The First Patient

by Michael Palmer

  "The president doesn't seem to think so."

  "I know all about what happened to you at the Academy, Singleton. Kicked out for being a drunk and killing a couple of people. You still a drunk? Pill popper?"

  It was time, Gabe decided, to meet his new nemesis eye-to-eye. He exhaled as he stood, wondering how the president's spin doctors would deal with a fistfight between the president's private physician and the head of the White House Military Office. At just a shade under six feet, Gabe was still looking up at the admiral. He had the fleeting cartoon image of his fist slamming against the man's angular jaw and shattering into a million pieces.

  "Exactly what do you want, Admiral?" he asked.

  "I wonder, Dr. Singleton, if you have taken the time to learn anything about this job you have signed on to do." Wright's metallic eyes sparked. "For instance, the details of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

  "Presidential succession," Gabe said, grateful to have that much knowledge, although he remembered at the same instant that Wright had asked for details.

  "Actually," Wright said with unbridled disdain, "presidential succession was dealt with in the Presidential Succession Law of 1886, and modified in 1947 to include the succession following the vice president of two elected officials—the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House."

  "Oh."

  Gabe felt the slight calming effect of the codeine kick in, and welcomed the sensation. In the short time between Drew's trip to Wyoming and his own flight on Air Force One to Washington, no one had discussed the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment with him. Assuming that not doing so was an oversight on Magnus Lattimore's part, the seriousness of the lack of bow tie instructions had just been supplanted.

  "The Twenty-fifth Amendment," Wright went on, "deals with the inability of the president to reliably conduct the duties of his office. It took years to hammer out the precise wording, and the most junior of my White House medical officers could summarize the amendment section by section. Many of them know the whole thing verbatim."

  "The ones I've met have certainly seemed very bright."

  "As the president's personal physician, I want you to review the presidential law of succession and memorize the Twenty-fifth Amendment," Wright demanded.

  "And I want you to stop barking orders at a civilian," was Gabe's knee-jerk reply, "especially one who has been chosen by the president to be his personal physician."

  Gabe transiently felt as if he were going to melt before the man's gaze and power.

  "They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us," his high school football coach used to say about an intimidating opponent. At that moment, Gabe could not imagine Admiral Ellis Wright ever being out of uniform.

  "I am the head of this medical unit," Wright said with controlled fury. "If anything unusual goes on here and I am not informed, I promise I will squash you like a bug. You could never qualify to be considered military, my friend, but that doesn't mean for one second that you are not vulnerable. If you wish to learn how vulnerable, simply let me find out that you have been withholding information about the president from me. I will see you at dinner."

  Wright executed a perfect turn, opened the door, and had taken one step into the reception area when he stopped.

  "Cromartie, what in the hell are you doing here?" he snapped.

  "I . . . I'm the covering nurse tonight, sir," a woman's quavering voice replied. "Seven until midnight."

  For several seconds there was only silence.

  "Well," Wright said finally, "if anything Dr. Singleton and I just discussed gets back to me, you're the first one I am going to come looking for."

  "Yes, sir. I mean the door was closed, sir. I mean I didn't hear very much."

  "Civilians," Wright grumbled as the outer door opened and slammed shut.

  Cromartie. The name meant nothing to Gabe, but there were still a number of unit nurses and physician's assistants and even a couple of doctors he had yet to meet.

  "Well, come on in, Nurse Cromartie," he called out. "The Admiral Wright fan club is now in session."

  Gabe heard a magazine being dropped onto the table, and moments later Alison Cromartie appeared in the doorway to his office.

  CHAPTER 4

  Radiant. The word filled Gabe's thoughts the instant he saw Alison Cromartie for the first time. Absolutely radiant. What Admiral Ellis Wright's starched whites did to light up a room Alison accomplished wearing nothing more imposing than a crisply tailored green pants suit—maybe jade green, Gabe decided—and a muted yellow top. No jewelry. And if she wore makeup at all, it was precious little and impeccably applied. Gabe flashed on his reaction to first meeting Cinnie in the hospital ER, when he vowed on the spot that this was the woman he was going to marry.

  No such pledges here, but he did sense immediately that this was someone he was going to enjoy being around. Her looks were unusual and exotic—mixed nationalities of some sort, he guessed—with smooth, light mocha skin and a trim athlete's body. Her jet hair was cut short, and her face, dominated by dark, curious eyes, seemed ready to laugh at the slightest provocation. She shook his hand firmly and introduced herself, keeping her gaze fixed on him just long enough to express interest.

  "From what I just heard out there," Gabe said, motioning her to the chair opposite his, "you're not an Admiral Wright appointee. Yet here you are."

  "Here I am," she replied matter-of-factly.

  "So, how'd you manage that?"

  "I used to work with a surgeon who's a friend of President Stoddard. He recommended me. I think he's a big-time fund-raiser as well."

  No accent whatsoever—if anything, a hint of the South. Alison Cromartie either was American born or had one hell of an English teacher.

  "So, have you had to take care of the POTUS?"

  "POTUS?"

  Gabe grinned. "When I got here, I thought I was the only one in the city who had never heard the acronym."

  "Acronym? . . . Oh! President Of The United States. No, I met him once, but I haven't been involved in his care. I like the acronym, though. I'm always the last one to hear about anything that's in."

  "There's even FLOTUS for the First Lady, for those who absolutely can't live without abbreviating things."

  "Well, when the POTUS recommended me to the admiral—insisted he hire me would probably say it better—Dr. Ferendelli was still here. Then, soon after I arrived to begin work, he was gone. It's a measure of my personal growth that I didn't feel responsible."

  "Aha, one of those! Another club we both belong to—the Loyal and Honored Order of I Would Have Been the Cause of World War Two If I Had Only Been Alive When It Started."

  Gabe added Alison's smile and laugh to the list of attributes he felt drawn to.

  "So, how's it been going for you so far?" she asked.

  "This is only, like, my fourth day, but so far so good—except for all the protocol I've had to absorb, and that little exchange with Admiral Starch."

  "That doesn't count."

  "Did you hear the part about how I couldn't carry the military docs' medical bags?"

  "I did hear that, yes."

  "Actually, as far as I can tell, the military docs and nurses and PAs working in this unit are pretty damn good."

  "I've been impressed with the same thing, but I'll bet you're a pretty darn good doc yourself."

  "As far as I know, most of my patients and colleagues back in Wyoming think so. How about the stuff about my drinking, did you hear that, too?"

  "I . . . um . . . tried not to."

  Alison's blush was genuine.

  "No big deal. It's been years—decades, even—since my last one."

  "You don't have to justify yourself to me. My dad was in AA. He was Creole. Drinking was a way of life where he was raised. Besides, I'm in the habit of forming my own opinion about people."

  "How'm I doing so far?"

  "You were doing perfect . . . until you asked
."

  Again, that smile.

  "Well, don't worry, I'm much less insecure when I'm running a code."

  "Let's hope you never have to prove that to me here. But I have a feeling that in crunch time you can handle yourself pretty well."

  Her expression gave the statement a thousand layers. Gabe was working, probably too hard, at formulating a response when his radio sounded.

  "This is Piper," Magnus Lattimore's detached voice said. "Has anyone seen the doc?"

  "This is Dr. Singleton. . . . I copy direct."

  "Doc, it's Magnus. You still in the office?"

  How did you know where I was?

  "Yes. Yes, I am."

  "I'll be by to escort you to dinner in ten minutes."

  "Roger."

  "And Doc?"

  "Yes?"

  "Whatever the admiral had to say, pay no attention. He's just spraying to mark off his territory."

  "Just spraying. Roger that."

  "Your first state dinner," Alison said as Gabe set the radio down. "How exciting."

  "I'll tell you what—you go to the dinner and I'll man the fort here. I'm a wrangler, not a mingler—especially not sober."

  "Who's the dinner for?"

  "Um . . . depending on who you ask, that would be either the President of Botswana or, to a lesser extent, me."

  "The guest of honor!"

  "More like an auxiliary guest of honor. People are jittery over Dr. Ferendelli's disappearance, so President Stoddard wanted everyone to get a look at the man who was taking his place, and to know he was in reliable medical hands."

  "Makes sense. Well, in that case, I think some sort of tie is called for to go along with the rest of that tux—perhaps the one I noticed casually resting in the bathroom sink."

  "It's being punished—a time-out for insubordination."

  "Nothing worse than a surly, disrespectful bow tie. I've dealt with its kind before."

  "Well, make this one behave and you get a year's supply of tongue depressors."

  "Plus a rubber glove blown up and decorated like a rooster?"

  "You drive a hard bargain."

  "You got that right."

  Alison retrieved the tie and took less than a minute up on her tiptoes, inches away from him, to knot it. Wishing it had taken longer, Gabe breathed in what might have been her shampoo or a microdot of subtle perfume. He decided as she stepped back to appraise her handiwork that he would try for a Guinness record for breath holding before he had to exhale.

  "There you are, Doc," she said. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

  "Congratulations, Nurse. You have been of great service to the United States of America."

  "I want my rooster smiling and autographed," she replied.

  CHAPTER 5

  Direct sunlight never found its way into the three-hundred-foot-long underpass beneath Levalee Street. The tunnel, just a few miles from the seats of justice and government of the most powerful nation on Earth, was a living, teeming monument to the have-nots in this richest of societies. In fact, in many ways the rules of this microcosm were as complex and constricting as those of the civilization that surrounded it. And chief among those rules was never to deal with outsiders.

  The man appeared at the south opening of the squalid corridor just as dusk was settling in over the city. He wore a light brown suit over a dark knit shirt and looked average in every way, at least until he extracted a powerful flashlight and a noise-suppressed .45-caliber Heckler & Koch pistol from loops on his belt. He had learned to kill game as a child in Mississippi and humans as a sniper in the Army and then had honed his skills over the dozen years since his discharge. The name he used most was Carl—Carl Eric Porter—but there were many others. As usual, he was being well paid, and as usual he was relishing every aspect of his job.

  For a time Porter stood motionless, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. With no great effort, he closed his senses to the stench of garbage, filth, urine, whiskey, and vermin. He had encountered worse. Stretched out before him, spaced on either side, was a gauntlet of cardboard appliance containers and makeshift lean-tos.

  Every four years, as the world descended on Washington for the inauguration of a new or returning American president, police would swoop down and roust the denizens of the Levalee underpass and other such places from their fetid homes, at times even putting the makeshift villages to the torch. But within a short while, like a forest recovering from a volcano, the space would begin to fill with life once again until soon it was indistinguishable from the village that had preceded it. With a presidential election just a few months away, it would not be long before the cycle commenced once more. But at the moment, no one in the Levalee underpass was concerned with anything but the intruder.

  Aware of the dozens of eyes following him, Porter pinned his pistol and flashlight beneath his arm and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Steve Crackowski, a security chief for some sort of company—Porter didn't particularly care which one—had hired him to find and eliminate a man named Ferendelli. Now Crackowski had gotten a tip that the mark, a doctor, was hiding out with the down-and-outers he had once taken care of in a nearby free clinic. This was the second hobo village Porter had visited. He strongly sensed this might be the one.

  Certain the denizens of the tunnel had gotten a good look at the gun, Porter replaced it in his belt and took a five-by-seven photo of Ferendelli from his jacket. Then he made his way purposefully down the squalid gauntlet, panning the beam from one side to the other, pausing each time the light struck a face to ask about the photo.

  "A hundred bucks," Porter was saying to one of the men, loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Tell me where this here man is and a hundred is yours. Don't tell me, and one of you is gonna get hurt real bad."

  Over the years, Porter had taken great pains to keep his heavy Mississippi drawl intact. There had been times when his dense accent had actually fed into a mark's southern stereotype and put them at ease. Their mistake.

  "White man, five ten, dark hair, fifty-five, thin body, narrow face. Speak up now. I'm losin' my patience, and believe me, you don't want that to happen."

  Nothing.

  Porter inched ahead, shifting his focus from one side of the tunnel to the other. The eerie, intense silence was broken only by staccato coughing and the clearing of inflamed throats. The killer stopped now and again to kick the soles of tattered shoes to get their owners to look up into the light.

  "You there, you seen this man? . . . A hundred bucks is a pile a money."

  The gnarled, wizened man, kneeling placidly beside his refrigerator carton home, stared at Porter with vacant, rheumy eyes and shook his head. Then he coughed up a dense wad of phlegm and spit it in Porter's direction.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Porter pulled out his pistol and from less than ten feet away shot the old man through the eye.

  Silence.

  "I'm gonna wait one minute. If I don't hear something, I'm going to pay a visit to another one of you. . . . Last chance."

  "He's gone!" someone called out.

  Porter whirled to the voice and fixed the intense beam on the man it belonged to. The hobo blocked the brightness with his hands.

  "When?" Porter demanded.

  "J-just now when you got here. Out—out that way."

  "Fuck you, Frank," someone called out. "The doc was good to us."

  "Here, Frank," Porter said, throwing a bill at him. "Go nuts."

  Porter raced to the end of the tunnel and scanned the area beyond it. Then he put the flash back in his belt and took a device from his jacket pocket—a remote of some kind. He aimed it down the rows of the cardboard village and depressed a button on it several times.

  Nothing.

  Finally, without a glance back at the old man he had just killed, Carl Eric Porter disappeared up the embankment.

  For ten minutes beneath the Levalee overpass the only sounds were the rasping breathing of forty men and women, the clearing of inflamed throats, and the occasiona
l lighting of a cigarette. Then, from deep within a makeshift duct-taped cardboard home at the end of the tunnel farthest from where the killer had left, Jim Ferendelli, physician to the president, worked his way out from where he had been hiding, huddled beneath a damp, mildewed Harry Potter sleeping bag, and crawled to the opening of the box. Drawn and filthy, Ferendelli looked no different from any of the others in the hobo village.

  "What do you think, Santiago?" he asked of the cachectic man sitting on the dirt outside the opening.

  "I think he is gone," the man said with a heavy Spanish accent, "but I also think he might come back."

  "Did he hurt someone?"

  "He killed old Gordon. Just like that. Shot him like he was nothing."

  "Damn. I'm sorry, Santiago."

  "Frank saved you, I think."

  "I heard him. That was quick thinking—by all of you."

  "You were always good to us in the clinic."

  "I need to go, Santiago. Thank you for sheltering me. I'm so sorry about Gordon. Thank Frank and the others for me, too."

  "We wish you well, Doctor."

  Still on all fours, Ferendelli crawled cautiously to the tunnel entrance, then ran as best he could down the deep swale toward the next road.

  CHAPTER 6

  Gabe stood near the doorway leading from the stylish Red Room to the glittering State Dining Room. To his right, a string quartet was playing what might have been Mozart. To his left, popular Vice President Tom Cooper III and his wife were chatting with the Secretary of State. Scattered throughout the room were leaders of both parties as well as members of Drew's cabinet. Calvyn Berriman, the President of Botswana, was across the room, shaking hands with a steady stream of dignitaries and simultaneously nodding politely at any number of passersby.

  Gabe was unable to suppress a sardonic smile. He strongly suspected that only he of all those present at the formal dinner was thinking about Ricky "The Shiv" Gentille or Razor Tufts, or any of the other inmates who had once joined him shuffling along in the food line at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown. The interminable lines, the dehumanizing inspections, the payoffs, the gangs, the smuggling, the egos, the violence, the ignorance, even the scattered acts of heroism—he hated every second of the year he spent at MCI, every single second he spent trying to avoid eye contact, to keep his back to a wall, and to remain invisible. Thirty-six hundred seconds an hour, eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds a day. They were numbers burned into his consciousness like death camp tattoos.