Crisis

by Robin Cook

  Jack got himself up and stretched. He could feel the weight of the revolver, and it was comforting even though he was not concerned about any intruders. He looked at his watch. It was too early to try to fall asleep. He looked at the blank TV: no interest there. For lack of a better plan, he went to get Craig’s case file and carried it to the study. As a man of habit, he sat in the same chair he’d occupied on previous occasions. After turning on the floor lamp, he searched through the file for the hospital ER record.

  Pulling out the sheet, Jack settled back. He’d skimmed through it before, particularly the part about the cyanosis. Now he wanted to read every word. But as he was doing so, he became distracted. His eyes had drifted to Craig’s old-fashioned doctor’s bag. All of a sudden a new thought occurred to him. He wondered what the incidence of false positives was with the bedside biomarker kit.

  First Jack went to the door to determine whether he could hear Craig moving about upstairs. Even though Craig had implied he didn’t care if Jack looked in his bag, Jack still felt uncomfortable. But when he was convinced all was quiet, he pulled the leather doctor’s bag from its shelf, opened it, and got out the biomarker kit. Opening up the product insert, he read that the technology was based on monoclonal antibodies, which are highly specific, meaning the chance of a false positive was probably close to zero.

  “Oh, well,” Jack said out loud. The insert went back in the box, and the box went back to its location in the very bottom of the bag among the three discarded vials, and the bag went back on the shelf. So much for another clever idea, he thought.

  Jack returned to the reading chair and to the ER sheet. Unfortunately, there was nothing even remotely suspicious, and as he’d noticed on the first reading, the cyanosis notation was the most interesting part.

  All of a sudden the two phones on the two desks sprang to life simultaneously. The raucous ring shocked Jack in the otherwise silent house. The insistent ring continued, and Jack counted them. After the fifth ring, he began to believe Craig might not be hearing it, and Jack heaved himself out of the reading chair. Turning on the lamp on Alexis’s desk, he looked at the caller I.D. The name was Leonard Bowman.

  After the seventh ring, Jack was certain it was not going to be answered, so he lifted the handset. As he suspected, it was Alexis.

  “Thanks for picking up,” she said after Jack’s hello.

  “I was waiting on Craig, but I guess his combination nightcap has him in dreamland.

  “Is everything okay there?” Alexis asked.

  “Peaches and cream,” Jack said. “How are things there?”

  “Quite well. All things considered, the girls are doing terrific. Christina and Meghan are already asleep. Tracy is watching an old movie on TV. We all have to sleep in the same room, but I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Craig is having second thoughts about my doing the autopsy.”

  “Why? I thought that was all decided.”

  “He’s having the jitters for the girls’ sake, but it was after he’d had two double scotches. He’s going to let me know tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call him in the morning. I think it should be done, all the more so because of today’s threat. I mean, that’s one of the reasons the girls and I came out here. Plan on doing it! I’ll bring him around.”

  After some final small talk, including that they would see each other in the courtroom, they both hung up.

  Back in the reading chair, Jack tried to concentrate on the case file, but he couldn’t. He kept marveling about how much was going to happen in the next few days and wondering whether there would be any surprises. Little did he know.

  17

  NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  Thursday, June 8, 2006

  7:40 a.m.

  The unease that Jack had experienced after Alexis and the kids left the evening before was magnified in the morning. Jack didn’t know if Craig’s mind-set was from the stress of his upcoming testimony or a hangover from his alcohol and sleeping pills, but he had reverted to his silent, brooding sullenness, similar to how he’d been on Jack’s first morning at the Bowman residence. Back then Alexis and the children had made the situation sufferable, but without them it was decidedly unpleasant.

  Jack had tried to be upbeat when he’d first emerged from his basement lair but had received a cold stare for his efforts. It was only after Jack had gotten himself some cereal and milk that Craig had said anything.

  “I got a call from Alexis,” Craig said in a husky, forlorn voice. “She said you two had spoken last night. Anyway, the message is: The autopsy is on.”

  “Fine,” Jack responded simply.

  After Craig was ready to leave, he partially compensated for his behavior by coming over to Jack, who was at the dining table drinking coffee and glancing at the newspaper.

  “I’m sorry for being a lousy host,” Craig said in a more normal voice, devoid of either superciliousness or sarcasm. “This isn’t my shining moment.”

  Out of respect, Jack pushed back his chair and stood up. “I understand what you are going through. I’ve never experienced a malpractice suit, but several of my friends did back in my ophthalmology days. I know it’s awful and as bad as divorce.”

  “It sucks,” Craig said.

  Then Craig did something totally unexpected. He gave Jack an awkward hug, then immediately let go before Jack had had a chance to react. He avoided looking Jack in the eyes while he adjusted his suit jacket. “For what it’s worth, I appreciate you coming up here. Thanks for your efforts, and I’m sorry you had to take a couple of whacks for me.”

  “I’m glad to have done it,” Jack said, struggling to avoid sarcastically saying, “My pleasure.” He hated being less than truthful, but he’d been caught off guard by the switch in Craig’s behavior.

  “Will I see you in the courtroom?”

  “At some point.”

  “All right. See you then.”

  Jack watched Craig leave. Once again, he’d underestimated the man.

  Jack went down to his basement guest room and put his belongings in his carry-on bag. He didn’t know what to do about the bed linens. He ended up stripping them off the bed and leaving them and the towels in a heap. He folded the blankets. There was a notepad by the phone. He wrote a short thank-you note and put it on the blankets. He debated about the front door key but decided to keep it and give it back in person when he returned the case file to Alexis. He wanted to keep the case file until after the autopsy, in case the autopsy raised questions that the case file could shed light on or answer. He pulled on his jacket. He could feel the gun in one side and his cell phone on the other.

  With the bulging manila envelope under one arm and his carry-on in the other hand, Jack climbed the stairs and opened the front door. Although the weather had been terrific since he’d been in Boston, it had taken a decided turn for the worse. It was darkly overcast and raining. Jack eyed his Hyundai. It was about fifty soggy feet away. Just to the side of the door was an umbrella stand. Jack pulled one out that said Ritz-Carlton. There was no reason he couldn’t give it to Alexis when he returned the other things.

  With the umbrella, it took several trips leaping over puddles to get his things into the car. When all was ready, he started the engine, turned on the wipers, and cleared away the windshield’s mist with the side of his hand. He then backed out of the driveway; waved to the policeman sitting in his cruiser, apparently watching the house; and accelerated down the street.

  He had to use his hand to clear the windshield mist again after only a short distance. With one eye on the road, he used the other to locate the defrost button. Once the defrost got up to speed, the mist problem abated. To help, Jack cracked the driver’s-side window.

  As Jack wound his way through the suburban streets, traffic gradually increased. Due to the dark, low cloud cover, many cars had their lights on. When he got to the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike, where he had to wait for a traffic light, he was reminded it was rush hour. Ahead, the to
ll road was swarming with racing autos, buses, and trucks, creating a swirling, vaporous mist. Jack girded himself to enter the fray as he waited for the light to turn green. He was aware he was not a particularly good driver, especially since he rarely drove after moving to New York City a decade ago. Jack much preferred his beloved mountain bike, even though most people thought it dangerous to bike in city traffic.

  The next thing Jack knew, something crashed into his car’s rear, causing his head to bounce off his headrest. The moment he had recovered enough, he twisted in his seat to look out the water-streaked back window. He couldn’t see much other than a large black vehicle pressed up against the rear of his. It was at this point that Jack realized his car was moving forward despite his foot continuing to compress the brake pedal.

  Twisting back around to face forward, Jack’s heart skipped a beat. He was being pushed through the red light! Outside, he could hear the horrid grating noise of his locked wheels against the pebble-strewn macadam as well as the growl of the powerful engine propelling him. The next thing Jack was aware of was a headlight bearing down on him from his left and a car horn blaring a dire warning. Then came a harrowing, screeching sound of rubber against pavement, followed by the glaring headlights being diverted ahead.

  Reflexively Jack’s eyes closed, expecting an impact into his car’s left side. When it came, it was more of a brush than a crash, and Jack became aware of the water-blurred image of a car pressed sideways against his Hyundai alongside his driver’s-side door. There was a scraping of metal against metal.

  Jack lifted his foot from the brake, thinking the brake was not working and needed to be pumped. The second he did so, his car shot forward toward the press of racing cars on the turnpike. Jack jammed his foot back down on the brake pedal. He could feel his wheels lock and the grating sound of his tires against the road’s surface reoccurred, but his forward speed did not lessen. Jack glanced behind him again. The large black car was ineluctably pushing him toward the dangerous toll road that was less than fifty feet away. Just before spinning his head around to face forward yet again, he caught sight of the pushing car’s hood ornament. Although the fleeting image was indistinct in the fog and drizzle, Jack saw that it consisted of two crescent-shaped sprigs bordering a coat of arms. He instantly made the association. It was the hood ornament of a Cadillac, and in Jack’s mind, a black Cadillac meant Franco until proven otherwise.

  Since the brake was useless against the Cadillac’s excessive horsepower, Jack released it and stomped on the accelerator instead. The Accent responded nimbly. There was another agonizing sound of metal against metal, and with a perceptible pop, the Hyundai managed to detach itself from its bullying fellow automobile.

  Gripping the steering wheel in desperation, Jack merged into the four lanes of speeding highway traffic like he’d never merged before. At the last second, he actually closed his eyes, since there was no shoulder on that part of the road, so there was no choice but to join the stream of cars in the far right-hand lane. Although the Boston drivers had seemed overly aggressive to Jack during his previous driving experiences, he had to give them credit for being alert and for having rapid reflexes. Despite a cacophony of horn blowing and screeching tires, Jack’s car managed to merge into the traffic. When he blinked his eyes open, he found himself compressed between two vehicles with no more than six feet in front and seemingly inches behind. Unfortunately, the car behind was an intimidating Hummer, and it stayed where it was, suggesting the driver was venomously angry.

  Jack tried to adjust his speed exactly equal to the car in front, despite feeling it was much too fast for the weather. He felt he had little choice. He was reluctant to slow down for fear the Hummer would ram him in a similar fashion as the black Cadillac had. Meanwhile, he frantically tried to search for the Cadillac in his side- and rearview mirrors, but it wasn’t easy. It required taking his eyes off the car in front, which was nothing but a hazy blur despite the windshield wipers working at top speed. Jack didn’t see the Cadillac, but he did catch glimpses of the Hummer driver alternately shaking his fist and giving him the finger when he sensed Jack was looking in his direction.

  The need to concentrate on driving was not the only handicap in the search for his vehicular assailant. Whirling eddies of fog and water vapor were whipped up into a frenzy by the rushing vehicles, particularly the trucks whose eighteen wheels, each almost the size of Jack’s car, flailed against the wet pavement, sending billows of mist into the air around the edges of their mud flaps.

  Suddenly, to Jack’s right, a short stretch of shoulder appeared as a turnout for disabled vehicles. He had to make a snap decision, since the length of the turnout was not long, and at the speed his car and the others were traveling, the opportunity would soon be lost. Impulsively, Jack veered to the right out of the line of traffic, jammed on the brake, then fought against the car’s tendency to skid first one way, then the other.

  With great relief, Jack was able to bring the car to a stop, but he didn’t get a moment to rest. In the rearview mirror, he caught sight of the black Cadillac pulling out of the lines of traffic exactly as he had.

  Jack sucked in a chestful of air, gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, and stomped the accelerator to the floor. The acceleration wasn’t neck-snapping, but it was still impressive. Ahead, the fenced end of the pullout rapidly loomed, forcing Jack again to merge abruptly into the traffic. This time it wasn’t blind, but it caused the same fury in the driver behind. Yet with the Cadillac obviously still in pursuit, Jack didn’t concern himself. In fact, there was a good side. The man continued to express his anger by riding Jack’s tail. Under normal circumstances, Jack would have considered such a situation dangerous and irritating. But now it meant that there was no room for the Cadillac, which would have been far worse than a mere irate driver.

  Jack knew that coming ahead some miles down the road was his turnoff, which surprisingly forked from the far left lane. Not too far beyond that were tollbooths marking the end of the toll road. Jack tried to reason which was better. The tollbooths meant staff and maybe even state troopers, which was good, but it also meant long lines, which was bad. Although David Thomas had relieved Franco of his gun, Jack knew the man undoubtedly had access to others. If Franco was crazy enough to ram him in an attempt to push him out into traffic, Jack felt he’d have little qualms about shooting at him. The exit road had less staff and no troopers, which was bad, but no lines, particularly in two fast lanes, which was good.

  As Jack was weighing these possibilities, he’d been vaguely aware that some distance beyond the buildings spanning the toll road, a true shoulder appeared. He’d not thought much about it since he had no intention of pulling out of the traffic for a second time. What he’d not considered was the Cadillac using the breakdown lane to catch up.

  It wasn’t until the Cadillac pulled alongside that Jack caught sight of it. And when he did, he saw that its driver’s-side window was down. More important, Franco was driving with one hand. In his other hand was a gun, which he proceeded to stick out the window. Jack touched his brakes and simultaneously his passenger-side window shattered into a million pieces and a bullet hole appeared in the plastic cover over the windshield support to Jack’s immediate left.

  The man behind Jack was back to blowing his horn continuously in utter exasperation. Jack could fully understand his agitation. He was also impressed the man had been able to avoid a collision, making Jack vow never to complain about Boston drivers ever again.

  The next instant after Jack had touched his brake, he pressed the accelerator to the floor and used his newly developed merging technique to move laterally across several lanes of traffic. Now everybody around him was beeping to beat the band. Jack couldn’t rest on his laurels since Franco had pulled an even greater merging feat and was now in the same lane as Jack with only one vehicle between them. Ahead, Jack saw the sign for his turnoff, Allston-Cambridge Left Lane, rapidly approach and then whip by. Impulsively, he made a snap d
ecision that depended on his agile, compact Accent being able to make a tighter, high-speed turn than Franco’s boatlike vintage Cadillac. Franco cooperated by remaining in lane, presumably avoiding using the relatively empty far-left lane to overtake Jack for fear of being forced off the road by the swiftly approaching exit.

  Jack’s entire body tensed as he fixed his eyes on his goal. What he wanted to do was execute a left turn as sharp as he could into the exit without rolling the car and clear a triangle of barrel-sized yellow plastic containers placed to cushion any vehicles destined to hit the concrete exit abutment. What he hoped was that Franco would have to sail on past.

  At what he hoped was the proper instant, Jack whipped the steering wheel counterclockwise. He heard the tires screech in protest and felt the powerful centrifugal force attempting to fishtail the car or cause it to flip. Tentatively, he touched the brake, not knowing if it helped or hindered. For a second it felt as if the car was on two wheels, but it straightened itself and agilely missed the protective canisters with several feet to spare.

  Rapidly throwing the steering wheel in the opposite direction, Jack straightened the car on the exit, heading for the line of tollbooths directly ahead. He began to brake. At that point, he glanced into the mirror just in time to see Franco slam sideways into the apex of yellow barrels. What was most impressive was that the Cadillac was already upside down, ostensibly having immediately rolled when Franco tried to follow Jack.

  Jack winced at the force of the impact, which threw tires and other debris into the air. He found himself marveling at the degree of Franco’s anger, which had obviously trumped any rationality.

  As Jack approached the line of tollbooths, the two attendants leapt out from their stations, abandoning the drivers waiting to pay their tolls. One of the attendants was carrying a fire extinguisher. Jack checked his rearview mirror. He now saw tendrils of fire licking up the side of the upended vehicle.