Slaughter (30 page)

 

A
t Faith Recovery Center, Quinn stayed out of sight, behind the folding doors that partitioned Weaver's room from the adjoining one. In the monitor propped high in a corner, he could see Weaver with bandages over much of her face, lying beneath a thin white sheet that made her look all the worse. Her bulletproof vest was completely covered by the sheet, as was the Ruger .25 semiautomatic handgun, within easy reach of her right hand. The plastic IV tube alongside her bed dripped only simple glucose.

A second monitor was trained on the door to the next room, so that anyone entering or leaving would be seen. Quinn knew that just outside the door was a uniformed cop in a chair borrowed from one of the small waiting areas. The uniform had a good view of the elevators from where he sat, as well as a view of anyone who might open the door to the fire stairs.

In the wall monitor, Quinn saw Fedderman pause outside in the hall, then enter Weaver's room. He was wearing a light raincoat and his hair looked damp. Fedderman took a quick glance at the tiny camera near the room's ceiling, disguised to look like one of the sprinkler heads of a fire-protection system. He walked over to the bed and leaned down, said something to Weaver that Quinn couldn't make out. Weaver seemed to nod.

As Quinn watched in the monitor, Fedderman walked toward the folding doors separating the two rooms. Then the doors parted near the wall and he appeared in the flesh and life-size.

“Watching old
Adam-12
reruns?” Fedderman asked.

Quinn thought about telling him ten-four, but he didn't want to start something. “Weaver still doing okay?” he asked instead.

“Says her flak jacket chafes. We both agreed that if that was our biggest problem we were doing okay.”

“You're early if you're here to relieve me,” Quinn said.

“I came in to show you these,” Fedderman said. “Renz wanted me to make sure you saw them.” He reached beneath his tan light raincoat and handed Quinn some printouts. “The police sketch artist aged these photos and they appear to be the older woman who was killed in St. Louis.”

There were three copies of black-and-white photographs, front and profile views of a teenage girl. They weren't mug shots. She was wearing different blouses and might even have been older in one of the shots. In that one she had a more mature profile, and a different hairdo. It was cut short rather than shoulder length, as in the other photos.

The third printout wasn't a photo but an appeal to report the whereabouts of a missing sixteen-year-old girl named Jasmine. It was dated fifteen years ago. She had disappeared from the family farm one night and never been heard from again.

“Twenty-year-old Jordan Kray, a hired hand on the farm, disappeared at approximately the same time as Jasmine's sudden and unexpected departure.”

“A connection?” Quinn asked.

“They might have been an item,” Fedderman said. “A week after the disappearances, several people noticed half a dozen buzzards circling in the clear blue sky. Two men drove out to investigate.

“They saw more buzzards on the ground. Some of them were pecking and standing on something dark among the corn. One of the men got a shotgun from the truck's rear window rack and blasted away. Scared the birds, but they didn't go far.

“The man with the shotgun saw what interested the big birds. There was a man—or what used to be a man—barely visible in the rows of corn. His clothes were ripped and filthy, and birds and animals had gotten to him.

“There was an empty, worn, and weathered leather wallet near what was left of the dead man's body, Nothing in the wallet. No identification. The man who owned the farm kept asking the Highway Patrol troopers to remove the dead man from his field. He was informed that he was growing crops on a government easement.

“As the body was dragged a few feet closer to the tracks, onlookers saw that the victim was male and had on oversized Levi's that were reduced to rags that fell away when he was moved.

“The dead man was barefoot. Empty wallet, missing shoes. No watch—wrist or pocket. He'd been picked clean.”

More and more it looked to Quinn as if the dead man had been a train hopper. Maybe one who followed the simple philosophy of empathizing with losers, and then acting on what he'd seen or heard. What he'd learned. There were plenty of that kind around. Always they had ulterior motives. Always they were acting.

Sometimes they were lambs. Sometimes wolves. All the time they couldn't be trusted.

 

I
n Faith Recovery Center, the uniform was seated in a chair outside where Officer Nancy Weaver lay in bed, where she was pretending to be Pearl pretending to be lost in a coma. Her protector was Sergeant Dave Gregg, three inches over six feet, and forty pounds over two hundred. He'd been with the NYPD over twenty years and had seen about everything that cops saw. He'd considered it an honor rather than duty when he'd been assigned this job. The two men running the show were fixtures in NYPD nobility. Renz, the commissioner who might someday become mayor. And Quinn, who was already a legend.

For the third time this evening Officer David Gregg braced with his arms and lifted his bulk up out of his chair. He hitched up his black uniform belt, yawned, and slowly strolled down to the waiting area near the end of the hall to get a candy bar out of one of the vending machines.

None of the nurses or occasional doctors seemed to take the presence of the big uniformed cop as an indication that something might be wrong. Or, if not wrong, unusual. They were quick to return his smile, but always they hurried along. All that weaponry on his belt was made to inflict injury or death, the two things the doctors and nurses in the recovery center were trained to detest.

Gregg was glad to see there were still Zero bars in the machine. They were his favorite. They were delicious when washed down with a cheap red wine, but this wasn't the time or place for that. Maybe later.

A female doctor entered, recognized as such by Gregg because she was wearing pale blue scrubs, a matching skullcap, and floppy pull-on shoe covers. A crinkled cloth mask was still tied loosely around the doctor's neck. Coiled below the mask's tie strings were the twin tubes and earpieces of a stethoscope.

“Beautiful evening,” Gregg said, and was answered with a smile. Everyone was so nice here it almost made you want to recover from something.

As the doctor eased around Gregg's bulk, it occurred to Gregg that he'd never seen anyone who looked more like a brilliant surgeon.

That was what alarmed him.

Still smiling, he reached out as if he were going to shake hands with the doctor. Instead he grabbed her wrist and held it in a powerful lock in one of his big hands.

This felt great to Gregg. He hadn't been fooled for long, and now he was making the collar. This was the kind of thing that might get him interviewed in the
Times.

The play of strength in the doctor's arm prompted Gregg's first misgiving. Something was wrong here. The doctor was strong as a man.
Was a man.
Not a large man, but strong out of proportion to his size.

The man's tightly fitted blue surgeon's cap had tilted and revealed a protruding ear, almost perfectly pointed. It gave him a constant appearance of alertness.

Gregg's smile faded as he said, “I think you'd better—”

He saw the stiletto-like knife in the doctor's right hand. The long pointed blade looked as if it were designed for taking and not saving lives.

It entered Gregg's corpulent body easily, angled upward tight to his sternum, and pierced his heart.

He couldn't cry out an alarm. Instead he made what sounded like a hopeless sob. No one had ever looked more like a real lady surgeon than his killer. Gregg knew he should have noticed that, acted on it, alerted the others . . . But he'd done his job. And now the light was fading.

He needed a doctor!

He didn't fall. The Gremlin supported Gregg and helped him to stumble over to a chair.

Gregg felt himself being eased down into the chair.

Once the brief struggle had begun, the whole thing hadn't taken half a minute. Gregg was having a hard time seeing now. He was too weak to move under his own power, and he knew he was dying.

He heard a distant, amused voice. “Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”

In some remote part of his brain, Gregg was glad somebody had a sense of humor.

Then the pain came.

When Gregg was dead, the Gremlin propped him firmly in the waiting room chair and arranged his arms and legs. Now he was posed looking like what he was, a cop taking a break. Arranging the body had gotten blood on the Gremlin's surgical scrubs, but that was okay. He knew that now he looked even more like a genuine doctor.

Or one from Central Casting.

He glanced at his watch. It was time to make the phone call. The one that would end the game with the winner not in doubt. Time for Quinn to learn his final and most important lesson: The winning game was not always the long game. Not even always the game you think you're playing.

He made his phone call.

And then another, that would change worlds and futures.

W
eaver scratched beneath her left armpit where the bulletproof vest chafed. She tried to get something like comfortable. Her two-way produced nothing but static. She gave up for the moment. Probably some piece of medical equipment was running somewhere nearby, emitting rays that cured this or that, or displayed that or this, and interfered with communication. Weaver decided to give up for the time being and rest. A real coma wouldn't be bad right now. Except for the fact that she might not wake up.

Keeping that in mind, she tried to ignore her restlessness, and to resist scratching where the bulky vest itched.

Weaver's chief protector was now sitting dead near the other end of the hall. The killer had left a folded section of newspaper tented over the cop's ample midsection so the blood wouldn't seep through after a while and be noticed.

The Gremlin had scouted the territory, learning the layout of the rehab center. He knew the target's room number, and had even glanced into the room while making sure he knew where the clean laundry was stored.

It had all worked well, at least for a while.

 

 

It took the police less than ten minutes to get there. Sirens growled to silence as two NYPD radio cars pulled in at an angle to the curb in front of the Center.

Quinn was already, along with Fedderman, running toward the room where Weaver played the mystery woman who'd entered and then left the afterlife, and just a few seconds ago had almost lost her corporeal life.

He made it to room 409 just in time to watch the elevator doors close. But not before he caught a glimpse of Weaver inside. She wore a hospital gown stained with blood, probably from her nose, which appeared broken. The Gremlin was holding her with her arm bent behind her, in such a way that any upward pressure made her grimace in pain.

When she saw Quinn she smiled.

The subtle smile was brief and only at the corners of her lips, but it informed Quinn that the Gremlin had taken the bait. He had, ostensibly, Pearl, disguised as Weaver, playing the role of Pearl.

This was the kind of labyrinth the Gremlin wanted, or thought he wanted. Advanced chess.

 

 

More radio cars, sans sirens, arrived silently and were lined up outside the center. Both ends of the driveway were blocked.

The Gremlin slid behind Weaver, locked the double glass doors, and retreated into the maze of halls and rooms beneath the center.

Weaver felt around beneath her gown for her Ruger but couldn't find it. As they hurried down a hall lined with identical pea-green doors, the Gremlin removed the Ruger and held it up so she could see it.

Most of the rooms were unoccupied, but some of them sheltered recuperating patients. Now and then someone would glance at them from inside a room. If they had spotted something wrong, they didn't want to become involved. They didn't want to become dead.

The Gremlin needed one of those patients for a convincer. The woman who'd been dead but was somehow again alive had to know he would use the gun.

There was so much he wanted her to tell him.

A PA system clicked and buzzed. Then a woman's calm voice proclaimed that there were “difficulties being dealt with,” and instructed patients and staff to remain behind the locked door of whichever room they were in until they heard the all clear. That was appropriately ambiguous, the killer thought. It carried exactly the right touch of controlled urgency. Panic was right around the corner.

Footfalls sounded ahead of them, and a uniformed cop and another nurse came into view. The cop had the woman by the elbow, hurrying her along. Suddenly they were face-to-face.

The Gremlin drew Weaver's gun and blasted away. The cop, who'd managed to get his gun halfway out of its holster, sat down and his eyes went blank. The nurse stared horrified at the Gremlin and started backing away.

The Gremlin bent down to get the cop's gun from its holster.

“You killed him!” the young nurse stammered, then she spun on her heel and ran down the hall to where it took a right turn.

“That was a bad idea,” Weaver said, “killing a cop. Haven't you seen any of those old gangster movies?”

“All of them.”

He made his way along the halls, tried some doors until he found an unlocked one, and slipped into an unoccupied room, pushing the supposedly injured Weaver ahead of him. It was cool in there, and quiet.

He was glad again to have studied the Center's floor plan, and thought he knew exactly where he was. If he made it about fifty feet to the next cross hall, dragging Weaver along with him, he should be able to turn right and use an exit.

Of course, the exit would be covered by the police, who by now must have surrounded the Center with much of their uniformed force, along with their teams of elite snipers.

The Gremlin went to the dim room's door and attempted to lock it, but discovered there was no lock. That was when, for some reason, an element of fear crept into his mind. It was a small thing, leaving him no more vulnerable, but it was like having a black cat cross your path. Nothing but superstition, but still . . .

Something else he should have thought of was the young nurse he had let run away after he'd shot, and surely killed, the uniformed cop. If he'd held her as a hostage, she could have become a valuable bargaining chip. Even though she was not the one he had come to collect.

The killer looked around but didn't see a phone. Probably the Center brought landline phones in and plugged them into wall outlets when new patients arrived.

He pulled his throwaway cell phone from his pocket and pecked out a number that was by now familiar. Quinn's cell phone's number. It could be traced to this area, but if he didn't keep the connection open for a while they wouldn't be able to pinpoint the room he was in.

There was no caller ID on Quinn's phone, only the number that had most recently called.

Quinn answered and identified himself.

“This will be a short conversation,” the killer said. “It's time for me to have Pearl.”

Quinn felt the anger grow in him. “I don't think there will ever be a time for that.”

The Gremlin laughed. God, he enjoyed this! Whoever said victory was hollow didn't know what he was talking about.

When he heard the laugh, Quinn tightened his grip on the phone. “You're not going to get off the grounds here alive.”

“After we trade, watch and see if I get off the ground.”

Quinn knew the Gremlin might well have a way. He wasn't the sort who wouldn't have a plan B.

Then Quinn recalled Helen the profiler's words: “He doesn't want you; he wants what's yours. He wants Pearl.” Helen had been right from the beginning. He'd been played for a fool. Weaver and her back-from-the-dead act hadn't fooled the Gremlin. The little bastard had guessed in the beginning that Weaver had only been an arrow pointing the way to Pearl.

“I have Weaver,” the voice on the phone said. “She'll be actually and forever dead within an hour if you don't do as I say.”

Quinn told himself that this was going at least somewhat as planned. But he didn't feel at all ahead in the game.

He wondered how Weaver felt. And the Gremlin.

He knew how Pearl felt, and he didn't like that, either.

The Gremlin surprised him again. “This place doesn't have a heliport,” the Gremlin said, “but it does have a flat grassy area up front that will do for one.”

Quinn was thrown by that. It was something he hadn't considered. “Are you telling me you want a helicopter?”

“Not for keeps,” the Gremlin said.

Quinn thought it wasn't good that the killer still had a sense of humor. Some of the most vicious psychotic killers he'd encountered enjoyed a good laugh. It at least distracted them for the moment.

The Gremlin was using Weaver as the surest route to Pearl.

“Get me a police or hospital helicopter, and fast,” the Gremlin said, “before it gets completely dark, or I'll shoot your policewoman, and then everybody will be shooting everybody else. You know how these things get out of hand. Some unlucky sap in the next block will be sitting watching crap on TV and a bullet will come in through a window and blow his brains out.” He tightened his grip on Weaver and stuck the gun barrel under her right eye. “I'm waiting for your answer. You've got only so many seconds to make up your mind, and I'm counting.”

Weaver said, “Don't bargain with the little prick.”

Instead Quinn said, “What happens after you get your helicopter?”

“I guess that depends on what you and our phony, miraculously reborn girlfriend here decide. If she cooperates, the helicopter will simply drop down somewhere and let her out. If she doesn't cooperate, the same thing will happen, only from higher up.” The Gremlin laughed. “I'll bet there'll be some TV copters, too. Recording everything. It will be immortal on the Internet.”

Quinn stood thinking it over. At least the psychopath wouldn't be at the controls and wouldn't crash the helicopter.

“It isn't as if you have a choice,” the killer said.

Quinn knew he was right.

“All right,” he said. “I'll try to get you a helicopter. It won't be easy. I'll have to make some phone calls.”

Quinn used his index finger to peck out Renz's number.

In the building's lobby, Renz answered a Center phone and listened to Quinn's concise request. Since all calls in or out of the Center were being monitored, he already knew the contents of Quinn and the killer's earlier conversation, so it didn't surprise him. Wouldn't have surprised him, anyway. Desperate people often viewed helicopters as if they were magic carpets that could swoop down and lift them out of trouble. It was wishful thinking.

Most of the time.

He said, “I can get us a helicopter.”

“I need it fast, Harley.”

“You'll get it.”

Renz didn't bother telling Quinn that somewhere along the line, probably in his brief stint in the army, the Gremlin had learned to fly a helicopter. That was only seven months before he went AWOL and was given a dishonorable discharge. What Quinn didn't know might not hurt him. Or Renz.

Quinn relayed Renz's answer. There were few people in the country who had the popular commissioner's push. A skillful social climber and de facto extortionist, he knew almost everyone connected to law enforcement. And not only in New York.

When he heard, the Gremlin grinned. The gun was still pointed at Weaver's head. She looked as if she'd just swallowed a smile.

People who lived on the edge, Quinn thought. Why did he understand them so well?

He caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a window.

It was subtle, but if he'd looked closely enough he might have noticed he was smiling.

It wasn't a nice smile.

 

 

Things got worse.

Renz called Quinn's cell phone and told him as much.

“We've got more information,” Renz said. He sounded frazzled and desperate.

“Another phone call?”

“A letter, actually. Remember the Ethan Ellis death? Looked like suicide by car?”

“Of course.” Quinn could feel everything enlarging, getting more dangerous. “You saying murder now?”

“Nope. Suicide by car. There was a suicide note in an envelope stuck down between the seats. Had your name on it. From Ellis.”

Now Quinn was dumbfounded. The possibilities his mind grasped were slippery and temporary.

“Note said he was being controlled by the Gremlin. Said we'd find out how. The thing is, we've gotta act fast. Ellis planted explosives in about a dozen buildings. He knew where and how to plant them. Not only will the buildings come down, but the
way
and sequence in which they fall will cause them to bring down strings of surrounding buildings, sometimes over a dozen at a time.”

“Like dominos,” Quinn said. He felt his heartbeat accelerate. Fear creeping in as he tried to grasp what he'd just heard. What it meant.

“But with people inside.” Renz said. “Manhattan will be mostly debris when the chain reactions occur.”

“What's supposed to detonate the explosives?”

“Timers that will activate sequentially so the most damage can be done. A car driven a route south to north, mostly along Broadway, is supposed to send out signals the length of the island that will activate the timers as it passes. That way the right buildings will come down in the right sequences.” Renz's voice got heavy. “This will all happen within minutes after the first timer is activated.”

“So somebody other than Ellis is supposed to drive the car and make the bombs live?”

“Nope. That's not our problem, now that we know their plan. Ordinarily we'd simply stop all north-south traffic, at least minimize the damage.”

“Why can't you do that now?”

“We don't have to worry about a car or truck,” Renz said. “The killer wants a helicopter. The device used to signal all the detonator timers to start ticking is simply a bastardized cell phone. A brief helicopter flight over Manhattan with that thing broadcasting will cause approximately the same damage as a nuclear bomb.”

“Is there a way to fly the same route and neutralize the timers or detonators by broadcasting a different signal?”

“That's what everyone here is trying to determine. We decided to talk to you about what we consider our only alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Give the helicopter pilot what he wants.”