Joe Killian eased into the quiet exam room and sat down next to a dozing Michelle Qwan. On the bed before them, Melissa Martin stirred restlessly.
Qwan woke up and looked at Killian. "You let me fall asleep."
"You needed it," Killian replied.
Qwan looked at her watch. It was 2:31 am. "Our backup is late."
"Just talked to the bosslady," Killian said. "They should be here any minute." He opened a plastic sack. "Here, thought you could use these."
He gave her a pair of clear plastic, blue-ice packs. The kind that got cold when you shook them up. Qwan pulled back the sleeves of her sweater to reveal her black and blue forearms. Still bruised from deflecting blows at Hermes Air Freight.
"Thank you." They felt like heaven as the cold packs were wrapped about her forearms. With perfect timing her cellphone trilled.
"I got it." Killian reached into Qwan's purse and palmed her Nokia, placing it to his ear. "Hello? Yeah, she's here."
Killian put the phone to Qwan's ear.
"Hello?" She grinned. "No it's not to late to call. How are you, darling?" She paused. "Well that's good." Pause. "No, New York is actually pretty boring. I am getting some sightseeing in though." She looked at Killian and rolled her eyes. "So how'd you do on that Criminal Procedures test?" Pause. "No, I am not going to bitch about an A minus! I know you did your best and that's what counts." A chuckle and a long pause. "Okay, I'll talk to you later! I love you! Bye!"
Killian placed the phone back into her purse.
"That was my daughter Danielle," Qwan explained.
"She in school?"
"Kinda. She graduated UBC not too long ago, now she's in her sixth week of training at the RCMP Academy in Regina, BC."
"Well!" Killian grinned. "I bet you're proud."
"Proud as I can be," Qwan said. "Pull my wallet out of my purse and open it up." Killian did so. "That's a picture of her."
Killian saw a pic of a tall, gorgeous girl of twenty or so, with long, curly hair, dark skin combining with Asian features and a wide grin. She was in a park on a spring day with a soccer ball, wearing shorts, a tee and sneakers.
"She's a beauty," Killian said. "You had her young."
"She's adopted," Qwan explained. "I met her when she was 16. A triad gang girl trying to steal the shotgun out of my cruiser in Vancouver's Chinatown."
"What happened then?"
"I just... gave her a chance." Qwan smiled. "She's... very bright. All she really needed was someone anyone to give her a chance."
Killian studied her. "But you were the one who gave her that chance. You also gave her a home. Put her through college, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"And then she chose to follow your footsteps and join the mounties," Killian said. "Sounds like you did a helluva lot more than just give her a chance."
Qwan looked at Killian. "And what about you?"
"No kids. One ex-wife in North Dakota who counts the moments to her next alimony check."
"Nobody special in your life?"
"If I tell you," Killian said, "you'll laugh."
"Try me."
"The other night when I met Sue Kaminsky for the first time, I was really attracted to her," Killian said. "And I think the feeling was mutual."
"Mmmmm... and then all hell broke loose," Qwan said.
"Now she's a murder suspect for a crime I know she didn't commit."
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think she's guilty either."
"That doesn't do her any good if she's already dead," Killian replied.
Melissa Martin groaned and shifted in her bed. She opened her eyes to find Qwan and Killian beside her bed.
"Hello," she said.
"Welcome back," Qwan said. "Do remember who we are?"
"Not really."
"Special Agent Joe Killian, FBI," he said, flipping his credentials at her.
"Detective Chief Inspector Michelle Qwan, RCMP." She showed Melissa her rather ornate gold shield. "Currently on assignment with Interpol."
Melissa nodded. "And you're the ones who rescued me from Valerie Corder?"
"Yes," Qwan said.
"We're all dead, you know," Melissa said in a toneless voice.
"What makes you say that?" Killian asked.
"Because I know her. I know how she operates. I know where her head is at. She's got power and influence and anything she desires will come to her." Melissa leaned her head back into her pillow and closed her blue eyes. "And I have no doubt that right now she desires all of us to die."
"Listen to me," Killian said. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Nobody's going to kill you. We'll protect you. We'll keep you safe."
Melissa swallowed, then nodded. "Okay."
Qwan leaned forward. "So, do you want to tell us more about Valerie Corder... and where you've been for the last five years?"
"Yes." Melissa Martin nodded. "Yes I do."
"Here, I borrowed this off a doctor just in case," Killian said, handing Qwan a small Sony pocket recorder. "While you're taking her statement, I'll be out watching the hallway."
"And give Blackbyrd another call," Qwan said. She'd be feeling a lot better if some more Feds showed up.
"Roger that." Killian strolled out of the exam room, leaving Qwan and Melissa together.
Qwan turned on the recorder.
***
"Your name?"
"Melissa Martin."
"Tell me about yourself."
"Not much to tell. Born and raised in Annadale-on-Hudson, which is way up in Duchess County, New York. My father is an economics professor at Bard College. My mother's a doctor, a MD. No sisters or brothers."
"You went to college at Bryn Mawr."
"Yeah. That's where I was recruited into the CIA."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. A Ms. Madelaine Bancroft came to see me a week before graduation. She was late forties, quite striking. Very... magnetic, personality. She fed me a line about taking a few years off to protect God and Country and I bought it all. Hook, line and sinker."
"And... what happened after that?"
"I was trained at Quantico and Langley for 12 whirlwind weeks. Then I got my first assignment. Infiltrate the Corder Corporation in Bridgeport and make contact with a mole who worked there. I was then supposed to sneak out with this computer disk full of top secret info."
"I take it things didn't go as planned."
"My control officer was killed. My partner, Sophia Chandler was captured. And then I was captured."
"Go on."
"I expected... to be killed. Or tortured and then killed. But I never dreamed could never even imagine in my wildest nightmares... what Valerie Corder did to me."
"What was that?"
"She... enslaved me. Bound me. Kept me raw and suffering. For hours that turned to days that became weeks then months and finally years."
"Were there others like you?"
"God yes. There are... God knows how many women suffering under Valerie Corder's heel. Twenty... thirty... maybe hundreds."
"What happened to your partner?"
"They kept the two of us together until we both gave up the name of the mole. I didn't want to... but the torture was horrible. And after I gave them her name, the feeling of betrayal was worse than any torture."
"Who was the mole?"
"Dr. Veronica Evison. She also had a younger sister named Chloe. I don't know what happened to either of them."
"Did you ever meet any of the other women Corder had taken?"
"All I ever saw were shaved heads, strapped cunts and wide, staring eyes."
"How about Corder's accomplices?"
"Yes. I remember a woman named Debbie Watson, she was like Corder's personal assistant. Then there was her security chief Linda Hansen. And also a couple of hulking goons called Monkey... a man. And Mo, a woman... allegedly. All of them assisted Corder with my daily torture."
"You're saying the torture continued even after you told them what they wanted to know?"
"It never let up. It became my life and my existence. When I finally broke... Valerie Corder tossed me away like a used tissue. Sent me to a place she keeps women who are to be sold overseas."
"Where was this?"
"No idea. It's called The Farm. It's an old, underground missle silo complex. There where maybe a dozen or so slavecunts thats what they called us and maybe a half dozen monitors stayed. At least it was better than life with Corder. At The Farm you were only punished for doing wrong. With Corder you were punished for existing."
"If you were at this Farm, why were being shipped to New York? Were you being sold?"
"No. I was being prepped for sale overseas, when I heard that Valerie Corder wanted me back."
"Why did she want you back?"
"Hell if I know. Maybe... she missed me."
***
Joe Killian sat at the Triage Nurse's station in the ER. It gave him a good view of the waiting room currently holding about twenty waiting relatives and suffering people the hallways to the left and right and finally the entrance that led to the ambulance bay.
Everything was normal. The triage nurse was flushing a patient's IV with saline solution. A man in the waiting room was pounding on the Coke machine. And a paramedic was making time with a pretty latina nurse while his rig idled outside.
That's when five men brust through the ambulance bay doors. All were well dressed in almost matching black suits, ties and polished shoes. One man was in the lead with the others trailing behind him in a flying wedge formation.
They sure looked like Feds. They even had earbuds and wiremikes leading to comm units on their belts.
Without even thinking twice, Joe Killian keyed the intercom for Exam Room 4 and spoke into it. "Qwan, this is Killian. Get the hell outta there right now."
He then drew his Sig/Sauer .45 with his right hand and flipped open his credentials with his left. "Federal Agent!" He shouted at them. "State your business!"
The group of Men in Black stopped before the nurse's station. The leader nodded at him. "Special Agent Joseph Killian, I presume?"
"Yes?"
The man flipped out his own credentials that looked to be in order. "Special Agent LLoyd Dunbar, BATF. Assistant Director in Charge Blackbyrd requested that we back you up in the protection of a Federal material witness."
Killian lowered his pistol. "Okay." He looked at the parade of unfamilar faces. "I thought I knew everybody over at BATF. What office do you guys work out of?"
"Newark. That's what took us so long to get over here," Dunbar said. "So where's this witness?"
"Newark, huh?" Killian said. "Then you know the ASAC, Bill Clementine."
Dunbar smirked. "A little test, Agent Killian? Okay, I'll play. There's nobody at the Newark office named Bill Clementine and the ASAC there is Jim Clark. Satisfied?"
"Waitasec..." Killian frowned. "I talked to Clark today... He just cleaned out his office for his replacement... Bill Clementine."
Instantly, three of the Men in Black pulled large, Desert Eagle .44 magnum pistols and aimed them at Killian. They didn't fire because Killian had simultaniously brought up his own pistol and had it pointed at Dunbar's head.
There where a few screams as everybody else in the ER ducked behind desks, gurneys and chairs or just cowered in the corners. One of the Men in Black covered the exit while another swung his pistol over the cowering people.
"You idiots," Dunbar hissed at his men. "He was just fucking with us! I had the situation in hand!"
"Just tell your people to drop their weapons," Killian said. "Or I'll blow your fuckin' head off."
"Do that and you die an instant later," Dunbar said. "And then my men will be forced to kill everyone here... you want that on your head, Agent Killian?"
Killian sighed and lowered his pistol.
"So who are you assholes?" Killian asked as he was relieved of his weapon.
"I'll give you a clue, junior G-man," Dunbar said. "This is for my buddy Spurlock."
He then kicked Killian right in the balls. As Killian doubled over, another 'agent' cracked him on the back of the skull with the butt of his pistol. Hard. Killian hit the floor in a dead heap.
Another 'agent' aimed his pistol at Killian's head and was squeezing the slack out of the trigger when Dunbar stopped him.
"No noise until we get Martin and Qwan," He nodded at two of his associates. "You and you stay here, make sure nobody leaves."
Two stayed, while Dunbar and two others walked through the ER, making a beeline for Exam Room 4. Nurses, doctors and patients were all cowering against the walls as the men swept the area with their big black handcannons swinging about.
Dunbar kicked open the door to Exam Room 4 and saw it was empty.
"Damn." He keyed his comm unit and spoke into his wiremike. "This is leaderman, all units be on the lookout for Qwan and the Martin woman... kill'em on sight."
***
Joe Killian blinked. He found himself staring at a white tile floor while his head throbbed unmerciably and his groin felt like broken glass.
But he was awake. And right now he knew that Michelle Qwan and Melissa Martin needed him. So he gritted his teeth and silently rose up to his hands and knees. The floor was shifting like a ship at sea, so he just hung on and tried not to throw up.
He was still behind the Triage Nurse's station where he had fallen. He could hear someone arguing with one of the gunmen about a patient.
Killian got to his feet but stayed crouched down. An angry doctor was trying to convince the Man in Black who had cracked him over the head to let him get to a crash cart parked by the nurse's station so that he could defibrillate a man who'd had a heart attack in the waiting room.
The Man in Black was keeping his eyes on the scores of frightened people hunkered down in the waiting room. Another MiB was by the ambulance bay, intercepting any new patients as they came through the doors.
Killian looked across the corridor at the crash cart that held a standard Lifepak Series 20 Auto External Defibrillator and Coronary Monitor.
"Com'n, man!" the doctor shouted. "Lemme get to those paddles! I can still save this man's life!"
"Just shut the fuck up!" the MiB shouted back. The big .44 pistol was aimed right at the doctor's face.
Killian snuck across the corridor and flipped the switch to activate the defibrillator, also cranking up the amps to 1200 megajewels. He grabbed the corded hand paddles in his fists and came up to the Man in Black from behind.
The defibrillator hummed and then cut loose with a electronic wail as the ampage was reached. The gunman turned at the sound just as Killian slammed both paddles into the man's chest and thumbed the release buttons on the paddle grips.
There was loud WHUMP!!! as the electric current hit the gunman and he convulsed. The shock blew him out of his shoes and flung him across the wide corridor where he landed hard into a wall with his shirt and jacket on fire.
Killian barely had time to snatch up the gunman's Desert Eagle .44 magnum when his associate opened up on him from the entrance way, causing him to duck back down behind the nurse's station as people screamed again and ran this way and that.
Killian stayed bellydown on the floor as fist-sized holes were blown into the nurse's station and cannon-like reports echoed throughout the ER. Shot after shot was fired.
Okay, brightboy, Killian thought frantically. He's emptying his goddamn piece at you! A Desert Eagle .44 Mag has a seven round clip with one round chambered... Do the math!
Killian waited for the seventh, then eighth cannonblast before he rolled out from behind the nurse's station and caught the gunman out in the open trying to force a loaded clip into his pistol.
He aimed and fired. The big .44 had more recoil than he was used to, bucking in his hands and going off like a thunderclap. The round almost tore the gunman's right leg off at the hip. He was flipped into the air and hit the floor screaming.
First things first. Killian pulled out his cellphone and quickcalled Thad Kudlow. He didn't know how coherant he sounded as he yelled for backup, but he did get the the message across.
Doctors and nurses were now trying to save the lives of the two men who had held them at gunpoint only moments before. Killian brushed past them and relieved one of the MiB of his handie talkie with attached earbud and wiremike plus two spare ammo clips for a Desert Eagle .44.
A doctor came up to Killian, trying to get him to lie down in a gurney, telling him that he was bleeding from the head and needed to be examined. Killian shrugged him off and staggered down the corridor, looking for Qwan and Martin.
***
The Men in Black had fanned out across the maze of corridors of the hospital, searching rooms, breaking down doors and harrassing the staff and patients.
One of the MiB spotted a pretty blonde nurse wheeling somebody down a side corridor in a wheelchair. He intercepted them with his gun drawn.
"Federal agent!" he shouted. "Identify yourselves!"
The blonde nurse in pink scrubs had a doctor's mask over the lower part of her face but her eyes were wide and blue. The woman in the wheelchair was Asian, wrapped in a blanket and was also masked as she coughed uncontrollably.
"Oh, thank God you're here!" the nurse shouted. "I've got a full blown SARS case that just got off a plane from Beijing! Can you help me get her to the Quarantine Ward?"
The patient pulled at the MiB, babbling in frantic Cantonese as she hacked and coughed at him.
"Get outta here! Keep moving!" The MiB shoved past them and continued down the corridor. He kept checking rooms, even a utility room that among other things held folded up wheelchairs and spare hospital scrubs.
The Man in Black finally put 2 + 2 together and radioed what he knew to the leaderman as he ran back the way he had come.
***
Melissa Martin took a corner too fast and almost dumped Michelle Qwan out of her wheelchair. They were in another narrow side-corridor that led directly to the hospital's main entrance.
Melissa skidded to a halt as three Men in Black showed up about twenty feet in front of them. She looked behind and saw the MiB they had fooled a moment ago was coming up fast from the rear.
"Okay, kemosabe, what now?" Melissa hissed into Qwan's ear.
"Full speed ahead," Qwan replied. "Ram 'em. Hit the deck when I make my move."
The Men in Black frowned as the blonde nurse started to run down the narrow corridor as fast as she could, as if she was going to knock them aside like ten-pins with the wheelchair.
They raised their pistols to fire as Michelle Qwan leaped out of the wheelchair and into the air. The now empty wheelchair crashed into the lead MiB, spoiling his aim and causing him to tumble over the wheelchair.
Qwan seemed for a long moment to be suspended in the air as she arched her body into a crane-like defensive stance and descended wraith-like on the three men.
Her right leg struck out in a powerful kick, her boot driving the head of the first MiB through the corridor wall. Her left leg arched forward in a straight kick that caught the second one right in the face, smashing his nose, breaking his jaw and sending him head over heels down the corridor.
The third MiB was still struggling to his feet, trying to bring his gun to bear on Qwan. She landed gracefully and spiralled about, snatching up his gun hand and kicking him right in the throat. She then swung him about so that the gun in his hand was facing the last MiB coming at them from behind. She jabbed her thumb deep into a pressure point at his elbow.
The Desert Eagle .44 in his hand went off as his index finger convulsed on the trigger, taking out his associate with two rounds to the chest. The cannonblasts were sill echoing in the corridor when Qwan finished him off with a spinkick to the back of the skull that bounced him off a wall and finally dropped him to the floor.
"Wow." Melissa Martin was still on the floor looking at Qwan with awe.
"Com'n." Qwan helped Melissa to her feet. "We're not out of here yet."
Qwan snatched up two of the Desert Eagle .44s and tossed one underhand to Melissa. "Know how to use one of these badboys?"
Melissa caught it and eased the slide back to make sure she had a round chambered. "Sure thing."
Qwan patted down one of comatose badguys for a couple of spare ammo clips and started down the corridor again. They finally came to an intersection just shy of the main hospital lobby. There were couches and chairs, an information kiosk and several closed gift shops and eateries.
"I'll go first, cover me," Qwan whispered. She started across the open space and got halfway across before two more Men in Black opened up on her with their signature handcannons.
Melissa returned fire, allowing Qwan to make it to the information kiosk and forcing the MiB to take cover. One hid behind a wide pillar, the another ducked down a side corridor.
Melissa Martin simply aimed for the pillar and put three rounds through it. The MiB hiding behind it dropped to the floor dead. Number 2 fired at her again. She aimed at the wall corner and drove a pair of fist-sized holes through the plaster, driving the badguy out into the the open. She shot him once more, taking his head off at the shoulders.
Qwan let a few seconds go by before easing herself up. Her ears were ringing like mad, but there were no more gunshots. She saw the bodies of the two hostiles and smiled. But where the hell was Melissa Martin?
"Melissa?" she called. Qwan hopped the kiosk and looked down the intersection. Melissa Martin had dropped her now empty pistol and was running for the hospital's main doors. "Melissa, wait!!!"
But Melissa Martin wasn't waiting for anybody. She kept running and had almost made it to the doors when they opened up before her, revealing Lloyd Dunbar, the so-called 'leaderman' of the Men in Black aiming his big black pistol right at her face.
Exhausted and nearly in shock, she tried to take a breath and turn back, but only managed to skid on the polished floor and fall on her ass before him.
"Goodbye, Ms. Martin," he said. An instant later a shot struck him square in the chest, kicking him back through the plate glass doors.
Melissa turned and saw Joe Killian was up on the Mezzanine level by the escalators, still holding the pistol in both hands.
"Melissa!" Qwan called, still running towards her.
Melissa scrambled to her feet, hurried through the broken door kneeling over the dead badguy to go through his pockets and to grab his pistol to make it out on to the street.
Qwan made it out there only a few beats later to find the usual collection of smokers some in wheelchairs one finds around the entrance to any hospital.
"Police officer!" she shouted. "Anybody see a nurse in pink scrubs just leave?"
"A-yuh." A man on a portable ventilator who was also smoking an unfiltered Chesterfield replied. "She just left in a taxi. What's all the hulabaloo in there anyway, missy?"
Qwan looked at the empty hack stand and looked both ways down Jamaica Avenue. Nothing. Shit shit shit!!!
Qwan went back inside the lobby and spotted Killian taking the elevator down to her level. He didn't look good at all.
"Partner!" Qwan called as she rushed to his side. "You okay?"
He lurched into her. "Wherezzz... Maaartin?"
"She took a hike." Qwan noticed the blood matting the back of his head. "Christ, we gotta get you to a doctor!"
"I'm hoooookay..." He collapsed into Qwan's arms, and she eased him to the floor.
Michelle Qwan stood over him with gun drawn, screaming for a doctor. Finally a pair of paramedics with a gurney came rushing to them. They loaded Killian up and took him back to the ER, with Qwan watching their backs.
***
"Where to, lady?" the cabbie asked.
"Huh?" Melissa Martin blinked.
The cabbie sighed, looking in the rearview mirror at the pretty blonde nurse sitting in the back of his cab. "When ya got in, ya said, 'Drive.' So I drove. Now where ya wanna end up?"
"Good question." She looked at the battered wallet she had pulled out of the pocket of the dead badguy Killian had shot. It had some ID and around seven hundred bucks in cash.
"Well?"
"Manhattan. Times Square."
"You got it."
She leaned back in the seat and tried to enjoy the ride. After all that time in bondage, slavery and mind-numbing servitude, telling the cabbie where to take her had been the first decision she'd made for herself in five years.
Damn, it felt good.