21
El Formigal, Spain
The doctor walks past Fisher without paying him any attention. In any reputable hospital, the mercenary would have stolen a white coat and impersonated a physician himself. The personnel is so extensive, between day and night shifts, that no one knows all the practitioners. A white coat is enough to wander the hallways without raising suspicions.
But in the small private clinic in El Formigal, where everyone knows each other, such a scheme would get him spotted right away. That's why he opted for the gray uniform and standard gloves of the cleaning crew. Nobody pays attention to the cleaning staff, especially not the doctors.
He continues quietly along the corridor, which is restricted to employees. He pushes a cart containing a broom, a mop, a bucket, and a large black plastic bag stretched around a metal hoop. His skillfully tilted down cap's visor masks his face.
As he nears the sign marked "depósito de cadáveres," he slows his pace and grabs the broom. Approaching the morgue, he pretends to sweep the hallway with professional diligence.
Reaching the gray double doors, he cracks open one of them with his shoulder and quickly glances inside. Reassured to see no one, he checks that the corridor is also deserted and enters the room.
Fisher had already searched Rodriguez's apartment from top to bottom the day before without uncovering what he was looking for. The only explanation is that the graphic designer kept the contract on him the day of his execution.
The morgue is small, without the refrigerated drawers found in bigger establishments. Instead a huge refrigerator occupies the back, closed by a thick metal door with a large chrome lever. A real butcher's freezer, Fisher thinks. But when he opens it, rather than pig carcasses hung by their feet, a simple cart with a pale green sheet hinting at the body underneath is slid into the opposite corner of the door.
Fisher is not surprised. In this season, El Formigal is very sparsely populated, and he didn't expect to have to check many corpses before finding Rodriguez. Without even bothering to confirm the unique body's identity, the mercenary bends down and combs the lower tray of the trolley. He pulls out a white plastic bag with the clinic's emblem printed on the side, surrounded by a circle of letters indicating "Haga clic en privado El Formigal" — "Private Clinic of El Formigal."
He places the bag on the sheet, and begins to search the clothes Rodriguez was wearing when he arrived. He soon retrieves a thick envelope from the inside pocket of the jacket.
He returns the bag to its place and exits the cold room for better light. The mercenary retrieves a stack of paper from the envelope to quickly leaf through it. He recognizes the contract for the launch of the next video game produced by the graphic designer's multimedia studio. Fisher slides everything back into the envelope and pockets it. He heads towards the double door and halts abruptly upon hearing voices from the corridor.
Scanning the room, he notices a trash bin, pulls out the half-full gray bag from it, and stands up just as the doors open.
Brandishing the bag like a trophy, he squeezes through the strangers in civilian clothes entering the room accompanied by a doctor, saying: "La basura..."
No one tries to stop the cleaner from leaving with "the trash," and they even move aside to let him through.
Fisher notes the crease of one man's trousers, skewed at the ankle, a sign of a holster and a small caliber. He doesn't have a chance to examine the second visitor but wouldn't be surprised if he were carrying a holster under his arm... Agents. He lingers just long enough behind the door to confirm it. From the other side, they speak, in English, of having the body repatriated to a better-equipped facility for a complete autopsy.
Automatically, Fisher wants to reach for his phone to inform Macmillan. But he's in a clinic. Using his cell phone would only draw attention to himself in a place where such use is controlled. He quickens his pace, throws the garbage into the large bag on his cart, leaves it behind, and runs towards the end of the corridor leading to the service door.
Ditching his borrowed coat and cap at the threshold, he immediately grabs his mobile.
YOU ARE READING
Unlimited Plan (*)
Mystery / ThrillerWhen Jeremy Baltac-former member of a hacker elite group turned cybersecurity engineer-learns about the disappearance of an old teammate, he has no idea it's the starting point of a real race against time. Members of his former group are being elimi...
