Trauma (36 page)

The noise came again, and this time it was distinct and distinguishable. It was the sound of a doorknob turning ever so slightly. The soft jiggle of the handle boomed in Carrie's ears, and the click of the cylinder as it turned thundered loud as a crashing wave. She was about to call out that the room was occupied when a terrifying thought came to her. She had locked the door! The knob should not be turning at all, and yet it was. David had shown her how easily he manipulated those antiquated lock tumblers with a pick and a tension wrench. This was not just a resident looking for a place to crash. Somebody specifically wanted to get into her room.

Carrie's heart lodged in her throat, beating like a hummingbird's wings. Terror turned her skin clammy. She heard the noise again, a steady creak like the winding of a spring. Her thoughts raced. This corridor was empty. She could call out for help, but whoever was beyond that door would be on her in a flash. If he had a knife, a gun, her time in this life would be over.

The door opened a crack. Carrie held her breath and somehow managed to keep perfectly still. Her eyes remained open, but only as slits. She wanted to appear to be sleeping, the equivalent of playing dead.

Light from the hallway illuminated the silhouette of an imposing figure entering her room. He was at least six feet tall, and solidly built. Carrie's breathing turned ragged and every effort she made to slow it faltered. The intruder had to think she was sound asleep, unaware. Her body heated as fear took hold.

This can't be happening … this is a dream … a nightmare … Wake up, Carrie! Wake up!

But she was awake, and it was a battle not to scream.

The man closed the door behind him, but left it open so a bit of light seeped in. He needed to see to attack. It was enough light for Carrie to track his approach. Breathing through her nose, Carrie could not seem to take in enough air. If she hyperventilated, he would know she was awake.

The man took another silent step toward her. Carrie dug her fingers into the bedsheets as if she were dangling from a cliff. She saw the pillow in his hands, presumably one taken from an adjacent on-call room. He had not come here to sleep. She was certain this man had entered her room with the intention of smothering her to death.

As her mind clicked over, Carrie understood the plan's sickening simplicity. No blood. No screams. No loud noise of any sort. She could be disposed of in a relatively clean manner; her body could be removed from the building in a laundry bin.

The assassin remained absolutely calm. Carrie's panic induced feelings of paralysis she prayed to overcome. There would be a moment, a precise opportunity, when surprise would be her singular advantage.

He reached the edge of her bed and looked down at her. He watched her sleep. She could hear his soft breathing and feel his smothering presence. She kept her body rigid and still as the dead. Through her peripheral vision she watched the man lift up the pillow.

Wait, Carrie … wait … not yet …

The anticipation became agony. Carrie held her breath and tried to keep her face muscles from twitching.

The man took his time. She was asleep, after all. He maneuvered the pillow over her face like a bombardier setting his sights on a building below.

At the last possible second, Carrie lashed out with a punch that connected solidly with the man's unguarded testicles. She heard him make an agonized sound, one that gurgled up from his gut and came out as a hiss of air. The man dropped to his knees, disabled.

Wasting no time, Carrie scrambled off the bed and darted for the door.

 

CHAPTER 48

From behind, Carrie heard the man call, “You bitch,” and felt his strong hand grab her ankle. With her free leg, Carrie kicked blindly backward and connected hard with something—his face, his chest, something.

The blow was enough to knock him off balance. The man let out a yowl, more angry than hurt. His grip weakened and Carrie wiggled her ankle free from his grasp. Any hesitation could be fatal. Carrie bolted for the door, reaching it in one long stride. She spilled into the empty hallway at the same instant a scream, like a low, moaning train whistle, tumbled from her lips.

“Help me,” Carrie wailed, breaking into a frantic sprint. “Please! Somebody!”

The VA was already like a crypt, and the on-call rooms were purposely out of the way, to maximize quiet. A cardiac care unit was on the other side of the floor, Carrie remembered, but she would never outrun her attacker.

The stairwell entrance was in front of her, about thirty feet away. On the wall adjacent to that door a red fire alarm caught Carrie's eye. Surviving meant reaching one of the lower levels. She slowed to keep from ramming the door full speed. Her feet skidded on the vinyl floor as if it were made of ice. With her left hand, Carrie ripped the stairwell door open, and with her right hand she reached out and pulled the alarm. The strobe mounted above the stairwell started to flash and a series of loud beeps sounded like a fleet of trucks backing up.

Carrie took only two steps and jumped the remaining stairs. Her momentum carried her into the concrete wall of the landing below. She bounced off the wall, but managed to stay on her feet. The piercing alarm drowned out most of her screams.

Above her, the man appeared in the doorway like some nightmare incarnate. He made the same leap Carrie did, just as she reached the bottom of the next set of stairs. Her pursuer ping-ponged off the concrete wall, but quickly regained his footing, and was soon on the move again.

Carrie knew police were nearby. The VA Police were well-armed officials with full police powers to enforce all federal laws. At least one VA Police officer would be stationed at the front entrance—with luck, more. Descending rapidly, Carrie heard her footfalls reverberate in the stairwell as she crossed the landing to the next flight of stairs. Behind her the man's wretched, rage-filled grunts intensified, and grew closer. His pace had quickened.

Carrie stumbled down the next flight of stairs and used her wrists to absorb most of the shock as her body careened off an unforgiving cement wall. One more flight to go.

She screamed as loud as her lungs permitted, “Help me!” Impossible to know if anyone heard her. The crack of a gunshot roared from somewhere above, followed by the sound of concrete splintering as a bullet struck the wall. Carrie made another long jumper's leap with a cat's grace. She reached the bottom landing just as another shot rang out and hit the wall near her head. The bullet sent shards of concrete in every direction. Carrie launched herself against the steel panic bar and used her body weight to throw the door open.

She tumbled out into the first-floor hallway. The fire alarm was loud, and strobe lights blinked everywhere. She would have to make a long run down an empty corridor to get help and would be an easy target even for a poor shot. Her eyes went to the wheelchair pushed up against the wall.

Wasting no time, Carrie gathered the folded wheelchair and took up position against the wall. A second later the hulking monster burst through the door with his weapon drawn.

With an explosive motion, Carrie shoved the wheelchair out in front of her, catching her attacker completely unaware. The strike connected at the lower part of the man's legs, and he went toppling forward, over the wheelchair, arms outstretched to brace his fall. He landed hard, and the force of his fall dislodged the gun from his hand. The weapon skated down the hall, maybe ten feet from Carrie. She was already headed in that direction, but so was her pursuer. His athleticism was nothing short of extraordinary as he got back to his feet in a blink.

Her focus was on the gun. It seemed counterintuitive, but going for the weapon would get her killed. He was fast as a puma and would be on her the second she picked up the gun. But there was another solution: keep
him
from getting the gun. Without breaking stride, Carrie gave the pistol a solid kick with her right foot, and it slid like a shuffleboard piece a good distance.

Carrie bellowed at the top of her lungs: “Somebody help me!”

“Bitch!” The man's harsh voice felt like claws raking her back.

Carrie gave the gun another solid kick. She made it halfway down the hall and prayed help was nearby. Up ahead, Carrie saw movement. Her focus sharpened on a police officer with his gun drawn. He came charging forward, and close on his heels were two sizable orderlies. Carrie kept up her sprint, but something told her the man behind her had slowed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him turn to go the other direction. But from that end of the hall another armed police officer appeared, accompanied by two additional security guards. The VA might not have all the best medical equipment, but budget constraints did not extend to security. The hospital was a military target and therefore heavily guarded.

“Freeze!” one of the policemen shouted. “Hands in the air.”

Carrie ran into the arms of an orderly. Soon, she was barricaded behind a wall of people. The man who had chased her was trapped between two groups of security personnel, and they were closing in fast.

Their sharp voices, audible over the piercing alarm, commanded him to get down on the ground. He wore hospital scrubs like an orderly, and filled them out like a football player, but she had never seen him at the VA before. But she had seen him, hadn't she? The jawline, perhaps that was most familiar. His face was handsome and covered with hard guy's stubble. His gray, wolflike eyes held a devilish glint as he slowly raised his hands. Carrie stayed locked on his every movement. He paused to bite his wrist as his hands came over his head. The curious smile on his face was directed right at Carrie.

Police approached with caution, and again ordered the man to get facedown on the floor. He obliged. Carrie stood back and watched the surreal events unfold from a safe distance. A second wave of security moved in, and quickly had the man's hands bound with steel handcuffs. He lifted his head slightly off the floor, still keeping his menacing gaze locked on Carrie. His hateful eyes held a secret; Carrie could feel it.

The police swarmed the area, speaking to each other and to their captive. Just then, the man started to grunt, not once but several times, as if he had something lodged in his throat. He began to writhe and froth at the mouth. His legs went completely spasmodic. He wiggled like a distressed worm. Carrie thought she knew what had happened. When he put his mouth to his wrist, he'd ingested something—sodium cyanide perhaps, the more lethal of the two cyanide salts.

The police realized their captive was in distress and flipped him on his back. “We need a doctor!” one police officer shouted.

Carrie rushed to help. The instinct to triage trumped what this monster had done to her, and what he almost did. She was a doctor, but this was a hopeless case. She knew the highly toxic chemical interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen, and the brain dies within minutes of ingestion. It took four men to lift the convulsing detainee off the ground and onto a stretcher.

The man frothed at the mouth, gurgled and choked, until he went still and fell silent. Carrie knew he had expired, but they would try to revive him. Cyanokit and sodium thiosulfate were both cyanide antidotes administered intravenously.

At that point he was in full respiratory distress, and Carrie ran alongside his stretcher, administering chest compressions over the middle of the chest. It was at this moment Carrie noticed a mark on the man's neck. She looked closely.

A tattoo of a shamrock.

 

CHAPTER 49

Detective Kowalski from the Boston PD would be showing up soon. Carrie tried to calm her crackling nerves, but was gripped by an icy terror. Six hours after the attack she could feel the man's powerful hand wrapped around her ankle. The VA Police arranged transport, since she was too rattled to drive, and they also set up the meeting with the Boston PD.

David drove up to the Bryants' home in a Zipcar rental and followed Carrie to her bedroom for a private conversation. The police would want to know why somebody had tried to kill her, and she wanted David's help with her answer. For a while, neither could speak. Carrie's body shook as though suffering a chill. She was exhausted physically and mentally and it was David's news that pulled her from the fog of fear.

“I know who Bob Richardson is,” he announced. “Emma finally accessed the database the DMV shared with law enforcement and came up with a hundred percent facial match.”

Bob Richardson, according to the bio David printed off the corporate Web site, was a senior vice president at CerebroMed, a Virginia-based biopharmaceutical company focused primarily on discovering drugs affecting cerebral function.

“What the heck is Bob Richardson doing giving me a virtual reality demo?”

“Are there any drug trials involved with what you're doing?” David asked.

Carrie felt her senses sharpening. Having something to focus on helped her to settle.

“No,” Carrie said. “Unless Goodwin and Trent are doing something Dr. Finley and I don't know about.”

“Which we know she is.”

“But what?” Carrie asked.

“What if Goodwin is letting Trent experiment on these patients with a drug of some sort—maybe related to PTSD, maybe not—and in exchange she receives money for her advanced neurological procedures?”

Carrie mulled this over. “I thought the virtual reality was insufficient,” she said. “But a drug? Now
that
could explain the palinacousis, some sort of side effect.”

“Yeah, a side effect,” David said. “One that Goodwin hid by getting those patients off the floor.”

Carrie nodded. “She wanted them gone. They weren't exhibiting poor judgment after all. She
made
them sign out AMA.”

“Not every patient has the side effect,” David said. “That was always one of our working assumptions. You just happened to investigate two who did.”