An hour passed, then most of another. Nothing. For three days she had watched from the bench, noting the comings and goings of her prey. For three days, the doctor had arrived at the clinic almost precisely at nine and remained alone inside until she opened the door to patients at ten. Casually checking through a side window, two days in a row, the hunter had watched as her quarry performed advanced martial-arts forms in the small waiting area. Power, balance, speed.
Had something gone wrong today? Had she taken the day off?
The assassin was casting about, looking for signs of trouble, when she spotted the doctor approaching casually through the dust and hazy mid-morning heat, nodding to a woman hanging out clothes, waving to a fruit vendor. Relaxed. Happy. The woman on the bench clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the pistol. She had waited long enough—it was time. Even though the doctor was two hours later than usual, she showed no indication of opening the clinic to the public right away. For five minutes, ten, the door remained closed. The doctor was alone inside, probably practicing her forms. Finally, her hat still pulled low across her eyes, the assassin rose, ambled across the street, and knocked on the door.
“Somos cierros,” the doctor’s voice, slightly breathless, called from within. We’re closed.
Another series of knocks.
Come on . . . Come on . . .
Footsteps from within.
That’s it. . . . Soon now, very soon.
The door opened, first a bit, then all the way.
“Hola, buenas dias. ¿Enque le puedo servir?”
“May I please come in?”
There was surprise on the doctor’s face at hearing English.
“I suppose. I’m very busy right now.”
She stepped back and allowed the assassin two steps into the waiting area where she had been working out.
“Dr. Hollister, we’ve had a hell of a time finding you.”
The assassin brushed her hat up away from her eyes.
Recognition took a few seconds. By then, the .38 was in position.
“Grace Davis?”
“Your grateful, devoted patient.”
Grace could see Susan Hollister’s hands tense and knew the professional killer could take her in an instant. She and her husband had given up more than eight months of their lives and all of their savings, pointing to this moment. Throughout their hunt, Grace pictured the confrontation over and over in her mind—pictured it and wondered if she could do it, if she could actually pull the trigger, if she could actually kill. Now it took less than a second to find out. As Hollister swung her foot up in what would have been the equivalent of a decapitating kick, Grace fired into her spinning form—once, then again. Hollister’s lethal pirouette stopped in midair. She stumbled back against a table and fell heavily, blood expanding from two rents in the side of her white T. Her eyes widened as Grace stepped forward, the barrel of the .38 leveled at her forehead.
“Don’t do it,” Hollister gasped. “Don’t—”
The third bullet, fired from less than three feet, entered the center of Susan Hollister’s forehead and exited the back of her skull with enough force to embed itself in the clay floor.
Grace Peng Davis stripped off her robe and dropped it next to the body along with the gun. Then she exited through the back door of the clinic and calmly made her way along the street leading out of the village. A block down the road, Mark Davis pulled over in a rented Kia.
“Is it over?” he asked as his wife climbed in and he pulled away.
Grace bit down on her lower lip and nodded. Her eyes were full.
“Take me home,” she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MICHAEL PALMER, M.D., spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program.
Also by Michael Palmer
FROM BANTAM BOOKS
The Sisterhood
Side Effects
Flashback
Extreme Measures
Natural Causes
Silent Treatment
Critical Judgment
Miracle Cure
The Patient
Fatal
THE SOCIETY
A Bantam Book / August 2004
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2004 by Michael Palmer
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eISBN: 0-553-90057-9
Published simultaneously in Canada
v1.0
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