Clevenger - 02 - Projection by Keith Ablow

Author:Keith Ablow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9780749905026
Published: 1998-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

* * *

Zweig began herding patients toward the Day Room. Vernon escorted me there. Some of the patients knelt and began chanting, others paced, still others milled aimlessly about. A few, including the former socialite, Cecelia Gladstone, wept uncontrollably. Carla Vawn was still bound into her seat at the nursing station, breathing but seemingly unconscious.

Kaminsky marched three women and a man into the room. The four of them wore only hospital gowns. Their identification badges were clipped to the skin at their throats. I knew that one of the social workers taken hostage on the unit was a man. I assumed that was him. The women, I reasoned, were the dietician and the two nurses who worked with Vawn.

Kaminsky directed everyone to from a single line facing the windows, stretching across the room. The last of a winter sunset cast its orange glow over them.

Lucas was nowhere to be found.

I heard the helicopter engine start. The blades began to whir. Patterson’s voice blasted through the PA system again. “This is Lieutenant Patterson of the Massachusetts State Police. I am instructing everyone in the locked unit to lie on the floor, face down, hands crossed behind your backs.”

The patients began chanting in unison. Zweig and Kaminsky joined the line.

I turned to Vernon. “We only have about thirty seconds. Everyone needs to get down on the floor. The police are going to fire through the windows at anyone left standing.”

He squinted at me doubtfully. “Dr. Lucas gives the orders.”

I grabbed each of his forearms. “You don’t need orders from anyone to do the right thing. You know no one’s going to be saved by getting cut up by Dr. Lucas or cut down by machine guns.”

He didn’t move.

I heard the chopper take off. I knew that SWAT teams were poised to invade the building just after the waves of bullets. I left Vernon where he stood and walked over to the row of patients and hostages. I tried desperately to pull them down, one by one, sometimes falling with them. None of them resisted me, but the patients stood back up as soon as I moved on to the next person. I could tell from the movements of their lips that they were still chanting despite the thunder of the assault helicopter rising toward us. Zweig was next in line. I tried to drag him down but he slashed my arms with his knife and threw me to the ground. I grabbed his pant leg and tripped him up. He fell to one knee, dropping the knife. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gabriel Vernon had begun frantically sweeping people off their feet. He tackled half a dozen or more of them before the sun disappeared and the assault helicopter filled the wall of windows. I heard the first bullets crash through the panes of glass. If I had been thinking I would have stayed on the floor and buried my head in my hands, but I stopped thinking and started feeling the full horror of the state annihilating patients — even these patients.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.