Black Daylight Page 20
The Lexus drove through the annex lot that McCobb had parked in earlier that day. It drove in and through and then out. It entered the main lot and pulled around to the back of the building, where they found no one, no security guards posted. Back there was a loading bay with a metal sliding door that was wide open. There were pallets of boxes on top. It looked like the loading crew had left it open to go grab dinner, maybe.
Gade told the Smith who was driving to park there.
They parked, and they all climbed out.
One of the Smiths hauled Holden out. They all met at the trunk, and the other Smith opened it. He pulled out the duffle bags and set them on the ground.
Gade unzipped one and pulled out a wad of zip ties and a roll of duct tape.
He looked at Holden.
“Guess what, Mr. Holden.”
“What?”
“You get to live.”
Holden said nothing because he didn’t feel relieved by the declaration.
Gade zip-tied his hands and duct taped his mouth. They shoved him into the trunk and slammed it shut.
They could hear him kicking and pounding on the inside.
Gade looked around. There was still no one. But there was a single security camera. It was facing the approach. The car would be identified, but not their faces.
He said, “Load up here.”
They unzipped both bags and pulled out three black ski masks, put them on.
The three men took off their coats and set them on the rear bench of the car.
They took out three sets of Kevlar and put them on. The straps were Velcroed, and they each pounded on their vests like a signal that each was on tight.
Next, they checked their handguns, which were in hip holsters. All loaded and ready to go.
Lastly, they reached into the other bag and pulled out three Heckler and Koch MP5SDs submachine guns, the Special Forces kind.
The MP5SD is built with a suppressor into the gun. The barrel is ported internally for extra soundproofing.
Bullets ignite from a gun and burst into loud sounds because they travel faster than the speed of sound. Thus, making a sonic crack. The only way to avoid this side effect is with subsonic ammunition, but not with the MP5SD. The weapon was built to turn the cheapest nine-millimeter rounds into subsonic rounds.
They were using nine-millimeter parabellums.
Each man checked the rounds, checked the magazines, and loaded them.
They each had a single backup magazine with thirty rounds each, totaling sixty a man, for a grand total of one hundred eighty bullets.
“Parameters, boss?” one of the Smiths asked.
“Find Olsen. Kill her. Kill any cops.”
“Everyone else?”
“Shoot anyone who gets in the way,” Gade said.
He set the MP5SD to single round burst for precision and led the way through the cargo loading bay to a back elevator.
Chapter 40
O N THE WAY to Lainey’s room, Widow saw an offer he couldn’t refuse.
At the nurse’s station, down a different corridor, and after the elevators there was a countertop with a coffee thermos with the top screwed down tight to keep it hot.
There was a sign that read: “Hot Coffee” and “Free For All.”
He said, “I’ll join you in a minute.”
Before Rower could object Widow was headed down the other hallway.
“Okay,” she called after him.
She headed on.
Lainey Olsen’s room was obvious because the uniformed deputy was sitting out in front in a folding chair. He had a USA Today with him and a pencil. The paper was folded up under his chair, and the pencil was on top.
Rower stopped not far from him. He looked up and then stood up.
She reached for her badge, but the deputy spoke first.
“You Rower?”
“Yeah.”
“The sheriff called. He said you’d be coming by.”
“Did he tell you to give me shit?”
“No. He said to assist in any way that I can.”
“Good,” she said, surprised because she hadn’t expected that.
She asked. “What’s your name?”
“Wallace.”
“Okay, Wallace. My associate went around the corner for coffee. He’s a big dude. Kind of looks like a combination of the worst mugshots you ever saw and a pretty boy. Or a guy who used to be pretty like when he was a baby.”
She felt the painkillers adding a little extra commentary that she didn’t mean to say.
“I saw him,” Wallace said.
“Good. He’s with me. So, don’t give him any shit either.”
“Okay.”
“You’re doing a good job,” she added.
“Okay. Thank you.”
She nodded at him, and she stepped past him, pushed open a big, heavy door, and entered the hospital room.
The door closed behind her, slowly.
Lainey Olsen was seated upright. Her head was bandaged from a head wound.
She wore a hospital gown. There was an ID bracelet on her wrist.
She said, “Who are you?”
“I’m FBI. Rower is my name.”
“Oh,” she said and looked down at the humps in a blanket that covered her. It was her knees. She pulled them up slowly.
“Careful,” Rower said.
“I’m okay.”
“You had a kidney removed. Doesn’t it hurt?”
She nodded.
“They gave me pills.”
“I see,” Rower said. “I know the feeling.”
“What happened to you?”
“Long story. A buddy of yours tried to kill me.”
“What? Who?”
“A lowlife named McCobb.”
“Oh.”
“You know him then?”
“He’s a drug dealer. My sister got mixed up with him.”
“Yeah.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. We’re looking for her now.”
Lainey stared down at her blanket and knees again.
She looped two hands up and around them.
“Not sure you should be sitting like that,” Rower said.
Olsen stayed quiet.
Rower said, “Because of the kidney.”
Silence.
Rower stepped forward and pulled up a stool meant for the doctor, she supposed. It rolled along the tiled floor on wheels.
She sat on it.
“Listen, Rousey is dead.”
“Oh,” Olsen said again.
“How?”
“Well, he tried to kill me. He killed his partner. I saw it all happen.”
Suddenly, Rower wasn’t sure she should be relaying the information. Her head felt okay. It must’ve been the painkillers.
She said, “Tell me what happened.”
“Don’t I need a lawyer? I mean don’t I get a lawyer?”
“You’re not being charged with a crime. What do you need a lawyer for?”
“Oh.”
“No. No crime. But we need to know the truth.”
Olsen stared off around the room.
She said, “You promise? I’m not in trouble?”
“Not yet. Unless you don’t cooperate.”
Which wasn’t quite true, but she said it anyway.
“I sold my kidney.”
“How? Give me some details.”
“I hate it here. I want to go. I figured the best way to make a lot of money was to do something drastic.”
“How did you link up with someone who’d pay for it?”
“The dark web.”
“The dark web?”
“Yeah, you can find anything online. I posted an ad on a website. Took me months to find someone telling the truth. A ton of people emailed me. Then they found me. I looked them up, spoke to them, and met with them. They seemed real.”
“Just a website?”
“Yeah.”
Rower shrugged and said, “Gues
s that’s the only way to connect for something like this. You remember the site?”
Olsen told her the link.
Rower nodded. She knew it. The FBI already monitored it, but it kept going down and popping up with variations of the same name.
She couldn’t do anything about the site. It was owned and operated in the Middle East.
“What else? Who are they?”
“It’s a company.”
“What’s the name?”
“BioWaste was the only name I got.”
“Okay.”
Olsen said, “I don’t know much else.”
“How much money did they give you?”
“It was supposed to be $250,000. But I never got it. My sister was supposed to accept it.”
Rower didn’t tell her about the money in the duffle bag inside the dead drug dealer’s trunk.
Olsen asked, “What happened to me?”
“Is that all you remember?”
“I remember going to the warehouse.”
“Warehouse?”
“No,” she paused, and then she said, “I mean garage. It was a big garage.”
“What kind? Like for a house?”
“No. A tire garage. Used to be.”
“Where is it?”
“West. Before Reznor.”
“Okay. What else?”
Just then the lights in the hospital went out.
Chapter 41
D OWNSTAIRS IN THE HOSPITAL in Deadwood, Gade stood behind one of the Smiths as he cut all the cables and wires that he could find in an electrical room.
The aim was to cut the phone lines and the internet network because hospitals have backup lights and generators.
The generator was on the roof and not in the ground-floor electrical room.
Gade clicked on a flashlight from out of his pocket and shone the light on the Smiths.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They walked out past the lock they had shot and continued out to the bottom floor hallway.
“Great,” one of the Smiths said.
“What?”
“We can’t take the elevator.”
Gade said, “Doesn’t matter. We need to go floor by floor till we find someone who knows where she is.”
Just then a set of double doors up ahead opened. A maintenance worker walked through the doors.
“What the hell now?” he said out loud to himself.
Gade pointed his MP5SD in the guy’s face along with the flashlight beam.
“What floor is Lainey Olsen?”
“Wait. Wait.”
The worker put his hands up in the air. An unlit cigarette fell out of his mouth as he had just been savoring the idea of smoking it, even though he couldn’t smoke it anywhere in the hospital.
It bounced on the tile below his feet.
“Floor?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“How can we find out where she is?”
“The directory. But it’s going to be off.”
“How else?”
“I don’t know. Ask a nurse.”
Gade shot him twice in the chest, center mass. Blood sprayed in a red puff of smoke.
The guy fell back, dead.
“You boys split up. You take the first floor,” he said to one. “You the second. Work your way up. I’ll start on four and work my way down. Call me when you find her.”
They nodded, and all headed for the stairs to take their assigned floors.
Chapter 42
J ACK WIDOW TRIED TO POUR a hot cup of coffee out of a coffee thermos. That’s all he wanted. He’d had a long day. Was that too much to ask?
Widow stood at the counter. Two nurses worked behind it. One was on the computer. The other was reviewing a chart or notes or something. He didn’t know. All he knew was that it was paperwork, paper clipped together.
He stopped at the counter and read the sign three times to himself and asked, “This coffee is for everyone?”
The nurse at the computer looked up and over a pair of reading glasses.
“That’s what it says.”
“I know, but for anyone?”
She smiled at him.
“Sir, that’s what the sign says.”
“I read it, but you know that old saying when something’s too good to be true?”
“It’s true,” she said, and she went back to her computer.
Widow pulled a Styrofoam cup off a stack and readied his other hand like that scene in Indiana Jones where he swaps the bag of dust for the gold statue. He did it, and he thought of the reference at the same time like he was goofing around.
He picked up the thermos, unscrewed the lid with a flick of his thumb and started pouring the coffee into the cup.
Steam came out, and he got hit in the face with an alluring aroma, which to him was like a siren’s seductive call.
After he filled his cup, he replaced the thermos and tightened the lid and started to drink.
Suddenly, the power went out, and he was surrounded in darkness.
“Hell!” one of the nurses said.
“What now?” the other said.
Widow stood frozen. He had the cup, but couldn’t see to put it to his lips.
He waited like it was a power outage, but after a minute longer of waiting, a pair of backup lights on the top corners of the halls flicked on.
“The emergency lights?” a nurse asked.
“Guess the power’s out for good.”
“Damn!” the other said.
Widow did not drink the coffee. He turned and looked back down the hall. He walked to the end with the coffee brimming and spilling out over the top lip.
He stopped at the end of the hall and turned and looked at the deputy who was posted out front of Olsen’s room.
He joined the guy and checked out his nameplate.
“Wallace. I’m with Agent Rower.”
“I know. She described you.”
“What’s happening?”
“Could just be a power outage.”
Widow looked past him, out the window. He walked to it and looked down at the street.
“Then why is that gas station across the street lit up?”
Wallace said, “You think it’s something else?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Rower came out of the room and stopped between them.
“What’s going on? Power out?”
“Don’t think so. The lights are on across the street,” Widow said.
Rower said, “Is it him? Holden?”
“No. I doubt it.”
Wallace asked, “Who?”
“Drug dealer,” Rower answered.
“Could be them,” Widow said.
“Them?”
Rower answered, “Bad guys.”
“Very bad,” Widow said.
“We better check it out,” Rower said.
“We’ll do it. You stay with Lainey.”
“I’m the FBI.”
“That’s why it’s better you stay and protect her.”
“You benching me?”
Widow said, “Really. Alaska, you should stay and protect her. She’s no good to your case if she’s dead.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll check it out,” Widow said and looked at Wallace.
Wallace shrugged.
“Here. Take my gun.”
She drew her Glock and reversed and tried to hand it to him.
“Keep it. You need it.”
“What the hell are you going to do if there are bad guys?”
He showed her the coffee and said, “Coffee grenade. Remember?”
She smiled and reholstered her Glock.
“Be safe.”
Widow nodded and led Wallace down the hall.
Rower went back inside the room.
“What’s happening?” Olsen asked.
“Don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.”
She turned to the door and looked for an
inside lock. There wasn’t one. She searched the room for the heaviest thing that wasn’t bolted down. There was nothing. All she could find was another chair and a roundtable. She moved both in front of the door like a makeshift barricade.
“What’s happening?” Olsen said. She looked nervous.
“Someone might be coming. We’re just taking precautions.”
Chapter 43
W IDOW STAYED behind Wallace because he had the only gun between them, which was another revolver, a six-shot.
“We should check the stairs. That’s going to be the only way for anyone to move around,” Wallace said.
Widow stopped him at the intersection and pulled him back down the hallway with the nurse’s station and the free coffee.
He stopped at the station.
“Where are the stairs?”
One of the nurses said, “There’s a set on each end of the floor.”
She pointed in opposite directions.
“Guess we should split up,” Wallace said.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take the south.”
Widow left him, and they went in opposite directions.
Wallace went north. Shadows covered a lot of the floor between him and the stairwell door.
He stopped at the door and drew his gun. He opened the door and powered through.
The stairwell was wide and dark except for emergency lights that only lit up cones of space.
He walked down a flight, his weapon in hand, pointed at the ground. He didn’t want to shoot anyone if he didn’t have to.
At the next landing, just above the third-floor stairs, he heard footsteps. They were light but fast.
“Someone there?” he called out.
The sound stopped.
“It’s the police.”
He walked down the next set of stairs until he was in front of the door for the third floor.
“Show yourself,” he called out.
A voice from the shadows said, “You’re police?”
“Yeah. Come out.”
“What’s happening?”
“Step out.”
Wallace raised the weapon to point at knee level.
The voice said, “Is it a power outage?”
Wallace said, “Come on. No reason to be afraid.”
The voice said, “Are you here to protect Lainey Olsen?”
Wallace raised the gun all the way.
“How did you know that?”
Wallace never heard gunshots, but he did hear three slow purrs like whispers in the dark.