Or they're laid out on their backs someplace.
Overhead, the call bell started to ping out a quiet code every few seconds.
I hung up and dialed Pat's office. He wasn't in either. I remembered his trying to get Ray Wilson and had the operator put me through to Ray's office. This time I got him.
I said, "Pat, I have no time for talk. I'm at the hospital and everything's breaking loose. There's a phony cop at the door, so the real officer is down somewhere. They're going to try to snatch Velda. If they wanted her dead, they would have already done it. Get some cars up here and no sirens. They smell cops and they can kill her."
"They moving now?" Pat got in.
I heard wheels rolling on tile and squinted around the wall. Coming out of the last door down on the right was an empty gurney pushed by a man in orderly's clothes. "They're moving. Shake your ass."
I hung up and stepped out into the corridor, whistling between my teeth. The guy pushing the gurney stopped and started playing with the mattress. I pushed the button on the elevator, looked down at the cop who was watching me too and waved. The phony cop waved back.
When the elevator halted, I got in, let the doors close and pushed the STOP button. I stood there, hoping the guy pushing the gurney wouldn't notice the lights over the doors standing still. The rubber tires thumped a little louder, passed the elevator, and when I didn't hear them any longer, I pushed the MANUAL OPEN button and stood there staring out into the empty corridor. I took my hat off, dropped it on the floor and yanked the .45 out of the holster. There was a shell in the chamber and the hammer was on half cock. I thumbed it back all the way and looked down the corridor.
The guy in the orderly's clothes was standing there with an AK47 automatic rifle cradled in his arms watching both ends of the hallway. His stance was low and when he swung, his coat flopped open and it looked like he was wearing upper-body armor. Half the gurney was sticking out Velda's door and even as I watched, it moved out and I saw her strapped onto the carrier. The man in uniform came out with a police service .38 in one hand and one hell of a big bruiser of an automatic in the other. Unless I got some backup, I was totally outgunned and no way I could close in on them without putting Velda's life on the line.
A quiet little code still pinged from the hall bell. Security still hadn't answered.
No wasted moves this time. The pair moved the gurney away from me and I knew they were headed toward the emergency-room exit. The orderly had draped a sheet over the gun on his arm, and the uniform had the .38 on the gurney next to Velda and the automatic hidden someplace in front of him.
I stepped back in the car, let the doors close, pushed the first-floor button and hoped nobody tried to get on. Like all hospital elevators, this one took forever to pass each level and before it stopped, I picked my hat up and held it over my .45. I stepped out. This time I didn't run. The gurney would be moving at proper walking speed, seemingly going through a normal routine, and as long as I hurried, I could meet it outside the building. There was no way this play could be stopped without some kind of shooting, and I didn't want anybody else in the way.
Ahead I could see the entrance to the emergency room and the elevator bank they would come out of. Now they had two options, going through the crowd, taking the risk of having their weapons spotted, or heading for the walkway door where I was standing. It wasn't made for gurneys, but it was ramped for wheelchairs and with some juggling, a gurney could get through.
They came out of the elevator just as I stepped outside and now I felt better. They had turned toward the walkway door and I was waiting out there in the dark. There were only a few seconds to look around for their probable course and find cover. The walkway curved down to the street, but the parking places were filled again with off-street overnighters, and the cars there couldn't handle a limp patient. Unless they had planned on a mobile van or station wagon, any transportation would have to be farther down the line, out of sight from where I was standing.
I moved on down the walk, reached the parked cars and got in the street behind them. The doors of the building swung inward. The guy in the orderly uniform came out first, the AK47 under his arm, still covered by a cloth of some kind. He never took his eyes off the area in front of him, juggling the gurney forward with one hand while the other man pushed from behind. It finally slid through and now the phony cop had the oversized automatic in his hand, the holstered .38 ready to grab.
Risking a shot was crazy. The pair were alert, well armed and probably handy with their equipment. They most likely had preplanned an escape exit if they were intercepted, and killing Velda would be a part of the play. I'd have to get off two perfect shots on the first try with a six-foot spread between targets in dim light at a bad distance, and I wasn't that good to try.
The gurney made the sidewalk and the two cranked it into a turn going away from the hospital. Both of them were still facing forward, both right on the edge of action. I let them pass me, crouching down behind the bodies of the cars, and when they were about ten feet in front, I kept pace with their movements.
A car turned up the road, momentarily lighting up the area. The beam swept over the gurney, but the two went on in a normal manner. I stepped between the parked cars and let the car pass. It was an unmarked sedan with a woman at the wheel. It seemed like an hour had passed, but it had only been a few minutes.
Hell, traffic was light. A squad car could have been here by now. Another set of lights turned up, a truck dropped down a gear and lumbered up the hill. I moved down two car lengths, still staying close, still silently swearing at the frustrating delays in emergency police actions. A car made the U-turn at the hospital and came toward me from the other direction and only when it got past me did a raucous blast from a loudhailer yell, "Freeze! Police!" and the power lights from the truck turned night into day, blinding the two men in the glare.
Everything happened so quickly there was a hesitancy in the movements the men made. The orderly wasted one second trying to strip the cloth from the AK47 and a pair of rapid blasts took him down and out. The phony cop jammed himself down in a crouch and his gun came up to shoot through the bottom of the gurney. He was out of sight of the others, but not out of mine, and I squeezed off a single round that took him in the shoulder and spun him around like a rag doll.
I was standing and had my hands over my head so the cops wouldn't take me out with a wild shot figuring me for the other side. Pat came running up, a snub-nosed .38 in his fist, and said, "You okay, Mike?"
"No sweat." I took my hands down in time to yell and half-point behind Pat, and he turned and fired at the phony cop who had pulled his .38 out of the holster and was about to let go at the gurney again. Pat put one into the side of his head, blowing his brains all over the sidewalk.
They all came out one side, so his face was gory, but still recognizable.
The area was cordoned off so fast no spectators had a chance to get near the bodies. Two cops took the gurney out to the truck, lifted it in the back way, and the lady cop from the first car got in with Velda and the unit lurched ahead, made a turn in the street and headed west.
Pat took my arm and hustled me toward his own unmarked cruiser close by. I said, "Where did you guys come from?"
"Come on, pal, I alerted this team as soon as you headed over here." He yanked a portable radio from his pocket and said into it, "Charlie squad, what have you got?"
There was a click and a hum and a flat voice answered with, "One officer down in the patient's room, Captain. We have a doctor here who says he was sapped, then drugged. There are two syringes on the bed table, both empty."