‘I’m just checking on my friend. Do you know where she is?’
‘Miss Mayer? She’s in the room at the end, but I heard the doctors saying she shouldn’t be disturbed.’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I just popped my head in.’
He continued on his way before they had a chance to object. It was an alien feeling to him, being uncomfortable around the police. He half expected one of them to say, ‘Hey, aren’t you wanted by Interpol?’
He stopped outside Serena’s door and knocked softly. Hearing no reply, he went in. She was propped up in bed, bolstered by some over-sized pillows. Her eyes were closed. A catheter ran from her arm into a transparent bag containing a clear fluid, suspended above her head. On the index finger of her left hand was a clip connected by wires to a heart rate monitor. As Tom approached the bed, he could see the visual representation of her heart beating on the screen. He was mesmerised by the green line pulsating its steady rhythm.
‘Will I live?’ Serena asked groggily, opening her eyes when she heard Tom approach her.
Tom smiled, leant over and kissed the bandage on her forehead, being careful to avoid the site where the bullet had struck. ‘My prognosis is that you’ll live to a ripe old age, but you certainly had us all worried for a while.’
She reached up and tenderly touched the dressing above Tom’s eye. ‘And you?’
‘A few stitches and a scar that I’ll be able to bore the pants off explaining how I got it to anybody stupid enough to ask.’
She paused for a moment, trying to organise her thoughts. ‘What about Deiter?’
He told her how Jed had burst into the office and tackled him to the ground, effectively saving their lives. How Jed and Deiter had fought over the gun and how he had managed to sneak up and knock Deiter out.
Her face clouded as the memories slotted into place. ‘Poor Charles,’ she said almost to herself.
‘Deiter’s under armed arrest. It looks like he won’t be going anywhere for a very long time,’ Tom replied, in an effort to comfort her, but her melancholy persisted. ‘What’s with the drip?’ he said, to change the subject.
‘Painkillers, antibiotics and saline solution,’ she replied faintly. ‘Apparently, I’m dehydrated.’
‘Any idea how long they’re going to keep you in?’ He was trying to keep her mind off the images of Charles slumped over his desk, which he knew must be haunting her, as it did him.
‘The doctors were a bit vague, but they said they wanted to keep me awake overnight so they could monitor my concussion. Any suggestions on how I can do that?’
‘A few, but none that would be appropriate, given your condition.’
‘Try me.’ Her hand reached out and gently stroked his cheek. He bent forward and kissed her full on the lips.
Just then, the door suddenly flew open and in pitched the deputy he’d spoken to earlier, his right hand brandishing his gun, his left clutching at a patch of blood that was spreading across his abdomen. Tom could see the hilt of a scalpel poking out through his fingers.
‘Stay in your room,’ the man managed to gasp. ‘I’ve called for support.’
‘What’s happened?’ Tom asked, alarmed. But before the deputy had a chance to reply, Tom already knew the answer.
‘He’s escaped…’
CHAPTER 38
Jed had made his way directly from the hospital to his favourite drinking hole, where he knew he’d get the type of solace he was looking for.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ was the greeting he’d received from Cherie as he walked into the bar. ‘You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.’
‘Ya should see the state of the other fellah,’ was his response.
He was already on his fourth pint of Steel Reserve High Gravity Lager, when Cherie shouted across the bar to him that he had a phone call from a colleague who wouldn’t give his name. Puzzled, he reluctantly left his drink and slid off the stool, wincing at the pain, the anaesthetic qualities of the lager not yet having worked their magic. In the ten years he’d been coming to Stars ‘N’ Bars, not once had he divulged his recreational whereabouts to anyone, not least the people he worked with. He made his way over to the waitress, who was impatiently holding the phone out for him.
‘Aye,’ he said into the phone, annoyed that he’d had to leave the second love of his life on the bar getting warm.
‘Jed? It’s Tom.’ A note of urgency was evident in his voice.
‘Tom, ya wee shite. How did ya know I was here?’
‘Trust me, Jed. It wasn’t difficult to work out. Sorry I didn’t give the barmaid my name, I’m getting a little paranoid in my old age.’
Tom then told him how Deiter had stabbed one of the deputies before disarming the other one. He’d then taken a doctor hostage with the deputy’s gun and used him as a human shield whilst he made his escape, shooting him dead once they were off the hospital premises.
‘The Sheriff’s adamant that he’s going to flee the country,’ he continued. ‘He says in his experience that’s what they always do. Probably head to Canada first before boarding a flight to Europe. He’s deployed most of his men to search for him between here and the border.’
‘Let me guess,’ replied Jed. ‘You’re not so convinced.’
‘No,’ Tom said resignedly. ‘Knowing Deiter, he’s going to head for Brookhaven and try to destroy the collider. It’s the only way he can stop us from slowing down the field. Can you meet me at the facility? We need to get the collider up and running before Deiter has a chance of sabotaging it.’
Jed looked longingly across the bar at his pint. ‘Aye, she’ll jest have to wait for me,’ he replied, as if to himself. ‘I’ll see ya there in two shakes of a lamb’s tale.’
Jed was already in the control room by the time Tom arrived, having made a detour via Charles’s office. He got an eerie feeling crossing the police barricade tape and seeing the room where he could quite easily have lost his life. He didn’t want to spend any more time there than was necessary; so, being as there were no police guards present, he hastily retrieved the laptop from the desk, tucked it under his arm and scurried out of the door.
The distinct lack of police presence around the campus worried him. He had tried again to convince the Sheriff of Deiter’s mission, but had been condescendingly put in his place by the insularity of the officer.
‘Stick to what you know best, son, and I’ll do the same,’ the Sheriff had said. He had conceded to increase the frequency of patrol cars passing the facility, but that was as far as it went.
‘How’s Serena?’ Jed asked, as the two men sat side by side.
‘She’s fine. They’re keeping her in overnight for observation.’
‘Any more luck with Deputy Dawg?’
‘If I’m right about Deiter,’ replied Tom, ‘we’re pretty much on our own.’
‘We’d better get this show on the road then,’ said Jed, turning to face the computer screen in front of him. ‘I managed to get the beams calibrated and aligned this afternoon before our run-in with Doctor Death. So all we have to do is start up the primary particle accelerators, wait until they’re up to speed, then release the beams.’
Tom knew from his time at CERN that it took at least twenty technicians to run a full experiment, but that was mainly down to the four monitoring stations equispaced around the ring, each of which had to have its own team to ensure their equipment was functioning properly and to analyse the results. All Tom was interested in was running the collider to its maximum potential for as long as possible to generate the strongest magnetic field it was capable of producing. That would normally require at least four people to ensure safety limits were being adhered to; today however, they would have to manage with just the two of them.