Betrayal

Chapter 36

“What are you going to do with me…ungh…once you have her?” Arthur gasped as he bent over double, every neuron in his being on fire.

“I’m thinking about it. Considering the option you gave me when you pulled the trigger, I’m not feeling generous.”

“I…never mind.”

“No, there’s not much to mitigate a bullet to the brain that failed to fire, huh? ‘My bad’ doesn’t really cut it. Now move.”

As they reached the entry foyer, she stepped back into the living room and scooped up the briefcase and the Beretta.

“Open the door. Slowly. Then we’ll walk to my car. It’s down the block, to the right,” she instructed. Arthur fumbled with the lever and twisted it, the cuffs making it difficult.

They walked down the front steps and were on the sidewalk when she spotted movement on her right — a man with the distinctive shape of a silenced pistol in his hand. She dropped to one knee as she raised her weapon and fired two shots at the running gunman, the second shot whipping his head back as it tore through his face.

The window of the car next to her exploded in a shower of glass, and she pulled Arthur to her and twisted, firing at another shooter down the sidewalk. She could hear the thwacks as her slugs slammed into his chest, but he was still shooting even as he dropped. A bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk and then a round caught Arthur in the chest. She adjusted her aim and squeezed off four shots at another man in an overcoat crossing the street. He went down hard, his weapon clattering by his side as he tumbled onto the asphalt.

Jet squinted in the dim light and spotted another shooter coming around a truck by the house next door and waited till she had a clear shot, then fired three times. Two of the slugs caught him in the throat as he shot at her, his aim going wide. A second bullet pounded Arthur in the stomach.

Arthur’s legs buckled, and he sank to the ground. She dropped to one knee, sweeping the surroundings with the Beretta, alert for any further threats.

The street was silent.

“You stupid asshole. You triggered an alarm somehow, didn’t you?” she hissed.

Blood spread across Arthur’s shirt, and he moaned. The chest wound was ugly and had punctured a lung — she could hear the air frothing out as he fought for breath.

“They’ll…find you… miserable bitch…”

She studied his mangled face, twisted by pain and hate, and then stood.

“Drowning on your own blood is a lousy way to go. I’ve seen it. There’s nothing worse…except for a stomach wound. At least your last few minutes on the planet will be your most painful. If I could make it last forever for you, I would. I hope there’s a hell. You belong there, you filthy bastard.”

He couldn’t speak, his hands claws, clenching automatically in unspeakable agony.

“Kill me. Please.” The words were a moan, barely audible.

She glanced around at the fallen bodies and shook her head.

“You earned this. Enjoy it.”

She spat on his twitching face and then turned and jogged to the Explorer. Within twenty seconds, she was pulling away, leaving Arthur to expire on the sidewalk, his final moments spent in unimaginable suffering, cold and alone.

The hospital service door was locked. Jet worked the picks and had it open in under a minute. She adjusted the black knit cap on her head and listened for any signs of movement. It seemed deserted. After looking around to ensure that the parking area was still clear, she pulled it open. Thankfully, there was no alarm on it. She stepped inside and, glancing through the glass window on the interior door, confirmed that there was nobody nearby. She closed the exit softly and then turned to the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time.

At the third floor she paused, listening. It was quiet.

She swung the steel door wide and stepped into the hall. The lights were on dimmers, set low for the night, and she heard a single nurse at the staff station at the far end of the wing talking on the phone in hushed tones, an occasional giggle punctuating her exchange. Festive decorations of dancing ponies and singing birds decorated the colorfully painted corridor, confirming that she was in the pediatric wing.

Jet moved silently to the doorway of the first room and peered in. It was empty. The second housed a little boy sleeping on the bed, maybe six years old, a heart monitor beeping at a low volume on a stand by his side.

The two adjacent rooms were also empty.

The next one had a small form curled up on its side, covers half off, facing away from her. She stepped into the room and approached. The child rolled over, sensing a presence.

It wasn’t Hannah.

Another titter echoed from the nurse’s station, and she slowly inched back into the hall, pausing to listen again before moving to the room across from her.

Empty.

She heard a rustle from the corridor and turned.

“Hey. What are you doing here? You can’t go in there…” the nurse exclaimed.

Jet started to stammer an explanation and then slammed the side of her neck with an incapacitating strike. The nurse’s eyes rolled into her head, and Jet caught her as she collapsed, pulling her into the room and closing the door. The woman would be out for a few minutes, but time was Jet’s enemy now.

She darted from room to room and, in the one closest to the nurse’s station, came across another slumbering toddler. She sidled to the side of the bed and peered down at the sleeping face.

Hannah.

Jet’s nostrils filled with Hannah’s essence, and a surge of adrenaline coursed through her as the little eyelids opened groggily and regarded her. Jet saw recognition, and Hannah smiled before closing her eyes again and snuffling.

She gently lifted Hannah and held her to her breast, murmuring to her as she vaguely remembered her mother doing when she was a baby. Hannah snuggled closer, and Jet’s heart nearly burst.

A part of her could have stood like that forever, but she forced herself out of the spell and moved back into the hall, then speed-walked back to the stairwell. The exit was empty, so she pushed through the door and crept onto the landing, a draft blowing up from the street level ruffling the tips of her hair. Hannah shifted against her and made a soft sound of sleepy susurration, then resumed her drowsing.

Moments later, Jet was strapping Hannah into the new child’s seat in the Explorer, readying her for the short drive to where the RV sat waiting. A police car rolled by on the street in front of the hospital, and her breath caught in her throat. It hit its brake lights as it neared the intersection, slowing. Jet pulled the Beretta free of her jacket as she eased the driver’s door open.

The squad car picked up speed and continued on its way.

Jet exhaled with a sigh and then climbed behind the wheel. She took another look at Hannah in the child’s seat, her small head cocked to the side, eyes clenched shut as she slept, and then cranked the ignition and put the car in gear.

~ ~ ~

“It’s over,” Jet said into the cell phone as she backed the RV out of the driveway, the headlights off so as not to wake the couple in the house.

“All of them?”

She described her night’s activities in clipped sentences.

“And Hannah?”

“Sleeping next to me.”

“What’s your next move?”

“You’ll be the first to know as soon as I figure it out. First thing I need to do is get as far from Washington as I can. I’ll call you in another couple of days. What about you? What are you going to do?”

“I guess I need to think about that some. Can’t see any reason to hide out in the jungle if the bad guys with the grudge are history. Can you?”

“Not really. Unless you’re a nature nut or something.”

“I’m really not.”

“Then you thinking maybe you’ll buy yourself an island and hang out a hammock?” she asked.

“You make it sound like a pretty attractive proposition.”

“Right now, it sounds great. I envy you.”

“I’ll let you know what happens. You got the fifty in stones?”

“Of course.”

“Then you have a good reason to come back.”

She glanced at Hannah in the seat next to her, still asleep.

“I suppose I do.”