Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) (23 page)

“Well, here’s what you asked for. I don’t get it. I mean what the fuck am I s’pose to do with this, huh? Normally I do the occasional restaurant or a car or something. Never rigged one of these damn things. Seems silly. What the fuck?”

Jimmy suppressed a grin. Evidently the man had a favorite expression and they were going to hear a lot of it. Manuel just gazed at the tiny man with the strange mannerism before reaching in his pocket for a smoke.

“You’re kidding me right? What the fuck? Just gonna fire that thing up in here with all this gas and shit around? Did you forget why you’re here? Stupid kid.” He switched his myopic gaze to Jimmy. “What the fuck’s this kid’s problem? Is he new or something? Trying to kill us! Fucking idiot.”

Manuel returned the cigarettes to his pocket, but he’d adopted a look that Jimmy knew well. The little man just didn’t see it, so Jimmy broke in quickly to save his life.

“Tony says you got some skills. You want to hear what I need or not?” He waved Manuel back to calm him down.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m here, aren’t I? What do you need? Lotta smoke? Lotta fire? Lotta bodies? Something that’s gonna burn awhile? What?”

“I need a shape charge. Something that’ll take out a guy from say ten to twenty feet. Some fire might help if it can be done. Just need him dead.”

“Okay, now you’re talking. Command detonate? Timer? What the fuck are you gonna set it off with?”

“I need it command detonated from a long range, and I need a camera mounted on the inside with a wide field of view.”

“Camera? How long’s it gotta sit?”

“A week maybe.”

“A week? What the fuck, man? That’s gonna be some serious battery life, unless you got a fucking power source? You got a fucking power source?”

“No, I need the whole mess mounted in that.” Jimmy pointed to the object sitting in the middle of the room.

The man gazed at the item for a moment, cocking his head this way and that. He thumbed the glasses back up his nose and adjusted his hat twice before fixing his gaze on Jimmy.

“Well now you’re talkin’. I can do that. How soon you need it?”

Jimmy rolled up a sleeve and checked his watch.

“Six hours.”

“Six . . . what the fuck!?”

•      •      •

As soon as he heard the helicopter approaching, the Major left his office and entered the morgue. He found his partner there preparing the autopsy table and laying out his instruments. The cooler was filled with ice and placed on the ground out of sight. A package of funeral cloth was already pulled from the closet, ready to be spread out on the adjoining table. The man looked up when the Major entered.

“You ready?”

“Let’s just do this. The staff will be occupied with the supplies. The only person on the floor will be the nurse at the desk.”

“You remember what I told you?”

“Yes, just give me the damn syringe.”

With a look of doubt, the man walked to a nearby cabinet and retrieved it. The Major took it and left without a word.

He stopped at his office to retrieve his clipboard before moving to the ward. Looking through the window, he spotted the nurse at the corner desk typing on a laptop. He angled his head to look down the aisle. Empty.

Pushing his way through, he entered the ward. The nurse looked up from his typing to see who it was, and since it wasn’t one of his superiors, he returned to it. He still managed a greeting.

“Hey, Major, not out going through the latest supply run with the others?”

“Nah, I’ll pick through the leftovers when they get done. What you up to?”

The nurse glanced at the monitor screens as he spoke. “Just watching the squiggly lines and chatting with my little sister back in Ohio.”

“How little?”

“She’s twelve.”

The Major made a show of checking his watch.

“Past her bedtime a little, Ed?”

“Yeah, I know. She likes to get online after Mom and Dad go to sleep. I used to read under the covers with a flashlight, she talks to her older brother half a world away. Amazing, huh?”

“We’re getting old.”

“Shit, I’m only twenty-four and she makes me feel old.”

A ding announced a new message from the girl and Ed leaned in to read it. The Major saw his chance.

“I’m just going to check on my guys.”

“No problem,” the nurse replied. His eyes never left the screen.

The Major quickly made his way to the first Afghan soldier. He had minor wounds and was sleeping soundly. He skipped the next and delayed at the third to determine who was sleeping and who wasn’t. Fortunately, the wounded who were on ventilators were all in the same area and were all sedated. He skipped two more patients and checked on the nurse. Ed was still absorbed in his chat session. He put his hand in his pocket and felt the cold plastic of the syringe. He palmed it as he moved around the next curtain.

The boy lay as before. The cycling of the ventilator provided a back beat to the drum roll of the gurgling water seal. The suction hissed as it created the bubbles, adding to the noise. The two IV pumps hummed as they pumped fluids into the boy’s arms. His skin color actually looked better today, he noted, as he reached out and carefully pulled the bandage back from the boy’s neck. The scar tissue was still new and pink, but the swelling had subsided, making it easier to see the landmarks he needed. Listening hard, he heard the nurse laugh followed by the tapping of the keyboard.

Not wasting time, he pulled the syringe from his pocket and stuck the covered needle in his mouth. Biting down, he removed the cap and exposed the needle. It was short and very thin. He felt the boy’s neck and lined up the needle. With a quick motion he jabbed it into the carotid artery. Pulling back on the plunger, he was rewarded with a flash of bright red blood. He quickly reversed his grip and emptied the syringe into the boy’s neck. Pulling it free, he held a piece of gauze to the site long enough to stop any bleeding. The needle was so small it left no mark that he could see, and the blood was little more than a drop. He watched for any excess bleeding, and seeing none, he carefully replaced the bandage while listening for the nurse.

He tore his gaze away from the boy long enough to recap the syringe. He was tempted to drop it in the sharps box, but that would make a telltale noise. He simply placed it back in his pocket. He grabbed his clipboard and took one last look at the boy and saw it. As he watched, the boy’s face seemed to slacken on the right side. The lips around the breathing tube seemed to slide back off his teeth and the skin on his face flowed toward the sheets as if gravity had suddenly increased on that side. A string of drool emerged from the corner of his mouth and slowly trailed down his cheek.

The Major peered around the curtain at the desk, but the nurse was still engrossed in his chat session with his little sister. Stepping back in, he pulled a small penlight from his pocket and checked the boy’s pupils. While one was reactive to the light, the other was as large as it could possibly be, crowding out the boy’s normally brown eyes.

The ten cubic centimeters of air he had injected had traveled to the boy’s brain and was causing a massive stroke. He checked the vital signs monitor. It would not cycle for another ten minutes. He was told the boy’s heart rate may change, but so far it remained as it was. The ventilator would overrule any attempt to change his respiratory rate. It was done.

He snatched up his clipboard and moved on to his next patient. This man was awake but still somewhat groggy from his pain meds. The Major attempted a short conversation while he listened for the monitors to alarm. After a minute he moved on. After three more stops he was out of patients.

Nothing. The nurse evidently didn’t see anything, or the boy’s vital signs hadn’t changed enough to trigger any alarms. He was going to have to force the issue.

He walked the center aisle back toward the desk, but made as if to stop and write something at the end of the boy’s bed. He looked the boy over. The drool had progressed farther and the teeth showed from a distance.

“Hey, Ed? You want to come look at the kid? He doesn’t look so good.”

“Sure, one second.”

Ed typed off another quick message and hit send before bouncing up and walking down the isle.

“What’s up?”

“Something’s wrong with his face.”

“His face?” Ed flipped on the overhead light and took a look at the kid.

“Oh shit.” He pulled a penlight from his pocket and checked the boy’s pupils.

“What is it?” the Major asked.

“He’s stroking out.” Ed pushed past the Major and ran for the desk. He hit a button on the wall before grabbing the phone.

“Eighteen is stroking out . . . I don’t know, sometime in the last half hour . . . no change that I saw, but his rate is starting to increase . . . no they’re both isotonic . . . he’s not . . . I don’t know . . . blown on the left . . . okay . . . okay.”

The Major watched as Ed came back around the desk and down the aisle. He entered the area vacated by the Major and first pushed the button on the machine to get another set of vitals. He then read both bags of fluid that were hanging, and after clamping one he then shut off the corresponding pump.

“What now?”

“Not much we can do for a stroke here. It’s up to the doc.”

An awkward silence followed until the Major broke it with a question.

“What was in the bag?”

“His sedation meds. Doc told me to cut them off. We need him awake to see how bad it is.”

“How long to wake him up?

Any answer was cut off by the doctor throwing the door open. He hurried down the aisle, followed by an anesthesiologist and a couple of nurses. He took one look at the boy and pulled out his penlight.

“One’s blown and the other’s sluggish. What happened?”

“The Major was visiting his people and he saw the facial droop. There were no changes on the monitor, but his heart rate is up in the last few minutes.”

“You cut the sedative?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get a sugar?”

“No, he’s not diabe—”

“Get one anyway.”

“Yes, sir.” Ed hurried off to comply.

The doctor stood up straight and looked to his colleague.

“What do you think?”

“Looks like a big one. Could be air or a clot based on his injuries. Hemorrhagic fits, too. How far you want to go?”

“Shit, question is how far
can
I go? I’ve got no CT scanner. No way to tell what kind of stroke he’s having. I could do a lumbar puncture and look for blood, but even if the CSF is clear, that’s not exactly proof that it isn’t hemorrhagic. He’s got a million places to bleed in his chest if we tPA him. If we do that, he could just bleed out.”

“Blood sugar is 86.”

“Okay.”

“We
have
to tPA him,” a nurse spoke.

“How do you justify that? If it’s hemorrhagic, it could kill him.”

The anesthesiologist answered for her. “If we do and it works, we treat the bleeding after and he still has a chance. If we do it and that’s not it, he’s brain dead. If we don’t do anything, he’s still brain dead.”

“So it has to be a clot because that’s the only thing we can treat?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck . . . Ed?”

“Yes, sir?

“I want tPA, give him . . . what’s he weigh, about 140 . . . 58mg. Give ten percent as a bolus and run the rest in over an hour. Draw some labs. I want a CBC, PT and PTT. Has he been typed and screened? Make sure we have some blood and platelets available. And give me pressures every five.”

“You want to wait for the labs?” the nurse asked.

“Why? You just said it yourself. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The labs are more for me, not him.”

They all looked at the boy for a silent moment. The Major watched from the sidelines while the boy’s fate played out. The doctor caught him looking.

“We’ll know in an hour or so. If it doesn’t work I’m just gonna take him off the vent. We don’t have room for a brain-dead patient here and I doubt the father would understand what it means anyway. He may be yours in an hour, so be ready.”

The Major just nodded for an answer.

The doctor just spun on a boot heel and stormed off the ward.

“Damn it!”

A trail of slamming doors followed the doctor as he made his way out of the building. One of those doors was outside the morgue.

The mortician had a smile on his face when the Major returned.

“What’s the score?”

“It worked. The kid stroked. They want to try some tPA?”

“Won’t work. it only works on blood clots. Ballsy move when they don’t know what kind of stroke it is.”

“Yeah, the doc was kind of pissed about that.”

“So they’re doing some blood work and then the tPA?”

“No, he ordered the tPA before I left.”

“No shit? That’s an aggressive move. Won’t matter either way I guess. Did he say anything else?”

“If it didn’t work in an hour, then he wasn’t going to keep him on the vent. He’ll be coming to us soon.”

“Perfect. I’m ready here. You tell the medics?”

“On my way now.”

The Major walked toward the door, slipping his hands in his pockets. He paused when he reached it and pulled the syringe free. After a long gaze at it in his bare hand, he reached out and dropped it in a sharps box before pushing the door open and heading for the helicopter.

Killing of 5-Year-Old Kidnapped From Market Shocks Mexico
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS—November 4, 2008
 
 

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