A huge thank you to fbob who I credit for making this chapter what it is. I can't thank him enough for the guidance, writing suggestions and plot devices, not to mention writing the best gore and fight/shooting sequences around. To my other fine betas, I thank you for finding both our mistakes. This story is my baby. I don't think I've ever worked so hard at researching and writing something, but without those who stand behind me, it wouldn't be half as good!
That being said I'm changing the rating to "M" for this chapter and next for violence. We are quickly approaching the 50k words, and this chapter might just make this story my most reviewed story ever! This is my entry in the 2014 Castle Hiatus Ficathon.
It was a rough ride in the back of the maintenance supplies truck, but Walker didn't mind. He was secretly pleased that he'd been in time to sneak into the truck. He'd fought off panic when he saw the extra guards outside the hospital. He'd used the excuse of having left his sweatshirt in his locker to do a quick check of the area. Then, when the idea of riding the supply truck hit him, he'd actually laughed out loud. The unexpected bonus was it gave him a chance to smuggle in a second duffel full of weapons. The increase in security suggested the need for a diversion so he'd added two homemade bombs, each with a pound of C4, configured with a cell phone for triggering. The cell phones were off. He'd verified the batteries were fully charged.
He had smuggled two timers into the country in case he had to send in a stooge with an explosive vest, but he hadn't. Timers were easy enough to find at Radio Shack and hobby stores. He can't believe they thought a few extra guards would stop him. Ha! Nothing could stop him. Not after last night. He was invincible. The real invincible. They couldn't stop him, ever!
He lost himself as he relived the pleasures of killing the girl. The look on her face, mouth duct taped shut, tendons corded in her neck, eyes bugged out in terror, nostrils flared and snorted mucous as he had slowly slid the knife up under her ribs and into her heart. He'd tried to get her to tell him what death felt like but then she looked at him, eyes wide open, and he saw true terror just before she died. The pleasure of the memory, the death rattle, reflexive appendage movements, her body purging itself, was more intense than the climax of any sex act he'd ever experienced. The memory of it left him so distracted and limp he almost missed the fact that the back of the truck had been opened for inspection.
Startled back into the present, his adrenaline surged along with his heart rate. He peeked between two boxes and was startled to see one of the hospital security staff looking in the back of the truck. He smiled to himself when he saw who it was, O'Brian. He'd banked on O'Brian being on shift. The morbidly obese rent-a-cop didn't climb into the back of the truck to take a closer look. The old man would have been easy, but the young driver and the forewarned dock crew, if they were still there, would have messed up his plans. None of that happened. You get what you pay for capitalist idiots.
He knew the drill. They would back up to the loading dock. The first couple of pallets, all cleaning solvents, would be taken off with the fork lift. They'd take it to maintenance supplies. The round trip would take all of three minutes. Plenty of time to get out of the truck and hide behind the supplies that were delivered yesterday.
His phone vibrated. He reached in his pocket and muted it with out looking. It could only be Volkov checking in to see how it was going. He couldn't risk taking the call. Besides, he wanted to be able to gloat about being inside even with the additional security. Maybe Volkov knows about the additional security. Maybe he was calling to warn him? He'd show him. He'd call back from inside. He was invincible.
The forklift operator, a young man named Oliver he'd talked with in the cafeteria swooped the forklift into the truck, slid the forks into the pallet, backed out, and spun it without even causing the pallet to waver. He then moved off toward the storage area. The moment the forklift accelerated away, Walker shouldered his duffel, quickly checked the dock area, and spotted the driver. He was standing about ten feet to the left side of the truck totally absorbed in his phone. What the hell was he doing there? The driver always waited in the truck. Don't get into useless loops, Walker he mumbled to himself. It didn't matter why he was there. All that mattered was what he'd do about it.
If he exited the left side of the truck and moved behind the stacks of drywall, the driver would never see him. This was the last truck of the day, Oliver would leave after the truck was unloaded and then he'd be free to take the side exit down into the utility tunnels.
By the time the forklift left with the second man, Walker had his suppressed pistol in hand. He peeked his head around the end of the truck, saw the driver still absorbed in his phone, and moved on soft rubber soled boots to the opposite side of the truck. He moved the fifteen feet to behind the drywall pallets without anyone ever noticing. Then he snuck past the first pallet and hid behind the second. He laid on the floor and fought off the urge to sneeze. Dust. Why was there always dust? He pinched his nose shut and hoped the sound of the approaching forklift covered the attempted sneeze that felt like it would blow his eyeballs right out of his head. Right in the middle of the third sneeze attempt his phone started vibrating again. Crap. He reached in his pocket to decline the call. Can't talk now Mister Volkov. I'm too busy doing your bidding, for my profit and pleasure, he thought. Walker listened for a moment, he confirmed the sounds of the driver as he got into the supply truck and closed the door. For a minute the two young men commiserated together about life in general, then the truck drove away. Oliver drove inside the dock, parked the forklift and closed the big roll down doors with Walker on the inside.
Walker picked his head up when the lights went off and the door closed as Oliver headed into the hallway, probably on his way home.
He walked to one of the shelves near the oxygen bottle rack, and carefully placed one of his cell phone detonated bombs there. He felt it would make an excellent distraction should he need it. He checked the battery on the phone, verified that it had a good signal, and left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C&B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kate was exhausted and in pain. Getting Castle's family out of the hospital to their safe house and getting herself, Castle, and Hunt moved to the new wing had worn her out. Her leg and the wound in her side throbbed. She had taken two of the non-prescription pain pills and was afraid to ask the doctor for more because he might put her back in bed. Her arrangement with the hospital had her on site with phone consultation with her family doctor for prescriptions. They made it clear she was not a hospital patient. That said, the physician assigned to Castle and Hunt, told her he had a private practice and would be happy to take care of what she needed.
She saw Castle looking at her. His concern written clearly across his face. "Kate, are you okay? Your white as a sheet, your face is all drawn and you look just plain stressed."
"I'm fine. I just need to take the load off this leg of mine and give it a chance to stop throbbing. How about a movie marathon, well, at least one movie, to take our minds off this mess?"
"Alexis brought us the Bourne Trilogy. How about that?"
"Too much like real life at the moment." She hobbled over to the DVD pile, ran her finger down the pile and added, "But if you want a thriller, how about The Hunt For Red October?"
"I love that movie. I loved the book too. Clancy has a way with the details that really give the story credibility. It was so well done I wondered if it was real."
Kate slid the selected DVD case out of the pile, she had to move quickly to keep the pile from falling on the floor and made a sharp noise when the stress on her leg shot pain all the way to her eyeballs.
"Kate. Seriously, are you okay?"
"I have to be. But between this thirty pound vest, the gun and that quick weight shift, I'm not real comfortable."
"Trying for the understatement of the century?"
She smiled at his coping humor and said, "Millennium."
She moved with care to the small TV that had a built in DVD player and started it. She wanted nothing more than to climb into his bed and melt into him, but that wasn't happening any time soon.
"How about you take that vest off? Shaw has SWAT, a couple of the HRT guys and four or five federal marshals on protection detail, not counting the uniforms Gates has assigned to the first floor. I'm not wearing a vest."
"That's true, but we have that extra one of yours on the floor that I can put over you if I have to."
"Kate, we both know that's more feel good than protection. Take that thing off and get comfortable. Having it rub on you can't be helping the wound in your side heal."
"It rubbed the bandage against the wound and pulled the scab off it so it keeps bleeding."
He was right, if there was a disturbance She could put it back on and throw that other one over Castle. On the small screen the submarine was still leaving the channel when she shrugged off the vest, laid her gun on the bed between herself and Castle, moved the chair over and sat down. She sighed with relief when the pain in her leg decreased from agony to only painful.
She settled in the chair between Castle and the door, reached to hold his hand and said, "You're right. This feels a lot better."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C&B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Walker waited a full minute to be sure Oliver had gone, then brushed himself off, picked up his duffel and walked rapidly to the door that went down the ramp into the maintenance tunnels. This place was built over a period of three decades. It was a maze both down here and on the first floor. The journey from the women's center to the cafeteria caused visitors to get lost all the time. These tunnels were even worse. They traversed everywhere under the complex. The cool thing was that the freight elevators in each major wing came down here. Well, it wasn't the elevator that was cool, it was the fact that there was a ladder up the shafts with a personnel door on each level. He had no idea why, but that was the case. None of the security folks seemed to think about it. They never talked about it. It attracted less attention than landing Spetsnaz on the roof with a Mil-17 helicopter. This hospital didn't have a helipad on the roof. It was in the parking lot. A chopper would probably collapse the roof.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the map he'd scratched together during his off duty time. He followed it past the wing that was to be remodeled to the freight elevator shaft that would let him go up one floor to the stair well. To save energy, the lights in the stairwell were on motion sensors. He knew where to turn off the power to the lights in the basement tunnel before he climbed up into the stairwell. Nobody would think it strange that the stairwell was dark. The chance of him being surprised by someone coming into the stairwell and discovering him, was low. If they did come in and the lights didn't work, they'd just shake their heads and mutter about how they were broken, again. The stairs had apparently been installed to meet the requirement for two ways out of each wing in an emergency. They were on the wrong end of the wing. The elevators and front stairwells were much easier to access. The idiots had built the perfect assault infiltration route into the building.
He was just about to climb the ladder up to enter the stairwell when his phone vibrated again. "Volkov, this isn't a good time, I'm inside the hospital making my approach." He hissed angrily into the phone.
"What is the matter with you? You have put the whole mission at risk."
"What? I'm inside undetected."
"You aren't undetected outside. You have the whole NYPD, FBI, and a special serial killer task force from the FBI after you. They found that girl you killed last night and from the news reports, the FBI has determined they have an active serial killer. That was your third victim in the area. You couldn't wait until after you had completed the mission to take your pleasure?"
"They'll never find me. I didn't-"
"You idiot, you left a print on the glass in the bar. They have a match, through Interpol, to a print from a similar crime in France. You were hired to kill Castle, Beckett and Hunt. Not to use them for your sick pleasure. You have put the mission, and me, at risk. At this point, you either succeed by sunrise, or I'll hire a girl to kill you just like you killed the one last night. You understand me? At this point, you are the walking dead. If Beckett, Castle or Hunt are still breathing at sunrise, I will have you hunted down and killed."
Walker felt a surge of fear, not for being caught, but that Volkov would kill him even if he succeeded. At that moment he decided he'd surrender after he had the pleasure of killing them. The Americans were such misguided fools, they'd take the death penalty off the table in return for information on Volkov leaving him the rest of his life to relive his pleasures in his head. You're the dead man Volkov, not me! He thought to himself. It was at that moment he noticed that there was no delay in this conversation. Volkov was here! In the US.
"How do you know that? How could you possibly know that?" He asked his boss.
"It's on the news you fool."
Walker decided not to let Volkov know he knew where he was. So instead, he said, "You have nothing to worry about. I have a plan to take them all out."
He waited for a reply then looked at his phone and saw the call had been ended. He shook his head and headed up the stairs. A floor later the bounce had returned to his step and he reassured himself about his chances for success. He was, after all, invincible.
He paused at the door into the hallway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C&B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FBI Agent Jordan Shaw found the Federal Marshal in charge of their guard force on the premises. "Marshal Douglas, did the frequency cross reference make it possible for you to communicate with the NYPD and FBI?"
"It worked for you and I on the command channel, but the NYPD doesn't have that frequency or any of the others. I gave one of our sets to Sargeant Waller who's in charge of their security detail. Because of that, I decided that all the people on the floor would be Federal Marshals. I have one in the tunnels under the buildings. He has one of the hospital security guys with him that has a map of the tunnels. My guy said those tunnels are a maze. They have loops in them so there is more than one way to get from A to B."
"Is access limited?"
"The main entrance is through the loading dock down a ramp. They apparently decided they might want to be able to take a cart down that ramp with materials on it. But they didn't make that original access big enough for a forklift. There are other parts that are. From the cell phone pictures I have it would be a death trap in a fire fight. There is no place to hide."
"Are there any other entrances or exits?"
"None from outside."
"From inside?"
"Yes, all the stairwells next to the service elevators for the various patient wings have a door on the first floor that one can open and descend into the tunnels down a ladder."
"You're telling me we are vulnerable to assault through those tunnels in the old wing where we moved Becket and Castle?"
"Yes. That's why I put a man down there with someone that knows the tunnel system a couple of minutes ago."
"The way you describe the tunnels it would be easy to evade your patrol. They are probably bored and talking to each other. If there are alternate routes … I think I need to check the access from the loading dock."
"My guy was there not too long ago. They had only one truck expected. It ran late. I made sure the hospital had one of their security guys there. It was supposed to arrive not long after we checked and it did. I checked with the area supervisor. He said there was no incident or unusual activity, it was the normal driver. The forklift operator has been here for three years. The hospital security guy didn't report anything out of the ordinary."
Shaw was uneasy about the tunnels as a vulnerability but couldn't find fault with the precautions Marshal Douglas had taken, so she said, "Okay. It sounds like you have it covered."
I'm honored and shocked at the reception this story has gotten! Thank you to my helpers, betas and fight scene coordinator because without you guys my ADHD mind would drive all you readers away! They rock! Thanks again for reading :) Follow me on Twitter glo1196 - Tumblr: MyCastleObsession and on Pintrest glo11962 where I have a Castle board!