Code White (45 page)

Ali raced toward the stairway. Hearing the buzzer go off, she looked over her shoulder and saw the two FBI men coming through the door.
Damn them! They must have been given access badges. They can go anywhere I can.

She pushed into the stairwell. It was jammed with evacuees moving downward, as far above and below as she could see. “Emergency! Emergency!” she called out, as she leapfrogged through the queue, using the inner guard rail for leverage as she pushed past the stubborn, the slow, and the obese.

She had reached the second floor by the time a commotion up above told her that her pursuers had also entered the stairwell. She heard Lee cry out, “Stop! FBI!” but his voice did not carry, and in any case, no one could possibly have stopped against the descending crush. Ali didn’t look back. She kept on pushing, pushing, pleading, praying—and hoping that the two men behind her moved no faster than she did.

On the ground floor, the stairway opened onto a deserted medical oncology ward. The stream of evacuees split and passed on either side of the central nurses’ station, at the same time resolving itself, like a column of fluid in laminar flow, into an inside lane hobbling along at the speed of an arthritis patient, and an outer lane for those nimble enough to scamper and run. Ali was among the nimblest, and quickly reached the last bottleneck, the main entrance of the oncology ward, where all the streams reunited in a turbulent mixing of fast and slow in a space about six feet wide.

Ali drove herself through the tangle.
Almost free now!
Then all resistance disappeared, as the human stream spilled out the double doors and burst into the vast space of the main hospital lobby, like spray out of a nozzle. Ali ran. She skirted the throngs around the main entrance, and darted into the long corridor leading to the first-floor level of the Pike. Only a few evacuees came her way, and she easily darted past them. But Kevin’s lab was still one floor below. Every stairway and elevator was choked by the exodus. How was she to get downstairs?

She heard Lee shout behind her.
“Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!”
When she did not stop, he spoke once more—with a single, emphatic, authoritative gun blast that resounded with an echo throughout the corridor, and sent every patient cowering to the floor.

Ali glanced over her shoulder. It had been a warning shot. But Scopes had his gun out, too. As Lee closed in, Scopes stopped, holding his gun in both hands at eye level, drawing a bead on her. “Aim low! Aim low! We need her!” she heard Lee shout.

She braced herself for the shock of the bullet. But still she ran. She was so focused on the open space in front of her that she never even heard the deafening whoop of a fire alarm going off. Fire doors began closing automatically just ahead of her, while a crisply recorded woman’s voice sounded over the speakers:

COMMENCING CERBERUS QUALITY ASSURANCE TEST QA12. PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF ALL DOORS AND EXIT ALL ELEVATORS. THIS IS A FUNCTIONAL TEST OF THE CERBERUS INTEGRATED SECURITY SYSTEM.

She saw the gap between the doors shrinking. Lee was so close she could hear him panting like a foxhound.
The gap! The gap!
With one great bound, she slipped between the two mechanical jaws, turning her body sideways as she grazed the metal. Lee slammed against the doors behind her, trying to force them open, his left arm extending through the crack. But the doors did not give way, and with a curse Lee was forced to pull his arm back. There was a click as the door shut firmly, and a deadbolt slid into place.

CERBERUS QUALITY ASSURANCE TEST QA12 IS NOW IN PROGRESS. LOCK TIME 18:17 CENTRAL STANDARD TIME. RESET TIME 00:00.

Ali could run no more. Gasping for breath, she doubled over, supporting herself with her hands on her knees. A half-dozen terrified evacuees crouched around her, staring at her wildly. Twenty yards ahead, another set of fire doors had closed. There were no exits, no elevators from this section of the corridor. As Lee and Scopes began shoulder-ramming the doors behind her, trying to break their way through, she realized that she was trapped.

But, no. One route of escape was left. On her left, a small balcony overhung the reception area of the Division of Radiation Oncology one floor below. Peering over the railing, Ali saw at least a sixteen-foot drop. Although climbing trips with Kevin had made her comfortable with heights, she knew that a straight fall of that distance could snap her ankles or spine like dry wood. But luck was with her. Alongside a bronze sculpture of a man, woman, and child coming through a door, someone had parked a half-dozen gurneys. These were at last three feet high, with padded mattresses that could break the impact of her fall—if she could manage to land on one.

No time to think about it. Ali swung herself over the railing. As she dangled over the precipice, she planned to release herself in a controlled drop. But her sweaty palms slipped on the smooth brass finish of the railing. She fell at an awkward angle. There was a crash as she landed on the edge of one of the gurneys, knocking it onto its side, and scattering its neighbors in every direction.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. Her left thigh and forearm had taken the brunt of the impact. Her hip hurt like hell, but nothing was broken.

And then, before she could catch her breath, she heard the crackle of the overhead speakers—not with the crisp woman’s voice of the Cerberus announcement, but the lush, silvery baritone of Odin:

“TIME TO DETONATION: TWENTY MINUTES.”

Ali scrambled to her feet and ran down the basement level corridor.
A terminal! I’ve got to find a terminal!
Radiation Oncology was deserted. There were computers behind the reception counter, but if Lee and Scopes made it over the balcony they would spot her there immediately. She kept running, until she reached a door marked “Thoracic Imaging Reading Room.” There was nothing else beyond—only another set of locked fire doors. So she ran into the reading room, limping and out of breath.

The room was like a darkened cave. Inside were six work stations, each comprised of a tall bank of frosted-white light boxes for viewing X-ray films, and a desk on which sat four monitors—a white screen for dictation, a blue screen for looking up patient records, and a pair of black plasma screens for displaying digitized X-rays and CT scans. Although everyone was gone, some of the screens were still active, indicating that the area had been evacuated in haste, and so recently that the automatic ten-minute logouts hadn’t kicked in.

Ali headed for a station in the corner, out of view of the hallway. She was just pulling out a chair, when a sound from the corridor outside made her freeze. The footfall of a man, moving quickly and decisively toward her. Ali let go of the chair and hid behind the light box, flattening herself tight against the wall, letting out her breath to make herself even flatter.

*   *   *

Harry had been at his mother’s bedside when the receiver from Ali’s pen alarm went off. After leaving Ali in Trauma One, he had first rushed to the security control room, which he found crammed with cops and FBI agents standing around in confusion while Dail and Ganguly pecked away frantically at their laptops. He gathered his own staff to one side and ordered an immediate evacuation.

“Two bombs have gone off,” he said, shouting to make himself heard above the background din. “No one is safe any longer. It’s true that the bomber has warned us not to evacuate, but the situation has … changed. People are fleeing already, and we need to control the exodus.”

“Evacuate to where?” asked Tom Beazle.

“To the park in front of the hospital, on the other side of Warfield Street. That’ll give us at least a hundred-yard buffer zone.” He turned to Judy Wolper, who sat at the dispatch station, holding an ice bag against her head. “Judy, I need you to get on the radio, and see that every available ambulance in the city is mobilized. ERs need to be prepared for a massive influx.”

He turned to those standing nearest him. “Tom, you’ll have operational command inside the hospital. Start clearing people out from the lowest floors, and work your way up. Keep traffic moving on the three main tower stairways and out the front doors. Use swing carries or two-man blanket carries to move patients who are stable but can’t walk. Save the elevators for ICU patients who have to travel with beds and monitors.”

“Check,” said Tom.

Harry scanned the tense faces of his staff. “Remember that panic is contagious. So is courage. Stay calm.”

With a nod toward the door, Harry set the team in motion. As they filed past him, he grabbed the sleeve of Ed Guerrero.

“Ed, I need you to help me with a special job.”

“Sure. No problem.”

They edged past the throng of police and into the hallway outside. At a swift jog, Harry led through a warren of corridors to a freight elevator in the rear of Tower C. Stepping inside, he inserted a key to activate a manual override. “We’re going to evacuate the ICU on the eighteenth floor.”

“Okay,” replied Ed, with a quizzical look. There were ten separate ICU’s in the medical center, and 18-C was one of the smallest. But Harry wasn’t in the mood for explanations.
I have to move her,
he thought.
If O’Day gives up the ghost, this place won’t be worth two cents. It’s time to do what I should have done hours ago.

Just then, a loudspeaker inside the elevator crackled, and Harry felt his hair stand on end as he heard a tranquil baritone voice wafting overhead:

“TIME TO DETONATION: 30 MINUTES.”

“What the hell was that?” asked Ed.

It was the same voice Harry had heard on the television broadcast that morning. Odin’s voice. “That’s the sound of shit hitting the fan,” said Harry, his jaw tense and white.

It took less than sixty seconds to ascend eighteen floors, but it was the longest elevator ride of Harry’s life. Harry could only wonder what had set Odin off. Did Lee send another bungled e-mail? Had Kevin died? Or was Odin just playing a deadly game of chicken?

The elevator slowed. A ding, and the doors opened onto a salmon-tiled lobby. “Hustle!” said Harry, locking the doors open.

Inside the ICU, Harry found an ashen-faced Dr. Weiss and the rest of the medical and nursing staff bunched in the center of the room, like a herd of sheep that had just heard the howl of a wolf.

“What’s going on?” asked Weiss. “Is it some kind of bomb threat?”

“Yes, it’s a bomb,” said Harry. No sooner had he spoken than one of the interns, a pale, scrawny, curly-haired kid, broke for the door and went sprinting down the hall, dropping his stethoscope on the way.

“What a candy-ass,” said a disgusted Ed Guerrero.

“Anyone else want to run?” asked Harry. “No? Okay, let’s get these patients out of here. Two beds will fit side by side in the freight elevator. Put two or even three patients together in each bed if you can. Don’t waste time fussing. Each body moved is a life saved. Get rolling!”

Harry saw his mother’s bed in the corner and went directly to her. Her eyes were wide open and fearful. It seemed that she had heard every word he said.

Weiss followed right behind him. “She’s doing much better,” he said. “I think she’s going to make it.”

“She … what?”

“The antibiotic … her temperature…”

“She’s not going to … die?” His jaw went slack as Weiss shook his head. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” Feeling weak in the knees, as if he had just been sucker-punched, Harry turned aside and leaned against a windowsill. He didn’t know whether to kiss the internist or knock his teeth out.
You’ve saved her. But … now? Now, of all the rotten goddamn times? Why not twenty minutes ago?

Harry bit his lip.
Don’t give up,
he thought.
There’s still a chance. You can get her out if you have to carry her eighteen floors in your arms. You can get her out if you have to die to do it.

“Thanks,” said Harry, turning away from the window. He took a long, deep breath to pull himself together. Then, leaning over his mother’s bed rail, he picked up her hand and spoke in a calm, clear voice. “Momma, there’s an alert in the hospital. We’re going to have to take you out of here.” He watched as she nodded weakly in response. “Don’t be afraid. I’m going to make sure you’re okay.”

Harry kicked the brake and yanked the bed away from the wall. “This breathing machine—can we take it with us?”

“Yes,” said Weiss. “It’ll run on battery power.”

Harry jerked the wall plug and set the twenty-pound machine between his mother’s feet. With Weiss’s help, he did the same with her vitals monitor and the pump that was giving her IV fluids and antibiotics.

And it was just then, just as he started wheeling her toward the door, that he felt a vibration like an electric shaver in the inside pocket of his blazer. For an instant, he froze. “No, fuck, no!” he muttered under his breath. With Kevin in custody, there had been no more need for the alarm pen and he had forgotten about it. But here it was. Only Ali could have activated it. Was she in trouble? Had she figured out how to shut down Odin? Where was she? She could have been anywhere within the thousand-foot range of the transmitter.

Harry looked at his mother—at her masklike Parkinson’s face, at her wavy gray hair that even now looked like she had just come back from the beauty parlor. There was no way he could abandon her. But he couldn’t abandon Ali, either. And if Ali was onto something, it might be the best chance for saving not only his mother, but two thousand other patients just like her.

“Jesus H. Christ!” he muttered. Then he waved Ed closer to him. “Ed, I’ve got to go back to Security. I need you to get as many patients out of here as you can. But I’m putting this patient directly in your charge. She’s my mother. Got that?”

“Good God!”

“Swear on your fucking everlasting soul that you will get her out of this building within the next twenty-five minutes.”

“I swear. I’ll get her out, Mr. Lewton.”

“I need the elevator to get back downstairs, but I’ll send it back up to you immediately. Make sure she’s with the first group going down.”

Still holding his mother’s hand, Harry touched his other hand gently to her brow. “I have to go, Momma. I wish to God I didn’t, but I have to.”