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June 25th, 2001
I woke up on my back, groggier than usual. It was dark. The bed didn't seem quite right, but I was too tired to move. Then I realized that I wasn't in my own bed. A woman came in, dressed in white, and leaned over me. Part of me wondered who the hell she was as she wrapped something around my arm. It got tighter and tighter. I was about to ask her who she was and what she was doing, but then I drifted away.
"Good morning," Diane said as she leaned over me, smiling. She ran her fingers through my hair and pushed it aside. Sunlight flowed in through the window.
I was feeling much better, more alert, more awake. "Whajsgoenon? Wherearewefercringoutlud?" I tried to sit up, but realized that my left shoulder was wrapped up in something and I couldn't sit up on that side.
"Don't try to move too much," Diane said. "You're fine. Do you want a sip of water?"
She reached over and picked up one of those plastic glasses full of ice and a straw that bends. The kind they have in the ... oh shit. "I seem to be in a hospital."
"Yes, I would agree with that observation. Do you know what day it is?"
"Haven't a clue."
"How about the month?"
"March, I think. No. April."
"It's Tuesday, April twelfth. Do you remember what happened yesterday?"
I blinked and rolled my eyes. I vaguely remembered us in the Range Rover, on our way to San Francisco. But after that, I drew a blank. I shook my head. Uhnnhn..."
Diane picked up the glass and put the straw to my lips. The water was cold and felt good as I swallowed. It made my stomach gurgle a little, and I realized I was getting hungry. As I sipped, Manuel walked in and sat down on the other side of the bed. "Hey, boss. What's happenin'?"
"I seem to have survived," I said, smiling.
"Oh, man. You did more than survive. You kicked some serious ass, my friend."
I took a deep breath. "Now what?"
"Lemme tell you," he looked towards Diane, and she shook her head indicating that I didn't remember a thing. "On Sunday, you talked to our old friend, Colonel Robertson in Washington. You got him to trace the Yahoo e-mail. Later he called back and gave you a name. It turned out to be Vasilly. Remember him? We ran across him a few years ago."
"Vasilly Tupov. Yep. The slimiest scum ball on the face of the planet."
"Right. So after McGovern told us to keep our noses out of this, you decided that you hosed up, let Mandy get killed, and gathered us up on a mission to pay a visit to Vasilly. Anyway, the three of us found him in San Francisco in a so-so office building near the pier and leaned on him pretty hard."
"I hope I broke something."
"Hell, you broke his arm with the butt of your gun the second you walked into his office. Eventually, he told us who paid him to send the e-mail to doctor Pattersen. It was an hombre named Kurt O'Meara. Out of Seattle. Never heard of him. I'm checking on the name. Anyway, after I pinned him down and you put a little pressure on his broken arm, he screamed a lot, but he never did admit to killing Mandy. I don't think Vasilly would get involved in that business anyway. He's got too many nifty rackets working for him."
"That's when the fun started," Diane said.
"Yeah," Manuel laughed. "We thought we were pretty hot stuff until we left his office and five guys in suits jumped us."
"Only five?"
"Only five, "Diane continued. "Looked like Government. All very big and in suits. Two were black, bald. Had biceps the size of my thigh. So the first Fed moved quickly towards me and tried to put his arms around me. I kicked him in the knee, and as he doubled over, I put my elbow into his teeth."
"You should have see it!" Manuel laughed. "She's fast. Meanwhile, two of them jumped me and the other two moved towards you. I got below number two as he charged me, lifted him up, and put him over the banister."
"Say what?"
"You don't remember? The offices in that building open up to a center section, surrounded by a banister, that goes all the way up to a skylight. Anyway, he went down three stories and landed in a small fountain."
"Did you make a wish?" I asked grinning.
"No time for that. Had my hands full with number three. He was pretty good."
Diane jumped in. "After I kicked number one in the face, I turned and saw you deck number four ... blocked his right and delivered a back knuckle to his temple and a wheel kick to his face. He never got up again. Number five saw the handwriting on the wall, stepped back quickly and pulled out an automatic. I shot him just as he aimed at you and pulled the trigger. Must have deflected his shot, 'cause all you got was a nine millimeter in the shoulder. I turned to look at Manuel, and he was on the floor with number three -- he'd just snapped the guy's neck."
"Maybe not quite amateurs, but they should have known Manuel and I were Army Rangers. Sounds like three dead and two in the hospital," I said. "Nice work. Just wish I could remember it."
"The one I shot will probably live," Diane said. "Don't know about the one in the fountain."
I looked at Diane closely. Not a mark on her. Then I looked at Manuel. "You look good. Any damage?"
"No problemo, boss. Just a broken rib. They don't tape you up anymore. Keeps you from breathing. Pneumonia and all that."
"Then what?" I motioned to Diane, and she let me sip on some ice water.
"We called Bryan Whitcomb. He came over, assessed the damage, looked at their guns, took some quick fingerprints, and declared them FBI. Told us to get the hell out fast. Said he'd take care of it."
"'Twas nice of him," I said. "Always nice to have friends in the police department."
"You walked out of the building with us, smiling and laughing," Diane said, laughing lightly herself. "We brought you here. That was yesterday morning. After they put you under, they took out the bullet, and you slept for twenty-four hours."
"Yeah, and I'm never gonna get the blood stains off the back seat of the Rover,"Manuel said, grunting.
"Submit an expense report," I said and winked at Manuel. "By the way, does Robertson know anything about this?"
"No way. I called him yesterday afternoon. He didn't know anything. Said he'd check around. Now what?"
"How are the Pattersens?" I asked.
"I spent Sunday with them," Manuel offered. "They were pretty upset, working on the details of their daughter's funeral. Angry at me. Angry at everyone. And pretty shaken by the idea of someone climbing through their daughter's bedroom window at four in the morning. I hung low. Anyway. I got kicked out Sunday night when Bryan sent a blue suiter over to keep an eye on them."
A nurse came in. She was small and prim, with her brown hair in a bun. She stuck a thing in my ear. After a second, it beeped and she looked at it. Declared my temperature to be ninety-nine flat. Then she picked up a clipboard and wrote on it.
"So what's my prognosis?" I asked.
The nurse looked up at me. She had that official, no-nonsense look that nurses have. "Doctor Yao will be here on rounds soon. He'll fill you in. But you seem in good shape. Want some breakfast?"
"Yep. I'd like a Whopper. With cheese. No, make that two. And two chocolate shakes."
The nurse crinkled up her nose and looked at me like nurses do when they certainly know better. Then she turned to Diane. "He's quite funny, you know. Is he yours?"
"Off and on," Diane said and slapped my leg.
On Wednesday morning, the kind doctor Yao declared me fit to leave the hospital, so long as I went home and rested. (Yeah, right.) We stopped by the Pattersen funeral on the way back to the house and paid our respects. We noted that there was still a blue suiter standing nearby, so we introduced ourselves to him first, then approached the Pattersens. His wife was clearly edgy and irritated with our presence.
"I just wanted to convey our deepest sympathies," Diane said, breaking the ice for Manuel and me.
"I understand," Will said. "It happened very fast. No one could have expected that." His wife pushed at his side and scowled at us.
"Honey, if you hadn't talked to these awful people, Mandy would still be alive. It was their fault, and I am not happy to see them here. Please tell them to leave."
"We think you may still be in danger," I said as quietly as I could. But it came out a bit more ominous than I wanted.
"We have police protection. As my wife asked, please leave. We will no longer need your services." Will glared at me, but I could also see some desperation in his eyes. Perhaps his wife thought things were winding down, but clearly Will knew that things could well be winding up. But there was nothing to do but walk away. I held out my arm to shake Will's hand, and he responded only briefly and limply.
When we got back to the house, there were two phone calls on the answering machine. The first was from Colonel Robertson. Just asked for me to call him. Nothing else. The second was from Lieutenant Whitcomb at the SJPD. The Pattersens had gone back into the church, he reported, claiming they wanted to see the priest about something. The blue suiter waited at their car, but they never returned.
They had just disappeared into thin air.
Previous adventures of Max Hadron:
The Case of the Paperless Portfolio (Nov 12, 2000)
The Case of the GoogolPlex Smackdown (June 25, 2000)
The Case of the WWDC Murder (June 13, 2000)
Copyright 2001 by John
Martellaro, All rights reserved. Quantum Threads banner
artwork by Tracy Haynes. This is a work of fiction. All
people, places, entities, and events are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.
About the Author
John Martellaro lives in Colorado at 2,800 meters above sea level with a Ph.D. wife and two cats, Nikki and Data. He holds a B.S. in Astrophysics and an M.S. in Physics. His hobbies, include amateur astronomy, downhill skiing, bicycling, and listening to piano solos. His personal Macs are a B&W G3/400 with a flat screen Studio Display and a TiBook.
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