by Robin Cook
George stared at Pia as if she were an apparition, but she turned to look at Will. His breathing was being handled by a machine, there were tangles of wires and tubes enveloping him, and he was surrounded by banks of devices with illuminated readouts. Will’s face looked calm and peaceful and his color was normal. Except for all the medical equipment and the beeping and clicking, he might have simply been sleeping. A nurse hovered nearby. Pia looked around the room and caught her reflection in the unit’s large window. She looked terrible, like something the cat dragged in. She turned her attention back to George.
“George, I’m so sorry I got you into this. Please forgive me,” she said. “If I had listened to you, then this would have turned out differently, I know that.”
“Pia, I feel as terrible as you do about this. I was sleeping while you were waiting for me at the station. I slept through your calls. I should have come to you. It should be me lying there.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Will had no idea what was going on and I didn’t say anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me so there’s a couple of things I want to say while I have the chance.
“I want to say thank you for going out of your way to help me. I don’t really understand why you’d do that for someone without her asking, and without her appreciating what you’re doing. But there are a lot of things I don’t understand.
“I guess the main thing I don’t understand is myself. I think you do know yourself, which is why you’re able to say you love someone, like you did to me. And I’m sorry for not listening then either. I’m jealous that you can do that, and I wonder why I can’t. I think there’s something broken in me or something that was never there, and it’s taken until now for me to see that. For a lot of reasons, I find it very difficult to trust people. As if I need to tell you that.... But I don’t know how to love someone either, or how to accept their love. It’s a big responsibility, being loved, and you should think hard before rejecting someone’s love.
“But you’ve made me want to learn more about myself, to see if I can’t fix that broken part. I think we studied that course together, in first-year psych, the part about people with personality issues who never accept that they’re the ones who are different. So if they’re marching, if they lead with their right foot while everyone else uses their left, they say with unshakable belief that it’s everyone else who’s out of step, not them. I think I’m like that.”
Pia looked around. She hadn’t realized the nurse had left, nor had she seen or heard the man enter the room. He was stocky, in a cap and gown, just like she and George were wearing, over his streetclothes. He was standing at the back of the room as she stood with George by Will’s bed. The man waved his hand as if to say, “Don’t mind me! Go on!”
“I never understood people’s feelings, George. I sneered at people who said they were in love because I never knew what that meant. I don’t know if I can change, and I don’t know if someone can be taught how to love. But I do know I want to try to change.”
Pia reached out and touched George’s cheek with one fingertip.
“Please try to forgive me.”
George closed his eyes.
“Pia, there’s nothing to forgive. I’m just so happy you’re safe.”
Pia stepped back and studied Will’s peaceful face, then turned toward the visitor. She sensed he was there to talk to her.
“Miss, I’m Detective Captain Lou Soldano. You’re Pia Grazdani, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“You have to come with me now.”
“I understand. Do you mind if I use the bathroom first?”
“Of course not,” Lou said.
After Pia told George she’d see him later, she and Lou walked out of the intensive care unit.
“I’m glad to see you,” Lou said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Pia said, before disappearing into the women’s room near the elevators. After locking the door, she took out her smartphone. Quickly she tapped out an e-mail, forwarding a sizable message she’d already written. After making certain it had gone, she used the toilet. She then looked at herself in the mirror over the sink and said: “Now the shit hits the fan.” Taking a deep breath, she composed herself to go out and meet Detective Lou Soldano who represented her old nemesis, the City of New York.
64.
EAST TENTH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 26, 2011, 2:13 A.M.
The man was aware of the buzzing of a phone right next to his ear. He went immediately from deep sleep to partial consciousness but it took him a few beats to realize where he was. He picked up the phone, saw his device, didn’t recognize the number but accepted the call just to stop the noise.
“McGovern. This better be good, whoever you are.”
“Is this Chet McGovern?” a female voice said.
“I believe so, ask me tomorrow. What time is it anyway?”
“About two-fifteen, sorry about that.”
“Do I know you?”
“My name is Jemima Meads. I’m calling from the New York Post.”
“The Post?”
The mention of the paper made McGovern sit up. He looked across at the redhead lying fast asleep on the other side of the bed. Her bed, he remembered, somewhere in the Village. What was her name?
“Dr. McGovern, we’re looking at a story that has two researchers at Columbia being killed by the radioactive agent polonium-210, just like the KGB colonel in London. Do you have a comment?”
“It’s two-fifteen in the morning,” McGovern said groggily.
“And I do apologize, but we want to be first and make sure we have the story right.”
“But I thought we weren’t releasing the cause of death,” said McGovern.
“So you can confirm it?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It kind of is.”
“Look, speak to my colleague, Jack, he did the autopsies. But I recommend it be tomorrow during normal business hours.”
“Jack Stapleton, the ME?”
“Yes, him.”
“Okay, thanks. And sorry for disturbing you.”
The woman ended the call, and Chet lay back in bed. What was that about?
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EPILOGUE
GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT
MARCH 26, 2011, 6:05 A.M.
Even though it was Saturday, Russell Lefevre had set his alarm for 5:45. He clamped down on the buzzer, before it woke his wife. Lefevre padded into the bathroom and then downstairs to make coffee and to check on events on the Internet. As the coffee was brewing, Lefevre scanned the online headlines of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Russell had always been fastidious about keeping up with the news, but in the past few weeks he’d become obsessed, especially since Edmund had become less and less communicative.
Even though Russell had asked him numerous times, Edmund had never told him what he and Jerry Trotter had talked about at Edmund’s house a few weeks before, even though Edmund had looked thoroughly shaken afterward. A week or so later, Jerry Trotter disappeared. When Russell called Max Higgins, Max said Jerry had gone on a fact-finding trip to Asia, and he had no idea when he’d be back. Edmund had nothing to say about that. Then Russell read about Gloria Croft being attacked while out running one morning in Central Park, and Edmund told Russell he had no idea what had happened then, either.
Two days earlier, all the newspapers carried the story about Rothman and Yamamoto, first about their being sick. Then they reported that the pair had died in a tragic accident in the lab. Russell didn’t know what to feel or what to think. First Jerry disappeared, then Gloria was attacked, then Rothman and Yamamoto died. On its own, each of the latter two events was a piece of good fortune, but together, they were surely more than a coincidence. Did Edmund have anything to do with it? Could these events have been what he and Jerry talked about? It seemed impossible to comprehe
nd that Edmund was involved, but Russell couldn’t bring himself to confront his partner.
Russell made coffee and looked for the New York Post. When he saw the newly updated headline on the home page he nearly choked:
COLUMBIA MEDS IN KGB COPYCAT SLAY?
Under Jemima Meads’s byline was an exclusive about Rothman and Yamamoto. Hedged with “allegedly” and “reportedly,” the story said that acting on an anonymous tip, the reporter had contacted members of the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner who were working on the theory that the exotic radioactive agent polonium-210 was involved in the deaths of the two prominent Columbia University researchers. The find was made by the husband-and-wife team of Drs. Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, who, having been reached by the reporter at their Upper West Side town house, refused to confirm or deny the story, referring the reporter to the OCME’s public relations department.
The discovery was immediately reported to the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, and the NYPD Joint Organized Crime Task Force because of its significant implications and similarities to the 2006 murder in London of a defected Russian FBS agent by the Russian FBS, the current incarnation of the Soviet KGB.
Polonium-210, the article said, is a remarkably poisonous compound millions of times more deadly than cyanide if swallowed or respired. It’s also extraordinarily difficult to come by because of its association with triggering nuclear weapons and is thought to be available only in Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea.
At this time it wasn’t known if the deaths were connected to a shooting reported outside the Columbia Medical Center that evening.
Russell dashed to the phone and fumbled to call Edmund. He knew he was waking him as the phone rang for the sixth time.
“Russell, what the hell?” His voice was thick with sleep.
“Edmund, go online, look at the Post. It says the researchers were murdered, with some nuclear poison. Oh my God, Edmund.”
“All right, Russell, calm down. You better get over here.” Edmund hung up. Russell wanted to throw up, but he composed himself, went back upstairs, and got dressed.
He started driving toward Edmund’s house, his mind racing, trying to make connections, thinking about the coincidences and how they now looked like something so much more. Like murder. As he drove, Russell failed to see that a beat-up old Toyota Corolla had pulled out and was following him through the twisty Greenwich back roads.
Edmund had opened his gates and Russell drove directly into the walled courtyard in front of the waterfront mansion. He leaped from the car and bounded up the front steps and impatiently leaned on the doorbell, whose muffled chords he could just make out coming through the massive door. Where was Edmund? He rang the bell again. The only other sound he could hear was the gentle cacophony of songbirds.
At last, Russell heard a bolt being drawn back on the heavy door, then another sound, of a car coming quickly up the drive. He turned and watched bemused as a tan sedan skidded to a halt inches from his own vehicle and two figures jumped out and ran toward him. They were wearing hoods and holding guns. The door opened and Russell twisted his head back and said one word. “Edmund.”
“They sold us out,” Edmund said.
Then the men opened fire, both with pistols muffled with silencers. Russell fell forward the way he was facing, across the threshold of Edmund’s house. Edmund had no time to process what he was seeing, that there were two men firing weapons at him, that he’d gambled on this venture and this was how he lost. He fell backward, propelled by three bullets in the chest. He fell straight back, only the soles of his most comfortable pair of slippers visible.
The first man walked up the stairs, looked at Edmund, leveled his gun, and shot him once more in the forehead. The second man kicked over Russell’s body and did the same to him. The men looked at each other and nodded. They found the spent cartridge cases and picked them up, then walked back to the car, got in, and removed their balaclavas before driving off.
At the wheel, Prek Vllasi navigated the drive out of the gate and turned onto the road. Prek turned to Genti Hajdini and banged once on the steering wheel. Both men smiled.
ALSO BY ROBIN COOK
Cure
Intervention
Foreign Body
Critical
Crisis
Marker
Seizure
Shock
Abduction
Vector
Toxin
Invasion
Chromosome 6
Contagion
Acceptable Risk
Fatal Cure
Terminal
Blindsight
Vital Signs
Harmful Intent
Mutation
Mortal Fear
Outbreak
Mindbend
Godplayer
Fever
Brain
Sphinx
Coma
The Year of the Intern
