Watching Don on the closed-circuit TV had been bad. This was worse.
Tommy could now actually hear the sounds coming from Don’s throat. It wasn’t screams exactly, it was more like someone trying to force air through a saxophone that had been buried in the bottom of a swamp for a long time.
The other thing was the smell. Tommy’s neighbors composted their own fertilizer when he was a kid. They would dump everything into the box out back of their house. Coffee grounds, leftover eggs, bones, rotten fruit, everything. Every once in a while, the husband would go out and churn the decomposing mess with a pitchfork, bringing the dark matter on the bottom up to the top. Once, Tommy had tried to help. Until the smell attacked him and made him vomit. The neighbor had laughed and scraped the bile and half-digested scrambled eggs and toast into the compost pile with a shovel.
The putrid smell in Don’s room reminded him of that decaying organic matter. Tommy breathed through his mouth, trying to be a silent as possible. He wanted Don to forget he was in the room. He wanted Don to rest. He wanted Don to find peace.
But Don wouldn’t stop screaming. He was like some malfunctioning machine.
The hoarse cries grated against Tommy’s eardrums. After half an hour, he could almost understand why some asshole parents hurt children who wouldn’t stop crying. He just wanted it to stop. Finally, after another twenty minutes or so, Don’s whispering squeals began to taper off. An hour later, Don was still and quiet once again.
Tommy didn’t move. He barely breathed. He was afraid that any movement, any sound at all would trigger Don’s panic once again.
After another hour, his own eyelids grew heavy. He fought sleep, because he was afraid of making some kind of unconscious noise, like snoring, or jerking against his own wheelchair straps, reawakening Don.
He was also acutely aware of the two cameras in the room. One was attached to the ceiling, aimed down at the bed. This was the feed that Tommy had been watching down in the conference room. The other camera had been set up on a tripod on the far side of the room, getting a closer view of Don’s body. Tommy knew that he was in the shot as well.
Both cameras’ red lights were on.
That helped to keep him awake. For a while.
CHAPTER 46
9:36 PM
August 13
Lower Wacker was an industrial tunnel that ran along the Chicago River, originally designed for through traffic and deliveries to the buildings above. Ed coasted past the loading dock and they all took a good look. There was nothing special about the dock; it looked like a hundred others that were spaced out along the street.
Ed checked the mirrors. The street was practically deserted. Only a few parked cars dotted the sides. He cruised down another hundred yards, whipped a U-turn at the next intersection, and parked so they could watch the loading dock. A cab passed them, going fast and gaining speed, as if it was nervous about being underground.
“Now what?” Qween asked. She seemed happy to leave the decision making up to the detectives now that they had finished with the homeless shelter.
“Let’s sit tight for a while,” Ed said. “See if we can’t spot anybody going in or out.”
Qween grunted. “Shit. You two ain’t gonna bust any heads open, I’m goin’ to sleep.”
Sam popped more nicotine gum and got comfortable. Most of the time, he had about as much patience as a pregnant woman waiting to use the restroom. With stakeouts though, he adjusted, somehow slowing his internal clock, altering his rhythms to endure long periods of sitting still, often watching a home or building where nothing would move for hours. Ed thought it might have something to do with Sam’s insomnia. The detectives’ combined ability for patience when necessary was part of the reason they worked well as partners.
An hour passed. Two.
This time, Ed was the one getting impatient. “I’m thinking we might be wasting our time out here. Maybe we should take a closer look. See if that door’s really locked.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Might be a quiet way of getting inside. See if we can’t take a look-see.”
“And Sleeping Beauty?”
Ed glanced at Qween, snoring in the backseat. “Let her rest.”
Sam opened his door, but Ed said in a sharp voice, “Hold up.”
A rumbling reached them. Sam eased back into the car, pulling his door closed in a smooth, unhurried motion. Headlights filled the car. Ed and Sam sank down in their seats. The roar of diesel engines grew louder, shaking Lower Wacker.
A convoy of M939 military trucks thundered past the Crown Vic. They were all painted in gray and black camouflage instead of the usual green and brown. The first truck pulled left, bouncing up over the center divider between the heavy concrete columns, then backed up to the loading dock.
Someone had been waiting for the trucks. The heavy loading dock door rolled up as soon as the brake lights flashed, and four soldiers stepped out and opened the flaps at the back of the truck. Dozens more soldiers hopped out and disappeared inside the dock. As soon as the last soldier left, the first truck pulled away and waited fifty yards up the street. The second truck repeated the process. As did the third and the fourth.
There was no confusion, no hesitation. The entire operation was finished in less than three minutes. Ed counted a dozen trucks. He guess there must have been at least twenty to twenty-five soldiers in each truck. The last truck pulled away and the first four soldiers slammed the loading dock door. When they were once again in a line, the trucks smoothly accelerated toward Congress, leaving nothing but a cloud of diesel exhaust in their wake.
Lower Wacker was silent and still.
“I got two-eighty. Three hundred, tops,” Sam said.
“Same here,” Ed said.
Qween rested her chin on the back of Ed’s seat. “So much for your big plan to sneak inside.”
The grumbling, rhythmic thud of boots in the hall jerked Tommy out of his sleep. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. He remembered a faint sense of being in his parents’ kitchen, the vague memory of sitting in the old vinyl chairs and a whisper of the smell of bacon. It was nothing of particular importance, not really, but for some reason, it all seemed very special. Even as he clung to the image, the smell, the comforting sense of safety, the memory or dream slipped through his grasping fingers, like wisps of fog in the sunlight.
The figure on the bed came into focus and everything came rushing back. The hospital, the rats, Dr. Reischtal, Grace in danger, all of it. Tommy froze, afraid he had awakened Don, and he couldn’t stand to watch his partner writhe and scream anymore.
Don was already awake. His mouth was open, but Tommy couldn’t hear anything.
Don’s mouth was full of black, clotted blood. He vomited, spraying bloody chunks across his right arm and the side of the mattress. His nose bled in a steady stream. It leaked from his eyes.
The blackened tongue tried to push the viscous fluid out of his mouth so he could breathe. He sucked in a gurgling breath, enough to galvanize the oxygen-deprived muscles, and he spewed out more of the thick, rotten glop with a wet, gagging sound.
Globules hit the carpet and quivered like half-digested Jell-O.
Tommy twisted his ankles against the straps and strained to reach the floor. His bare toes managed to graze the plastic. The slick sheet slid against the tile floor underneath, stopping any movement of the wheelchair. He shoved his hips forward, putting more weight on the restraints. This time he gained enough traction to push the wheels backwards an inch.