Lee finally looked him dead in the face, blinking furiously. “No. No, of course not. Do you want to see him?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Let’s go then.” Lee got up and Tommy followed.

Four soldiers entered the emergency waiting room and carried the two catatonic patients into triage. Curtains were drawn.

Lee led the way into the emergency center, past three or four nurses gathered at the work station in the center of the room, cubicle rooms along the outer walls, doors nothing but shower curtains. He didn’t turn his back to Tommy. Nobody looked at them. Lee wound his way through the nearly empty emergency room to a restricted elevator. He punched in a code, and they waited for the doors to open.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tommy asked.

Lee was quiet for a moment. “They’re not sure. I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation.” They stepped into the elevator. Lee hit the fifth-floor button.

“Well, is he going to be okay?”

“They’re not sure. Nobody knows anything right now. Do you mind answering a few more questions from the doctors?”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help Don.”

“Good. That’s what I like to hear in an employee. Loyalty and enthusiasm.”

The doors opened on the fifth floor. The hallway was completely empty, and utterly enclosed in sheets of plastic, sealed shut with black Gorilla Tape. The ceiling and the floor were also covered. Each of the patients’ rooms had its own plastic tunnel through the doorway. The sheeting was thick and opaque, and filtered the light into a shifting, flickering haze. Air drafts caught the plastic, giving the whole hallway a shimmering, fluid light, almost as if it were underwater.

“Don’t worry about this,” Lee said, tapping on the plastic with his shoe. “This is something else, entirely. Got nothing to do with you. They’re painting or fumigating or some damn thing.” Lee pointed at the first room off to the right. “You can wait in there. Doctors’ll be along shortly.”

Tommy stepped through the doorway and didn’t see the men on either side of the door until it was too late. They took him down just inside the room, each grabbing an elbow, a shoulder, then sweeping his feet off the ground and slamming him to the floor. The breath exploded out of him and blackness swam in his eyes.

Something hot jabbed into his left butt cheek.

A moment later, wet concrete flowed through his veins, deadening any feeling; first his legs, then his back, his arms, and in three seconds he couldn’t hold his head up. The darkness overwhelmed his eyes and he drifted into oblivion.

CHAPTER 32

9:14 PM

August 12

Sam parked in front of a fire hydrant and left the flashers going. They got out, looked up at the hospital. Lot of bad memories in this place. Too many late nights, waiting for a gunshot victim to make it through surgery and survive long enough to give a statement or for a suspect to sleep off a bad trip so they could haul them to the station. Too many late nights interviewing weeping family members. Too many late nights full of bad coffee and surreptitious visits down to the car park for a quick gulp at the flask. This place was a goddamn black hole, sucking them in if they got too close. Sam popped another stick of nicotine gum, threw the wrapper in the gutter, and followed Ed inside.

He’d never seen the emergency room so empty. It wasn’t just lacking patients; the staff, the nurses, the doctors—all of them, except for a young white guy sitting behind the intake station—were gone. There were a few patients scattered around the room, either asleep or staring at the floor.

They got a better look at the young man in the intake station. He wore nurses’ scrubs, but Sam decided that he’d eat his own shoe if this guy was a nurse. Clean shaven, closely cropped hair. Cold look in his eyes. No, this guy was military, Sam was positive.

“Evening,” Ed said. He’d taken to simply leaving the star hanging outside his chest pocket. Made things easier. Sam had told him that Ed secretly just wanted to pretend he was a sheriff in the Old West.

“What can I do for you, officer?” the guy said.

“Looking for a witness. Heard the ambulance brought him in. Name’s Don Wycza.”

“Okay. Let me see what I can find,” the guy said, tapping the keyboard.

“Kinda quiet tonight, huh?” Sam said, both detectives playing good cop.

“So they say,” the guy said in an offhand way. “I wouldn’t know. Just started.”

Sam caught Ed’s eye. Something wasn’t right about this setup. Ed let a smile flicker at the edges of his mouth. He agreed. The kid hadn’t asked how to spell the witness’s name.

Sam wandered away from the desk while the guy put on a show of clicking the mouse around and hammering at the keyboard. Sam let his eyes flicker around the room and took note of the eyeballs in the ceiling, little half spheres of black glass. He wondered who was watching the empty emergency room.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Tommy. There was no ring, just an odd squeal. He held his phone up so Ed could listen. “You ever heard this before?”

Ed shook his massive gray head slowly. “It’s not a bad signal.” He didn’t know much about cell phones, except that he had a cheap knockoff, and he had a lot of experience with lost calls. “Sounds like . . . interference.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Sam headed back to the front desk. The need for two good cops was over; it was time to see if a bad cop could accomplish anything. “You track our witness down yet?” he asked the guy behind the desk.

The guy furrowed his brow and feigned confusion. “Not yet. Are you sure you’ve got the right hospital? We’re sending a lot of patients over to Northwestern tonight.”

“And why is that?”

The guy pretending to be a nurse frowned. “What’s the nature of your business with Mr. Wycza, again?”

Sam fixed him with a dark stare. “What’s your fucking name, asshole?”

The guy stared right back. The frown was gone, replaced with an echo of Ed’s grin. Smooth and collected. Sam scared him about as much as the Tooth Fairy. “Why don’t I get my supervisor on the phone. See if he can’t help you more than I can.”

“Wouldn’t take much,” Sam said, knowing intimidation wasn’t going to work.

Ed popped Sam’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “The fuck’s he doing here?” he said, pointing with his chin at the elevators beyond the front desk, back in triage.

Lee Shea stepped through the elevator doors and headed for the back exit.

“Downright curious,” Sam said. He and Ed stepped around the desk and followed Lee.

The guy behind the desk said loudly, “Gentlemen! You can’t go back there.”

Sam and Ed ignored him.

“I’m calling my supervisor,” the guy threatened.

Sam called over his shoulder, “Please do. I’d like to have a word.”

Ed and Sam moved briskly and caught up to Lee; they flanked him, matching him stride for stride. Ed said, “Evening. Well, well. Mr. Cornelieus Shea.” A grin split his wide face.

Lee had had too much practice as a politician, with news cameras catching him at all hours of the day, to be caught looking guilty. A sincere, good-natured smile appeared, as easily as slipping on a pair of old socks. He stopped. “Hi, there. Can I help you?”

Sam bit his tongue, letting Ed do the talking.

Ed chuckled. “Us? No, no. Of course not. Just wanted to say hi. Seeing you here. How about that rat at City Hall yesterday, huh?”

Lee let puzzlement flash across his features. “I’m sorry, Mister . . . ?”

“Detective Jones.”

Lee stuck out his hand and shook Ed’s enthusiastically, then was on the move again. “I’m afraid we’ve never met. Always good to meet a member of Chicago’s law enforcement.”

Ed’s smile never left his face. Sam thought Ed could give Lee a run for his money in maintaining a friendly appearance. Ed released Lee’s hand but didn’t relent. “Yeah, that business at City Hall. Pretty crazy, huh?”