Chapter Fifty-Three
Monday
Lake City, LA
Bill Edwards slammed the phone back in its cradle. He should have exerted the same force when talking to Randy, but passive aggressive was about as aggressive as he got where the Governor was concerned.
“Keep things quiet for me, Bill,” Randy had said in that subtle Machiavellian way of his. “Keep things quiet and reap the rewards for your loyalty.”
That was Randy’s standard line whenever he needed one of his “favors,” and Bill had definitely been compensated well for his discretion over the years. This time, however, the risk was not worth the reward.
“Today is going to be a day of tests for all of us, Bill... Can I count on you?”
Bill paced the length of his modest office contemplating the answer to this question as the phone rang and rang. Every now and then it would stop ringing abruptly, only to start again a few seconds later. He had to tread carefully so as not to pull a serious C.L.M.—Career Limiting Move. Bill had not gotten as far as he had by pulling C.L.M.’s. He was smarter than that.
The phone rang again.
Since speaking with Randy earlier, he’d called off all city patrols. He also had Dispatch routing all emergency calls directly to him so he could screen everything that came through. Dispatch packed his voicemail and he listened to call after call, writing the pertinent details down in his logbook. So far, this morning had brought in six cases of drunk and disorderly; two burglaries (one that turned out to be a dispute between two lesbian roommates up at Lake City College); ten car-related emergencies; and three fires. By themselves, these calls would have made the morning a doozy, but these were in addition to a series of other calls—the calls he’d been screening for in the first place.
One call was from Morris Fontenot, who was screaming over loud bursts of heavy artillery to report a drive-by shooting at Simmons Park. “It’s a war zone out here!”
Another call was from Evan Leday, a truck driver, reporting the spontaneous combustion of the old schoolyard. “There was a friggin’ mushroom cloud over that place, man!”
But the morning’s winner went to Ms. Beulah Boudreaux. She’d reported seeing the ghost of a white girl walking down her street wearing nothing but a Houston Rockets jersey. “One second she was floatin’ down the street and then there was this loud blast. When I looked up, the girl had disappeared into thin air.”
“Bill, the last thing we need is one of your guys trying to play supercop on this one.”
Easy for Randy to say. He didn’t have to explain to his superiors and constituents why he was letting a group of rogue FBI agents, kidnappers, and gangbangers run wild all over the city. Which is why Bill needed to keep a lid on the chaos until things were back under control.
Regardless of what his conscience said, Bill did not have the luxury of saying no to Randy Lafitte. Ever. After all, if it wasn’t for Randy, Bill would be rotting in jail for the murder of his wife, Paula. A fact Randy never let him forget. When Randy made a mess, Bill reached for his broom—no questions asked.
Still, this was a mess of epic proportions. Bodies were piling up all over town. It was only a matter of time before the press got wind of it.
Right on cue, Bill’s cell phone rang. It was Captain Rick Morgan, head of Lake City’s SWAT division.
“Chief,” Rick Morgan began in his usual grave baritone. “Big explosion over at St. Mary’s Hospital. My wife called me hysterical. She swears it was a terrorist attack.”
“Shit!” This was going to be all over the news within the hour. “Any casualties?”
“Four dead and two injured, but that’s not all.”
Bill swallowed. “Go on.”
“Sheila says there’s a white girl that looks an awful lot like Karen Lafitte sitting in the hospital parking lot…”
* * * * *
Lake City, LA
“So after the fat guy grabbed that nurse you shot him once at point blank range,” Officer Jeff Abshire said. He stared at the slack mouthed, skinny, black kid slouched over before him.
Jeff heard footsteps running down the hall and wondered what the hell else had gone wrong. It was like martial law had broken out in the city. There were barricades everywhere; cruisers and fire trucks were racing from crisis to crisis. Half the city was on fire.
This must be what it’s like to be one of those big city cops in New York City or something.
He turned his attention back to the skinny black kid they’d apprehended at the hospital. He was up to his neck in this, but hadn’t said a word. Even though there was no way the kid could possibly have been in all those places at the same time, the Chief was trying to pin all the murders on him. Sixteen and counting. Abshire had been charged with the impossible task of securing a confession, but the kid wasn’t talking.
Karen Lafitte was in the Chief’s office. They’d found the blond-haired, living skeleton in the hospital parking lot behind the apparent getaway car, crying and scratching at her biceps like a heroin addict. She wasn’t talking either.
“Is he dead?” the kid asked, finally breaking his vow of silence.
“You shot him from less than a foot away. What do you think? You were definitely trying to kill him. Make it easy for yourself and tell me what the hell happened out there.”
The kid grumbled again.
Jeff slammed his fist on the table. “Take the goddamn marbles out your mouth and speak the fuck up, Goddamnit!”
The kid recoiled and drew his lips tight.
Jeff sighed. “Listen, kid, I’m sorry for yelling. But you’ve got to give me something or you’re gonna leave me to draw my own conclusions.”
Their eyes met. The kid gave him a look that said, who are you kidding, you’re gonna do that anyway.
Jeff rubbed his forehead in frustration. Why do I always get the shit assignments? He was far from being the most experienced interrogator in the department. Stokes, Landry, and Boudreaux were all better choices, but they were on special assignment. The same kind of special assignment that led to so many cop deaths back at Simmons Park ten years earlier.
“So what’s it gonna be, kid? We’re almost out of time here.”
No reaction.
“Okay, fine. I’m gonna leave you here and check out those hospital surveillance tapes. I’m also gonna take the statements of the dozens of eyewitnesses who can place you at the scene of sixteen murders and one kidnapping. Then we’re gonna lock you up and throw away the key, and you can explain your side of the story to the other killers on the inside. I’m sure they’ll be sympathetic.”
The Chief burst in with Captain Morgan in tow. Jeff was ushered roughly into the hall as Captain Morgan approached the kid and unclipped his service revolver.
* * * * *
Monday
New Roads, LA
Monica Babineaux was getting worried. She wanted to take a smoke break, but couldn’t find Big Bertha. Nurses who reported to Big Bertha had to ask permission to pee, and this was doubly true when they were short-staffed. Because of the impending hurricane, half the nurses had called out. I should have called out, too.
To keep her mind off her nicotine craving, she walked to the nurse’s station to check the telemetry monitors. John Doe in room 243’s monitor was off. Monica stalked toward the room with purpose. If something happened in her section she could kiss her job goodbye.
Monica reached for the door handle. Crashing and thrashing noises emanated from behind the closed door.
Don’t go in there.
A man groaned.
Turn around and call security.
Monica’s curiosity overcame her fear and she pulled the door open a crack.
“Goddamn that hurts,” the man said. “How many times I gotta say it? I can’t fuckin’ help yuh!”
“For some reason, Snake,” a woman replied. “I just don’t believe you.”
Monica pulled the door open and the light from the hallway illuminated the characters within. Her John Doe was nowhere in sight. Instead, a bearded, silver-haired white man in a rumpled suit lay on the floor in a tangle of wires. It took her a moment to realize he was tied up.
Monica stood transfixed in the doorway. Seated directly across from him was a familiar-looking white woman. She held a silver handgun in her left hand. “I don’t think you realize the position that you’re in,” she said. “You think I’m here to talk? I’m through talking.”
“I can’t tell yuh nothing, Coral, because I don’t know nothing.”
“Well in that case.” Coral extended her arm and pulled the trigger. The gun barely made any noise on account of the silencer attached to the barrel.
Monica gasped as the man called Snake slumped over, a crimson stain spreading through the sleeve of his jacket. Coral whipped her head around, staring Monica in the face.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
“I’m s-sorry,” Monica stammered. “I’m just a nurse. Please don’t kill me!”
“Get in here and shut that door.”
Monica froze.
“Shut the goddamned door!” the crazy woman yelled.
Monica stepped inside the room, allowing the door to close behind her. Snake groaned again. He wasn’t dead.
Coral returned her attention to Snake. His teeth were bared, giving him the appearance of a werewolf.
“What are you going to do now, tough guy?” Coral said to him.
“Gonna kill yuh. Cunt bitch.” He grunted with a ferocious grin. “Just like I killed yuh son. Then I’m gonna kill yuh daughter. And Randy’s gonna get blamed for the whole thing.”
“You shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”
“Truth hurts, don’t it?”
Coral stood. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks. “Why? Why did you do it?”
Snake looked at Monica for the first time. “You should get out of here and call security, don’t yuh think?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Coral admonished, swinging the gun in her direction.
Monica’s knees went weak. It took everything in her not to topple over. “Do you have kids?” Coral asked.
“Yes,” Monica replied shakily. “I got twins. A boy and a girl.”
“What are their names?”
“Lashonda an’ Taykwon.” Monica wondered if she’d ever see them again.
“Nice names. I’ve got a boy and girl, too. Kristopher and Karen.”
Snake looked at them like they’d lost their minds.
Coral trained the gun on Snake once again. “He killed my son. He killed Kristopher. What would you do if someone hurt your kids?”
Kill them, Monica thought.
The woman must have read her mind because she said, “I knew you’d understand.”
Monica stopped shaking.
“Well, Snake, it seems as if we are in agreement here. I’ll give you one last chance to tell me why you did it. Otherwise, I’m going to play target practice with your face.”
Snake struggled mightily to escape his bonds, but to no avail. He looked up at both of them in exasperation. “I was just following orders, yuh know?”
Coral took two steps toward him. “Well I’ve got an order for you to follow. Go to hell.” The bullet tore into Snake’s chest.
Monica and Coral stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Coral said, “I’ve got to save my daughter. All I’m asking for is a thirty-minute head start. I don’t care what you tell the authorities after that.”
Monica looked down at Snake. “I’ll give you an hour.”
* * * * *
Lake City, LA
“I want everybody out of this room!” Dr. Patricia Lyles screamed. Her patient was dying and now was not the time for casual bystanders.
Dr. Lyles had just finished calling the spousal abuse hotline on behalf of a battered woman when the first explosion shook the floor around the nurse’s station. She and several nurses ran through the double doors separating the ER from its waiting room.
The smell hit her first—a pungent bouquet of charred flesh, gasoline, and roasting metal. She covered her mouth and nose; the nurses did the same. After her nose adjusted she surveyed the extent of the damage.
Her critical eyes missed nothing.
A burning three vehicle pile-up filled the ER waiting room with smoke. A skinny black kid lay against the wall with blood all over what was left of a yellow Nike t-shirt, just a few feet away from a man wearing one of the waiting room chairs around his fractured neck like an oversized necklace. Another man was on fire from the waist up, lying half in and half out the wrecked automatic doors separating the ER waiting room from the rest of the world. She didn’t see the fourth man, the patient who was now, some two hours later, dying in her Emergency Room, until she had put the burning man out with a fire extinguisher. From the look of things, her patient had been ejected from one of the black sedans. He’d landed in a spray of shattered glass just outside the waiting room.
She and her team had just pulled him clear of the wreckage when a second explosion rocked the hospital. The red ER awning came crashing down, a large chunk of metal just narrowly missing her.
She dusted herself off and surveyed the scene outside. There was even more carnage in the parking lot. Two paramedics lay motionless on the ground, their skulls popped like grapes, probably by one of the smoldering cars to her right. Her gorge trembled and she vomited her breakfast all over the pavement like a first-year med student during cadaver lab.
Once the nausea passed, she felt better, until she saw the emaciated teenage girl rocking back and forth on the pavement just a few feet away from the paramedics. Patricia was about to see if the girl was all right when a police cruiser came tearing into the parking lot. Before Patricia could intervene, the cops grabbed the girl and put her in the back of the cruiser. As Patricia dizzily made her way over to the vehicle, the driver turned the car around, hit the siren, and bolted out of there like he was riding on a lightning bolt.
Another officer appeared out of nowhere. “You in charge here?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I need you to clear this area of non-police personnel immediately.”
“What’s happening, Officer?”
“Just clear the area, please.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to repeat myself again,” the officer interrupted while pulling out his service pistol.
He escorted her back to the ER. The teenager in the tattered, yellow Nike t-shirt had regained consciousness and was sitting against the far wall. The officer gestured to one of his colleagues and the kid was handcuffed and loaded into another police cruiser.
“Excuse me, Sir,” Patricia interjected. “That boy needs medical attention.”
The officer ignored her plea. “Where is the hospital security room?”
She sent him on his way, wondering what the hell was going on in Lake City today.
Patricia went back to check on the man who’d been ejected from his car. But not before placing a call her brother-in-law over at NBC Channel 9 News.
Her trauma team had stabilized the patient, but they needed to get him into surgery. As she checked his vitals, he looked up at her with glazed eyes. “Did Lincoln call?”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“Tell him…” the patient continued urgently, “tell him that it…wasn’t worth…it.”
The patient’s pressure dropped; he was going into cardiac arrest. Patricia motioned for the defibrillator. She shocked him twice and his heartbeat came back on line.
Close call.
The nurse backed away from the patient, eyes wide. “Um, Dr. Lyles...” She pointed. The patient’s face contorted as thick ropes of blood descended from his nose and ears.
Patricia bent down to check his breathing. A clicking noise emanated from his throat. She leaned in further.
The patient grabbed her face with both hands and whispered, “Can you seeeeeeee?”
She stared paralyzed into his contorted face. Patricia’s eyes dilated as images played before her.
She saw an enormous live oak tree in front of a plantation home. A fair-skinned black man hung from one of its many curved limbs. An older white man sat at the base of the tree with a gun to his temple. A young teenage girl lay crumpled a few feet away in the shade of an enormous house. Her water had just broken.
A car pulled up and a silver-haired man carried the body of a lanky, blond-haired teenager into the home. The mother burst into tears. The father averted his eyes and looked toward the tree. A young blond-haired girl peeked out from behind her father’s legs with a look of confusion on her face. Patricia was riding shotgun in a fast moving vehicle. The patient was driving. She looked through the windshield and saw they were entering the hospital parking lot. A teenage girl appeared in front of the car. He was going to run her down…
“Doctor Lyles!”
Patricia’s eyelids fluttered. She looked around in a daze. Her patient had flatlined. She tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. Time of death, 12:11 p.m.
The door burst open and a colleague poked his head in.
“Hey, there you are. We’ve got a situation out here.”
“What’s going on?” Patricia asked, composing herself.
“It’s the hurricane,” he started. “It’s shifted this way. We’re gonna to need all hands on deck and the Lord’s good grace, because ready or not, Isaac is coming.”