Peril (31 page)

Morgan slipped the syringe of Ativan into her pocket. She grabbed Jose's mid-forearm, just above his elbow space, and leaned heavily onto the extremity, stabilizing it on the tile floor. Drew punctured the vein on the first stick. Morgan saw the blood flow into the collecting chamber. Drew quickly secured it with tape and connected the bag of normal saline. He stood up holding it.

Morgan looked behind her. “Trudy, get one of the transport monitors.”

“Why do you need to do that?” Scott asked, stepping closer.

“To watch his oxygen levels. People react differently to the medication. Some of them stop breathing.”

Scott knocked her away from the man's convulsing body. “How do I know you're not going to kill him?”

Morgan eased herself back onto her knees and locked his eyes with hers. “You don't. You absolutely don't know. What I can tell you is that if he seizes long enough, the seizure will kill him.”

Morgan reached up and grabbed the small ECG monitor from Trudy's hands, along with ECG patches and a pulse-ox probe that would monitor Jose's oxygen levels. Morgan pulled the young man's shirt up and placed the patches for the leads.

“It's your choice,” she said to Scott. “What do you want me to do?”

In the next breath, Scott grabbed Trudy. His arm tight around her throat, his gun pointed at her head. “If he dies, then so does she.”

Morgan grabbed the IV line and aimed the blunt needle of the syringe filled with Ativan toward one of the medication hubs. It quivered like a lie detector exposing her intentions. Even if she jabbed herself with it, she wouldn't incur a needle-stick injury.

Like that would be the worst of my problems
.
First I'd have to live through today. Then I could worry about HIV or hepatitis C infection.

Morgan held her hands up, the syringe balanced between two fingers on the left side. “Just let her go! I'm not giving this med while you're threatening to kill one of my staff.”

He dropped his arm from her throat, but as he placed the weapon back and eased away, Trudy flashed into action. She grabbed Jose's gun out of Scott's waistband and pointed it at him.

All the thoughts tumbled from Morgan's mind.
Now what?

Drew stood up. “All right. Everyone! We just need to calm down. Trudy, that isn't going to solve anything.”

Dylan seemed just as stunned as Morgan at first. Then he slowly began to unseat his automatic weapon and leveled its aim their way.

Heat fanned through Morgan's body. “This isn't helping. Trudy, lower that gun. SWAT sees this, and they're storming in. Who knows who will make it out when everybody starts shooting?”

Strangely, Dylan lowered his automatic weapon.

Maybe he doesn't believe an older nurse has the fortitude to fire?

Trudy, however, maintained her position with little cowering. She stood strong and steady.

Half-defused was better than nothing, she decided. Morgan grabbed the IV line and shoved the drug in, opening up the fluids so the flow would flush the medication into the convulsing man's bloodstream.

They waited.

It was so quiet those few seconds. Morgan could almost hear each individual's heartbeat. Each rush of quickened breath. Bree's noisy rasping from her crib. The quiet humming of machines. The random sounds of her work environment could be soothing—almost peaceful.

Jose's muscles went lax and his head lolled to one side. Morgan was not as familiar with adult dosing as she was with pediatric dosing but guessed the double dose would quell the seizure without having to repeat the medication. Her eyes roamed to the monitor. The number that indicated her new patient's number of respirations went to zero, and the other number indicated his oxygen level was sliding the wrong direction.

“Someone grab me an oxygen tank!” Morgan yelled.

“What did you do to him?” Scott yelled, pushing the doors closed to the code cart, nearly trapping her fingers in the metal.

Drew drove him away. “She told you this might happen. If you stop her, he will die.”

Morgan jerked the bottom drawer of the code cart and grabbed a bag valve mask device and tore at the wrapping.
Why are these things childproof?

It finally gave way just as the tinier transport monitor toned an alarm. She shoved the contents around in the drawer until she found an adult-sized mask. She jammed the two together and shoved the mask over Jose's face.

She could deliver breaths, but she still needed the oxygen to get his numbers back up. Izabel rolled a long, green tank her direction.

“Morgan . . . no . . .” Trudy begged.

Her eyes were pinned to her patient's chest when the nurse's admonishment clicked in her mind. Her stomach cramped with nausea. She, too, wanted the same thing. She wanted to let the man die.

Morgan shook her head against the thought but found her hands stopping. The monitor tones loud in her ear. From her peripheral vision, she could see Scott nearly convulsing with rage. His face reddened like a child holding its breath against whatever stimulation he wanted to stop.

“If you let him die, I swear, I will kill you with my bare hands.”

Trudy pointed the gun at Morgan. “They're going to kill us and you know it, Morgan. One less of them. I have a gun. Only one left to worry about.”

Morgan closed her eyes. So much of her over these last few months
wanted death . . . welcomed it like an old friend. It wasn't unheard of for her to skip a dialysis appointment—just as a tap on the grim reaper's door—to see if he was really there.

To see if he would come for her.

Then Tyler's face loomed in her vision. His glacier-blue eyes that sparkled like ice under the sun. His smile. His warm lips against her cheek. And what she could not take was the vision of his sadness in learning that not only did she forfeit her own life, but she'd taken part in the killing of another individual. For him, the circumstances wouldn't matter.

She gritted her teeth and yanked the oxygen tank her direction. Connecting the tubing, she turned the dial until she heard the hissing of oxygen releasing under pressure. She grabbed the breathing device and repositioned the mask on her patient's face, giving several quick breaths.

It wasn't her decision anymore as to whether this man lived or died.

“How can you save him?” Trudy cried.

The weapon lowered an inch.

Scott took the open opportunity and threw the full weight of his body against her.

The gun fired.

Chapter 35

1330, Saturday, August 11

N
ATHAN
'
S JAW DROPPED WHEN
the bomb squad's robot got stuck in the elevator.

At first he thought the sharp crack he heard was part of the doors repeatedly closing on the pricey piece of equipment, but the more he heard the elevator doors closing, the surer he was that what he actually heard was a gunshot muffled by Wall-E in a trash compactor.

He turned to the bank of monitoring equipment and to the uniformed officer sitting there. “Was that in camera shot? Who fired a weapon?”

“Whatever's going on is out of our view.”

Nathan turned to Lee and the fire battalion chief.

“I need two firefighters up there with two SWAT officers. Right now. Full biohazard gear. Figure out what that smoke is. Now we've got weapons discharging and we can't make entry because of the bombs on the doors.”

At the sound of Nathan's raised voice, Tyler came out of his chair and charged like a crazed bull. “Enough of all this standing around and analyzing the situation!” Lee laid an affirming hand on his shoulder. He tossed it off. “If you don't get up there, I'm going myself.”

Lee rolled his eyes at that. He grabbed Tyler by the arm and shoved him back into a chair.

Nathan put a calming palm up in the air. “Just settle down. Going up there half-cocked is going to put your wife in more danger than she's already in.”

“Commander Watson,” the Uniform interrupted. “It appears that one of the nurses discharged a weapon. Unsure of which hostage-taker she took it from. It's difficult to tell from the camera's position, but they pulled a metal cart toward the door. None of the patients are in that direction. The only people who've been consistently by the door are two of the hostage takers.”

Nathan glanced at Tyler. Allowing him to offer his insight would help diffuse his anger. “Why would they need that?”

“It's the code cart. Something must have happened to one of the men.”

Nathan turned back to the officer. “Did they pull it there before or after the gunshot?”

“Before sir. Well before.”

“One of them may have become medically incapacitated,” Nathan surmised. “One of the staff takes advantage of the situation and grabs one of their weapons?”

Lee folded his arms over his chest. “We can't make assumptions. We need more eyes on the interior. We need to snake in another way.” His radio crackled. “They're suiting up. They'll be up there shortly.”

“It also looked like a nurse rolled a couple of medication vials across the floor.”

“What could it be that Morgan would need that wasn't in the code cart?” Nathan asked.

Tyler shrugged. “You're asking me to guess?”

“Yes. With what you know about the complications these men have been having, what's the most likely adverse reaction that would necessitate medications that weren't in the code cart?”

Tyler sucked in a deep breath and held it. “A seizure. First-line anticonvulsant drugs are benzodiazepines like Valium. They're not kept in a code cart. They have to be locked.”

“And the reason for the resuscitation equipment?”

“Because those drugs can stop a patient from breathing. Sometimes the amount required to stop the seizure will knock out the patient's respiratory drive. Devices to assist breathing would be kept in that cart.”

“Do you think your wife would intentionally harm someone?” Lee asked.

The look in Tyler's eyes concerned Nathan. They held a wariness to confess the true state of his wife's mind—and how it could hamper or aid their response. “Dr. Adams?” he said.

Tyler sighed. “I don't know what Morgan would do.”

The direct phone line from the PICU rang. Nathan took two steps and picked up the call. “This is Nathan.” All he heard was heavy breathing. At any other juncture, he would have hung up the phone as the musings of a prank caller. “Are you injured?”

“I need a doctor up here!”

“Scott, are you injured?”

“I am done holding out. I need Thomas Reeves over here now. I want a doctor up here or I will start shooting people. Don't test me on this. I know my life is over, and I really don't care who I take with me.”

Nathan's mind whirled. Why the change of heart? Before, he'd been adamant about not letting any additional medical people in the unit.

“Okay, Scott. Let's see what we can get figured out.”

Plumes of exhalation came through the phone like bad static. “Jose's not convulsing anymore but now he's not breathing.”

“Are the nurses helping him?”

Something slammed against the countertop. “I need someone up here I can trust!”

“Scott, you haven't made that very easy for me. How can I send someone up there when there is an unknown gas in the hallway?”

“It's just a smoke canister. I swear it.”

“That's great. Of course we'll need to verify and vent it out. Are there any other devices in the hallway or staircase that we should be aware of?”

“Door and windows. That's it.”

Meaning . . . that's the only thing rigged?
Something inside Nathan warned him not to push Scott too far in this direction.

“Did someone fire a weapon?”

“Yeah, a stupid nurse grabbed my gun. We've taken care of her.”

“Scott, what do you mean by that? Is she still alive?”

“For now. But she will be the first one who gets a bullet to the chest if Thomas Reeves doesn't do as I ask right now. Get me—”

A string of expletives followed and Nathan pulled the phone a few inches away, his ears sharp with pain. At times, it was best to let them yell all they wanted. At least they weren't firing a weapon.

Finally, the mercenary stopped to take a breath.

Nathan put the receiver back. “Scott, if you calm down, I'm going to see how we can come to a compromise. Can you hold tight for a few minutes? Let me discuss your needs with some of my colleagues and I'll call you back.”

“Just hurry.”

Nathan set the phone back on its cradle. What was the wisest choice at this juncture? Tensions inside that small space were mounting.