Chapter 11
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Having stolen a white lab coat and a paper surgical mask, Yang slipped through the security doors of the ICU behind a nurse who was too busy balancing a tray of bandages and salves to pay attention to the man hot on her heels.
After speed-walking past the nurse’s station—the coat and the mask meant those there barely spared him a glance—he made his way down the long hall in search of the unfortunate professor. He’d learned if he acted like he belonged somewhere, people naturally assumed he did.
What is it the Americans like to say? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck? Or, in my case, a doctor.
The first room showed an old woman with tubes sticking out of every visible orifice. Her chest rose and fell in a mechanical way that told him she was on full life support.
The next room held a young man of indeterminant ethnicity. His dark skin and black hair said his ancestors came from somewhere with a warmer climate. But because his face was fully bandaged, Yang had no idea about the shape of his features.
Gunshot wound?he wondered. Some horrible facial deformity?
The third room was empty. But there were sheets on the bed and the various detritus of a long hospital stay: cards pinned to the wall, flowers sitting in the windowsill, a handmade quilt that someone had obviously brought from home. Either the patient was out having tests run or, more likely, since this was the intensive care unit, they’d died and the family had yet to come collect their things.
The fourth room was another no-go. So was the fifth. As Yang approached the middle of the hall, he avoided looking directly at the security camera mounted in the far corner. There was no way to avoid being caught on camera in the modern age—especially in a high-tech hospital. But it was possible to keep oneself from being recognized by knowing how to hide identifying features.
Hence the mask. Plus, his hair was dyed a dull carroty red. And he’d donned prosthetics on his ears, nose, and brow ridge. It was probably a bit of overkill, but…
Better safe than sorry.
It was any good operative’s motto and Yang wasn’t just a good operative. He was a great one. That he’d survived twenty years in the business was a testament to that fact.
As he continued down the long hall, the glass doorways showed him people in various stages of illness, injury, and dying. Dozens of machines shushed and beeped.The smell of antiseptic was strong. And every once in a while, one of the patients grunted or moaned. But for the most part, there was silence.
Individuals who found themselves in the ICU were usually either sedated or had naturally entered a state of semi-consciousness. And it was strange to think that the most serious floor of the hospital was also the most peaceful one.
Ah. There you are.
The room was empty save for the patient. And even though he’d known the senator would be absent—he had waited to make his move until he had seen her crossing the lobby downstairs—there had always been the chance that a doctor or nurse would be in the room.
He would have continued on his way if there had been. But as luck would have it, the coast was clear.
All the same, he had to work quickly. Senator Chastain had been on the phone when he had seen her. But she had not looked like she was setting in to talk for long.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the tiny spray canister of cyanide and ducked into the professor’s room.
Introducing cyanide into the respiratory system resulted in death in under three minutes. The symptoms mimicked those of a heart attack. Which meant unless someone went looking for the poison, it was unlikely it’d ever be discovered.
Considering the professor was a man of a certain age who’d suffered a major head injury followed by cranial surgery, Yang figured no one would go looking.
At least not initially.
Whether people knew it or not, they tended to fall back on Occam’s razor, the simplest answer being the correct one. He had used that human inclination to his advantage in the field for nearly two decades.
How many of his kills had been attributed to bad luck or natural causes? Twenty? Thirty? Truth was, he’d lost count. Enough to make this feel like little more than a walk in the park.
He could’ve simply slit the professor’s throat, he supposed. Easy as pie and a piece of cake, as the Americans liked to say. But that route would put the FBI on high alert. And the last thing he needed was for them to whisk Senator Chastain away to a safe house.
Not that he could not get to her while she was under federal protection. He had done it before. He could most definitely do it again. But if they put her under lock and key, it would certainly make things more challenging.
If his long career had taught him anything, it was that life was far more enjoyable if he found ways to make less work for himself.
He made a cursory study of his mark. The professor was nearly unrecognizable with his head swathed in bandages and his face swollen like an over-ripe melon. But the name on the door and the mole on the man’s cheek just below his left eye assured Yang he had the correct victim.
“Through the triumph of your death, may you benefit all other beings, living or dead,” he whispered as he gently removed the oxygen mask from the man’s face.
He had left behind the teachings of Buddha, his mother’s religion, not long after government soldiers had come to his village to take him away for training. But whenever he killed, the prayer for the dead still naturally fell from his lips.
Careful not to breathe in any of the poison droplets, he sprayed the mist into the mask before quickly fixing it back over the professor’s face. Then he pocketed the empty canister and turned for the door.
He need not wait to see if the cyanide worked. It would. He’d used it many times before.
The return trip past the nurse’s station was as uneventful as his initial journey had been. The four blue-scrubbed individuals checking charts and keying in information didn’t even look up from their activities.
He was through the security door and standing in the outer hall waiting for the elevator when an alarm sounded in the ICU. The blaring meep, meep, meep told him Professor Chastain’s blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration had all fallen below safe levels.
You work fast, my friend. He patted the canister in his pocket and then tried not to react when the elevator doors opened and he was presented with Senator Chastain’s haggard expression.
For a moment, he considered pulling the small knife from his pocket and shoving it into her jugular. But just like the professor, that route would be too obvious. If he could, he wanted to avoid being obvious until Bishop had decided how he wanted to handle Eliza Meadows.
Nodding, he stepped back to let the elderly woman exit the elevator. Then he watched what blood remained in her pale face drain away when she heard the commotion coming from beyond the doors to the intensive care unit.
“Bill!” she gasped, darting past him to run down the hall, her kitten heels click-clacking on the cold tiles.
Stepping into the elevator, he covertly peeked at the camera in the corner. He knew the fish-eyed lens would see a short man with orange hair and a prominent brow ridge. His nose prosthesis made a large bulge in the mask over his face. But it would be a completely different-looking man who exited the hospital. And by the time the big, silver box hit the ground floor, his next moves were planned out precisely.
Stay in the security camera blind spot. Check. He’d already determined one of the cameras by the front desk was malfunctioning.
Dispose of lab coat and nose. Check, check. He dropped the stolen coat, mask, and fake nose into a steel trash can on his way toward the automatic doors.
Put on baseball cap. Triple check.
He was on the wet street and heading toward the lake when he pulled his disposable cell phone from his pocket. As he waited for Bishop to answer, he ducked from awning to awning to avoid the worst of the rain. But truly, it was of little use. The deluge was such that all it took was a couple seconds of exposure and he was soaked.
The hairs on the back of his neck lifted a heartbeat before a bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky and connected to the rod atop the tall, trapezoidal building known as the John Hancock. A split second later, thunder clapped so loudly his ears popped.
Electricity was such an awe-inspiring force. It had the ability to kill in an instant. And yet, it was also used to sustain life. Think defibrillators and pacemakers.
Wait a minute. That gives me an idea.
“Well?” Bishop was never one for niceties. Yang could appreciate a man who got right down to business.
“One down,” he reported into the phone. “One to go.”
“You know how you’ll do it?”
“I know how it should be done. But I will need a computer hacker. Do you have someone I can use?”
For awhile there was silence on the other end of the call. Then, “You killed my hacker six months ago.”
Yang thought back to their last job together, taking down the power grid in Texas. Not only had they failed to reach their objective—thanks to Black Knights Inc. and a nosy dark web surfer who worked for the Department of Defense. But also Yang had been forced to get rid of the hacker he and Bishop had hired for the job.
Yang had finished off poor Vincent Romano in a similar fashion to how he had just finished off the good professor. After sneaking into Romano’s hospital room, he had injected potassium chloride into the man’s IV.
“Not to worry,” he assured Bishop now. “I will make contact with my handler. He will find someone for the job.”
After all, half the population of my country are hackers.
“Very good.” Bishop sounded relieved.
Before Bishop could cut the call, Yang informed him, “I overhead Senator Chastain talking on the phone to Eliza Meadows.”
There was a brief pause followed by a full-throated, “Fuck!” Then, “Did you hear what she had to say? Was it about John McClean’s suspicions?”
“I could not wait around to listen in. I had to use the opportunity to visit the professor’s room. But I thought you should know.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Bishop rarely lost his composure. But when he did, the F-word was his favorite expletive. “I guess that forces our hand then. We have to assume anyone who was at McClean’s party might be privy to his information.”
“But surely Eliza would have told your source who is following the case if that were true. And surely your source would have informed the president. Has she received any phone calls? Read any emails? Been pulled aside by the Secret Service?”
“No. She went to bed with a headache an hour ago.”
“So it is safe to say that if Senator Chastain was privy to John McClean’s suspicions and then passed those suspicions on to Eliza, that Eliza has yet to share that information with anyone else.”
“Why would she hold off?”
Bishop used his favorite curse word. “Fuck if I know. But I’ll feel better once she’s dead. Just like the others. Just in case. And in the meantime I have work to do moving money from our patsy’s account into the offshore account set up in Mrs. Sullivan’s name.” A growl of annoyance sounded over the connection. “Jesus, this night has been a pain in my balls.”
Yang agreed. Not about the night being a pain in his balls—it was actually more like par for the course for him. But about needing Eliza Meadows to stop drawing breath. The original plan had been to get rid of everyone at the party. And he was a big believer in sticking with the plan. “Thoughts on how you would like me to end her?”
Bishop hissed impatiently, “Not yet. Take care of the senator. And in the meantime I’ll work on a way to take out Eliza.”