The Replacement Phenomenon
Jake had no desire to wait around for any kind of response. He certainly did not want to be there when the man woke up. He had effectively assaulted the guy and stopped him achieving his goal. He was not about to see the reaction when he discovered what had happened. Jake made his way through the crowd and was out of the sight of everyone involved within a few seconds. Just a few minutes later he was back at his car. Now he had to figure out what was going on with Arnold's daughter.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake's heart sank as he approached the Arnold house for the second time that day. From a distance he had seen flashing lights of red and blue, and he had hoped they were not an indication of his failure to complete his second task. He entered the street and found D.I Arnold's car and two police cars.
Officers seemed to be out in force, searching for clues concerning the disappearance of the Arnolds’ daughter. He was too late. He was not sure how Ironside would have felt about the involvement of other police officers at this stage. He had been given the impression that Ironside would not stand for anything that would interfere with his plans.
He drove away again before he was spotted. He had been accused of enough concerning the Arnold family over the past few days, albeit in the future as far as everyone else was concerned. He did not want another accusation looming over him.
He quickly left the area and drove towards home. He wondered whether that was the right thing to do. Amy would be wondering what he was doing home so early in the day, but he needed somewhere quiet to think.
He found himself on his usual route home from work, seeing familiar buildings pass by. The streets were emptier than usual, but he was used to travelling to and from work at peak times on weekdays. Lunchtime on a Thursday was very different.
As he approached his home street he resisted the urge to turn right and head for home. There would be too many questions about why he was absent from work. Instead he carried on along the road, not really knowing where he would end up.
With no plan and no ideas, he was becoming frustrated. There was no obvious way for Jake to get the day back on track. He had managed to save Arnold's sister, but the guy's daughter was being held hostage by Ironside. He did not know how he was going to find her or, failing that, he had not yet figured out how he could stop the trade.
He found it hard to imagine that he could persuade Arnold to risk the safety of his daughter and abandon Ironside's trading plans. The only way to stop this trade was to get Arnold his daughter back. To do that, he needed to find her.
His drive took him to a retail park on the edge of town. The place was busy, which made it difficult for Jake to find a parking space.
He could never understand how so many shops served so many customers during the day. He had always believed that the people with money to spend would be working in the middle of a weekday. He realised there was an element of hypocrisy in thinking that. After all, here he was, at the same place in the middle of the day when he was supposed to be at work. But none of these other shoppers could be doing what he was doing.
He stopped the engine and pulled his mobile phone from his pocket without knowing who he was going to call. He pressed a couple of buttons, bringing up a list of previous calls he had made. At the top of the list was the police station. Maybe it was worth talking to Jenny Arnold to see whether she had any useful information.
He hit the green button on the phone to initiate the call and received the same greeting he had received earlier. “Hello, is Jenny Arnold there?” He asked. There was a long pause.
'”I'm sorry, but she's not here.” The woman responded hesitantly. Jake was on the verge of hanging up when the woman spoke again. “I assume you haven't heard what happened.”
Jake was suddenly concerned. “I haven't heard anything,” he said in reply.
“She's not here because she's in hospital. She was walking back here when she was stopped just along the street by a man who mugged her. The man stabbed her and ran off.”
Jake was rocked by the news. He expressed his condolences and said he hoped she would recover quickly. He thanked the woman for letting him know, and then hung up. Why hadn't he seen this coming? The guy he had stopped earlier had clearly been determined to carry out his assignment one way or another. If he wanted Jenny out of the way he was prepared to do whatever it took to get the job done.
He wondered how such a thing could have happened right outside a police station. This guy must have been desperate to stop her from doing something. He needed to find out why she was targeted. Either she knew something as a result of the conversation outside The Sandwich Bar, or she was about to do something that would affect Ironside's plans. Alternatively it was simply that she was Arnold’s sister, and they needed another lever to make him do what they wanted him to do. He had to find out.
If Jake could get to the hospital and see her, he might be able to find a clue. Maybe she had a diary or a mobile phone in her purse that might contain something useful. He started the car and made his way to the hospital. He had now failed in both of the day's tasks, but perhaps he could use this latest twist to prevent this day from getting any worse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake stood outside of the security doors of the Intensive Care Unit of the Darlington Memorial Hospital. He had tried the intercom several times, but no-one answered. After what seemed like half an hour, someone finally answered.
“I’m here to see Jenny Arnold,” he said. “I was told she had been brought here. I’m her younger brother, Jake.” He decided to take a risk by using his real name. He lacked the imagination to come up with another name when there was no real reason for doing so. He fully expected the nurse to tell him she had no brother by that name and that he should go away, but instead the magnetic lock on the door clicked and he was granted access.
The Victorian hospital was huge, and seemed to always be in the process of being renovated and updated. Bare corridors led off in every direction from the entrance. Signs were placed along each hallway in case visitors managed to get completely lost in the few yards since the previous sign. He had followed a couple of the signs himself, but was more lost after following them than he would have been without them. It had taken him more than ten minutes of wandering to find the right part of the hospital. He considered the Intensive Care Unit to be quite important and was surprised at how hard it was to find from the main entrance of the hospital.
Everything about the massive building screamed Sixties style, despite the constant efforts to update the interior. All of the extensions to the original ageing structure were seemingly built at the same time. Bird’s eye view photographs dotted along the walls showed the sites at various stages of construction. By the time he had found where he was going, he had seen the hospital at almost every stage of construction as it evolved from a basic old building to one that occupied a massive plot of land in the town.
This place had the same look as every other hospital he had ever seen. Every hospital he had ever set eyes on seemed to have been of concrete construction in a style typical of the Sixties. He really could not imagine what sick people did before then. Every hospital had the same block concrete feel, but each one must have replaced some older hospital. Some parts of the old hospital seemed to remain, and were now simply joined to each other and newer sections by glass lined corridors of the same concrete construction.
He was pointed in the direction of Jenny. As he walked down the sparsely furnished, narrow corridor he found the room where she was lying. She was apparently in a stable condition following the attack, and sleeping comfortably.
He looked through a glass panel in the door to discover he was not her only visitor. There was another man standing by her bedside, although he was doing more than simply standing there. He appeared to be fiddling with something, with his back towards the door through which Jake was looking. Jake hoped it was someone other than D.I Arnold. If it was him, then his cover would be blown, and he would be out of the hospital too qu
ickly to obtain any information at all. But it surely would not be him. His daughter had just gone missing. He would be needed elsewhere.
The man inside the room lifted his head and looked around. Jake moved his head quickly away from the window to avoid being seen, but he had already been spotted.
Jake instantly recognised this man. He was not a relative of the Arnold family, but the same man Jake had intercepted outside the sandwich bar earlier. He must have been responsible for putting her in hospital, and had probably come here to finish her off.
This mysterious man dropped something on the floor and darted towards the door. Jake moved away as the door swung open. The man, still in the same outfit as earlier, charged out of the room and hurried quickly away, looking over his shoulder every few seconds.
Jake ran into the room and looked at the equipment monitoring Jenny’s status. The heart rate increased dramatically within a few seconds of him watching. Blood pressure went through the roof. He was no doctor, but this was not a good sign. After another couple of seconds everything started beeping. It was clear this man had done something. Jake knew something to be wrong and did not wait to see exactly what would happen. He had a sinking feeling for the second time today. He knew that without immediate help, this woman would not live for more than the next few seconds.
“Nurse!” Jake shouted. It brought an immediate response. Within five seconds the room was filled with doctors and nurses struggling to keep her alive. One nurse calmly ushered him from the room.
As she turned around and headed back in, Jake left the unit and chased after the man in the dark outfit, hoping he hadn’t got too far ahead. He ran out of the Intensive Care Unit as fast as he could, being halted temporarily by the magnetic lock on the door. He reached the dark empty hallways and began to run.
He could see the man ahead of him in the distance. “Stop that man!” he shouted as loudly as he could while running as fast as he could, pointing ahead of him. “He's just killed a patient!”
CHAPTER 17
Thursday 22nd January, 1:21pm
Jake was apparently a much faster runner than the person he was chasing. In a couple of hundred yards of corridors he had shortened the distance between them. He needed to get closer but there was still some way to go before he ran out of hallway.
His shouts for other people to intervene and stop this man went unheard, or perhaps the few people around had no desire to help. Perhaps they considered him to be a madman, or perhaps they had problems of their own to worry about. Either way, he was going to have to catch this man on his own.
He was gaining ground rapidly on the assailant and was almost within reaching distance. They were approaching another junction of hallways when a wheelchair came from the left in the gap between them. With nowhere to go to get out of the way, Jake collided with what he hoped was an empty wheelchair. Luckily there was no one along for the ride as Jake tumbled to the ground along with the nurse pushing the mobile obstacle.
He scrambled to his feet and, after a mumbled apology to the startled nurse, went after the murderer again, now almost a hundred yards away again.
The hallways were more and more crowded as he neared the entrance. He was struggling to keep up with the guy whilst also trying to avoid collisions with so many visitors. He caught elbows and knees and he darted through any gap he could find in oncoming traffic. He would likely pick up bruises for his troubles, and had probably handed a couple out to people he knocked as he ran through the hallways, but that could not be helped. Catching this man meant everything to Jake in his current quest to save his family and others from future events.
He saw the dark figure of the man he was chasing at the main doors. He would be there himself in a couple of seconds. He rushed through the crowd and reached the main doors. He came to a halt outside and looked around, hoping to find him. Out of the corner of his right eye he saw a figure move between parked cars, then turn and run towards the furthest part of the large car park.
The surface of the car park was a cold hard tarmac. It was an unforgiving surface that would absorb the noise of almost every light impact.. That would make it difficult to track down the man he was chasing, but easier to sneak up on the guy.
He ran between the parked cars and saw the man further ahead in the car park. He suddenly vanished from sight. The assailant had apparently crouched down and had stopped moving. As Jake was still not sure exactly where the man had been when he disappeared, this made finding him infinitely more difficult.
He moved towards where he thought he had last seen the man, crouched down and looked around. He glanced to his right, then to his left, and finally saw the slightest of movements further ahead on the left.
This man seemed to be by the side of his own car and was probably about to climb in and drive away. The car was a dark blue BMW saloon that looked a few years old and in poor condition for its age with rust showing at the base of the car’s bodywork. Jake waited for the figure to sneak to the driver side door before creeping towards him, staying as low to the ground as he could. He approached the passenger door on the other side of the same car, confident he had done so quietly enough to avoid detection. The other guy wasn't at the driver’s side yet, but he had paused long enough for Jake to be certain he was about to unlock this car. He crept around to the front and could see the man's feet.
He could hear him breathing heavily. He was catching his breath after the unexpected run, perhaps believing that he had lost his pursuer.
Jake had not realised how exhausted he was by the chase until he saw and heard the other guy. He had failed to realise just how heavily he was breathing himself. He now doubted whether he could creep up on anyone with his lungs burning like this. He could only hope his heavy breathing was masked by the equally heavy breathing of the killer.
Once again he needed to act quickly if he was to have the advantage of surprise. He jumped from the front of the car and threw himself towards the man, knocking him to the ground. His head hit the ground again, but this time he was still conscious and moving, having not hit the tarmac as hard as he had done earlier in the day after Jake’s rugby tackle.
Something fell out of his left jacket pocket and slid along the ground. Jake looked up and saw a handgun staring back at him. Instinctively he reached for it, and his hand closed around it a split second before the killer, who was now trapped beneath him.
Jake stood up and aimed the gun straight down at the man on the ground. A couple of startled visitors in the car park fled in the direction of the hospital entrance, and Jake knew he would have only a few seconds before the police or hospital security arrived on the scene.
“Who are you?” he demanded. Silence. “I know you work for Ironside. I just want to know your name.” Still no answer was forthcoming.
“Get in the car,” Jake ordered. “You’re going to take me to wherever the Arnold girl is.”
“What makes you think I know?” the man growled sullenly.
“If you don't know, you’ll be able to find out. Now get up and let's get going.”
Jake hauled the man up from the floor and escorted him to the driver’s door, holding him at gunpoint until he was safely in the seat. He kept the gun on him as he walked around the car to the passenger side.
“Take me to where the girl is, and then we’ll discuss what to do next,” Jake barked. The man merely nodded submissively. The engine started and they drove away, the tyres squealing as they sped out of the main entrance. He did not know what he was going to do when they got to their destination. His driver would take him to the girl, but as yet he had no plans for what he would do when they arrived at their destination. The next stop: Uncertainty.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There was something unusual about the man Jake was holding at gunpoint. For a hired goon, he seemed to have given in very easily. He always expected thugs, terrorists, and other people of a similar vein to be more defiant when confronted. It all seemed just a little too
easy.
Jake also found it odd that this man appeared to know exactly where the girl was being held. He would have expected someone like Ironside to keep his cards close to his chest, and to tell his staff only what they needed to know. If this man's task was to kill the sister, why would he need to know where the daughter was being held?
However simple it all seemed, he was under the impression that they were almost at their destination. He still had a gun, and he had a getaway car. All he needed now was the hostage. It all seemed so simple in his head, but he was well aware of the fact that theory rarely played out in the real world.
He still had no idea how he would go about achieving the required rescue. He would expect the place to be heavily guarded. He would need the driver to get him close to the kidnap victim.
“Pull over. Now,” Jake demanded. The driver asked no questions, shrugged his shoulders, and stopped the car by the side of the road. “I’m going to get in the back and lie down behind the front seats,” Jake told him. “The gun will still be pointed at you through the back of the seat, so don’t try anything.”
His voice sounded more threatening than he could have imagined it would sound, possibly due to several days of frustration at attempting impossible tasks. He climbed into the back of the car and within a minute they were driving again.
Quietly, Jake removed the clip from the gun to see how many bullets he had. Nine bullets. That would be plenty, he hoped - especially as he was not planning on firing a single shot, if he could help it. He wanted this to go as peacefully as possible.
The car came to a stop. Jake could see two shadows looming over the car. Two guards were trying to figure out what was going on. “Mr Ironside requested no visitors. What are you doing here?” one of the guards asked.
“There’s an emergency and I need to talk with the boss as soon as possible,” the driver explained.
“You couldn't just call him?” asked the other guard.
“Not secure enough. I need to speak with him face to face.”