Target For Terror, page 1
Target For Terror
Laura Scott
Readscape Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2020 by Laura Scott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Dear Reader,
Target For Ransom
Chapter One
June 30 – 7:06 p.m. – Washington, DC
* * *
“I saw the man who shot me.”
Natalia Sokolova heard the words in rapid Russian, the language of her birth, and glanced in surprise at her patient. Her fingers faltered in the process of hanging the second unit of blood on his IV pump.
“Are you sure?” she responded in Russian.
Josef Korolev nodded, his gaze boring into hers. “The FBI agent in the front row of the crowd shot me.”
What? An FBI agent shot him? “That can’t be. You must be mistaken.”
“Eto ne oshibk. There was no mistake.” The deputy prime minister of Russia’s voice was hoarse, scratchy because of the breathing tube that had been removed just a short while ago. “I saw him.”
She finished connecting the unit of blood, then placed a reassuring hand on his arm. The deputy prime minister had come to Washington, DC, to deliver a speech regarding the importance of the Middle East Peace Summit to take place at the International Conference scheduled in Moscow. During the speech he’d been shot, which had caused quite the international incident. The entire country was in an uproar over the event.
Josef Korolev grabbed her hand as if willing her to believe him. “Listen to me. I saw him. The bullet came from close range. They didn’t think I’d live long enough to tell.”
He spoke with such heartfelt conviction the ugly shadow of doubt was difficult to ignore. Especially given the tenuous relationship between the US and Russia. Could her patient be confused? Thinking back over the few hours since Josef had returned from the OR, she counted the amount of narcotics she’d given him. A total of ten milligrams of morphine wasn’t too much for such a large man over a three-hour period. Obviously, Josef Korolev had been shot, the Secret Service agents standing guard outside his room substantiated that. But by an FBI agent? She seriously doubted it.
The rumor zipping through the hospital grapevine claimed some sort of disgruntled assassin from the Russian mob was the prime suspect in the shooting because the Russian government was losing its battle against the Mafia underworld. The hospital had cops stationed at each entrance and several more in the ICU.
Yet all the police in the world couldn’t keep Korolev safe if the suspect was really an FBI agent.
No, she couldn’t believe it. Likely, the morphine was too much for him.
“You’re safe here,” she assured him. “This is the surgical intensive care unit at Washington University Hospital, and I’m your nurse, Natalia. There are two men from your country here with you, but they’ve stepped out to discuss arrangements for your transfer home. They’ll be back soon.”
“I am not safe. Will never be safe, not until I get back to Russia. You must help me.” He was old enough to be her father, but his grip was strong as he clung desperately to her hand. “Do not leave me alone with anyone from the American government.”
“I won’t.” She leaned over to pull his blanket up over his chest, knowing the blood transfusion would give him a chill.
“Where did you get this?” His gaze zeroed in on the two pendants dangling from around her neck. His heart rate jumped up, causing his monitor to alarm overhead, but she ignored the noise when he touched the crescent-shaped moon with the three amethyst stars pendant that hung above her Christian cross. “Who gave this to you?”
“My mother.” The treasured pendant was the only item she possessed from her Russian birth mother. She would have explained more, but Josef had grown agitated, muttering something she couldn’t quite make out, so she tucked the pendants underneath the collar of her scrubs. “Shh. Relax now.”
Before Josef could say anything more, she noticed a trio of official-looking American men walking toward her patient’s room. Natalia straightened, watching through the glass window as they paused to speak with the Secret Service agent and the Russian countrymen before entering. Instinctively, she took a step closer as if her mere presence would save Josef from harm.
“The deputy prime minister is awake?” The shortest of the three, a man whose FBI name tag identified him as T. Saunders, pinned her with a sharp gaze. “The breathing tube is out? He’s able to answer questions?”
“Yes.” She winced as Josef’s hand grabbed hers and squeezed tightly to the point of bringing pain. She tried to smile. “Well, not really,” she amended. “He’s confused, speaking gibberish. The medication has strongly affected him.”
The iron hold on her hand didn’t ease at her words because Josef did not understand English. She bent close to her patient, speaking in Russian, “Shh, relax. I explained how you are too confused from the narcotics to discuss anything about the shooting right now.”
Josef’s grip on her hand subsided, and he closed his eyes, feigning sleep.
“You speak Russian too?” Saunders was clearly the leader of the three. The sneer on his face suggested he accused her of something vile.
“Yes, but only a little.” Natalia forced a smile. “My adopted mother had dual citizenship in both Russia and here in the US. She taught me some basics of the language. But I’m afraid I have grown very rusty over the years since she passed away.” After her adopted mother died, she continued to practice her Russian with her friend Ivan. Yet she couldn’t explain the deep-seated certainty that she needed to downplay the extent of her knowledge of the Russian language.
“What exactly did he say to you?” Saunders persisted.
“I don’t know, the words didn’t make sense. I told you, he’s confused. I’ve given him about ten milligrams of morphine.”
“Maybe we need one of our own interpreters in here to tell us just how confused he is.” Saunders’s gaze challenged her opinion.
She schooled her features not to show her annoyance. “Please do. There is a Russian interpreter, Ivan Rasacovich, available through the hospital social service department if you are interested. As I mentioned, I am not an expert.”
“It’s a miracle he’s survived the shooting,” the tallest of the three commented as if to change the direction of the conversation and ease the tension in the room. He was the only one without an FBI name tag, his badge simply read visitor.
“Yeah, no thanks to you, Dreyer,” Saunders said in a snide tone.
Dreyer’s mouth tightened. “Or to any of us assigned to protect him. The whole event was a debacle, and we can’t even get a clear view of the shootings from the cameras.” His gaze swept back to the patient. “He’s lucky the bullet missed his heart and only grazed his lung.”
Natalia doubted Josef Korolev felt very lucky considering the lengthy surgical incision extending around the side of his chest, but she held her tongue. As the FBI agents argued about who might have wanted to silence the deputy prime minister, the man named Dreyer stared at her to the point he made her uncomfortable. He was younger than the others and not dressed in the traditional FBI garb consisting of black suit and matching tie. The simple black T-shirt, stretched across his taut chest, dark jacket, and slacks looked far too casual for an official visit. He might be described as handsome if you liked tall, dark-haired American men with square jaws and brilliant blue eyes.
Good thing she didn’t. A broken heart had cured her of such foolishness. She preferred peace and quiet in her life compared to the never-ending drama of a so-called relationship.
“Please, I must ask you all to leave. It’s time to change his dressing.” Another blatant lie, but she didn’t care. She didn’t know who these men were or which person she could trust. There was no reason on earth for the FBI to shoot a Russian diplomat, especially while he happened to be ensconced in their protection, but she couldn’t totally discount her patient’s accusation either. Something wasn’t quite right with this picture, and she wanted these men to go away because she didn’t have time to waste figuring it out.
Her job was to provide nursing care to her patients. When the men simply stood there, she scowled. “The chest dressing needs to be changed. Would you rather I risk infection?”
“No, of course not.” Dreyer nodded as if he completely understood. “We’ll give you the privacy you need. Gentlemen?” He gestured toward the door.
The other two sent her hostile looks but, eventually, turned and left the room. Dreyer lingered. She tried not to squirm under his intense gaze.
“Natalia, do you also understand Ukrainian?” His attempt at the language was stilted at best, and his tone was low as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear.
At first she was suspicious when he used her name, then she realized she was wearing her hospital ID badge. She sniffed. Someone should tell the man his accent was terrible. “Not fluently, but enough to understand the basics,” she answered in Ukrainian. Russian was very different from Ukrainian, a fact he should know. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason in particular. Good night, Natalia.” The man turned and followed the others out of the room, leaving her to wonder what test she’d just taken.
And if she’d passed—or failed?
* * *
June 30 – 9:18 p.m. – Washington, DC
* * *
She didn’t get much time alone with Josef from that point on, mostly because she was running back and forth helping one of her co-workers whose patient took a sudden turn for the worse. She had wanted to ask Josef about her pendant though, since he acted as if it were familiar. Had he seen one just like it? Did he perhaps know who designed the dainty Russian jewelry? The idea her pendant might hold a clue to the true identity of her birth parents filled her with excitement. She couldn’t wait to ask him more.
Natalia sat down at the workstation outside her patient’s room to make a quick notation in Josef’s chart when a shrill triple-beeping sound grabbed her attention. Her gaze snapped from the computer to the blinking red alarm on the central bank of monitors.
Josef’s heart rate had gone into a life-threatening arrhythmia.
“Call a code blue.” Natalia jumped from her seat and dashed into the room, knocking aside the wide-eyed guard in her haste to reach her patient. V-tach without a pulse. She crawled up to kneel on the side of his bed to perform chest compressions.
The room flooded with medical staff who shoved the hovering Russian countrymen out of the way. Someone took over CPR while another began to give breaths with an Ambu bag.
“Shock him,” the surgeon snapped.
Natalia was already slapping the defib patches onto his chest. She connected them to the defibrillator and twisted the knob to 200 joules. “All clear?” she asked before she administered a shock.
“Shock him again,” Dr. Ventura ordered. She did as she was told, knowing the algorithm.
“Give him a third shock.” All eyes in the room were on the monitor, hoping and praying for a conversion into a normal heart rhythm. But that didn’t happen. “Continue CPR and give a bolus of amiodarone,” the surgeon ordered. “Then start a drip.”
Natalia injected the medication. She grabbed the drip prepared by the pharmacist on duty and hung it on the IV tubing. The surgeon continued to shout orders for labs, for more medication, and to place a breathing tube. They shocked the patient again, then one last time after another round of CPR. As a team, they labored over the patient for a good forty minutes, but despite their best efforts, his heart went into asystole.
Dr. Ventura, the surgeon who’d operated on Josef Korolev, finally shook his head and raised a hand. “Stop CPR. There’s nothing more to do.”
No! How had this happened? Her pulse raced from the adrenaline coursing through her system, yet she could only stare at the still, peaceful features of Josef Korolev. Less than three hours ago he’d spoken to her.
Now he was dead.
She put a hand to her chest as if to ease the pressure there. Dear Lord, she couldn’t believe he was dead. Loud vocal protests from the Russian countrymen in the room ricocheted off the walls. Words of comfort failed her.
What could she say to them? She didn’t know what had happened. Why had a stable patient suddenly gone into V-tach? Was there something she’d missed? She had several years of nursing experience, but no one was perfect. Yet, in retracing her actions during her shift, she could not think of a single thing she would have done differently. The only oddity, other than all the political hoopla of taking care of a VIP, had been the strange visit from the three Americans.
And Josef’s wild accusations.
FBI and Secret Service agents swarmed the room. She stayed close, listening as they grilled the poor guard who’d been left on duty. When they’d finished with the guard, they turned their attention to her.
“Who else has access to this room, besides you?” the FBI agent named Wilcox asked in a harsh tone. “Was he left alone at all?”
“Most of the time he wasn’t alone, the Russian countrymen were with him.” Natalia glanced nervously between the two men. Why were they asking these questions? Did they honestly suspect something had been done to Josef intentionally?
Should she tell them what Josef had claimed? Yet, if his off-the-wall accusations were true, would telling the FBI help? Saunders and Bentley, the two men who’d come in with Dreyer, hadn’t seemed at all sympathetic. She could easily imagine them protecting their own, especially given the political ramifications.
“Yeah, but they spent most of their time in the corner talking in low tones,” the guard who’d been on duty said with disgust. “As if I could understand what they babbled about.”
“Any member of the hospital staff would have access to his room,” Natalia added. “But none of them would have come in unless it was to troubleshoot an alarm or respond to a call light. This isn’t the first VIP we’ve taken care of.”
“She wasn’t in the room for the past forty minutes,” the guard bailed her out. “The only person to come into the room was the housekeeping guy who cleaned the room.” When twin sets of cold eyes stared at him, the guard shrugged. “Hey, I took his name—Ray Johnson—it’s on the list. Johnson left the room about five minutes before the monitor alarmed.”
The FBI agent turned back to her. “Do you know this housekeeper named Ray Johnson?”
“Of course I do.” She frantically searched her memory, but she couldn’t honestly remember seeing him at any time during her shift. A chill slid down her spine. “I don’t remember seeing him around, but I was busy.”
The two men exchanged a long glance. “What does he look like?”
“Tall, close to six feet, and very thin. Black hair, usually uncombed.” She shrugged. It wasn’t as if she knew the man on a personal basis, just enough to say hello.
“Caucasian?”
She nodded.
The guard frowned. “Sounds right, although I didn’t think he was that tall, closer to five-ten or eleven. And his hair was more brown than black.”
Wilcox, the FBI agent, turned toward the hospital security guard. “Pull up Ray Johnson’s picture.”
“I tried, but there’s something wrong with the computer program.” The security guard hunched his shoulders at their incredulous look. “They’re working on it.”
Wilcox muttered a curse.
Tiny hairs along her nape lifted in warning. Stop it. She gave her head a hard shake. Too many crime novels had gone straight to her head. There was no reason to let Josef’s outrageous suspicions make her see something sinister in what had caused the code blue. Josef was in his late fifties, and he obviously had a bad heart. She’d noticed minor changes in his EKG after surgery, indicating a possible mild myocardial infarction. The surgeon had ordered serial cardiac enzyme tests to see how much damage his heart had sustained.
Obviously more than they’d realized.
The ruckus didn’t settle down for a long while. After she’d given her story to what seemed like dozens of agents, they allowed her to leave. As she gathered her scattered paperwork into some semblance of order, she listened to the ongoing debate.
Some of the problems were simple, like who should talk to the media at the press conference. But others were more difficult, such as who would oversee Josef Korolev’s autopsy—someone from the US government or Russian medical examiners? After a heated argument, it was decided both sides would be present during the procedure.
