Crouching in the darkness on top, he wondered why the other parts of the
building had outside lights, while the sundeck did not.
The room beyond the two sets of French doors was well lit, however. Past
substantial ornate metal furniture upon which cocktails and lunches
would be served when the weather got warm, Pittman saw bright lamps in a
wide room that had a cocktail bar along the left wall in addition to a
bigscreen television built into the middle of the right wall.
At the moment, though, the room was being used for something quite
different from entertainment. Leather furniture had been shifted toward
the television, leaving the center of the room available for a bed with
safety railings on each side. A long table beyond it supported
electronic instruments that Pittman recognized vividly from the week
when Jeremy had been in intensive care: monitors that analyzed
heartbeat, blood pressure, respiration rate, and blood-oxygen content.
Two pumps controlled the speed with which liquid flowed from bottles on
an IV stand into the right and left arm of a frail old man who lay
covered with sheets on the bed. The two male attendants whom Pittman
had seen at the hospital making adjustments to the monitors. The female
nurse took care that there weren't any kinks in the oxygen that led to
prongs inserted in the old man's nostrils.
The oxygen mask that had obscured the old man's face when he was taken
from the hospital now lay on top of a monitor on the table beyond the
bed. Pittman couldn't be totally sure from outside in the darkness, but
what he had suspected at the hospital insisted more strongly: The old
man bore a resemblance to Jonathan Millgate.
The intense young man who had been in charge of getting the old man out
of the hospital had a stethoscope around his neck and was listening to
the old man's chest. The somber men who had acted as bodyguards were
standing in the far left corner.
But other people were in the large room, as well. Pittman hadn't seen
them at the hospital, although he definitely had seen them before-in old
photographs and in television documentaries about the politics of the
Vietnam War. Four men. Distinguished-looking. Dressed in conservative
custom-made dark three-piece suits. Old but bearing a resemblance to
images of their younger selves.
Three wore spectacles. One had a white mustache. Two were bald, while
the other two had wispy white hair. All had stern, pinched, wrinkled
faces and drooping skin on their necks. Their expressions severe, they
stood in a row, as if they were on a dais or part of a diplomatic
receiving line. Their combined former titles included ambassador to the
USSR, ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to Great Britain,
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, ambassador to West Germany, ambassador to
NATO, secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security
adviser. Indeed, several of these positions had been held by all of
these men at various times, just as they had all at various times
belonged to the National Security Council. They had never been elected
to public office, and yet in their appointed roles they had exerted more
influence than any but the most highly placed politicians. Their names
were Eustace Gable, Anthony Lloyd, Victor Standish, and Winston Sloane.
They were the legendary diplomats upon whom Presidents from Truman to
Clinton, Republican and Democrat, had frequently relied for advice,
their shrewdness having earned them the nickname "the grand counselors."
Four of them. Which suggested that the old man in the bed was, in fact,
the 'fifth grand counselor: Jonathan Millgate.
The intense young man with the stethoscope said something that Pittman
couldn't hear. The nurse said something in response. Then the two male
attendants spoke. Again Pittman was too far away to make out what they
were saying. The man with the stethoscope turned toward the grand
counselors and seemed to explain something. One of the elderly
diplomats, a gaunt-cheeked man with a white mustache, Winston Sloane,
nodded wearily. Another, his narrow face pinched with wrinkles, Eustace
Gable, asked a question. The man with the stethoscope answered. A
third elderly diplomat, Anthony Lloyd, tapped his cane on the floor in a
gesture of frustration. Although their faces were pale, their ancient
eyes were fiery. With a final comment, Eustace Gable left the room. His
associates solemnly followed.
The nurse approached the draperies. When she pulled a cord on the side,
the draperies moved, then stopped. She pulled harder, but something
prevented her from closing them all the way. From the deck, Pittman
studied the room with increasing confusion. The four bodyguards went
after the counselors, as did the two ambulance attendants, leaving only
the man with the stethoscope and the female nurse. The latter dimmed
the room's lights, and now Pittman understood why there weren't any arc
lamps illuminating the sundeck. The group didn't want the glare of the
outside lights intruding on the room after it was put into comparative
darkness. The red lights on the monitors were almost as bright as the
muted glow of the lamps. In the dusky atmosphere, the patient was being
encouraged to rest. But that was about all Pittman did understand, and
as he crouched in the darkness beside the metal deck furniture, he wiped
rain from his face, shivered from the cold, and asked himself what he
should do. You proved your suspicion. That was Jonathan Millgate they
took from the hospital. You don't know why, but you do know where they
took him, and that's all you can do for now. It's time to go. You'll
get pneumonia if you stay in this rain much longer. That final thought
made Pittman smile with bitterness. You almost killed yourself tonight,
and now you're worried about catching pneumonia? Not yet. Your time
isn't up for another eight days.
And it won't be pneumonia that kills you.
He watched the man with the stethoscope leave the dusky room. As the
nurse continued inspecting Millgate's monitors and tubes, Pittman turned
toward the stairs that led down from the sundeck. He heard a noise that
paralyzed him.
"You'll keep me informed."
"Of course. Relax. Look at how your hands are shaking.
calm, my friend. You didn't use to worry this much."
"I didn't have as much to lose."
"Nor did we all."
"Good night, Eustace."
"Good night, Anthony."
Despite the worry in their voices, the tone of the old men was
strikingly affectionate.
Car doors thunked shut. An engine roared. Another dark limousine sped
from the garage and along the murky driveway.
From above, crouching in the darkness of the sundeck, Pittman watched
the taillights disappear, the sound of the limousines fading into the
silence of the night. With a final droning rumble, all the garage doors
descended, cutting off the lights inside. The gloom in the area
intensified.
Pittman slowly straightened. His legs were stiff. His calves prickled
; as blood resumed its flow through arteries that had been constricted. He
turned toward the French doors for a final look at Jonathan Millgate
helpless in his bed, surrounded by monitors, bottles, and tubes.
Pittman's pulse faltered.
Through the gaps in the draperies, what he saw seemed magnified by the
glass panes in the French doors. At the same time, he felt as if he
watched helplessly from a great distance. The nurse had left the room,
leaving Millgate alone. She had shut the door. Millgate had not been
asleep, contrary to what she evidently believed. Instead, he was
attempting to raise himself.
Millgate's features were twisted, agitated. The oxygen prongs had
slipped from his nostrils. His IV tubes had become disengaged from the
needle in each of his arms. He pawed with both hands, trying to grasp
the railings on his bed with sufficient strength to raise himself. But
he wasn't succeeding. face had become an alarming red. His chest
heaved. y he slumped back, gasping.
Even at a distance, through the barrier of the French doors, Pittman
thought he heard Millgate's strident effort to breathe. Before Pittman
realized, he stepped closer to the window. The warning buzzer on the
heart monitor should have alerted the nurse, he thought in dismay. She
should have hurried back by now.
But as Pittman stared through the window, he was close enough that he
knew he would have been able to hear an alarm, even through the glass.
Had the sound been turned off? That didn't make sense. He studied the
pattern of blips on the monitor. From so many days of watching Jeremy's
monitors and insisting that the doctors explain what the indicators
said, Pittman could tell from Millgate's monitor that his heartbeat was
far above the normal range of 70 to go per minute, disturbingly rapid at
150. Its pattern of beats was becoming erratic, the rhythm of the four
chambers of his heart beginning to disintegrate.
A crisis would come. Soon. Millgate's color was worse. His chest
heaved with greater distress. He clutched at his blankets as if they
were crushing him.
He can't get his breath, Pittman thought.
The oxygen. If he doesn't get those prongs back into his nostrils,
he'll work himself into another heart attack.
The son of a bitch is going to die.
Pittman had a desperate impulse to turn, race down the steps, surge
toward the estate's wall, scurry over, and run, keep running, never stop
running.
Jesus, I should never have done this. I should never have come here.
He pivoted, eager to reach the stairs down from the sun deck. But his
legs wouldn't move. He felt as if he were held in cement. His will
refused to obey his commands.
Move. Damn it, get out of here. Instead, he looked back.
In agony, Millgate continued to struggle to breathe. His pulse was now
160. Red numbers on his blood-pressure monitor showed 170/125. Normal
was 120/80. The elevated pressure was a threat to anyone, let alone an
eighty-year-old man who'd just had a heart attack that placed him in
intensive care. Clutching his chest, gasping, Millgate cocked his head
toward the French doors, his anguished expression fixed on the windows.
Pittman was sure Millgate couldn't see him out in the darkness. The dim
lights in the room would reflect off the panes and make them a screen
against the night. Even so, Millgate's tortured gaze was like a laser
that seared into Pittman.
Don't look at me like that! What do you expect? There's nothing I can
do! Yet again Pittman turned to flee.
Instead, surprising himself, Pittman reached into his pants pocket and
took out his keys and the tool knife-similar to a Swiss army knife-that
he kept on his key ring. He removed two pieces of metal from the end of
the knife. He was fully prepared to shoot himself to death in eight
days. But there was no way he was going to stay put and watch while
someone else died-or run before it happened and try to convince himself
that he didn't have a choice. Millgate was about to go into a crisis,
and on the face of it, the most obvious way to try to prevent that
crisis was to reattach his IV lines and put the oxygen prongs back into
his nostrils.
Maybe I'm wrong and he'll die anyhow. But by God, if he does, it won't
be because I didn't try. Millgate's death won't be my responsibility.
Thinking of the .45 in the box at the diner, Pittman thought, What have
I got to lose?
He stepped to the French doors and hesitated only briefly before he put
the two metal prongs into the lock. The tool knife from which he had
taken the prongs had been a gift from a man about whom Pittman had once
written an article. The man, a veteran burglar named Sean O'Reilly, had
been paroled from a ten-year prison sentence, one of the conditions
being that he participate in a public-awareness program to show
homeowners and apartment dwellers how to avoid being burglarized. Sean
had the slight build of a jockey, the accent of an Irish Spring
commercial, and the mischievously glinting eyes of a leprechaun. His
three television spots had been so effective that he'd become a New York
City celebrity. That was before he went back to prison for burglarizing
the home of his attorney. When he had interviewed him at the height of
his fame', Pittman had suspected that Sean would end up back in prison.
In elaborate detail, Sean had explained various ways to break into a
house. Pittman's enthusiasm for information had prompted Sean to
elaborate and dramatize. The interview had lasted two hours. At its
end, Sean had presented Pittman with a gift-the tool knife he still
carried. "I give these to people who really understand what an art it
is to be a burglar," Sean had said. What made the knife especially
useful, he explained, was that at the end of the handle, past miniature
pliers, screwdrivers, and wire cutters, there were slots for two metal
prongs: lock-picking tools. With glee, Sean had taught Pittman how to
use them.
The lesson had stuck.
Now Pittman worked the prongs into the lock. It was sturdy-a dead bolt.
It didn't matter. One prong was used to free the pins in the cylinder,
Sean had explained. The other was used to apply leverage and pressure.
Once you did it a couple of times, the simple operation wasn't hard to
master. With practice and watching, Pittman had learned to enter a
locked room within fifteen seconds. As he freed one pin and shoved the
first prong farther into the cylinder to free the next, Pittman stared
frantically through the French door toward Millgate's agonized struggle
to breathe.
Pittman increased his concentration, working harder. He worried that
when he opened the door, he would trigger alarm. But his worry had
vanished when he'd noticed a security-system number pad on the wall next
to the opposite entrance to the room. From his interview with the
Bugmaster, Pittman remembered that owners of large homes often had their
security company install several number pads throughout their homes.
These p
ads armed and disarmed the system, and it made sense to have a
pad not just at the front door but at all the principal exits from the
dwelling.
But in this case, the security company had installed the pad in the
wrong place-within view of anyone who might be trying to break in
through the French doors. From Pittman's vantage point, as he freed
another pin in the cylinder of the lock, he could see that the
illuminated. indicator on the number pad said READY TO ARM. Because so
many visitors had been coming and going, the system had not yet been
activated.
Pittman felt the final pin disengage. Turning the second metal prong,
he pivoted the cylinder, and the lock was released. In a rush, he
turned the latch and pulled the door open.
The opposite door was closed. No one could hear Pittman as he hurried
into the dusky room. Millgate was losing strength, his effort to
breathe less strenuous. Pittman reached him and eased the prongs for
the oxygen tube into Millgate's nostrils.
The effect was almost magical. Within seconds, Millgate's color had
begun to be less flushed. His agitation lessened. A few more seconds
and the rise and fall of Millgate's chest became more regular, less
frenzied. Throughout, Pittman was in motion. He grabbed the IV tubes
that Millgate had inadvertently jerked from the needles in his arms. As
Pittman inserted the tubes back onto the base of each needle, he noticed
that liquid from the tubes had trickled onto the floor. How would the
nurse account for that when she came back into the room? he wondered.
Then he noticed the water tracks that he had brought in from the rain,
the moisture dripping off his overcoat.
I have to get out of here.
Desperate Measures Page 6