The Last Refuge (Cody's War 5) by Stephen Mertz

Author:Stephen Mertz [Mertz, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781641198899
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2019-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

20

It was a risk taking the taxi north from the Potomac to Navy Med. But she had to see for herself. The cab driver she’d hailed had already said no to going to the area around the explosions and fire. It wasn’t until she’d promised him a fifty-dollar tip that he’d relented. Even though, as they made their way across town against the flow of traffic, the driver had complained noisily that he was going to get stuck in the streaming away from the hospital. “Look lady. Keep your fifty dollars. I’m gonna lose that just crawling back nose to tail. You’d better get out here. Just pay me what’s on the meter.”

How Sara wished she could flash her ID, tell the driver it was a matter of national security and that she was commandeering his filthy cab, that smelled of old onions and fresh sweaty feet, to drive her to Navy Med. But as she was trying not to be found until she was ready to be found, that wouldn’t be the most prudent of actions. She briefly toyed with hijacking the cab—she still had her Glock after all—but then decided against it. The cab driver was just trying to make his living, and did she really need to go to the hospital to see it for herself?

Sara couldn’t answer that question right now. So, she got out of the cab and she walked the last two miles towards the burning building that was lighting up the skyline ahead.

When she got there, a sizeable crowd was gathered across the highway. She stood as near as the police and fire department would allow and felt her heart sinking by the yard.

The whole top story of the hospital was an all-consuming conflagration. The sky was lit up carnival orange, and the sound of the crackling fire, and exploding glass, cut across the night in an evil whisper. She couldn’t even guess at the numbers of people who might have died or been injured by the blast. From her memory of the internal geography of the place, the ICU where the woman from the Subaru had been in her induced coma would now be so much burning wreckage and blackened rubble. Hoses were being trained on the flames from a near dozen directions and the Washington fire department did their best to save what they could of the rest of the hospital. Men and women, some doctors and nurses, some in uniform, others in their pajamas and nightgowns were streaming along the road, herded by police officers. Some looked completely untouched by the disaster, others were bleeding from cuts to their bodies and limbs. Some had faces dulled by soot and/or powdered by concrete dust. Others were being pushed in wheelchairs, some on gurneys, and others were simply being carried as the hospital was evacuated.

The people watching the hospital burn were mostly quiet, their eyes bright and shining, reflecting the light of the flames. They were being kept back behind a line by cops who looked just as bewildered and shocked as the members of the public around Sara.

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