Jill wanted to ask Cathy what she thought about the murders. Did she really think he was guilty? She was dying to know, Cathy being his friend and all and the announcement this morning that the charges had been mysteriously dropped. It all seemed so bizarre. But she sensed this was the absolute wrong time to ask.
“They must be treating him overcautiously. It happens all the time, because he’s a doctor.” Jill put her hand on Cathy’s reassuringly. “Listen, I know you’re upset about this, that you’re a friend of Geoff’s. Why don’t you go get something at the snack bar.”
She looked at her watch then reached into her purse. “Look. It’s midnight, cheeseburger time at Randy’s Bar-B-Q pit. I think we could both use a good greasy burger and a shake to take our minds off things. My treat.”
Cathy forced a smile and took the money. “Sure. Thanks for the words of encouragement, Jill.” She stood to leave. “Keep your eyes on our VIP. Anything, I mean anything, seems out of the ordinary, page me.”
“No sweat, Cath. Trust me. He’s in good hands.”
The doors of the NSICU closed with a whoosh. Jill sat alone at the nursing station, the eerie stillness of the room pierced only by the constant beeping of the monitors. She couldn’t believe she’d sent Cathy off like that. She was jumpy enough about the whole situation with her around, let alone by herself in this big, dark, empty ICU.
But she wasn’t alone. Geoff was there. Maybe he’d wake up on her watch. She decided she’d keep him company until Cathy got back.
The phone rang, just about sending her through the ceiling. Jill jumped on the receiver before the first ring was half-way through, her heart racing.
“NSICU!”
“Jill?” It was Cathy. “Everything okay?”
Silence. Jill took a deep breath. “Of course everything’s okay. Your call just about gave me a heart attack, that’s all,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Our patient hasn’t stopped talking since you left.”
“Very funny. How do you want your burger?”
“You mean how well done? I’ve never seen a Randy burger anything but charcoal broiled!”
“Guess you’re right. I’ll tell him to make it crisp. See you in a few minutes.”
Jill put down the phone and walked over to bed one. She stood at the bedside for several minutes, simply staring at Geoff, the casted leg suspended by a wire from the frame above the bed, the shaved and bandaged head sprouting a bolt and accompanying tubing, the swollen and bruised face, his handsome features blunted but recognizable.
Her gaze shifted to the monitors: heart rate seventy-five and regular, BP 120/80, normal cardiac rhythm, brain pressure normal at sixteen. Every system was being monitored, everything under complete control. Amazing. If she was ever in an accident, the NYTC was where she’d want to be.
She could see Geoff’s eyes darting rapidly back and forth beneath his closed lids. He must be dreaming, maybe lightening up. REM sleep was lighter than deep, stage four sleep.
Carefully, she placed her thumb and forefinger on his upper lid and tried to gently open it. She met some resistance.
“Geoff,” she whispered. She moved in closer. “Geoff, can you hear me?”
A sound. A deeper breath. Perhaps a grunt? She forced his eyes open. More resistance, she was sure of it this time. His eyes continued to dart around, taking no particular notice of anything, let alone her. It gave her the creeps, so she let go. She tried another strategy, pinching his arm, squeezing it hard, hard enough to make any conscious person complain.
A movement. He moved his head. A moan. He was waking up!
“Geoff, this is your nurse, Jill. You’re in the NSICU at the Trauma Center, Geoff. Everything is okay. You’re going to be okay. You’ve been in an accident, a bad accident, and you had surgery—”
A word came softly from between his dry, sticky lips.
Jill reached down to squeeze his hand. She leaned in closer.
“What, Geoff? What did you say?”
“Oma...”
“Oma? What’s Oma? Geoff, try to open your eyes. Look at me. Say it again, please.”
His puffy lids twitched, then parted, not fully at first, the room light overwhelming his eyes.
Geoff clamped them shut, then slowly tried to open them once more. Again he spoke. “O’Malley. Call O’Malley.”
A whooshing sound was heard, the sound of the NSICU door opening. Jill could barely contain her excitement. She continued to hold Geoff’s hand, gazed at him as she called out, “Cathy, over hear, quick! Hurry up, girl. Drop those burgers! Geoff’s awake, and he’s trying to say something! Something about someone named O’Malley.”
Their gazes met. Jill leaned in closer, her eyes studying his. What she saw in those crystal blue eyes was not pain, but fear. Mortal fear.
“Nurse Akers, why don’t you go take a break. I’ll keep an eye on your patient for a little while.”
Jill startled, turned around to see where the authoritative voice came from. “Oh, Dr. Pederson, it’s you!” She took a deep breath, tried to relax. “Are you sure? There’s always supposed to be a nurse on duty in here. Medical center rules—”
Pederson held up his hand, smiled, spoke in tones so soft Jill had to strain in order to hear him. “Don’t worry about it. How could our patient be any better off than with the chairman of neurosurgery and the director of research at his bedside?”
Jill looked toward the doorway, saw Joseph Balassi enter the NSICU, approach the bedside. “Well, whatever you say, Dr. Pederson. You should know. Is fifteen minutes okay?”
“That would be perfect.”
Jill Akers left the room.
Pederson and Balassi stood over Geoff, glanced down at him. Pederson looked at the ICP monitor, turned to Balassi. “He seems to be rousing. You can take it from here. Call me when you’re done.”
Pederson left the NSICU.
Geoff’s eyes widened. Was he still dreaming, or was this a hallucination?
“Geoffrey, Geoffrey, so good to see you again. I heard you were in the hospital, so I thought I’d pay you a visit,” Balassi said. “You and I have been through so much together lately. “Balassi approached the bedside, stood directly over Geoff, casting a shadow on his face. “Roles are reversed this time, aren’t they?”
Geoff tried to muster whatever strength he had. He shifted his position, attempted to roll out of bed to his right, but a searing pain shot from his right leg and jolted his spine. Then he realized why. His leg was tethered to the frame above the bed. He was dead in the water, trapped. This couldn’t be happening, not here, not now after all he’d been through. He hadn’t survived so much for it to end this way.
Fear transformed to hatred. “Asshole,” he mumbled hoarsely.
“I see illness hasn’t changed you, Geoff. Here let me help you out,” he said as he released the wire holding up Geoff’s leg, sending the cast crashing to the bed. Geoff let out a scream and was momentarily blinded by the excruciating pain.
Balassi smiled and continued, ignoring Geoff’s writhing. “Often major life events—illness, injury, a death in the family will do that to someone. Change them, that is. It’s true. Really it is. But there are other ways to change a person, Geoff. You know what I mean. Really change them, their personalities, their intellect, their abilities. I gave you a chance, an opportunity of a lifetime, Geoff, to be a part of this great discovery, and you turned me down.
“You tried to destroy me. You didn’t understand this discovery is greater than either of us. It will live on, Geoff, be picked up by others, the project passed from one generation to the next as it has been. The seed that was planted forty years ago as Project MK Ultra has blossomed and become the Sigma Project. Under our care it will be carried to fruition.”
Balassi’s piercing brown eyes danced wildly. “I had no choice but
to do what I did, Geoff. I am the agent of mankind’s next great leap in evolution: neurochemical evolution. As the guardian of this historical advance, I simply could not let you get in the way.”
“There is someone else who knows, someone who can stop you.” Geoff coughed out the words.
Balassi laughed derisively. “You mean your detective friend, O’Malley? The one you went to all that trouble to get the information to? You must be kidding.”
“You can kill me, but he knows everything. They’ll be coming for you Balassi. You’re insane.”
Balassi continued to laugh. “Detective O’Malley won’t be coming after me or anyone else, Geoff. The ignorant fool came to see me in my office earlier this evening, played me a recording of the conversation you and I had in my apartment. That was good, Geoff, very good! He threatened to take me down to the stationhouse. Can you believe it?” Balassi snickered. “Let’s just say your detective friend is tied up with other business right now.”
Geoff’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“I’m so sorry, I really am. I know he was your only hope and without hope the human spirit withers away, dies a slow death, Geoff, but it’s true. See.” Balassi held up O’Malley’s badge and I.D.
“So, where do we go from here, hum? I’d still like to give you a chance, a chance to be part of this. I think there’s still a way we can work together.” He reached into his pocket and held up a syringe filled with an amber solution.
“This syringe, Geoff, contains the most powerful sigma endorphin known to man. Oh, we thought that of the other sigma analogs we developed, but the compounds were unpredictable. Their half-lives either too long or too short, their structures unstable, short-circuiting the brain’s neurochemical pathways. Like early LSD, far too crude.”
Balassi rolled the syringe between his thumb and index finger and held it in front of Geoff’s face. Geoff sank back into the pillow, tried to push himself away. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.
“I’ve honed it down, Geoff. I’ve finally identified the exact location of the receptor imbalance that causes schizophrenia. Your patient Smithers helped me with that. Of course he didn’t know it at the time. Do you understand what this means? The elimination of this crippling mental illness from the human race, vaccinating against it like polio or small pox, eliminating it entirely! This is only the beginning, and I have chosen you to play a major role.”
“You’re mad,” gasped Geoff.
“Not as mad as you will be shortly.” Balassi unsheathed the needle and leaned over, holding it in front of Geoff. He squirted out a few drops of the endorphin, the drops landing on Geoff’s lower lip. Instinctively Geoff spit, his saliva and the endorphin catching Balassi in the eye.
“Really, Geoff,” he said with disgust. “You needn’t be so crude and ungrateful.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief. “It’s far better than dying, you know. They’ll take good care of you in the institution. You’ll get visits from your friends on the weekends, care packages from the family. It won’t be so bad.”
Balassi laughed loudly, then became deadly serious. “Enough nonsense. It’s time. Congratulations, my friend. You’ll go down in history.”
Slowly, Balassi reached over the top of Geoff’s head and grabbed the tubing that connected to his head bolt. He found the injection site, pierced it with the needle. Geoff felt the pop as the needle was inserted into the transducer. Balassi pinched off the tubing with his thumb.
Geoff looked up at Balassi’s hand on the syringe. Sweat poured down Geoff’s face. His heart was racing, his breathing labored. He could handle the pain, even the thought of death, but the notion of insanity brought unbridled terror. He closed his eyes and prepared for the dazzling lightshow as his brain’s receptors became saturated with the endorphin. Would he know what was happening? Would it be instantaneous, or would he have to live like a human time bomb, insanity ticking away slowly, unpredictably, inside him. That alone might be enough to make him go mad.
A voice jumped out of the darkness from across the room. “Hold it right there, Balassi. The party’s over!” The voice was commanding, reassuringly familiar.
Geoff opened his eyes. Standing between the bed and the nursing station, a service revolver aimed directly at Balassi, was Detective Donald O’Malley.
“Take your hand off that syringe and put both your hands on your head. Now!”
Josef Balassi’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “Well, Detective O’Malley, nice of you to come to visit Geoff.”
“Better know how to tie knots, next time, Balassi. You’ll have time to learn, where you’re going.
“I’m not fucking around anymore. Now put your hands up and walk towards me. Slowly!”
Balassi laughed derisively. “You must be kidding. I have connections in higher places than you think, detective. Take me in, and your career will be finished.”
“Who said anything about taking you in, Balassi?” O’Malley smirked, cocked the hammer on the revolver. “Your connections have been severed, Balassi. Your endorphin conspiracy, the Sigma Project, is finished. CIA Director Bennington is back, the group that infiltrated the CIA, Lancaster included, your phony PETronics Corporation—everyone’s been busted. They’re all gone. No one cares what happens to you now, except me and the good doc, here.”
Balassi’s pupils dilated. He took his left hand off the syringe and slowly reached down into his lab coat pocket with his right hand. “Now, now, detective, no need to do anything rash. Maybe we can work something out, a deal or—”
“You mean like the deal you had worked out for Doc Davis, here?” O’Malley glanced at Geoff, back to Balassi, grinned. “I don’t think so. Now move it!”
Geoff’s eye caught the movement of Balassi’s right hand. From his angle he could see the gun. His gaze darted to O’Malley, whose eyes were fixed on the hand that had been holding the syringe. O’Malley obviously hadn’t seen Balassi’s right hand move.
Balassi’s hand now gripped the pistol in his coat pocket, and he was pointing it in O’Malley’s direction. He slowly moved around the bed. Geoff had to do something! He’d get only one chance.
He took a deep breath. Summoning every ounce of strength he could, he swung his casted leg into Balassi’s knees, throwing him off balance. “Look out!”
Seeing the glimmering metal in Balassi’s right hand, O’Malley fired his weapon. He aimed high, not wanting to endanger Geoff, grazed Balassi’s lab coat. Balassi fell to the ground, but he scurried around the head of the bed, using Geoff for cover, then stood. His left hand reached up to the syringe still dangling from the IV tubing, his right hand held onto the gun.
“Don’t do it!” O’Malley yelled, his revolver aimed at Balassi.
Balassi saw O’Malley’s gaze shift to the hand holding the syringe, fired twice, one bullet hitting O’Malley in the shoulder, the other in the chest. O’Malley winced in pain, fell to the ground.
“You filthy son-of-a-bitch!” Geoff yelled. He rolled to his right off the bed, his casted leg making a loud crack as he fell to the floor, taking Balassi down with him. Geoff grasped Balassi’s right hand, slammed it on the floor. The gun popped free and slid across the room.
Balassi tried to stand up, lunge for the gun, but Geoff grabbed his leg, his grip tight around Balassi’s ankle. Balassi fell to the ground again, this time on top of Geoff.
Balassi straddled Geoff’s chest, punched him in the face, again and again. Geoff, already in severe pain, was dazed. The room swam in and out of focus. Geoff felt he was on the edge of losing consciousness. He thought of Suzanne’s brutal assault. Kapinsky, his patients, murdered. The madness had to end.
Something glistened next to Geoff’s face, caught his attention. The syringe had popped out of the IV tubing and fallen on the floor beside him. He mustered what little strength he had left, grasp
ed the syringe in his hand and swung his arm in as high and fast an arc as he could. The long needle pierced Balassi’s left eardrum, entered his brainstem.
Balassi shrieked in pain, grasped for the syringe in vain, then fell to the ground, landing on the plunger and sending the sigma endorphin home.
Balassi was dead.
Epilogue
It had been over a week since the day it all came to an end. The bolt had been removed from his head, and his hair was growing back. Geoff found himself oddly amused by his buzz cut look. It reminded him of his childhood. His wounds, both physical and emotional were healing, and his doctors were talking about discharging him from the hospital in the morning. Stefan had arranged for a private nurse to care for him so he could go home early. He couldn’t stand to be here one day more than he had to be.
Geoff had made up his mind he wasn’t coming back here. Too many painful memories, too much horror. He was going to finish his residency, but it would have to be somewhere far away from the New York Trauma Center. Somewhere he could smell the grass, feel a salty ocean breeze, stay in touch with what was truly important in his life—his brother and Suzanne. They were all he had left. The thought of recuperating with Suzanne at his family’s estate in Westport brought a smile to his face for the first time in weeks.
Perhaps it had taken such a horrible experience such as this to make Geoff realize his own caring nature, his basic humanitarianism were what had kept him going, from closing his eyes and turning away. He was, after all, a healer.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. He wasn’t expecting any visitors. Suzanne was barely mobile herself and was being discharged tomorrow as well.
“Come in.” Geoff turned to face the doorway. Someone holding a bunch of Mylar balloons stood by the door. “This place is starting to look like a carnival.” Geoff cleared a table. “You can set them down over here.”
The Endorphin Conspiracy Page 24