The Money Is Green (35 page)

A
nurse came into the room where Crystal was lying, lifted her arm up, and took her blood pressure. She smiled as she let the arm down. “You seem to be getting better by the minute. How do you feel today?”

“I’m feeling better, thank you,” she answered.

Sitting across from Crystal, Janine set the magazine she’d been reading on her lap. “Your dad should be here in about an hour. I know he’s going to be so happy to see you.”

As the nurse left the room, Crystal looked over at Janine, a concerned look on her face. “Do you think he’s going to be mad at me for trying to drive to North Dakota, Janine? I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble.”

Janine got up from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed. “He might be upset that you took off without telling anyone, but he’ll forgive you. Trust me, he’s relieved that your injuries were not worse and you’re getting better.”

“Has my mom called since I’ve been here?” Crystal asked. “She knows what happened, doesn’t she?”

Janine patted her hands and answered softly, “Your mom has a lot of things going on in her life, and I think she’s just been really
busy. She knows what happened and I’m sure she thinks about you all the time. You watch, she’ll call soon and check on you.”

Crystal looked down and stared at her folded hands. “I don’t think she really cares. I’m a problem for her.” She looked into Janine’s eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve treated you so rotten, Janine. I was just angry at everything that’s happened in the last few years. I wasn’t happy my parents split up and I took out that anger on you. It wasn’t fair.”

Janine kept her eyes locked onto Crystal’s and continued to rub her hands. “Don’t apologize, Crystal. I know this has been hard on you and you coped with it the best way you could. I don’t hold any grudges against you and I’m just happy you’re doing better.”

Two younger men entered the room, each wearing a white smock and a pair of stethoscopes hanging around their necks. Both had the same jet-black hair cut short and both had dark almond-shaped eyes. Janine stared at them as one of them examined a chart he had brought with him. These guys look too young to be doctors. Neither of them looks to be older than twenty-five. She noticed part of a bright red tattoo peeking out of the sleeve of the doctor with the chart. What is that, the tail of a lobster or a crawfish? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a doctor with a tattoo, she thought. I guess there’s a first for everything.

The one with the chart spoke first in a cheery voice. “Good morning, Crystal. I’m Doctor Benson and this is Doctor Smith. We’re here to get you out of this hospital and down to the UC Davis hospital so we can treat your head injury.”

Doctor Smith stepped forward. “Your head injury needs attention and they don’t have the right equipment here, so we’re going to move you. It won’t take too long.”

Janine’s stomach started to knot up. Something’s not right here. There’s no reason to be moving her. If the doctors thought she should have her head looked at, they would have done it days ago. As the two doctors positioned themselves at the front and back of Crystal’s bed, Janine jumped up and put her hands on it to stop them.

Crystal clung to Janine, pointed at the doctor with the tattoo, and whispered to her, “Those were the creeps who’ve been hanging around my room while you were gone. They weren’t wearing smocks before.”

“Hold on here,” Janine said, her voice quivering as she shielded Crystal from the doctors with her body. “Nobody’s said anything about Crystal being moved. This is the first time it’s been mentioned and nobody has discussed this with me. We don’t know who you are or what your authority is to have this girl moved.”

“Are you her legal guardian?” Doctor Benson asked. “If not, there would have been no reason to discuss this with you. We know what’s best for her, so if you’ll get out of the way and let us do our job, we’ll be on our way. We would not be opposed if you would like to come with us for the trip.”

Janine grabbed the frame of the bed and held on tight. “I want to see the doctor who’s been caring for this young woman since she got here. No one has said anything about her moving to another hospital. She’s not well enough to be moved.” She looked Doctor Benson in the eyes and asked, “Who are you? Who sent you?”

He calmly started to reach inside his smock. “Do yourself a favor and let go of the bed. We have a job to do and you’re interfering. One way or another, this girl is coming with us, so you can either join her or get out of the way.”

The way he looked at Janine sent shivers down her spine. A mix of fear, anxiety, and dread filled her body. She shrank back on the bed and in a quivering voice yelled at the top of her lungs, “Nurse! I need some help here!”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Doctor Benson said as he pulled a gun out of his coat. “You’ve only made my job harder, and I don’t appreciate that.”

♦

Special Agent Pete Clark turned from the off ramp of Interstate 80 onto Douglas Boulevard and reached the hospital entrance. He had driven the three hours from Santa Clara at the behest of his partner, Agent Namath. Pulling into the parking lot of the hospital, he was surprised to see how bucolic the scene was. A few dozen cars were parked in a lot that had room for a thousand. An ambulance sat at the entrance to the hospital with its back door open.

Strange, he thought, as he walked up to it. Why wouldn’t it be parked at the emergency entrance on the other side of the hospital? Clark peered into the open back door. Bandage rolls and packages of pills were strewn about as if someone had ransacked the place. A couple of items of clothes were flung across the front seat area.

Clark looked from the back of the ambulance and over toward the hospital’s entrance. He felt for the handgun strapped to his shoulder and headed through the automatic doors at the entrance. He stopped at the information counter and said to the nurse attending it, “Which room is Crystal Ballard in?”

Scanning her computer, the nurse typed some letters and said to him without looking up, “Room 326. The elevators are to your right. Are you family? I’m going to need some ID.”

He yelled over his shoulder as he blew by her, “Sorry, this is an emergency.” Moving quickly, he made it to the elevators just as the doors were closing. An elderly man in a Tommy Bahama shirt stuck his arm out to hold the door open and Clark stepped inside. “Thanks,” he said as he nodded to the man. “Could you hit the third floor button for me?”

When the elevator opened at the third floor, Clark stepped cautiously outside. He looked to his left and then to his right. As he turned back, he heard a woman scream out in distress, “Nurse, I need some help here!” He ran toward the woman’s voice and came to a sliding stop in front of room 326. As he stood in the doorway, he saw a woman clinging to a hospital bed while a doctor at the head and another doctor at the foot tried to wrestle it away from her grip.

The doctor at the foot of the bed pulled a gun from his coat. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Clark didn’t wait to hear what else the man said. He whipped his gun out and pointed it at the back of the doctor’s head. “Drop the weapon! Drop it now!” He heard the woman scream and watched as the doctor spun around and ducked, pointing his gun at Clark.

As Clark backed up a step, he heard the gun go off and the bullet wiz by his head, spattering into the wall across the corridor. Clark methodically squeezed off three shots, hitting the doctor in the chest and forehead. The doctor’s eyes flickered as he fell forward and slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his wounds.

Clark pointed the gun at the second doctor. “Put your hands up! You’ve got two seconds or I will fire!” Out of the corner of his eye he could see Crystal and Janine hugging each other on the bed, crying hysterically. He could hear running feet outside the room in the corridor as well as sounds of shouts and yelling.

The doctor raised his arms slowly, a bright red tattoo of a crawfish being exposed on his left arm. His lips turned up into an evil smile. “Move slowly toward me and away from the women!” Clark barked, his gun still trained on the man. By now chaos had ensued and there was more screaming and yelling coming from the corridor outside the room. Clark yelled over his shoulder to no one in particular, “Someone call 911! I need some backup.” He maneuvered the second doctor out to the corridor and ordered him to lie face down. Pulling handcuffs from his belt, he cuffed the man and stood up, taking a deep breath.

A doctor and a nurse rushed by him to attend to the doctor who had been shot. He stepped around them and came up to Crystal and Janine, who were still in a tight embrace on the bed. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “You’re going to be alright. Nobody is going to hurt you.” He tapped Janine on the shoulder and said, “Help me get her into another room. There’s going to be a lot of activity here and she should not be stressed watching it.”

Looking up, Janine nodded. “Okay.” She stood and cradled Crystal’s head against her chest. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s move you somewhere else.”

“Janine,” Crystal asked, her voice quivering. “Would you call my dad? I want to hear his voice right now.”

F
ORTY
-N
INE

T
he black barrel of the Glock was pointed squarely at his chest. Jason looked the paramedic in the eye, only to see a steely look in return. The man had a malicious smile on his face, as if he were actually enjoying every second of making Jason sweat. Now what? Jason thought. His heart beat rapidly and his mind raced. There’s no room to do anything in this cramped space.

Brian Thompson lay silent on his stretcher.

“You have upset my plans,” the paramedic said as he held the gun on Jason. “I was going to finish off the patient first with a syringe of arsenic, but I don’t mind going out of sequence.”

The cellphone in Jason’s pocket started ringing loudly. It startled the paramedic and he let the gun down. Jason charged at him, grabbed the hand holding the gun, causing the gun to discharge, the bullet grazing the side of Jason’s head. The ear-splitting explosion and recoil from the gun caused the paramedic to fall against the back wall of the ambulance. Jason leapt forward and with his free hand reached for the man’s windpipe. The man struggled to get free and fired the gun wildly a second time, the bullet ripping through the roof of the ambulance. Smoke and gunpowder filled the space, and Brian started to cough. Jason lost his grip and fell to the side of the man. The blood
from the gunshot wound started to get into his eyes, blurring his vision. The paramedic’s eyes rolled as he clutched his throat in agony. Jason hopped on his chest and pounded the man’s face with his fists. After about five blows, the man rolled to his side and lay limp.

Jason leaned back against the side of the ambulance, trying to catch his breath. He suddenly felt it accelerate and swerve violently to the left. He reached out to touch the wall to steady himself when the ambulance swerved to the other side. Sirens wailed in the distance and Jason struggled to stand up and look out the back window. He could see three black and white highway patrol cars, their lights flashing, gaining ground on them. The ambulance continued to swerve left and right, weaving in and out of traffic, as if ignorant of the blaring horns and screeching tires behind it. Jason tried his best to keep his balance but was not succeeding.

One of the patrol cars pulled alongside the ambulance and prevented it from steering to the left. The ambulance veered right and cut across two lanes of traffic, driving off the highway and onto a dirt field. Jason and Brian bounced around in the back until the driver swerved once more and the ambulance tipped to its side, sliding viciously and throwing dirt and rocks into the air. It finally came to a stop in a cloud of dust after crashing up against a rock outcropping.

Brian hung helplessly in his gurney, still strapped in and hanging on his side. Jason felt blood running down his head, and he reached up to try to stop it. He heard noise coming out of the cab and then a door slam shut. Voices where yelling, “Freeze, put your hands up!” Two shots rang out and then there was a deadly silence.

The back door to the ambulance was sprung open and Jason stared at two uniformed highway patrol officers, their guns drawn as they swept them around the inside of the ambulance. “You guys arrived just in time,” Jason said wearily as he struggled to stand. He moved over to where Brian hung sideways. “Help me get this poor guy out of this contraption. I think he’s hung out here long enough.”

“Are you guys alright?” the first officer asked. “Do we need another ambulance?”

Jason nodded, a smile coming across his face. “We’re both fine, but an ambulance would be good for him. I’d just like a ride to Roseville to see my daughter.” Suddenly, a hand grabbed his ankle and he looked down to see the paramedic raise his other hand, which was gripping a hyperemic needle coming down straight at his thigh. With all the force he could muster, Jason turned his hips, and the man’s fist crashed into the metal floor, bending the needle backward. He kicked his foot straight out toward the foot of Brian’s bed, crushing the arm holding his ankle, making his attacker yell out in pain and release his grip. Jason saw him reaching for the gun that had fallen to the floor and quickly grabbed the man’s arm just as he picked up the weapon. His attacker tried to move the gun toward Jason’s head as he fought to push it away.

Someone screamed behind him, “Move to your left so I can take a shot!” Jason looked into his attacker’s eyes, hate and rage just behind his pupils. Jason, gripping the arm with the gun, trying desperately to twist it away. With his adrenaline rushing, Jason leaned forward with all his might and then jerked his body backward. He heard a shot explode behind his head, felt the whistle as the bullet flew by his shoulder, smashing into the attacker’s forehead, spraying blood, flesh, and bone fragment around the ambulance. The attacker’s eyes rolled into his head and he lay motionless, his hand releasing the gun.

Jason’s body went limp as he lay against the ambulance wall catching his breath. The highway patrol officer climbed into the ambulance and checked the body for signs of life. Then he turned to Jason. “Are you okay?”