Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker
Dark Revelations (37 page)
But not now.
Not with less than an hour left on the timer.
As the President of the First Hospital in America shall soon see.
Look at him.
He’s smiling at me.
And I smile back.
I say,
Hello.
chapter 74
DARK
D
amien Blair had the GA jet fueled and ready for the team’s arrival. Takeoff happened sixty seconds after the team’s van pulled onto the tarmac. Still, the plane lagged behind Trey Halbthin’s private jet by about an hour. Dark and the rest of the Global Alliance team landed in Philadelphia and was transported by another van up to Pennsylvania General, where the hospital president was already in a conference room with the local FBI field office.
amien Blair had the GA jet fueled and ready for the team’s arrival. Takeoff happened sixty seconds after the team’s van pulled onto the tarmac. Still, the plane lagged behind Trey Halbthin’s private jet by about an hour. Dark and the rest of the Global Alliance team landed in Philadelphia and was transported by another van up to Pennsylvania General, where the hospital president was already in a conference room with the local FBI field office.
Dark showed the president photos of Trey Halbthin that O’Brian had dug up from his identity search—passports, driver’s licenses, bank cards. The hospital president confirmed that yes, that was the man who delivered that package.
“Any idea where he went?”
“Not at all.”
“We want to evacuate the hospital,” the special agent in charge told Dark.
“No. That could just speed up the clock,” Dark said. “Even if he didn’t, you could spark a citywide panic. What was the timepiece in the package?”
“A digital timer on a cell phone,” the SAC said. “Twenty-three minutes left.”
“There was also a small toy coffin with dirt inside,” the hospital president said. “What does that mean? Is this a death threat against me personally?”
They already had the riddle projected onto a wall:
THE MAKER DOESN’T NEED IT,
THE BUYER DOESN’T USE IT.
THE USER USES IT WITHOUT KNOWING.
WHAT IS IT?LABYRINTH
“Now we know what our suspect looks like,” Dark said to the FBI brass. “Let’s start thinking like him—grand, symbolic. He’s not going to just mow down a bunch of nurses in the hospital cafeteria. He’s making a statement, so he’ll want a stage.”
The special agent in charge nodded.
“Anybody have the answer to Labyrinth’s riddle yet?” O’Brian asked. “Hans, you want to jump into the game, maybe?”
Roeding just stared at him.
“Now there’s the intellectual response I’d been hoping for—thanks, Hans! Anybody else want to—”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Roeding said, wicked smile breaking out on his face. “The answer is a coffin. Maker doesn’t need it, buyer doesn’t use it, user doesn’t know he’s using it. Just like you won’t know when I put you into the fucking ground, you Irish bastard.”
Natasha sighed. “Save the bromance for later—let’s find this son of a bitch.”
Pennsylvania General was immense. What began as a single building has spawned a dozen others spanning multiple city blocks. If it was a medical procedure, it could be performed here, in one of the multiple centers and clinics, many of them world renowned.
Twenty-one minutes left . . .
The four members of Global Alliance split up—no time to coordinate a plan of attack when Labyrinth could be virtually anywhere. The best thing to do, Dark reasoned, was for everyone to put their own best skills to use and follow their gut instinct. Any sign of Halbthin, they’d hit the panic button and everyone would come running.
After breaking away from the team Dark found a plastic hospital map mounted on the wall. He studied it not as a cop but as a performer like Trey Halbthin. A man who liked symbolic places and grand gestures.
Within a few seconds Dark realized where Halbthin would be.
chapter 75
DARK
T
he operating theater was state-of-the-art—once.
he operating theater was state-of-the-art—once.
Once being 1804.
For most of the ninteenth century, surgeries were not private affairs. If you had a limb that needed to be removed—or perhaps an unsightly tumor growing out of your chest, cataracts forming over your eyes, painful, stabbing stones in your bladder—then your procedure would be open to the general public. The hospital, in fact, would hang notices around the city to detail what would be done to you, on what day, and at what time. When it came time for your procedure, you would not be given anesthesia. Instead you would be encouraged to drink yourself into a stupor or binge yourself on opium until you couldn’t distinguish angels from surgeons. And then up to three hundred people—surgeons, students, the general public looking for a little bloodletting to liven their day—would sit or stand in this grand amphitheater, looking down as the nation’s top medical minds would take their blades to your quivering body.
Yeah,
Dark thought.
Labyrinth would love a place like this.
Dark thought.
Labyrinth would love a place like this.
At first glance, the room appeared to be empty. But that meant nothing. Dark’s quarry could be hiding on the upper levels, waiting to pounce.
The phone on Dark’s hip buzzed. A text from Riggins:
CALL ME
Great timing, Riggins. Goddamn it....
Dark ignored the phone and continued searching, prepared to shoot at anything that moved. If that
was
Trey Halbthin back in Paris, then he knew the motherfucker could move fast.
was
Trey Halbthin back in Paris, then he knew the motherfucker could move fast.
Again, the cell phone:
CALL ME NOW
Dark called—Riggins answered after the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Philadelphia.”
“I’ve done some digging into this whole Global Alliance thing, especially after you told me that Labyrinth was trying to point a finger at one of your teammates.” Riggins spat out the word
teammates
like a divorcée would say
new husband
.
teammates
like a divorcée would say
new husband
.
“Anyway, everybody checks out, except for one thing, which is honestly driving me a little crazy here . . .”
But Dark didn’t hear the next part because his brain instantly tuned in to another sound, echoing off the walls of the surgical theater.
The teeth-rattling sound of a blade being unsheathed.
chapter 76
LABYRINTH
I
tell Dark,
tell Dark,
Welcome back to the maze!
Something beeps, softly—I wonder if Dark hears it.
I say,
I’m going to enjoy working on you. I’ve got at least fifteen minutes to play. I can do a lot in fifteen minutes.
And then I show him what I’m holding:
A capital saw—
Also known as an amputation saw. Pistol grip ivory handle, eighteen-inch blade, made by a Philadelphia metallurgist during the Civil War.
Dark inches closer, asks me,
Where’s your mask?
I smile, tell him,
No need to hide anymore. My work is over. There is nothing you can do to stop me. I couldn’t take back my last two gifts to the world, even if I wanted to.
I know what Dark is doing—trying to buy some time, inch closer, keep me talking, all of that banal cop bullshit, until he can pull his Glock and aim it at my chest and squeeze the trigger and watch the bullet slice through my body before I am able to slice through HIM.
I ask,
Do you know what this is?
Dark says,
I don’t give a shit.
And then pulls his Glock
Aims it at my chest
And squeezes the trigger
Or TRIES TO anyway.
Nothing happens. Look at poor Steve Dark, confused, wondering why his Glock 19 is refusing to let him shoot the bad guy. . . .
chapter 77
N
atasha was moving swiftly past an intensive care unit on the second floor when a patient started to code.
atasha was moving swiftly past an intensive care unit on the second floor when a patient started to code.
“Code blue, code blue!” someone cried.
Alarms sounded and staff rushed around her. Life in a big city hospital. Familiar turf; she’d spent weeks with her stepfather as he died a slow painful death from pancreatic cancer. Everything about this hospital, from the shade of the tile floors to the antiseptic scent in the air to even the crisp uniforms of nurses reminded her of that time. Natasha tried to keep her mind focused, but a few seconds later another patient crashed, just a few rooms down the hall. More alarms, more frenzy. And then, against mathematical odds, a third patient. And a fourth . . .
Nurses, obviously panicked:
“I’ve got someone coding over here, too.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Over the loudspeaker, a voice struggling to sound calm said,
“Doctor Allcome to floor three, Doctor Allcome to floor three, please.”
Natasha knew this was hospital code for a serious emergency—“all come.” Meaning, all unoccupied medical personnel were being ordered to report to the third floor immediately.
Which was when she realized they were too late. Time was up. Labyrinth’s plan was already under way.
Pennsylvania General was equipped with over 3,200 flat-screen TVs, in hallways and waiting areas and in patient rooms. At the same time, they all began to show the same thing:
Another message from Labyrinth.
Images: Crowded hospital hallways. Patients in cold steel beds pushed up against walls. Wan faces. Nurses weaving in and around the chaos.LABYRINTHHealth care is the biggest industry in the world and achieved that status by being a for-profit industry. It’s far better to keep someone sick, so they keep building up bills and forcing people to fork over their savings for care, rather than actually cure anyone. I will take this industry back and make it about SAVING THE PEOPLE.
chapter 78
DARK
D
ark tried to squeeze the trigger of the Glock again—and once again, it refused to budge. The gun seemed like a useless chunk of metal in his hand. What the fuck was going on? By this time, Labyrinth was rushing toward him, impossibly fast, surgical saw held close to his right arm, muscles tensed, ready to strike . . .
ark tried to squeeze the trigger of the Glock again—and once again, it refused to budge. The gun seemed like a useless chunk of metal in his hand. What the fuck was going on? By this time, Labyrinth was rushing toward him, impossibly fast, surgical saw held close to his right arm, muscles tensed, ready to strike . . .
NOW.
Dark dropped the gun and threw his body backward.
The blade whipped across Dark’s neck—shredding several layers but failing to slice muscle. A fraction of an inch would have made the difference between a nasty scrape and a life-ending severed artery.
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