Michael Palmer

by The Last Surgeon

  “Don’t mention it,” he said with an understanding smile.

  TEN BLOCKS away, after pulling his unmarked rented van to the curb, the man who called himself Paul Regis reached into the pocket of his coveralls to caress the smooth steel of the two small gas canisters he had extracted from their hiding place in the closet of Jillian Coates’s upstairs bedroom. Beside them in his pocket were the top-of-the-line surveillance cameras and microphones he had also removed from the condo.

  Jericho, the code name used by the organization who had hired him, had violated the most basic tenet of their agreement: no intervention.

  What a stupid thing for them to do.

  Rule number one—rule number everything: Franz Koller works alone.

  Good thing the second floor hadn’t collapsed onto the first. The canisters and spyware would be in an evidence bag, and someone would have connected the Coates sisters. Good thing he had been his usual professional self in concealing the V-gas and the surveillance cameras and microphones.

  Koller pulled off the Hollywood-quality silver wig and removed his contacts.

  “Jealous boyfriend,” he said, laughing out loud.

  The canisters of nerve gas and the surveillance equipment had been in a safe spot above the inside of the closet door frame and in the curtains. It would have taken an almost inconceivable piece of bad luck for Jillian Coates or anyone else to have discovered them before he had the chance to get back and remove them. Then whoever made decisions for Jericho had to go and nearly burn the place down. They would have hell to pay for doing something that stupid. Everything could have been ruined. If he had not been so busy, and had even remotely suspected Jericho might panic and break their agreement, he would have gotten out to Jillian Coates’s condo right after Belle’s death to remove the stuff he had placed there.

  Good thing Paul Regis, insurance company fire investigator, had gotten mobilized to act and act quickly. Now, it was time to deal with the idiots who had nearly blown everything. From the beginning Koller suspected Jericho was connected in some way with the CIA, but in truth he didn’t care so long as the payments made it into his accounts. Now, he cared. And Jericho, whether it was Agency or someone else, was going to pay.

  Koller skipped to “Sympathy for the Devil” on the Stones CD he had been listening to, and breathed in a few more minutes of his success. Who knew, perhaps a roll in the hay with Jillian Coates was in his future. She was certainly good-looking enough—more than good-looking enough. Of course, thanks to Jericho’s poor judgment, if she persisted in disbelieving the non-kill of her sister, she might earn a non-kill of her own somewhere down the line.

  Reflexively, he stroked the canisters again.

  “Nicely done,” he said.

  CHAPTER 12

  “I understand that you fell down.”

  The sloe-eyed ER doctor, whom Nick suspected was just a few years removed from her spring break party days, peered at the gash on his chin through thick magnifying glasses. After studying the wound from every conceivable angle, she still did not seem ready to make a stitch. It was as though his flesh were a block of uncut marble and one false tap would render it pebbles.

  “Go ahead and sew, Dr. Baker,” Nick said finally. “There’s nothing to worry about. Besides, this is going to leave a character scar that will only enhance my reputation as a man of mystery.”

  The woman laughed uncomfortably.

  “Whoever put those Steri-Strips on did a masterful job,” she said.

  “It was our nurse. She has that woeful condition where she’s very good at everything.”

  “I thought about just leaving them on.”

  “I know, but she insisted, and she’s very good at that, too.”

  The woman looked bewildered.

  “Seeing as we’re fellow doctors,” she said, “you can just call me Amanda. And I’m sorry for seeming a bit nervous here. I’m rotating through the ER on my way to a residency next year in psychiatry. I don’t understand why they insist we do a primary care internship except so they can fill in the coverage and on-call schedules and charge for what we do. Suturing up a trauma surgeon has never been a career ambition of mine. Feels a bit like baking a pie for Martha Stewart.”

  “Excuse me for saying this, Dr. Amanda, but you’re not exactly bubbling with confidence here. How long have you been doing ER?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Then you’re ready, Doc. Just think of me as a pillow and sew away.”

  Banter . . . lighthearted humor . . . Who is this man and what have you done with Nick Garrity?

  Nick knew the answer. After four years a crack had appeared in the wall of frustration and uncertainty surrounding Umberto’s disappearance. A GI with a story similar to Umberto’s had disappeared and subsequently surfaced again. He had almost nothing by way of clues as to where Marine Corporal Manny Ferris might be, but whatever it took, if the man was alive, he would find him.

  I’ve been called back by the Marines for a top-secret covert mission.

  The statement resonated in his mind as Amanda Baker painlessly numbed Nick’s chin. Four years. Four years without a word. Now, suddenly, there was hope.

  By the time the second stitch was in, the future psychiatrist was utterly focused on the job and humming softly. Her hands, trembling slightly as she put in the local anesthesia, were bedrock solid now. The youthful innocence and uncertainty he had observed in her earlier were gone as well. Nick sensed that she was going to be a capable doc, whatever specialty she chose. During his own residency, he often questioned the absurd amount of responsibility thrust upon new trainees. Now, that thought segued into images of the soldiers he served with at FOB Savannah, many quite a bit younger than Amanda. The thought put a damper on his mood.

  “Done,” Baker chirped. “Fifteen stitches, seven-oh nylon, with three six-ohs thrown in just to secure the suture line. Looks pretty spiffy if I do say so. Now for some Steri-Strips to keep the tension off, and the real mystery about you will be whether or not you ever cut yourself at all.”

  “Told you not to worry.”

  “Five days. Sutures out in five days.”

  “Five days it is,” Nick said, unable to fully cull Savannah from his thoughts. “Listen, Dr. Amanda, one of our patients from the medical van, Michael Campbell, was brought to the ER a few hours ago. I heard he had been transferred to the fifth floor of the Grossbaum Building, but I don’t know which room.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Nick followed Amanda over to her desk, where she dialed the floor’s number.

  “This is Dr. Amanda Baker in the ER. You have a patient named Michael Campbell. Could you tell me his room number? . . . Five-oh-two? Thanks.”

  “Ask her if any police have been in to see him,” Nick whispered.

  “Pardon?” Amanda shot him a puzzled look.

  “Please ask.”

  “Have the police been in to see him yet? . . . No? Okay.” She covered the receiver and whispered to Nick, “Apparently, a police officer is on the floor now.”

  “Thanks,” Nick replied. “I gotta run.” He headed out of the ER, then called back over his shoulder, “You did a great job, Doc.”

  Nick followed the signs directing him to the Grossbaum Building. The fifth floor was a step-down unit for intensive care patients being transitioned onto medical or surgical floors, or who would have been admitted to the ICU had there been space. Campbell’s room was the last on the right. There was no police officer in the hallway, suggesting the officer was already inside his room. Nick knocked softly and entered.

  Campbell, on his back, was restrained to the bed by all four limbs. A uniformed female police officer stood at his right. Nick was glad to see the addict hadn’t required endotracheal intubation, but he did have a laryngeal mask airway in place, helping to provide some mechanical breathing support. The surgeons at City Hospital had done a CT scan and apparently decided the knife wound had not caused internal damage that would require an exploratory ope
ration.

  Campbell’s eyes were open, but glazed. His expression was an intense mix of fear and confusion.

  “Who are you?” the woman, a stocky brunette, asked.

  Her brass name tag read SAMPSON, and her expression said there were an infinite number of places she would rather be than where she was.

  “Dr. Nick Garrity from the Helping Hands Mobile Medical Unit,” he answered. “Mike here is one of our patients.”

  “You the one who reported this guy’s knife wound?”

  Nick could see Campbell stiffen.

  “Actually, no,” Nick said. “That must have been someone here in the hospital.”

  “You know it’s mandatory to report all stab wounds.”

  “Gosh, I thought it was more mandatory to save the patient’s life. I did help to do that.”

  Sampson glared across at him. He had six inches and at least twenty-five pounds on her, but he had little confidence that he could have taken her in a fight, and no confidence at all that she would not like to try and find out.

  “Can we remove this contraption?” she asked, gesturing at the airway. “I need to talk to him.”

  “I can’t answer that question, Officer, except to say that I’m a surgeon, and if I went to the trouble to put a laryngeal airway in someone, I wouldn’t want it taken out.”

  “But you’re not the one who put it in, right?”

  “Let me guess, Officer. You majored in community relations at the academy.”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave, Dr. Important.”

  “And I think my role is to remain here with my patient.”

  Just as it seemed Sampson was about to leap across the bed at Nick, the door burst open and a bulldozer of a man, stuffed into a tweed jacket, wearing a crinkled blue shirt and red-striped tie, stepped inside. The veins on his tire-thick neck pulsated, and his face was flushed with anger.

  “I’m Detective Lieutenant Don Reese, MPD. Which one of you idiots is fucking up my case?” The detective reached into his jacket pocket and flashed his badge. “Who are you?” he growled at Nick.

  “I’m a doctor. I’m not from this hospital. I work on—”

  “I don’t care if you work on the good ship Lollipop. Did you have a hand in this mess?”

  “Not really, I only—”

  Reese, even more furious, cut Nick off again and turned back to Sampson.

  “I want your district. I know every goddamn commander and captain in every police service area. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Sampson paled.

  “Hey, I’m not talking to Dr. Eric the Red over here,” Reese snapped, pointing his thumb at Nick. “You’re the cop. I asked you a question!”

  “I . . . I’m with the Four-oh-four,” she stammered.

  “The Four-oh-four. Commander Trudy Sandoval. She’s not going to be happy with this. Not at all. Do you know what you just did?”

  Sampson shook her head. “Lieutenant,” she said, regaining an ort of her composure, “I’m just trying to make a report and probably an arrest here.”

  “Well, it’ll be the last bust you make for a while if you do.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because this guy here with the knife hole in his side is an undercover cop working my case and you are about to flush two years of wiretaps and judicial hoop-jumping down the toilet.”

  “Shit,” Sampson muttered. “Well, what do you want me to do now?”

  “Either go get primped up because you are about to make the six o’clock news for blowing a major narcotics investigation, or just walk away and let me see if I can fix what you might have already broken.”

  The woman did not take long to decide.

  “Thanks for not making a big deal about this, Lieutenant,” she grunted on her way to the door.

  “You can thank me for saving your career later,” Reese replied. “That goes for you, too, Dr. Doolittle, out!”

  Nick followed Sampson down the hall to the elevator. She made no attempt to keep the door from closing in his face before he could get on. He waited until he heard the car start down, then returned to Room 502, where Reese was waiting in the hallway.

  “That was some performance, Don,” he said, shaking the burly detective’s hand. “Really impressive stuff. I guess we can finally call us even now.”

  “Hell no! You’ve got a long way to go and a lot of favors to collect before I’ll call us even.”

  “What about that fancy GPS unit you fixed us up with after those kids heisted our RV and took it for a joyride?”

  “Not even close. It’s not every day a cop smashes his car into a rolling medical clinic during a drunk blackout. You saved my badge and maybe my pension by letting me sleep it off in the back room of that bus of yours and not reporting the accident.”

  “I did what felt right. Junie vouched for you, and you agreed to pay for the damages and to hook up with two of our AA pals.”

  “Three years now. I got my three-year medallion to prove it.” Reese held up his key ring and let Nick squeeze the ornate bronze coin. He clasped Nick’s shoulder and led him into the room.

  “You just made it that much easier for me to do the same sort of thing for the next guy,” Nick said. “Okay, we’re not even. I own you forever. Isn’t that how it is with the Chinese? No matter. I sure do appreciate you getting here so quickly. Campbell’s on parole so it was important that Officer Sampson not bust him. I promised him, but one of the admitting staff here dropped a dime. Tomorrow, or as soon as he’s with it enough to listen, he becomes that next guy I was talking about. I’m gonna try and make him the same deal I made you. Only he may have to go away for a couple of weeks if we can find a way to pay for it. Got that, Mike?”

  Campbell nodded weakly.

  “You’re a good man, Doc,” Reese said. “A hell of a good man.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Don, because I need another favor.”

  “Name it.”

  “Ferris, Manny Ferris. Marine corporal. Medical discharge maybe seven years ago. Around thirty-five. Five nine. Hair black. Eyes brown. Skin maybe some sort of brown-white mix. Has spent time in cardboard villages and flophouses. Last address unknown, but I’ll be starting work on that as soon as I get home.”

  Reese checked his watch.

  “I’m off tomorrow,” he said. “Scheduled to go fishing with my cousin. Been really looking forward to it.”

  “I need to find him yesterday,” Nick said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Franz Koller waited on the edge of the bed for the girls to arrive. His Dell laptop glowed ghostly blue in the otherwise dark motel room. He had connected his PC to the Internet and even logged in to his eBay account, but he was not yet ready to contact Jericho. A phrase he once read in a Wall Street Journal article about unfortunate e-mailing incidents had stuck with him—it was headlined “Ready, Fire, Aim.” It would be stupid, he knew, to message his employer while his emotions still ran hot.

  The killer placed the pads of three fingers just below his wrist crease to check his radial pulse again. Sixty beats per minute—still way too high. When he was truly relaxed, truly in control of his emotions, his resting heart rate would be forty or even less. He expected the girls would help him to achieve that state.

  Patience, he cautioned himself. Patience.

  He would wait as long as it took for his anger to fully subside before responding to the ill-conceived, reckless torching of Jillian Coates’s condominium. Only then, when he was in what he called his alpha state, would he compose his message, encode it within the pixels of today’s eBay item—a tacky hand-painted nutcracker—and then post the nutcracker to his eBay auction account.

  Steganography, the art and science of writing concealed messages. Documented examples of steganography dated back to ancient Greece, when wax-covered wooden tablets kept coded messages hidden from the enemy. Koller had first been exposed to it in a college course, but over the succeeding years, he had taken aspects of the craft to
the point where he could have earned millions in licensing fees, had he not preferred to use his custom software to plan, execute, and be compensated for non-kills. The latest version of Koller’s steganographic technique was akin to taking the most sophisticated coding technology available and dosing it with steroids.

  He still couldn’t wrap his mind around Jericho burning down Jillian Coates’s condominium without consulting him first. He had made it clear when Jericho first approached him about a series of new contracts: Under no circumstances were his clients ever to engage, tail, touch, or even breathe near anybody associated with the job without his authorization—and that authorization was simply not going to be given.

  Obviously, the sister of one of the marks fell into the “associated with” category. The more he dwelled on it, the more agitated he became. Where were the girls?

  Wearing only a white terry cloth robe, Koller rose from the bed and powered through two hundred push-ups on the gritty motel carpet without breaking a sweat. He meditated fifteen minutes afterward before checking his pulse once again. Fifty. Better, but still not good enough. He could not remember the last time he had lost his temper to this extent.

  He was upside down and naked, performing a motionless headstand, one of the countless yoga positions he could execute to any yogi’s satisfaction, when he heard a soft knock on the door. Dropping to the floor with catlike grace, Koller crossed the room without bothering to dress. A quick check through the peephole confirmed it was the escorts he had hired. The tall hooker with ebony skin he knew as Sandy. He had hired her before and offered to triple her usual fee in exchange for her cooperation this night. The short blonde accompanying her was a relative newbie, not yet out of her teens. She would be perfect, he decided.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Koller said, motioning them inside and turning on one bedside lamp. The cool evening air washed over his body, igniting his senses. The night smelled of action. Koller watched the blonde glance down at his penis as she passed. He closed the door behind them with a soft click, then double-locked it.