Tom burst out the back door of the hospital onto the lighted rear portico. His ear caught the vroom of an engine starting, then a car speeding off. He sprinted toward the sound into a dark, paved alley. The car was out of sight.
“A clean getaway!” Tom murmured in disgust.
He hurried back to the third floor. Police officers arrived and the nurse told her story.
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36 3-D TELEJECTOR
“When I came into the room,” she said, “I saw a man dressed like an intern holding a gun at the patient’s back.”
“Then it wasn’t anyone on the hospital staff?” questioned the officer in charge, Sergeant May.
“No, his face wasn’t familiar. I screamed and he jerked around. Then the patient tried to grab his gun. But the man got his hand free, struck the patient, and leaped out the window.”
“Was it your impression he came here to kill the patient?” asked the sergeant.
“To kidnap him, I think,” the nurse replied. “Just as I entered the room I heard the man say, ‘Start walking-and no funny business!’ “
“He probably planned to march the patient down the back stairs,” Tom said.
“With his intern’s getup, I’ll bet no one would have stopped him.”
“Wouldn’t someone have noticed his gun?”
Tom pointed to a blanket lying on the floor. “Perhaps he planned to cover it with that. And he had a getaway car waiting.”
Sergeant May told his partner to phone in an alarm. He turned to Doc Simpson and another physician who were attending the unconscious man. “Any chance he’ll be able to talk soon?”
The hospital medic shook his head. “Not likely. He suffered a brain injury even before this blow tonight. It may be weeks before he can be questioned.
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