Dead Wrong (9 page)

Another search revealed Washington’s gun inches from his hand and a small LED flashlight further to the left. Tom grabbed both, tucking the light into his pocket and the gun under his waistband. The weapon made him feel less vulnerable and in possession of more options—although he wasn’t sure what those might be.

Who were these guys? Real government agents or something else?

Yeah? Like what?

He ran his hand over Washington’s suit coat, felt a hard rectangle in the right pocket, and pulled out a full clip of ammunition, which he pocketed.

“Washington, goddamn it man, answer me.” Sikes’s voice was closer now. Time to go.

McCarthy scrambled back behind the ventilation duct and turned to watch the opening where Washington had entered the crawl space.

Sikes’s head poked into view, Washington’s feet inches from his face. Sikes muttered, “Fuck me!”

Tom turned away from Sikes to disguise where his voice came from and called, “Nice shooting, Sikes. You nailed your own man.”

Sikes shook Washington’s ankle. “Elroy, get the fuck up, man!” The rage in Sikes’s voice made Tom’s skin crawl.

Sikes stared in Tom’s direction for several seconds, radiating anger. “
You
are responsible for this, McCarthy.”

McCarthy pulled Washington’s gun from his waistband. “The hell you talking about? You shot him, Sikes.”

“You have his weapon?”

Tom’s fingers tightened on the grip and realized that no answer gave him a slight advantage.

“You shouldn’t have done that, McCarthy.”

“Done what?” He crept a few inches away from the corner, retracing his original route, trying for as much distance—and sheet metal—between himself and Sikes as possible.

“Shoot your girl and Washington.”

He backed up a few more inches, slow and carefully, making certain to make no sound. He was pretty sure Sikes couldn’t actually see him but was talking in his direction by assumption.

Sikes continued. “You started the day in serious trouble, boy. But then, to make matters worse, soon as we identified ourselves, you freaked and grab Elroy’s gun and shot him down like a dog. See? You’re not only guilty of spying, but you murdered two innocent, helpless people in an attempt to flee. You realize, of course, this leaves me no choice but to shoot you down.”

Tom’s right knee slipped. Reflexively, he leaned left, his foot hitting the duct with a solid
thump.
He froze, swearing silently. At least the sheet metal might provide some protection from a bullet. Or deflect it. But if Sikes noticed his legs in the space between the bottom of the duct and the ceiling tiles, he’d be a sitting duck. He waited, afraid any movement, including breathing, would give away his position.

S
IKES WASN’T A hundred percent sure, but he swore the noise came from the one-o’clock position, give or take a few degrees to either side. The problem was that sound bounced off hard surfaces, making precise targeting difficult. And he needed a kill shot, although a totally disabling wound might work. Anything less and McCarthy might return fire—assuming he was in possession of Washington’s weapon. This scenario raised a series of questions: If McCarthy had the gun, would he use it? And if so, did he have weapons training? If so, how accurate is he? It made Sikes nervous, exposing his head like this.

And sure as shit, even though the weapons were outfitted with suppressors a round hitting metal would send sound reverberating through this floor—perhaps the entire building—like a fucking PA system. Someone hearing the noise might call security. Sikes planned on notifying security anyway, but not until after properly staging the scene. Meaning his first priority was put McCarthy down.

“Still there, McCarthy?”

There! Another rustle from approximately one o’clock. And that, he realized, was probably as good as he was going to get. He aimed and squeezed off a round.

Wham!
The sound was like a baseball bat slamming a garbage can. Must’ve hit a fucking ventilation duct.

A second later a muzzle flash appeared just below and right of where he’d aimed. The round pinged off the water pipe inches above his right shoulder and ricocheted into the ceiling above his head, showering him with concrete fragments.

Sikes dropped into a crouch on the desk, moving his head below the ceiling tiles. “Son of a mother
bitch
.” He wanted to jump off the desk and pepper the ceiling with shots, catching that motherfucker full force in the line of fire. But that would make staging the scene impossible. He’d have to settle for another way to take McCarthy down. Suddenly the mission changed from one of national security to personal vendetta.

Well, that answered one question: McCarthy
was
armed. And if that traitorous bastard possessed half the smarts of a good coon dog, he’d be hightailing it out of there. Leaving Sikes only one reasonable option: Seal the building, then personally hunt the motherfucker down. This wing of mostly offices was isolated from the rest of the main hospital in that it connected to it only on the first and basement floors. Nine floors high, long and narrow. Lewis and Womack guarded the first floor exits as backup. There was no way for McCarthy to escape without being caught. All they had to do was move up slowly, sweeping each floor, narrowing the places the bastard could hide until they had him cornered. Sikes activated a throat mike. “Chickens, this is Mother Hen, you copy?”

Two FM carriers hissed as Buck Lewis and Ernest Womack double-clicked their transmitters.

“Be advised of a situation. Alert level five, delta, for our target. Target is confirmed to be five foot, eleven inches, white male, approximately one hundred seventy pounds, medium build, brown eyes. Wearing white dress shirt, striped tie, tan pants, cordovan loafers, no jewelry other than a watch. He is armed with one of our weapons. Use of deadly force is operative and preferred. He is presently in the ninth floor ceiling. I’ll request hospital security seal the area. Immediately commence an upward sweep of the building for him. Is this an affirmative?”

Again both carriers double clicked.

From overhead came a muffled hollow metallic thump, which Sikes interpreted as McCarthy accidently bumping the ventilation duct, which undoubtedly meant he was on the move again. At the moment, Sikes had more important things to do than pursue him. Let his team do that. The more pressing task was to stage the scene for local law enforcement. He cautiously peeked into the crawl space. Everything appeared the same as it had moments ago, so he reached out and grasped Washington ankles and tugged. Fucker weighted a ton.

After muscling Washington down onto the desk, Sikes searched his pockets but didn’t find his weapon. He flicked on a small brass desk lamp and angled it into the crawl space. Not there either, which was pretty much what he expected.

Perfect. When captured, McCarthy would be holding the gun that killed the receptionist. Ballistics would support Sikes’s version of events.

He hated losing Washington—they’d become tight during the past year working together—but his death served a very useful purpose: It justified blowing McCarthy’s traitorous ass to hell and back.

After brushing dust from Washington’s clothes, he positioned the lifeless body in the hallway. Next, he exchanged the bullet-damaged ceiling tiles in McCarthy’s office with identical ones from the small lavatory at the end of the hall where they’d never be noticed. Finished, he stood back to inspect the scene and rehearse his story. Then, to be absolutely sure of not making an error, he reenacted the story from the spot he’d claim McCarthy fired. The angles and body position seemed perfect.

Now satisfied, he phoned hospital security. They, he figured, would immediately notify the Seattle police. But because the case involved stolen, highly sensitive classified material, Colonel Cunningham would intervene to squelch any further forensic investigation by the locals.

He checked his watch. Lewis and Womack should be closing in on McCarthy any minute now. Truth be told, he was amazed they hadn’t already called in to report capturing him. After all, McCarthy was a terrified amateur and running for his life. Easy pickings.

With the situation now under control, he allowed his rage to boil over. He was furious. Not just because McCarthy stole Washington’s weapon and fired at him, but because Washington said the office girl had left for the day. When they had entered the office and seen it empty, Washington assumed the staff closed the office early for the long weekend. Now looking back on everything, nothing had gone as Washington had anticipated. Starting with McCarthy not arriving at his office first thing in the morning. Had things unfolded according to plan, Colonel Cunningham would know exactly what McCarthy had done with the stolen information and McCarthy would be dead. Washington’s fault from beginning to end.

Well, not entirely. McCarthy had to shoulder a substantial portion of the blame too. Sikes would make damn sure he paid with his life. The traitorous bastard!

S
ARAH HAMILTON COULDN’T shake the amorphous, gnawing dread deep inside her chest, a warning of something terrible about to happen, although she didn’t know who or what it might involve. Yet the intensity made it seem it would involve someone she cared about.

She knew the clinical term for the feeling: free-floating anxiety. But objectifying it did little to lessen the effect on her.

In retrospect, subtler symptoms had been festering since finding out about Bobbie Baker’s forged Valium prescription. She doubted that knowing who gave it to Bobbie would relieve her dread. Still, it was worth a try. Besides, she needed to find that out anyway.

She checked the time. 1:15. Still too early. Last time she called the CICU they hadn’t drawn the blood gas to determine if the intensivists could pull Bobbie’s endotracheal tube.

She punched four digits into the security lock for the doctors’ lounge. The deadbolt released with a metallic snap and she opened the door. At the coffee bar, she filled a Styrofoam cup with steaming water, selected a bag of green tea, then scanned the area for a place to sit by herself to think. The lounge consisted of three round tables, three dictation booths, several easy chairs, two couches, and a large TV. Other than two internists at the middle table, no one else was there.

She slid into a dictation booth and used the phone to call Tom McCarthy’s back line. It rang six times before clicking over to voice mail. She tried his office’s main number. Same response.
Strange,
she thought,
he should be working at his desk this afternoon.
If not, one of his office staff should have answered.

Her anxiety ratcheted up a notch. She tried to brush it off as mild paranoia but couldn’t. Not after all the strange, unexplainable things that had happened to her lately.

She chose an easy chair furthest from the chatting internists and set her tea on the side table.
How ironic,
she thought,
to be sitting in the same chair as two weeks ago when it all started.

That initial encounter had been two weeks ago. Since then they had come to know each other a little. Professionally. Now she couldn’t stop thinking of him. More to the point, she hadn’t been so attracted to a man since Jeff. But the grapevine has him “involved” with someone like Kate, one of those K-beginning names. Not a cutesy cheerleader name, something more sophisticated.

Crap! Why do I always fall for the unavailable ones?

She felt a bit sorry for herself because the dating game for a female resident was problematic. Not only was she a slave to a call schedule from hell, but being a physician also had liabilities. Some men felt her profession one-upped their careers, making them feel inferior. Others viewed a female physician as a conquest. So her dating field seemed to narrow to other professionals who weren’t threatened. Still, the one thing disabling her social life was the residual damage from the Jeff affair. That was huge.