Read Online (1995) By Any Name by Katherine John - Free Book Online Page B

police officer confirmed.
    ‘If they’re equipped with heat-seeking equipment, we’ll be able to put an exact fix on where they’re located in the room.’
    ‘You’ll be able to differentiate between West and the hostage?’ Heddingham asked.
    ‘Doubtful.’
    ‘You intend to break in through the window?’
    ‘It’s been done successfully before,’ Chaloner answered. ‘But it’s Command Cell’s decision, not mine, as to whether we go in or not.’

    The chair wheels squealed when Elizabeth pulled it inside the washroom. Nerves jangling, she damned the porter for picking that particular one. There had to be at least one in the hospital with silent, smooth running wheels.
    ‘John?’ she called out tentatively, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t reply.
    ‘You took your time, Dr Santer.’
    ‘I had to send someone to fetch the chair.’

    ‘Who?’
    ‘A porter.’
    ‘He’s with you?’
    ‘No, I sent him away.’
    ‘Is anyone outside the door?’
    ‘No.’
    Logic told West she was speaking the truth. If she’d alerted the police or the army they wouldn’t have allowed her to return. No commander in a hostage situation would allow a civilian to walk unarmed into a room with a gunman.
    ‘You armed?’ he demanded.
    ‘Where would I get a gun?’ She looked up as his head appeared above the cubicle door.
    ‘Strip.’
    ‘What?’ she stared at him in disbelief.
    ‘Strip. I need to see you’re unarmed.’
    Her hands trembled when she unfastened the buttons on her surgical coat.
    ‘Drop it to the floor.’
    She did as he asked, then pulled off her sweater.
    ‘Now the skirt.’
    ‘For pity’s sake, you can see there are no bulges that shouldn’t be there.’
    ‘The skirt,’ he repeated.
    She unzipped it and allowed it to fall to her feet.
    ‘Step away.’
    She obeyed, and stood shivering in a black bikini brief and bra set, and a pair of transparent tights.
    ‘I’m opening the door. Keep back. This gun is primed with eleven bullets.’

    Inching away from him she crashed into a washbasin, and shuddered. There was nowhere left for her to retreat to. She watched, mesmerized as he hobbled towards her. The cubicle door swung back behind him to reveal a lavatory pedestal and nothing else.
    ‘Where’s your hostage?’
    ‘Here.’ He pressed the cold muzzle of the gun against her temple.
    ‘What did you do to with last one?’ her anger at her humiliation momentarily transcended her fear.
    ‘I left her – unhurt – in an office on the floor below. Take off your tights?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Take them off,’ he repeated savagely.
    Paralyzed by fear she hesitated.
    ‘Get them off – now.’
    She pulled them down.
    ‘Get dressed.’
    She stared at him numbly.
    ‘Put on your sweater and skirt.’
    She didn’t need to be ordered a third time.
    ‘Now get in the wheelchair.’
    ‘It’s you who’s hurt not me.’
    ‘Into the chair.’ He prodded her temple with the barrel of the gun. She fell on to the seat.
    ‘You won’t be able to get out of the hospital.’ She realized that empty as her life was, she desperately wanted to live.
    She heard the discordant tearing of fabric. West lashed her wrists to the arms of the wheelchair and bound her ankles against the steel frame at an awkward angle. He concealed the bonds with a blanket that had been folded on the seat. The fibres bit cruelly into her flesh when she tried to move.
    John slipped on her doctor’s coat. Moving behind her, he rested the hand that held the gun on the back of the chair. She could feel the muzzle cold against her neck when he manoeuvred the chair to the door.
    ‘One sound and you’ll be dead, and whoever else is around. I can take eleven with me.’
    His voice was soft, controlled and she believed every word. ‘Just tell me one thing. Did you lose your memory?’
    He didn’t answer her. Reaching across with his free hand he opened the door, and pushed the wheelchair through it.
    Despite her fear, she remembered