“Mr. Cleave, open the door, please. Dr. Lindemann sent me,” a nurse said from the other side of the door. “We have to get you out of here now.”
Sam pressed his shirtless torso up against the door to better hear the nurse through the madness outside the door. “Where is the doctor?” he shouted, as a rumble of footsteps ran past the room, heading for the exit of the ward. “He’s locked me in. I have no way of opening the door. Where is he?”
“He is in one of the nursing stations on the fourth floor, Mr. Cleave,” she informed him. “He sent me to come and get you to him so that you’d be safe in the office up there.”
“Then why didn’t he give you the keys?” Sam asked with quite a different tone, having outsmarted the charlatan on the other side of the door.
She said nothing further, which Sam had learned by now, was the prefix to violence. He put distance between himself and the door, and armed himself with scalpel. As he had predicated, a hail of bullets clapped through the door. With every shot, the door sported one more perfect hole of exploded wooden fringes, five in number with a reddish tint. The room had no window from which he could escape, so his only option was to pass the shooter.
When he saw the doorknob deform, Sam knew to ready himself. As the door swung open he charged, slamming his good fist right into the face of the dead nurse he spoke to not a minute before.
“Oh Christ!” he hissed as the assassin hiding behind her dropped her body unceremoniously to aim. Sam saw the same five holes in the woman’s body, realizing at once that the hitman had shot at the door through her body, killing her for not getting Sam to open it for her. Fighting for his life once more, the spry Sam fell to his knees and broke a cardinal rule between gentlemen in combat. He planted a wicked punch right between the shooter’s legs, instantly immobilizing him.
“Thank God you are not a Sumo wrestler,” Sam panted as the man collapsed, trying to lift the barrel to Sam’s face. But the journalist was an opportunist, and he quickly grabbed the gun. He pressed the barrel on the man’s right eye and pulled the trigger. There was no time for gathering intelligence this time, and Sam was not going to compromise his current position for the source of the hit. The back of his attacker’s head exploded from the hollow-point impact, but the ward had already been evacuated, leaving Sam’s act without witness.
The first thing he considered was the security cameras, but then realized that it would show the man shooting the nurse and attacking him. It was a clear-cut case of self-defense this time. “I have to stop doing this shit on camera, for fuck’s sake,” he wheezed, tossing the gun aside and heading out to where the police task force unit had just entered.
Sam raised his hands in surrender. Behind them was Dr. Lindemann, shouting “That is my patient! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“Alright, doctor. We got it,” the sergeant shouted back as he motioned for Sam to move toward them. “How many are there?” he asked Sam.
“I have no idea. As far as I know, there was just this one, and he came for me,” Sam attested. “Until now I was locked in the examination room, sir, so I don’t know if he brought some friends.”
Suspiciously, the sergeant looked at Sam. “Why are they after you, son?”
Sam sighed. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Really,” the sergeant sneered. “I doubt that.” He gestured for his men to fan out and comb the ward and they crept in all directions, passing Sam. The sergeant pulled Sam aside.
“The doctor said that they could have something to do with a woman you brought in here a few days back,” he whispered.
“Aye, I think so, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t a clue how they are connected to her. Maybe they’re looking for her,” Sam pretended to speculate, being quite convinced that the assassins were sent by the man on the screen who insisted Sam deliver the woman.
However, being a delicate matter to Sam’s own guilt in a street murder recently, he was not about to disclose the particulars of the video clip threat. In fact, the fewer people privy to the whole affair, the better for Sam to maneuver along the pointers to find out what was going on. The law had a tendency to strangle and obstruct them with their red tape, tying up the way to truth.
“She has a name?” the sergeant pressed.
“She had amnesia, sir. The doctors just gave her a number, I think.” Sam skillfully changed the subject. “Look, can I go? I have to get this hand checked out or I’m going to lose it permanently.”
“Alright,” the sergeant conceded. “Go on.”
Sam joined up with Dr. Lindemann, waiting for him at the security point.
“My God, Mr. Cleave, you do know how to kick in a hornet’s nest, don’t you?” he told the journalist. “Let me just clean up that hand and you can go. Please. I need you to be away from me and my hospital. Too many people have died since you walked in here.”
Sam felt surprisingly bad at the doctor’s words. “Don’t worry, doc. I already feel like shit about all this. And the clincher is, I don’t even know why I’m the target.”
“Yes, I know. It’s not your fault, I suppose. But you have to be more careful about the choices you make, Mr. Cleave,” the doctor advised as he removed the bandage, revealing Sam’s swollen, purple hand.
“Jesus!” Sam whispered when he saw the condition of his blueish flesh, exacerbated by the neat row of black stitches buried in the swollen mess. “I’m going to lose my hand.”
“No, you won’t,” Dr. Lindemann consoled, “but if you don’t start staying out of other people’s business soon, you might lose your head, my friend.”
Outside, a myriad of reporters flocked to get the lowdown on the incidents that have sporadically grown worse within intervals over the last day at King George Hospital. Sam gave his statement and kept to victim obliviousness before dodging the overzealous news people. The police kept them at a safe distance as the coroner collected the victims to take them down to Upney Lane’s Nirvana Morgue.
18
Unlikely Fellows
“Your doctor has some solid advice for you there, Sam,” a woman said on approach, having broken from the group of shouting journalists. “You really should start minding your own business.”
Sam did not hide his annoyance. He sighed, “You may well think on taking that advice for yourself, Harris. It might get you killed one day.” His dark eyes narrowed at the sight of the woman who could vex him without even uttering a word. “Oh, and I hope it does.”
Jan Harris hastened toward him, looking smug as always. She had somehow bribed her way through the police barricade to address Sam.
“Who the hell is this?” Dr. Lindemann asked Sam under his breath.
“Avoid ever speaking to this bitch, doc. Remember when you thought what you know about Patient Whatever would get you murdered? Well, letting this one even know your name is damning enough, geddit?”
“If you need any more treatment, Mr. Cleave,” the doctor spoke loudly as he rose to leave, “please feel free to come in for a check-up. Good night.” With a nod to Jan Harris, he walked right past her to disappear in the group of police officers.
“So, I see you have an uncanny way of showing up where catastrophes strike, Sam,” she sneered, holding her cell phone up at him. “Or is it that you — cause — them?”
“Fuck off, Harris,” Sam recited the only mantra he deemed worthy of her.
“You had better play really nice from now on,” the conniving harpy sang happily. Her shrill, housewife-like jingle made him want to shove his fist through her teeth, but that could compromise his already teetering reputation for violence. Holding her phone up to his face came across as a juvenile display of mockery. “Why do you not answer your phone, Sam? I’ve been calling you incessantly since last we spoke, to warn you — and make you a deal.”