The serpent, the manifestation of his rage, pulled the trigger.

The trooper dropped in a boneless heap on the lawn.

Rickard waited for the alarm to be raised, but except for the distant call of a bird nothing else could be heard.

He propped the rifle against the fence, then scrambled over the top of it and into the hospital grounds.

He went directly to the dead man. He caught him under his armpits and dragged him into some nearby shrubs. There he peeled the Velcro patches from the man’s uniform, discarded the redundant SWAT insignia from his own and replaced them with the FBI ones. The uniforms weren’t exactly the same, but they were close enough. By the time anyone noticed the differences they’d be only a split second from death.

He took the guard’s place, standing with his back to the hospital while surreptitiously searching for danger. Then slowly he ambled toward the front of the building like a man bored by routine and killing time by patrolling the grounds. No one watched him from any of the windows. He noted CCTV cameras, but doubted that he’d been observed, due to the lack of troopers charging in his direction. He went up the steps and through the front door as if he had the right to do so.

Immediately inside was an automatic door. Beyond it an auxiliary nurse was busy at a desk. Rickard moved through the doors as they whisked open. The faint purr of the motor caused the woman to glance up at him.

“Toilet break,” Rickard told her.

“You know where they are.” The nurse gave him no more attention, turning back to her work. A spurt of anger went through him. Teaching her a lesson wasn’t a good idea, not at this moment, but maybe on his way out he’d show her he wasn’t to be ignored. He marched by her, looking like he knew exactly where he was going.

Signs pointed him upward.

He went that way.

At the top he found a hallway bordered by wards. This being a private facility, he’d expected each ward to be separated into individual rooms, but to his surprise found them to be open spaces lined with beds. The fact that the beds contained no patients gave him a trickle of unease.

He recalled the administration buildings and how deserted they’d looked.

Something else: where were all the staff? A hospital like this should be bustling with doctors, nurses and support personnel. That solitary woman at the front desk? She was a plant. Probably FBI. Everyone else had been moved because they were expecting him.

He’d just walked into a trap.

Panic clutched fleetingly at him. In the next second he pushed it aside, feeling instead the rage roiling in his innards.