Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (60 page)

I pushed at the sheet of wood or wall that lay over us like a tomb lid. It gave a few inches, but I didn’t have the leverage to move it more.

‘Anyone out there?’ I shouted. ‘Hello? We’re trapped over here.’

‘Quinn?’

The voice was male. Out in the main part of the suit. Sounded shaky.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Miles. Miles Tomlin. Jesus, this is a mess.’ He was stuttering. He sounded shocked. We all were.

I heard him clambering over rubble towards the bedroom – or what was left of it.

‘Half the room’s been blown out the hotel.’ I heard him say. ‘Oh, Jesus.’

 
‘We’re in here.’ Sonny shouted. ‘In what’s left of the closet. Can you get to us?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll try.’

Miles sounded scared. He was used to mostly office work and pen-pushing. Certainly not a day out in Baghdad.

I saw glints from a flashlight illuminate the swirling dust. Heard debris groan and moan as whatever it was pinning us down lifted a little. Then all at once it slid off to one side. The beam of a Maglite dazzled us.

I squinted, belching out dust.

Miles Tomlin fell to his knees and started brushing away debris with his free hand.

The sprinkler system kicked in. Started drenching us in icy water.

‘I can’t find Marty.’ He said through the rain. I could hear panic rising in his voice. ‘I can’t find him anywhere.’

169

^{___________________________}

We were lucky to be alive and in one piece. How many people can say they’ve survived a bomb blast relatively unscathed?

Things like that didn’t happen every day of the week – at least not on mainland USA. For a brief, explosive second we’d experienced a taste of what some peoples’ lives are like on a daily basis. I have no desire to trade places.

All told, there were five police officers and four Federal Agents in the Senator Suite at
Caesar’s Palace
when the killer’s booby-trap devise exploded. Miraculously, most of the injuries turned out to be superficial. Some third degree burns. A few scrapes and bruises and minor lacerations. One broken arm. Four fractured ribs. No lost limbs, thankfully. Mostly shock and sooty lungs.

All told, five police officers and three Federal Agents had survived relatively unscathed.

We were lucky.

There was only one fatality:

Assistant Director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, Marty Gunner.

170

^{___________________________}

I couldn’t get Marty off my mind as I shivered on the back plate of yet another ambulance. The private access road leading into the pool area at the rear of the hotel was crammed with fire trucks, police cars and EMS vehicles. Plenty of flashing neon – but still no match for our flashier surroundings. The Palace Tower had been evacuated. Plus the conference and business centers situated in the floors beneath. We couldn’t risk debris falling on unsuspecting guests. Fire crews were assessing the extent of the damage. I could hear crowds of displaced patrons and gathering onlookers stirring out on the street. Camera-phones flashing. A news helicopter hovering nearby. Video already uploading to
YouTube
.

Mike Shakes was huddled in a foil blanket on the back plate of another ambulance. A bandage wrapped around his head, just above eye level. A bloody patch spreading near his right temple. He looked like he’d been down a coal mine. Chalked with soot. Clothes blackened. I knew that I looked the same. When he saw me, he closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

I looked across the illuminated pool area, up to the Palace Tower. There was a black gaping hole torn out of its side about three-quarters of the way to the top. A ragged bullet wound in a flank of flesh. The surrounding windows in a hundred yard radius were either shattered or cracked.

The blast had blown Marty and most of the living room furniture clean through the window – where he and the fiery ejecta had plummeted through sixteen floors before plunging into one of the hotel’s pools. Traces of smoke curled lazily out of the hole. Rivulets of blackened water sobbing down the hotel fascia where the sprinkler system had washed out blast detritus.

The cops had cordoned off the expansive pool area. The once tranquil oasis of palms and sun chairs looked like a bomb had dropped on it – which, in a way, it had. The fancy tiles and Romanesque fountains were peppered with blackened debris and broken glass. Forensics were on their way. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. A great deal of figuring things out. All the while, Marty’s body was lying face-down in a pool of filthy water, scorched and torn, gently bobbing on the stiff January breeze.

Somebody was going to have to fish him out.

171

^{___________________________}

Jamie shielded her eyes from the glaring cabin light and pressed her nose against the cold plastic window pane. Somewhere down in that night-time world of inky blackness, the unseen snowy peaks of the Rockies drifted past beneath the plane. Every now and then, she spied clusters of tiny lights: dwellings and small communities separated by great troughs of nothingness.

Night flights were hard work. She wasn’t one of those people who could sleep on a plane. To her, the whole thing was too noisy, too jumpy and too claustrophobic.

‘Excuse me. Is this seat taken?’

Jamie looked back inside the cabin. Blinked to refocus.

A grey-haired woman was standing in the aisle, leaning toward her. She looked like a retiree. Dressed in a fitted tweed suit, with one of those Victorian-style blouses that have a small ruff rather than a collar.

‘May I?’ She smiled, indicating the vacant seat next to Jamie.

‘Sure.’

The woman sat down. ‘I couldn’t help noticing,’ she continued in a hushed voice. Some passengers were sleeping, despite the turbulence. ‘The photographs.’ She nodded to the spread of glossies covering Jamie’s tray table. ‘Are you with the police?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Jamie realized the case photos were on view and gathered them quickly up. ‘I’m LAPD.’

‘There’s really no need to put them away, my dear. I work with the boys and girls in blue all the time.’ She held out her hand. ‘Doctor Margaret Dovecote. Professor of Pathology at the Rockefeller University in New York City.’

‘Jamie Garcia.’

‘Pleasure, Jamie Garcia.’

They shook. The woman sounded British.

‘I’m not very good with these overnight flights.’ The woman continued with a hesitant smile. ‘If God had intended us to fly I’m certain he would have had the foresight to give us wings.’ She nodded once more at the photos. ‘I do hate being nosy, but since disease is my labor of love, I’m compelled to ask: did all of the victims die from the same virus?’

Jamie frowned. Fingered the over-turned glossies. ‘These are all homicides,’ she said. ‘What makes you think it’s a virus?’

‘The rings of roses, for a start. As in the nursery rhyme: ring a ring o’ roses, a pocket full o’ poses.’ She leaned a little closer – Jamie caught a scent of lavender – whispered: ‘You see, viruses are a bit of an obsession of mine. You could say I find the study infectious.’

Jamie smiled. Not sure why.

She watched the British woman pop a pair of bifocals onto the tip of her nose. ‘May I?’ She asked, holding out an open palm. ‘I assure you I have seen plenty of death in my time.’

Jamie handed her the stack of glosses.

The woman calling herself Dr Dovecote peered down her nose at each photograph in turn.

‘You see, my dear, traditionally rings of roses and ash crosses have been used throughout the ages as icons to denote mass infections. The most well-known of which is the mark of the Bubonic plague in Europe during the Fourteenth Century.’ She glanced Jamie’s way, over the top of her spectacles. ‘I take it you’ve heard of the Black Death?’

It took several long seconds for Jamie’s sluggish mind to catch up.

Ring a ring o’ roses ... Black Death … The mark of the plague …

She saw the woman’s silky brow crinkle like tissue paper. ‘My dear, are you all right? Did I speak out of place? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

172

^{___________________________}

This time round, there was no time for showers and a change of clothes. No time to mourn Marty’s death or try and figure out the craziness behind it. Harland Candlewood had been identified at the
Golden Nugget
and the Feds had beaten us to him.

We jumped in an unmarked police car and took off at full whack. Several black-and-whites in tow. There was no keeping to the speed limit. Everyone’s adrenaline level was in the stratosphere. We careered through slow traffic heading north along The Strip. Almost knocking off wing mirrors as we went.

Police sirens soared through the night.

The heads-up had come through from one of Sonny’s contacts working security at the downtown casino. A posse of Feds had grabbed Candlewood about five minutes ago and hustled him into a private poker lounge. Booted the resident poker players out. Put armed men on the door. It sounded like retribution was being dealt out at the
Golden Nugget
. Somebody was going to pay for Marty’s death and right now that somebody was Harland Candlewood. Guilty until proven otherwise.

I was conscious that we had to get there and get him, before there was nothing left of him to question.

If Candlewood was part of a killer duo we needed him alive.

Our procession charged through red lights like bulls at the Pamplona run. Sonny drove like a Daytona veteran. We zigzagged through standing traffic fast enough to make it blur. More black-and-whites fell in behind as we raced downtown. Converging at intersections. By the time we’d arrived at the touristy Freemont Street there must have been over thirty sets of flashing neon in our wake.

‘Out of the way!’ Sonny hollered as we leapt out of our cars and headed into the casino ‘Police!’

Puzzled tourists parted. Lips gossiped. Camera-phones flashed. Fifty or so cops barging into the swanky premises (some of us still blackened and damp and looking like miners after a cave-in) must have looked like we were about to collar America’s Most Wanted. And maybe we were.

We ran across the marble lobby. Crashed through the casino. Vaulted the spiraling stairs leading up to the high roller rooms.