Code White Part 30

"It's a metaphor."

Lee stalked back and slammed a cell phone onto the table.

"What's this?" asked Kevin.

"Your handiwork," said Lee.

Kevin squinted at the tiny screen of the cell phone. It was difficult to see without his gla.s.ses, but he made out something dark and lumpy, like a log or the chewed end of a cigar. Only after hard scrutiny could he identify a row of white teeth, and two dark and boiled-out eye sockets looking back at him.

"Oh, f.u.c.k! Tambora!" he gasped.

Lee gripped the edge of the table and overshadowed Kevin. "This is the face of one of the men you killed. His name is Tony. He looks a lot like one of those mummies they pulled out of Pompeii, doesn't he? As I recall, a couple thousand people got toasted just like this. Quite a metaphor, isn't it?"

Kevin's throat went dry. He pushed his chair back, distancing himself from his silent accuser, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the image. "Look, I didn't want this. I'm ... I'm not sure what happened. They might have tripped a circuit or something. But it proves my point. You have to let me go."

Lee picked up the cell phone and shoved it in Kevin's face, so close that it was nothing but a blur. "Do you understand that you're facing the death penalty? A lot depends on what happens right here and now. If you have one tenth of the brains people say you have, tell Agents Dail and Ganguly how to get into the Odin program."

"You don't."

"Is it a UNIX-based system?" asked Ganguly. She stood next to Lee, pet.i.te and prim in a gray skirtsuit. Her voice was clear and dulcet, like a crystal bell.

Her query seemed like the crown of FBI pigheadedness. "Girl, you look and sound like a summer intern out of high school," Kevin said. "Odin has as much in common with UNIX as Shakespeare does with the sign language of an ape. He's protected by an integument, a programming layer that regulates all input functions and command sequences. Everything gets checked for consistency with my past instructions. Any attempt to access his code or even communicate with him will be instantly red-flagged as an alien intrusion."

"We'll go in through the back door."

"There is no back door. I never needed one."

"Then we'll make one. We'll link a Trojan horse to the data from the Cerberus surveillance system that Odin is presently hijacking. It will plant a virus that will allow us to circ.u.mvent the usual access portals, and directly enter core programming. We'll shut him down, with or without your help."

"Make sure your life insurance is up-to-date before you try that one. Really, you're not hearing a thing I'm saying, are you? This isn't your dad's PC we're talking about. How many people have to f.u.c.king die before you people get it?" He turned to Raymond Lee. "There is one and only one way to shut down Odin. Give me back my property, and let me go. I want to end this as much as you do. But don't waste time with this s.h.i.t."

"Forget it," said Lee.

"The data stream-" said Ganguly.

Both were cut off by a commotion at the door. Captain Avery, his uniform torn and bloodstained and his hair caked with mud, charged into the room, a pair of uniformed officers in his wake.

"This him?" he growled. The police guards in the room stood to attention as Avery pushed his way through to Kevin. "Are you the son of a b.i.t.c.h who set these bombs?"

A new face-maybe a chance at reason, thought Kevin. He smiled urbanely and made a point of calling out this new cop by name. "h.e.l.lo, Captain Avery."

But there was perhaps a sukoshi too much smugness in his voice. Like a sprung trap, Avery lunged across the table and slammed his fist against Kevin's jaw, knocking him out of his chair and to the ground. The table grated against the floor as Avery b.u.mped it to one side and dove down upon Kevin, hitting him with two or three lightning strokes to his face and stomach. "I'll kill you, you little p.r.i.c.k!" he roared.

Kevin rolled to one side and held his arms out to block the punches. Avery hit like a sledgehammer, and the whole roomful of cops simply stood by in shock, as though they were going to let him be beaten to death. But then Harry Lewton jumped in and caught Avery in a half-Nelson, pulling him away.

"Get away from me, you p.i.s.sant rent-a-cop!" shouted Avery. "Get your meathooks off me!"

"Let him be!" said Harry.

Avery shook off Harry's hold and spun on him, glaring at him nose-to-nose. "f.u.c.k you! Back off or I'll throw you and all your black-and-white flunkeys into jail!"

Lee interposed a hand. "Glenn, lighten up."

Avery was bright red in the face. "I'm the Incident Commander here. I'll do what the h.e.l.l I please."

"No, Glenn. This man is in FBI custody now. I have to answer for him."

Avery glared at Lee, fists clenched, his breath coming in loud and heavy snorts. "Four men dead! Four good men! Christ knows, they were as good as they come. Bill Kraus, for Chrissakes! He ... he had no legs left. Blown away at the knees. Not a drop of blood, Ray! It killed him so fast he didn't even bleed. And Tony Pa.s.salaqua ... his wife's expecting. What am I supposed to tell her? Why is his kid gonna grow up an orphan? Because ... because this f.u.c.king piece of s.h.i.t-"

Lee put his hand on Avery's shoulder. "I know they were good men, Glenn. They don't come any better. But let's save the rest of 'em, okay? We've got plenty more to save."

Avery watched sullenly as Dail and Ganguly helped Kevin back into his chair. "That son of a b.i.t.c.h is coming with me! I'm gonna chain his a.s.s to a water pipe and make him watch what the f.u.c.k he's done. The next b.o.o.by trap that goes off, he'll be the first to burn."

Kevin couldn't believe what he had just heard. "Are you still trying to disarm the bomb?"

"Of course we are, you stupid p.r.i.c.k."

"D-don't. You'll set it off."

Lee jumped in to block Avery from making another charge. "How can you reach it?" he asked the Captain. "The utility shaft's nothing but a pile of debris."

"Below. But we still have access from the upper bas.e.m.e.nt level, above the bomb. We've opened a service panel up there and had a good look. It's trickier. We'll have to lower a man head-first. But we aren't about to give up. The real problem is these G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.o.o.by traps. I don't know how we missed the first one, but it's not gonna happen again."

"Work smart, Glenn. This guy thinks he could teach the Unabomber to suck eggs. There's no telling what he's laid up for you."

Avery was so tall Kevin could see his entire face over the top of Lee's head. It was like the face of a bull pawing the ground before a charge. "Maybe I oughtta dangle this p.r.i.c.k up and down the shaft until he spills his guts."

"We need him here, Glenn. The bombs are set off by computer, and he's gonna help us shut the computer down."

"Look at him. G.o.ddamm it, Ray, look at that smirk! No f.u.c.king way is he gonna help with anything."

"Let us work on it, okay?"

Avery sighed. "This is the worst I've ever seen, Ray. Four men in one swoop. Four good men. What am I ... what am I gonna tell their-" He suddenly pivoted away from Lee and the other onlookers. From the way his shoulders shook, Kevin knew that he was choking back tears.

Lee, his hand still on Avery's shoulder, guided Avery out of the crowded room. Three of the uniforms followed them out to express their condolences. The other two stayed, but accompanied the procession with their eyes. Special Agent Dail sat down behind the computer at the nurse's station. Harry stood near the door, brushing dust off his blazer.

And for an instant, Kevin noticed that Special Agent Ganguly was the only person in the room with her eyes on him.

A thud. A sc.r.a.pe of table legs against the floor. Harry turned and looked, just in time to see Ganguly in mid-air, plummeting toward the ground. Kevin had leaped on top of the table, and was swinging the chair he had just bashed Ganguly with, holding it by its two rear legs. The chair went into a swift, wide arc, then punched through the ceiling as it knocked aside a twenty-four-inch-square acoustic panel to expose a dark crawl s.p.a.ce above. There was a clang as the two front legs of the chair hooked around a sprinkler pipe. Harry grabbed at Kevin's ankles, but missed as Kevin plucked up his legs and swung by the hooked chair like a trapeze artist, kicking out a second panel and wrapping his legs around a pipe. For a second, he hung upside down, his orange hair drooping from his forehead. Then, with a lithe, screwlike motion that only an experienced rock climber could have attempted, he pulled his upper body through the hole in the ceiling, and disappeared into the darkness above.

"s.h.i.t!" yelled Harry. "He's getting away!"

"Where?"

"The ceiling!"

In an instant, half a dozen guns were drawn, their sights flitting chaotically toward every part of the ceiling.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" shouted Lee. "We need him alive!"

Harry sprang onto the table and tried to lift himself by the still-hanging chair the way Kevin had done. He was too heavy and could barely get his feet up off the table. "f.u.c.k," he muttered. Quickly he unhooked the chair, set it on the table, and climbed onto it. Sticking his head into the dark crawl s.p.a.ce, he could see Kevin worming his way through a tangle of pipes and wires.

No time to think. Harry grabbed the nearest pipe and pulled himself up, boosting his momentum with a kick off the chair. The pipe sagged under his weight as he swung his right leg up, knocking out another panel. Another heave, and a piece of the aluminum frame of the drop ceiling clattered to the floor. But Harry had made it into the crawl s.p.a.ce.

By the scant light from below, Harry saw that Kevin had already covered half a dozen yards, and was spidering between a ventilation duct and the concrete ceiling. Watching Kevin's lean body moving effortlessly through the crevice, Harry felt like a tortoise trying to chase a monkey up a tree. But he wasn't about to give up the chase.

Harry lay as flat as he could across a pair of sprinkler pipes and scooted sideways, aiming for a solid steel beam. His face grazed the dusty chalklike surface of the ceiling panels, which stung his eyes and left a dry, bitter taste in his mouth. Bigger in the chest than Kevin, Harry had to exhale in order to slip into the s.p.a.ce above the duct. But following Kevin's example, he hugged it between his legs and arms, and inched forward with a caterpillar-like motion.

He kept on crawling until his hands sc.r.a.ped against a concrete wall. He was in total darkness now, and had lost sight of his quarry. He heard a creaking noise, but it seemed to come from directly above. Groping his way, he discovered that the duct made a right-angle turn at the wall and ran upward to the floor above. Alongside it was a narrow tunnel-like s.p.a.ce, just wide enough to squeeze through. It was the only place Kevin could have gone. Harry wriggled inside the tunnel and began to shimmy upward.

After maybe twenty feet, Harry wormed his way out of the tunnel, emerging into yet another crawl s.p.a.ce. Kevin had vanished, but there was a square of light about forty feet ahead, where one of the ceiling panels had been pried up and slid to one side. Harry moved toward the light. When he reached the gap, he looked down and saw a beige linoleum floor twelve feet below, and something else-the white and black clad form of a hospital security guard, lying half-doubled up on the floor.

Gripping an oxygen gas main, Harry dangled himself through the gap and dropped, landing beside the prostrate guard. It was Judy Wolper. She looked up sluggishly, her eyes unfocused, and her blond hair hanging over her face.

"H-hit me. He hit me," she mumbled. "Came out of nowhere and hit me."

"Which way did he go?"

"I ... I don't know."

There were only two directions. On the left, the corridor joined the main pa.s.sage coming out of Tower A. That led to the Pike, where Kevin could quickly lose himself in a crowd of people. On the right, only a dead end at some faculty offices for Physical Therapy. No contest. Left! Harry thought. It's the only way out.

But no sooner had he risen to his feet than he heard two gunshots, coming not from the left, but from the right.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," said Judy, fumbling at her holster. "He's got my gun."

Harry ran toward the gunfire. He paused at a turn in the corridor, and then sprang out, instinctively crouching into a low Weaver stance, the Beretta in both hands, right arm straight, left arm slightly c.o.c.ked. Kevin was at the far end, kicking furiously at a door.

"Drop it!" shouted Harry. "Drop the gun!"

"No, you drop it!" Kevin shouted back. He had been pointing Judy's Glock 17 at the door, but now he turned toward Harry, swinging the gun with him.

Harry fired once. The slug hit Kevin in the shoulder, and spun him sharply against the wall. The Glock went flying to the ground.

Still keeping his Beretta poised, Harry advanced like a fencer in a half-crouch, and kicked Kevin's gun out of reach. Kevin had slumped into a sitting position against the wall. He was wincing and gripping his right shoulder. "You stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he shouted. "You stupid fascist c.o.c.ksucking b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Gun for a d.i.c.k, and s.h.i.t for brains!"

"You pointed your weapon at me. What did you expect?"

"I expected you to back the f.u.c.k off."

Harry knew that shooting Kevin was bad business. They were both lucky he had missed what he had really aimed for. "It's just a shoulder wound. You'll make it."

"None of us is going to make it unless you let me get to a computer. I need to contact Od-"

"Out of the question," Harry snapped.

"Look, I wasn't trying to run away."

"No? With five murder charges hanging over your head? Gee, why not?"

"Those killings, they weren't part of the plan. No one was supposed to get hurt. No one but ... one person, anyway. It was just about the money."

"Five hundred pounds of explosives, and you thought no one would get hurt?"

"There's no payoff in actually exploding the bomb. It was all about the threat of the bomb. But the threat had to be believable."

"Well, everyone believes you now."

Kevin grimaced with pain and knocked his head three times on the wall behind him. "Can't you hear me, fascist? Odin's jamming. Gone improvisational. I have no idea what he'll do next. I want to call off the project."

"Call it off?"

"Deactivate. There's an emergency safe recovery shutdown procedure for Odin that I can activate if I can log in to a terminal somewhere. After that, you can take these f.u.c.king bombs out of here. I'll tell you where and how. I don't want anyone else getting killed."

Harry still had his gun on him. "I don't trust you."

"It's not about trust, fascist. It's about smarts. Who do you think the next victim is likely to be?"

"What do you mean, next vic-"

"Ali."

Harry felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. "Ali? Why Ali?"

"Because ... because she tasks me, Einstein. She burned me pretty deep, and Odin, well, Odin has a way of picking up on these things. He can, like, see into your id. That's how Dr. H got blown away. And Ali's next, I tell you. Odin will vaporize this whole freaking hospital just to get at her. He's what you'd call a radical thinker."

Harry looked at the two bullet holes near the lock of the office door. Kevin was telling the truth. If he had been trying to escape, this cul-de-sac would have been the last place to run to. Harry was starting to wish he hadn't shot the son of a b.i.t.c.h. "All right. Where can you log on?"

"Anywh- Aw, jeez." Kevin's body twisted with pain. He slid downward, until just his head was propped against the wall. The wall behind him was smeared with blood.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm ... I'm feeling kind of light-headed."

"I'll help you up." Harry holstered his gun and reached under Kevin to pull him back into a sitting position. The entire backside of Kevin's shirt was wet and sticky, and Harry immediately recognized the distinctive texture of blood. Even so, when he got a look at his hand, he was astonished to find it completely drenched. "Oh, h.e.l.l!" he muttered.

"Problems, fascist?" said Kevin with a woozy smile.

Harry tore away Kevin's shirt. The bullet had entered just on the inside of the right shoulder joint, through a hole about the size of a dime. But the back of the shoulder was torn into strands like pulled pork, and blood was shooting out of the armpit in rhythmic squirts.

"The artery's nicked. You're gonna need a doctor." Harry looked around and spotted a house phone hanging from the wall. Wadding up part of Kevin's sopping wet shirt, he pushed it up hard against the armpit and had Kevin hold it there. "Keep as much pressure on it as you can," he said. Then he leaped up and grabbed the phone. "Emergency! Emergency! We have a gunshot wound on the second floor, Tower A, Corridor 12, near the men's room. Request immediate medical a.s.sistance. Victim is bleeding profusely. Repeat-need medical a.s.sistance, STAT."

The operator was still talking on the other end when Harry dropped the phone and started back. Pa.s.sing a men's room door, he reached inside and grabbed a handful of paper towels.

Kevin was white as a clamsh.e.l.l, and so weak that his fingers merely rested on top of the pressure point. Harry lifted Kevin's right arm and wadded the paper towels into the armpit until he could feel solid bone. As he did, he noticed that the spurting of blood had stopped. He had seen enough as a cop to know that that could be a bad sign.