Chapter 73—Jack learns that Kate was shot
10:16 p.m., Thursday, December 29
The driver then turned so he could look Jack in the eye, and spoke clearly and deliberately to him. “Mark discovered that Kate had been shot. She did not even know it herself. He found the wound when he checked her out. He found quite a lot of blood on her. At first he suspected that the blood was from Reg—that it got transferred to her when he carried her out of the building. But when Mark examined her he found an entry wound in her lower back.”
“Lower back?” Jack asked. “Where in her lower back? And was there an exit wound?”
“No exit wound,” the driver said. “It’s still in there. The entry wound is fairly large. So it appears that the round may have passed through or ricocheted off of something else, then hit Kate. It also appears to have been from a handgun. Probably 9 or 10mm. Nothing bigger. Not high velocity.”
“Where on her lower back?” Jack asked again.
“Just above her left hip,” the driver answered. “It’s impossible to get an accurate reading as to the angle of penetration, because the bullet appears to have been substantially degraded by the time it hit Kate. Both the origin, and angle of entry are unclear. They will determine that when they get her into the emergency room.”
“I need to get to the hospital.” Jack said, in a commanding tone. “I need you to turn this around and get me to my daughter.”
Almost immediately the driver jerked the big SUV into a gas station, and pulled up to a pump.
“You can run in here and wash up,” the driver told Jack, as he peeled off a twenty and handed it to Scarface to top off the tank. “The hospital’s gonna be crawling with cops.”
Jack was happy to be running into the restroom, because his bladder was already topped off.
“Lower back, above the left hip,” Jack thought to himself as he trotted toward the restroom. “Degraded with no exit. That could be bad. Could be a kidney. Or worse yet, it could have ripped open her colon.”
Jack stopped himself with that last thought. He always tried to be positive about everything, because he did not like the effect negative energy had on his performance.
“It could be resting harmlessly on her hip bone,” he concluded. “Good she’s getting to the hospital.”
Out of the corner of Jack’s eye, he spotted a full-sized sedan that had just pulled in behind them, and had backed into a dimly lit parking space. Two men were sitting in the car, and they appeared to be watching him as he entered the service station.
Jack knew the driver was right about his need to wash up. The hospital will be crawling with New York City cops, FBI agents, and who knows who else. The mere fact that Kate’s father was there checking on the condition of his daughter was not a problem. But if he came in with blood on his clothes, or on his hands, that would raise questions. So Jack took his time and made sure he looked presentable. All the time, however, the thought of the two men in the sedan played on his mind.
As he left the restroom, Jack took a detour. Rather than coming out of the front door where he had entered, he exited from the rear—toward the big-rig diesel pumps. Once outside, he turned right until he reached the corner of the building. From the darkness he carefully peered over until he spotted the sedan.
The two men in the car had their eyes fixed on the front door of the gas station, obviously waiting for Jack to emerge. But that was not going to happen. Sneaking up from behind were Scarface and another of Roger’s men.
“Time to create a distraction,” Jack thought. Careful not to glance again in the direction of the sedan, Jack proceeded to walk around the side of the building in plain sight of the men in the car. As soon as they spotted Jack, their eyes followed him intently as he rounded the front corner and approached the waiting SUV.
Just before he got in, he heard the familiar sound of several rounds of suppressed 10mm smashing through the tempered glass of car windows. He then heard the engine of that car race.
He also knew what was causing that, but he still did not turn around to observe. Jack had seen that happen several times before. When a man is shot through the temple, his natural mechanical reaction is to stiffen. Obviously, the driver of the car had his foot on the accelerator, and was now pushing down on it.
“About now,” Jack reasoned, “the driver’s side shooter will be reaching in and shutting off the engine.”
And, just as Jack anticipated, the engine stopped.
When Jack got in the SUV, he observed that the driver and the fourth man were not there. Jack also knew what that meant. “One carefully placed round through the DVR,” he reasoned.
In fact, just as Jack surmised, the driver and the fourth man had entered the station at the same time Scarface and his friend sneaked back to take out the men who had been tailing them. While the man with the driver took a soda and a bag of chips to the counter, the driver stepped quickly into the little office, and fired off three suppressed .38 Special rounds into the video recording equipment.
The driver was a professional. He had chosen a revolver over the more popular semi-automatic pistol because he did not like the sound of spent cartridges bouncing on the floor. His Smith and Wesson .38 Special could also fire .357 magnum rounds, but he never used those more powerful rounds under normal conditions, because he wanted to avoid collateral damage. A .357 magnum can explode through a concrete block wall, and injure or kill someone on the other side.
Almost at the very second that the driver was destroying the DVR, his cohort at the counter squeezed the bag of chips causing the bag to explode, spewing chips all over the counter.
“Damn,” the man said, “I never had that happen before. Must be a cheap bag.”
“No problem,” the cashier said. “I’ll clean it up.”
“Sorry, Buddy,” the man said, as he took a chip from the bag and stuck it in his mouth. “I guess I won’t open a bag like that again.” For a few moments the odor of the airborne chips covered up the pungent smell of the spent gunpowder.
Immediately the driver and his friend paid for the chips, and walked out of the gas station together. As they did they observed Scarface getting in the SUV. The interior light illuminated when the car door opened, and the driver could make out that there were three men in the vehicle—his two men, and Jack.
Just as the driver reached the SUV, his cell rang.
“Is she conscious?” he asked. “I see. What’s the hospital looking like?” There was a pause, then the driver continued. “We’ll be there in fifteen. Twenty at worst. I think I’ll just drop Jack off. You’re not gonna need us there are you? … I’ll stay close.”
After he disconnected, but before he pulled away from the pump, the driver turned to face Jack. “Not as good as we might hope, Jack,” he said. “Roger says that they’ve got Kate into the ER. But that now she’s in some pain. They’re going to stabilize her, and get her scanned as soon as possible. They suspect some internal bleeding, but they’re not quite sure where that bullet is. I’m sorry Buddy, but you know how these things go. That is a great hospital, and they will fix her up, I’m sure of that.”
For the remainder of the drive to the hospital, Jack sat virtually silent. In fact, no one in the vehicle said very much.
Then, just as they approached the hospital, the driver exclaimed, “What the hell—this looks like a scene from a Bruce Willis movie!”
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