“Good. Me, neither.” She thrust her thumb in the air. “Now that that’s settled, let’s go.”
He looked at Sammy, who held up his hands as if to say he didn’t want any part of their argument.
Luke drew a long breath and rubbed the back of his neck. He stared at her for a long moment, then said, “If you’re coming, you’ll need a pair of coveralls.”
63
As they lifted off The Observatory lawn, ground controllers were squawking at Stevens and demanding to know why he’d disappeared from ground radar and broken off radio communications. Stevens offered a “guess” that the hilly topography had interfered with their radar and radio signals. He quickly added the “good news”—his crew chief found a nonstructural wing nut that had come loose and caused the fuselage to rattle. Problem solved, he told the controllers.
They vectored Stevens to the hospital but added that they’d be writing up an incident report.
Sammy craned his neck from the copilot’s seat and held up two fingers.
As soon as Luke switched to channel two, he heard, “So, Flash, what’s the plan?”
“We need to get to my father’s lab on the second floor.” Luke pointed at Frankie, who was taking everything in with a wide-eyed expression. “He should get us past the cops on the roof, and onto the elevator. We’ll get off on the third floor, find a place to hide Megan and the boy. Then you and I’ll take a fire stairway that will put us about thirty feet from the lab.”
“And then?”
“And then we improvise.”
Megan glanced up from working on her jumpsuit. She was curling the end of each pant leg into a cuff, trying to disguise the fact that it was several sizes too large.
Stevens suddenly broke into their channel and said, “So tell me something, McKenna. Why you going back into the hornet’s nest? You gotta know that LAPD’s got every rifle in their arsenal at the hospital. We were listening to it on a tactical frequency before you crashed into our evening. They got an army of uniforms and a coupla SWAT units looking for you. You got a suicide wish or something?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I already heard most of it,” Stevens said.
Luke cocked an eyebrow at Megan.
Stevens had eavesdropped on their communications channel.
“So,” the pilot continued, “you expect me to believe all that crap?”
“I’m not asking you to believe anything,” Luke said. “Just fly us to the hospital.”
Stevens turned to Sammy. “Well, for some goddamn reason, I think I do believe it.”
Luke and Megan exchanged a glance.
“But then, I probably got my head up my ass,” the pilot added. “So how do you wanna do this?”
“Just put us down on the heliport.”
Luke signaled Frankie to jump onto the collapsible gurney, and Megan secured the boy’s chest and legs with canvas straps.
The digital clock mounted on an overhead panel read 6:07. His enemy was already inside the mosquito lab.
Stevens exchanged some chatter with a police helicopter on their approach to University Children’s and was cleared to land only after the other pilot contacted the Emergency Room to confirm the transport. The LAPD pilot informed them that the E.R.’s medical team hadn’t expected them for another fifteen minutes and wouldn’t be on the heliport to meet them.
The hospital rooftop was dark, and Stevens trained his spotlight on the heliport. He circled the hospital twice before centering their aircraft over the platform.
On the second pass, Luke looked out a side window and saw the rental truck sitting at the loading dock.
He spotted two sharpshooters along the roofline as the Sikorsky descended toward the helipad, but he knew there might be others hidden in the darkness.
He put his gun into a thigh pocket.
When the Sikorsky thudded down on the heliport, the only thing he could see through his porthole was flying dust.
He lowered the tinted visor on his helmet, signaled Megan to do likewise, then swung the hatch door open. A soupy mix of soot and fuel exhaust streamed into the cargo hold.
A man and a woman wearing backward-facing caps and black fatigues with LOS ANGELES SWAT patches were at the door when Luke opened it. The man had a shouldered rifle with a sniper’s scope. He was holding a semiautomatic in his left hand. The woman had oversized binoculars hanging from her neck — a spotter.
“Transport from Long Beach?” the spotter yelled over the yap-yap-yap of the rotor blades.
Luke cracked open his visor only enough to expose the lower half of his face. “Head wound,” he shouted. “I hope they’re ready for us downstairs.”
The sniper threw a hand up at Luke and glanced through the copilot’s window at Sammy, who saluted him with two fingers. “E.R. told us you wouldn’t be here for another fifteen,” the man said.
Luke shrugged in apparent puzzlement, then pointed at Frankie. “We need to get him to the E.R. Now.”
The sniper’s partner was already talking into a throat mic, her eyes darting between Megan and Luke the whole time. Finally, she waved them toward the elevator.
The gurney’s collapsible legs sprung to life with a loud clack when Luke and Megan pulled it from the helicopter’s belly.
When they reached the elevator, the male cop pointed to a spot where he wanted them to stand and used a key to call the car. The woman stepped back to the edge of the roofline and aimed her spotting scope across the street.
“You know the way?” the sharpshooter asked.
Luke nodded.
The Sikorsky’s engines powered down and their heavy throb was replaced by a high-pitched whine. Stevens and Sammy remained in the helicopter.
The sniper eyed Megan’s baggy uniform. “What’s your name?” he asked.
Luke’s eyes went immediately to the stenciled name on Megan’s coveralls: E. RIVERA
“Eleanor,” she replied while holding the cop’s gaze.
“So what’s the deal?” Luke jumped in and asked the sniper. “Lots of chatter on the radio, but no one’s saying what this is all about.”
Instead of answering, the cop turned to the sound of the elevator doors opening.
A vertical band of light from the elevator’s interior painted the sharpshooter at the same moment a bullet punched through the side of his neck. He slumped to the ground.
Luke’s eyes darted to the cop’s partner, who had turned to the sound of the gunfire. Two rounds struck her mid-chest, in her Kevlar vest, but the bullets’ force sent her over the edge of the roof.
Luke threw off his helmet and lunged at the door. He glimpsed a uniformed LAPD cop lying in a heap on the elevator floor just as Calderon charged through the doorway with a 9mm Glock semiautomatic.
Luke unfurled a front snap kick. The gun flew out of Calderon’s hand.
Calderon’s other hand flung a knife at Luke.
But Luke had seen it coming and jolted sideways.
The steel blade flew past his face before impaling Sammy’s chest as he leapt from the helicopter.
Wilkes looked down, cursing as he went to his knees.
Luke grabbed the pistol from his thigh pocket.
“Face down on the ground. Now!” a voice behind Luke yelled.
He turned and was staring down the barrel of a Remington Model 700 sniper rifle. The SWAT sniper holding it screamed, “I said down!”
Luke spread his arms and let the pistol fall to the ground.
Calderon said, “Officer, this man—”
The sniper stepped forward and swung his rifle at Calderon.
Luke shouted, “No,” but it was too late.
Calderon’s left hand angled the barrel skyward at the same instant his right hand plunged a knife into the man’s armpit, just above his Kevlar vest.