Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

Wait till Beecher sees this.

92

Today

St. Elizabeths Hospital

Nico, you’re not being smart ,” the dead First Lady warned.

Nico blinked a few times, walking quickly up the shiny new hallway. Since the moment he got out of the Quiet Room, the First Lady had been nervous. She thought it was a trap.

Nico knew she was wrong. With all that had happened—for the injection to have no drugs in it… for the door to the Quiet Room to be unlocked… No, this wasn’t a trap. This was a message—a simple, well-planned message that stood out like a bright red thread and stretched out in front of him, down the stark hallway. Nico knew he had to follow the thread. Just like he knew that only someone in the hospital could’ve left it. Indeed, as he chased the thread up the hallway, he realized there was only one person who could’ve—

“ Nico, you hear that? ” the First Lady asked.

Up on his left, around the corner, two orderlies walked the main hall of the hospital, complaining about how slow the elevators were in the new building.

“Nico, if they see you—”

Nico never broke his pace, marching forward without a care. Sure, the orderlies were close. But Nico knew they’d never leave the main hallway. How could they? With everything that was now set in motion… Would God really have brought them this far to let them be stopped by something so mundane?

Sure enough, as quickly as the orderlies arrived, that’s how quickly they disappeared, their voices fading into distant echoes.

“ We’re clear—hurry—go! ” the First Lady said, motioning him toward the main hallway.

This time, though, Nico stopped.

“Nico, what’re you waiting for? You know where we are?”

Nico knew exactly where they were. For two days now, since the moment they arrived, he’d been studying the new building. Yesterday, as they headed down to the labyrinth, he made note of the roving cameras and the sally port doors that secured each nurses’ station. On his way back from the library, he’d memorized which entrances required just card swipes, and which required card swipes and keys. On his way out to see Beecher this morning, he counted three guards at the main check-in desk, but only two at the visitors’ entrance.

Nico even spent an extra twenty minutes in TLC, pretending to relearn how to use a washer and dryer so he could listen in as the nurses bragged about the triple layer of security that now encased the back of the building and all the patient units. The first layer—on the exterior fire doors—was a silent alarm so that none of the other patients would know anything was wrong. The second layer came from thin wire fencing that ran horizontal with the ground. Yes, it looked easy to climb, but the moment you touched it, a hidden fiber optic wire sensed the shift in weight and sent every nearby camera spinning your way. And if by chance you got past that, the third and final layer was a twenty-foot-tall non-climbable fine-mesh fence that was woven so tight, human fingers couldn’t fit in the holes. Back in the army, Nico had learned his way around that: Grab two screwdrivers, stab the fence, and scale your way to the top. But as he well knew, why risk going over a fence when you can walk right through the side door?

Up ahead, the hallway cut to the right, revealing the brand-new U-shaped desk and swinging double doors that led out to the loading dock. He had been here yesterday. But today one of the double doors was propped open with a wastepaper basket.

“ Nico, what’re you waiting for? ” the First Lady asked. “ Here’s our way out! ”

Like before, Nico just stood there.

“I hear you breathing,” Nico announced.

The First Lady looked around. “ Nico, what’re you talking about? ”

“I know you’re here,” Nico added. “I hear you. You know I hear everything.”

Across the hall, past the U-shaped desk, a shadow shifted in the threshold of what looked like a bathroom, but was really a shower stall for patient delousing. Nico knew who was hiding inside. The friend who had left the bright red thread… and who was always looking out for him.

“Dr. Gosling, I need you to come out now,” Nico said.

Without a word, the shadows shifted again and Nurse Rupert stepped out into the hallway.

Nico blinked quickly, then cocked his head, confused.

“ You’re not Dr. Gosling,” Nico said.

“Nico, please don’t make this harder than it is,” Rupert pleaded. “Now do you want to escape or not?”

93

We need to hurry,” Rupert insisted.

“But how could—? It doesn’t even—” Nico tried to get the words out, still staring at Rupert. “Dr. Gosling was the one who handed me the books, and was in my room—”

“It’s time to go,” Rupert said.

“But I saw Gosling put the needle in my thigh. He gave me the shot!”

Rupert lowered his chin, offering a dark glare as the daylight reflected off the bridge of his plastic eyeglasses. “And who do you think mixed that shot, Nico?”

Nico’s thick caterpillar eyebrows merged together. “So you serve the Knight?”

“Please don’t talk like Lord of the Rings . And don’t call him some stupid name like the Knight. He—”

“Call him the Knight. You work for the Knight!”

“He paid me to do a job; I do the job. That’s all it is, Nico. Now please prove to me you made progress here. I know you’re not a killer. Not anymore. Don’t prove me wrong.”

“But for you to risk your job like this—”

“Nico, two months ago, for a stupidly small amount of money that I thought would help my nephew, I snuck five hundred milligrams of methylphenidate out of the hospital’s pharmacy. Needless to say, the wrong people found out about it, including your so-called Knight. So this isn’t about my job anymore. This is about me staying out of jail.”

Nico blinked hard. He looked around, searching for the First Lady, but now… he couldn’t find her. Instead, all he saw was Clementine and the blonde wig that sat askew on her head. He closed his eyes, knowing that his fate, it was changing even now. Forget the Knight. Forget Wallace. Forget everything. After all these years, there was something else waiting for him on the other side of the hospital walls: his daughter. Clementine. For Nico, no other reward came close.

“Last chance, Nico. You want freedom or not?”

Nico turned toward the propped-open door that led out to the cement pad of the loading dock. Yes, the door was open, but through the doorway, past the cement pad, the exterior roll-top garage door was still closed. A high-tech keypad was embedded in the wall. To truly get outside—to open the garage door—he’d need an ID.

Nico glanced back at Rupert, noticing the ID badge that hung around Rupert’s neck.

“You do what you have to,” Rupert said, motioning down to the plastic-covered U-shaped desk. On top of the plastic was a single pencil. Freshly sharpened.

Nico hesitated. But not for long.

He reached down slowly for the pencil. Like a doctor choosing his favorite scalpel.

Rupert squinted, bracing himself. “Just do me one favor: Make it look like I gave you a good fight, okay?”

In one quick movement, Nico grabbed Rupert’s wrist and stabbed the pencil down toward Rupert’s forearm. There was a ftt as it bit through the hairy side of Rupert’s forearm, and a ttt as it burst out the bottom, looking like a trick arrow you find in a magic shop. A spray of blood hit Nico’s chest, the last few bits flicking two tiny dots on his chin.

“Nuuuhh!” Rupert screamed, thrashing wildly as his knees buckled.