“Katie, it will be your job to keep this tight. She can squeal all she wants, but don’t let up. The pain is too bad, but she can survive that. Blood loss she can’t. Understand?” She smiled reassuringly at the young woman. Katie Norman nodded, her jaw set in determination.
***
Gil Davis gunned the engine of the minibus. It was not the vehicle she would have chosen for a race to the hospital seven miles away, but it was all she had. She slammed the shift into drive and rammed her foot onto the accelerator. The minivan smashed though the chain link gates and onto Dinwiddle, before turning immediately left up Seventh Street. By the time she reached Hull Street she was doing over seventy miles an hour. Luckily there was little traffic south of the river. The minivan held onto the road as it careened around the corner and headed to the bridge.
By the time Gil saw the sign for the hospital, her driving had attracted two Richmond PD cruisers who were in hot pursuit, lights flashing, sirens blazing. Gil smiled as the road ahead cleared. After one final crazy turn onto Nine Miles Road, the van fishtailing madly, the Hospital was in sight. Gil ignored the Ambulances Only sign and slammed the van to a stop outside the emergency room entrance.
Immediately behind her the two cruisers screeched to a halt. The drivers were out in a second, perched behind their doors, guns out of holsters.
“Stop! Police!” they shouted in unison.
Gil carried on helping a bloodstained and barely conscious Dee out of the back seat of the van.
“Either shoot me, or come and help. This woman is dying!” Gil yelled.
The two policemen looked at the woman who was wearing a leather jacket over a blue bra, holstered their guns and ran to assist. Gil could be arrested and handcuffed when the sick woman was safely on a gurney.
Chapter 7 2
Darvell Salvage Yard, East 7 th Street, Richmond, Virginia. USA, Monday 3pm.
By the time Steve Post arrived at the co-ordinates he had been given, along with significant back up, there was no need for the requested silent approach. Already there were curious office and factory workers gathering outside the entrance, alerted by gunfire and a speeding minivan crashing through the gates. Steve manoeuvred his SUV over the wrecked gates and into the yard, jumping from the car when he saw human activity.
Gun drawn, he followed the voices and found himself in a clearing in the midst of scrap metal. He holstered his gun when he saw the carnage. A paramedic from a neighbouring factory had fastened a tourniquet around a balding man’s handless wrist and bent his arm double, fastening a second tourniquet around the forearm and upper arm. The man screamed in pain as the paramedic pulled the second tourniquet tight, forcing the folded arms together in a tight embrace. The bleeding slowed dramatically but Mitchinson lost consciousness.
The paramedic looked at the approaching FBI man, who was wearing a blue windbreaker with the FBI logo in gold, and spoke urgently.
“These tourniquets will lose him his arm but they may save his life.”
An ambulance siren approached. Steve looked around; there was no sign of Dee anywhere. What was going on here? Dan Peterson, who had travelled with Steve, secured the crime scene and issued orders to uniformed cops, who were now arriving by the dozen.
Another office worker was attending to Donkin, who was showing signs of life, his eye lids flickering. She correctly identified a neck injury and tried to prevent the police from searching him, knowing that any movement could make it worse. She was unsuccessful, and Donkin was carefully frisked.
“My God, Dee, what happened here? Where are you?” Steve inadvertently said out loud.
***
The two ambulances had left the junk yard, sirens blazing, and the crime scene technicians were now bagging evidence, including the remnants of a man’s right hand.
Steve’s phone rang. It was Richmond PD.
“Special Agent Post?” The policeman wanted confirmation.
“That’s me,” Steve acknowledged.
“Sir, we have three women here at the Da Vita Community Hospital. One is being prepped for surgery, two are OK but one of them has committed a string of driving offences. The mouthy one - they are all English, by the way - said she refused to leave the hospital until you arrived. She said she is the daughter of Senator Miles, so we thought we should call before we arrested her.”
“Hold those women there. I’ll be there in ten minutes to take charge of the situation, Officer.....”
“Sergeant Trelawney, sir.”
“OK Trelawney, secure the hospital until I can figure out what’s going on.”
Steve concluded the call, grabbed Dan Peterson and they headed off to the hospital, leaving the bloodbath behind.
Chapter 7 3
DaVitaRichmondCommunity Hospital, Virginia. USA. Monday 3:30pm.
Barry was drowsy from blood loss and morphine. His wound had been sealed temporarily, and he was connected to several monitors, a saline bag and a plasma bag. He had overheard the doctor talking to the policeman guarding the door.
He was going to lose his right arm below the elbow, but that would not be done at this hospital and nor could it be attempted until his blood count stabilised. However, the doctor was concerned less about the loss of the limb than he was about serious irregularities in heart pattern, which suggested that Barry may have suffered damage to his heart muscle.
The policeman listened with interest, but insisted that the patient be secured as he was likely to be charged with kidnap, serious assault and, potentially, murder. One armed or not, Barry realised that he was destined to spend his remaining days in a hellhole of a US prison.
The doctor agreed to keep him secured but comfortable until such times as it was safe to transfer him to a unit with more coronary support. The room fell silent and Barry drifted back into a dreamless sleep.
***
Mere yards away from Barry’s cubicle, the hard pressed medical staff were even more downbeat. Rob Donkin had suffered a cervical spinal injury that had paralysed him from the neck down. His first and second vertebrae were badly damaged. The doctors had stabilised him, but he was in an induced coma and he would remain unconscious until they could get him to a specialist spinal unit. This would be harder than it sounded because of the shortage of spinal surgery beds on the eastern seaboard, due to the high number of spinal injuries arriving back from the war zones. It would also be difficult because Donkin had no visible signs of insurance.
The most likely outcome would be extradition, by an air ambulance transfer, to the UK. The US police would have liked to prosecute him, but they recognised that he was already imprisoned in a body that would never work again.
***
Dee Hammond had fared better than her two attackers. She was still in surgery but no-one was harbouring negative thoughts about the outcome. Test after test had been carried out and eventually, after much discussion, the surgeon had agreed to continue with the procedure. No-one would tell Gillian or Katie why they had delayed surgery. All they were told was that she would be fine and that she would be expected to make a full recovery.
The bullet wounds themselves would offer little challenge, even to a small community hospital surgical team, but there were complications. The bullet had nicked a kidney and other organs on its way through to shattering her twelfth rib, sometimes referred to as a floating rib because it is not attached to the sternum.
Steve Post listened carefully to Katie Norman’s story of the day so far, and was surprised at the maternal protection offered to her by Gillian Davis. Gillian filled in the gaps as she held Katie’s hand. What she had to say shocked Steve Post and forced him to reconsider his preconceptions about the former Chameleon.