Patient One: A Novel

by Leonard Goldberg

  “Just turn into the wind, Madam Vice President,” Sanders told her.

  “Which way are they sailing now?”

  “With the wind, ma’am.”

  “Have them ready to turn about on my command.”

  Seventeen

  David remained partially hidden, with half his body squeezed under the large pipe. He held his breath as another strong beam of light passed by. For the past ten minutes the terrorists had been continually talking and searching the crawlspace, looking for the source of the blood that had dripped down into Jamie Merrill’s room. Nearby, David heard two voices jabbering and complaining about something. It sounded as if their patience was growing thin.

  The shaft of light came by once again, now pointing up to the metal grid and wires above David’s head. His fear was mounting, and the closeness of the beam made it worse. He stayed perfectly still, trying to ignore the pain in his leg. There was more conversation between the terrorists, then an order. Suddenly, the light disappeared and the crawlspace became dark and silent.

  Only then did David reach down and feel the wound in his lower thigh. It was bleeding profusely, despite the makeshift dressing he’d made by placing a handkerchief over the site and wrapping his tie around it. He couldn’t determine if the bullet had nicked an artery, but if it had he could bleed to death there and then. Somehow he had to stop it.

  Carefully he pushed himself away from the pipe and moved over to a ventilation duct that allowed a sliver of light to come through. He positioned his leg so he could examine the wound. It was a deep, inch-long gash above his knee. The bullet had torn out a piece of the lateral quadriceps muscle and blood was flowing from it, but not spurting. Good! It wasn’t arterial bleeding. He pushed his handkerchief deeper into the wound and bound it tightly in place with his tie. The bleeding slowed.

  Some distance behind him he heard a soft, prolonged wheeze. At least Karen was alive, he thought, although she too might be wounded. David pricked his ears and listened for cries of pain or distress, but all he heard was quiet. To make certain she was all right, he planned to check on her after seeing what the terrorists were doing in Jamie Merrill’s room. Hopefully they weren’t preparing for another search of the crawlspace.

  He glanced down through the ventilation duct into the First Daughter’s room. Carolyn was changing the blood-soaked sheets. Jamie Merrill sat off to the side, a blank stare on her face. A terrorist stood guard just outside the door, his back to the people in the room.

  David considered climbing down into the suite and taking the guard out and grabbing his Uzi. He was sure he could do it, even with his injured leg. And he was sure he could herd Carolyn and the President’s wife and daughter into the presidential suite, taking out a second guard in the process. But then what? There would still be three heavily armed terrorists remaining and David would be no match for them. He and the President’s family would end up trapped in a single room with no way out. They’d still be hostages.

  David lay back for a moment, the wound in his leg throbbing. He pushed down on the dressing and reorganized his thoughts. First, contact the Secret Service. Give them a fast update, and see if a rescue attempt was imminent. It damn well better be, David thought grimly. Time was running out for the President and Marci and Warren and everyone else.

  He reached for his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Frantically, he checked all of his pockets. The cell phone was missing. Jesus H. Christ! My only link to the outside is gone. I had it in my pocket so I could feel the vibration of an incoming call, and now it’s gone. It must have slipped out while I was curling myself into a ball to avoid the bullets.

  He hurriedly oriented himself in the dimness, and crawled back to the spot where he thought he’d heard the voice of the agent on the roof. The metal grid around him was sticky with blood, but he didn’t know if it was his or the agent’s. Or maybe it was both of theirs. This was the spot, he told himself. He began groping the area for the cell phone, then abruptly stopped. Something hit his head. It wasn’t metal. It was too soft for that. He reached up for the object. It was a human arm dangling down through the hole in the roof. It belonged to the dead agent overhead. It was cold and pulseless, and covered with blood.

  David nodded to himself. The terrorists had probably seen the arm and believed it was the source of the blood dripping down. And maybe the hand on that arm was delivering the medication the President needed. David quickly felt around for the packs of Factor VIII, but all he detected was clotted blood. Shit! As he turned to backtrack, he noticed a small, faint light off to his right. He moved over to it. The light was coming from his cell phone. I must have pressed the Talk button when I turned over on it. Lucky I did! But then again, maybe not so lucky. The lighted screen would be using up valuable battery power. He quickly pushed the redial button. A moment later a voice came on.

  “Special Agent Cassidy here.”

  “This is Ballineau,” David whispered.

  “You made it!”

  “Most of me did,” David said, keeping his voice very low. “Now this phone has been on for a while and will give out soon. We have to talk fast, so don’t ask, just answer. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Cassidy replied, then hurriedly went on. “But first, there’s some critical information I have to pass on to you.”

  “Go.”

  “Is Karen Kellerman alive?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, if she is, you’d better watch your back.” Cassidy rapidly transmitted the information indicating that Karen Kellerman was a crucial part of the terrorist group. “The evidence has been confirmed by reliable sources.”

  “Son of a bitch!” David seethed, thinking that duplicity must be ingrained in Karen’s DNA. She was a liar and a thief and now a goddamned turncoat! “They probably turned her while she was working over there.”

  “That’s what we figure,” Cassidy said. “We also figure that her existence up there threatens yours—if you get my drift.”

  “I got it,” David muttered as his hatred for Karen boiled over. She was a goddamn traitor! he thought bitterly. An American traitor who would be responsible for the death of her President and dozens of others. Killing her wouldn’t be a problem. Now she was just another terrorist.

  “Ballineau?”

  “Yeah,” David said and quickly refocused his mind. “To begin with, your man on the roof is dead.”

  “We know.”

  “And the President’s medicine wasn’t delivered.”

  “We figured.”

  “The terrorists are getting nervous, and it won’t take much for them to start killing people,” David went on. “And the President is almost certain to start hemorrhaging again. So whatever plans you have, you’d better put them into high gear.”

  “We have a rescue team on the way.”

  “Patch me through to them.”

  Cassidy hesitated. “It might be best for me to relay your information.”

  “Patch me through!” David demanded. “Before this goddamn phone gives out.”

  “Hold.”

  David’s thigh began to throb painfully again. He reached down to rearrange the makeshift dressing. The bandage loosened, the discomfort eased. But the bleeding started again, dripping down from his thigh onto the metal grid below.

  “Are you there, Ballineau?” Special Agent Geary asked.

  “Yeah,” David replied in a hoarse whisper.

  “I hear you’re in a tough place.”

  “Not as tough as the place you’re going to be in.”

  “Oh?”

  “If you’re thinking about coming in from above, you’d better think again,” David advised. “That misadventure on the roof has the terrorists spooked. They keep looking up into the crawlspace every five minutes or so. They’ll hear you coming a block away.”

 
“What about blowing our way through the floor?” Geary asked.

  “Where?”

  “Away from the President.”

  “How far away from the President?”

  “The nurses’ lounge.”

  “Too far,” David said immediately. “The terrorists will have an Uzi at the President’s head before you can climb up through the hole.”

  Geary paused for a long moment. “Maybe we’ll be able to tiptoe across to the President’s bathroom and blow an opening in the ceiling.”

  “What about falling debris?” David cautioned. “The President could end up crushed under a mass of metal girders and wooden beams.”

  “It’s just an option we’re considering,” Geary downplayed the idea.

  “You’re going to have to come up with a lot better plan than that,” David told him. “Everything you’ve mentioned so far ends up with a dead President.”

  “You got any suggestions?”

  Not even one, David grumbled to himself, knowing he wouldn’t be of much help. His days in Special Ops were almost twenty years ago. A lifetime had passed since then, the memories vague except for the killing and the sounds and smells of death. Still, he searched back in his mind for the clandestine operations he’d once participated in. They’d never had to go into a city with a skyscraper or modern hospital. Never. It had always been some shitty place like Mogadishu or Basra. Places where indoor plumbing was considered a luxury. Mogadishu was the worst. It was a—

  Suddenly David’s memory clicked in. Mogadishu. Oh, yeah! His mind flashed back to the last mission he’d been on. A terrorist warlord was holed up in the penthouse of a crummy apartment building. The three floors beneath him were occupied by his guards, all heavily armed. Yet the Special Ops team got to him, killing him and his mistress and his personal sentries. Then they blew the building to hell, and made it back to a waiting helicopter.“You still there, Geary?” David asked urgently.

  “Still here.”

  “Look up my military records,” David went on hurriedly. “The operation in Mogadishu is the …”

  “Where?” Geary asked.

  There was a sudden burst of gunfire around David. Bullets tore up through the ceiling and whizzed by him. Another burst came up through the panels near the giant pipes, filling the air with sparks and smoke.

  “We see your blood dripping down,” Aliev called up. “You have ten seconds to surrender or we will fill the crawlspace with so many bullets a mouse could not survive. One … two … three …”

  “Mogadishu!” David yelled into the cell phone. “The operation in Mogadishu! Do you read me?”

  There was no response.

  David looked at the screen on his cell phone. It was now totally black. Oh, Christ! My cell phone is dead. The message never got through!

  “Six … seven … eight,” Aliev was counting.

  “Hold your fire!” David cried out. “Hold your fire! I’m coming down.”

  Eighteen

  David carefully lowered himself from the ceiling, trying to contain his fear and wondering if they were going to shoot him for causing so much trouble. They would know he was the hidden enemy agent and blame him for the death of the terrorist in the kitchen. And, in all likelihood, they would execute him for doing it. Somehow he had to talk his way out of the bind he was in. Play dumb, he decided. Real dumb. He gingerly stepped onto the countertop in the bathroom, then eased his feet onto the floor. Blood was flowing freely from his thigh wound and soaking through to his pants.

  Aliev pointed his Uzi at David, watching his every move. “So it was you who killed one of my men.”

  David looked at him strangely, feigning ignorance. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about my cousin on the floor in the kitchen,” Aliev snapped.

  David shook his head. “I wasn’t in the kitchen area. I was too busy trying to look after all the sick patients.”

  “And you came down into the rooms to do this?” Aliev probed. “To give medicines to everyone?”

  David nodded slowly. “To check on the IVs and administer drugs when I could.”

  David immediately saw the trap he’d fallen into. He shouldn’t have mentioned the drugs. Goddamn it!

  “Where did you obtain the drugs?” Aliev asked pointedly. “The medicine room is guarded at all times. So who provided the drugs?”

  “No one,” David said, thinking rapidly. “I got the medicines from the cardiac cart in Dr. Warren’s room.”

  Aliev stared at him, not sure whether to believe him. “All by yourself, eh?”

  “All by myself,” David replied, submissively averting Aliev’s hard stare. “I had to try to help.”

  Aliev lowered his weapon, but kept his eyes glued suspiciously on David. “One man doing all these things?” he asked, then answered himself. “I don’t think so. There must be others in the crawlspace.”

  “There are no more except for the dead agent,” David insisted, thinking briefly about Karen Kellerman. If she had managed to dodge the barrage of bullets, she’d stay in place, scared shitless, until all the shooting was over. Then she’d climb down, get herself a good lawyer, and walk away scot-free. The treasonous bitch! If, on the other hand, the terrorists discovered her wounded, she’d talk and they would kill him.

  “You have something more to say?” Aliev broke the silence. The tone of his voice indicated he didn’t believe David’s answer. “Yes?”

  “No,” David said evenly. “I have nothing to add. I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “You had better be telling the truth, or you will be the next to die,” Aliev threatened. He barked out a set of orders to a terrorist at the door and waited for the man to leave before coming back to David. “How long have you been in the ceiling?”

  “From the beginning.” David limped over to a chair and sat down heavily. “While your men were taking over the ward, I climbed up into the crawlspace.”

  “So you made contact with the people on the outside,” Aliev guessed correctly. “You guided the men on the roof.”

  David shook his head, knowing the direction the conversation was about to take. The leader of the terrorists was trying to determine how much information about him and his men had been passed on. “I attempted to contact the police,” David said innocently, “but my cell phone was dead.”

  Aliev quickly snapped his fingers. “Let me have it.”

  David handed over the cell phone and watched while the terrorist checked it out. He turned to Carolyn and asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  Carolyn reached for a clean pillowcase. She ripped it apart and wrapped it around his thigh. “You’re bleeding over everything.”

  “We’ll take care of that in a minute,” David said, pondering how much blood he’d lost and whether it would leave him weakened. He gently stretched out his leg, and the pain in his quadriceps intensified. Fresh blood came through the new dressing.

  Aliev tossed the cell phone aside and studied David’s white laboratory coat. “You are a doctor, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will take care of the President. We need him alive for now.”

  “First, I want to treat my leg wound and stop the bleeding.”

  Aliev came over and gazed down at the blood-soaked dressing. “How will you do this?”

  “With the nurse’s help, I’ll close the wound with sutures,” David said and got to his feet. “You can have one of your men watch if you’d like.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” Aliev assured him. “I plan to watch everything you do.”

  David limped out of the room, leaving a trail of blood behind. Carolyn was at his side, Aliev close behind them. Some of the patients’ doors were open, and
David could see terrorists climbing onto beds to look into the crawlspace above the ceiling. They’d take no chances now, he thought grimly. The crawlspace was their only weak spot, and they knew it. They would secure the space and make certain it was no longer a viable point of entry.

  Carolyn glanced over and saw the strained look on David’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.”

  Speaking sotto voce and barely moving her lips, Carolyn said, “If they find Karen up there, you’ll be in big trouble.”

  “I hope she’s dead,” David whispered back.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “The hell I don’t,” David hissed and quickly gave Carolyn all the details the Secret Service had gathered on Karen Kellerman. “She’s a goddamn traitor!”

  “But why?” Carolyn asked, with a stunned expression.

  “Who knows?”

  “Quiet!” Aliev demanded and nudged them on with the barrel of his Uzi.

  Just ahead, the balding terrorist was having an animated conversation with another terrorist. He was speaking loudly and gesturing with his hands held wide apart.

  “Boom! Boom!” he said excitedly, now practicing his poor English. “Big bomb! Many die!”

  “Hah! Hah!”—Yes! Yes!” the other terrorist agreed. “Boom! Big bomba!”

  Aliev rushed over to the pair and began screaming at them. He pushed the balding terrorist against the wall and pointed his submachine gun at him, all the while yelling angrily in his face. “Idiot! Idiot!” Then he started shrieking in Chechen.

  David’s complexion went ashen as he put the pieces of the conversation together. “Jesus Christ!” he whispered to Carolyn out of the side of his mouth. “They’ve planted a huge bomb somewhere up here!”

  “Are they going to blow us all up?” Carolyn asked apprehensively. “You know, just after they leave?”

  David shook his head. “More likely it’s a safeguard against an attack. If the rescue attempt looks as if it’s succeeding, they’ll detonate the bomb by remote control and kill everybody, including the President.”