“Gone too. Everything on the swim step burned away. That’s the fire we fought last night. The rubber Zodiac and plastic gas container went up like a flaming funeral pyre.”
Keeping his eyes shut, Ridge lowered his head. “Well—what’s the good news?”
“Heat rises. It all burned upward. Damage to your boat is minimal. Plenty of scorching, soot, discoloration on the swim step and rear wall, but operationally your boat is probably fine. I mean—get a marine engineer to confirm this—but mechanically it should be good. Looks like no fire damage forward of the transom wall.”
Ridge brightened. “That is good news. Harbor patrol is obviously terrific.”
“Tell it to the politicians, before the next budget cycle.”
“You got it.”
“Later then,” she said. “I’ll call with new news.”
Ridge ended the call and stared down his phone. What was that fuckin’ maniac after? Drop what case? Why? And, who the hell is he?
CHAPTER 5
Time was of the essence. Listening to the police monitor, Hess knew park rangers instigated Flynn’s rescue and that local police were responding. As Hess turned the frequencies on the monitor, he heard: “Thank God the vic was in a Volvo, seatbelt on, he came through.” Hess’ stomach turned sour. Then the emergency medical technician in the chopper reported: “We have strong pulse. ER personnel standing by.”
Hess stared at the radio, mumbling, “Tell me, tell me, damnit. Tell me fucker.”
Then it happened. The chopper pilot reported his estimated time of arrival: “ETA Medford General, ten minutes.”
“Got it,” said Hess, pulling out his local maps to see the big picture. “We don’t fuckin’ fail this time.”
At Hess’ command, his assistant had Googled the Medford hospital near San Diego for information about it. When they arrived around noon on Monday, he and Hess circled the main buildings. Medford General stood eight stories and covered a square block, counting the nearby medical office buildings. The hospital was small by California standards, but large enough for a full ER Department . The main building, white and boxy, had long, squatty dark windows for energy conservation. Built in the late 90s, it supported the San Jacinto Mountain area and surrounding communities. Not fancy, but functional, and according to a local news story understaffed.
Hess parked his truck in a visitor’s space and monitored the police band. His heart raced. Not nerves. Excitement. He turned to his assistant. “Commando training emphasized planning everything—to a gnat’s ass. And I’ve taught you that. But this is different. A one-in-fifty mission requiring improvision. First, you develop a barebones plan. Then react spontaneously to unforeseen situations, conditions, and people. And as a combat medic, I learned to read people. Assess conditions. In life and death situations. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Bet your ass,” said Hess, thinking how he really fuckin’ loved his work. Really. The surge in his loins was testament to just how much he loved it.
Importantly, prior to this mission, Hess had researched Flynn thoroughly. The judge had an adult son, Patrick, overseas in Afghanistan. Knowing that, Hess dialed Medford General from his cellphone, blocking his number with *68. When they answered, he posed as Patrick. They confirmed Flynn was still alive and would be out of surgery in a couple of hours.
“Not only that,” said Hess to his assistant, “but the blabbermouth volunteer said, due to extensive head injuries, Flynn was in an induced coma. The doctors immediately induced it with meds to keep Flynn stable, until lab and other test results got back. When ready, they’ll bring him out of coma using other drugs. But she couldn’t tell me when Flynn would be revived. We’ll have to act quickly, once he’s out of surgery.”
“What room will he be in?” asked his assistant.
“That the bitch didn’t say. I’ll call back.”
The same woman picked up and again Hess said he was Patrick. “By the way,” she said, “you have an interesting accent. Thought with a name like Flynn it would be Irish if anything. Sounds more Russian or something.”
Hess did speak with a slight Finnish accent, reflecting the childhood he spent in Finland before his parents emigrated to the United States. Other people had told him it sounded Russian.
“That’s right,” Hess said with a ready lie. “Mom originally came from Russia. We all lived there until I was 16. Old habits die hard, I guess.”
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong with your accent. It’s interesting. I expected an Irish brogue, that’s all.”
“Well—will you help me with one more thing?” said Hess.
“Sure, if I can.”
“I’m at the airport now, rushing to see my father. I don’t want to get lost or delayed, but just in case, where will they be taking him after surgery?”
“He’ll be on the sixth floor, but he won’t be assigned a room until after he gets out of surgery. Just check with us, main desk, when you get here. But Patrick, just so you know, shift change is at 1 p.m. and things can get rushed. Better to arrive before or after, so everyone’s on-station to meet you.”
“OK, thanks. Appreciate it, really.”
Big-mouthed bitch, Hess thought. She gave him what he needed and he felt better about the situation. The plan, coming together. Now he needed to kill time until Flynn got to his post-op room, and shift change began.
“This whole mess ruined lunch,” he grumbled to his assistant. “Hell…didn’t even finish my first damn burger. Everything’s stone cold.” Hess pulled out of the hospital parking lot, and trolled town looking for another drive-in burger joint. “Flynn isn’t going to mess up lunch. No goddamn way.”
At 12:45 p.m., the sun was bright. The air crisp. Hess, bent over for stealth, entered the hospital wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and brown contacts to hide his pale blue eyes. His Glock 9 was strapped just above his ankle, under his jeans. A switchblade and supple deerskin gloves tucked in his pockets. He was ready. He studied the building directory. Took the elevator to the basement, he turned left out the doors, and followed signs to the laundry. The huge white room smelled of soap and chemicals. Luckily, he found what he wanted, almost right away.
It’s a damn good thing orderly jackets are so fuckin’ baggy, he thought. He moved down the racks to larger sizes and found one that closed loosely around his chest. Finally, he located a matching light blue orderly cap. Perfect. Dressed for deception, Hess headed up to the sixth floor. He arrived at 1:05 p.m. and whiffed the lingering scent of antiseptic. Then he quickly determined Flynn’s room by simply passing through the central nursing area. Only one nurse on station, huddled over a computer at the rear wall. The other staff members were jabbering in various hospital rooms briefing replacements about shift change. No one even looked at him. The name Flynn, and that of his nurse, Amanda, were grease-penciled in the slots next to Room 621 on the big glass-wall chart. Hess slowly turned left, saw the Men’s Room sign down the hall near Room 621, and turned around, strolling the opposite way.
Walking down the near-empty hallway, away from 621, the open door of Room 603 beckoned. An older woman, lying in bed, had a plastic respirator mask strapped across her face; eyes firmly closed. The stand on the far side of her bed had intravenous bags hanging all over it. The plastic tubes leading down to her body were a cabling nightmare that even Hess couldn’t fix. No one besides the old lady was inside, outside or around Room 603. Hess searched the hallway for signs of life. Finding none, he slipped silently into the old woman’s room. Switching several tubes to different bags, with gloved hands, did the trick. Hess watched her vital signs go south, removed his gloves, and ducked out of the room. He slipped into the hallway and headed back toward the central nursing area. When he got there, the computer monitors were sounding. Two nurses stopped talking to each other and turned to face the Room 603 monitor. By the time Hess neared the Men’s Room across from Flynn’s Room 621, “CODE BLUE-STAT” blared over the loudspeakers throughout the sixth floor. As Hess expected, several doctors and nurses came scrambling out of Room 621, just as he entered the Men’s Room.
Hess counted to ten. He left the Men’s Room and cut across the hall to Room 621, silent, like a wisp of smoke through an exhaust fan. No one was there. No one—except John Flynn—on the bed, eyes shut, IV tubes connected. Slow, steady respirator-breathing. Hess’ plan snapped together on the spot. And carrying it out was easier than expected. In her Code Blue rush, one of the nurses had left a syringe on the table near Flynn. Not just any syringe, but a 20 cubic centimeter syringe with a long needle. That sticker was a weapon-of-choice.
The carotid artery ran up the right side of the neck and was especially vulnerable to a long needle at the upper region, where it saddled the jugular vein. Day after day, Hess and his colleagues had trained to locate the carotid artery in the upper neck of various victims. If that portion of the artery were properly injected with 20 cc’s of air, death would occur in a few minutes. Sometimes much less. And the cause of death was untraceable. The carotid artery simply carried the 20 cc’s to the brain and caused stroke or heart attack. If you injected the neighboring jugular vein by mistake, results varied, because the vein carried the air to the heart where it might or might not cause death. But I don’t make mistakes, Hess assured himself.
In addition, though, you had to push the plunger on the syringe rapidly to get a 100% death rate. Hess considered himself an expert at doing so. Turning to Flynn, he put on his deerskin gloves and located Flynn’s carotid artery. Next, he picked up the 20cc syringe. Hess pulled the plunger full back. Then, as he had been trained to do, he pulled back a bit more on the plunger to add another cc of air, ensuring death. Hess positioned the needle with his right hand and, without hesitating, stabbed Flynn in the neck. Nice shot. As Hess plunged the deadly air into Flynn’s carotid artery, he cracked a smile and whispered: “That’s 21. Game over, John. Blackjack, baby.”
