Read Online Gamma Blade by Tim Stevens - Free Book Online Page A

ambulance as it screamed through the congested Friday evening streets and never allowing more than a couple of vehicles to get between the patrol car and the ambulance’s taillights. The cop didn’t say anything as he drove, and that suited Venn fine, because he was still feeling a little groggy and small talk wasn’t what he needed.
    It had taken him a few seconds to orient himself in the alleyway before the realization hit him: he hadn’t been shot. His head hurt like a son of a bitch, and his vision was shifting from double to single and back again at an alarming rate, but there’d been no bullet.
    The guy had hit him, probably with the butt of the gun, and then taken off. It meant he’d been smart enough to understand the implications of becoming a cop killer, and had decided not to go there.
    Which suggested two things.
    The man wasn’t dumb.
    And he hadn’t killed a cop before.
    But he’d sounded, and acted, like a professional. Already a vague, insubstantial picture of the man was beginning to form in Venn’s methodical, police detective’s mind.
    He had the guy’s voice imprinted in his auditory cortex, and he played back snatches of it as he rode in the patrol car, listening for nuances. The guy hadn’t exactly sounded like a professor of astrophysics, but he sounded educated to several rungs higher than your average street thug.
    The hospital appeared suddenly in front of them, a tall blocky structure festooned with blazing lights and a platoon of ambulances swarming in and out of the entrance gate. It looked busy as a railroad station at rush hour, and Venn guessed this was one of the major destinations for people who’d gotten sick or been injured in Miami on a Friday night.
    The ambulance they were following came to a controlled but abrupt halt in a bay outside the ER. The patrol car pulled in behind it, allowing space for the rear doors to be opened. As Venn swung his lanky frame from the back seat - he felt a tug of nausea, and realized the blow to the back of his head was still having an effect - he saw the ambulance doors open and the female paramedic jump down. She slid the gurney down after her and Beth came out last.
    Venn winced as he saw her land on the asphalt. She hadn’t done anything but drop down as anybody would, but he didn’t think a jolt of any kind would be good for the baby.
    Then he shook his head at himself. Stop being so anxious.
    The paramedics and Beth rolled the gurney into the ER, Venn and the two cops from the patrol car following at a less hurried pace. Inside, the ER reminded Venn of the ones back in New York and Chicago. The layout was different, but the rest was the same: the hubbub of human noise, the frenetic rushing about, the smell of booze and spilled blood and antiseptic.
    A senior-looking nurse stepped in front of them and asked them if she could help. She let them through after one of the uniformed cops had given a brief explanation, but by that time they’d lost Beth and the others.
    They found them in an examination room, where a team of ER staff were already getting busy around the unconscious man, attaching him to assorted leads, drawing tubes of blood from his arm, shining pencil flashlights in his eyes. A doctor saw Venn and the other two cops hovering near the sliding door of the room and made a shooing gesture with his fingers.
    They withdrew, and glanced at each other. Venn had been through this kind of thing before, and he supposed the two patrolmen had, too. The guy in the room was now out of their hands, and in a bunch of other people’s. It felt like they’d been robbed, and it was frustrating.
    The door slid open a moment later and Beth emerged.
    “They’re ordering a CT scan, but there doesn’t seem to be any neurological damage so far,” she said.
    Venn: “When’s he gonna wake up?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “No way of telling with these things.” She stepped closer. “Now, let’s get you looked at.”
    Venn took a pace back,