Critical (43 page)

Walter gingerly touched the side of his face. Pulling his fingers away, he saw a small amount of blood. Quickly, he retrieved his N95 mask and secured it to his face, despite the fact that one of its ties had been snapped apart when Laurie had torn it off. Next, he ran to a large, deep sink, where he found a towel. Wetting it, he rushed back to the smashed flask and, being careful not to cause even the slightest air disturbance, laid the wet towel over the white powder.

Ignoring Laurie's muffled yells as she pounded on the storeroom's door, Walter pulled out his cell phone. He was pleased there was a signal. Quickly, he dialed the emergency number in Washington. Once again, it had to ring a number of times. As he waited, he winced at the new crashing sounds coming from the storeroom. Laurie was apparently throwing large metal containers against the door, which was more worrisome than her previous yelling or pounding against the door with her fists. Walter was concerned someone might hear the commotion, despite the extensive sound insulation with which the room had been equipped. There was no doubt in Walter's mind that Dr. Montgomery had to be removed, and she had to be removed quickly.

Finally, the phone was answered. Walter had no patience with the heretofore cloak-and-dagger routine. When the man started to ask whether Walter was on a cell phone, Walter yelled that he didn't have time for such intrigue. “I've got Dr. Laurie Montgomery locked in a storeroom in the OR HVAC room,” he yelled. “Should I let you listen to her yelling and screaming and pounding on the walls? This whole mess is over if she's not dealt with. Do you understand what I'm saying? Whoever your best negotiator, as you called him, is, he's doing a hell of a lousy job. She burst in here and ruined my sample, so today's attempt isn't going to happen. I warned you about this two days ago.”

“You say Miss Montgomery is locked in a closet?”

“I said a storeroom,” Walter yelled.

“What floor?”

“Fourth floor. It's left down the corridor from the elevator. The door plaque says
Engineering
.”

“Don't let anyone in!”

Walter laughed sarcastically. “You don't understand. If one of the engineers needs to come up here for any reason, I couldn't stop them. How often they do come, I have no idea.”

“I'll have someone there momentarily.”

This time it was Walter who hung up first. For a moment he just stood there, furious at what he had been dragged into and everything that was happening, all because the company's health insurance wouldn't pay for his boy's lymphoma treatment.

Another crash brought Walter abruptly back to the present. He walked over to the storeroom door, pounded it himself, and told Laurie to shut up and that he'd let her out when she'd calmed down.

“Let me out now,” Laurie yelled back.

“I've called security. They are on their way,” Walter yelled, but his comment only resulted in another horrendous crash from within the storeroom. Giving up, he set his mind to clean up the airborne infection powder.

 

ADAM WAS PARKED
on the playground side of the street just opposite Laurie Montgomery's house. He'd gotten there slightly earlier than he'd planned to give himself an extra cushion of time, but something had obviously gone awry. Although a few people had exited the building, neither Laurie nor her boyfriend had shown their faces.

Just when Adam was about to admit he'd have to return in the morning, his phone buzzed against his leg. It was one of his handlers in Washington.

“Where are you?” the man demanded.

“One hundred sixth Street on the Upper West Side.”

“Get over to the Angels Orthopedic Hospital. The target is locked in a closet in a fourth-floor engineering space. An operative of ours is there. His name is Walter Osgood. Miss Montgomery must be extracted ASAP and then dealt with accordingly. It should be a challenge, but we trust you are up to it.”

Adam quickly hung up and started his vehicle. He then switched on the Beethoven and turned up the volume.

 

IN THE DARKNESS,
Laurie was becoming desperate. She'd always been somewhat claustrophobic, and being locked in the way she was had awakened her childhood fears. The only sliver of light was found beneath the stout door, and she'd been unable to locate a light switch. After the first few minutes of pounding on the door and yelling in hopes of being heard by someone other than Walter Osgood, she'd groped about in the utter blackness. The storeroom was about ten by twenty feet, with shelving on both sides. It was in the very back that she'd found the sizable metal containers whose tops were secured like paint cans. She had no idea what they contained and thought they may well have been paint. By rolling one forward, she'd used it to heave repeatedly against the door. It had had no perceivable effect despite its weight, and she had to be careful in the darkness that it didn't bounce off the door and injure her.

For a moment, she did nothing except try to listen. It had been some time since she'd heard Walter moving about in the outer room. Unable to hear anything and finding that standing in the darkness was more harrowing than trying to avoid hitting herself with the multi-gallon container, she went back to heaving it at the door. On her second try, she heard a deeper sound as the can struck the door and a softer one when it hit the floor. Laurie guessed that the top had come off and the contents spilled.

Bending down, Laurie gingerly patted the floor as she moved her hand forward. There was no smell of paint, so Laurie assumed it had to be something else. All at once, she encountered a fine powder with her fingers. Slowly, she moved her fingers toward her face, warily sniffing the closer she came. It wasn't until her fingers were close to her face that she smelled anything, and even then she wasn't sure what it was. She guessed it was a type of cleaning product.

Laurie righted the container. It still contained about half of its contents. She pushed it to the side so as not to stumble on it. Then she was about to get another one when she heard sounds coming from out in the other room. It sounded as if it were a door closing.

Hoping it was someone other than Walter, Laurie began rattling the doorknob with one hand and pounding on the door with the other, all the while yelling “Help” over and over. Within the confines of the storeroom, her yells were almost painfully loud, but she imagined they weren't so in the other room. Everything was so insulated.

Laurie stopped her clamor. No one had come to her rescue. She heard muttering voices. Obviously, someone had joined Walter and hadn't rushed to her aid. It wasn't hard for her to imagine that whoever it was was in league with Walter, probably coming to get her out of the hospital. Panicking, Laurie tried to think of what she could do. She'd not even been able to defend herself from one man, much less two. Suddenly, she thought of the fine powder. It certainly wouldn't hold them off for long, but may be enough to get a step on them. Maybe she could get out into the corridor, where yelling and screaming could bring someone…anyone.

Moving up to the door, Laurie felt around for the open container. Reaching in with her two hands, she scooped up as much of the powder as she could. Then, stepping forward, she pressed herself against the wall on the side of the door that opened. It was none too soon, as the door was suddenly unlocked and thrown completely ajar. For a second nothing happened, and then a head cautiously came in along with what could have been a gun. Laurie threw the powder into the face, then rolled around into the doorway and pushed the man backward.

Without waiting for an instant, Laurie took off running. She saw Walter grab the man who had his free hand slapped over his eyes. The ruse had caught both unawares and had been more effective than Laurie had even hoped. The problem was that she'd not been able to run toward the door to the corridor but rather toward the far door that Laurie had been told led to a second HVAC room. More important for her at the moment was that she'd also been told it too had an exit leading to a back stairway.

Although the powder had provided Laurie with the opportunity to run, it was not caustic enough to hold Adam down for long. Laurie had just managed to get through the adjoining door when Adam got his sight more or less back to normal, and he was able to pursue, although he was still coughing to a degree.

When Adam dashed into the second HVAC room, he had to come to a full stop. For a second, he did not see Laurie. Rapidly, his eyes scanned the high-ceilinged room with its tangle of ducting. He didn't see Laurie, but he did see the room's second door settling into its jamb.

There were large service elevators, but Laurie ignored them. Going through yet another door that Laurie sensed was locked in the other direction, she plunged down the stairs, which had two runs per floor. Originally, she was going to run back into the hospital on the OR floor below and make a large ruckus, but she had to ditch that idea with the fear of the door being locked from the stairwell side. Instead, Laurie continued down. Behind her, she heard Adam burst out through the door on the fourth floor.

Reaching the ground floor, Laurie exited out to the deserted receiving dock. To her right was the parking garage, to the left the ramp leading up to Fifth Avenue. Without a second's hesitation, Laurie ran to the left. At least she was confident the avenue would be filled with moving traffic.

Halfway up the ramp and despite her heavy breathing, she heard behind her the exit door bang open against the side of the building. At this point of full-fledged, headlong sprinting, her muscles were complaining in agony and each breath gave her a searing sensation in her chest.

Laurie got to the street. To her left almost a half a block away was the liveried doorman. At the moment, the sidewalk was devoid of activity. The street was a different story. As she'd expected, it was all but clotted with traffic moving at a slow pace. For lack of any other alternative, Laurie ran directly out into the middle of the one-way multilaned avenue, causing several cars to brake precipitously before drivers angrily drove on. With both hands waving, Laurie tried to get a car, a taxi, a bus, anything to stop. When she saw Adam sprinting in the middle of the street, she started to run north against the traffic while still waving her hands and pleading for someone to stop.

 

“IT'S HER,
for chrissake!” Angelo yelled the moment he'd seen Laurie appear, dashing from the hospital's parking ramp. He was out of the van in an instant. He and Richie had parked their respective vans just south of the ramp entrance at the north end of the hospital. Since the traffic went north to south, they'd decided it was the best place to be when Laurie came out the front entrance, which was what they had expected.

Franco leaped out of his side of the blue van while Richie and Freddie jumped from the white one. All four men were running up the sidewalk on the park side of Fifth Avenue, with Angelo slightly in the lead. Suddenly, Angelo stopped, as did the others. All saw Adam race out into the street in pursuit of Laurie, at whom he was yelling to stop. They all saw that he was carrying something wrapped in a towel.

Because Laurie was not moving ahead exclusively but rather trying to get cars to stop by slapping their hoods, Adam rapidly closed the narrow gap between them.

Laurie turned to look at him. Although she'd thought upstairs in the HVAC room that he was a stranger, now she thought she recognized him as the bill collector at the OCME. But before she could say anything and before he said anything, he slowly raised the cone-shaped towel he was carrying such that Laurie could see a black cylinder just concealed in its tip.

The sound of the gun was muffled, and Laurie reflexively winced and closed her eyes. Strangely, nothing happened. She reopened her eyes. At her feet lay Adam, still clutching his pistol, which had partially come out from behind its towel. Laurie was shocked into momentary immobility, staring down at her attacker, who was on his stomach, slightly twitching. But Laurie's trance didn't last long. A moment later, she was set on by four men, one of whom was yelling “Police” and showing several motorists who'd finally stopped his police badge. Two other cars had actually pulled to the side of the road, and the drivers were climbing out.

Laurie was relieved as she allowed herself to be rapidly escorted to the park-side sidewalk. It was there that her relief dissolved in a totally new whirl of fear. One of the men was Angelo Facciolo, an old nemesis of hers going back fifteen years. She tried to slow the rapid progress being made as the four men hustled her toward the vans. “Excuse me,” she called out, still wanting to believe the men had saved her. “Let's stop! I'm fine.”

She was ignored. No one spoke. Suddenly, she tried desperately to break from their collective grasp but to no avail. She found herself being hoisted up into the air with her feet only lightly touching the pavement. It was at that point that Laurie belatedly tried to verbally protest, but even that was of limited value as a hand snaked from behind and was clasped over her mouth.

Reaching the vans, the sliding door of the white one was thrown open, and Laurie was pulled inside as if devoured. She tried to struggle, but the four men crushed her under them, making it hard for her to breathe. She felt her legs being bound with duct tape, then her arms. She still tried to struggle, and she screamed when the hand over her mouth had been removed. But her shouting didn't persist for long, as she was gagged with an oily rag held in by several turns of the duct tape.