PROLOGUE

September 1971

 

ONE MAN SAT in a car parked in the darkest corner away from the emergency room entrance. He watched a woman in a white uniform walk to the door and hesitate. A young man rushed to catch up with her. They checked their watches and entered. He noted the time and smiled.

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They were late for their shift. The head nurse would be focused on them.

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He adjusted his scrubs. Everything had to go as planned for the three minutes and forty-five seconds to ensure years of loyalty. He slackened his facial muscles and formed a garbled sound at the back of his throat. He’d seen the product of his work before.

 

Sarge got out of the car and strode up to the metal door of the hospital marked “Staff Only.” He slipped past the employee lounge littered with rancid coffee cups and a sleeping intern, then crept up two flights of stairs to the landing painted with lions and butterflies. Heart beating, he tugged on the heavy metal door a bit too hard. It whisked open with a screech. He froze only long enough to feel there was no motion from the nurses’ station. He pressed his back to the wall as he entered the room two doors down to his right. The sprawled body of an exhausted doctor barely twitched at his intrusion. The activity from the recent shift change had died down. The green smock and ID were in the agreed-upon locker. He noticed his picture was an old one but didn’t care.

 

He clipped the badge on the left lapel. The neatly folded paper he retrieved from the right-hand pocket told him where to go.

 

There was a welcome emptiness in the halls. No families. No patients. No staff. The walls painted with soft pinks and blues with murals of smiling teddy bears and lambs made him briefly think of his own children. His resolve hardened. The small janitor cart was harder to see in the dimmed lights of the hallway, but it was in the prearranged place.

 

The head nurse’s face was taut with anger as she listened to the obligatory excuses thrust at her from the young nurses. Sarge lumbered past the desk, pushing the cart ahead of him, glancing at the names and room numbers. He looked for any name beginning with a W. None. His breathing slowed as he acknowledged that one level of error was eliminated.

 

Down two more halls, then a left. The soft hum of the vending machines filled the patient’s lounge. Feigning the gait of the sleep-weary, he continued around a corner and stopped at the last door. For reasons given as personal, they had been placed in a private room without a hand-scrawled name beside the room number. He opened the door a crack and peered in. He could see a swaddled shape sleeping in the cradle on the far side of the bed. The body of the mother formed a soft mound of covers with one arm draped over the edge of the crib. He looked for anything that would give away the presence of another person. Only the sounds of a deeply sedated sleep met his ears. In those few seconds of total stillness, he thought about the loyalty he was about to ensure.

 

Tonight’s job was a little tougher than he expected. He walked over to the baby. Pink blankets and cap made her look like an oversized cocoon. So small. So peaceful. So perfect. He never told his wife about any part of his job, but somehow, she knew. He guessed it was her mother’s instinct that made her distance their children from him. She’d said too often that she would have divorced him if it weren’t against her religion. Yet, she accepted the life he provided for them all. Straight killing had its uses, but not for this case, and he would be paid handsomely for his efforts.

 

This part was his idea. Cerebral hypoxic-anoxic events always offered the most advantages. To the uninitiated and naïve, the events looked like a stroke in older people. In an infant, God’s Will took the blame. The barely living offered a living reminder of how powerful his group really was, and how committed. Fear instilled was loyalty assured.

 

As a soldier in this war, he had orders to follow, not questions to answer. He took his orders from The Old Man, pushing against the thoughts that he was rich. Ungodly so. But the cause was starving. It didn’t make sense.

 

Then again, it didn’t have to. He produced a small piece of rubber from his pocket. Oddly triangular and slightly cupped at the edges, it fit easily into the palm of his hand.

 

He filled his lungs several times, then suspended his breath and listened. No footsteps. Not even an elevator whirred in the distance. There was enough time. He reached over the rails, careful not to disturb the mother’s outstretched arm.

 

His shoe squeaked. The girl’s eyelids flickered. The rubber fit over her nose and mouth. Her eyes widened and chest heaved as she tried to take a breath to cry out.

 

Sarge looked at the second hand on his watch and counted.