“The intelligence so far has been very good. Very good. One stumble has kept us from completing the mission.”
“One stumble and five bullets,” Titov said. “How is the ear?”
“Bearable. Nothing, really.”
• • •
The city ofBison was a satellite of the Twin Cities, fifteen or twenty thousand people in a growing suburban area. Though not large, it had a regional hospital built on the shore of Casimer Lake. The town was diffuse, built around two lakes, large lots and small jumbled together, older homes around the lakes, newer houses scattered across the rolling countryside, all of it heavily wooded.
They had to drive through a densely populated area to get to the hospital, where they followed road signs off the highway, and along side streets to the emergency room. Titov stopped on the shoulder of the closest side street, behind a clump of evergreens, and said, “Call me now.”
Abramova did that, and when they were both live on the phones, Titov said, “Look for cameras. I will come as soon as you summon me.”
“Don’t forget the tape,” Abramova said.
Titov patted his jacket pocket. “Got it. You go.”
• • •
Abramova checked herBeretta, pulled the ski mask down, so nothing showed but her eyes, and climbed out of the Jeep. On theshort walk up the street to the driveway that led to the emergency room entrance, she may have spent five seconds wondering what crooked path had gotten her here, in the middle of the United States, on a night as cold as Moscow, with a gun in her hand.
If she did have that five seconds of introspection, it didn’t linger with her, because what had gotten her here, out of the Army and into the Unit, was the ability to focus on the critical problems.
The emergency room was located at the top of a gentle rise, which was occupied by an expansive parking lot. A cube-shaped glass entry area protruded out from the main entrance doors, with a separate ambulance entrance several meters to the left. Near the emergency entrance, two dark-glass camera housings hung from a corner of the building, looking like suspended eggplants.
She walked straight over to the cameras and fired a burst of three shots into each housing. The shots were loud, but not as loud as an unsuppressed gun. As the glass shattered, she ran over to the cubicle. No cameras. She said into the live phone, “Come now.”
Two seconds later she was inside the emergency room with the gun up, scanning for signs of resistance. Three women in tan scrubs stood open-mouthed behind a counter and she said, not loud, but loud enough, “Nobody should move or call for help. If you do, I will shoot you.”
Another woman came in from a back hall, didn’t see Abramova at once, asked, “What was—”
Then she saw Abramova, who waved the pistol at her and said, “Come in here. If you don’t, I will shoot you.”
One of the women behind the desk said, “Take the drugs.”
Abramova said, “You must listen to me. If you have a way to alert the police, do not do it. We will kill the police.” She held up themachine pistol. “You will see that this is a machine gun, and your police will have no way to defeat it. Also, some of you will die in the shooting. We will be gone in ten or fifteen minutes and you will all be safe again.”
Titov came in then, masked, gun up, and said, “Stay,” and went down a hallway into the back. A moment later, he returned, herding two women and a man, all in scrubs. He flicked a finger at one of the women and said, “Doctor, I am told.”
“Good,” Abramova said. “Everybody but the doctor, behind the counter, and sit on the floor. Doctor, we need operating instruments, we need O-positive and A-positive blood, painkillers, anesthetics, and antiseptics, for a trauma operation. Gather them.”
“I’m not a surgeon…and we don’t have any A-positive.”
“Do you have a surgeon here?”
“No, we could call one.”
“No time,” Titov said. “You are what we have.”
Abramova pushed the doctor into the back room at gunpoint, careful not to get too close. Although she was female, the doctor appeared to be strong, and even tough, with a square chin and high blunt cheekbones. “You will be dealing with two men, both with gunshot wounds…”
Five minutes: three fridge packs of O-negative—universal donor blood—plus surgical instruments jumbled in a stainless operating pan, a sack full of drugs, packs of syringes and bandages and needles, a rack to hang the blood on, all scooped into an oversized plastic garbage bag.
Back out front, Titov had six people sitting on the floor. He had awkwardly bound their ankles together with the duct tape. WhenAbramova and the doctor returned from the scavenger hunt, he handed the doctor the roll of tape and said, “Tape their hands behind their backs.”
“Don’t hurt us…” One of the woman on the floor began to sob.
“If we were going to hurt you, we wouldn’t be taping you up,” Abramova said impatiently. The doctor bound the hands of the six people on the floor, with Titov supervising. When that was done, Titov grabbed a parka that was hanging on the back of a chair and said, “Put this on. It’s cold out there. Hurry. Hurry.” When she had it on, he taped her hands behind her back and Abramova pulled a ski mask over her head, backwards, so she couldn’t see.
