Page 1 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

Prologue

Ace

Hidden in the shadows, moving as fast as I can while still remaining unseen, I duck behind cars and slide between people coming and going. I’m a ghost. Ihaveto be a ghost, because if I’m seen, we’re both dead.

Following his stretcher between moving ambulances and across the hospital dock, I burst into the ER barely ten steps behindhimand his emergency responders.

Staff at this small-town hospital were waiting for his arrival, alerted by their colleagues, and alerted by the messages I pushed through the system with my special skills so the transmissions aren’t lost in the chaos overtaking this town during a cold November day.

It’s been a busy day for first responders, but I can’t afford for them to screw up and lose him in the shuffle. They need to know he’s coming; there can’t be a wait; there can’t be confusion, because every second that passes while he bleeds is another second closer he comes to death.

The stretcher is flung through the emergency room amid shouts and dropped supplies. Bandages unravel across the floor, and a bloodied face mask drops to the linoleum as he’s pushed past a fleet of doctors and through another door.

His strong body convulses on the stretcher. A fit man of more than two hundred pounds of muscle that was once trained and treasured, but is now weak from too much substance abuse and not enough sleep or exercise, clings to life while his hand hangs limply over one side of the stretcher and the other flexes against his chest.

Blood leaves his body faster than is compatible with life. The parade of doctors, EMTs, nurses, and one stretcher leave a trail of crimson on the light gray linoleum as they slam into walls and skid in the blood until the chaotic noise lowers from ear-splitting to a low buzzing.

“BP’s dropping fast. We’re losing him, guys!” They swing around one corner, then through a set of plastic doors at a sprint. I continue to follow, slower, quiet, invisible, despite the fact I’m not staff and have no right to be here.

No one notices me because I perfected the art of blending in years ago.

It’s what I have to do in my line of work: get in, get out, make a mess or clean up, depending on my objectives, and all the while, stay invisible.

I already know the layout of this hospital. I’ve known since this began that the chances of him ending up here were high, so I pulled the digital blueprints eighteen months ago, studied them, then studied the staff files to familiarize myself with who I need to know.

It was only a matter of time before I’d find myself walking these halls.

Stepping into the hall and collecting a thick folder as I pass an unoccupied desk, I make myself look like I belong and follow the stretcher until my road ends. Noisily, they slam through another set of double doors while screaming for X-Rays, and when they turn right, I turn left and make my way toward the chief of staff’s office.

Their patient today has no ID in his possession, but his wounds are unusual. Unusual enough that even the upper echelons of the hospital staff have come out to watch.

Checking my cell screen and the security feed I have access to no matter where I go in this hospital, I slide into the empty office, the fish that swims against the current while everyone else runs in the opposite direction.

Dropping my folder on the corner of the heavy oak desk, I don a pair of latex gloves and sit down in front of the computer. Pathetically, it takes only three keystrokes to gain entrance to files that should remain confidential to everyone except the man who owns this office. Just three before I’m scanning their patients’ files.

Today’s work is nothing more than a sleight of hand. It takes no skill, no concentration.

Just a backspace and a new name.

I replace what was there with the obvious: John D. Hamilton.

He’s my newJohn Doe.

I leave everything else alone: age: 29, sex: male, ethnicity: Caucasian. But where it lists his injuries as documented by the ambulance staff en route, I scan for my own benefit, frown at the hospital they intend to fly him to once he’s stable –ifhe ever becomes stable – and instead, enter the hospital I know best.

The hospital I can most easily monitor.

The hospital that literally stands across the street from an apartment building I have easy access to, whose massive warehouse windows overlook the long-term wards.

If he lives, I’ll see him again soon.

And if not, then I’ll mourn a good man, but then I’ll go back to the start and find a new soldier to help me on my mission. This mission doesn’t die if he does. It can’t, because people are still suffering. Until they’re not, I have to keep forging forward.

Standing again, I close the windows on the computer and slide my phone into my back pocket. Picking up the overfull folder for cover, I push the leather chair back in, tug my gloves off, slide back into the hall and head toward the OR.

There’s a viewing window I can sit behind for a minute and speakers that let me hear every word being shouted in the operating room. Heart-rate monitors are strapped to John’s body as he lies in his own blood and filth. They strap him to bags of O-negative and frantically race to replace what’s dripping to the already massacred floor.

The likelihood of him surviving is miniscule, but if he does, he’ll have earned it.

---