Ten minutes later, Marcks stirred on the gurney. Then he moaned.
“He’s regaining consciousness,” Olifante said.
Sanders shifted in the stool he was sitting on in the corner of the cargo area, no more than eight feet from the gurney. “I thought you had him sedated.”
“Have to be careful with brain trauma. Too much sedation and I could kill him.”
Olifante moved closer and pulled a stethoscope from her scrubs pocket. She took something else out and palmed it.
“That’s close enough,” Sanders said.
“And how am I going to listen to his heart without touching his chest with the stethoscope?”
Sanders gritted his teeth. “Be quick about it, then back away.”
Olifante threw him a look of disgust, then leaned over Marcks’s torso, placing an object in his left hand out of view of the guard.
With leopard-like quickness, Marcks grabbed the back of Olifante’s neck with his right hand and yanked her close. She screamed: nothing fake about it. Pure, unfiltered surprise. And horror.
“Fuck!” Sanders drew his sidearm.
Marcks dug his thumb into her windpipe. “Drop that gun or I’ll choke her to death.”
“I’m not dropping my gun,” Sanders said firmly. “But you’re gonna let her go.”
“You know who you’re talking to, boy?”
Olifante struggled, her face shading deep blue.
“I’m gonna give ya to three,” Sanders said, raising his SIG to eye level.
That was when Marcks produced the scalpel that Olifante had slipped him and brought it against her carotid. He had an awkward grip with the splint in the way, but what mattered was the exquisite sharpness of the blade against the woman’s skin. One movement, a sudden lurch of the truck, and she would bleed to death.
Olifante cried a muffled plea, as best she could with what little breath she had left in her lungs.
Sanders rushed forward and shoved his gun against Marcks’s groin. “Drop the fucking scalpel!”
But Marcks was too skilled a criminal. And Sanders was too hapless an officer to stop him. In an instant, Marcks drew the blade across Olifante’s neck, spurting blood into Sanders’s face—and then stabbed the guard in the eye.
Sanders screamed—a shrill cry. He dropped his SIG and Marcks sat up in one motion and grabbed Sanders by the hair. He yanked the man’s face toward his and shoved the protruding scalpel deep into his brain.
Sanders’s knees buckled and he sagged against Olifante’s fallen body.
Marcks gathered up the SIG, located the guard’s key, and unlocked the ankle restraints.
He pushed Olifante’s dead body aside and slid off the gurney. He was surprised the driver had not heard Sanders’s shriek of alarm. Then again, with the road noise and what sounded like the radio playing in the cab, the man appeared to be unaware of what was happening. The truck continued on its course, not slowing or changing direction.
Marcks pulled the slide back and chambered a round, laughing at the guard’s poor training. The weapon was not even ready to be fired. Jesus Christ, he thought. Don’t they teach these guys anything?
There was no window into the cab, so there was some guesswork involved. But Marcks did his best, lined up his shot, and pulled the trigger repeatedly until he had emptied the magazine.
The noise was deafening in the closed cargo space. But the truck veered onto the shoulder of the road, then struck something and rolled onto its side.
Once it came to a rest, Marcks righted himself and searched Sanders’s pockets. He found fifty bucks but no ammunition. The handgun was now of little value, so he tossed it aside. Until he could find a knife, which would be a great deal easier to obtain than a firearm, the scalpel would have to suffice.
He pulled another thirty dollars from Olifante’s pockets. Although there was some risk involved, he would at least be able to feed himself for a while. But the true prize was a cheap cell phone Olifante had purchased for him, programmed with the numbers he had requested. Without question, Sue Olifante was a godsend. He owed her his freedom.
He gave her a kiss on her bloody forehead, then exited the vehicle.
11
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
PHILLIPS HALL
ROOM B152
Vail stood at the front of the modest lecture hall, Jonathan seated in the third row at the far right. He had declined to introduce his mother, instead letting the professor do the honors, not because he was embarrassed by her or was afraid of public speaking, but because he felt it would seem self-serving.
The professor, however, did not share the same concern, as he made it a point to note that the FBI profiler guest speaker was the mother of one of their fellow students. Vail could not tell, but she was fairly certain that her son’s face shaded red.
She turned away and focused her gaze on the outsized circular white column that was situated directly ahead of her, in the middle of the room.