Ghost Target by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910859711
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2019-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

St Luke’s Medical Center Denver

Jack Taylor made his way along the corridor at a slow, casual pace, doing his best not to look uncomfortable at the smell of antiseptic, the whitewashed walls and the doctors in medical scrubs doing the rounds of the wards.

Hospitals had never sat well with him, even as a kid, and that feeling had only intensified during his career in the military. Too many of his buddies had ended up in places like this – proud and dedicated soldiers reduced to broken, burned, mutilated shells of men.

Most of the time it had been nothing more than bad luck. Maybe they’d tried to walk across the wrong field, driven down the wrong road, made a wrong turn. He’d visited each of them after it happened, offered reassurance and even shared a few jokes with one or two, but he’d always hated it. Hated the feeling of desperation, the despair, the loneliness that seemed to linger around such places.

Pushing past these thoughts, he followed the corridor as it took a right turn, keeping his eye on the door numbers. He’d been sent here by an old friend, to find her father and escort him to safety. He’d promised Samantha that if the need ever arose, he would be there for her, and he had no intention of breaking that promise.

He knew all too well what she’d sacrificed, what she’d given up to protect the other members of her group, including him, after their foolish adventure in Iraq. A plan that should have made them all rich, but instead landed her a 15-year prison term.

Finding Room 6C at last, Taylor paused for a moment outside the door to straighten his jacket and check his shirt for creases. He was wearing casual clothes, but old habits die hard, and he wanted to make a good impression on Pete McKnight.

There was no reply to his polite knock. Perhaps the old man was dozing. She’d warned Taylor that he was sick and likely weak from his treatment. He knocked again, a little harder this time to give the man fair warning, then pushed it open.

But there was no sign of Pete McKnight, either in the bed or on the seats over by the window. Not only was he missing, but there was no trace of his presence. No clothes, no personal effects on the bedside table, no books or magazines.

‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.

Leaving the room, he hurried back around to the nurse’s station and approached the duty nurse, a middle-aged black woman who looked like she was at the tail end of a long shift. A stack of folders were piled up on the desk in front of her.

‘Excuse me. I’m looking for the patient in Room 6C. Has he been moved to another ward?’

She glanced up from her work, regarding him dubiously. ‘You his next of kin?’

‘Family friend,’ Taylor explained, seeing no point in lying to her. ‘His daughter’s on active duty overseas. She asked me to swing by, check in on him.

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