The First Patient

by Michael Palmer

  Under ordinary circumstances, Gabe knew he could make the throw ten times out of ten—but that was without walls behind him and overhead, and allowing for a few warm-up spins, and, finally, provided the subject to be roped wasn't holding a gun. This time Gabe would have one chance and only one. A miss and he would be trying to outrun a professional gunman on a leg that was barely functional.

  He hefted the lasso and tried to imagine the moves he would make to close the loop as he was dropping over the balcony wall, using Crackowski as counterweight to keep him from smashing to the concrete poolside.

  Just another Sunday hangin' in Dodge.

  No mercy, he pleaded with himself. No mercy. . . . No hesitation. . . .

  He took a step back, then leaned over the balcony, swung the lasso once to open a small loop, and floated it around the killer's head. Before Crackowski could react, Gabe toppled off the balcony, grasping the rope from the rain pipe with all his strength. The drop was rapid, the snapping neck sickening, and Crackowski's death instantaneous. Gabe hit the concrete floor with force, but only enough to stun him. He released the rope, still tied to his waist. The killer crumpled to the floor beside him, the stench of excrement already filling the air.

  For most of a minute, Gabe stayed dazed on the floor, trying to orient himself from what he knew had to be a concussion. Finally, thoughts and images of Carl worked themselves into his hazy consciousness, intermixed with images of Gabe's high school coach, kneeling over him, administering smelling salts, and asking if he knew where he was and if he was able to go back into the game.

  He had to move. Carl was painfully wounded, but he was mobile and he had a gun. For a moment, Gabe became excited about finding Crack-owski's pistol. Then he vaguely remembered seeing it clatter down into the empty pool. Had that really happened?

  Groaning with every movement, he crawled to the edge of the concrete hole and peered down. He could barely make out what he thought was the bottom and could not discern anything else.

  Perhaps he was wrong. . . . Maybe the gun was still nearby. . . . Maybe it was under Crackowski's body.

  Gabe knew he wasn't thinking clearly, but he was unable to focus any better. His head was pounding, and the wound beside his hip made turning especially unpleasant. He crawled over to Crackowski's body. The killer's eyes were bulging nearly out of his head and his protruding tongue looked like a plum. Blocking out the odor, Gabe rolled the corpse over once, then again. No gun.

  Still trying to shake the fog from his brain, he tried to rise, then fell back to his knees. When he turned back to the pool, Carl was standing there, watching him curiously, his heavy pistol resting loosely in his hand.

  "Now this here's a scene you just don't see every day," he drawled.

  The jolt of adrenaline dispelled Gabe's fogginess like sunlight.

  "That knife in your thigh hurt?" he asked.

  "Not nearly as much as you're going to."

  "Such a wit."

  From time to time, Gabe wondered what his patients might have been feeling at the moment of their death. Now he acknowledged that it really wasn't all that bad. Carl whatever his last name was, was going to pull the trigger and Gabe Singleton wasn't going to exist anymore. It was as simple as that.

  "Stand up!"

  I'm not going to make it easy, Carl, Gabe was thinking. I promise you I'm not.

  "Do I look like I can stand up?" he said.

  "Stand up or I swear I'll shoot through every joint in your body starting from the toes up."

  Gabe had heard enough.

  Let it end here, he was thinking. Let it end here for both of us.

  Without hesitation, he planted the right toe of his boot and drove his head with all his remaining strength into the man's groin. Carl went over the edge of the pool backward, with Gabe clinging to him like a chimpanzee to its mother. Somewhere during the fall there might have been a gunshot. Gabe felt another tearing pain—this one through his shoulder. Then there was a fearsome impact, with air exploding from his lungs.

  Then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 63

  Stilettoes of bright light penetrated Gabe's lids and pierced his eyes. He felt himself coming to like a patient in the recovery room following major surgery, only without any analgesia. Bit by bit, he was able to catalogue the pain. His right hip was throbbing, but no less than his left shoulder. The top of his head and space behind his eyes were like cardiac monitors, recording every heartbeat with a totally unpleasant pulsation. Bile and acid grated across the back of his throat.

  He opened his eyes a slit, squinting at the glare, and was surprised to see the chandeliers and tattered pennants of the great room. Bit by bit, visions of his struggles with the two killers came into focus. He forced his eyes to open wider.

  "Quite a mess you made in there, Doc. You should have seen ol' Carl's brains splattered all over the bottom of that pool."

  Gabe stiffened but made no attempt to turn toward the voice. There was no need.

  "Do you think you'll be in line for another performance citation for this, Griswold?" Gabe asked.

  "We each gotta do what we each gotta do."

  "And you just gotta destroy the life of the man you've sworn to protect."

  With no small discomfort, Gabe rolled over and managed to get up to his hands and knees—actually, his hand and knees. His left shoulder simply refused to bear much weight. There was a high-backed dark wood chair not far away. He crawled to it and pulled himself up with no help from Griswold. Blood was congealing in Gabe's jeans and shirt.

  "Don't tell me about destroying lives," Griswold snapped. "Two kills before you went to prison, another two kills here. You're like a death machine. I'll bet you're murder on your patients."

  "Enough, Mr. Griswold," a familiar, authoritative voice said from the shadows of the columns at the end of the room. "I'll take over from here."

  Carrying a large, thin case, LeMar Stoddard stepped into the light.

  Gabe stared at the man in utter disbelief, his mind unwilling to accept the magnitude of what he was witnessing. First the hit men, then Treat Griswold, and finally, at the top of the pyramid, the First Father.

  "I assume the president is downstairs in the bunker," LeMar said.

  Gabe shook his head in utter disgust and dismay.

  "Unless I'm missing something," Gabe replied, "that president you speak of is also your son."

  Stoddard, wearing khakis and a nautical windbreaker, strode regally across the hall, set the oddly shaped case down, and positioned himself to Griswold's left, six or seven feet in front of Gabe. His eyes were a piercing, electric blue, and Gabe felt slightly unsettled before their power. He also felt confused and on edge. The list of people he had been worried about did not include Drew's father, although strangely, at this moment, especially after spending some time with the man, Gabe wasn't finding the notion all that hard to believe.

  "I assure you, Doctor, no one knows that fact better than I."

  "Then why are you trying to kill him?"

  "Not kill him. Why would I ever want to do that? I love him. I just can't have him spend another four years imposing his version of communism on the people of this country."

  "So you want us all to believe that he is going insane."

  "In a manner of speaking, yes. In another manner of speaking, he is. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: 'We are what we pretend to be.'"

  "So your son behaving as if he were insane means that he is."

  "Precisely."

  "Oh, that's just sweet. But Dad, Vice President Cooper shares almost all of Drew's political philosophy. And the polls say he would probably beat Dunleavy if the election were held today."

  "Ah, but the election is not being held today," Stoddard said, as if the obvious were a revelation. "By the time President Stoddard's mental instability is exposed and he is forced to drop out of the race, the election will be almost upon us. In the resultant chaos, I feel certain that the American voters, led by the resurgent religious right and
others in the silent majority, will cast their lots heavily with President Dunleavy."

  "So these episodes your son has been having are merely experiments—"

  "—to work out the most effective combination of medications," LeMar finished the sentence.

  "Drugs," Gabe corrected. "Not medications, drugs—hallucinogenic, debilitating, deadly drugs that you have been feeding into the body of your only child. And just because he went and changed parties and politics on you. That is really disgusting."

  "Politically expedient, yes," LeMar said, "but hardly disgusting. We have been playing political tricks on our candidates for as long as there have been candidates."

  For the first time, his speech seemed somewhat pressured, as if his own rhetoric was getting more and more difficult for him to believe and to express.

  Gabe forced himself to meet the mogul's imperious gaze.

  Something isn't right, Gabe was thinking. The man seemed perfectly capable of vindictiveness. That was a given. But the extent to which he was taking revenge on his son seemed out of proportion to the hurt Drew's political metamorphosis had probably caused LeMar. It was as if he had chosen to retaliate against a fly with an elephant gun.

  Something isn't right. . . . Something—

  In that exact moment, Gabe took note of the way the man was dressed—his shoes, his slacks, his designer shirt, his carefully pressed windbreaker. They were the sort of clothes Gabe had seen recently—very recently. Thoughts that had been free-floating suddenly began dropping into place.

  "Those were your clothes I saw in the closet at Lily's farm, weren't they," Gabe said suddenly. "Or should I say your farm."

  "I don't know what you're—"

  "You were her lover—her sugar daddy. You were the one who pushed the president and your daughter-in-law to nominate her for the new cabinet post, just in case, for any reason, your scheme failed and your son got elected."

  "Nonsense," LeMar said, but his lie was a weak one.

  "But why?" Gabe went on. "Why? No, wait . . . wait, I'll tell you why. Because you own that underground lab, that's why. The greatest medical nanotechnology scientists the world has to offer, all brought together in secrecy and under one roof. If the scientific world is still at alpha in the area of nanodrug delivery, you and your operation are approaching omega. You've lapped the field, Dad. Monopolies Are Us."

  LeMar moved to deny the conclusion, then finally just took a step back, his arms folded across his chest, his expression proud.

  "You've learned a great deal in a remarkably short amount of time, Doctor."

  Gabe wasn't nearly done.

  "How much did that underground bastion of science and all those geniuses cost you to buy and develop, Dad? It had to be, what, billions? Tens of billions? As I recall, Forbes doesn't think you have quite that much. What did you do to get the money? How leveraged are you, Dad?"

  "Stop that!"

  "You rolled the dice on this, didn't you? Being in the top ten or top twenty wasn't enough. You wanted to be numero uno—the czar of the largest pharmaceutical empire the world has ever known. And your liberal son's platform of government control of nanotechnology would have forced you and your lab out into the open before you were ready. How many years will be lost if his policies are implemented, LeMar? How much of your money will go down the drain? Most of it? All of it? How many secrets will you have to share with the scientific community if your son gets reelected? This was never about political ideologies. How foolish of me to think it was."

  LeMar Stoddard seemed suddenly restless, his demeanor less confident.

  Was he squinting?

  "I need you, Gabe," he blurted out suddenly.

  "What?"

  "I need you. I can make you rich beyond your imagination."

  "Need me for what?"

  "I need you to keep quiet about what you've learned, and I need you to tell the world when it's time that the rumors are true and the president and vice president have been deceiving the American public about the president's mental health."

  "It was all about money," Gabe said, ignoring the plea completely. "Not one whit of political principle. Just money. Lily Sexton was your lover. Your confidante. Did you just pick up the phone and order her killed because she had become a liability? Which of those animals did you pick to do the job? Crackowski? Carl?"

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Is it, you arrogant sonofabitch? How many laughs have you gotten out of the irony that the very fullerenes and nanotubes that are going to make you rich beyond even your standards are the tools you and your stooge there used to deliver toxic chemicals to your son's brain?"

  "You ungrateful little turd!" LeMar bellowed, his face suddenly flushed, his voice up half an octave. "After all I did for you when you were in such trouble—the money, the attorneys, the payoffs to reduce your sentence to the minimum. Yes, my naïve friend, there were payoffs. And . . . and now, too. Convincing the president to bring you to Washington. My apartment. My car."

  The rhythmic squinting seemed more noticeable now, and his cheeks were nearly crimson. Gabe thought back to all the pills the tycoon was taking for high blood pressure.

  "Take them back, LeMar," Gabe said. "The car, the apartment—the price tag is way too high."

  "T-take it from me, Gabe, this president is not worthy of his office."

  What is going on with his speech?

  "The voters are supposed to decide that, Dad," Gabe said.

  "You don't understand. I tell you, this presidency is not worth saving."

  "Let me reason with him," Griswold cut in, brandishing his pistol. "I promise he'll come to understand."

  "No, you creep!" a woman's voice cried out from the side of the hall. "I promise you'll come to understand."

  From the corridor to the portcullis, Alison stepped into the room, her pistol leveled at Griswold from, perhaps, twenty-five feet away.

  "Alison!" Gabe cried out.

  "Set the gun down, Griswold. Set it on the floor and kick it away. Hard!"

  Griswold seemed to be weighing his options; then, slowly, he did as Alison demanded.

  "As you wish, ma'am," he muttered. "My, my, my, my, my."

  "You should never have left me my radio, Griz. I caught up with you when you left all the others and flew back from Camp David to the White House. Seemed fishy then, seems fishy now."

  "Those naughty girls," Griswold said, smiling in a most unsettling way. "They know perfectly well that insubordination will not be tolerated. I think a spanking is in order. Now, if you will be so kind, Agent Cromartie, it is my turn to demand that you put down your gun."

  He lifted up his left hand to display a transmitter.

  "What do you expect to do with that?" Alison asked.

  "Expect to do? Well, for starters, I expect to push these buttons here and release the chemicals that my trusty inhaler deposited along your brain stem and other areas in your cute little noggin. Enough chemicals, I would say, to blow your mind—literally and figuratively. Many times more than what we've been giving to the prez."

  "Drop the transmitter, Griswold or I swear, I'll put a bullet between your eyes."

  "From there? In the heat of battle? With a dainty little, what have you got? A Glock? A Glock Twenty-six maybe? You must be kidding. At this range, with your hand shaking like a leaf, and death staring you in the face in the form of me, you'd be lucky to hit the wall behind me. Now, I'm going to count to three. Put your gun on the floor or I push these buttons—all of 'em at once. One . . . two . . . three!"

  Griswold depressed the buttons on the transmitter. His narrow eyes widened. They widened even more when Alison held up the Baggie containing the president's inhaler.

  "Guess what this is," she said. "You never should have let that pickpocket at your garage in Fredericksburg get away. He made the switch, you pig. The Alupent you almost killed me with was nothing more than that—Alupent. I'm glad you pushed those buttons, though. That makes this self-defense."

  "Y
ou fucking bi—"

  Griswold, reaching for a pistol in his belt, got no further.

  Alison dropped to one knee, extended both arms, aimed, and fired the Glock once—just once. Instantly a perfect hole materialized in the center of Griswold's expansive forehead. He stared at Alison in utter disbelief until life had faded completely from his eyes. Then he pitched face-first to the stone floor.

  It's not going to come down to your word against mine, Griswold, Alison was thinking savagely. Not this time. Not ever.

  She walked cautiously over to the agent and nudged his corpse with her foot. Then she turned to Gabe and quickly surveyed his wounds.

  "Don't worry, honey," she said, embracing him. "I'm not always this disagreeable. We'll get you to a hospital right away. We'll get you put back together."

  "Alison, meet LeMar Stoddard, Drew's loving father. He didn't have enough money."

  "So I heard back there."

  "Gabe, p-please, listen to me," LeMar said. "Miss, y-you listen, too. Listen and you'll both work with me. L-listen and you'll see that the . . . the president isn't fit for his office. I p-promise you will."

  He bent down and retrieved the oddly shaped leather case from next to Treat Griswold's corpse.

  Gabe sighed.

  "I can't think of anything you could possibly say that I would want to hear, Dad, but go ahead."

  The squinting and stuttering continued. Something was going on inside LeMar's head, Gabe was sensing. Something very bad. The man's blood pressure had to be off the chart.

  "Okay then," Stoddard went on. "H-here's what I have to say. You weren't driving the car that killed that woman and her unborn . . . child that night in Fairhaven. The man sleeping downstairs in the bunker was."

  "That's impossible."

  But even as he uttered the knee-jerk response, Gabe knew that LeMar's statement was not only possible, it was true. Blackthorn had warned him and his own instincts had told him Drew was lying about something—something important.

  "Your l-life has been ruined by . . . by an accident that the . . . the president was guilty of. Y-you were in an alcohol-induced blackout that night, but the president wasn't. H-he knew what had happened. H-he knew who was driving. The two of you were f-found down . . . an embankment in a muddy ditch, a h-hundred feet from the accident. You h-had a bad h-head injury and no memory whatsoever."