Patricia Cornwell - Cause Of Death

"I need ice and I need more drugs," I looked up and said.

"Then what?" Bear came closer.

"Then at some point you need to get him to a hospital."

No one responded.

"If you don't give me these things I've requested, I can do nothing more for him," I flatly stated.

Bear went over to a desk and got on the hostage phone.

He said we needed ice and more drugs. I knew Lucy and her team had better act now or I probably would be shot.

I moved away from Hand's spreading puddle, and as I looked at his face it was hard for me to believe that he had so much power over others. But every man in this room and those in the reactor and on the barge would kill for him. In fact, they already had.

"The robot's bringing the shit. I'm going out to get it," said Bear as he looked out the window. "It's on its way now.

"You go out there you're probably going to get your ass shot off."

"Not with her in here," Bear's eyes were hostile and crazed.

"The robot can bring it to you," I surprised them by saying.

Bear laughed. "You remember all those stairs'? You think that tin-ass piece of shit's going to get up those?"

"It's perfectly capable," I said, and I hoped this was true.

"Hey, make it bring the stuff in so no one has to go out," another man said.

Bear got Wesley on the hostage phone again. "Make the robot bring the supplies to the control room. We're not coming out." He slammed the receiver down, not realizing what he had just done.

I thought of my niece and said a prayer for her because I knew this would be her hardest challenge. I jumped as I suddenly felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my neck.

"You let him die, you're dead, too. You got that, bitch?"

I did not move.

"Pretty soon, we got to sail out of here, and he'd better be going with us."

"As long as you keep me in supplies, I will keep him alive," I quietly said.

He removed the gun from my neck and I injected the last vial of saline into their dead leader's IV line. Beads of sweat were rolling down my back, and the skirt of the gown I had put over my clothes was soaked. I imagined Lucy this minute outside the mobile outpost in her virtual reality gear. I imagined her moving her fingers and arms and stepping here and there as fiber optics made it possible for her to read every inch of the terrain on her CRTs. Her telepresence was the only hope that Toto would not get stuck in a corner or fall somewhere.

The men were looking out the window and commented when the robot's tracks carried him up the handicap ramp and he went inside.

"I wouldn't mind having one of those," one of them said.

"You're too stupid to figure out how to use it."

"No way. That baby ain't radio-controlled. Nothing radio-controlled would work in here. You got any idea how thick the walls are?"

"It'd be great for carrying in firewood when the weather sucks."

"Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom," one of the hostages timidly said.

"Shit. Not again."

My tension got unbearable as I feared what would happen if they went out and were not back when Toto appeared.

"Hey, just make him wait. Damn, I wish we could close these windows. It's cold as shit in here."

"Well, you won't get none of that clean, cold air in Tripoli. Better enjoy it while you can."

Several of them laughed at the same time the door opened and another man walked in who I had not seen before. He was dark-skinned and bearded, wearing a heavy jacket and fatigues, and he was angry.

"We have only fifteen assemblies out and in casks on the barge," he spoke with authority and a heavy accent.

"You must give us more time. Then we can get more."

"Fifteen's a hell of a lot," Bear said, and he did not seem to care for this man.

"We need twenty-five assemblies at the very least! That was the arrangement."

"No one's told me that."

"He knows that." The man with the accent looked at Hand's body on the floor.

"Well, he ain't available to discuss it with you." Bear crushed out a cigarette with the toe of his boot.

"Do you understand?" The foreign man was furious now. "Each assembly weighs a ton, and the crane has to pull it from the flooded reactor to the pool, then get it into a cask. It is very slow and very difficult. It is very dangerous. You promised we would have at least twenty-five.

Now you are rushing and sloppy because of him." The man angrily pointed at Hand. "We have an agreement!"

"My only agreement is to take care of him. We gotta get him on the barge and take the doctor with us. Then we get him to a hospital."

"This is nonsense! He looks already dead to me! You are lunatics"

"He's not dead."

"Look at him. He is white as snow and does not breathe.

He is dead!"

They were screaming at each other, and Bear's boots were loud as he strode over to me and demanded, "He's not dead, is he?"

"No," I said.

Sweat rolled down his face as he drew the pistol from his belt and pointed it first at me. Then he pointed it at the hostages, and all of them cowered and one began to cry.

"No, please. Oh please," a man begged.

"Who is it who needs to use the john so bad?" Bear roared.

They were silent, shaking as hoods sucked in and out and wide eyes stared.

"Was it you?" The gun pointed at someone else.

The control room door had been left open, and I could hear the whirring of Toto down the hall. He had made it up the stairs and along a catwalk, and he would be here in seconds. I retrieved a long metal flashlight that had been designed by ERF and tucked into the medical chest by my niece.

"Shit, I want to know if he's dead," one of the men said, and I knew my charade was over.

"I'll show you," I said as the whirring got louder.

I pointed the flashlight at Bear as I pushed a button, and he shrieked at the dazzling pop as he grabbed his eyes and I swung the heavy flashlight like a baseball bat. Bones shattered in his wrist, the pistol clattering to the floor, and the robot rolled in empty-handed. I flung myself down flat on my face, covering my eyes and ears as best I could, and the room exploded in blazing white light as a concussion bomb blew off the top of Toto's head. There was screaming and cursing as terrorists blindly fell against consoles and each other, and they could not hear or see when dozens of HRT agents stormed in.

"Freeze, motherfuckers!"

"Freeze or I'm gonna blow your motherfucking brains out! "

"Don't anybody move!"

I did not budge in Joel Hand's icy grave as helicopters shook windows and feet of fast-roping agents kicked in screens. Handcuffs snapped, and weapons clattered across the floor as they were kicked out of the way. I heard people crying and realized they were the hostages being taken away.

"It's all right. You're safe now."

"Oh my God. Oh thank you, God."

"Come on. We need to get you on out of here."

When I finally felt a cool hand on the side of my neck I realized the person was checking for vital signs because I looked dead.

"Aunt Kay?" It was Lucy's strained voice.

I turned over and slowly sat up. My hands and the side of my face that had been in water were numb, and I looked around, dazed. I was shaking so badly my teeth were chattering as she squatted beside me, gun in hand. Her eyes roamed the room as other agents in black fatigues were taking the last prisoners out.

"Come on, let me help you up," she said.

She gave me her hand, and my muscles trembled as if I were about to have a seizure. I could not get warm, and my ears would not stop ringing. When I was standing, I could see Toto near the door. His eye had been scorched, his head blackened, the domed top of it gone. He was silent in his cold trail of fiber optic cable, and no one paid him any mind as one by one all of the New Zionists were taken away.