Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller (Book 1) (3 page)

The chopper came in low over the East River. The dark water was beneath them, flowing fast, tiny swells rising and falling. Luke could see what Ed meant. The water looked like a thousand rats running under a black shimmering blanket.

They dropped slowly down to the 34th Street heliport. Luke watched the lights of the buildings to his left, a million twinkling jewels in the night. Now that they were here, a sense of urgency surged through him. His heart skipped a beat. He had stayed calm during the long flight because what else was he going to do? But the clock was ticking, and they needed to move. He could almost jump out of the helicopter before it landed.

It touched down with a bump and a shudder, and instantly everyone in the cabin unbuckled. Don wrenched the door open. “Let’s go,” he said.

The blast gate to the street was twenty yards from the pad. Three SUVs waited just outside the concrete barriers. A squad of New York SRT guys ran to the helicopter and off-loaded the equipment bags. A man took Luke’s garment bag and his bug-out bag.

“Careful with those,” Luke said. “The last time I came up here, you guys lost my bags. I’m not going to have time for a shopping trip.”

Luke and Don climbed into the lead SUV, Trudy sliding in with them. The SUV was stretched to create a passenger cabin with facing seats. Luke and Don faced forward while Trudy faced backward. The SUV rolled out almost before they sat down. Within a minute they were inside the narrow canyon of FDR Drive, racing north. Yellow taxis zoomed all around them, like a swarm of bees.

No one spoke. The SUV raced along, hugging the concrete curves, passing through tunnels beneath crumbling buildings, banging hard over potholes. Luke could feel his heart beat in his chest. The driving wasn’t what made his pulse race. It was the anticipation.

“It would have been nice to come up here for a little fun,” Don said. “Stay in a fancy hotel, maybe see a Broadway show.”

“Next time,” Luke said.

Outside his window, the SUV was already exiting the highway. It was the 96th Street exit. The driver barely paused at a red light, then turned left and floored it down the empty boulevard.

 Luke watched as the SUV roared into the circular driveway of the hospital. It was a quiet time of night. They pulled directly in front of the bright lights of the emergency room. A man in a three-piece suit stood waiting for them.

“Sharp dresser,” Luke said.

Don poked Luke with a thick finger. “Say, Luke. We got a little treat for you tonight. When was the last time you put on a hazmat suit?”

4:11 a.m.

Beneath Center Medical Center, Upper East Side

“Not too tight,” Luke said around a mouthful of plastic thermometer.

Trudy had placed the sensor of a portable blood pressure monitor on Luke’s wrist. The sensor squeezed his wrist hard and then harder still, then slowly released it in stages, making gasping sounds as it did so. Trudy tore back the Velcro on the wrist sensor and in almost the same motion, pulled the thermometer from his mouth.

“How does it look?” he said.

She glanced at the readouts. “Your blood pressure is up,” she said. “138 over 85. Resting heart rate 97. Temperature 100.4. I’m not going to lie to you, Luke. These numbers could be better.”

“I’ve been under a little stress lately,” Luke said.

Trudy shrugged. “Don’s numbers are better than yours.”

“Yeah, but he takes statins.”

Luke and Don sat together in their boxers and T-shirts on a wooden bench. They were in a sub-basement storage facility beneath the hospital. Heavy vinyl drapes hung all around them, closing off the area. It was cold and dank down here, and a shiver raced along Luke’s spine. The breached containment vault was two stories further below them.

People milled around. There were a couple of SRT guys from the New York office. The SRT guys had set up two folding tables with a series of laptops and video displays across them. There was the guy in the three-piece suit, who was an intelligence officer from the NYPD counter-terrorism unit.

Ed Newsam, the big weapons and tactics guy Luke had met on the chopper, pushed through the vinyl curtains with two more SRT guys behind him. Each SRT man carried a sealed clear package with bright yellow material inside.

“Attention,” Newsam said in a loud voice, cutting through the chatter. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes. “Don and Luke, eyes on me, please.”

Newsam held a bottle of water in each hand. “I know you’ve both done this before, but we’re going to treat it like the first time, that way there’s no mistakes. These men behind me are going to inspect your suits for you, and then they’re going to help you put them on. These are Level A hazmat suits, and they’re solid vinyl. It’s going to get hot inside of them, and that means you’re going to sweat. So before we begin, I need you to start drinking these bottles of water. You will be glad you did.”

“Has anyone been down there before us?” Luke said.

“Two guards went down after the security breach was discovered. The lights are knocked out. Swann has tried to bring them back on, but no luck. So it’s dark down there. The guards had flashlights, but when they found the vault open and canisters and drums strewn around, they backed out in a hurry.”

“They get any exposure?”

Newsam smiled. “A little. My daughters are going to use them as nightlights for a few days. They didn’t have suits on, but they were only there for a minute. You’re going to be down there longer.”

“Will you be able to see what we see?”

“Your hoods have mounted videocams and LED lights. I’ll see what you’re seeing, and I’ll be recording it.”

It took twenty minutes to get dressed. Luke was frustrated. It was hard to move inside the suit. He was covered head to toe in vinyl, and it was already getting hot inside. His face plate kept fogging up. It seemed like time was flying past them. The thieves were far out ahead.

He and Don rode the freight elevator together. It creaked slowly downward. Don carried the Geiger counter. It looked like a small car battery with a carry handle.

“You guys hear me okay?” Newsam said. It sounded like he was inside Luke’s head. The hoods had built-in speakers and microphones.

“Yeah,” Luke said.

“I hear you,” Don said.

“Good. I hear you both loud and clear. We’re on a closed frequency. The only people on here are you guys, me, and Swann up in the video control booth. Swann has access to a digital map of the facility and those suits are outfitted with tracking devices. Swann can see you on his map, and he’s going to direct you from the elevator to the vault. You with me, Swann?”

“I’m here,” Swann said.

The elevator lurched to a stop.

“When the doors open, step out and turn left.”

The two men moved awkwardly down a wide hallway, guided by Swann’s voce. Their helmet lights played against the walls, throwing shadows in the dark. It reminded Luke of shipwreck scuba dives he had done in years past.

Within a few seconds, the Geiger counter started to click. The clicks came spaced apart at first, like a slow heartbeat.

“We have radiation,” Don said.

“We see it. Don’t worry. It’s not bad. That’s a sensitive machine you’re carrying.”

The clicks started to speed up and grow louder.

Swann’s voice: “In a few feet, turn right, then follow that hallway maybe thirty feet. It will open into a large square chamber. The containment vault is on the other side of the chamber.”

When they turned right, the Geiger counter began to click loud and fast. The clicks came in a torrent. It was hard to tell one from the next.

“Newsam?”

“Step lively, gentlemen. Let’s try to do this in five minutes or less.”

They moved into the chamber. The place was a mess. On the floor, canisters, boxes, and large metal drums were knocked over and left randomly. Some of them were open. Luke trained his light on the vault across the room. The heavy door was open.

“You seeing this?” Luke said. “Godzilla must have passed through here.”

Newsam’s voice came in again. “Don! Don! Train your light and your camera on the ground, five feet ahead. There. A few more feet. What’s that on the floor?”

Luke turned toward Don and focused his light in the same place. About ten feet from him, amid the wreckage, were sprawled what looked like a pile of rags.

“It’s a body,” Don said. “Shit.”

Luke moved over to it and trained his light on it. The person was big, wearing what looked like a security guard’s uniform. Luke kneeled beside the body. There was a dark stain on the floor, like a bad motor oil leak under a car. The head was sideways, facing him. Everything above the eyes was gone, his forehead blown out in a crater. Luke reached around to the back of the head, feeling for a much smaller hole. Even through the thick chemical gloves, he found it.

“What do you have, Luke?”

“I have a large male, 18 to 30 years old, of Arab, Persian, or possibly Mediterranean descent. There’s a lot of blood. He’s got entry and exit wounds consistent with a gunshot to the back of the head. It looks like an execution. Could be another guard or it could be one of our subjects had an argument with his friends.”

“Luke,” Newsam said. “In your utility belt, you’ve got a small digital fingerprint scanner. See if you can dig it out and get a print off that guy.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” Luke said.

“Come on, man. The gloves are cumbersome, but I know where the scanner is. I can walk you to it.”

Luke pointed his camera at the man’s right hand. Each finger was a ragged stump, gone below the first knuckle. He glanced at the other hand. It was the same way.

“They took the fingerprints with them,” he said.

Luke and Don, dressed in street clothes again, walked quickly down the hospital corridor with the sharp dresser from the NYPD counter-terrorism unit. Luke hadn’t even caught the guy’s name. He thought of him as Three-Piece. Luke was about to give the guy his orders. They needed things to happen, and for that they needed the city’s cooperation.

Luke was taking charge, like he always tended to do. He glanced at Don, and Don nodded his assent. That’s why Don brought Luke on: to take charge. Don always said that Luke was born to play quarterback.

“I want Geiger counters on every floor,” Luke said. “Somewhere away from the public. We didn’t hit any radiation until six levels down, but if it starts to move upward, we need everyone out, and fast.”

“The hospital has patients on life support,” Three-Piece said. “They’re hard to move.”

“Right. So start putting those logistics in place now.”

“Okay.”

Luke went on. “We’re going to need an entire hazmat team down there. We need that body brought up, no matter how contaminated, and we need it done fast. The clean-up can wait until after we have the body.”

“Got it,” Three-Piece said. “We’ll put it in a lead-lined casket, and bring it to the coroner in a radiation containment truck.”

“Can it be done quietly?”

“Sure.”

“We need a match for dental records, DNA, scars, tattoos, surgical pins, whatever we can find. Once you have the data, pass it on to Trudy Wellington on our team. She’s got access to databases your people won’t have.”

Luke pulled out his phone and speed-dialed a number. She picked up on the first ring.

“Trudy, where are you?”

“I’m with Swann on Fifth Avenue, in the back of one of our cars, on our way down to the command center.”

“Listen, I’ve got…” He looked at Three-Piece. “What’s your name?”

“Kurt. Kurt Myerson.”

“I’ve got Kurt Myerson from the NYPD here. He’s with the counter-terrorism unit. They’re going to bring the body up. I need you to connect with him for dental records, DNA, any identifiers at all. When you get the data, I want this guy’s name, age, country of origin, known associates, everything. I need to know where’s he been and what he’s been doing for the past six months. And I need all of this yesterday.”  

“Got it, Luke.”

“Great. Thank you. Here’s Kurt, he’s going to give you his direct number.”

Luke handed Kurt the phone. The three men pushed through a set of double doors, barely slowing down. In a moment, Kurt handed the phone back to Luke.

“Trudy? You still with me?”

“Would I ever be anywhere else?”

Luke nodded. “Good. One more thought. The surveillance cameras are off here at the hospital, but there’s got to be cameras all over this neighborhood. When you get to the command center, grab a few of our people. Have them access anything they can find within a five-block radius of this place, and pull video from, let’s say, 8p.m. until 1a.m. I want to get a look at every commercial or delivery vehicle that came near the hospital during that time. Highest priority is small delivery vans, bread trucks, hot dog trucks, anything along those lines. Anything small, convenient, that can carry a concealed payload. Lower priority is tractor trailers, buses, or construction vehicles, but don’t overlook them. Lowest priority is RVs, pickup trucks, and SUVs. I want screen captures of license plates, and I want ownership of the vehicles tracked. If you find one that looks fishy, you search more cameras for that vehicle on an expanding radius, and find out where it went.”

“Luke,” she said, “I’m going to need more than a few people for that.”

Luke thought about it for two seconds. “Okay. Wake up some people back home, bring them in to SRT headquarters, and forward the license plate data to them. They can track ownership down there.”

“Got it.”

They hung up. Luke reoriented himself to the present moment, and a new thought occurred to him. He glanced at Kurt Myerson.

“Okay, Kurt. Here’s the most important thing. We need this hospital locked down. We need the employees who were on shift tonight gathered up and sequestered. People are going to talk, I understand that, but we’ve got to keep this out of the hands of the media for as long as we can. If this gets out, there’s going to be panic, there’s going to be ten thousand false leads called in to the police, and the bad guys will get to watch the entire investigation unfold on television. We can’t let it happen.”