The Camelot Code (38 page)

Tess Wilkins looks across the shack’s open lounge to the young girl bound and hooded on the sofa.

She knows what she has to do and knows the risk of not doing it. Dead captives tell no tales. Live ones cause trouble.

She goes into the crummy bedroom and gathers what little stuff she and Chris have in there. She jams clothes into a rucksack, then walks to the bathroom.

Toothbrushes, paste, soap, hair dye, shaving gear and hairspray get swept into the bag as well.

In the kitchen, she empties the pedal bin onto the floor. There isn’t much in it, just some fast-food packages and hand wipes. Under a microscope, though, there’d be enough DNA to send both her and her beloved to the Big House. Tess spreads everything out, then goes to the five-gallon jerry can that Chris left by the door. She pops the cap, hauls it as high as she can manage and sprinkles gasoline.

Tess sloshes the fuel liberally in the kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom and then pauses as she enters the lounge area. There’s an order to things and she doesn’t want to mess up.

She puts the can down, takes the rucksack outside to the RV and throws it in the passenger side of the cab. She slips the keys into the ignition and pauses for a second to think of anything she’s missed.

There isn’t.

She plans to walk back inside, put a cushion around her gun, and then shoot the kid in the head. After that, she’ll empty the rest of the jerry, light a match and torch the place to get rid of any forensic traces. While the shack’s burning she’ll be driving. Before it’s even extinguished she’ll be at the airport. With any luck, by the time they start asking the serious questions, she’ll already be back in LA mixing a cocktail for Chris.

All she has to do now is go back inside and pull the trigger.

Sandra Donovan has no choice but to call Stockton’s Chief of Police. What she’d most like to do is locate whatever squad car is nearest San Joaquin Hospital and get the officers sent over there as fast as possible. But there are protocols and chains of command to respect.

The chief assures the assistant director that he fully understands the urgency of getting officers there until her agents arrive. As soon as she hangs up, he stresses the very same point to his deputy, who in turn undertakes to get on the case straight away.

The deputy calls his watch commander who then alerts his two strategic operations commanders. And so, fifteen minutes after Sandra Donovan’s call, a cruiser eventually rolls out of Police HQ in East Weber Avenue bearing senior patrolmen Darren Ratcliffe and Tony Emery.

As they hit the freeway they are less than fifteen minutes away from the hospital, more like ten if Emery puts his foot to the floor, like he usually does. Only yesterday, he got a reprimand for driving too fast and dangerous, so he’s not going to be dumb enough to make that mistake again.

Two of the tac team carry Mitzi out of the apartment block and into a private ambulance.

Dalton rides with her and calls for a clean-up squad to put the building back the way it was, before they sprayed it with thunderflashes and bullets.

He finishes the call and leans over Mitzi. ‘Stupid question, but how are you feeling?’

‘Like shit in a blender.’ She thinks of what she just said. ‘Scrub that. I never want to hear the word
shit
again.’

‘We have a hospital near Temple. Doctors are on standby to check you out.’

‘I don’t care. I just want to speak to my girls.’ She tries to sit herself up and falls back, wincing with pain.

‘Relax. I’ve called the FBI and they’ve got people on their way to Stockton where Amber called you from.’

‘Have you found Jade?’

‘Not yet. We still don’t know where she is, and nor do your colleagues. But we’re working together on it.’

Mitzi’s spirits sink. The whole point of her going in there and surrendering to those damned people, was to buy the time necessary to recover
both
her girls. She looks to Dalton. ‘You got a phone?’

He holds one out.

‘Call that hospital for me; I have to talk to Amber.’

He gets reception, then ER, then the administrator and finally Mitzi’s daughter. ‘Amber, hold on, I’m going to put your mom on the line.’ He passes the handset to Mitzi.

‘Baby, is that you? Are you all right?’

‘I guess.’ The teenager is sat beside Betty Lipton waiting for a doctor. ‘My hand aches in a really weird way. It’s like all my finger’s still there and someone’s squeezing it in pliers or something.’

Mitzi feels her heart break. ‘Be strong, honey. Have they given you anything for the pain?’

‘Yeah, they’re being real nice, Mom.’ There’s an awkward silence and then she adds, ‘ Mom, I’m sorry about what happened. They just grabbed us – I had no time to shout to Jade or —’

‘Baby, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You’re safe now, that’s all that matters. I’m still in London but I’ll be on a plane real soon and with you in less than half a day.’ She looks to Dalton for reassurance and he gives her a silent nod.

‘I love you, honey. I love you so much and I’m coming home to look after you and make sure you are all right.’

‘I love you too, Mom.’ She can’t hold back the tears now. Tears of relief. Tears of trauma.

‘Don’t cry, sweetheart, you just hang in there now. Get some rest and do whatever the doctors tell you. You hear me?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’ She blows her nose on a tissue the nurse passed her. ‘Mom, is Jade all right?’

‘She’s going to be fine as well.’ She looks up at Dalton but this time there’s no reassuring nod. ‘We’re Fallon women, aren’t we? And you know us girls always come out winners.’

There’s an empty seat in the ER waiting room, three rows back, four seats from the end. Chris Wilkins slides his big frame onto the grey plastic.

It’s the perfect place to sit and watch.

He hears names being called. Sick people hobble into curtained cubicles to see exhausted medics. Trolleys pass, bearing horizontal patients and vertical drip stands. Minute by minute the scene repeats itself.

He watches and listens. Finally, he sees her. A nurse has an arm around Amber and a suited woman is on her other side, guiding her down the corridor.

Wilkins drops the newspaper he hasn’t been reading and tags along. Overhead signs signal different departments. He hangs back to avoid being seen.

Part way down a corridor they head into an area marked
X
-
RAY
.

Wilkins walks slowly along the passage and stands in the doorway. The department is jammed with people waiting to be scanned. The woman in the suit speaks to the receptionist and they’re told to go straight on through.

Wilkins steps into the corridor and checks his escape routes. Either back the way he came, or through a door marked Emergency Exit. By his reckoning, the latter will bring him out close to the staff parking lot and the car he’s broken open.

He walks into X-Ray reception and keeps his head down and face away from the nurse behind the desk.

As he approaches the closed theatre doors, he hears her call after him, ‘Excuse me, sir. You can’t go in there.’

He pushes a door open.

Two women turn and stare at him. His eyes flit across the room. The Fallon girl isn’t there. He can’t see her anywhere.

A nurse approaches him. ‘You need to wait outside, sir.’ She puts her right arm on his shoulder and tries to usher him out.

He shakes her off. ‘Where’s the girl? The girl you were with?’

The comment sparks the suited-woman into life. ‘Who are you?’

He shifts his jacket so they see his gun. ‘I’m a federal agent. I’ve been sent to protect her.’

They both look relieved.

‘She’s just using the washroom,’ says the nurse. Her face lights up as over his shoulder she spots her returning. ‘Here she is now.’

Amber catches the nurse’s eye. And a glimpse of the man. She recognizes him instantly.

He starts to turn.

Amber grabs the handles of a wheelchair by the door and runs it hard into him. Extended metal foot rests smash into his shins. Wilkins loses balance and falls.

‘It’s him!’ screams Amber. ‘The man who took me.’ She runs from the theatre.

Wilkins has lost neither gun nor focus. He scrambles to his feet. The charge nurse bars the doorway.

Wilkins shoots her in the chest and steps over the body.

There are screams all around him. He shuffles out into the waiting room, his right ankle burning with pain. Scared patients jam up the reception. ‘Get the fuck outta my way!’ He raises the gun and they clear his path.

In the corridor, he catches sight of Amber running through a mass of people. He lets off two high shots and they bring down part of the ceiling. Everyone but the girl hits the ground. An alarm goes off behind him. He ignores it and tries not to rush his shot. She’s twenty yards away weaving left and right. Smart kid.

But not smart enough. He squeezes the trigger.

A roar bowls down the corridor.

Amber throws up her arms and falls face first.

An alarm goes off in front of him. More people spill into the corridor. They’re coming from all directions. He has to get out of there. Has to make it to the parking lot and the waiting car.

Wilkins snatches another shot at the fallen body and runs.

More than anything, Mitzi wants to shower.

She lets the hospital medics stitch up her shoulder and give her a booster jab, then she grabs a luxury white robe from a brass hook on the back of an expensive oak door and tells them all to scram.

The en-suite bathroom to the private room where she’s being treated has one of those waterfall showers that she’s seen in expensive hotels.

Mitzi turns it on full, dips her head under the warm water and stands there with one hand on the wall to make sure she doesn’t slip or pass out. Once she’s acclimatized, she grabs shampoo and pours out enough to soap a field of sheep.

Her face is greasy and tender. Blood has dried and clogged inside her nostrils. For almost a minute, the water runs red while she cleans herself up. Inevitably, she gets her shoulder-dressing wet. She’s too sore to wash anything below knee height and too stiff to raise her legs. Right now, she’d pay a thousand bucks for someone to scrub her feet.

The cubicle glass is completely steamed up by the time she gingerly steps out and eases her battered body into the fresh-smelling white robe.

With some difficulty, Mitzi manages to towel surplus water off her hair and opens the door to the hospital room.

Dalton is stood there.

‘Holy fuckola!’ She puts a hand to her heart. ‘I thought you Brits were supposed to have real good manners.’

He knows there’s no kind way to break the news. ‘I’m afraid your daughter Amber’s been shot. She’s in surgery fighting for her life.’

Mitzi doesn’t take it in. ‘No, that can’t be. I spoke to her. I called her on your phone. That’s not —’

‘The man who abducted her went into the hospital and shot her. He killed a nurse, too.’

Her legs turn to jelly. She puts a hand on the wall but her knees fold and she collapses against the side of the bed.

Dalton rushes to her side. Tries to pick her up.

She pushes him off. She’s on her knees and she can hear herself praying to a God she’s not sure even exists.

He stands patiently next to her. Waits for the moment when she’s ready for him to help her up and then hurt her some more by telling all the details.

Fresh alarm bells sound as Chris Wilkins hits the horizontal metal bar on the red door and kicks open the Emergency Exit.

He’d hoped to catch the kid clean. A quick kill in a quiet corner of the hospital, then slip out while people were still in shock. Now he’s leaving in a hail of alarms and he’s not sure he’s done enough to finish her. Even worse, he’s noticed a security camera on the way out that he didn’t see on the way in.

By his reckoning, unless he’s away from the hospital grounds and out of sight within the next ten minutes he’s going to end up in a police body bag. He walks briskly around the building and turns sharp right. At least his sense of direction is good. The staff parking lot is straight ahead. Within five strides he sees the Ford he’s broken into and left ready.

He skids down a short grass bank, clatters into a green Chevy and clambers around the back of it. When he gets to the blue Ford he yanks open the driver’s door, tumbles in and pulls it shut. He sits and drips sweat while checking the windshield and rear-view mirror.

So far so good.

He wipes his brow with his forearm and jams the cables together. The engine growls. Before driving off, he takes another beat to compose himself. This isn’t the time to make stupid mistakes. He has to appear just like any other driver. Law-abiding. Careful. Maybe shocked by all the noise and activity around him.

He pulls on his safety belt and adjusts the rear-view. People are spilling out of the building. The panic is starting. He stays calm. Drives slowly around the lot and onto one of the hospital’s service roads. Coming up to the exit he sees a police cruiser screaming towards him. Its rooftop blues are flashing disco crazy.

Wilkins coolly indicates. He pulls over and gives the squad car maximum room to blast past. Other drivers in front and behind follow suit. He’s lost in the crowd.

Once the cruiser has gone he tags behind the car in front and leaves by the main exit.

Now he has to think.

For the next half-hour, the cops will be glued up gathering details. It’ll be all about the nurse and the Fallon girl. Gradually, they’ll get their shit together and pull pictures of him from the CCTV and wire them to patrol cars across the county. Soon after that, someone at the hospital is going to report their car missing and then the Ford will be useless.

A red Chrysler Crossfire with police lights strobing its grille flashes past him.

Wilkins has a bad feeling. Local cops don’t drive cars like that.

It must be Feds. It means it’s no longer safe to catch the flight Tess has booked him on. He’ll have to try another airport, or find a new way out of the country.