He hoped to use that weapon. He wanted that sim, yes, but wanted Cadman and Sullivan there too. Especially Romy Cadman. He wanted one last look at that pretty face before he put a bullet into it.
20
MINEOLA, NY
The racket—footsteps in the upstairs hallway, a fist pounding on a door, Betsy’s voice shouting—startled Romy awake. She found herself up and moving without knowing how or why.
“Wake up! Patrick! Romy! It’s time! We’ve got to go!”
Go? Where? She pulled open her door and caught Betsy as she hurried by. “What’s wrong?”
“Meerm’s in hard labor. We can’t hold off any longer. Got to get her to the hospital right now!”
Romy saw Patrick stick his head out of his room and called to him. “Did you hear?”
He nodded blearily. “What time is it?”
“Three-twenty!” Betsy cried, moving away. “Get dressed. We’ve got to move!”
Romy jumped into her clothes and was down the stairs in seconds, Patrick right behind her. They dashed to Betsy’s bedroom where they found a very confused and frightened Meerm lying on a cot and wrapped in blankets.
“Patrick, you carry her,” Betsy said as she yanked the spread and blankets off her own bed. “We’ll fix up the car.”
Romy followed her to the garage where they flattened the rear seats in the Volvo and spread out the bedclothes. Patrick appeared a moment later carrying the moaning Meerm. They nestled her in the rear section.
“Patrick, you drive,” Betsy said. “Do you know the way to the hospital?”
“No.”
“I’ll direct you, then. Romy, you stay here in the back with me.”
And then they were on their way, Betsy and Romy kneeling on either side of Meerm in the back as Patrick pulled out of the driveway. Romy opened her PCA and left a beeper message for Zero: “It’s happening. We’re on our way to the hospital.”
As she hung up she heard Betsy on her own PCA.
“…know it’s Christmas, Joanna, but this is more than just an emergency section, it’s an historical event…I wish I could say more than that, but I can’t. Have I ever lied to you? Well then, believe me, Joanna, youwant to be part of this. Okay, good. I’ll see you there.”
As Betsy hung up and punched in another speed-dial code, she glanced at Romy and smiled. “My surgical team. A dedicated bunch, but itis Christmas Day. My nurse anesthetist is Hindu, so she’ll be no problem; but both my scrub nurses have small children.” She shrugged. “One’s coming. I hope I can persuade the other. If not…do you faint at the sight of blood, Romy?”
“Me?” Romy said, caught off guard. “No, I’m okay with blood. But if you’re talking about assisting on a surgery…I don’t think…”
“Let’s hope you won’t have to, but be prepared. I may need you.”
Slice open Meerm’s belly? Romy didn’t know if she could help with that.
21
“Second floor—clear!”
“Office—clear!”
“Garage—empty!”
Luca stood in the center of Dr. Cannon’s living room listening to the reports through his headset, and felt ridiculous.
The op had started out perfectly. With the six team members divided between two Jeeps and a rented van, they’d arrived in town with time to spare. They’d left the Jeeps in the lot of an autobody shop and headed for Cannon’s house in the van. The plan was to ditch the van at the shop lot after the op and make it back to SimGen in the Jeeps. But now…
Shit, the house was empty.
Luca had had his first premonition the moment they’d pulled up in front: the lights were on. Upstairs and down. At four in the morning?
They’d crept up to the windows—no one moving about inside. They’d slammed through the rear door—no alarm.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs behind him. Luca turned and saw a helmeted figure approaching, recognized him as Lowery when he lifted his visor.
“Three bedrooms upstairs. The reports on her say she lives alone, but all three have slept-in beds. They’re not warm, but I’d guess they haven’t been cold too long. Looks like they left in a big hurry.”
Luca felt as if he were turning to ice. “You’re saying they might have been tipped?”
Lowery shrugged. “Who’d tip them? You and me were the only ones who knew where we were going. Maybe they got spooked. Maybe they spotted us watching the place and decided to take off.”
Luca turned away and ground his teeth. He should have kept someone here until the raid, but without Snyder and Grimes he was short-handed. What did he do now?
“All right,” he said into his helmet mike. “Everybody back to the van. We’re outta here.”
They’d return to the other cars, but not to SimGen. Not yet. He was staying in this area. Maybe he’d split up the team and send them looking for Cannon’s Volvo. Slim chance there, but better than doing nothing.
Needed time to think. No question now that Cannon and the sim were together. Find the doc and he’d have the sim, and Cadman and Sullivan too, no doubt.
Butwhere?
22
Zero watched the surreal scene below with a by-now-familiar mix of anticipation and dread. The faint aftereffects of the Scotch had evaporated when he received Romy’s message. He’d arrived at the hospital shortly after Betsy and the others, and left Tome and Kek parked in the van while Patrick admitted him through the doctor’s entrance. Like every other department in the hospital, security was a skeleton crew because of the holiday; so Zero, wearing a hat pulled low, dark glasses, and a scarf around his lower face, made it to the OR suite without being stopped.
Betsy had commandeered the amphitheater OR, and now Zero gazed down at a brightly lit operating table fifteen feet below, where a nurse was scrubbing and shaving Meerm’s distended belly. The sim lay tense and trembling with IVs running into both arms. The hovering dark-skinned anesthetist, who Betsy referred to as Madhuri, was ready to put her under.
The scrub nurse looked up and said, “Hey! Who’s the guy in the mask?”
Zero leaned back out of sight. He’d replaced the hat and scarf with his usual ski mask.
“A trusted friend,” Betsy said. “Don’t worry about him, Joanna. Just get our patient prepped.”
Betsy had told him she’d chosen the amphitheater for its audio-visual system, and Zero thought that an inspired idea. They could still lose this war; maybe an A-V record would provide some insurance. The problem was how to get the system up and running.
“There,” Patrick said, close at his side as he sighted along the top of the mounted camera. “That’s pointing in the general direction.”
Zero turned and seated himself at the computer console. “Good. Now let’s see if we can get a picture.”
“You know how to work this sort of rig?” Patrick said, leaning over his shoulder.
“Not really, but it seems to be a dedicated system, and if the menu’s at all intuitive…”
The menu formed on the screen and Zero groaned. It looked like a crossword puzzle with numbered feeds and rows ofinput from andoutput to and acronyms he didn’t understand. Suddenly the air in the balcony seemed too thin. He ripped off the mask and took a deep breath. He looked down at his trembling fingers poised over the keyboard. It wasn’t just the computer program, it was everything…the huge responsibility that he’d taken on over the past couple of years…he felt as if it were all crashing down on him at once. Everything he’d been living for hinged on what he and these good humans did here tonight.
He took another breath and focused on the screen. He could handle this.
A little trial and error, a lot of intuition…he could do it. He had to do it.