Kill on Command (13 page)

“Thanks.  I’ll keep a lookout for her.  What room?” the nurse just pointed to room 507, which was twenty feet down from the nurse’s station.

The hospital was new and it was expensive.  Everything was first rate.  What was the same as every other hospital were the floors - dull, white hospital tile.  The lights in the halls had been turned down and the floor was fairly quiet.  That would help Sandy.  Sandy busied herself checking the monitors and keeping an eye on the elevator.   She had about an hour and a half.  She was certain Bill and Bob would move on Sean around 3 A.M.  Those two would follow a known playbook.  She had thrown hers out. 

Hearing a noise down the hall, she saw Michelle heading towards the nurse’s stand.  She stopped, looked at Lucy and glanced at Sandy.  Michelle looked exhausted.

“Has Dr. Rhodes sent those scans through?  They are not available on the screen in the room.  I want to review them again,” she said, looking back down the hall.

“No doctor. I will call,” Lucy said.  Michelle did not respond and walked back down to the room.  Sandy watched.  Sean’s taste in women puzzled her. Sandy looked around the nurse’s station, seeing a couple of rooms behind her.

“Lucy, are there suture kits back here?” she said, looking across the desk.

“Yeah, they are back there.”  Lucy pointed to the second room on the left.  Sandy entered the room and scanned the labels on the drawers.  Finding what she needed, she slipped the kit and a packaged scalpel into the cargo pants under her scrubs.  She sat back down with Lucy.

“What do you need that for honey?”

“I have a feeling I might need it,” Sandy answered with a slight smile.

When Michelle walked into Sean’s room, he was moving his fingers. 

“Thank god!”  She rushed over and checked the monitors.  His vitals were strong.  She sat on the edge of the bed.  His eyes fluttered and she brushed the hair out of his face. 

“Just rest baby,” she whispered to him. 

Sean felt as if he was in a fog.  Hundreds of thousands of bits of information were coursing through his head.  His brain was trying to manage it.  He heard Michelle’s voice and opened his eyes.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“The hospital.  You got hit in the head pretty hard,” she said, leaning forward and looking in his eyes.  “How do you feel?”

“I have a headache.  Otherwise, good,” he looked over to his right and saw Brian sleeping in a chair.

“He’s been here the whole time,” Michelle said.  She walked over to the other side of the bed.  “Well, you are going to be here awhile.  We want to run some tests.  Some weird stuff popped up on a scan we ran.”

“That is weird,” he mumbled and closed his eyes.  Michelle walked back around to the other side of the bed and dropped into to the chair, exhausted.  She was relieved that he was lucid. 

“Get some rest Sean,” she closed her eyes too.

Down the hall, Sandy checked her watch.  It was 2:50 A.M.

Lucy was still flipping through paperwork. 

“Lucy, why don’t you catch some sleep?  I can handle this for thirty minutes or so.”  Sandy said with a warm smile.  Lucy put down her paperwork.  No one had ever offered that before.

“That would be great.  Thank you.”  Lucy didn’t waste a minute.  She pushed her chair back and crossed to the other side of the desk.  “I’ll be back around 3:30.” 

Sandy waved and watched her go down the hall.  Sandy reached under the desk and pulled a suppressor out of her backpack, took the gun from her waistband and quickly screwed the suppressor on the barrel.  The suppressor was not totally silent, but better than the roar of an un-suppressed weapon.  From the mirror, she could see Lucy waiting for the elevator, her purse over her shoulder.  The doors opened.  Lucy stepped to the side to let two doctors pass.  They said nothing to her, but looked her up and down. Sandy stared at the mirror.  It was Bob and Bill, posing as physicians.  She ducked into a dark room, the suppressed weapon in her hand.  With one hand, she pulled her loose top and scrub bottoms off, exposing the tight tank and black cargo pants.  She continued to watch the mirror and could see Bill by the elevator looking around.  Bob started towards Sean’s room.  He obviously had the tracker.  He stopped and looked around the nurse’s station and saw it was empty. Satisfied, he proceeded down the hall.  Sandy quickly stepped out of the room, grabbed the two bags and followed him.  Bob pushed the door to Sean’s room open very slowly.  Inside he saw Sean sleeping.  Michelle was in the chair with her eyes closed and Brian also asleep, as he slowly eased into the room. 

Sandy stopped at Sean’s door.  She put the bags down and slipped in behind Bob. Turning the corner, she saw a syringe in Bob’s hand.  He was attempting to insert the needle into Sean’s IV.  Sandy held the gun at arm’s length and fired.  The bullet caught Bob above the ear and made a small hole but blew out the other side of his head.  Blood, bone and brain matter sprayed the wall above Sean’s bed.  Inside the enclosed space, the gun was tremendously loud.

Sean shot straight up in bed.

Brian, startled, reached for his service weapon, but Sandy was ready; she trained the gun on Brian.

“Officer Ippolito, place the weapon on the floor and kick it over to me,” she ordered with a deadly serious tone.  Brian did as he was told. Michelle was in shock and breathing rapidly. Sandy glanced at Sean, who was still groggy.

“A second man is coming through that door in about five seconds.  Do not move and you will be OK.”  Sandy took up a position behind the door, gun at her side.  She could hear Bill running down the hall.  He stopped, then entered the room, his Beretta out.  He quickly moved into the room and saw Brian, but that was it.  He passed by the open door.

He forgot his rule.  He had his back to Sandy.

She put the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger.  The side of his head exploded as he fell to the ground next to Bob.  Sandy stepped over the bodies; grabbed Sean’s IV and yanked it free. 

“Hi there!” he said, looking up at her. Sandy smiled and pushed him onto his side.  The gown fell to the side exposing his bare rear end.  Brian started to rise.  Sandy raised the gun.

“Brian.  You are a good guy.  Don’t make me shoot you,” she said.  Brian was stunned.  How did she know him?  Sandy turned to Michelle.  She took the scalpel out of her pants and opened the package.

“Come over here.”

Michelle did not respond.

“NOW!”

Michelle hopped up and stumbled.  She caught herself on the edge of the bed.  Sandy was running her hand over Sean’s backside. 

“I know it’s here,” she said.  Brian and Michelle were puzzled.  Sean was smiling.

“This is more like it!” he said.

“Shut-up!” Sandy snapped.  “There.  There it is.”  She took the scalpel and made a quick incision.  Sean grimaced, as she stuck her pinky finger into the cut. 

“Ouch!  Damn it!”  Sean shouted.

“Would you please, shut up!” Sandy said, as she rooted around for about five seconds and produced a small rice-sized tracker, a clever device made of organic material.   She pushed it in the palm of her hand with her thumb.  She stepped back over the bodies, tossed it in the toilet, flushed it and wiped the blood off her hands with Sean’s sheets.

“Track that.” she said to herself.  Glaring at Michelle again, Sandy reached into her pocket and threw the suture kit at her.

“Michelle!  Sew up his ass!”  Michelle robotically stitched up Sean.  Sandy removed the Russian knife from her pocket and cut the ties to Sean’s gown.  It fell to the ground.  She retrieved both bags from the hall, placing the duffel on the bed.  She took out a pair of old Vasque hiking boots, a pair of jeans, and a long sleeve Henley and tossed them at Sean who was now standing naked in the middle of the room. 

“Hey!  That’s my stuff!  My old boots!” he exclaimed looking at the boots.  Sandy had snatched the clothes weeks ago.

“Get dressed.  We don’t have much time,” she ordered.  Outside, an incoming LifeFlight helicopter rattled the windows.   Sean had finished dressing.

As Sandy approached Sean she pulled off the brown wig.  Her blonde hair tumbled out.  Michelle instantly recognized her from the game.  Brian thought she looked like she had just jumped out of a surfing magazine.  Blonde.  Athletic.  Tan.  Brian would have thought she was attractive if she didn’t scare the hell out of him. 

Sandy grabbed Sean by his shirt and pulled him towards her and kissed him deeply.  Sean put his hand on the small of her back.  She still had the gun in her right hand.

Michelle and Brian were surprised.  It was quite a kiss.

“I know you!” Sean said.  She put the gun back in her waistband.

“I was hoping you were going to say that.”  Sandy smiled as she zipped up the duffel.  She did not give Sean a gun.  Not yet.  She turned her attention to Brian and Michelle. 

“Sean, cuff them both to the chair.”  Sean frowned at Sandy.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” 

Brian already had his cuffs in his hand.  He didn’t want any trouble from Sandy.  He knew she wasn’t someone to screw with.  Sean cuffed Brian’s wrist, ran the handcuffs under the arm of the chair and cuffed Michelle to the other end. 

“Sorry buddy,” Sean apologized.  His head still throbbed, but otherwise he felt fine.  He had no idea how lucky he was.  The blood from the two Marines was running towards the windows.  Michelle pulled her feet up into the chair to avoid the gore that was oozing towards her.

“Let’s go Sean.  We are getting out of here.”

“How?  You going to double me on your bike?” he chuckled.  She glared at him.

“No, you are going to fly that LifeFlight chopper out of here,” she said, pulling the duffel on to her shoulder. 

“What?” he sputtered with a mixture of shock and surprise.  Sean didn’t know why he was following her, but his gut told him it was what he needed to do.  It was clear that the dead men on the floor were there for him - it was no time to ask questions.

Brian struggled to free himself when they left.  The gunfire had been heard all over the floor.  Lights were on.  People were yelling.  Police were on the way.  Sandy calmly walked towards the elevator with Sean in tow.   She looked at her watch.  3:10 A.M.

“Trust me, you can do it,” she assured him.  The doors opened and she and Sean stepped in and headed up towards the roof and the helipad. There were black marks on the walls where countless beds and gurneys had been pushed into the elevator over the course of time.  Sandy knew the back-up team was waiting downstairs, so she was going the other direction.  She knew she didn’t have much time.  They would soon figure out that Bill and Bob were not responding and would spring into action.  She didn’t want to be around for that.

She moved to the back of the elevator and checked her gun.  She knew her betrayal would be obvious as soon as one of these guys made the call to Boston. Was it a betrayal if they betrayed her first?  This was her escape plan from more than just the hospital.

The doors closed.  Sean looked at her quizzically.

“Where are we going?” 

She looked at him, her impatience apparent.

“We are getting out of here.  Those men were sent to kill you.  More are on the way.”

“Why?”  Sean asked.

“I will explain once we get out of here.”  She was certain he would achieve total recall.  Would it be gradual?  Could she have been wrong?  She was about to find out.

“I’m confused.  Why are you helping me?” he asked, rubbing his head in an attempt to ease the dull pain.

“Because, I am in love with you,” she kissed him deeply again.