Van Helsinki's eyes rolled open. Sunlight was streaming in through the gap in his hospital curtains, where he hadn't bothered to close the blinds the night before. Van rolled up, slowly, subconsciously feeling uncomfortable by the lack of the weight of his pistol stuffed down the back of his trousers. Van waited for a moment, savouring the lack of the call which usually woke him from his stupor. No case today, it would appear. The ex-detective rolled his legs to the side of his bed, sniffing the air. The smell in the room, strong and pungent, did not bother him anymore. He was used to it by now. Van coughed into his left hand. His right fist was still bound in the bandages which swathed his right arm and his upper gut, relicts of the injuries he had sustained in his last case. It had been hard, and it had nearly killed him, several times. Van gritted his teeth and hissed as his chest and face twinged in union. He was not fully better yet, that was certain. Beating Geoff had taken it out of him, in more ways than one. Van had felt purposeless, even in the hospital bed he had been consigned to for months. He had nearly not made it, but somehow the knowledge that dying mere weeks after he had finally ended his opponent was ignominious at best had given him the force of will to pull through. Van had been released from hospital about two weeks ago, but he still didn't feel right. Even the combination of praise and bollacking from Inspector Someone-Who-Is-Not-David-Bowie when he finally got out of the ward had failed to raise his spirits. The Inspector had been furious, but unable to hide his admiration for just what Van had made it through.
'You could have been killed' the Police Chief had said, half reprimanding, half impressed. He, Van, had just shook his head, too exhausted to summon a comeback. Certainly, in his heart of hearts, Van knew he should be grateful to the Inspector. He had, after all, put his badge on the line to get Van off the hook for murdering a girl in cold blood, spinning the tale of her attempted killing of him, and that he just retaliated. Van wasn't far gone enough to believe that his reason, his 'pre-emptive self defence' technique, would hold up in court. But he felt no remorse. There was no need for it; Fay had died as she had lived, violently and incompetently. With hindsight, Van would have been better not allying with her at all. Fay had proven nothing but a liability and a hindrance. Van's face twitched in a ghastly version of a smile. His jaw muscles were still getting used to their freedom, having been bound up for a month or so to set back into shape after the repeated applications of baseball bat and fists had knocked them off course. Van was lucky he was blessed with resilience. Professor Ford had described him once as the man who won fights by getting up once more than his opponent. She wasn't far wrong, though Van ruefully. Thoughts of Ford floated into his head. Van's smile faded. He hadn't talked to the Inspector's assistant since her attempt to convince him back had ended in bloodshed, though he vaguely remembered seeing her watching over him when he was in hospital. Van suspected she had been banned from talking to him. It wouldn't be the first time. Apparently someone with pull and power in the police had decided he was a 'liability', and unlike Someone-Who-Is-Not-David-Bowie, whoever it was didn't appreciate his applications in 'specialist' cases. Van spat, a bloody, viscous glob of spittle, and as he did, there was a 'vrum' from outside the window. A car pulling up. Van rolled his eyes. Another visitor, no-doubt. He seemed to be the only patient in this building of the hospital, and it was a huge wing. There was nobody else to visit. Five minutes passed. Van had not heard anything since the car pulled up, and he began to grow restless. Eventually, painfully, he stood up. Taking uncertain steps forward, Van walked over to the window, and looked down. Below him, two or three floors down, an SUV had stopped, pulling up on the pavement beside the hospital wing door. It seemed that the passengers were still inside. Van made to move away from the window, but his injuries made him slower. As he began to turn, he heard the doors of the SUV click open. Van turned back to watch, but his blood ran cold when he saw who exited the vehicle.
Four men with plate carrier chestplates and assault rifles got out of the car, and lined up beside the hospital door. Van saw them bounce, ready, and then the first one kicked down the door and entered the building, followed by his three comrades. This was not good. Van knew he was too injured to outrun these men, assuming they hadn't closed off the other exits. He knew how they operated: they'd close off each floor. He needed to get past the cordon. And he wasn't going to be able to do it going through the hospital. Van looked frantically around his room. No weapons. Nothing he could use to defend himself, at least not to any great effect. And then he saw the rope.
In the corner, coiled tightly, was a long length of rope. Van knew in the back of his mind it had probably been used to restrain him in his wilder fits during the early days, when sleep came slowly and accompanied by nightmares. Now it would serve a better purpose for him. Van moved, stiffly and painfully, over to the rope, picked it up, uncoiled the end and tied it off to the handle on the door with his left hand, which he then locked. He pulled, but the locked door stayed locked. Below him, Van heard the first shots between the invading party and the few police guards keeping watch on him below. Van knew the cops didn't stand a chance. He moved over to the window, and keeping the rope grasped tightly in his left hand and coiled around his bandaged right fist, he slid one leg over the sill. Van continued moving until he was fully over the edge, dangling on the rope. Then he slowly began to walk down the hospital wall. Twice he nearly fell, and once only his blind panic saved him from anything more than rope burn. Van ran out of rope about two or three metres above the SUV. He realised there was almost certainly at least one man still in the car, acting as combined lookout and getaway driver. However, the man hadn't anticipated this plan of attack. Van took a deep breath in, and then let go of the rope.
He landed on the front of the SUV with a crash which he was sure dented the bonnet slightly. The one man inside leapt up in shock, smacking his head on the roof of the car. Van rolled off the front as the man opened his door, fumbling with a pistol. Van closed the gap, and hit him once in the jaw with his bandaged right hand. It hurt Van's hand a hell of a lot, but it also gave Van enough time to grab the car door in his left hand and slam it into the man's side. Van stamped on the man's leg, sending another jolt of pain shooting up his thigh, but it again allowed him to hit the man with the car door, rendering him unconscious. Van bent down and picked up the pistol the man had dropped. It was a Smith & Wesson 945, elegant and heavy. Van shoved it into his hospital trousers, and reached into the car, pulling out a spare M4A1 carbine rifle from the passenger's side. He held it in his left hand, balancing the barrel on his bandaged right arm. Now he was ready.
He entered the hospital facility cautiously. He could feel the results of his fight already taking their toll on him. He suspected he wouldn't get past the first floor walking. As Van entered the dark hospital ground floor, he could see the bodies of five policemen and, surprisingly, one of the heavily armoured would-be attackers, lying on the ground. Van bent over the dead assailant. No obvious ID, nothing to link him to anything. Van shook his head. Only three left, then. He moved on towards the stairwell. Van slunk up them. He couldn't hear anything. Once he reached the first floor, slowly clearing each way with his gun, he stopped. He couldn't walk much further. Van sighed, and pulled on the M4 trigger. The gun sprayed up, nigh uncontrollable for Van's weakened one-handed grip, kicking bullets along the door Van had aimed at. Van dropped the empty carbine. Now he was ready.
The three remaining would-be assassins had reached Van's room on the third floor, found it empty and the rope trailing out of the window, and were just beginning to move back down when they heard the gunfire. They raced down the steps, only stopping once they reached the relevant floor. An empty corridor greeted them, except for one discarded and empty M4 on the ground. One door had been filled with bullet holes. The three assassins moved closer, slowly. One checked the stairwell down onto the ground floor. Nothing. Regrouping, the assassins moved together towards the riddled door. One reached forward to give the door a push. It swung open, and one assassin began to go through the doorway. As he moved in, gunshots rang out.
Nine rounds blasted out towards the men trying to go through the door. Nine rounds punched into them. All three were killed instantly.
Van pushed open the door opposite the open room that the assassins had been trying to enter. The nine holes he had blasted in the door showed the pattern of his shots. Van had timed it to perfection. His assailants had been bunched together, easy targets. Van had only had to know their procedures, and then listen for their footfalls. It had worked. But the actions had taken their toll on Van's weakened body. He dropped the locked-back and empty 945 pistol, and then slid down the doorframe. Hopefully the cops would find him when they didn't receive their timely check-ins from the dead men downstairs. But Van had done it. He had survived.