker button.

“Keith, I’m back. I’ll put you on with Dr. Bishop.”

“Any luck with the system?”

“No.” Bishop hurriedly explained that nothing they’d tried could override the Trojan horse and its invasive program. Left with no other choice, Eccles had finally decided to execute the untested firewall implementation built into the hospital. “It’s supposed to partition and quarantine areas in case of bioterrorism or nuclear attack.”

“Smart thinking,” Keith said. “If there’s an explosion with a radiologic dispersal device in one area, it should minimize radiation exposure to other parts of the hospital.”

“If it works.” The weariness in Bishop’s voice matched his mood. “It’s a new system, new construction. Frankly, thinking back to Desert Storm and the resonator trials Miller did there, all the apartment towers attacked were new construction. And they all collapsed.”

“That’s an earthquake zone just like California,” Keith said. “Maybe they all had new seismic-control systems. Ripe for this ‘resonator’ to take over.”

“I think so, but I still don’t get how Miller could have activated the device when I know he never left the base either of those days.”

“Obviously, he had a partner,” Pappajohn interjected.

“Or wireless transmission,” Keith added. “It could have been done remotely. How far away was the base?”

“A quarter mile, more or less. Think that’s possible?”

“Not only possible,” Keith said, “but if your friend Miller wanted to keep his nose clean, very likely.”

The LAPD officer covering the B2 level shone the flashlight’s beam up and down one corridor, while her partner did the same in the other.

“Nothing,” her partner said, meeting her near the stairwell. “You see anything?”

“Nada. Only the dead down here.” She pointed back toward the morgue with her light.

At the end of a corridor just beyond the elevators they stopped in front of a pair of fire doors and tried turning the handle. “Locked.” The female officer peeked in through the split. “Just a black wall. Doesn’t look like it goes anywhere.”

“Okay, then, let’s make our way upstairs to the evac zone and help Dee.”

As the two climbed the stairs, neither realized they’d missed the elevator maintenance room, whose nondescript entrance was hidden in the shadows behind the locked fire door and the quarantine shield.

The black Tahoe quietly backed up to the entrance of the Schwarzenegger Hospital, and discharged the four-man FBI field team. They’d arrived in civilian clothes without their trademark company jackets, just in case the perpetrators were tracking their movements. Their supervisor, sporting the same Marine-style buzz cut as his men, waved the white unmarked van following the Tahoe toward a secluded parking spot near the ER entrance next door, and instructed, “Secure the building.”

“Detective!” Ana cried, recognizing De’andray silhouetted against the doorway of Teddy’s hospital room, flashlight in hand. Her voice carried a mix of wariness and relief.

Sammy jumped up from her chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hospital’s lost all power. We’ve started evacuations,” De’andray said. “Just a precaution, but we need to get everyone out as quickly as possible.”

Ana froze, her expression pure terror.

“We have to get moving.” De’andray came over to Teddy’s bed and leaned in to scoop him up.

“I can walk.”

“Elevators are out, son. That’s seven floors.”

“I can do it!” Teddy was already sitting up and reaching for his crutches.

“Okay, but—” De’andray’s walkie-talkie buzzed. He pulled it off his belt to answer. “Yes?”

“Bomb squad’s here. They’re working from the lobby down. We’ve just searched every area on B3 and B2 we could access. No sign of your suspect. Fire doors are locked beyond the elevators and the morgue. We can’t get in. But neither can anyone else. We’re moving to B1 and lobby. Over.”

Clicking off, De’andray turned back to Teddy. “I’ll finish putting the word out and meet you all on the way down.” He shined the light so the three could see their way into the hall where the generator-powered runner lights provided enough illumination to guide them to the stairwell.

“We’ve just lost oxygen,” the ER nurse told Reed as he rushed back into the treatment area. She gestured at the wall unit whose monitor now indicated a zero liters flow.

“Portable unit, STAT,” ordered Reed, helping two orderlies transfer a heart attack victim to a rolling gurney. “Bring the defibrillator,” he added, hoping they wouldn’t need it. As he followed the last of the ER staff and patients to the parking lot outside, he glanced at his Casio digital blinking 11:10.

With three of the five stairwells dedicated to stretcher cases and Evacuchairs for those needing wheelchairs, more than two hundred ambulatory patients and visitors were channeled to the remaining two, making progress down to the lobby slower than expected. Stopping to let the more able-bodied pass, Teddy, leaning on his mother’s arm, had only arrived at the fifth floor by the time De’andray reached them.

“Sammy’s not helping you?” De’andray asked.

“She’s gone to get her father,” Ana explained, checking her watch. Eleven fifteen. “You said midnight, right?” Hesitating, she added, “We’re doing good. You need to help the children who can’t walk at all. We’ll be down in five minutes and meet my dad outside.”

De’andray patted her on the shoulder as he hurried down the stairs. “I’ll be back.”

Whipping winds made it hard for Bishop to maneuver the LAU Med golf cart as he rounded the perimeter of the hospital for the second time. Through the hazy darkness, he strained for signs of Miller, so far with no success. After his conversation with Keith, Bishop was convinced the resonator had to be activated remotely. That meant the bastard must be somewhere close by. Despite LAPD’s all-clear report. Even if Miller wasn’t running the show this time, he’d never be far from the stage during a performance.

This was one performance Bishop had to shut down. He glanced over at his Army-issue Beretta M9 pistol laying on the seat beside him. Since he’d received the strange warning call the other night, he’d taken the gun from his closet and locked it in the trunk of his car. A premonition that he’d need to use it soon? Perhaps. All he knew was that Miller had to be stopped. Should have been years ago.

When Bishop had volunteered as an MASH unit commander for the U.S. mission in Kuwait, he’d sworn an oath to protect his country. Then he’d met Miller and seen that patriotic mission perverted. This resonator Miller had helped develop was not a weapon that would protect innocents at home and abroad. The device that took civilian lives was instead a way to create fear, making foreign and domestic control and conquest easier. Bishop understood that now. Men like Miller were traitors, not patriots.

How many innocent lives might have been saved if Bishop had continued to pursue the doubts inflamed when the dying young soldier whispered resonator, murder? Instead, he’d climbed inside a bottle. He brushed his hand over the pistol as he accelerated the golf cart. This time, he wouldn’t give up his pursuit. At eleven twenty-three, he had less than thirty minutes to stop Miller.

By eleven twenty-eight, Sammy and Jeffrey finally caught up with Ana and Teddy shuffling onto the second-floor stairwell. Groggy from his pain medication, Jeffrey was leaning heavily on Sammy, slowing her down. “Keep going,” she told Ana as they stopped to rest. “Your father will be getting worried.”

“No, you saved our lives.” Seeing that Teddy was taking the steps one by one on his own, Ana moved to Jeffrey’s injured side and gently put an arm around his waist to help hoist him up. “We’re not leaving you now.”

De’andray found the FBI team supervisor outside near the holding area and shared the status of the evacuations and the bomb squad’s searches.

An FBI technician stuck his head out of the back of the parked white van, signaling for attention.

 “What’s up?” The supervisor hurried over with De’andray at his heels. Inside the open door, they saw the tech staring intently at a series of monitors hooked up to several computerlike machines.

“Sir, scan shows a hot footprint on Level B3.” He indicated a large patch of bright red at the base of an overlaid map of the hospital. “Better call back your search teams.”

De’andray asked for clarification.

“Nuclear radiation leakage,” the supervisor said. “Seems we’re dealing with a dirty bomb.” He surveyed the clusters of patients, staff, and family crowding the holding area, watching the police activity. “Better start moving everybody back. Way back.”

Reed was busy rolling a stretcher across the parking lot when he saw Pappajohn hurrying toward him, waving his arms and shouting. It was impossible to hear above the blustering winds and the din of the crowd outside.

Reed handed off the patient to a nurse and ran over to meet Pappajohn halfway.

“Have you seen Ana and Teddy and Sammy?” Pappajohn gasped and coughed.