The Patient

by Michael Palmer

  “In that case, maybe I should bring out those photographs again,” Alex replied. “I have no sympathy for that woman or her husband. I only hope he somehow knew he was dying when that artery started bleeding into his brain. I can’t tell you what a joy it will be, to be the one shoving Claude Malloche’s body into a hearse.”

  “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Bishop.”

  “Amen.”

  “Pardon me for saying it, but would your brother have endorsed this five-year vendetta of yours?”

  “My brother’s dead. The choices I’ve made are mine. But the answer to your question is yes. We were both recruited by the agency right after college. We both knew what we were getting into. We both felt like patriots serving our country, and we both hated our country’s enemies. If Malloche had any credo at all, it was an absolute loathing for America and Americans. If he had killed me, Andy would have hunted him to the ends of the earth.”

  Jessie sighed.

  “In that case, we should get moving.”

  “Do you have a plan?” he asked.

  “Yes, but it’s complicated, so pay attention.”

  “Ready.”

  “Okay. First, I give you this paper. Second, you change into your undertaker suit. You got this so far?”

  “Go on.”

  “Next, you come and haul off the body.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I checked. It’s essentially self-serve. You stop at the pathology department desk, show them the death certificate, and sign a log. After that, no one cares. It’s yet another example of the cardinal rule of moving about a hospital: If you look like you know what you’re doing, as far as anyone is concerned, you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’ve noticed that, playing hospital guard.”

  “People’s first option is always the one that isn’t going to cause them any extra work. I’m going to put that principle to the test right now.”

  “How?”

  “Just to make sure everything’s in place when you make your appearance as Digger O’Dell, the friendly undertaker, I’m going to tell the nurses I need a break from this floor and from Carl, and offer to spare someone the job of accompanying the security guard when he wheels the body down to the morgue. I don’t think it would be wise for you to play the guard and Digger, but if you hurry, I’ll still be down there waiting when you drive up in your hearse.”

  Alex looked about to ensure no one was watching, then took her hand in his and held it for several seconds.

  “I’ll meet you in the morgue,” he said.

  He had disappeared around the corner before Jessie realized that she hadn’t even thought about pulling away from him.

  JESSIE ASSISTED TWO nurses in transferring Rolf Hermann’s body to a gurney. Then she and the guard, a paunchy man named Seth, who seemed to pale at the sight of the Count’s corpse, headed off for the morgue. Five hundred murders. It was hard enough for her to accept that any man could be responsible for such horror, let alone that it was the one lying beneath the sheet. Cunning, thorough, brilliant, paranoid, meticulous. Those were just some of the adjectives Alex had used to describe Claude Malloche. Now, it seemed, the monster’s headstone might read:

  “Here lies a man who made only one mistake in life. He chose the wrong surgeon.”

  The morgue was in the basement of the main hospital. It consisted of an unlocked room, adjacent to the autopsy suite, with twelve stainless steel refrigerated boxes built into the wall for body storage. Formaldehyde fumes hung heavy in the air. There was no one around, so Jessie left Seth waiting with the gurney and walked through the autopsy room and across a corridor to the pathology office, where an indifferent secretary slid a black loose-leaf notebook across her desk to log the body in.

  “I think the funeral home is on its way over,” Jessie said, paving the way for Alex’s imminent arrival.

  The woman mumbled, “Yeah, okay.”

  No problem here, Jessie was thinking.

  She returned to the morgue, where Seth had posted himself in the hallway outside the door.

  No problem here either.

  “Listen,” Jessie said, “I just spoke to the funeral parlor, and they’re sending someone over right away. Why don’t you go on back to work. I’ll stay here until they arrive.”

  “You sure?”

  “It’s fine. I’m sure.”

  Jessie watched until the grateful guard had headed down the passageway to the elevators. Then she reentered the morgue and lifted the sheet from Rolf Hermann’s gray, mottled face. Gradually, the stagnant blood in his capillaries would be drawn by gravity into the dependent tissues, and his complexion would assume the pallor of death. From her first encounter with a dead body in anatomy, corpses had not particularly affected her—even the ones whose demise was grisly. Hermann was no exception. Perhaps it was the ability to detach that had made her so successful as a surgical student, then later as a resident. Whatever the reason, looking down at the body now only made her wonder about Claude Malloche—and about the man who had hunted him for so long.

  Five years, she was thinking. Alex Bishop had given up five years of his life for this. Hermann’s eyes were open a slit. Jessie peered at them, wondering about all they had seen during their life, and what had driven the man behind them.

  “Jessie?”

  The woman’s voice, from behind her, brought her heart rocketing to her throat. She whirled, pulling the sheet back into place over Hermann’s face in the same motion. Nursing supervisor Catherine Purcell stood, arms folded, just inside the door.

  “Oh, hi,” Jessie managed. “You startled me.”

  “I can see that. Sorry. Is there a problem?”

  “No, not really. I was just wondering about the guy. I did his admission workup for Carl, but I never really got to talk with him. Because of the language barrier and his wife’s bossiness, almost everything went through her.”

  Jessie’s mind was racing. Alex would be here anytime. Catherine Purcell was one of the sharpest people in the hospital, and his looks were striking. It was reasonable to think she might recognize him.

  “The nurses in the unit told me you had walked the Count down here,” Catherine said.

  “They were busy, and I just wanted to get off the floor for a while. Weren’t you on last evening?”

  “Betty Hollister’s got the flu. I told her I’d cover. You need help loading him into the cooler?”

  “No … ah … the funeral home called the floor before we left and said they’d be right over. I didn’t see any sense in moving him around any more than necessary. Have you heard something about Emily? Is that why you’re here?”

  She worked her way toward the door.

  “No. I heard she’s still missing. I have no idea what could have happened.”

  “I’m really worried.”

  “In that case, I’m worried, too. But I came down to find you because I’m worried about someone else—Carl. I think he’s losing it.”

  “You mean like going crazy?”

  “I mean exactly that.”

  “Catherine, could we maybe leave here to talk about it? The fumes are starting to make me queasy. The funeral guy knows to stop at the path office. I left the death certificate there.”

  “Certainly.”

  Nicely done, Jessie was thinking to herself as they reached the bank of elevators. The doors parted and Catherine stepped into the car at the moment the doors to the next car opened and Alex emerged, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit and pushing a narrow stretcher. There was only a moment for their eyes to meet, but in that moment, Alex saw inside the elevator, assessed the situation, and looked down.

  “He’s in the morgue,” Jessie said. “The pathology office has the certificate.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said.

  “I could swear I’ve seen that man someplace before,” Catherine commented as the elevator doors glided shut.

  Jessie’s pulse leveled off at two hundred or so and began to slow.
/>   “I imagine this isn’t his first trip here,” she said hopefully.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “About Carl?”

  “Oh, yes. You remember I told you last night how he was absolutely certain Laura Pearson and another nurse were laughing at him, and threatened to have her fired?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now he’s up on Surgical Seven, shrieking at the nurses because there are none of the special spinal tap sets on the floor that he insists on using.”

  “Oh, yes. The famous Gilbride kit.”

  Jessie tried to stay focused on Catherine and their conversation, but she kept picturing Alex, alone in the morgue, loading the body of his nemesis onto a borrowed stretcher for the trip to a hearse. Five years.

  “Special spinal needle, special pressure monitor, special clamps, special drapes, special disinfectant,” Catherine was saying. “Everyone else uses the standard, disposable kits, but Carl insists on his wacky setup.”

  “I know. He insists that the residents use it, too, but unless he’s watching they never do. It’s become sort of a joke passed on from class to class. It’s just one of those power things, Catherine. Carl demands the kits simply because he can.”

  “Well, now he’s up there berating anyone and everyone because there aren’t any.”

  “He’s stressed. This Count Hermann thing has turned his world upside down. Surely central supply must have some of his sets made up and sterilized.”

  “One, thank God. They’re sending it up now. But Jessie, you’ve got to do something to calm the man down before we have a mass walkout on our hands. Or before I slip twenty of Valium into his butt. He’s always been hard on people, but never this abusive. It’s really appalling.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  They heard Gilbride ranting the moment the doors opened on Surgical Seven.

  “You know how much time I’ve wasted up here, waiting for this? I could have seen half a dozen patients in my office! From now on, I want at least two Gilbride kits on this floor at all times, is that clear?”

  Clutching the sterile, towel-covered tray that held his precious spinal tap set, Gilbride was still railing at one of the nurses as Jessie approached.

  “Carl?”

  He whirled to face her.

  “I don’t want to hear anything from you either, Doctor,” he snarled. “This is my service, and I’ll run it my way. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  He was muttering unintelligibly as he turned away. Just behind him, Jessie could see the candy striper, Lisa Brandon, emerging from Sara’s new room. She was looking back over her shoulder into the room, saying something about getting more lotion. To Jessie, watching the catastrophe develop, the collision seemed to take place in slow motion. Gilbride took two rapid steps backward and was turning when he slammed into Lisa, driving her back a few feet and almost knocking her down. The Gilbride kit—the only one in the hospital—went clattering to the floor.

  For two or three stunned, silent seconds, Gilbride could only stare down at the broken tubes and contaminated instruments. Then he transferred his gaze to Lisa.

  “God damn it!” he bellowed. “Who the hell are you?”

  Without waiting for a response, he reached down and snatched Lisa’s laminated ID from where it was clipped to her jacket pocket. He studied the picture, then looked at the woman, then looked back at the ID.

  “I … I’m sorry,” Lisa stammered. “I really am. It was an ac—”

  “What in the hell kind of an ID is this?”

  “What do you mean?” Lisa asked.

  Jessie took a step closer. To her left, Orlis Hermann and one of her sons were standing by the door to their room, taking in the scene.

  “I mean this thing is fake. The ID number doesn’t start with a V like all volunteers’ numbers do, and you can’t possibly have gotten this just three weeks ago, because if you did, you’d still be in orientation, and not up here putting your hands on my patients and smashing into me. Now, who in the hell are you?”

  He nearly shrieked the words.

  “Dr. Gilbride, if we could just speak in private,” Lisa said, urgently, but quite calmly and with surprising authority.

  “Nonsense! I want security called. I want you out of here right now.”

  “Dr. Gilbride, please, I—”

  Gilbride turned to the unit secretary.

  “Get security up here right now,” he bellowed. “In fact, tell them to call the police.”

  Jessie kept her eyes on Lisa Brandon, who appeared furious and somewhat uncertain as to what to do, but not at all intimidated.

  “Dr. Gilbride, quiet down,” she said firmly. “I am the police. FBI.”

  She handed him a leather case with a badge. Then, just as quickly, she took a step forward, produced a pistol that had been concealed above her boot, and leveled it expertly at Orlis.

  “Don’t move, Mrs. Hermann,” she said. “Or should I say, Madame Malloche.”

  Orlis just looked at her, her lips pursed in a strange half-smile.

  “Madame Malloche will do just fine, dear,” she said. “Arlette Malloche.”

  There was a momentary silence, which was broken by the soft, distinctive spit of a silenced revolver. A dark hole materialized in the center of Lisa Brandon’s forehead, just above the bridge of her nose.

  “Oh, God!” Jessie cried, rushing toward her as the FBI agent lurched backward and fell heavily to the floor.

  “Don’t move and don’t bother checking her,” a man said. “I couldn’t possibly miss at this range.”

  Jessie’s head swung toward the voice. Standing in the doorway of his room, the silenced pistol in his hand still smoking, was Eastman Tolliver.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE MOMENT LISA BRANDON’S BODY HIT THE TILED floor, Arlette Malloche and her team of three “stepchildren” were in action. Armed with semiautomatic weapons, moving with speed and skill, they fanned through Surgical Seven as if perfectly prepared for the situation.

  The woman who had posed as Hermann’s daughter dashed from room to room, disconnecting the phones and throwing them into the hallway. The younger of her “brothers” hauled a suitcase from their room and raced out toward the doors connecting the tower portion of Surgical Seven with the main hospital. The second man, who seemed to Jessie to be the leader of the three, emerged from their room with a tool kit, and headed toward the elevators. Meanwhile, Arlette, her weapon at the ready, assisted Claude Malloche as he directed the shift nurses, Jessie, Gilbride, and Catherine Purcell to move over to the nurses’ station.

  Physically, Claude Malloche still looked like Eastman Tolliver, but there the similarity to the man he had portrayed ended. His facial expressions, the set of his jaw, his posture, demeanor, and even his English were completely changed. The kindness and patience in his eyes were gone, replaced by the kinetic alertness of a tiger.

  “Down, right now!” he ordered to Jessie and the others. “Sit on the floor against that counter.”

  Four nurses, two aides, a lab tech, and Jessie did as they were ordered. As she slid to the floor, not far from Lisa’s body, Jessie realized that thirteen-year-old Tamika Bing—the girl so traumatized by her loss of speech that she had been virtually catatonic since awakening from anesthesia—had witnessed the killing. The girl remained motionless, propped up in bed as usual, staring straight ahead. But Jessie could tell she was riveted on the scene evolving outside her room. She wondered what the grand total of Malloche’s victims would be if all the witnesses like Tamika Bing and relatives like Alex Bishop were counted as well.

  It was that notion that made Jessie suddenly appreciate how clearly she was thinking—how calm she was, given their situation and the unspeakable violence she had just witnessed. Perhaps her clarity reflected the realization that she, of all of the captives, was in no danger—at least not for the time being. Malloche did have a brain tumor, and he had chosen her to be his surgeon. She was safe. But soon, very soon she suspected, demands w
ere going to be made of her. When that time came, she had to be ready with a few demands of her own.

  “What in the hell is going on here?”

  Carl Gilbride had not taken his place with the others. Instead, he had stepped forward, hands on hips, to confront Malloche.

  “Let’s see,” Malloche said with syrupy sarcasm. “To the best of my recollection, the woman lying over there identified herself as an FBI agent, pulled a pistol from her leg holster, and ordered my wife not to move. Then I shot her. I do not believe a medical degree is required to determine that she is dead.”

  Jessie was in position to see Carl’s expression—a strange mix of defiance and utter befuddlement.

  “You’re not Eastman Tolliver,” he said, clearly unable to put the pieces together.

  “Brilliant deduction, Dr. Gilbride. If you must know, I borrowed Eastman Tolliver from among the correspondences I found in your office. His secretary in California was kind enough to inform me he was out of the country for several weeks. Now, I’m telling you one last time to get down on the floor with the others.”

  “Carl, please do as he says,” Jessie urged softly.

  “I … I will do no such thing,” Gilbride blustered. “I simply will not tolerate someone coming onto my service, in my hospital, and pushing people around and shooting them. We have patients to care for here.”

  Moving like a striking snake, Malloche whipped the barrel of his pistol across Gilbride’s cheek. The neurosurgical chief lurched backward, clutching his already hemorrhaging wound, and dropped heavily to his backside just a foot or so from Jessie.

  “That wasn’t necessary!” Jessie snapped at Malloche.

  She grabbed a box of tissues from the counter above her and pried Gilbride’s hand away from his cheek. The gash was only about an inch and a half long, but deep—just below the cheekbone, and almost through to his mouth. It would be no problem to sew, but even sutured by a crackerjack plastic surgeon, the resulting scar would be a reminder every time Carl looked in the mirror—provided he survived long enough to do that. She placed a wad of tissue on the wound and set Gilbride’s hand against it with the whispered instruction to press hard.