The Cage (6 page)

She looked back to Bert, her vision blurring through the tears. He remained behind the desk of the station but trembled violently and clutched his chest.

Ackerman raised the gun to him and said, “Convince me that I should spare your life.”

Bert looked to Jennifer for help or guidance, but she could offer neither. He stammered incoherently.

Ackerman pulled back the revolver’s hammer. “Give me one example of something that you’ve done with your life that has made a difference, one reason that you deserve to go on living. We’re all wonderful, special people who strive for the betterment of man-kind, right? It should be easy to come up with one small example of how you’ve left a mark on the world. You have ten seconds.”

“I . . . I . . . I have a family.”

“So do cows and pigs, but I can tell that’s never stopped you from ordering a bacon cheeseburger. Six seconds. Try again.”

Jennifer tried to push herself from the floor, but a wave of dizziness swept over her, and she slipped back down. She looked to Bert. Sweat rolled from his forehead and down the back of his neck. His whole body quivered, and she could see in his eyes that he was well beyond rational thought. A part of her wondered how she would answer the killer’s question, and she realized that she wouldn’t be able to offer a satisfactory answer either.

She also realized that there was nothing she could do to help her friend. Bert sat between her and Ackerman, and there was no way she could reach the killer without getting shot herself.

Bert looked to her once more, his eyes pleading with her.

Ackerman fired.

In what seemed like slow motion, Jennifer saw the flash of the muzzle, heard the sound of the shot, and watched Bert’s head jerk to the side and his body fall to the floor.

Jennifer clenched her eyes shut and tried to banish the images of Bert’s death from her mind, but she knew that they were forever ingrained upon her memory and would haunt her for the rest of her life.

The click of the killer’s footsteps drew her back to the moment. She opened her eyes and watched Ackerman remove a pair of handcuffs from Bert’s belt. Then he moved toward her.

She cowered like a wounded animal and backed into the corner, but there was nowhere for her to go. She closed her eyes again and tried to force her consciousness somewhere far away. But for some reason, the only place she could picture was the kitchen table from her childhood. The memory gave no solace in her current situation and instead anchored her mind upon Ackerman and the pain that was about to come.

She felt his hand close around her wrist, his grip firm but not violent. Then she felt the metal of the handcuffs. She opened her eyes. With a click, the handcuffs snapped through a grate on the wall and latched, trapping her in place.

Ackerman moved to a first aid kit mounted on the wall. He pulled it down onto the desk, opened the case, and removed gauze and adhesive tape. He offered her the items, and not sure what else to do, she took them. “For your finger,” he said. “Usually with a wound like that, the blood vessels will spasm and close up. So you shouldn’t lose too much blood.”

She looked up into Ackerman’s face. He stared down at her.

She searched his eyes but was unable to identify the emotion swirling within the gray. He held her gaze for a moment and then turned and walked toward the door.

Understanding eluded her, and she called out to him. “Wait!”

His shoulders stiffened. He turned his body partially toward her, but his eyes remained fixed upon the back wall.

“Why me?” Her breath came in ragged gasps that caused her voice to shake, but she pushed through the tears and pain. She summoned the strength to ask a question that had weighed upon her since the deaths of her family. “Why did you murder them but leave me alive? I’ve studied your files. Very seldom has anyone you’ve targeted lived to tell about it. But you spared me. And now you’re sparing me again?”

Ackerman stood rooted in place for a moment, seeming to ponder the question. His eyes never turned toward her, but instead strayed to the ceiling. She thought she glimpsed a brief shimmer in his gray eyes, as if he were about to cry, but she suspected it was a trick of the light.

“Would you prefer it the other way?”

Without saying another word or meeting her gaze, Ackerman pushed the button at the security station to unlock the final door and walked away. Her screams followed him out of sight.

Feeling the familiar rush of fear and adrenaline as he sprinted toward the secure wing, memories of Iraq overwhelmed David’s mind. Thoughts of taking cover behind a burned-out husk of a car fluttered past his eyes as a series of still images. He remembered the feeling of helplessness as he watched his friends fall from enemy fire. The same feeling overwhelmed him now, and his chest tightened, his airway choking off.

He stopped and steadied himself against the wall. It had been months since he had experienced a panic attack, and he couldn’t afford one now. Jennifer’s life was on the line. Fighting to maintain control, he found his breath and continued on.

The large steel security door of the Iron Circle loomed ahead. A red sign stated SECURE WING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. In the past, the door that seemed to have been designed to hold King Kong had made him smile. Now it filled him with trepidation as he hoped the monster was still contained.

As he drew nearer, he slowed his pace and readied his Glock 9mm. He could see a crack of light shining through from the opposite side. His stomach lurched as he realized that he was already too late.

Pulling the door toward him with his left hand, he scanned the small space, his arm and the Glock following the movement of his eyes. The smell of nitrocellulose and graphite bombarded his senses. He knew the scent of gunpowder all too well, and he fought against another panic attack as the memories assaulted him as strongly as the odor.

He spotted blood splattered across the bullet-resistant glass but forced himself not to consider the possibilities.

The open door to the security station called him forward, and he shouldered his way inside as he took in the scene. Papers and manila folders littered the floor, and the room was in general disarray, showing obvious signs of a struggle. The only two details that mattered, however, were the two people inside the room, one sprawled across the floor in a pool of deep crimson and one handcuffed to the wall staring vacantly into the distance.

David kept his gun ready but moved forward and checked Bert’s carotid artery for a pulse. He found none.

“Jennifer, where is he?”

She didn’t answer. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing, and he wondered if her vacant stare meant that she was also dead. “Jennifer?” he whispered.

She turned to him, but her eyes remained glassy. “Did I ever tell you about all the letters that Ackerman wrote me? He sent them to the address of my family home, but the post office forwarded them to me at my great uncle’s. I lived in fear for years that he would come and finish what he had started, that he would find me. Then one day I began to hope that he would come. At first, I wanted him to reunite me with my family, but then the pain and rage gave me strength. And I was ready for him to come. I was ready to fight him, to kill him. His letters were filled with philosophical ramblings and details of his crimes. Not enough to help in the investigations—I forwarded them on to the police—but just enough to taunt me. To let me know that he was still out there. It was like he wanted to make sure that I never moved on, never forgot. And I never did.”

Jennifer lowered her eyes to the floor, and sobbing shook her small frame. “You don’t know what it’s like to have the man who murdered your family, who took everything away from you, still out there doing the same thing to others.”

In that moment, fury overwhelmed David. A part of him longed to hold her, to take her in his arms and tell her that everything would be okay. But it wasn’t okay, and a more dominant part of him hated her for what she had done. Her own pain had made her grow selfish and blind.

Before he realized what he was doing, the anger carried him across the room. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and forced her to look at Bert’s body. “What about Bert’s family?” he said. “What about everyone else whom you’ve put in danger because of your own selfishness? You think that you’re the only person who’s lost someone? The only one who’s felt pain?”

She tried to pull her head away, but he forced it back. “You look at him! You’re more responsible for this than Ackerman. He can’t help being a monster, but you’re better than this. You should’ve known better!”

David released his grip, and then he stood and stormed from the control room toward the main area of the hospital. On his way out, he pushed the panic button to sound the building’s alarm. Jennifer’s screams filled the space behind him. They echoed and compounded upon one another, the sound grating over him like sandpaper, but he ignored her words.

He had a job to do.

Since David had already radioed ahead, the hospital’s main security office swarmed with activity as he entered. The small space doubled as a break room for the security staff and contained a couple of round dining tables, a refrigerator, a sink, and a microwave in addition to the building’s monitoring systems. The scent of coffee and leftover pizza hung in the air. Ferris stood by a bank of security monitors to David’s right. Other men had the hospital’s blueprints laid out on one of the dining tables.

He wasted no time and called for attention. His men gathered around, and he tried to bring order to the chaos. “Okay, guys, we’ve got no time here and no room for mistakes. Johnson,” he said, pointing to a thin black man, “I want you to organize all of the orderlies and hospital staff on duty and have them help cover the exits and evacuate the residents into the cafeteria. All of the windows are barred and secured, so it’s unlikely that Ackerman will try to get through any of those. Clear out the armory and distribute a shotgun to everyone in this room. Give Tasers to all the hospital staff. Take Ramirez and Haskins with you.”

Johnson nodded and headed for the door. David snapped his head toward a big man with glasses. “Banks, get on those monitors and find him.”

“Yes, sir. He must be avoiding the cameras, but we’ll track him down.”

“Good. Get on it.” David then turned to his second-in-command and the last of his available men. “Ferris, get on the phone to all of the local law enforcement agencies and have them send support and seal off the surrounding areas. We may not be able to contain him within the hospital, so we’re going to need air support and trackers to follow him through the woods. Tell them—”

“We’re going to handle this in house, Mr. McNamara.”

David’s head swiveled toward the new voice, and he saw Kendrick standing in the doorway. His boss wore a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Kendrick had never married and lived in a luxurious cottage on the edge of the hospital’s property, a perk of his position. David suspected that someone woke him the moment the alarm had sounded. “Sir, with all due respect, we are not equipped to handle this situation. We need to bring in someone who is.”

Kendrick’s eyes burrowed into him. “It’s your job to be prepared for this, Mr. McNamara. You assured me that your security measures could hold anyone.”