There was still no sign of Freeboot, and neither Monks nor the FBI agents had come up with a better plan.
Sacramento was a big spread-out city, with grids of lights stretching as far as he could see, cut by the dark, winding paths of the rivers. The freeway interchanges were bewildering to an outsider. But he remembered how to find Coulter Hospital. It was a fairly straight shot, off I-880 near McClellan Air Force Base.
He was within three miles of there when his cell phone rang.
“It looks like a go,” Baskett said. “Any questions?”
“Not right now. I’ll think of plenty when it’s too late.”
“You came out on top last time, Dr. Monks. Hang in there, we’re with you.”
Monks muttered thanks, distantly aware that it was the first positive thing that Baskett had ever said to him. Maybe impending disaster brought out the agent’s inner child.
Monks knew that by now the hospital was under intense FBI surveillance, with agents inside disguised as personnel. Mandrake had been sedated. Then, in a macabre twist, he had been injected with a microtransmitter the size of a grain of sand, just under his skin. If Freeboot managed to get away with him, the agents would have a means of tracking him. Monks knew that it made sense, but using a four-year-old as bait was evil enough, without treating him like a piece of meat besides.
He saw the green freeway sign for his exit, Plumas Road, along with a blue HOSPITAL sign, and moved over into the far right lane. A stream of other vehicles took the same exit, lining up at the stoplight at the ramp’s end. Plumas was a busy four-lane strip, lined with stores, mini-malls, and gas stations. He turned left onto it and drove another mile and a half north, where the area changed to small office buildings and apartment complexes. He turned left again into the hospital’s parking lot. This time, no other vehicles followed him.
The players here, he knew, were already in place.
Sacramento ’s Coulter Hospital was a relatively new sprawling complex, three stories, and spread out like the city itself. The juvenile-diabetes ward was around the back, on the first floor of the northwest wing. The maintenance department where the laundry cart was waiting was in the basement at the east end, next to the receiving area where the hospital took in its supplies. A driveway led down to loading docks there. It was a busy area, with maintenance, repair, delivery, and other personnel coming and going at all hours. No one would pay attention to a man who looked like he knew what he was doing.
At night, this far from the hospital’s main entrance, the parking lot was almost empty. Monks picked a spot away from the argon lights. He rummaged through the gear in the back of the Bronco for jeans and a work shirt, then peeled off his dressier clothes and changed clumsily in the tight space of the front seat. He exchanged his loafers for running shoes. He took his keys from the ignition and hung them on his belt. It was not the multikeyed ring on a lanyard that maintenance men favored, but it gave that impression. He put on the Giants baseball cap he used on occasions when he didn’t want to be seen clearly, and pulled the brim low over his face.
Freeboot almost certainly had his own surveillance going. It was critical that Monks make this look real.
He got out and walked to the loading dock’s steel man door, trying to affect the look of a worker on his way to a job he didn’t particularly want to do. Inside, he met the familiar sultry warmth of the hospital’s physical plant, the sharp smells of disinfectant and cleaning fluids, and the less definable scent of human bodies, some decaying and some on the mend. The room was large and open, with concrete walls and floor. There was no one else around. He kept walking toward an area where several janitorial carts were lined up against a wall. One of them was piled with freshly folded bedding.
A sleeping little boy would easily fit in the bottom bin, draped with pillowcases and sheets.
He gripped the cart’s tubular steel handle and pushed it out into the hallway, keeping his head down and shielding his face with the cap’s brim.
A large black man came walking down the hall toward him, wearing a gray uniform with a name patch sewn on. He had the competent look of someone who belonged here, and would know who else did and didn’t. Monks tensed, fearing that this was a slip-up and he would be challenged.
But the man only raised a big hand in greeting as he passed, saying, “What’s happening, baby?”
Monks muttered, “How’s it going,” and walked on, feeling a little better-suspecting that he had just seen his first FBI agent of the night.
He took a service elevator to the first floor and trundled the cart toward Mandrake’s ward, passing several more people with a glance or nod, classifying them automatically-hospital attendants, a harried intern, a phlebotomist pushing a cart of blood samples, a middle-aged woman in a dress who might have been a visitor or an administrator. At least that was who they seemed to be.
When he got to the ward, the charge nurse was at her desk, making notes on charts. She gave him a smile and murmured “Hi,” then bent back to her work. Probably she was an agent, too.
The hallway from there on was empty, as it usually would be this time of evening. He knew from Baskett that he was looking for room 163. Still, he played his role, pushing doors open and glancing inside as if he was checking the laundry situation. When he got to 163, he glanced furtively up and down the hall, then pushed the cart inside. Mandrake was asleep on his belly, mouth slightly open-the picture of helpless innocence.
Monks’s hands shook and his teeth almost chattered as he lifted the limp, warm weight out of bed. Staged though this was, the guilt and shame of abducting a child burned through his veins with his hammering pulse.
This time, the charge nurse did not look up as he pushed the cart past her.
32
Monks buckled Mandrake in the Bronco’s passenger seat, quickly arranging pads to make him comfortable.
“Buddy, I feel like absolute shit,” he whispered to the sleeping child. “After all we’ve been through together, to do this to you-I just can’t tell you.”
His cell phone chirped. He grabbed for it, fumbling in his haste.
“All right, we seen him,” Freeboot said curtly. “You just drive back the way you came. Keep that phone handy. Oh, and tell my little boy he’s going to be with his daddy soon.” The connection went dead before Monks could speak.
Hope surged up in him. Freeboot’s men had been watching, but not overhearing. They didn’t know about the FBI agents.
There was still a chance.
Monks pulled out of the parking lot and drove back to the freeway, easing carefully into traffic. Driving along this mundane road on this ordinary March evening, surrounded by mothers in minivans anxious to get their children home, strings of truckers cutting swaths to make their schedules, complacent businessmen on their way to conferences or trysts, he found it hard to imagine all the human activity seething behind the scenes.
Monks had gleaned enough from Baskett and from his own previous experiences with the FBI to have a fair idea of it. The Critical Incident Response Group had hundreds of personnel on alert by now. Several vehicles were following him, leapfrogging, with drivers taking turns at dropping back, changing into different disguises, then catching up again. A microphone and tracking device had been planted on the Bronco, shot from a gun as one of the tailing cars passed him. Monks hadn’t even been aware of it. Hidden roadblocks were ready to slam shut, and helicopters were poised to drop SWAT and hostage-rescue teams. Probably, top-level officials across the U.S. and even worldwide had been informed that the Calamity Jane killers were in the crosshairs.