Neil Mcmahon, page 21
"One of the prize items in that collection fits that description," he said. "Chinese, Ming dynasty. It's still missing. But there's probably a thousand others around that look like it."
"Out there in the boonies, with a bunch of dopers and runaways? Turning up at exactly that time?"
"Why the hell didn't you tell me about it back when we were talking?" Baskett demanded.
"I didn't get a good look at it the first time. I thought it was just junk. But when I saw it up close, the jade connection clicked. Look, I understand you don't want a false alarm, but can I tell you why I'm on the run right now, and we'll worry about the back story later?"
"Go ahead," Baskett said.
Monks gave a terse explanation. When he finished, he could hear other voices in the background. It sounded like this was attracting attention.
"Give me your vehicle description and location," Baskett said.
"Blue Ford Bronco, '74. I'm on the Philo-Greenwood Road, south of Mendocino, a few miles east of Elk. I'll be turning north to Ukiah at Booneville, then over to I-5 and south to Sacramento."
"We'll have a tail pick you up. Don't worry, they won't get spotted. Maybe we'll get a break. But if not -- you're going to have to go through with this, Dr. Monks. Get the little boy and hand him over to Freeboot. That will be our chance to move in."
Monks had seen this coming, but he still shook his head in denial, an absurd gesture over the telephone.
"We can't risk getting Mandrake hurt," he said.
"We can't not risk it. Think about it. You believe Freeboot, don't you, that he'll kill your son?"
Monks hesitated, then said, "Yes."
"So do I. And God knows how many others, if we don't nail him now."
Monks stayed silent. There was no way that he could think of to argue.
"Are you familiar with Coulter Hospital?" Baskett asked.
"I've been there."
"Any suggestions on how to proceed? It's got to look like you're doing it for real, and trying not to get caught."
"Can you get undercover people in place?"
"There's a rapid response team already on the way. Tell us what you want."
Hospitals differed physically, but the basic operations were similar, and Monks remembered Coulter's layout reasonably well. He also remembered an incident that he had been involved in a few years earlier, when a prisoner had been smuggled out of a mental hospital in a laundry cart.
"Have Mandrake's doctors sedate him lightly," he said. "Something like half a milligram of Ativan, to keep him sleepy for ten or twelve hours. Get your own people on the wards so nobody stops me, and set up a laundry cart down in the service area. I'll go in as a maintenance man and take him out in that."
"All right, we'll get right on it."
"I might come up with something better. I'll keep thinking."
"Did Freeboot say anything about where he wants you to deliver the boy?"
"Nothing. Only that he'd let me know."
"Okay, Doctor. I'll check back with you."
As Monks clicked off the phone, bile rose in his throat at the thought of putting Mandrake in the middle of what could turn out to be a violent confrontation.
He forced himself to concentrate on practicalities. He needed to check in quickly with Sara, to keep her from getting alarmed. She was probably home from work by now. He punched the house's number.
When she answered, he said, "Honey, I hate like hell to do this to you. Emil just called -- you know, the guy who watches my place? There's a pipe leaking in the kitchen. I have to get back and take care of it before it floods."
"Do you know where Lia is?" she said, as if she hadn't heard him. Her voice was fragile with worry. "Her stuff's all gone."
Monks bared his teeth in a grimace, hating himself for this deception. But it would be worse to tell her that Marguerite had gone back to Freeboot -- and there was the chance that Sara would panic and do something that might compromise this.
"She probably just took off with her pals for a few days," he said. "Maybe she met a guy. Let's face it, she's done it before."
"She cleaned out everything. Like she's not coming back."
"She'll work it out for herself, Sara. Just like you said."
"I suppose. It's just -- different now."
"I know it's tough."
"Yeah," she sighed. "I know you do. Well, looks like I'm a bachelorette for a while." Her voice lightened, in a brave attempt to sound coquettish. "Guess I'll go out trolling the bars."
He tried to think of some bit of banter to return, but came up empty.
"I won't be long," he said. "I've got to get off now, I'm getting into some bad curves. I'll call you soon."
The part about the curves was true, especially in the fog. He put the phone back on the seat and gripped the wheel at ten and three. The gas gauge readjust over half-full, and the Bronco had an auxiliary twenty gallon tank that he kept topped off. That would get him easily to Sacramento, with another few hundred miles to spare. There was the issue of his bladder, but he always carried a couple of plastic containers of water. He could empty one out the window and use it as a trucker's jug if he had to.
He returned his mind to searching for a way to lure Freeboot into view without exposing Mandrake. That was one thing about spending twenty-five years in the ER -- he had learned to clamp down on his emotions and deal with the business at hand.
Chapter 31
Mercifully, the fog lifted as he got inland. When it was bad, it could blanket the Central Valley in blindness, causing pileups of dozens, even hundreds, of vehicles on the freeways. Traffic thickened as he approached Sacramento, the drivers fast and aggressive and sure of where they were going, or at least acting like they were. He picked his way through them with tense caution, along with his unseen escorts -- probably Freeboot's men, and definitely FBI agents. It was eerie, sitting alone in the dark, rumbling Bronco, knowing that others were nearby, watching -- that he was a minnow, being followed by piranhas, with alligators hunting for them.
There was still no sign of Freeboot, and neither Monks nor the FBI agents had come up with a better plan.
Sacramento was a big spread-out city, with grids of lights stretching as far as he could see, cut by the dark, winding paths of the rivers. The freeway interchanges were bewildering to an outsider. But he remembered how to find Coulter Hospital. It was a fairly straight shot, off I-880 near McClellan Air Force Base.
He was within three miles of there when his cell phone rang.
"It looks like a go," Baskett said. "Any questions?"
"Not right now. I'll think of plenty when it's too late."
"You came out on top last time, Dr. Monks. Hang in there, we're with you."
Monks muttered thanks, distantly aware that it was the first positive thing that Baskett had ever said to him. Maybe impending disaster brought out the agent's inner child.
Monks knew that by now the hospital was under intense FBI surveillance, with agents inside disguised as personnel. Mandrake had been sedated. Then, in a macabre twist, he had been injected with a microtransmitter the size of a grain of sand, just under his skin. If Freeboot managed to get away with him, the agents would have a means of tracking him. Monks knew that it made sense, but using a four-year-old as bait was evil enough, without treating him like a piece of meat besides.
He saw the green freeway sign for his exit, Plumas Road, along with a blue hospital sign, and moved over into the far right lane. A stream of other vehicles took the same exit, lining up at the stoplight at the ramp's end. Plumas was a busy four-lane strip, lined with stores, mini-malls, and gas stations. He turned left onto it and drove another mile and a half north, where the area changed to small office buildings and apartment complexes. He turned left again into the hospital's parking lot. This time, no other vehicles followed him.
The players here, he knew, were already in place.
Sacramento's Coulter Hospital was a relatively new sprawling complex, three stories, and spread out like the city itself. The juvenile-diabetes ward was around the back, on the first floor of the northwest wing. The maintenance department where the laundry cart was waiting was in the basement at the east end, next to the receiving area where the hospital took in its supplies. A driveway led down to loading docks there. It was a busy area, with maintenance, repair, delivery, and other personnel coming and going at all hours. No one would pay attention to a man who looked like he knew what he was doing.
At night, this far from the hospital's main entrance, the parking lot was almost empty. Monks picked a spot away from the argon lights. He rummaged through the gear in the back of the Bronco for jeans and a work shirt, then peeled off his dressier clothes and changed clumsily in the tight space of the front seat. He exchanged his loafers for running shoes. He took his keys from the ignition and hung them on his belt. It was not the multikeyed ring on a lanyard that maintenance men favored, but it gave that impression. He put on the Giants baseball cap he used on occasions when he didn't want to be seen clearly, and pulled the brim low over his face.
Freeboot almost certainly had his own surveillance going. It was critical that Monks make this look real.
He got out and walked to the loading dock's steel man door, trying to affect the look of a worker on his way to a job he didn't particularly want to do. Inside, he met the familiar sultry warmth of the hospital's physical plant, the sharp smells of disinfectant and cleaning fluids, and the less definable scent of human bodies, some decaying and some on the mend. The room was large and open, with concrete walls and floor. There was no one else around. He kept walking toward an area where several janitorial carts were lined up against a wall. One of them was piled with freshly folded bedding.
A sleeping little boy would easily fit in the bottom bin, draped with pillowcases and sheets.
He gripped the cart's tubular steel handle and pushed it out into the hallway, keeping his head down and shielding his face with the cap's brim.
A large black man came walking down the hall toward him, wearing a gray uniform with a name patch sewn on. He had the competent look of someone who belonged here, and would know who else did and didn't. Monks tensed, fearing that this was a slip-up and he would be challenged.
But the man only raised a big hand in greeting as he passed, saying, "What's happening, baby?"
Monks muttered, "How's it going," and walked on, feeling a little better -- suspecting that he had just seen his first FBI agent of the night.
He took a service elevator to the first floor and trundled the cart toward Mandrake's ward, passing several more people with a glance or nod, classifying them automatically -- hospital attendants, a harried intern, a phlebotomist pushing a cart of blood samples, a middle-aged woman in a dress who might have been a visitor or an administrator. At least that was who they seemed to be.
When he got to the ward, the charge nurse was at her desk, making notes on charts. She gave him a smile and murmured "Hi," then bent back to her work. Probably she was an agent, too.
The hallway from there on was empty, as it usually would be this time of evening. He knew from Baskett that he was looking for room 163. Still, he played his role, pushing doors open and glancing inside as if he was checking the laundry situation. When he got to 163, he glanced furtively up and down the hall, then pushed the cart inside. Mandrake was asleep on his belly, mouth slightly open -- the picture of helpless innocence.
Monks's hands shook and his teeth almost chattered as he lifted the limp, warm weight out of bed. Staged though this was, the guilt and shame of abducting a child burned through his veins with his hammering pulse.
This time, the charge nurse did not look up as he pushed the cart past her.
Chapter 32
Monks buckled Mandrake in the Bronco's passenger seat, quickly arranging pads to make him comfortable.
"Buddy, I feel like absolute shit," he whispered to the sleeping child. "After all we've been through together, to do this to you -- I just can't tell you."
His cell phone chirped. He grabbed for it, fumbling in his haste.
'All right, we seen him," Freeboot said curtly. "You just drive back the way you came. Keep that phone handy. Oh, and tell my little boy he's going to be with his daddy soon." The connection went dead before Monks could speak.
Hope surged up in him. Freeboot's men had been watching, but not overhearing. They didn't know about the FBI agents.
There was still a chance.
Monks pulled out of the parking lot and drove back to the freeway, easing carefully into traffic. Driving along this mundane road on this ordinary March evening, surrounded by mothers in minivans anxious to get their children home, strings of truckers cutting swaths to make their schedules, complacent businessmen on their way to conferences or trysts, he found it hard to imagine all the human activity seething behind the scenes.
Monks had gleaned enough from Baskett and from his own previous experiences with the FBI to have a fair idea of it. The Critical Incident Response Group had hundreds of personnel on alert by now. Several vehicles were following him, leapfrogging, with drivers taking turns at dropping back, changing into different disguises, then catching up again. A microphone and tracking device had been planted on the Bronco, shot from a gun as one of the tailing cars passed him. Monks hadn't even been aware of it. Hidden roadblocks were ready to slam shut, and helicopters were poised to drop SWAT and hostage-rescue teams. Probably, top-level officials across the U.S. and even worldwide had been informed that the Calamity Jane killers were in the crosshairs.
This was going to be very big news, very soon -- however it turned out.
Monks and Baskett had agreed to talk as little as possible, and to try to keep it to moments when Freeboot's men weren't likely to be watching. Monks spent a couple of minutes maneuvering on the freeway, changing lanes and speeds, then punched the number that Baskett had given him.
"Freeboot just called," Monks told him. 'They know I got Mandrake. He told me to drive back the way I came, and keep the phone handy."
"Okay, we're in this," Baskett called out to the people around him. "Dr. Monks, we'll assume the situation's unchanged until we hear from you. When we do, we're ready to move."
Monks drove on, thinking about the next question:
Move where ?
Just over two hours later, he was on Highway 20, passing the west end of Clear Lake. The road was two-lane with little traffic, making things tough for his FBI shadows. But headlights would appear in his rearview mirror and turn off after a few miles, then quickly be replaced by different ones. Probably some of the oncoming vehicles were also part of the team.
He hadn't talked to anyone in the interim. With the little boy asleep beside him, driving back into the coastal fog, he had been lulled into a sense of unreality.
That was shattered by the chirp of his phone. He jerked so hard at the sound that his teeth clacked together.
"When you get to Upper Lake, turn right," Freeboot's steely voice said. "You know where you're going from there?"
Monks realized, with an ugly jolt, that Freeboot knew exactly where he was.
Then, with another one, that that road led to Freeboot's burned camp -- his home turf, where he would be at maximum advantage.
'The camp?" Monks said.
"That's right. Now, I got this feeling you might have talked to somebody."
"I called Marguerite's mother, that's all. I had to give her a story about why I left."
"Yeah, well, you better be all alone from here on. We got you covered all the way. If anything else twitches out there, this is history." Freeboot paused, a silence filled with menace that Monks could feel over the phone.
"What do I do when I get there?" he said.
"Just come walking on in, and call my name out loud!' Freeboot gave a sudden little snort that sounded like laughter.
That was all.
Chapter 33
The last fifteen miles of road to Freeboot's camp were gravel and dirt, almost impassable in places, twisting and crossing in an unmarked labyrinth. Someone who didn't know the way could drive around lost for days, but Monks had come up here enough times with the sheriffs to remember it. The earth was washboarded and rutted, still soggy from the winter rains, slick enough in places to make him spin his tires and drift sideways, even on slight inclines. After the first couple of miles, he locked the Bronco into four-wheel-drive and left it that way.
But for all that he could see, he might as well have been on another planet. The fog thinned into patches as he gained elevation, blanketing him one minute, then parting to reveal a nightbound landscape of rocky crags and forest lit by a gibbous moon, then closing in again. There were no FBI vehicles tailing now, no lights but the Bronco's, no signs of human life.
Monks heard a sound, a plaintive little yowl like the plea of a trapped cat. His head swiveled toward it.
It was Mandrake, starting to cry.
"Christ," he hissed, hitting the brakes. The sedative that the hospital had given Mandrake wasn't strong enough -- the jouncing ride had awakened him. He looked up fearfully into Monks's face, a face he already associated with nightmare.
And now he was in a new one.
Monks unbuckled Mandrake's seat belt and cradled him, doing his best to smile. "Everything's okay, buddy," he said soothingly. "You're just having a little dream, but you'll be back to sleep in no time."
"Mommy!" Mandrake screamed, struggling and flailing with his tiny fists.
Monks sagged in despair, then crooned nonsense while he fumbled in the back for his medical kit. He flipped on the dash light, found a vial of Ativan and a syringe, and drew off a half-milligram dose, holding it above Mandrake's head, out of his view.
Mandrake probably didn't even feel the needle, but it hurt Monks plenty.
The crying stopped. Mandrake's head rolled to the side.
Monks made up his mind. He cut the Bronco's ignition and lights, and picked up the phone. The connection was weak and static-laden, just at the edge of fade-out range.
