= = = CHAPTER 7 = = =
SEATTLE
MAY 5, 2020
11:30 PM
Logan sat – surprisingly – in the passenger seat of his Aztec. He had reluctantly allowed Zack the wheel so he could access Metro Medicals patient records on his IMAC laptop.
"What the hell is taking so long?" Zack snipped turning his attention towards Logan. "All you had to do was pull up a single record."
A street lamp flanking the road lit up the glare Logan was now shooting Zack. "The mainframe is a triple blocked system of encryption and it takes time to get past all the firewalls."
"Or you're just incompetent and hide behind a camera and a red, white and blue banner." Zack kept driving in formation with the road despite that he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. He was rather relying on his heightened sense of hearing to pick up any sounds of the tires bumping into the reflectors that divided the lanes or the sounds of him veering off the road itself. "I really have no fucking clue what Maxie sees in you. The flaws just rack up."
"You can hate me all you want Zack but the fact remains Lydecker wants Max back at Manticore and I'm going to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening." Logan typed hurriedly on the keys ignoring any death looks Zack was giving him.
A silence normally reserved for after two men had fought each other to the death in an ancient battle hung in the air. Logan was far too concerned for Max's safety to keep indulging Zack's pissy tirades.
"It's numeric," Zack said suddenly.
Logan turned his head: "What?"
"The password to get to Max's file," Zack returned exasperated, watching Logan stare back at his laptop screen where the curser was blinking next to a blank field of 12 spaces separated by a hyphen. "A sequence of four and eight. Standard Seattle Sector Passcode. My guess is that in order to access Max's file you need to use her number – that is if you have it off hand."
"4357-94310058," Logan rattled off the numbers to Zack as he typed them in on the field. "You're not the only one who excels in numerics. I have Max's information encrypted on a zip drive in case of emergency."
"Damn you are hung up on her aren't you?" Zack retorted finally turning his eyes back to the road that was lit up like a Christmas tree by the taillights of cars that created a heavy clogging traffic.
Logan ignored Zack's jeer and after hitting 'Enter' on his keyboard he found himself viewing Max's file logged into Metro's files just several hours earlier. "I'm in," Logan announced reading the first part of Max's record. "MVA; multiple abrasions, contusions on ribs, concussion, broken tibia. Sent up to surgery at 10:45." Max's injuries became drastically more real now that they were presented right in front of him. She was at my place two hours ago. How could things go so damn wrong in one night? He still clung to some semblance of order because he would need it to get to Max on time and because he didn't want to give Zack something else to shoot his mouth off about.
"She's only been in the OR for 30 minutes-" Zack began, lowering his right foot down heavier on the accelerator. "Any kind of bone to bone reconstruction will take at least an hour. The best bet is to recon the room they set her up in after surgery and get her out before Lydecker and his Merry Men storm the building."
"What if she's not stable enough to be moved?" Logan asked an obvious question. Max would have just gotten out of reconstructive surgery; she would be weak and any fast movement might do her more damage.
Zack mentally blew off Logan's question. "Maxie's been through worse shit then this before." His voice shifted from pissy to a fierce protectiveness. "There's no fuckin' way in hell I'm leaving her lying in the middle of an ambush. We're soldiers and the 'no man left behind' rule applies for her."
Logan didn't add to that; he knew there was nothing to challenge about that remark. "Lydecker's got only one shot at removing Max from the building; the shift change at the nurses station."
"The man is traveling with a Manticore recon squad. He doesn't have to wait for an all clear to be given," Zack hissed.
"He does if he doesn't want to risk public exposure," Logan rectified looking over a layout of Metro Medical. "All the floors have fire stairs that all lead to the ground floor-"
"Forget that," Zack cut in. "Outside stairways are too exposed. Not even Deck could lead and Attack Team up them without being noticed."
"Which is why I think Lydecker will send a unit to rendezvous at them as a decoy. Then he'll slip in quietly with one or two soldiers and get to Max before any security can be alerted."
Zack went silent for a moment, thinking, then asked finally: "When's the next shift roll over?" He wasn't starting to develop a tolerance for Logan; he just expected him to know the answer because he had hacked into the system.
"One AM," Logan read the information off the screen. "Nurses update each other on the statues of the patients on their floor at each new shift. That leaves us with about a ten minute window to get inside without being stopped."
"That's five minutes more then I need," Zack enlightened.
"Is everyone in your family this arrogant?" Logan snapped taking his eyes off the laptop screen and focusing them on the X5.
Zack glared back at him. "You might wanna cath yourself cause I'm about open this bitch up." He completely floored the accelerator causing the Aztec to excel over 105 miles an hour. Zack weaved the car in and out of traffic going slower then him not even bothering to honk acting like he was in a car at the Indy 500.
This is for Max. Logan kept reminding himself. The voice of someone screaming 'jag off' at Zack out their car window echoed like a tunneled sound when the Aztec swirled past them. And as soon as Max is safe I'm going to hurt Zack.
XXXXXXXXX
METRO MEDICAL CENTER – ROOM #312
11: 45 PM
Nurse Ariel Randolph checked the monitor settings on the EKG machine set up beside Max's hospital bed. It had taken the orthopedic surgeon 45 minutes to set the breaks in Max's tibia bone with a steel pin. But Metro had run out of plaster to create a cast so the surgical team improvised by placing thin metal endoscopic rods around the lower leg to immobilize the break and held them in place by wrapping burn dressings around them. After completing their task the surgeons couldn't help patting themselves on the back. High technology had made simple improvisation such as this almost non-existent to the knowledge of the doctors; and after setting Max's leg many of them felt the exhilarating rush they all had after that first day of med school.
Max lay motionless under the watchful eye of Nurse Randolph who couldn't help admiring the stunning beauty of her patient that wasn't marred at all by her injuries. "Ill bet someone's worried as hell about you." Ariel liked to talk to her patients even if they weren't consciousness. Many of her colleagues had given up on the art of being a softhearted health care worker, but not her. She hated seeing the way some of them treated their patients, like they weren't even human.
"Hopefully someone told them where you are." Ariel continued talking to her charge while checking the output flow of the IV bag hanging on the metal 'tree' beside the monitors. Ariel hadn't seen a ring on Max but she was too beautiful of a woman to be single. "You were lucky Ms. Guevara." Ariel looked down on her. "The car that hit you outweighed your bike by 2,000 pounds and a broken leg is really all you sustained from it."
Ariel rounded the bed and took a standing position at the head of it. She placed Max's chart back in the plastic caddy in the footboard. "I'll come back and check on you later." She turned and left the room.
XXXXXX
"Sir!" The Alpha team leader – a lanky, but well muscled soldier – called out on Lydecker's radio frequency.
From his armor plated SUV Lydecker picked up his radio. "Go ahead squadron leader."
"We're about seven miles from the target area. ETA five minutes."
"Establish a perimeter at points Bravo, Romeo and Zulu but hold positions until I arrive."
"Rodger that Sir. We'll be awaiting further instructions." The Attack Team leader responded through the static before the call ended.
Lydecker had interrogated Detective Matt Sung to no end over the phone about his knowledge of Max but Sung kept spouting off official privacy codes of the Seattle PD that allowed him to withhold any information from outside sources unless a court order was obtained. Lydecker was pissed as hell at the civilian Detective's refusal to talk and even threatened Sung with immediate dismissal from the police force before hanging up on him.
The ring from Lydecker's silver cell phone cut through the quiet hum of the SUV's air conditioner. He reached over and snatched it from the passenger seat and flipped it open: "Lydecker."
"Hello Deck." The voice on the other end of the line was unmistakably female, but with a complete lack of any feminine frilly undertones. Anna Renfro wasn't a woman who did 'girly'; it wouldn't' fit in with her job as standing Director of Manticore. "I was calling for a status report." Renfro leaned back in her high back leather chair before elaborating more. "I understand you're initiating a take down of an X5 who's been side swiped in an MVA. The last portion of her words was phrased in a disbelieving question on the nature of their extreme luck
"You've already broken through my secure line to find out covert information. You should be able to figure out this one on your own." Lydecker insisted.
"You're a true hearted cynic," Renfro concluded. "No wonder being CO to a bunch of modified genetics suits you so well."
"I don't have time to listen to your Director ideology bullshit," Lydecker barked maneuvering the SUV around a sloping curve in the road.
"X5-452's unconscious; she's not going anywhere." Renfro reminded. "Just make sure she's stable enough for transport back to Manticore. Our doctors here can speed up her healing process. I want her up to full status before her re-education back into the program."
"I believe I'm already on that," Deck told her. He hated Anna Renfro with a passion. She was a moronic figurehead who bribed her way into the top of Manticore. "Was there anything relevant you wanted to tell me?"
"Understand that I'm cleaning up YOUR mess. If you had done your job 11 years ago those kids of yours wouldn't have escaped and I wouldn't have to divert every resource just to get them back!"
"452 is my problem Anna-" Lydecker stated addressing Renfro by her first name, not because he wanted to be polite. It was just either calling her that or 'bitch' and would rather call her a bitch to her face. "I will remedy the situation."
"She's my problem too."
"No – she isn't." Lydecker responded tersely, disconnecting the call.
XXXXXXX
The black military SUV convoy carrying the Alpha Attack Team rolled to a halt in the Ambulance Bay of Metro Medical. The doors slid open and soldiers – covered head to toe in Kevlar body armor and carrying M-20 laser sighted rifles – poured out of the interior like a swarm of Army Ants.
The team leader began to bark out orders to his men: "Check points at Bravo, Romeo and Zulu, go go go!" After issuing Lydecker's instructions the young officer directed his attention to Agent Sondaval who was examining a mapped layout of the building. "Sir," The Alpha Team leader addressed Sondaval. "Colonel Lydecker asked me to relay a message to you."
This peaked Agent Sondaval's interest. "What is it?"
"The Colonel said to tell you that the next time you undermine his authority with Director Renfro he'll skin you alive and make pup tents out of your flesh." Lydecker knew Sondaval too well to believe that the man would obey his order and keep his status on finding Max from Renfro. Renfro hired Sondaval personally and he kissed her ass from Day One.
Agent Sondaval visibly recoiled from the threat Lydecker had given him, knowing that the man was fully capable of carrying out such a gruesome task. "Was there anything else?"
"No Sir," the soldier responded crisply with traces of a smug smile coming over his features before he expertly masked it and redirected his attention back to his task. "Zulu, this is Alpha are you in position?"
"Rodger base Alpha," the Zulu group radioed back from their position overlooking the emergency stairwell. "We're in position and fully loaded."
"Copy that Zulu. Maintain positions until word is reached from Colonel Lydecker."
"Rodger, Zulu out."
After confirming the positions of the Bravo Unit that was holding on the emergency's stairwell's middle landing the Attack Team leader glanced back to Agent Sondaval who looked completely out of place in his cooperate suit amidst the black Kevlar worn by the soldiers. "You should be glad Sir that Colonel Lydecker hadn't arrived yet," the Alpha leader's smug smile was back. "Talk about saving your skin."