In some ways the old motel reminded Clark of some of the third world ghettos he’d seen in his travels around the world. He could smell the rot and the black mold, and a glance inside with his special vision showed holes in the walls and ceilings and scene after scene of hopelessness and despair.
Veterans sat on benches outside the building, staring listlessly. According to an article in the paper, these people had been shelved by the military. From what Clark could see, people were missing limbs, and some had a familiar look in their eyes of hopelessness and despair.
The building wasn’t even on the main campus at Walter Reed. It sat across the street, forcing veterans to stagger across a busy road in order to get the treatment they needed.
Clark walked across the road himself quickly, avoiding looking in the soldiers’ faces. He wanted nothing so much as to write an expose about this place, to give a voice to the individual soldiers who had been trapped in a bureaucratic morass.
It wasn’t in his nature to stand by and do nothing, yet this wasn’t his world and these weren’t his people. There wasn’t anything he could do to help them, and it was painful.
The sounds of sirens in the distance made him stiffen, until he saw the source.
Five buses painted white, with windows blackened out were coming toward the hospital. As the first of them turned into the main gate, Clark made his move, dashing faster than the human eye could see so that he was inside.
The place was huge, with a building labeled psychiatry services to his left and another building ahead. The main hospital was to his left, more than five hundred feet from the entrance.
Seeing a man struggling to push his wheelchair uphill, Clark walked up behind him and said, “Would you mind if I pushed you a while?”
The man glanced back at him and shrugged. “If you don’t think it’s too much trouble.”
Clark watched as the buses pulled to a halt before the hospital. He was horrified as doors opened and men carrying stretchers began pulling wounded soldiers from the buses.
“Does this happen often?” he asked the soldier.
“Three times a week,” the man said. “Rain or shine. Fresh out of Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Clark pushed the man up the hill and said, “How far do you have to go?”
“Today? About a mile.” The man glanced back at him and said, “But for right now I have to go inside. We’ll have to wait for the new guys.”
Together they stood in the sunlight, quietly watching as the buses were unloaded. Clark felt sick and queasy. The wounded just seemed to keep coming, and the thought of what they must have been through was difficult for Clark to take.
“Do you have family here?” the man who was Clark was pushing asked.
“No, I’m a reporter,” Clark said absently.
“They’re closing this place in a couple of years. What’s left to report?”
“They brought three people here who were passengers on the plane last night,” Clark said quietly. “I’d like to find out a little more about them.”
As the last of the wounded were wheeled inside the hospital, Clark and the other observers stood silently for a moment in an impromptu sign of respect.
“Good luck,” the man said. “The top brass has them holed up in the cardiac ward on the third floor with guards and everything. They say that two of them didn’t even serve in the military.”
“One did?” Clark asked.
“Hell if I know. Scuttlebutt is that the brass is being pretty secretive about the whole thing.”
“You aren’t worried about talking to reporters?”
“I wouldn’t give away national secrets,” the man said, “But if it wasn’t for those boys with the Washington Post, things wouldn’t be changing around here.”
From what Clark could see, a lot of things needed changing.
For a moment he fantasized that he was the one wearing the red and blue suit, that he had the power to change things. The hero in the comic books had powers very similar to his own, and he could almost imagine what it would be like to be free to fly during the day.
To be idolized as a hero yet be free to live some sort of a normal life. The Superman comic hadn’t given him much information. Most of it had been filled with outlandish fights against outlandish villains, and there had been very little about the hero’s personal life. The abilities and the insignia were hauntingly familiar, and if Clark squinted he could almost imagine himself being depicted in the outfit.
If only the real world worked that way. If only he could be loved instead of feared for what he could do.
If only he could make a difference. At home at least he could write a scathing series of articles about conditions here, but apparently someone else had already done that.
The feeling of helplessness was galling.
***************
Private Chalmers didn’t look much better than when Lois had last seen him a few days before. Lying unconscious and terribly still, he looked half dead. Lois scowled and felt guilty. She’d have to remember to visit in a few days when all this was over.
The cardiac unit was on the third floor of the hospital, which was convenient, as Private Chalmers’ room was on the same floor.
Lois walked with her head held high toward the nurses’ station. She pushed the doors leading into the cardiac unit open, and she didn’t slow down as she noticed the armed guards standing outside two rooms down the hall.
In these situations it was important to look as though you knew where you were going.
As Lois approached the soldiers, she decided against trying to get in to see the passengers. She knew the type of men who did this sort of work from her time in Iraq, and all haranguing them would get her was a trip to the brig.
The people to talk to would be the janitors, the people who brought them food, the underpaid and frustrated members of the hospital underclass who might be swayed by the allure of the spotlight.
It would have been easier in a hospital not owned by the military. That was undoubtedly why Homeland Security had brought them here. The other, healthy passengers had been placed in better secured areas, and the government wasn’t telling anyone where it had put them.
Lois walked past the soldiers, trying to look at them with the appropriate amount of curiosity that any passer by would have. Not looking at them at all would have triggered them to being more alert.
As Lois passed the soldiers, she saw a flash of movement from the rounded security mirror on the ceiling. Two men in black suits were coming down the hallway and would soon turn the corner.
Although the security guards hadn’t seemed to recognize her, Homeland security was likely to be more observant. Lois had a recognizable face, and she’d been on footage from Iraq that most Homeland security workers had likely seen.
Glancing to the room to her left, Lois noticed that the door was open and the room was empty. She stepped inside and gently pushed the door closed behind her.
Lois had no doubt that the rooms on both sides of the prisoners’ rooms were empty. She had to hope that the guards weren’t fully aware of just who was in every room on the floor.
She leaned against a door and strained to listen as the two men made their way down the hallway.
“They aren’t conscious yet,” one man was saying into the satellite phone. “We can’t even be sure that this Evans guy really is military. His paperwork was just as phony as every other passenger on the plane.”
The man stopped outside Lois’s door and she tensed.
“The fingerprints do match, but we’ve already contacted our Lieutenant Evans in Georgetown, and he’ll be meeting with us this evening. Yes…like the others.”
Lois heard the snap of a satellite phone closing and she heard the man say to his companion, “I wish I knew what the hell was going on with all of this.”
The other man mumbled his agreement and they continued on their way down the hallway.
Was that the reason everyone had been arrested? Every single person on the plane had phony documentation? If that was the case, then there was more to this story than met the eye.
************
The men at the metal detectors were checking driver’s licenses. Reluctantly, Clark parted ways with the soldier in the wheelchair. He didn’t really need to get inside the building anyway, given his abilities. All he needed was a suitable angle and he would be able to see what he needed. With a little focus, he’d be able to hear what he needed to hear as well.
All he needed was an out of the way place where he could concentrate without being found. His best bet was the psychiatric services building directly south of the main hospital building.
He started to turn toward that building when he noticed the black Government Issue cars heading in his direction. He heard helicopters in the distance, and he could hear the distinctive buzz of agents whispering into radios in the distance.
Someone had spotted him.
Clark stepped around the corner of the building and as soon as he realized there were no cameras, he flashed across the distance to the area behind the building. He had to hope that the glare from the sun would disguise him from the cars passing on the street below. Luckily, most people never really looked up much.
He couldn’t move at supersonic speeds so close to a building; the sonic boom would shatter glass and injure people. Unless he was willing to give them even more confirmation of what he could do, he had to move fast.
His best bet was to hide.
*********
The sound of marching boots caught Lois’ attention. She’d waited until the men in black were out of sight before leaving the room and heading around the building.
She slipped around a counter behind a deserted nurses’ station and bent as though to tie her shoe.
The sound of footsteps stopped on the other side of the counter. “I want every room checked. Now hustle.”
Something was going on. Lois realized that her best chance was to get back to Private Chalmer’s room; she had permission to be there. Of course, if she’d somehow triggered an alert she’d just have to make up an excuse.
Her mind raced. Her best bet was that she’d gotten lost and had needed to use the bathroom. She’d stick with the story without elaborating much, and there wasn’t a whole lot they’d be able to do about it.
If it was something else…an anthrax threat or something worse, well, she’d make a call from Chalmer’s room phone if she had to.
The problem was getting back. Lois waited for a long moment, and then heard the footsteps retreating. Peering over the lip of the counter, she saw soldiers’ retreating backs.
A moment later she was up and moving at a quick walk. If she saw anyone she’d slow down. There were cameras at every junction and she couldn’t afford to run.
Getting back to Chalmer’s room was almost anticlimactic.
Unfortunately, moments after she slipped into the room, the door opened and a soldier looked inside.
“Visiting hours are over.”
“It’s only three P.M.!” Lois protested.
“We are having an emergency drill,” the man said. “Please exit the hospital.”
Lois nodded. Apparently they weren’t looking for her. Had one of the passengers escaped? As cardiac patients they couldn’t be very lively.
She was back out on the street shortly afterwards. Having retrieved her satellite phone, she waited the hour it took for the soldiers inside to call the all clear.
“Can you tell me what this was all about?” Lois asked, pulling a passing soldier aside.
The sergeant shook his head. “We’ve got our orders, Ma’am.”
“If there’s anything you could tell me,” she said.
“Off the record?” he said quietly.
Lois nodded.
“We’re tracking someone. One of our guys works for a security company, caught something on a convenience store camera matching an APB put out last night. Facial recognition programs put out a dozen hits, the last one here.”
“Thank you,” Lois said.
“If anyone asks, I’m congratulating you on your nomination for a Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.”
“What?”
“Pulling Private Chalmers out of the line of fire, people noticed that. There’s been talk about it for a while now for everything you’ve done for the men.”
The Army liked that Lois had tended to side with the soldiers. It was hard not to when you lived with them for months at a time.
“Just doing my job,” Lois said.
Eventually the furor began to die down. Lois sighed as she headed back for her rental car. She hadn’t had a chance to learn nearly as much as she would have liked.
She’d called in the story about the evacuation, but it wouldn’t end up as more than a line scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It was better than what the other networks had, and it would keep her editor happy.
The parking garage was almost deserted after the excitement of the past two hours. Families had returned to visiting their loved ones and the local crowd who would arrive after work hadn’t yet arrived.
Lois started as her phone rang.
“Lane here,” she said.
As Lois reached for the keys to the rental she listened into the telephone. “They what?!?”
Lois had been careful to cultivate contacts in several different branches of government; it came in handy to develop the relationships before she needed them rather than trying to develop them on the fly.
It was paying off now.
“They can’t exhume her! Don’t they require the family’s permission?” Lois scowled. “Well they don’t have it!”
Homeland security wasn’t going to exhume the body of Lucy Lane, not if Lois could help it.
***********
Hiding in the trunk of a car had seemed like a good idea. He’d chosen this car because the trunk was empty. All the other trunks were filled with suitcases, luggage, and family gifts. Each was a sad legacy of a family story brought to a halt too soon. Some would stutter back into a semblance of their former lives; others wouldn’t.
All of the occupied trunks were a risk. Even if Clark had been able to fit in them, the last think he wanted was to face a trunk opened by a traumatized soldier’s family with kids in tow.
This car was empty and sterile. It smelled like a rental. There was a risk that someone would come to open their trunk before the pursuit was called off, but it was at least less likely to be someone with kids.
The thought that the car might be driven by a maniac had never occurred to him.
The sound of a woman cursing from the front seat was punctuated by sudden changes in direction as she spun her wheels quickly on the concrete of the parking lot.
All Clark could do was hold himself still in the trunk with one hand on the broken latch.
If he’d been vulnerable to car wrecks, he’d have been terrified. As it was, the woman in the front seat sounded a little intimidating.
She also sounded familiar. From this angle, all he could see was the back of her heat. The conversation she was having on her telephone with her lawyer while driving at unsafe speeds didn’t make a lot of sense either.
Why was she trying to get a court injunction against Homeland Security exhuming a sister who had been dead for five years?
