As the orderly plunged through the door, Craig dove at his legs, but the man kicked him in the chin. His teeth clicked together with a noise that vibrated through his skull. In his spinning vision, he saw black static.
Jackson leaped over a moaning Agent Schultz and passed Craig in hot pursuit after the orderly. “Everybody, out of the way!” he yelled. “FBI!”
Craig struggled to his feet as the first emergency doctor arrived in response to the automatic alarms. “Help them!” he said, shaking his head to clear it as he gestured to where the stabbed guard writhed in pain. Dumenco lay disconnected from the oxygen, IV fluid, and life-monitoring equipment, wheezing, and Agent Schultz nursed what appeared to be broken ribs and a broken arm. “Get help for all of them.”
Craig raced down the hall after his partner. The would-be assassin ran for the stairwell with Jackson close behind him. Grabbing a metal cart, the orderly flung it behind him like a carnival ride. Jackson crashed headlong into it. The cart toppled over with a loud clatter, spraying medication cups, syringes, and supplies across the floor.
Jackson didn’t slow, hopping over the obstacle and staggering to regain his balance. He held his handgun out, but didn’t fire as he charged ahead. People in the hall squealed and scattered out of the way.
The assassin hit the stairwell, ripped the metal fire door open, and bounded down the stairs. On pneumatic hinges, the door began to shut behind him. Jackson, running at full speed, grabbed for the door.
Craig saw the potential trap and shouted, “ Jackson – on your guard!”
The tall, dark agent passed the threshold at full speed into the dimmer light of the stairwell. He posed a perfect target-but Craig shouted his warning at just the right instant, and Jackson apparently realized his peril. He threw himself sideways just as bullets smashed into the stairwell’s metal door, making large puckered craters.
Jackson wasted no time and swung down his own gun with practiced ease. He didn’t bother identifying himself-and FBI agents were trained not to fire warning shots. Jackson pulled the trigger three times, clustering the shots around the impostor orderly’s chest. Aim for the center of mass. Remove the threat.
The orderly flew backward into the concrete wall, his chest ripped open. With the impact, he bounced like a rubber ball down the remaining half-flight of stairs, leaving a series of red stains until he crashed against the corner landing. Jackson froze in position, his gun still aimed, waiting to see if the blond man made a further move. But the attacker lay sprawled, his eyes wide but unseeing. Speckles of blood and cooling perspiration dotted his smooth forehead.
It had happened in only a few seconds. Craig finally caught up with his partner, who stood panting and shaking in the instantaneous after-rush of the ordeal.
“Where’s his weapon?” said Craig, scanning the floor.
Jackson nodded down the stairwell. “Secure it-I kicked it away.”
Furtively, Jackson glanced over at the bullet holes in the metal door only inches from where his chest and head had been. His skin took on a pasty appearance, tinting the rich brown of his face with a grayish cast.
One of the doctors on duty rushed up and knelt over the assassin. It only took a moment to check the man over and determine that nothing could be done to save him. The doctor stepped away.
After retrieving the dead man’s weapon, Craig felt cold. He had known there was no other option, but still he shook his head. “Is that our killer?” he asked. “You think that’s the guy who triggered the accident at Fermilab?”
Jackson panted, then sank to his knees. “He sure didn’t want Dumenco to live through the day.”
Then the other implications struck home for Craig. “Just what we needed, a Board of Inquiry in the midst of this. We’re already short on time.” Jackson seemed too wrung out to do more than just stand motionless. Craig squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll back you up all the way, Randall.”
He went down the stairs to search the body. His fingers sticky with blood, he patted down the man’s clothes, pawing in his pockets.
Naturally, he discovered no identification. With the disguised appearance it would be difficult to tell who this man was, unless the FBI fingerprint database could help out. In the shirt pocket beneath his white orderly coat, however, Craig found two pieces of paper, one bearing a list of names with corresponding cities, and another a small business card. Physicians for Responsible Radiation Research, with a stylized logo that showed PR-Cubed. Craig’s stomach twisted in knots.
What did Trish have to do with this?
Back in Dumenco’s room doctors scrambled to put everything back in order. Schultz and the injured guard had been taken off to be treated, but they weren’t in any danger.
In his bed the Ukrainian lay devastated. His already horrifying condition had grown noticeably worse, as if he had been through some mangling industrial machine. His face was ravaged, his eyes wild and scarlet.
Trish tended him, trying to soothe him. Her face was flushed, her expression pinched with concern. She’d succeeded in replacing the IV drip tubes and reattaching the electrodes to his medical monitoring equipment. Trish looked up at Craig with concern and questions in her sepia eyes.
He took a deep breath and clasped his hands, still sticky and stained with blood from the dead assassin, behind his back. Other Chicago Bureau agents, local law-enforcement, and the remainder of the hospital security staff, had converged on where the body had fallen in the stairwell.
Soon it would be time for all the paperwork, all the reports. Craig nodded at Trish. “You don’t have to worry about that man anymore. Whoever he was. He doesn’t have any identification.”
Trish looked relieved.
Craig narrowed his eyes and spoke sharply. “So do you want to save us a lot of time and trouble and tell me who he is?”
Trish blinked, apparently baffled. Craig held up the business card, and it seemed to burn in his fingers. “He had this in his pocket. PR-Cubed, Trish. Your organization! I thought you were hiding something from me this morning, not telling me everything you thought. Now who is he?”
“He could have gotten that card anywhere-our convention was in town last weekend, and-”
Craig raised his voice, but was still under control. “Who is he, Trish?”
She paled and rested against the metal support bar of Dumenco’s bed. “I… I thought he might have looked familiar. Someone from the PR-Cubed who was-who said he was tracking down Chernobyl information. He wanted to know where I could find Georg’s family members, since I’d had some contact with them in the Ukraine. But I didn’t know anything. He asked me several times, and he was very insistent-but I didn’t know!” Her voice became thin and watery with her own anxiety.
“Then why didn’t you tell me this morning, dammit?”
“Because I wasn’t sure. He was wearing a surgical mask, it was dark. I thought I was imagining things.”
Dumenco spoke weakly from his bed. “Not… imagining things.”
Craig marched toward Dumenco, holding out the list, unfolding the sheet of paper. “Dr. Dumenco, I need you to look at these names. Do you recognize them? The man who attacked you carried them.”
The dying scientist seemed to have trouble focusing on the names. Craig pushed the list closer, and Dumenco stared at the words. Then tears gushed out of his hemorrhaged eyes. He trembled on the bed, glancing at the names, then over at the framed snapshots Craig had taken from the dresser drawer in his apartment.
“One name, then a city written down. Who are they, Dr. Dumenco?” he said. Trish looked over his shoulder, wide-eyed.
“My… my family,” the scientist said. “My family’s new names… all of them.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “They have been in hiding. They were supposed to be-” He shook his head. “They were supposed to be safe, safe from people like him.”