Blow Out

The lab tech smiled at her, and then, like the x-ray tech, checked the dry erase board for his patient. “You’d think,” he said, “that docs would try to schedule these nonemergent blood draws when the patient has a chance of being awake.”

“Nah,” one of the nurses said, “better to catch them half asleep, they don’t worry as much.”

The lab tech carried his tray to cubicle number four and quietly pushed the door open, disappeared inside.

After the lab tech left, it was silent again in the large room, and in fact hardly anything seemed to happen in the SICU for the next two hours. The monitors continued their repetitive low-hum vigil, and the patients’ heart rates and blood pressures read out as curiously stable for an intensive care unit. None of the nurses left the central workstation.

At a quarter to one in the morning, the door to cubicle twelve opened. Agents Savich and Sherlock came out stretching.

Savich said, “It’s time for a shift change. Are all the new patients ready?”

“I got a buzz from Agent Brady. He says all’s clear, and they should be arriving as a group just about now.”

In the next moment, the door to the SICU swung open and three men and two women dressed in hospital nightgowns came walking in, behind them a score of new nurses, clerks, and techs.

“Hurry,” said one of the patients. “Brady said they just spotted a guy coming this way from the pathology lab.”

A patient with a huge bandage wrapped turban-style around his head waved an IV line toward his assigned nurse, who rolled her eyes at him.

Within two minutes, new patients were lying in beds in five of the cubicles. The nurses and staff were settled in behind the workstation, and the machines and monitors resumed their low buzz, the sign all was normal once again.

Savich paused a moment in the doorway to check over the SICU once more. “Let’s go home, Sherlock.”

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Savich pulled the Porsche into his garage. Sherlock punched in the code to disarm the security system, saying over her shoulder, “I’m bushed. Nothing’s as tiring as waiting for someone who doesn’t show.”

Savich rubbed her shoulders as they walked into the kitchen. She turned on the overhead light.

“Bed never sounded so good,” Savich said as he pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink. He wiped his hand across his mouth and said to his wife, who was leaning against the counter, “Günter is crazy, no doubt in my mind about that. Given the risks he’s taken to date, I was betting he’d take this one too. But he fooled me.”

“Maybe he’ll show in the middle of the night.”

Savich shook his head. “Too quiet. Too empty. He’s crazy, but he’s not stupid.”

He drank deeply again.

His fingers tightened slightly around the bottle when he heard a whisper of movement not ten feet away from the dark dining room.

Sherlock caught his eye. She picked up a dishcloth, wiped down the island surface, and turned to face him, looking relaxed, her arms crossed over her chest. “Even though Günter’s crazy, he must have realized his luck couldn’t hold out. He’s an old man, Dillon, old and used up. Quantico was his last hurrah. He’s got no more in him. So why is he here now?”

A man’s deep voice came out of the shadows, a bit of a slow Southern pace to his words. “Because I knew you flat-footed morons were setting another obvious trap at Bethesda, just like at Quantico. I’ve been waiting for you here, Savich, for quite some time. And now you’ll tell me where you’ve hidden Elaine LaFleurette.”

“I believe we have a guest, Sherlock. Günter, come into the light, no need to be shy.”

A tall barrel-chested man walked into the doorway, a SIG-Sauer held in his left hand. As soon as Savich saw he wasn’t hiding his face, he knew Günter intended to kill them. He was dressed in black, even his hands were gloved in black leather, a black cap pulled down to his ears. He looked fit and strong, but his face was deeply seamed, his mouth small and deeply grooved. He looked old, like he’d lived through too many long nights planning too much death. Did he look crazy? His eyes did, Savich thought, cold and empty.

“Günter Grass,” he said, savoring the sounds. “You found out that name very quickly. I haven’t used it for years.”

Savich asked as he walked slowly toward the man, “You came here even though Fleurette is in Bethesda?”

“Keep your distance, Savich, don’t try to rush me. I know you can fight.” Günter backed up so that he kept ten feet between them. “Both of you, drop the SIGs now and kick them over here.”