Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  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.