Behind him, he heard Joaquim. Three bullets snapped through the trees.
He ran as fast as he could, hoping he was going in the right direction. One shot passed so close to his elbow that he felt the heated air of its passage.
A good man, Joaquim. The faithful servant, even to the end.
Two more shots. One plucked at his trousers. It was too close: Ross abruptly turned off to one side, scrambling through the bushes, up along a small garden courtyard.
Joaquim heard the sound and fired into the foliage, but he was nowhere near.
Ross moved back, retracing his steps, until he could look down over the brick path along which Joaquim must come. Ross gripped the emerald in his bandaged, aching hand and held the gun straight ahead.
For a long time, there was no sound, no movement. Joaquim was waiting somewhere in the gardens. Ross held his breath. A few yards away, a small bird fluttered down onto a branch. Joaquim fired, cracking the wood of the tree.
Ross waited.
It seemed an eternity, with nothing but a gentle early morning breeze. But he knew that Joaquim must act soon; with every passing minute, the sky became lighter. Soon the guards would arrive, and the maintenance men, and then the tourists.
Ross checked his watch.
It occurred to him that Joaquim had gone back for Angela; he considered it, and pushed the thought from his mind. Joaquim would not bother, because he knew Ross had the emerald.
Or did he know?
In his mind, he saw Joaquim returning to the Court of Lions and finding Angela huddled there. It would be a brief meeting, no hesitation, no regrets, a single bullet in the head …
At that moment, he heard a sound. The sound of a shoe scraping on stone.
Ross raised his gun.
Joaquim appeared, moving out from the bushes, no more than ten yards from where Ross lay hidden. With a shock, Ross saw that he was uninjured; the big man moved slowly, strongly, looking around him.
Ross took aim and fired.
He knew as he fired that Joaquim was hit; he watched as he spun away with the force of the bullet and fell to his stomach on the ground. He fell very hard and did not move.
Ross waited. He watched the body carefully for any sign of movement. There was none. He tried to see where he had hit Joaquim, but could not. However, after a moment, a thin trickle of blood seeped across the stone from beneath the body.
Still, it might be a superficial wound. Ross hesitated, then fired again, aiming for the head or chest. He struck the leg and watched it kick away.
The rest of the body did not move. There was no sound.
Only a dead man, he thought, could take a bullet in the leg that way.
Ross moved out of the bushes, holding his empty gun loosely in his hand. He approached the body, and suddenly, Joaquim spun and raised his own gun.
“Hold it,” Ross said.
Joaquim did not move, but watched Ross closely.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Ross said. He held the gun in front of him, acutely aware that it was empty, that it was a monstrous bluff. But he could see the uncertainty and the fear in Joaquim’s eyes.
Ross stopped and backed off two steps. “I don’t want to kill you,” Ross said. “Don’t make me.”
His words sounded ridiculous to him. His voice was trembling and unconvincing.
“You know,” Joaquim said, “I don’t believe you have bullets left.”
“There is one way to find out,” Ross said, taking another step back.
“Yes,” Joaquim said.
In a swift movement, he raised his own gun and fired. Ross turned and ran, dodging back into the bushes and then away toward the courtyard near the fortress. He heard Joaquim grunt in pain as he raised himself to his feet.
Two more shots.
And then it happened. A bullet struck his hand, shattering the emerald, crumbling it to powder. The force of the shell lifted his arm high, swinging it up. Ross closed his fist on a handful of splinters and dust.
Joaquim was still after him.
Ross ran. He scrambled down the steps to the courtyard, moving to the interior court. He knew without looking back that Joaquim was following. Up ahead, he saw the gaping hole from the construction. His hand stung fiercely; there were jagged splinters in the bandages.
On the ground he saw the tank and the gas masks. He scooped them up and jumped down the hole without looking. He landed in a cloud of thick choking dust. It was very dark; only the faintest light filtered down through the hole.
He pulled one of the masks over his face and ran deep into one of the passages. He threw the second mask away but lugged the tank with him. It clanged against the rocks as he ran. He finally set it down, crawled behind a wall, and waited.
Around him, in the darkness, he could hear the squeaking and rustling of rats. For a long time, there was nothing else, and then a single, quiet thud: Joaquim had jumped down.
From behind the wall, Ross could look down the passage toward the hole. There was enough light to see Joaquim, huge and lumbering, standing in a cloud of gray dust Joaquim still held his gun; he looked around in a slow, almost lazy way.
“Doctor?” The rasping voice was amused, toying. If Joaquim was in pain, he gave no sign.
Ross said nothing.
“You will never escape alive, Doctor.”
Ross bit his lip, smelled the rubber of the gas mask.
“I will kill you. I have vowed it.”
Slowly, Ross stretched the nozzle forward from the tank and turned on the gas. It hissed out softly.
He waited. Joaquim started off in another direction.
“Over here, Joaquim.”
His voice echoed through the underground chambers, but Joaquim had fixed the direction well: four bullets spanged off the rocks around him. A light was flicked on, and it played around the room.
Ross ducked back, cursing the way he had wasted his last bullets. The light swung past his hiding place.
“I am presenting an excellent target, Doctor,” Joaquim said. “Do you wish to try your luck?”
Ross did not move.
“Or is it that you have no more ammunition?”
He laughed. The harsh voice echoed through the chambers.
“Come and get me,” Ross said.
The light came back on. The beam swung in a slow arc, stopping occasionally. Ross heard the sound of Joaquim’s footsteps coming closer. He heard the hiss of the gas. Peering around the corner, he saw the light of the torch and, vaguely, the outlines of the huge body.
Joaquim stepped closer and closer. He was now only ten feet away. The gas was hissing out, but it had no effect.
It wasn’t going to work.
Ross realized that he had turned the nozzle too low; the gas concentration was insufficient. Joaquim was practically standing on the tank, and coming closer with each step. And yet nothing was happening.
One chance.
One in a thousand.
Ross waited until the light moved away, then bent over and picked up the heavy cylinder. He threw it off to one side of Joaquim.
“Here, Joaquim!”
The big man fired instinctively.
The tank was punctured, and clouds of milky vapor spurted upward. Ross had a glimpse of him as he clutched his face and his throat, gasping, making ghastly raw sounds. Then he toppled and fell into the clouds of gas and was hidden.
Ross pressed his mask tight against his face and climbed out of the hole.
25. The Way Out
HE FOUND ANGELA STANDING OVER the hole as he came out. She helped him up and said, “What happened?”
“Joaquim’s dead.”
“Gas?”
Small wispy vapors were rising from the hole into the morning light.
“Yes. Gas.”
He pulled the mask off his head, and she touched his face, which was bathed in sweat. She kissed him lightly and threw the mask back down the hole.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
&nb
sp; They crawled over the main gates, past a sleeping guard, and moved down the mountainside to where their car was parked in a dark glade of trees. His hand throbbed; she helped him into the car and got in behind the wheel.
They started down the mountain.
“You’ve got to see a doctor,” she said.
“Yes.”
“We’ll go to the same one.”
“That poor fellow,” Ross said.
As she drove, her blonde hair tugged by the wind, she smiled at him and said, “Well, at least it’s over.”
“Yes, it is.”
“We can leave now.”
“I’d like that,” Ross said.
“Where would you like to go? I was thinking of Paris, myself.”
“I’ve just been to Paris,” he said. “How about Rome?”
“Too hot.”
“Then Capri.”
She smiled. “All right, Capri.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek as she drove.
“I like you,” he said.
“You say that to all the girls,” she said, and smiled.
She drove on for a few minutes in silence, then said, “We can leave tomorrow, first thing.”
“Why not today?”
“Well, we have to go back.”
“What for?”
“The emerald, of course,” she said. “You don’t have it with you. By the way, where did you hide it?”
“I didn’t,” he said.
“Pete, come on, don’t kid—”
“Really, I didn’t.”
“Darling—”
“Angela, really, I didn’t hide it.” He was frowning as he watched her.
Abruptly, she pulled over to the side of the road. She reached back behind the seat and produced a gun.
“Peter.”
“Angela, for Christ’s sake.” He was tired; this was silly; his hand ached miserably.
“Peter. Tell me.”
He felt suddenly foolish again, innocent and foolish and unsuspecting. Her face was set and hard behind the barrel of the gun.
“Is that thing loaded?”
“Peter, don’t play games with me. I want that emerald.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“You must. You had it when you left the Court of Lions.”
Her features were twisted in a way he had not seen before. She was no longer beautiful to him; everything was wrong; everything was changed.
“Not anymore.”
She shook her head and waved the gun at him.
“Tell me,” he said. “Would you kill me?”
“If I had to.”
“And if I told you where the emerald was?”
Then I would go off with you to Capri, and we would be very happy together.”
“Uh-huh.”
She said, “Peter, I’m serious, I want that stone.”
He raised his bandaged hand and opened it up to her.
“All right,” he said. Take it.”
She looked at the hand and saw the greenish dust and the green splinters. It took her a moment to realize what it meant
“Joaquim,” Ross said softly, “was a very good shot”
As a last try, she said, “You’re lying.”
“No,” he said. “Now take me to a doctor and shut up.”
In front of the doctor’s home, in the early reddish light he got out of the car, shut the door, and looked down at her.
“Well,” he said, “it was fun.”
She smiled slightly. “In a way.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “In a way.”
Then she slammed the car in gear and roared off, down the quiet early-morning streets of Granada, and he had a last glimpse of her blonde hair and her shoulders set hard as she spun the wheel and disappeared around the corner, and out of sight.
Epilogue
THE MANDIBLE WAS BROKEN across the ramus. Five teeth were knocked out, and three were displaced. There was a hairline fracture along the right zygomatic arch.
Peter Ross sat in the dark X-ray reading room on the seventh floor and looked back over his shoulder at Jackson, the plastic surgeon.
“Nasty,” Ross said. “Who is it?”
“Some drunk. Got into a fight with a couple of sailors who tried to kick his head in.”
“You going to do him now?”
Jackson sighed. It was midnight, and he was tired. “Yes, I guess so. The bastard is groaning something awful.”
Ross nodded and pulled the X-rays down from the lighted board. “Good luck.”
Jackson said, “How was your trip?”
“Fine.”
“You have a hell of a tan. All rested up?”
“Yes. All rested.”
Jackson laughed. “Don’t kid me. All you did is drink and screw for a month.”
Ross smiled. “Yes, but you know, it gets boring after a while.”
“Is that why you came back early?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the trouble with medicine,” Jackson said. “It’s too much work. You get so you can’t relax. You get so that even on vacation, you can’t have a good time.”
“I know,” Ross said, “just what you mean.”
A Biography of Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Roslyn, New York, along with his three siblings.
Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his MD from Harvard Medical School. As an undergraduate, he taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University. He also taught writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
While at Harvard Medical School, Crichton wrote book reviews for the Harvard Crimson and novels under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffery Hudson, among them A Case of Need, which won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery in 1969. In contrast to the carefully researched techno-thrillers that ultimately brought him to fame, the Lange and Hudson books are high-octane novels of suspense and action. Written with remarkable speed and gusto, these novels provided Crichton with both the means to study at Harvard Medical School and the freedom to remain anonymous in case his writing career ended before he obtained his medical degree.
The Andromeda Strain (1969), his first bestseller, was published under his own name. The movie rights for The Andromeda Strain were bought in February of his senior year at Harvard Medical School.
Crichton also pursued an early interest in computer modeling, and his multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090, was published by the Peabody Museum in 1966.
After graduation, Crichton was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he researched public policy with Dr. Jacob Bronowski. He continued to write and published three books in 1970: his first nonfiction book, Five Patients, and two more John Lange titles, Grave Descend and Drug of Choice. He also wrote Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues with his brother Douglas, and it was later published under the pseudonym Michael Douglas.
After deciding to quit medicine and pursue writing full-time, he moved to Los Angeles in 1970, at the age of twenty-eight. In addition to books, he wrote screenplays and pursued directing as well. His directorial feature film Westworld (1973), involving an innovative twist on theme parks, was the first to employ computer-generated special effects.
Crichton continued his technical publications, writing an essay on medical obfuscation published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 1975 and a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma published in Metabolism in 1980.
He maintained a lifelong interest in computers and his pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1995. Crichton also won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writers Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered dinosaur of the ankylosaur group was named for him: Crichtonsauru
s bohlini.
His groundbreaking, fast-paced narrative combined with meticulous scientific research made him one of the most popular writers in the world. His novels have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and thirteen have been made into films. Known for his techno-thrillers, he has sold more than 200 million books. He also published four nonfiction books, including an illustrated study of artist Jasper Johns, and two screenplays, Twister and Westworld.
Crichton remains the only person to have a number one book (Disclosure), film (Jurassic Park), and television series (ER) in the same year.
He is survived by his wife, Sherri; his daughter, Taylor; and his son, John Michael.
Crichton and his younger brother, Douglas, co-authors of Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, which was published under the pseudonym Michael Douglas.
Telegram from Harvard College announcing Crichton’s acceptance, May 4, 1960. (Courtesy of the Office of the General Counsel of Harvard University.)
Lowell House Harvard yearbook photo, 1961. (Courtesy of Harvard Yearbook Publications and Harvard University Archives.)
Crichton as an anthropology major at Harvard College.
“Peabody Papers.” (Reprinted from “A Multiple Discriminant Analysis of Egyptian and African Negro Crania” in Craniometry and Multivirate Analysis, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 57, No. 1, 1966, courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.)
Harvard Crimson article featuring Crichton, March 1969. (Courtesy of the Harvard Crimson.)
Crichton as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, 1969.
A photo of Crichton for his memoir Travels.
Crichton hiking while doing research for his novel Micro.
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