Talk (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  The hand with the knife stopped moving. "Alexandra?" Jessica asked weakly.

  "Yes, sweetie, it's me," the anchorwoman said soothingly, coming in and kneeling down next to her friend.

  Jessica's head suddenly started swiveling wildly from side to side as she brought the knife back up as if to protect Alexandra, too. "Watch out for Leopold. He's around here somewhere."

  "They'll find him," Alexandra said.

  Several people were running around the hall now with flashlights, searching.

  "Her hand is very badly burnt," Alexandra said over her shoulder.

  "The medics are on the way up," Will said softly, stooping down.

  Jessica's head cocked slightly. Her face was scarcely recognizable. "Will?"

  "Yes, I'm here, Jessica." He leaned forward slightly, holding his hand out. "It's me. We're here to take you home."

  Jessica dropped the knife with a clatter and brought her good hand over to make contact with his face. "I didn't let him touch me," she told Will. And then she passed out.

  23

  Two helicopters with their searchlights played over the old Buffalo Psychiatric Center and grounds, and the flashing lights of police cars, rescue vehicles, ambulances and fire trucks made the park grounds look surreal.

  Norm Kunsa came striding out the back of the central building and trotted over to the command center. "We've got Jessica on the way to the hospital," Agent Cole told him, handing him a cup of coffee. "They're still trying to stabilize the other guy before moving him."

  "What's the verdict?"

  "Not great, I'm afraid." She kicked her head toward the building. "So what do you think?"

  "I think the son of a bitch is still in there somewhere. He blew up part of the eastern stairwell, so who knows where the hell he is now."

  "Can't we get a heat reading?"

  "Yeah, like about a hundred of them since we've got a hundred people in there looking." He looked up at the towers. "Thank God she's alive."

  The radio of the police car next to them crackled. "Seventy-two. Anyone know where Alexandra Waring is? I've got a TV crew over here looking for her."

  "TV crew?" Kunsa said, turning around.

  "Waring's still inside," an officer said into the radio.

  "Oh, great," Kunsa muttered. "The perfect hostage wandering around in there. Where's Rafferty?"

  "I have no idea," Cole said. "He grabbed some of the building plans and ran off."

  "What? What plans?"

  "I'm not sure," she said, pointing to the back seat of their car. "They were from that box the historical society brought over."

  "I specifically told him not to do anything without talking to me first!" Kunsa fumed.

  "Actually, he did say something about that," Cole admitted. "But he also said there wasn't time to talk you into it."

  The dying man still lay on the floor of the parlor, his head held in a contraption resembling a vise. One arm was in a splint, cold packs were on his hand and a double intravenous bag was hanging next to him.

  Dirk appeared in the doorway and the medics looked up from their position on either side of their patient. "The police surgeon needs to talk to both of you, pronto, down the hall."

  The medics looked at each other.

  "Let's go, move it!" Dirk barked.

  They got up from their knees and moved quickly and obediently down the hall. Just as quickly,

  Dirk squatted next to the patient, pulled something out of his pocket and directed it toward the dying man.

  "I will happily blow your head off if you move," Alexandra said. She walked out of the exercise room, holding a gun aimed at Dirk with both hands.

  Dirk jerked back, instinctively trying to hide whatever it was in his hand.

  "And if she doesn't," Detective Hepplewhite added, following Alexandra with his own gun drawn, "I will."

  "What the hell are you guys doing?" Dirk asked, sounding confused.

  "On the floor, Lawson," Hepplewhite said. "Face down. Move it."

  The medics came back and stopped in the doorway, looking from Dirk to Hepplewhite to Hepplewhite's gun and the gun in Alexandra's hand.

  "On the floor," Hepplewhite repeated.

  "Oh, maybe I should just shoot him," Alexandra sighed, moving closer to Lawson. "Come on, Dirk—flinch. Do something."

  Lawson cooperated and stretched out on the floor.

  "Hands over your head," Hepplewhite said, gingerly reaching into Lawson's coat pocket. "Ah," the detective said, "a stun gun. Going to finish your friend off, were you?"

  "Well, if you can't find Alexandra, you can't find her," Cassy Cochran said, speaking into the mouthpiece of her headset in the control room of Studio A. She listened a moment. "I don't care—we've got to break this story." Pause. "We don't have anybody here, either! It's four fifty-six in the morning, so it's you or me." Pause. "Oh, brother, I knew you were going to say that. Okay, okay. Okay, I'm going!"

  She took the headset off and handed it to Kate Benedict, the acting executive producer of DBS News. "Well, here we go, gang. The unions are going to fine us up the wazoo, so let's make it good."

  "All right, Dr. Kessler," Kate Benedict said to the elderly doctor sitting at the technical board, "we're going to make it simple and go with just camera two." She looked out to the DBS News set. "What's happening with those lights?" she called into her mouthpiece.

  Moments later, the set came ablaze. "Thank you," Kate said. "Okay, camera two, how are you doing out there?" She was addressing the member of the Nerd Brigade late shift who was in position behind the camera.

  "Piece of cake," he said into his headset.

  Cassy was walking briskly across the studio.

  "Engineering," Kate said, glancing up at the monitors in the wall, "I don't see the opening yet."

  "Coming, it's coning," came the reply.

  Kate moved over to flick some switches on the audio board and then she glanced into the studio. "Camera two, tell Cassy to get that mike on."

  "Two minutes!" someone called.

  The door to the control room crashed open. "We're here!" Denny said breathlessly. "I just got the call in my office."

  "Okay, Denny, take the audio board, will you? Alicia," Kate directed, "get a headset on and get out there on the floor. You're floor manager—we've got ninety seconds."

  "What about Q-TV, do we have the monitor up?" Denny asked.

  "There's no script!" Kate said impatiently.

  Cassy was sitting in Alexandra's chair on the set and was putting the earpiece in.

  "That mike's screwed up," Denny announced, bolting from the audio board.

  "Hey," someone cried from engineering. "I've got a satellite feed coming in from Buffalo!"

  "What is it?" Kate asked.

  "It's from WBFO," came the answer. "And they've got—they've got Alexandra on a remote. Scratch that. They just have a camera on the scene."

  "Let me see it," Kate said, looking to the SAT 1 monitor. There was a flicker, snow, and then a shot of the old Buffalo Psychiatric Center.

  "Fantastic," Kate murmured.

  "One minute!" someone called.

  "One minute, Cassy," Kate said. "I've got a feed in from Buffalo, so we'll open with the bulletin, cut to you for the intro and then we'll do a voice-over of the scene, got it? Engineering, where is that opening?"

  The DBS News logo appeared on the VID l monitor.

  "Good, I've got it," Kate said. "Now what about the cart on Jessica? Do you have that?"

  The opening frame of a video about Jessica appeared on VID2.

  "Good." Kate shifted over to the audio board. "Cassy, give me a sound check."

  "Testing, testing, one, two, three, after twenty-eight years I can't believe I'm doing this," Cassy said.

  "Okay, it's working," Kate said. "Get Denny back in here. Camera two, you've got to close in a little. Yeah. That's good."

  "Fifteen seconds!"

  In the studio, Alicia gave Cassy the sign for fifteen seconds.
/>   "Okay, quiet on the set," Kate commanded. "Ready to roll video one, Dr. Kessler, and bring up the sound, Denny..."

  "Nine, eight, seven, six—“ went the countdown.

  "Roll video one and bring up the sound." When the sound didn't roll, Kate lunged over to push up a different lever than Denny had and the DBS News music and special-bulletin sound effects kicked in. Kate pointed to individual control pads. "Studio sound—satellite—commercial, okay?"

  She came back to stand facing the studio. "Give Cassy the seven, six, five, four—Take camera two, bring up sound and cue talent."

  "Good morning, I'm Cassy Cochran, here with a special news bulletin from DBS News," she said into the camera with no trace of nervousness. "DBS talk-show host Jessica Wright has been found in an abandoned mental hospital in Buffalo, New York. Jessica Wright is alive and has sustained some injuries but is expected to make a full recovery."

  "There's Alexandra!" Denny cried.

  On the SAT 1 monitor they could see Alexandra hastily pushing her hair back off her face and accepting a microphone from someone. She pointed to behind her and the camera shifted slightly, the framing getting her as well as the main part of the hospital scene in the background.

  "She doesn't have an earphone," engineering reported. "She’s flying blind."

  "She's giving the thirty-second signal," Kate said. "Cassy," she said into her headset, "we've got a feed from Alexandra coming over the satellite in twenty-five seconds."

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Cassy said over the air, "we have a special eyewitness report from Alexandra Waring, who is on the scene where Jessica Wright was found less than one hour ago. To recap, Jessica Wright has been found, she is alive, has sustained injuries, but is expected to make a full recovery. And now to Buffalo, New York."

  "Take satellite one," Kate said. "Bring up the sound."

  "This is Alexandra Waring reporting for DBS News from the old Buffalo Psychiatric Center in Buffalo, New York," the anchorwoman said, "where within the last hour kidnapped talk-show host Jessica Wright was found and rescued by the combined forces of the FBI and the police departments of New York City, Buffalo and New York State.

  "I have seen Jessica Wright with my own eyes and she is physically and mentally fine. She has sustained some burns, but she is receiving medical treatment as we speak and is expected to make a full recovery."

  Alexandra looked off camera for a moment and then back into the camera. "One kidnapper is still at large, and one kidnapper is in custody—very badly injured. He is in critical condition and is being taken to a local hospital. A third kidnapper is also under arrest here. His name is Dirk Clifford Lawson, the former head of security at the West End Broadcasting Center in New York where 'The Jessica Wright Show' is taped."

  In the studio, Cassy's mouth had dropped open.

  "With me is Agent Norman Kunsa of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has a photograph and description of the kidnapper who is still at large," Alexandra continued, stepping aside and pulling Kunsa into the frame with her.

  "Ow! Damn!" the rookie police officer said, tripping on a tree root and falling hard on his knee.

  "You all right?" Will asked, stopping to look back.

  "No offense," the cop said, getting back up and slogging onward, "but do you know where the hell you're going?"

  "I'm going to make you a hero, that's all you need to know," Will said, pausing to shine his flashlight on the folded piece of blueprint in his hands. Then he pulled another map out of his inside pocket and looked at that.

  "And what if you're wrong?" the cop said.

  "Then I'll make you a big TV star anyway," Will promised. He flashed his light ahead. "We have to go over this fence."

  The obstruction in question was a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with barbwire. "Yeah, right," the cop said. "This guy's going to crawl through hazardous waste in a chemical plant?"

  "It's not a chemical plant," Will said, bringing out a pair of clippers from his back pocket. "It's an ore transfer station. The ore comes in on the train and then goes out on the barges."

  "I don't know what century you're from," the cop said, "but in this one there's no railroad track here and this is a chemical plant."

  Will hesitated and then brought the blueprints out again to look at them. Then he looked at the other map. He showed it to the cop and pointed. "What does that look like to you?"

  "A storm runoff."

  "And on this?" he asked, showing him the blueprints.

  "A sewer crossing under a railroad track."

  "They must have converted the old system," Will said to himself. "Built a city sewer and used the old hospital sewer as a storm runoff for the park. Here," he said to the cop, "hold this stuff. We've got to get over this fence."

  "Naw, it's okay, I'll do it," the cop said, clipping his flashlight to his belt, shoving the clippers under his belt and leaping onto the fence. He scaled it quickly, clipping the strands of barbwire at the top and twisting them back out of the way. Then he went over the other side and jumped down. Will tossed his flashlight over to him and followed, albeit a little slower.

  "Okay," he said, panting slightly after jumping down, "we go straight back this way. To the water."

  "Hope a night guard doesn't shoot us," the cop whispered, looking around as they slinked their way around the massive tanks.

  Will turned, put his finger to his lips and motioned the policeman ahead. They were approaching a wooden pier. Will went around to the side of it, playing the light underneath. "Down there." The policeman scrambled down the embankment and picked his way over the rocks to go under the pier.

  Will came down to join him, shining his flashlight at the exposed end of a crumbling four-foot pipe. Inside that pipe was a modern three-foot pipe with a metal grille soldered over it. "They must have snaked the new pipe through the old one," Will said, "so they didn't have to dig it all up when they converted it."

  "Looks mighty small to me," the cop said.

  Will turned around and gestured to a wet slimy rock.

  "What?"

  "We sit and wait," Will told him.

  The cop rolled his eyes, but nodded and turned off his flashlight. He didn't sit, though, but stood, arm crossed over his chest.

  "Jessica?" a female voice called softly.

  Jessica tried to open her eyes.

  "Jessica, you're safe and amazingly well after your ordeal."

  She managed to open her eyes and a figure slowly came into focus. It was a woman in a white coat, and she was standing over Jessica.

  "That's right, you're in the hospital. You're here in Buffalo. And you're safe." There were nurses there, too, and a man in a white coat. And Wendy.

  "Hi," her bodyguard said cheerfully, waving at her from the foot of the bed.

  "What happened to you?" Jessica wanted to know.

  "Oh, nothing, I'll be fine. And so will you be."

  "Jessica," the woman in the white coat said, "I'm Dr. Margaret Stephens. I'm what they call a micro surgeon and I specialize in surgery of the hand." Jessica nodded, closing her eyes. "I did a show once—about kids. About doctors victimizing the parents of children born with hand defects."

  "Yes!" the doctor said, eyes lighting up. "I saw that. It was an excellent show. And so you know what I do."

  Jessica opened her eyes. "It's my hand?"

  The doctor nodded. "You've got some pretty bad bums. And if we do a skin graft immediately, Jessica, you have a very good chance of eventually regaining the normal use and look of your hand."

  Jessica tried to raise her hand to look at it, but it was in bandages and held in place with a strap of some kind.

  "We don't have your next of kin here," the doctor continued, "and so we need to get your permission to operate." She went on, slowly explaining the procedure, the length of the operation, and that she would need to take a small graft of skin from Jessica's thigh.

  Jessica couldn't really follow things, except that if she let this gal operate on her now,
she might only have to have one more operation later, instead of two or three.

  She tried to keep her eyes open. "I have to sign something?"

  The doctor nodded, turning to get a clipboard from the nurse. "You have to sign here."

  Jessica tried to reach for the pen with her right hand, but couldn't move it; she remembered and took the pen in her left. "You fans will say anything to get my autograph," she told the doctor.

  Dawn had broken in Buffalo and a slight drizzle was coming down from the overcast skies. Alexandra, wrapped in an orange police poncho, rapped on the window of the car. Kunsa rolled the window down. "Have you seen Will?" the anchorwoman asked.

  "I'd sure like to," the agent said, "because I'm going to wring his neck for making off with my plans to this place."

  Alexandra's bloodshot eyes moved to scan the grounds of the hospital. "Still nothing, huh?"

  Kunsa threw back the remains of the coffee in his cup. "You can sit in here if you want," he said, gesturing with his thumb to the back seat.

  "I can't sit still," she admitted, shivering.

  "Listen, Major News Babe," Kunsa said, "you're going to either die of exhaustion or pneumonia, so get in and wait with me. In the meantime, maybe you can think of where the hell Rafferty went with that map."

  The water was dripping off the bill of the police officer's cap. He was looking out across the water at a barge making its way across the mouth of the Niagara River. He looked over at Will, who sat, motionless, eyes glued to the drainage pipe.

  "They could have caught him by now and we'd never know," the cop said quietly.

  Will covered his mouth with his finger.

  The cop looked as though he was going to protest, but didn't. He just sighed, rolled his tongue around in his cheek, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked back out at the water.

  "Nothing," the voice said over the car radio. "We've gone through every ventilation duct, every chimney, every passage—nothing."