“Jesus!” David breathed, his pulse racing again. He watched Geary anxiously and tried to read his expression, but the agent’s face remained impassive. “What’s happening now?”
“The grand finale,” Geary told him, pressing in on his earpiece so as not to miss a word. “And the crazy bastard won’t listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“The repeated warnings from our interceptors,” Geary answered. “We’ve shut down all the air corridors between the U.S. and Mexico. Planes approaching from the south have been instructed to go into a holding pattern while preparations are being made for them to land in Mexico. There’s one plane that won’t comply. He’s making a break for the border, twenty-five miles south of San Diego. That’s less than three minutes from U.S. soil.”
Seconds ticked off. Then more seconds.
“Come on!” Geary urged, his face tightening. “Blow his ass out of the sky!”
More time passed. It seemed like an eternity to David as he envisioned the aircraft coming closer and closer to California. The plane was already near enough to detonate its bomb and cover San Diego with a blanket of deadly radioactivity. And they can’t even be certain they’re tracking the right plane! It could be an innocent cargo jet with a malfunctioning radio. Or maybe the fleeing airplane was trying to evade the authorities because it was packed to the brim with cocaine and other illegal drugs. How can they determine if the plane they’re zeroing in on has the nuclear bomb? Or do they just shoot it down and hope for the best?
“Come on, damn it!” Geary implored, now with great urgency. “They’re going to run out of time up there!”
If they haven’t already, David thought miserably. That plane had to be at the U.S. border by now. Or across it.
Geary crooked his neck and listened intently to his earpiece, then let out a long sigh of relief. “Good riddance,” he said before turning to David. “The terrorist plane is sitting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, compliments of the United States Navy.”
“Are they sure it was the plane carrying the nuke?” David asked at once.
Geary nodded. “The pilot was yelling ‘God is great!’ and ‘Death to America!’ on his way down.”
“That’s good enough,” David said and nodded back, then inquired, “What happens to the nuke now?”
“I suspect they’re already making plans to fetch it with a deep-sea submersible.” Geary glanced around David and peered into the treatment room. A Secret Service agent was carefully removing grenades from the terrorist’s motionless body. “Is Aliev dead?”
“He’s been neutralized,” David said, using a term he hadn’t used in over twenty years. But it still meant the same. Aliev was no longer a threat and would never be one again.
Geary’s gaze went to the stunned nurse on the floor. “Is she hurt?”
David shook his head. “Just bruised.”
As Geary relayed the new information to the Secret Service team, David spun around and rushed back to Carolyn’s side. Helping her to her feet, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Fi-fine,” Carolyn stammered and gulped back her fright. She glanced over to Aliev’s mangled body, and swallowed hard once more before adding, “I’ve never seen a man butchered like that before.”
“Let’s hope you never see it again,” David said, and held her close. He took long, deep breaths to calm himself, but his pulse was still racing, his level of adrenaline sky high from his close calls with death. He looked over to Aliev and the pools of blood around him. It was poetic justice, David thought. Aliev was willing to let the President bleed to death. Instead, it was the terrorist who bled out.
Taking another deep breath, David brought his attention back to Carolyn. “You saved my life, you know. I owe you.”
Carolyn smiled and brushed her lips against his. “I’ll try to think of a way for you to repay me, David Ballineau.”
A Secret Service agent stuck his head in the doorway. “The specialists are on their way up.”
David nodded and took Carolyn’s hand. “Let’s go get the President and Karen squared away.”
In the corridor, blankets had been placed over the two dead Secret Service agents. The dead terrorists were left uncovered. Circling flies were beginning to gather above their bodies.
David checked his watch. It was 2:30. It was just six hours since the President first arrived at the hospital. But it seemed like a lifetime.
Carolyn walked over to Sol Simcha, who was lying next to the overturned wheelchair. Beside him was a Hebrew prayer book that was opened to a page that contained the mourner’s Kaddish—the prayer for the dead—that Sol must have been reading before he reached for Aliev’s gun. She put the open book on Sol’s chest and covered him with a blanket.
The door to the elevator suddenly opened. The gastrointestinal and hematology specialists hurried out, carrying bags of blood and fresh concentrates of Factor VIII. Two nurses from the ICU were a step behind them.
David pointed down the corridor. “The President is in suite one. And there’s a doctor next to him with a pneumothorax.”
As the group dashed down the corridor, Carolyn ran alongside and filled them in on the details. “His vital signs are a little shaky, but they’re holding up. There’s bright red blood in his nasogastric tube, but not as much …”
David leaned against the counter at the nurses’ station and watched as Carolyn pushed aside the horror of what she’d been through, and went right back to nursing. Most people, man or woman, would have come apart. But she didn’t. She never faltered. She really was some woman. And some nurse.
Joe Geary came up to him and said, “Doc, you might want to see this.”
David followed the agent into the treatment room. Aliev was still impaled on the dagger-like slivers of the broken window. But now he was convulsing as his brain went totally anoxic. An occasional small spurt of blood came from his neck. Gradually the convulsions stopped, and so did the spurts.
“Nothing much we can do, huh?” Geary asked.
“Nothing at all,” David said, and left the room.
In the corridor he looked down at the faces of the dead terrorists, now partially covered with buzzing flies that were feasting on fresh blood. Suddenly David’s mind flashed back to Somalia, and to the stacks of bloody corpses and the swarming flies. The sounds and the smells all came back to him. Then the picture changed. Now he was searching a village in the bush, looking for Lewis Daly, the Tennessee sharpshooter the terrorists had caught and mutilated. Oh, shit! Oh, shit! David’s brain wailed. He knew what was coming next.
But it wasn’t a picture of Lewis’s head. Instead, in his mind’s eye he saw a crisp cold day at Arlington National Cemetery. The sky was blue, with only wisps of white clouds. David was standing at his best friend’s headstone, and he heard Lewis’s voice. “Let it go, David. Let it go. You’ve paid the price, and then some.”
David blinked his eyes, and the picture and voice disappeared. He gazed down at his hands. There was only a slight tremor. And although his chest felt a little tight, he was moving air in and out with ease. David took a deep breath as he realized the new images had aborted the panic attack. He nodded to himself, remembering that the psychologist at Walter Reed had urged him to conjure up pleasant visions to ward off the attacks. Visions like small waves lapping gently against the shore, or floating butterflies. But those hadn’t worked for him. The images at Arlington National Cemetery had. Yeah. Arlington. Where a ton of nightmares, and the men who endured them, had finally come to rest.
Joe Geary came alongside and held out a cell phone. “Somebody wants to talk with you, Doc.”
“Who is it?”
“Somebody important.”
David took the phone and said, “This is David Ballineau.”
“Dr. Ballineau, this is Vice President Halloway. I want yo
u to know how grateful we all are to you for saving the President’s life. Goodness knows how you did it, but I thank God you were there.”
“I’m glad I was able to help, Ms. Vice President.”
“Oh, according to Agent Geary you did much more than help.”
“I think he’s giving me too much credit.”
“We don’t, and I’m certain the President doesn’t,” Halloway told him. “When things have settled down a bit, I’m sure the President will invite you to the White House, where he can honor your heroism.”
“That’s really not necessary, ma’am.”
“Ah, but it is,” the Vice President insisted. “And you couldn’t very well refuse such an invitation, could you?”
“No, ma’am,” David answered. “But there’s someone else you should also invite.”
“Who?”
“The nurse who kept the President alive all by herself while I was stuck in that crawlspace. Without her, the President would have never made it.”
“Her name?”
“Carolyn Ross.”
“She’ll be on that list.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” David said. “I’ll look forward to the visit.”
“As shall we,” the Vice President said. “And again, Dr. Ballineau, thank you for saving the President’s life. The nation owes you a deep debt of gratitude.”
The phone line went dead.
So I’m going back to Washington once more, David thought. But not to Walter Reed, and not to Arlington. I’ve been there too many times already. Let those memories stay where they lie.
Handing the cell phone back to Geary, he suddenly remembered another name that had to be added to the invitation list. He smiled to himself as a picture of Kit came into his mind. She’d be sound asleep now, hugging her favorite teddy bear and thankfully unaware of how close she had come to losing her father. “Would you tell them I’ll be bringing my eleven-year-old daughter with me to the White House?”
Geary nodded. “I’ll pass it along.”
“Thanks,” David said. “And thanks for taking out that terrorist who almost blew my head off.”
Geary shrugged. “He was in the way.”
The men exchanged brief grins as another team of Secret Service agents rushed onto the Pavilion and secured every room and exit.
David walked on, his pace quickening. He wanted to see how the President was doing. And he wanted to take Carolyn out to breakfast. With a lot of coffee, and a lot of conversation. After what they’d been through with Patient One, she undoubtedly had plenty of things she wanted to ask him, and he had plenty of things he wanted to tell her.
THE END
About the Author
Leonard Goldberg is the internationally bestselling author of the Joanna Blalock series of medical thrillers. His novels, acclaimed by critics as well as fellow authors, have been translated into a dozen languages and have sold more than a million copies worldwide. Leonard Goldberg is himself a consulting physician affiliated with the UCLA Medical Center, where he holds an appointment as Clinical Professor of Medicine. A highly sought-after expert witness in medical malpractice trials, he is board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and rheumatology, and has published over a hundred scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals.
Leonard Goldberg’s writing career began with a clinical interest in blood disorders. While involved in a research project at UCLA, he encountered a most unusual blood type. The patient’s red blood cells were O-Rh null, indicating they were totally deficient in A, B, and Rh factors and could be administered to virtually anyone without fear of a transfusion reaction. In essence, the patient was the proverbial “universal” blood donor. This finding spurred the idea for a story in which an individual was born without a tissue type, making that person’s organs transplantable into anyone without worry of rejection. His first novel, Transplant, revolved around a young woman who is discovered to be a universal organ donor and is hounded by a wealthy, powerful man in desperate need of a new kidney. The book quickly went through multiple printings and was optioned by a major Hollywood studio.
On the strength of the critical and popular reception of Transplant, Leonard Goldberg was off to the races as an author of medical thrillers. He began writing a series of new books, with a continuing main character named Joanna Blalock. The Joanna Blalock series features a forensic pathologist at a prestigious university medical center who has a Holmesian knack for solving murders. These books include Deadly Medicine, A Deadly Practice, Deadly Care, Deadly Harvest, Deadly Exposure, Lethal Measures, Fatal Care, Brainwaves, and Fever Cell.
Leonard Goldberg’s novels have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, French and Czech book clubs, and The Mystery Guild. They have been featured as People magazine’s “Page-Turner of the Week,” as well as at the International Book Fair in Budapest. The series has been optioned on several occasions for development as a motion picture or television project.
Please visit his website, at www.leonardgoldberg.com.
Critics across the country have praised his novels as:
• “Fascinating … devilish” (People magazine)
• “Cool cuttings by a sure hand … scalpel-edged” (Kirkus)
• “Imaginative, murderous … captures the top shelf in the mystery world” (Kansas City Star)
• “Compelling and suspenseful” (Associated Press)
• “Diabolical” (Virginian Pilot)
• “A medical thriller — with uniquely ghastly murders” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)
• “Bone-chilling and provocative” (Tulsa World)
• “Fascinating and fast-moving” (Booklist)
• “Rushes along at a brisk clip” (Chicago Tribune)
• “A page-turner with medical realism and characters who command our sympathies” (Charleston Post and Courier)
• “Outstanding specimens of suspense” (Knoxville News-Sentinel)
• “The stuff of nightmares” (Library Journal)
His best-selling novels have also been praised by fellow writers as:
• “Loaded with suspense and believable characters” (T. Jefferson Parker)
• “Medical suspense at its best” (Michael Palmer)
Dr. Goldberg is a native of Charleston (with the accent to prove it) and a longtime California resident. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and an island off the coast of South Carolina.
Author photo by Dennis Trantham.
Patient One: A Novel Page 33