THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

speakerphone.”
    When he came back two minutes later with the speakerphone and a spare radio, Eli had the oxygen back on and Ainsley was hanging a catheter bag by clipping it to the handle of the night table with an alligator clip she’d found. Before he could compliment her ingenuity, the radio squawked.
    Ainsley dove for the radio on the bed, but Delano produced the spare he’d pocketed. “Bowen here. What’s the status on the roof?”
    “Looks like activity in the helo, but I can’t tell what’s going on. It’s hard to tell without sound, but it almost looks like he’s trashing the inside of the helo.”
    “The phone!” Ainsley grabbed it from him. “Where’s the jack? We need to get it plugged in. If he’s frustrated, he’ll call.”
    No sooner did she say that when the phone began to ring from the other room. “There!” Delano pointed to a phone jack to the left of his bed, situated right beside an electrical outlet. “Give me the power supply. It has to be plugged in, as well.”
    Between the two of them, they got it plugged in and it began to ring. Delano hit the button to answer it.
    “Bowen.”
    “Your time is up,” Janecek shouted. “Both of you. On the roof. Now.”
    “I told you it would take the better part of an hour. We haven’t used half that much time yet. I’ve barely begun—”
    “Changed my mind.” A pause, filled by labored breathing, as though his earlier roar had done him in. “I’ve decided … I’m in rather … a hurry.”
    A jolt of excitement jittered through him at Janecek’s breathlessness. “Radak? You don’t sound so good. Is something wrong up there?”
    “Nothing wrong. Just need the woman. And you.”
    “I’m sorry, that’s not going to happen until I finish working with Nurse Crawford. She’s only now starting to respond. It’ll take—”
    A crash and a curse. “Waste of time … fixing her. Send her now.”
    “Radak, are you having trouble breathing? Is your heart racing?”
    “What? What did you say?”
    “Are you feeling a little weak, maybe? Or experiencing chest pain?”
    An anguished howl. “How?” he demanded. “How did you do it? How did you poison me?”
    “I didn’t.”
    “Fuck you, Bowen. You did so! But how?”
    “I’m afraid you partook of the Merzetti blood, Radak.”
    “No. Impossible. Grayson can’t have … the Merzetti blood. You would never let him spend … so much time … on the front lines. Too risky.”
    “Not Grayson. I told you, I didn’t do this to you. You did it to yourself.”
    “Nooooooooo!”
    “Yes. The girl. You didn’t turn her, Radak. She’s sleeping like a princess in her mother’s bed. Her biological mother’s bed.”
    “Bitch!” he snarled. “It was that little whore! You! You knew about this.”
    A female scream. Then the cell phone Janecek had been using crashed to the floor.
    “Lucy!” Ainsley screamed. Then she turned on Delano. “Omigod, what have you done? He’ll kill her now! He knows he has nothing to lose!”
    “She’ll be able to fend him off. He’s weak as a kitten.” He hoped. Jesus, it wasn’t supposed to go this way. His plan was to make Janecek’s plight plain, then dangle the prospect of medical assistance to motivate him to surrender quickly. And dammit, it was a good plan, but the vampire had let his rage get the better of him.
    “Pilot!” Delano shouted. “Pilot, pick up! Pick up this phone, dammit, if you want to live. Do you hear me? Pick up the phone. Do it now!”
    “Hello?”
    Delano’s knees went weak with relief, but he steeled his voice. “Listen carefully. Your boss is dying. I’m a doctor, and there’s no doubt about the outcome. He will die, and he’ll die soon. But I don’t want any harm to come to that nice young woman before he dies, and neither do you. Now tell me, is she all right?”
    “She’s holding her own.”
    “Good. Because if anything bad happens to the lady, I’ll no longer feel constrained not to use my anti-aircraft guns when you try to lift that bird off my roof. Do you take my meaning?”
    “Guns?”
    “Yes, big ones. Did you happen to notice that skylight when you landed? It’s not really a skylight. And even if you should lift off safely, I’ve got your partner. He can’t talk right now, since I’ve robbed him of the power of speech, but I expect he can write if I put pen and paper in his hands. And I’m pretty confident I can persuade your name out of him if I promise to reverse the tracheostomy I