Raney & Levine (20 page)

39


B
etween his feet was his bowling bag, as if he were
protecting it.

In a sickening flash it all fit. He killed Dara, so it had
to be him who’d stabbed her too and unwittingly left explosive particles on her
wound. That affable act of his. How well he’d played it.

Dynamite in the bowling balls.
Layers and layers of
plastic and resin.
Oh God…

“W-why’d you kill her?” Jill’s voice shook uncontrollably.
She should have screamed, but she wanted to know if he’d acted alone. She
backed away from him, around the foot of the bed.

He left his bag by the door and stepped closer. His eyes
burned. “Brian and Dara started guessing what I was
really
doing with
their lists, and it wasn’t urging and counseling, ha. They got scared. Wanted
to run to a priest.”

She’d reached the other side of the bed. He followed, eyeing
her with his hands clenched. Jill’s eyes darted and she froze. He’d exposed the
medallion when he placed his flowers.

Why hadn’t she thought of that? But where else could she
have told him to put them?

“Surrogates are worse than prostitutes.” His stare was pure
venom. His voice was creepy-quiet, but spittle formed at the corners of his
mouth. “My mother was a prostitute who I hated – even after death -
until I
was saved
, discovering Ralph’s obsession, discovering there were even worse
women who birth monsters with no souls.”

He sneered. “Oh stop looking at me like I’m crazy. I’ve been
on Haldol since I was seventeen. It has worked fine, no one knows about my
past, juvie records closed.”

He laughed.

“Haldol?
You’re schiz too?
” She blurted it
unintentionally, backing closer to the bed table.

“Only intermittently,” he leered. “My doctor says there’s a
broad spectrum of schizophrenia.
My secret doc
, he knows nothing about
the real me. And I’m nothing like poor Ralph, so easy to manipulate, make him
think that was God in his transistor instead of me. I rigged his clunker like a
walkie-talkie.” Another ugly laugh. “
And wasn’t I smart to get Dara back
into the hospital?
So I’d have an excuse to visit? I even played coy with
you too. Oh so reluctant-”

He saw her throw the briefest, urgent glance back at the
medallion, and his face froze.

“That’s what you wore yesterday with the cops.” His eyes
narrowed in suspicion. “Lying whore bitch, is that-”

She swung the heavy end of her crutch at his head.
Crack!
But not hard enough because he grabbed it, yanked her to him before she could
let go, and threw her to the floor. Stomped hard where her head had been a
millisecond before, but she’d slid under the bed.

From there she saw his feet rush around the bed. He seized
his bowling bag, and opened the door.

They’d heard in the van. Had cops converging on the room
from which “bowling bag” had never been mentioned. Even passed a bored-looking
guy pulling such a bag and reassuring the cop outside that that thump was just
him dropping the darn thing. He sauntered away as they burst into the room.

Jill was sliding out from under the bed. He’d thrown her
down but her hip hurt less than she’d feared.

“You okay?” the first arriving cop said, helping her up.
Then David burst in and she fell into his arms.

“It’s Burrell, he killed Dara,” she gasped to him, and
looked at the others. “
That guy who just left.
That bag he’s pulling
is a bomb.”

David’s eyes turned frantic. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled her out with him behind the running cops, who
covered just sixty feet of hall and then stopped short.

There was Burrell, just yards away, looking casual, even.
Busy before the long glass looking into the newborn nursery, removing his
jacket, kneeling and fiddling with his open bowling bag. Around him, pressed
close to the glass, were the babies’ thrilled parents and relatives, talking
joyously to each other. “Oh, she’s beautiful! ... What a big boy!”

Burrell stood. Smiled at a woman holding a pink-ribboned,
gift-wrapped present.

“Pretty!” he said loudly, his back to the glass. “Is your
precious newcomer one of those little IVF monsters?”

The crowd around him recoiled, their eyes wide with shock.
Several started to move away.

Then Burrell saw cops moving toward him. Looked the other
way down the hall and saw more cops, closing in. All had their guns drawn. Dogs
pulled at their leashes, barking, going crazy.

Insanely, he ignored them.

A grandmotherly-looking woman screamed. “It’s him! He’s the
one!”

Chaos, terror as he grabbed the woman and yanked her to him.
“Yes!” he yelled happily. “I’m the one! And you’re all going to burn in hell
for condoning” – his free hand holding something indicated the glass – “what’s
going on in there.”

A woman fainted. Her husband and others bent to her.

“I just opened my two bowling balls,” Burrell said
triumphantly, his arm squeezing the older woman’s neck. “When I press
this
”
- his free hand held up his cell phone - “the dynamite in them will blow up
this whole floor, including delivery rooms, patient rooms, probably the floor
above too.” He glanced up beatifically and said, “Do you see what I’m doing for
you, God? Make the fires spread.
Destroy this whole Devil’s Workshop.”

Cops circled closer through more cries and dogs barking and
people clutching at each other. A second woman sank to the floor, and another
screamed, “Please, my baby!”

“Shut up, whore!” Burrell yelled, flinging the grandmother
to the floor. She lay there whimpering, her head bleeding. Someone reached to
her and pulled her away. The crowd was paralyzed with terror.

Near doors opened. Women in pastel robes looked out,
horror-struck.

“There’s a bomb!” one told the other, and both started to
scream. More doors opened. More cries. Keri Blasco and Alex Brand were there,
trying to calm, getting the women back into their rooms.

“Please,” Keri was saying. “Let the police do their job.”
Jill, seeing them, realized that if she’d screamed in Dara’s room Burrell would
have triggered his bomb there. She fought nausea, looked frantically around.
Pappas was loudly on his phone with the SWAT team.

And David, squinting by Jill, saw that Burrell’s hands
looked darkened. From the explosives he’d been handling? He saw Burrell wipe
his free hand on his shirt, which looked darkened, too.

“Stay,” he whispered to Jill, starting to move forward
through the cops. She shook her head no and followed him. Around her police
radios crackled quick, urgent exchanges. Her eyes darted through the newborn
window. Nurses were in there, frantically evacuating babies, starting with the
ones closest to the glass. The PA above them must be issuing soft, controlled
directions. A first nurse hustled infants, one in each arm, to the exit, and
from there, Jill knew, down the stairwell.

Her wildly trembling hands got out her phone and checked
Jesse. He was crying and alone, still in his isolette at the rear.
No!

She couldn’t move. Saw Burrell ranting to the crowd and waving
his cell phone. “Do
not
move or I’ll blow you up this instant!”

Then Jill’s heart leaped. Others were arriving behind the
glass to help the nurses. Tricia! Gary! Holloway, Mackey and pediatric
residents! Running in from the other exit to help.

Risking their lives.

Burrell didn’t see the evacuation. His back was turned to
the glass, furiously scolding.

“I don’t see
one
of you condemning that devil child
in there!
Or
the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator!
Or
the evil of women prostituting themselves to bear the child of a man not their
husband’s. You
condone
violating the sanctity of marriage? Of flaunting
God’s will?”

His hand swept over faces crying, pleading.
“That makes
you all sinners.
Doomed to die in eternal hellfire! Get on your knees.”

Most were already on knees that had buckled. Burrell’s head
swiveled to uniforms, and he raised his phone higher. “You too, cops. On your
knees!”

They knelt, quieted their dogs. Make the psycho feel
important: training had taught them that. Hunched, it also allowed hands to
ready weapons.

David had moved in a crouch to the front. A cop behind him
slid a gun to him. They all knew he could shoot.

He shouted, “Why did you kill Dara Walsh?”

The hand holding the cell phone stilled, came down a bit,
its owner confronted with his own mortal sin.

“Had to
, both of them
,” Burrell whined. “They might
have…
told!
I would have been lost, and
I’m the chosen one!”

Burrell’s mouth twitched. He liked bragging to the Devil’s
Workshop doc in his white jacket. “It was all so perfect until
”
– his
glare went to Jill –
“that one wrecked my plan to make Nash look like the
killer!
Oh look, a sniper!”

He’d spotted a SWAT-garbed officer, crouched low, his finger
squeezing his trigger – and the cell phone flew up again. “THAT’S IT! PREPARE
TO-”

David raised his gun and fired once.

Shot the phone out of Burrell’s hand, sent it clattering to
the floor. Screams and wails, people fell on each other. Burrell was screaming
too, hugging his hand spurting blood. A near cop grabbed his phone and
quick-turned it off. Other cops rushed Burrell – too late. He’d grabbed a young
woman with his other arm holding a glass shard to her throat.

David’s bullet had gone high through the nursery window,
shattering it. Burrell had grabbed a hanging splinter and was already cutting
the woman. Cutting his second hand too. He seemed unaware.

“Get away!” he shrieked, dragging her.

The police drew back, their faces stricken. The woman was
whimpering in terror, half-strangled under Burrell’s arm. Blood from where he’d
cut her neck was trickling onto her white sweater. More blood pooled where he’d
been. In it lay his shot-off, bloody thumb.

He pulled her down the hall, yelling, “Stay away or I cut
her throat!”

The cops followed, trying to get a bead on him as he wove and
ducked behind his hostage.

Jill wept, remembering Nash dragging her. The hostage had to
move her feet or die.

With her heart rocketing, Jill threaded through people
sprawled, clinging to each other and crying, into the nursery. Got to Jesse.
Grabbed him and another squalling infant and got both babies out the exit.
Almost ran into Gary and Tricia, coming back. Tricia cried out at seeing her;
quick-hugged her around both infants.

“No more bomb,” Jill gasped to them.

They heard the soft, controlled announcement over the PA.
“Bomb alert is over. Repeat, bomb alert is over.”

But the nursery was a mess. Shattered glass near the front.
Wires pulled, monitors stilled, babies screaming. Gary and Tricia went in.

Praying desperately for the woman Burrell held, Jill hurried
in a semi-lurch down the stairwell with Jesse and the other infant in her arms.

Ran into Sam and Ramu, just coming up.

“We’re getting the rest out,” MacIntyre said, his breath
heaving. “Woody’s helping the evacuation downstairs. Other hospitals are
sending ambulances.”

40


B
urrell had gotten the bathroom door open and yanked
her in. Bullets had missed his head by inches; he’d held his hostage too close.

The bathroom?

“What’s in there?” a cop asked David, running to it.

“Nothing.” David caught up to the first cops pushing at the
door. They were having trouble getting it open.

And then they did, pushing at something heavy. David’s heart
sank. He guessed what…

Her white sweater was drenched red. She lay in a pool of
blood…
but she was still breathing.

“Bastard’s berserk, missed her carotid,” David said,
kneeling to her, flinging off his white jacket to staunch the flow. The gun
he’d put in its pocket skidded away. Two cops took his place with the woman as
another called for help.

And another cop saw the ceiling vent out of place above one
of the toilets. It was a wheelchair-sized toilet, with blood smeared on the
wall, the toilet, and the vent.

“He’s up there!” The cop who’d found the vent slid it away
and tried to heft himself up. He couldn’t. He was too heavy.

“I’ll go.” David climbed onto the toilet and hauled himself
up through the opening. A thinner man in uniform followed him, and then
another.

The three looked around.

It was the generator floor.

The smell of diesel exhaust hit them along with roaring,
other-worldly shapes of electrical engines, noise mufflers, dial monitors, and
fuel lines.

The first cop to follow David turned and craned. “Where-?”

A
crack
sounded as an iron rod came down on his head.
He fell. The other two spun, ducking, as the maniac swung his rod wildly at
them, just missing wires, pumps, machinery.

David crouched, missed a swing, then rose and smashed
Burrell hard in the face.

He fell backward, howling, dripping blood from his nose and
his missing thumb. David grabbed for his foot but he rolled and spun away,
screaming, “Burn in Hell! Burn in Hell!” as he ran and hid behind one
generator, then ducked to another generator further away. The floor was crowded
with roaring machines.

More cops had climbed up. Some lowered their injured brother
down as others, hunched, followed the blood trail.

But they couldn’t shoot.

Those elephantine machines and their wires, dials and pumps
supplied the hospital’s power: surgery in progress, patients on ventilators,
dialysis machines.

Burrell knew it. David knew that he knew it.
Now he was
holding the whole hospital hostage.

They couldn’t see him, but the blood trail led from one
noisy machine to another.

David followed carefully with the others, and then suddenly
stopped. The red splotches were further apart now, and led around to the back
of a tall, wide machine set between a web of crisscrossing wires and fuel
pipes.

“Wait,” he said softly.

He stepped away from the others and approached the huge
machine; walked around it.

Locked eyes with Burrell’s crazed, defiant glare. He was in
a hunched position, hanging onto the edge of a dial. Somewhere he had dropped
his iron rod. His eyes darted insanely around for something else to use.

“Give it up,” David told him. “You’re done.”

“No, you’re done! And this whole hospital, burn in Hell!” he
shrieked again. He found an unused fuel pipe on the floor and hurled it at
David, who ducked it.

Howling, he started pulling maniacally on another, smaller
fuel pipe. An
attached
fuel pipe.

“Don’t!”
David yelled in a panic. “That’s…you’ll
get…”

Burrell exerted his whole body weight, twisted and yanked
the pipe free…

…and was blasted by spewing diesel fuel. The force of the
gush threw him backward, his falling body tearing through electrical wires
which snapped and sparked and whipped around...

…and found the dynamite on his shirt.

Burrell’s chest burst into flame. He shrieked in pain and
horror as the spewing diesel blasted his face and body, formed a pool beneath
him which erupted into flame.

“The generators! Get him away from the generators!” David
cried, pulling at Burrell’s feet, the only part of him not on fire.

Another cop helped. They dragged Burrell, still shrieking
hideously, away from the danger of exploding the whole place. Others had their
jackets off and were beating the flames out.

A sudden roar sounded as backup generators turned on. Every
cop cheered. The backup system was okay.

The shrieking had stopped. The huge room now smelled of
burnt flesh. Someone called for repairs fast to cap the gusher.

They all viewed the charred mess that had been a killer.

“
You
burn in Hell,” one of the cops said.

In the hall outside the cleared nursery, Tricia and
MacIntyre were filling in Pappas when David appeared, behind cops just exiting
the bathroom.

Quick words were exchanged. Hugs of relief from Sam and
Tricia, both gibbering at once that Jill and the others were downstairs,
getting evacuated.

“She’s probably waiting for you,” Sam said. “Being stubborn,
holding Jesse and refusing to get into an ambulance.”

David ran. Passed Keri, Alex, and trauma counselors
comforting and moving away traumatized parents. Alex called after him, holding
up his phone. “Hey, nice going! I heard about upstairs!”

A wave without turning, a plunge down five flights of
stairs, and in the controlled chaos of a cleared area in the ER, he found Jill.

Sam was right. She was sitting on the floor shivering,
hugging blanketed Jesse to her and comforting him. The sliding ER doors were
open, and cold, darkening rain blew in on her. Someone had pulled a blanket
over her, but she still shivered. Was watching the lights-flashing ambulances
just outside, and the last of the babies getting lovingly placed into waiting
isolettes.

“Jill.”

She looked up to him and burst into tears.

He knelt to her and held her, held both of them. Jesse
actually looked up at him, a bit cross-eyed.

“David, you’re safe…safe,” Jill cried between gulps, her
face pressed to his. “My phone…they said…fire.”

“I’m okay.”

She gulped air again. “Burrell?”

“In Hell.”

He held them. Long moments of comfort, of giving thanks
passed between them.

Then he pulled Jill up, still cradling Jesse. She was in her
thin scrubs, and her blanket was a bit wet. David asked for a new one, and
wrapped her and the baby snugly inside it.

Then looked at them, and kissed her again. “Mama saves her
baby,” he said in the softest voice imaginable.

Jill smiled weakly, and leaned into him.

There was room in the last ambulance. No isolettes left, but
no problem.

They rode with Jesse to Mount Sinai Hospital, taking turns
holding him.