“Whoa, Wyatt,” someone mumbled. “You go, girl!”
She looked up at them and said, “Hap Ki Do — Tae Kwon Do’s meaner, more flexible cousin. I’m a third-degree black belt in both.” She smiled flirtatiously. “Keep that in mind, fellas.”
“Duly noted,” replied one of them.
“Man, don’t let her teach that to my wife,” said another.
She looked up at them and said, “Now, will a couple of you studs take this man downstairs for me, please?”
Two of them complied and lifted the unconscious Mr. Kim, carrying him down the stairs to the medic. He was placed on a gurney under restraint and rolled outside into an ambulance.
As Kim was being carried out of the room, an officer who was searching through a closet in the back of the room called out. “Hey, check this out. What in the world do you think this is?”
He pointed at the floor of the closet at a pair of two-inch thick, square metal boxes. Each had a numbered keypad and a round handle in the middle that was flush to the surface. The officer reached into the closet to pick one up.
“ Stop!” Another SERT officer shouted. “What’s the matter with you? That thing could be a bomb!”
The officer reflexively pulled his hand away. He stood, then backed away from the devices.
“Oh, crap!” He sounded suddenly nervous. “It does kind of look like a land mine, doesn’t it?”
The officer who had sounded the warning keyed his radio. “7–4, this is SERT-Alpha 1, we need to evacuate the building. There are what appear to be two bombs, possibly land mines or some kind of IED up here in the bedroom closet.”
“Got it, Alpha-1. Let’s get everyone out. I’ll call the bomb squad in.”
Within seconds, the house was empty, and minutes later, the police had formed a perimeter of vehicles around the building. Several officers went door-to-door, evacuating all the houses for a hundred yards on either side of the Kim residence.
The Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team had been on standby, a standard procedure when SERT deployed. It only took ten minutes for them to arrive on scene. Two bulky figures in full body armor got out of a panel van and strode heavily into the house like giant armored turtles.
Trooper Wyatt stood by her cruiser, talking to one of the officers as they inspected the weapons that had been found in the room.
Commander Stark called out, “Wyatt!”
“Yes, sir?” She turned toward his voice.
“Get over to the hospital. The guy who was shot with the beanbags is talking, but doesn’t speak English. See if you can get anything out of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
She handed the AK assault rifle back to the other officer, got into her patrol car, and left for Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
Chapter 17
It was ten forty-five when she pulled her cruiser into the space marked “Police Only” near the emergency room doors at the hospital. She got out and walked quickly into the ER through the door reserved for police and emergency personnel that lead directly to the nurses’ station area.
“Good evening, Trooper Wyatt,” greeted the nurse behind the counter. “I assume you’re here to see the Korean patient with the gunshot wounds?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie replied.
“He’s in the secure ward with two AST guards at the door. He started to get violent, so we had to pump him with some drugs. He is pretty sedated, but still mumbling a lot in Korean. The troopers with him wouldn’t let our hospital translator in for fear she would get hurt.”
“Thanks. I’ll head back there.”
Wyatt left the nurses’ station and walked down the carpeted corridor to the electronically locked doors that lead to the security ward of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. The security ward consisted of a pair of halls with ten patient rooms on either side of a nurses’ station and video cameras in the rooms and corridors. It was reserved for violent or suicidal patients who needed to be kept under guard.
Faloa Tualoloa, a huge Samoan man, was the uniformed night security guard at the booth in front of the double-door entry that lead into the security ward. A twenty-something white man in a white janitor’s smock and scrubs leaned up against the podium, chatting with Faloa as Wyatt approached. Both men stopped mid-conversation and stared at her as she moved toward them.
“Evening, Trooper Wyatt,” said the Samoan guard in a deep voice with an easygoing South Pacific accent. A sheepish grin spread on his face as Lonnie Wyatt approached. “Always a pleasure to see you here.”
“Hi, Faloa. Quiet night?”
“It was, until your crazy man came in and tried to trash the place. He sure did a lot of damage for such a little guy. It took me and two troopers to hold him down. He’s in 2–5.”
She approached the door and held her ID badge to the small gray box on the doorframe. A red LED light turned green on the box. A high-pitched beep emanated from the lock, followed by a metallic click that signaled the door was ready to open. As she walked through the heavy wooden doors, Wyatt heard the voice of the janitor behind her. “Man, I’d like to have her frisk me. Good God! That is one hot cop.”
“Shut up, Arnie,” Faloa responded. “That’s Lonnie Wyatt — she’s a really nice lady. And besides, you’d end up getting your butt kicked. She’s pretty, but she’s a black belt, too. I’ve known her since high school.”
The janitor snickered. “I wouldn’t mind a little rough stuff with her.”
“I’m warning you, Arnie,” Faloa said sternly. “If you talk about her like that, I’ll kick your butt.”
“You like her, don’t you, you big Samoan teddy bear.” The janitor laughed. Their voices faded as the doors closed behind her. She walked to the second corridor and then around a corner. A tall trooper stood outside the door of 2–5.
“Hey, Edwards,” Wyatt greeted the trooper standing at the door. “What’s going on?”
“Wyatt, glad you’re here,” replied Mike Edwards, a calm and gentle giant. Even without his smoky hat, Trooper Edwards stood six-and-a-half-feet tall. With the hat, he was seven feet. Edwards poked his thumb toward the door to room 2–5.
“That guy has been jabbering in Korean non-stop for the past half hour. He was unconscious when we got him here, but woke up as we wheeled him down the hall. The little bugger jumped off the freakin’ gurney and walloped the medic who was next to him, busted the poor guy’s jaw. He started going nuts on everyone around. We had a hell of a time trying to restrain him.”
Edwards shook his head as he relived the wild moment in his mind’s eye. “It took me and Harland and Faloa everything we had to hold that dude down. He was doing all kinds of serious martial arts crap on us. Once we had him down, they doped him up pretty hard until he was out again, and we got him strapped down to the gurney.
“He’s still drugged up, but they had to lower the dosage because of the wounds on his chest — they were afraid his heart or lungs might fail. I guess the beanbag SERT hit him with was a little too close range. It shattered a couple ribs and may have bruised his heart. Harland is in there with him now while the nurse is checking his IV connections.”
“Thanks for the info,” Wyatt said. “I’ll go in and see if I can figure out what he’s saying.”
She went through the heavy wooden door into the room. Trooper Harland stood just inside. Where mild-mannered Trooper Edwards allayed children’s fears with rows of stuffed animals in his cruiser window, Harland was the opposite. He was a short man, barely matching Lonnie’s five-foot-four height, but built like an iron battleship. He had a troll-like face that could frighten a Rottweiler. He nodded to Wyatt as she walked past him and approached the single hospital bed in the center of the room. The patient lay with his upper body elevated. A nurse stood next to the bed, writing on a page attached to a clipboard.