Page 104 of Airborne
With trembling fingers, he pressed in 911. “A robbery in progress.” He gave the store’s address and van’s license plate number. “I saw two masked men enter the store carrying guns. Shots werefired.”
“Sir, avoid the crime scene.”
He hung up and opened his car door. He refused to sit by and do nothing while Andy faced the wrong end of a gun. For the first time in his life, he longed for a weapon.
Sirens whined and flashing blue lights signaled oncoming police cars.
Chad closed the distance on the store’s entrance, fifty feet, forty feet—
The two black-masked men emerged from the store and jumped into the van’s open side door while the vehicle sped away. Two police cars raced in pursuit of the van. Two additional police vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the store.
An officer shouted at him, “Get out of the way, sir. A crime is in progress.”
Chad stopped and three officers raced past him. The fourth maintained a position outside the door.
Chad pressed in Andy’s number and approached the officer. The cell rang five times. Andy didn’t pick up. “My friend’s in the store. I’m a doctor.”
The officer whipped his attention through the glass front and spoke into his radio. He slipped it back onto his belt and opened the store’s door. “Go ahead. A customer was shot twice. An ambulance is enroute.”
He rushed to the far south corner, where three women huddled together and officers worked the area. A dark-haired young woman knelt on the floor over a man bleeding from the left side of his neck and abdomen.
Andy.
“I’m a doctor.” Chad dropped to the floor to check for vitals and make an initial assessment. His fingers found a faint pulse. “I need something to apply pressure to these wounds! Andy, this is Doc C. Can you speak to me?”
Andy’s eyelids didn’t flutter.
One woman handed him a box of tissues, and the young woman beside him shrugged off a lightweight jacket. He pressed it into Andy’s abdomen wound.
“The ambulance is here,” an officer said.
A bullet had gone through his neck, but the stomach wound was another matter. Blood pooled the floor, the signs of draining life.
A paramedic joined him. “You’re a doctor?”
“Yes. Victim has two gunshot wounds. I’ll insert an IV while you bandage him. He needs to be on the road to the hospital ASAP. His name is Dr. Andy Sheehan. He’s allergic to penicillin, and he’s diabetic. Pass that on if you get to the hospital before Ido.”
The paramedics spun into action while Chad administered theLactated Ringer’s solution. Within minutes, Andy stabilized and the paramedics lifted him onto a stretcher.
“Take him to Memorial Hermann,” Chad said. “I’ll follow you.”
“Sir,” said the young woman who’d been at Andy’s side. “Will he be all right?”
“I hope so. Are you Leigh Masterson?”
“Yes.” Her pale face and quivering lips told him of the trauma she’d witnessed. “This... is horrible. Bizarre.”
Chad watched the paramedics heading to the front of the store. “What happened?”
“The men didn’t take anything. It seemed they were looking for Andy and one shot him twice.”
An icy chill spread through Chad—confirmation of an earlier suspicion. He blamed Powell and his network of henchmen for every hitch since the virus unleashed. Chad vowed that the killer would pay for his crimes.
At the hospital, Chad phoned Andy’s parents in Missouri and explained their son had been shot in a store robbery and required surgery. They planned to leave for Houston within the hour. Driving was faster than arranging a flight.
He called Javier and passed on the bleak news. “Tonight was not a coincidence but a planned shooting.”
“I’m heading to my car,” Javier said. “Should take me about forty or so minutes. For the record, the FBI doesn’t believe in coincidences.”
