The grenade rattled down the concrete steps and he heard somebody scream again, then he was in the hall, and the second grenade went. He ran now with his bad foot tipped up, running only on his heel, toes off the ground, turned a corner, fumbled the keys, got in the closet, locked the door, turned on the light, listened.
Nobody in the hall-they may have bit on the blood trail, at least for the moment, but there'd be a million cops in the hospital in five minutes. He tore the uniform off, pulled on his street clothes, ripped the sleeve off the uniform, pulled his shoe off, jammed the sleeve into his shoe, and then his foot; he didn't take time to figure it out in detail, but it looked like he was missing most of his little toe and maybe part of the toe next to it.
Dressed again, he listened, then was out the door, down the corridor to the security door, and into the parking ramp.
Barakat had given him a key for his car, because of the problem with the van tags. He climbed inside, his left foot burning like fire, but got the car started and headed out. Sirens everywhere. Two blocks out of the hospital, a cop car passed him, running fast, and then he was on the ramp and down it and onto the interstate.
The foot hurt, but he'd been hurt worse; he focused on navigating the slippery streets up to the first exit, snow falling hard all around. He made it to Barakat's house in fifteen minutes, stopped, afraid to use his cell phone, and called Barakat on the land line.
"Things are fucked up, man," he said. "They know who I am."
"Are you calling-"
"I'm at your place. Calling on your phone," Cappy said. "I took your car."
"How did they know?"
"Maybe Joe Mack called them. I don't know. But I got to get the fuck out of here. And I'm hurt. One of them shot me in the foot, shot a toe off."
Barakat said, "Wait for me. In the bathroom cabinet there are three or four pill bottles. One of them is called oxycodone. If you have bad pain, take two of them. Lay on the bed, put your foot up on two pillows. If it's bleeding bad, get a kitchen towel and press on the wound. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"I never got close to the woman. She's still there…"
Barakat said, quietly, "Man, about fifty cops just ran in. I must go. But: they think you are here, I believe." COPS SWARMED the hospital, sixty or seventy officers from all the jurisdictions in the area-campus cops, Minneapolis and St. Paul police, Ramsey and Hennepin County deputies. Media trucks were right behind.
Marcy got the cops in order, and they began sweeping through the hospital, working with janitors, opening every door, blocking every exit.
There had been a half-dozen media people waiting in the cafeteria for the end of the twins operation, and now they were walking through the hospital, completely out of control, questioning everyone. Marcy moved to get them out, and got filmed pushing a reporter.
When the reporter screamed at her, Marcy shouted back, "What is it you don't understand about hand grenades? You think this is a fuckin' talk show?"
Lucas, who'd been hiding, said with a grin, "That's prime time." IN THE MIDDLE of the carnival, a bomb-squad cop told Lucas, "The thing is, a grenade's not all that powerful."
"What are you talking about?"
"Think about it. People are supposed to throw these things-and they weigh almost a pound. Most guys couldn't throw them a hundred feet, in an open field. They get maybe thirty, thirty-five yards, unless they're really strong. And lots of times, they're used pretty close-in. You can't have them killing your own people. So you get solid kills out to about five yards, solid wounding out to about fifteen. After that, not so much."
"What if somebody drops one on you, when you're in a stairwell?"
"Well, in that case, you're toast," the guy said. "But, you slam the door…"
"That's what we did."
"And you're good. If you'd done that in a movie, the grenade would have blown down the door and most of the wall. In real life, you probably won't even punch a hole in a fire door. You won't punch through a concrete block." WEATHER HEARD only one far-off grenade, which sounded more like a door slamming hard; but not quite like that. She looked up, and then back down. Slowing a little bit, taking twenty seconds for neatness.
Then, "I'm out."
"I'm two minutes out, I think I'm okay," Cooper said. The people up above, in the observation area, were standing now, watching him finish, and Weather realized that everybody in the OR was doing the same.
When he finished, he held his hands up, like a referee signaling a touchdown, and said, "Out."
Up above, in the observation desk, people began to applaud. SHRAKE SHOWED UP and said to Lucas, "I heard about it. You know what we need?"
"What?"
"We need for Cherries to be open," Shrake said. "If Cherries were open, we could block the place up, and squeeze them, and somebody would know the skinhead's name."
Lucas tapped him on the chest. "Call everybody in the files-the Seed guys. Call the guy down in Cottage Grove, and what's-his-name across the river, in Minneapolis."
"One more thing," Shrake said. "The guy might not have registered the van, but he might have insured it. Remember, Joe Mack told him that he was going to cancel his insurance. If he called it in to his insurance company, with a VIN…"
"Get somebody to start calling insurance companies. Get Sandy on it."
Shrake left. VIRGIL CAME UP and said, "The twins are good. They're gonna make it, seventy-five percent. The Frenchman is happy, Weather is happy, they're all happy. They're putting the kids back in the ICU and turning them over to the overnight team, then they're gonna do a press conference, and then they're going to a place called Le Moue and eat frogs."
"Aw, for Christ sakes…"
"Weather's going with them. I told her you were fine. Should I go?"
"Absolutely… Tell you the truth, with the doc dead and the skinhead either running or locked up here, she's probably safer eating frogs than she would be here."
Virgil said, "Think what would have happened if that asshole had pitched one of the grenades through the observation window into the OR."
"I think the windows are Lucite," Lucas said. "The grenades probably would have bounced."
"And then would have blown ten thousand Lucite splinters into the OR," Virgil said.
"Maybe not," Lucas said. "Contrary to what most people believe, from looking at movies, grenades aren't all that powerful."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Think about it…" WITH ALL the cops systematically working every hallway, every overhead, every closet, every bin, they found not a thing. A uniformed sergeant from Minneapolis told Lucas, "He might still be here. There are more holes in this place than you can believe. We could search for a hundred years and not find him."
Another sergeant said, "The TV people are calling it a terrorist attack, because of the grenades. Somebody ought to say something, if it's just some cracker shooting up the place."
Lucas called Marcy and told her about the terrorism reports, and she said, "Yeah, we know. I'm going out to talk to them in five minutes. I'll try to pour water on it. You remember his face well enough to do a sketch?"
"Not really-just generic skinhead."
"Yeah, I'm the same. I was looking at Mack, I hardly paid any attention to him. Check. Shrake and Virgil, maybe one of them could do it. I'd like something to throw out there."
"It's gonna be a screamer, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Biggest thing since the bridge fell down. Thing is, you're working for WCCO, and if it's a biker going crazy because of a robbery, it's a local story. If it's some kind of terror attack on a hospital in the middle of a twins separation, you'll go network. Now what are you going to do?"
"What an unhealthy way to look at life," Lucas said. "I'm shocked. Shocked."
"Think about this: Shaheen was a Muslim."
"Ah, man…" BARAKAT HAD BEEN reading a magazine when the trouble started. He didn't hear any gunfire or grenades, because he was too far away, but then cops started pouring through the doors, and he figured something had happened.