The Camelot Code (37 page)

It’s bedlam in ER.

Charge Nurse Betty Lipton’s working a double and has just had a surgeon and two nurses call in sick.

Theatre is backed up with all manner of injuries. A lumberjack who chain-sawed a thigh bone. Two separate road traffic incidents with complicated crush and skull injuries. And a father of two who tried to blow his own head off with a handgun.

‘Nurse!’

She ignores the shout from the rows of the walking wounded.

‘Nurse!’

She looks up from her computer. Several people are stood peering at something. No doubt a collapse.

‘Nurse!’

‘Okay! Save your blood pressure, I’m coming.’ She rounds the desk and heads over. Plastic seats are pushed back.

Someone’s out for the count at the back of the room.

‘Move to one side, give me some room.’

On the ground is a teenage girl. She’s wrapped in a Tartan car blanket that someone’s pulled open. Her legs and hands are bound. There’s a gag in her mouth.

Stapled to her chest is a note.

‘
DON
’
T
CALL
THE
COPS
.’
 

Amber Fallon is lifted onto a gurney and rushed into a treatment cubicle. Nurses check vital signs, they hook up drips and unwrap blood-stained bandages around her hand.

Outside the curtain, Betty Lipton hands the note to hospital administrator Ann Lesley, and brings her up to speed. ‘Kid’s called Amber Fallon. She’s got a partially severed finger and is wiped out. Says she has to call her mom straight away or her sister gets killed.’

Lesley reads the note. ‘You think she’s genuine, or is this a clinical case of attention grabbing?’

‘Munchausen is always hard to tell. I guess we make the call to her mom and find out.’

‘I want to see her first.’

Betty leads the way into the cubicle.

Amber is propped up on a pillow and looks frightened. She jabbers as soon as she sees them, ‘I have to call my mom – the man said.’

Lesley lifts a handset from a wall mount. ‘What’s her number, honey?’

‘It’s in my pocket.’ She can’t get at it because her hand is still being cleaned up. ‘It’s not my mom’s cell but one that the man said she’d be on.’

Betty gets it for her and hands it across.

‘What man do you mean, honey?’ Lesley checks the digits on the note and enters them.

‘The one who took us. He said if I don’t call straight away, he’ll kill Jade.’

‘Jade’s your sister?’ She hits dial.

‘Yes.’ She sounds close to breaking.

The number rings out and is instantly picked up. ‘Hello.’

‘This is Ann Lesley from San Joaquin Hospital. Who is that?’

‘Lieutenant Fallon – do you have my daughter?’

She’s surprised the mom is a cop. ‘Yes, I do. Amber’s just being treated by some of my staff. Mrs Fallon —’

Mitzi cuts her off. ‘Lady, I don’t have time for questions. Give me the main number of your hospital, so I can call back and confirm you are who you say you are. Please do this right away – a lot of lives depend on it.’

‘The number you need is four six eight, four seven hundred. If you’re calling from out of Stockton the area code is two zero nine. Tell reception to put the call through to ER and they’ll route it to me.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘She’s fine, Mrs Fallon. She’s in safe hands now.’

Mitzi feels like she’s going to cry. ‘Thanks.’

The administrator hangs up, ducks the curtain and shouts to the triage desk. ‘Call switchboard and say they’re about to get a call for me. It’s urgent and needs to be put through immediately.’

Lesley looks around the waiting area as the nurse calls the operator. ER is jammed to bursting. She wishes there was somewhere she could shift all these patients to.

She re-enters the cubicle and looks at the young girl on the bed. Poor kid is stressed out and, judging from the whiteness of her skin, pretty bled out too.

She takes a tissue from a box at the side of the bed and wipes tears welling up in the corners of Amber’s reddened eyes.

The phone on the wall rings. Everyone stares at it.

Lesley snatches it from the cradle. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s Mitzi Fallon. Are you still with Amber?’

‘Yes, Mrs Fallon.’

‘Then for God’s sake get her somewhere safe and call the —’

The line goes dead.

Amber looks up at the administrator. ‘What did Mom say?’

She puts a reassuring hand to the girl’s face. ‘She says you’re not to worry. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘San Joaquin Hospital – Amber Fallon has just been admitted to the ER.’

Bob Beam looks up from his desk at Assistant Director Donovan. ‘Your source again?’

She corrects him. ‘Lansley’s source.’

His instinct is to check. Always check before you deploy. He picks up his desk phone. ‘Get me the administrator at San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton. I’ll hold.’

The AD lets out a sigh of frustration. ‘You need to get a team there, Bob, and you need to do it quick.’

He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I need to be sure, Sandra. Post budget cuts mean we have too few people and once they’re gone they’re gone.’

His secretary comes on the line. ‘Putting you through now.’

A woman’s voice follows. ‘Ann Lesley; who am I talking to?’

‘This is Special Agent Robert Beam from the FBI in San Francisco. Can you confirm for me that you’ve just admitted a young girl called Amber Fallon?’

The line goes silent for a moment. ‘Agent Beam, do you have a number I can call you back on to verify you are who you say you are?’

‘Jesus Christ, lady, I don’t have time for this —’

‘A number, please.’

‘Five, five, three, seven four hundred and make it fast.’ He slams down the phone and looks up at Donovan. ‘She wants to check who I am.’

‘Checking can be so annoying, eh?’ She’s red-faced with anger as she flips out her phone and taps in a number. ‘Eleonora, it’s Sandra Donovan. Get yourself to San Joaquin Hospital in Stockton. Run the lights. Mitzi’s daughter Amber has just been admitted.’

Beam is about to argue when his phone rings. ‘H’lo.’

‘Agent Beam?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Ann Lesley. We do have Amber Fallon. She’s with me right now and she’s a very frightened young lady —’

‘We’re going to get some agents out to your hospital, ma’am.’

‘She was left in ER with a note pinned to her chest saying the police were not to be called. She claims her sister is in great danger —’

‘We know about that, ma’am. Thank you for your help.’ He glances down at the two face shots Donovan gave him. ‘Can you tell me, was she with a man or woman? A big man, round faced with dark hair, or a woman, probably blonde hair, quite pretty?’

‘No, sir. She wasn’t with anyone. She’d just been left here.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

‘Not right now. We’ve given her a sedative and need to get her X-rayed and treated.’

‘Call me when you’re done.’ He hangs up and turns to Donovan.

The AD’s gone.

‘Shit.’ He bangs a hand down on the desk.

Marchetti’s slap knocks the phone out of Mitzi’s hands.

There’s wildness in his eyes. It’s a look she’s seen before. Usually on the face of a murderer or rapist she’s hunted down. Sometimes on that of her ex-husband.

Marchetti grabs her by the throat and squeezes hard. ‘One daughter freed. That was the deal.’ He shows a smartphone in his other hand. ‘Now, do you want to watch the other one being chopped up, piece by piece – or are you going to give me my fucking memory stick?’ He lets go and leaves her spluttering.

Mitzi struggles to get her breath.

Marchetti gives her a second then grabs her by the hair and lifts her head. ‘Where is it?’

‘Dean Street.’

‘Be more specific.’

‘I bagged and wired it. Sealed it in an evidence bag and hung it down a street drain outside the hotel where I stayed.’

Marchetti sizes up a punch, one to teach the bitch a lesson.

There’s a blinding flash. Smoke.

The brunette screams.

There’s gunfire. Pistol shots. Pop. Pop. Pop. The raw stutter of semi-automatics. Blue and orange muzzle flashes in the dark, smoky haze.

Then silence.

George Dalton watches the tac teams on split-screen feeds on his laptop.

Soon after the team leader and his right-hand man go through the window, four SSOA operatives take out the front door of the apartment and come in as back-up.

Once the shooting stops, Dalton switches to the single night-vision camera on the helmet of the team leader. The viewing frame fills with a pea-green sea as the former marine crunches his way over shattered glass, splintered wood and bodies.

The first corpse to come into focus is one of the bodyguards. He’s bleeding out in a classic dead man’s sprawl near the doorway. A Glock rests in his loose fingers.

Next to him is what remains of a thin, young woman. Most of her face and chest have been chewed away by the bullets of an MP5.

The body of a second bodyguard is against the foot of an adjacent wall, legs stretched out, back against a doorframe. It looks to Dalton like he’s been shot as he came in from another room.

The leader’s camera tracks across to the centre of the foggy room. Two SSOA men are bent over Angelo Marchetti.

Dalton speaks into a microphone. ‘Leader One from Base: is he alive?’

‘This is Leader One – that’s a negative Base. Target is not alive.’

‘Shit!’ Dalton remembers Owain’s request to have ‘quality time’ with their former colleague. ‘And Fallon?’

The team leader swings his head so the camera shows her. Mitzi’s chair is upturned. She’s lying on her back. Her knees point at the ceiling. The operative moves close.

Dalton hears the American’s voice. ‘About freakin’ time. Help me off this damned chair. Get me a phone, or by Christ I’ll make an even bigger mess than you just did.’

Eleonora Fracci has Mitzi in mind as she guns up the Crossfire and burns rubber out of San Ramon. Specifically, it’s the moment they met in the squad room and Fallon showed them a framed shot of her daughters at Disney. She’d never seen anyone look at a photo as proudly as Mitzi had. More than anything, she wants to see a new frame there – one showing Mitzi and the girls with Mickey. Hell, she might even go with them and take it herself.

She drives with one hand and finger-punches the address of San Joaquin Hospital into the sat-nav stuck to her windshield. The display tells her she’s fifty miles and fifty minutes away. ‘
Idiota!
’
She’s confident she’ll do it in thirty. The old six-speed Chrysler has a three-litre turbocharged V6 under its brilliant red hood and its limiter has been removed.

By the time she hits the 1-680, she’s topping a hundred and fifty. San Ramon Central Park. Bishop Ranch Open Space. Athan Downs and Dublin Hills are all just a smear against the Crossfire.

Then the traffic backs up.

At the Donald D. Doyle Highway, the road becomes a parking lot. Drivers hammer horns. Local radio says there’s a pile-up on the intersection with the Arthur H. Breed, the freeway she needs to use.

Eleonora flips on her sirens and lights. Traffic is fender-to-fender. It takes ten minutes for her to get off at Dublin Boulevard and run a road parallel to the blocked freeway.

There are stacks of red tail-lights up ahead. Others seem to have had the same idea. She hits the lights and sirens again. The sat-nav says she’s coming to the end of the Boulevard and needs to re-join the freeway in less than a mile.

Eleonora picks up her radio and calls Donovan. ‘I’m stuck in traffic. It’s really bad.’

‘How bad is
really bad
?’

She looks again and flinches. ‘I could still be half an hour away. You best get a local cop to the hospital until I fight my way through this.’

Donovan doesn’t answer, but Eleonora’s certain she hears her boss swear, just before she slams the phone down on her.

Chris Wilkins is counting seconds.

His instructions from Marchetti were very clear. Take the girl to the hospital and wait there. If he didn’t get a call within half an hour, kill the kid and get Tess to do the same with the other one.

Not that he minds.

Murder had always been on the cards. He’d just never imagined doing it in a hospital in Stockton.

He pumps a hospital vending machine for coffee and checks his watch.

Two minutes.

If he doesn’t get a call in one hundred and twenty seconds he’s going to walk back into ER, find the girl and put a bullet in her head. He’s already dumped his hired sedan in case they get a trace on it and has broken into a car on the staff lot and left it ready to hotwire.

Sixty seconds.

The coffee tastes like crap. He drops it in a trashcan and heads to a washroom. He goes into a stall, takes a leak and removes his black flight jacket. It’s a reversible one. Once he turns it inside out, it’s red and looks strikingly different.

The digital watch on his wrist beeps.

Time’s up.

He checks his gun and steps out of the stall. There’s no one else in the washroom. He calls Tess. ‘It’s me.’

‘Hi.’

‘No call. Do it.’

She hesitates. ‘Okay.’

The mirror over the taps throws back the reflection of a hardened killer. One who’s wasted plenty of people. But never a kid.

He tells himself there’s a first time for everything and heads out the door.