When the gurney was past him and she was inches from the officer, she pulled a Taser from under the sheet on the gurney.
The guard stared at her for a moment, trying to make sense out of what he was seeing.
Alex jerked the trigger and fired the weapon before he had worked out what was in her hand. The two tiny darts that carried the charge lodged in his neck and chin. He tried to reach up, but the charge came too fast and too strong.
He made a short gurgling sound Alex could just hear over the crackle of the Taser, sending the electrical current coursing through his body.
After a moment, he dropped right across the gurney.
Alex calmly stepped forward and jabbed him in the neck with a hypodermic needle filled with a relatively small dose of ketamine. He’d be out for twenty minutes.
It was easy to push him the rest of the way onto the gurney. There were only a couple of pillows underneath the sheet.
Then she turned the handle to the gunman’s room and was inside in an instant. The door banged open as she dragged the gurney into the room.
Alex glanced at her watch. Two minutes had gone by since she started pushing the empty gurney. She was well within her time frame. She took a breath to keep calm and centered, then turned toward the bed.
The Dominican gunman was about thirty and had both his arms strapped to the side of the bed. A plastic oxygen mask clung tightly to his face. He looked over, and, for a moment, appeared hopeful. He must’ve thought it was a rescue attempt.
She stepped across the room with another hypodermic needle in her hand. This one she had filled with a homemade concoction that included sedatives and cyanide. Fast and absolute. Like the judgment of God.
The gunman’s eyes grew wide, but he didn’t say a word.
Alex said, “I am very sorry to have to do this. I can’t risk what you might say when you recover.” She injected the solution into his IV bag.
The young man knew exactly what she was doing. He started to thrash in the bed and make a mewing sound underneath the oxygen mask. She watched the milky white substance quickly work its way through the tubes and into the man’s arm.
Alex patted his forehead and brushed his hair with her fingers, trying to keep him calm. She softly said, “It’s okay. Just calm down.”
In less than a minute, he had stopped thrashing, lulled into a stupor, then his breathing stopped altogether.
On her way out of the room, Alex turned the corrections officer’s head to make sure he had an open windpipe. He was breathing regularly, and his pulse was strong.
All in less than three and a half minutes.
Chapter 17
Alex kept the surgical mask on as she hurried out of the room. The corrections officer didn’t move. She’d remember that dose of ketamine.
As Alex reached the end of the hallway, the elevator directly in front of her opened. She was surprised to see another uniformed corrections officer with a pistol in a holster on his hip.
This guy was taller and older than the corrections officer she had just dealt with. That might mean he had more experience and common sense. He smiled at her, then looked down the hallway.
She held her breath.
The corrections officer looked right at Alex and said, “Where’s the officer who’s supposed to be guarding that room?” He had a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Alex stayed very calm and said with authority, “He followed a doctor and the patient down to the CAT scan room.”
She stayed right in front of him, hoping he bought her story. She casually reached behind her back and gripped the Taser, tucked into the pants she was wearing beneath the surgical scrubs. It would be a little messy to Taser this officer right in front of the elevator. But she’d do it.
Then she had an idea.
Alex said, “Come with me, and I’ll show you exactly where they went.” She waited for his response. If he hesitated too long, she would just use her Taser. It was either that or her stiletto into his brain. She didn’t really want to spend the time on either option.
The corrections officer said, “They should’ve told me. But okay, I guess it’s no big deal if I meet them in the CAT scan room.”
She stepped onto the elevator with him.