Graywing waved her arm for Nova and Cardone to enter, followed them in, and closed the door. She leaned back against the desk and looked at Cardone with the same charmed sparkle in her eyes that Nova had seen in the woman at the reception desk. “It’s a miracle either of these men is alive.”
Nova fingered through her purse, extracted her mini-recorder and started taping. Graywing saw the recorder and halted. “This won’t bother you, will it?” Nova asked.
Graywing shifted position slightly. “Not at all.” Again looking at Cardone, she continued. “The presumed terrorist is, as I’ve explained, in critical condition. He fell down a shaft on the pumping station site. Broken neck. Broken right leg. A concussion. He was unconscious when he arrived and is only barely conscious now.” The doctor’s brow wrinkled in a sign of minor impatience. “Actually, I’ve told all of this to your three colleagues down the hall.”
Cardone countered with an easy grin. “We appreciate you bringing us up to speed.”
“Well…” Graywing took in a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Everyone seems to feel he was left behind because his colleagues couldn’t locate him before they took off. As I said, you’re not going to get anything out of him for some time. If ever.”
Graywing’s gaze shifted, met Nova’s briefly with a challenge, then went back to Cardone. Nova let the challenge pass—for the moment.
“The pipeline employee—his name is John Wiley—he’s in better condition, but he’s been sedated. He’s the only survivor from any of the three pumping stations.” Graywing gave Cardone and then Nova a questioning look. When they said nothing, she continued. “I don’t know about the other two stations, but all of the personnel at Number 6 were shot in the head. Really nasty. The medic told me they were almost all in bed. It was as though they’d been put to sleep, then shot. Wiley’s alive only because he has a steel plate in his head. The bullet simply grazed it.”
“That is a break,” said her partner.
Dr. Graywing smiled at him. “I presume you’re going to question the man, and I want to warn you, he’s still very confused—”
Nova cut in. “The FBI has the lead here, Doctor. They’ll be in charge of the questioning. We’re simply observers, and I’m sure they expect us to keep pretty much out of the way. But if we have questions, I’ll be the one asking.”
Finally she had Graywing’s full and surprised attention. Agent Cardone’s lips pulled into a thin line. He crossed his arms and stared at the wall. A notion that the kid might be a bit touchy about his status in their relationship again crossed Nova’s mind.
Dr. Graywing’s ears flushed pink. “I, yes…well,” she stammered. “I stand corrected. Please forgive me, Ms. Blair. Mmm. Let me say, I had a chance to talk to Wiley briefly. He said three things I thought might be of interest.” The doctor hesitated.
“Yes,” Nova said.
“First, even though it was nearly one in the morning, Wiley was awake, reading in bed in the company residence quarters, when he heard a noise. Then someone ran past the door to his room wearing a gas mask. So the first thing is, it looks like they did use some kind of chemical to incapacitate the workers, all eighteen of them, then took their time going to the rooms to dispatch them one by one before blowing up the place.”
Graywing shook her head. Nova shared her feelings. Eighteen men dead at Number 6, shot like cattle. More at the other two stations.
“The second thing Wiley mentioned was burned coffee. The smell was the last thing he remembered.”
“That’s odd,” said Cardone.
Nova said, “Maybe it has something to do with the chemical agent that was used on them.” That struck her as plausible and a piece of information possibly useful for forensics. She’d have to make sure they started looking for traces of drugs in Wiley’s blood and tissues immediately. “And what was the third thing?”
The doctor opened her mouth. The sound of two gunshots penetrated the small room followed by blood-chilling shrieks.
Chapter 4
Nova beat her partner into the hall. Both guards were sprawled on the hospital’s white linoleum floor, blood and tissue splattered on the walls behind where they’d stood.
Bile rushed upward, to burn the back of Nova’s throat. She swallowed it down. The acrid scent of gunpowder assaulted her. With their feet pounding in rhythm, she and Cardone reached the reception desk together. Stivsky and company were close behind. The nurse lay facedown over her records, unconscious or dead.
The doors to the two hospital rooms gaped wide. Nova wanted to stop, to check the rooms—the witnesses were priceless—but high-pitched screams still warbled from the mouth of a young volunteer dressed in pink and white. The girl looked with horror into Nova’s eyes as she pointed toward the exit door next to the elevator.
Nova was closer to the door than Cardone. She yanked it open, peered inside the stair shaft to see if anyone was there, then burst onto the landing, Cardone at her heels. From below came hollow sounds of someone running down metal stairs. She and Cardone poked their heads over the handrail. She glimpsed the back of a dark-haired man dressed in white as he exited from the stairwell onto the next floor down.
Wordlessly she and Cardone bolted down the steps, their headlong descent sending metallic echoes clanging up and down.
She trailed Cardone through the fourth-floor door into the corridor and saw the man in white halfway to the double doors at the corridor’s end, walking fast. They gave pursuit. Nova guessed that Stivsky would be on his way to the first floor to secure the exits. The man in white heard her and Cardone. Without looking back, he sprinted for the doors, overturning a cart.
“Watch out, idiot!” the surprised orderly yelled.
Side by side she and Cardone streaked after the suspect, avoiding the cart and people hugging the walls. They barged through the double doors. The corridor diverged.
“Split,” they said simultaneously.
Cardone took off to the left. She sprinted right and burst through the second set of double doors, nearly flattening a pregnant woman against the wall. Rooms lined the hallway on both sides, but it was unlikely the man would hide. He wanted out.
Halfway down the hall she passed another stairwell. The door was just closing. The assailant would be heading for a first-floor exit. An elevator stood four strides beyond the stairwell. The door yawned, revealing a skinny, bearded kid. Jeans. Plaid shirt. He moved with glacial slowness toward the opening. Nova leaped inside, shoving the kid out the door with one hand and hitting the first-floor button with the other.
“What the hell!” he protested.
She could have cooked a five-course gourmet dinner in the time it took the door to crawl shut.
Her mind said that if this elevator moved like the one they’d taken up, chances were good, very good, she would descend faster than the bastard could run. She flexed the fingers of her right hand, wishing her gun was nestled in it. Unfortunately the Walther was at home, snugly tucked under her mattress.
At last. A final moan from the elevator and a slight bounce. The doors
