“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.
Meerm so ver fraid. Not fraid needle. Fraid this place. And fraid hurt. Hurt so bad.
“Okay now, Meerm,” say mask lady. Nice lady. “I’m going to make the hurt go away.”
Meerm feel warm, feel hurt go. This ver nice lady.
“I’m going to put you to sleep now, Meerm,” lady say. “And when you wake up, you’ll have a baby. Won’t that be nice?”
Yes. Baby. Meerm baby. So nice. Meerm want hold, want kiss. Make baby safe. Hold-hold-hold and nev let go.
Sleepy now, but not stop think baby…Meerm baby…Meerm ver own baby…happy Meerm…
23
“Stop!” Luca shouted. “Pull over right now!”
Lowery slammed on the brakes. As the Jeep screeched to an unexpected halt, the two following vehicles skidded past and swerved to stops ahead.
“Where’s the blower?” Luca shouted. “Give me the fucking blower!”
“Here,” Lowery said, slapping the PCA into his palm. “What’s the matter?”
“I am so stupid,” Luca said, punching in 4-1-1. “So fucking stupid!”
“Are you going to tell me—?”
“Cannon’s answering service! They’ll know where she is!”
He got the number from information, punched it in, and asked for Dr. Cannon.
“Dr. Cannon’s not available,” a woman’s voice told him. “Dr. Moss is covering.”
Shit! “I really need to speak to Elizabeth personally. This is her brother and we’ve got a family emergency that needs her immediate attention.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ll try her house and—”
“I’ve already called and she doesn’t answer.”
“Maybe she’s at the hospital. I can page her if you wish.”
“Would you? That would be wonderful.”
Luca waited on hold, feeling the time drag by, and then the operator was back on.
“I just spoke to the hospital. Dr. Cannon is in surgery. I can leave a message for her as soon as she gets out.”
Surgery? Could it be…?
“Which hospital?”
“Nassau Community. Do you want me to—?”
He cut her off and turned to Lowery. “Nassau Community Hospital. You know where it is?”
“Not a clue. Give me the address and the GPU will—”
“Right.”
Luca punched 4-1-1 again. He’d call the switchboard and ask for the address.
“Why didn’t I see it?” he shouted. “The sim’s in labor! That’s why Cannon’s house was empty. Everyone’s at the hospital. She’s having her baby.”
Lowery grinned. “And we didn’t bring any cigars.”
“Yes, we did,” Luca said, patting his HK. “The exploding kind.”
24
Romy, capped, masked, and garbed in surgical green, stood between Betsy and Joanna at the stainless steel sink and learned how to scrub. Betsy’s other scrub nurse had begged off, refusing to leave her five-year-old son to open his Christmas presents without her. That left Romy to fill in.