Dark Heart (DARC Ops Book 3) (19 page)

The yelping was suddenly drowned out by a loud alarm which filled the hallway with an even stronger sense of dread. She gave up trying to make sense of the situation, and instead followed the flow of traffic around two corners to where a crowd had already been congregating like ants around sugar.

Or blood. She could smell it.

Someone cried, “Get him up on the gurney!”

“No,” another said. “He’s already dead. It’s a crime scene now.”

Fiona, who was a few rows back, tried looking through a maze of legs to spot any part of whomever it was who’d apparently just died. But the only thing she could identify was the deep crimson pool of blood, a wide slick of it that people had to step over as they worked, awkwardly, lifting the body off the ground.

Someone kept insisting that they leave the body where it lay. But it was too late, as the victim was now being spread onto the gurney, an arm and a leg, here and there, being folded over onto itself, on the gurney.

“Make room!”

Fiona felt someone tugging on her arm, pulling her back toward the wall as the crowd quickly parted. As the gurney was pushed through the open seam, she could finally see the blood-soaked white coat. And a face, frozen in agony.

A horrifyingly familiar one.

Dr. Wahl.

He lay perfectly still atop the gurney as he was pushed away and down the hall. But then the crowd closed back up again, merging into the middle and obscuring her view. But it wouldn’t have mattered. Her head was looking straight down, her vision blurring. Darkening. And then there was nothing.

H
e had spent
the whole afternoon in meetings with the Saudis and DARC personnel, his room with the prince having turned into a comically cramped central meeting place. There were continuing concerns and paranoia from the Saudis, and today’s most recent development would only amplify that. Jasper had stolen away from the room just long enough to catch wind of a stabbing, and, instead of finishing his work on the hospital systems, he was now forced to return to the central meeting place for damage control.

“The situation is ridiculous,” said Mr. Awadi as he held an infant’s sippy cup to the prince’s mouth. “His operation is hours away.” He continued holding the cup as Prince Saif drank from it with feeble little sucks, his cheeks barely indenting with whatever little pressure he could muster.

“We believe it was an isolated incident,” Jackson said. He was pacing the length of the room.

“Isolated?” Awadi, still holding the cup, was frothing at the corners of his mouth. “What about everything else? We’ve been discussing these attacks here all morning, and then—”

“It changes nothing,” Jackson interrupted. “It was a physical assault. A murder. And so a police matter.”

“This is very quickly becoming an international matter,” said Awadi. “We never imagined such things could happen in a hospital. Particularly a United States hospital. In Syria or Iraq, maybe. But here in the US?”

“It’s a tragedy,” said Jackson. “And completely unprecedented at this hospital. But it will not affect operations, nor how we handle security.”

“No changes to security? After what just happened?”

“We’re here to protect the prince, and only the prince.”

Awadi stepped away from the prince, placing the cup on a table and opening up space for Jasper to move in at the bedside. He greeted him softly, in Arabic, and then described the simple procedure of attaching sensor cups to his chest. “Don’t worry,” said Jasper. “The machine is very safe.”

The device, a computer monitor on wheels, was rolled squeakily toward the bed. Jasper drew out several long cords from it and slid them under the man’s hospital gown.

“It’s just a monitor,” said Jackson, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Jasper had his back turned, but assumed the warning was a reaction to some nasty look from Awadi.

“His heartbeat has become more erratic,” said Jasper, as he attached the leads to the man’s torso. One over the heart, and four at the corners, the likely cold-feeling stickers making the prince twist his leathery face with each application. “He’ll have to be hooked up to this until surgery. There’s no avoiding it anymore.”

Awadi appeared from the corner of Jasper’s eye, approaching the prince’s bed. “You think we’re still doing surgery today?”

“If he wants to live, yes,” said Jasper. “His condition has significantly worsened just over the several hours he’s been here. Even if you had another choice, you wouldn’t have time for it.”

Mr. Awadi began whispering into the prince’s ear. Meanwhile, Jasper moved his gaze to the doorway after hearing someone’s tentative knock. Standing at the door was a man in a brown, elbow-patched sports coat. He looked like some college professor, despite his height and physique. That screamed military. Scraggly dark hair and a hipster goatee disagreed with that assumption. He was looking at Jackson, whose jaw appeared to clench even tighter. When Jasper finally made eye contact with him, Jackson nodded toward the hallway.

They met there a minute later. Jasper, Jackson, and the professor.

“This is Sam,” said Jackson. “He’s our resident recognizer.”

“Our what?” said Jasper.

“A super recognizer.” Jackson motioned to Sam to explain it himself.

“I’m a face-reader, recognizer, and general body-language expert,” said Sam, sounding as if he’d rehearsed the explanation. “I consult from campus usually, but today required a more local, immediate presence.”

So an actual professor. At least Jasper wasn’t completely losing his touch.

“He’s the human equivalent to facial recognition systems,” said Jackson. “Only faster.”

Sam smiled sedately.

“We’ll need him for access control, guarding the room and watching the cameras. But right now I need him to have a chat with our Saudi friends. He can tell if they’re lying.”

“Lying about what?” asked Jasper.

“The stabbing today,” said Jackson. “I think the Saudis are making an extra big deal about it, like they’re covering something up. I mean, the way they talked about him earlier, you’d think they’d be happy he was gone.”

“So you’re saying . . .” Jasper paused to formulate the right words for what he knew sounded asinine. “You’re saying that the Saudis might have assassinated Dr. Wahl right in the hospital?”

“They certainly have a motive,” said Jackson. “And when they want something, they get it. They don’t care. They can get away with anything, even in this town.”

“Our hackers also have a motive,” said Jasper. “He was found right in front of the cable closet. Dr. Wahl could have caught them breaking in.”

Every floor of the hospital had a small room full of highly sensitive computers and routers and communications equipment which acted like satellites, eyes and ears to central command. And Dr. Wahl just so happened to be found stabbed to death in front of one of them. On a surgery level. In front of a door that had been pried open.

“We might never solve this,” said Jasper. “But it’s not really our job.”

“Wrong,” said Jackson. “While we’re here it is. So we’ve got to start from somewhere. Right now it’s about eliminating the Saudis.”

“Eliminate?” asked Jasper.

“As suspects.”

“Oh . . . Of course.”

Jackson rolled his eyes as he rechecked both ends of the hallway. “There’s always that organ-harvesting angle. Rumors that he’s been involved in a few early deaths. Maybe his trade partners thought we were the FBI.”

“Right,” said Jasper. “He told a coworker that I might be an undercover agent.”

“So maybe someone panicked and wanted to cover their tracks.”

“So then . . .” Jasper looked at Sam. “Are you going to have Sam go have a visit with Clarence?”

Jackson chuckled, his face fighting a smile. He seemed to find it funny, or disturbing.

“Well?” said Jasper.

Jackson regained his composure. “Let’s just try the Saudis first.” He patted Sam on the shoulder and said, “Right?”

“We should probably tell them something to make them nervous,” said Sam. “Make them squirm a bit. Maybe say the police have already identified the murderer, or they’re tracking him down. I’ll study their reaction to that.”

“I like this man’s imagination,” Jackson said, smiling at his new secret weapon.

“Yeah, but how does he know what they’re saying,” said Jasper, “if they start muttering amongst themselves? They do a lot muttering.”

Sam waved his hand, nodding. “It doesn’t matter.”

“He doesn’t need to know what they’re saying,” said Jackson.

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone in there who can speak Arabic.”

Sam was still nodding. And then he said, “Aiwa,” his voice sounding not nasally at all but deep and guttural. And Arabic. Perfect local slang for
Yes
.

“Alright,” said Jasper, feeling not very useful anymore. “I guess I’ll join Eric and check on the cable room.”

* * *

M
PD detectives were already
on the scene. They had a large section of the floor cordoned off with yellow tape, as well as a few large officers turning away any unwanted attention. Without stopping by the hospital’s administration floors to grab Eric, Jasper would’ve probably been turned away. Instead, he hung back and waited quietly as Eric was referred to three or four officers, passed along to one after another and each time him showing his name badge and documentation, each time his shoulders heaving as he pleaded his case. And when they were finally allowed in the communications room, he had some more pleading to do.

“Are you forensics or computer forensics?” he asked one of plainclothes officers.

“Both,” one of them said. “So don’t go touching anything yet.”

“Who are you?” the other asked Eric.

“Cybersecurity,” said Eric.

“You work for the hospital?”

Eric nodded. “Yeah. In-house.”

The officer snapped a photo and said, “We already had one of your guys in here. You might want to go talk with him.”

“Who?” Eric asked. “I’m the only one authorized to do this.”

“Not according to that
guy.”

“What guy?”

“Whoever was just in here,” said the officer, snapping another photo. “You might want to check with your boss.”

Eric looked over to Jasper with a frown. “That can’t be right. Something sounds a little fucked.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” said the detective. “Guy got stabbed to death.”

The detectives only gave Jasper fifteen minutes to check over the equipment and their systems. But that was all he needed. Nothing had been tampered with. At least, nothing
seemed
tampered with. He would have to access the system on his own to check more thoroughly. But even if nothing had been hacked or compromised or stolen, the mission was definitely not going as planned.

Jasper weighed the possibilities, but he had trouble identifying which was worse. They either had their first physical, real-world attack from the still-unknown hacker group, or the Saudis were picking people off at will.

Or it was just a random, pointless killing.

Either way, the clusterfuck that was Lambert Memorial Hospital just got a lot messier.

He wondered what Clarence would make of all this, the person most hesitant and anxious about the idea from the start. He had a lot to lose.

But maybe not as much as Prince Saif.

* * *

H
e found her alone
, in a chair against the wall at the far end of the hallway, Fiona, the crumpled mess that used to be his sexy and capable nurse. A shell of the person she had been just mere hours ago.

When he crouched down next to her, even with the sound of his knee popping from an old cartilage problem, she did nothing. No response. Just head down, hand to her head. He placed his hand on her shoulder, rubbing it as gently as he could. And with his other hand he offered her a cup of hot jasmine tea, which she finally moved for and accepted.

He knew what to do, but not what to say. A common conundrum.

He still tried anyhow, as usual, slowly and carefully. “Did you see what happened?” Had she witnessed the man getting stabbed?

She kept silent.

It was a dumb question, really. Jasper imagined that she’d be encircled by detectives, or whisked off somewhere for further questioning. Not left alone and waiting for a brave rescuer to bring her a cup of tea.

He tried again.

“I’m here. If you want to talk or anything. Or if you just want some space.”

She took a sip of tea. And then thanked him for it.

“Can I get you anything else?”

She shrugged. “Can you make this day end somehow? I’m really ready for it to end.”

“It’s probably a good idea for you to go home,” Jasper said. “If you can. I know you probably have lot of responsibilities here.”

“Nothing like yours. You’re stuck here no matter how bad it gets.”

“Well, let’s hope the storm has passed.”

“Yeah . . .” She was nodding, a dazed look on her face, her eyes looking past Jasper and down the hall. As bad as it was to lose a colleague, she seemed like she’d been through something much worse.

“Were you . . .” Jasper trailed off and then restarted. “Were you very . . . close . . . with him?” He immediately felt bad about asking, him watching the tears well up in Fiona’s eyes, her hand quickly wiping them. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

She shook her head. “We weren’t close at all.” Her voice came out weakly and coated with tears and sniffles. “I didn’t even
like
him.”

“I know,” Jasper said. “I know it’s hard.”

“No. It’s my sister.”

Jasper reached for her hand, holding it while she told him about a different tragedy, his heart breaking as he listened to what she’d been through. And then she pulled it away to wipe another wave of tears.