The First Patient

by Michael Palmer

  "But Donald will be furious with me. He sometimes has a short temper, and he can get very angry."

  Alison continued desperately fumbling for the right words.

  "Think of . . . of how you would feel being tied down like this."

  Constanza did think for a time. Then she shook her head, turned, and headed back toward the stairs.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured over her shoulder.

  Alison felt her heart sink.

  CHAPTER 56

  So far so good. . . . So far so good. . . .

  As Gabe showered, the mantra flowed steadily through his head. So far so good. . . .

  He got no cell phone signal in the castle, but he did outside. He dialed both of the numbers he had for Alison, half-expecting—or was it praying—to hear her voice. No answer at either. The mantra slowed, then stopped.

  Was there anyone he could call to report that she was missing? Anyone he could ask? He briefly wondered if he should try to reach the admiral. Possibly Ellis Wright knew something.

  The third number he dialed was answered on the first ring.

  "Yes?"

  "Drew, it's Gabe."

  "Hey! Calling from The Aerie?"

  "By the moat. There's no signal inside."

  "What do you think?"

  "Charming little bungalow. A monument to benign neglect—sort of like me."

  "Look at the bright side: You could have grown up there."

  "Everything okay with my patient?"

  "Never better. I've been up for an hour. Did a little stretching, drank some coffee, did a few sit-ups, vetoed some bills. You know how it is with this job."

  "You ready to ride?"

  "I'm ready to put this whole business behind me. I feel so damn helpless. What good is it being president if you can't control everything and boss everyone around?"

  "Not to worry. You'll be back martineting before you know it. Just remember, until we know who and why, everyone is a potential assassin, no matter how meek or innocent they might seem. Keep your eyes open and keep your plans guarded until the very last minute. I'll be coming into the city to run some more errands; then I'm going to find a safe place to stash my new wheels just off one of the riding trails."

  "You going to be able to find the car again once we're galloping through the woods?"

  "I intend to go to the stables as soon as I can and to convince the stable master—what's his name again?"

  "Rizzo. Joe Rizzo."

  "To let me go for a brisk solo ride to clear my head."

  "I'll make a call and set that up for you. You have that map I drew showing where the stables are?"

  "It's a break that they're outside the compound. Will they be bringing our horses to us?"

  "Probably."

  "Any special horses or should I pick?"

  "You pick. I don't know them well enough. Meanwhile, everything's going okay, yes?"

  "I'm not so sure," Gabe said.

  "No Alison?"

  "Nothing. It's been more than two days now."

  "I promised to call Mark Fuller and get some people on this, and I will."

  "Right now?"

  "Right now. I'm sorry this is happening, Gabe. She's all right. Just wait and see. Some sort of misunderstanding."

  "Thanks for doing this."

  Gabe reiterated his plea for vigilance, then rinsed out a cup and poured the first of what would undoubtedly be a number of cups of coffee. He paced as he drank, mentally ticking off his to-do list. The most critical item was picking up the mixture sent by Ellen Williams. If for any reason the tranquillizer didn't arrive on time, he and Drew would have to find a way to delay everything for a day when every minute meant more danger, not just for the president but for Gabe as well.

  Sunset would be at seven forty-five—later than he would have liked, but likely to be of some help before they reached The Aerie. The less daylight when they hit the riding trail, the better. If possible, he would find some way to communicate to Drew the need to stall for a few more minutes of dusk. Details. Details.

  By six fifteen, he was back on the ATV, rumbling down the mountain to where the Impala was hidden. Not enough cover, he decided, easily picking it out from a dirt road that was virtually untraveled anyway. Using his hunting knife, he cut a dozen more branches, then pulled the car out and replaced it with the ATV, which instantly became swallowed by the forest when he covered it up.

  With no idea whether or even why he might need them, he added the knife to some rope and tools and two bottles of water, stashed in a small backpack he had left on the seat of the Chevy. Also in the pack were some apples and sugar cubes for the horses. Details.

  At ten forty-five, when the call came in to his cell phone from the front desk at the Watergate that a package had arrived for him via FedEx, he was walking the streets of D.C., breaking in a new pair of calfskin boots that needed no real breaking in and might have cost as much as the total of all the other boots he had ever owned. He had chosen a messenger service on L Street and had paid them well to have the messenger bring the package from the Watergate to their office and then have a different messenger take the package out the back door to the lot three blocks away where Gabe had parked the Impala.

  On the way there, Gabe gave in to his fears and frustration and tormented himself by trying Alison's numbers again. Nothing. Once at the lot, he ducked behind a van and scanned the street for anything or anyone unusual. They couldn't have followed him here, he was thinking, at the same time he was picturing Jim Ferendelli collapsing to his knees, then pitching forward onto his face. They couldn't have followed him there, either.

  The messenger arrived, and the exchange was quick and uneventful. Gabe tipped the man fifty dollars of the president's money and then added a second fifty for the one who had picked up the package at the Watergate. One final check of the lot and Gabe slid behind the wheel of the Impala and set the package on the passenger seat.

  It was time.

  Twenty-five miles outside the city, he was convinced enough that he wasn't being followed to pull off into a rest area on I-270 and open the package from Ellen Williams. The carefully wrapped box consisted of a Tupperware container with five sealed plastic Baggies, each containing two large gauze pads, soaked with liquid.

  SPECIAL MIXTURE, the label on the Tupperware read. APPLY ONE OR TWO AS NEEDED.

  Gabe's heart told him one, but his head insisted on two.

  If things didn't work for him and Drew Stoddard, there would not be a second chance. Word would get out that the president had behaved irrationally, and within no time a button would be pushed by someone and the First Patient would suffer either a public episode similar to the one Gabe had witnessed in the White House or, worse, one identical to the episode he had witnessed in Ferendelli.

  With that notion grimly dominating his thoughts, Gabe set the package aside and checked the map Drew had given him locating the stables. Then, staying well under the speed limit, he headed north to Thurmont, Maryland, and, just beyond it, Camp David.

  CHAPTER 57

  I'm sorry."

  The words had been spoken so softly, barely more than a whisper. Had Constanza really said them, Alison wondered, or was it the fallout from the drugs Griswold had forced into her? Could the woman have possibly just left her in such a horrible situation? The answer, of course, was yes. Ten years. That was how long Constanza had been under Treat Gris-wold's control. Ten years.

  Battling to breathe and to keep her leg muscles from seizing up, Alison closed her eyes and drifted off. The pain was so much more tolerable that way.

  When she awoke, after a few minutes or a few hours, she was still spread-eagled on her back, her wrists and ankles still tightly bound. The visit from Constanza had been a dream, she realized despondently—only a chemically induced dream.

  Then she felt the knife resting in her palm. Slowly, painfully, she closed her fingers around the handle and craned her head to the right to see. It was a sturdy kitchen knife—black plastic
handle, serrated six-inch blade. And it was almost certainly not a dream.

  Why hadn't Constanza simply cut the rope?

  The answer wasn't hard to discern. Alison had already experienced Griswold's power and lack of caring for human life and pain. He was a patient master at bending subjects to his will. In less than forty-eight hours he had all but broken her. What had ten years of manipulation, chemicals, and abuse done to Constanza? It seemed highly likely that the poor woman couldn't bring herself to go through with such an act of rebellion against the man who had taken her from her home before she had even reached her teens. Setting the knife in place was simply the best she could manage.

  Now it was Alison's job to go the rest of the way.

  For a while, she lay still and listened, preparing herself. There was only stillness—an intense silence. The house was empty. She felt certain of it. Constanza and Beatriz were gone. Slowly, desperate not to let the blade slip away, she turned the handle in her swollen, stiff fingers until the serrations lay against the rope. Then, no more than a fraction of an inch with each stroke, not worrying whether she cut rope or flesh, she began to saw. There would be no resting, she vowed, no taking the chance that sleep would overcome her. Her muscles ached terribly, and she had little strength. But Treat Griswold had given her the power to cut through the cords. He had given her the hatred.

  Twenty minutes? Thirty? An hour?

  Alison would never know how long it took. She would only know that she never stopped. A fraction of an inch with each awkward stroke. The blade cut through her skin, but the pain was nothing compared to what she had already endured. Her biggest fears were that she would saw through a tendon or hit an artery. At the moment when it felt like even her hatred for Griswold wasn't going to be enough to keep her fingers moving, the cord snapped apart.

  She sat on the edge of the cot for a long time, waiting for the dizziness to subside and for her legs to give her some sort of a sign that they were ready to bear her weight. Then she cut several strips of pillowcase and stanched the blood flow at her wrist. Finally, using the bed frame for support, she pushed to her feet. Just as quickly, her legs buckled at the knees, her quadriceps muscles all but spent. A second try again dropped her awkwardly to the concrete floor. The third time, her legs wobbled, then held.

  Her clothes were still neatly folded by the wall. Her pocketbook and wallet weren't there, nor was her ID lanyard. But there was one thing Griswold had not yet disposed of or hidden. One thing he hadn't counted on that she would ever need or use again.

  With consummate effort, she sat on the edge of the tawdry cot and dressed herself. Then once again she stood. Her legs were stronger this time, more willing. She took a step toward the staircase, then halted. Her smile was vicious. The moment she had stopped believing would ever come was here.

  "I'm coming for you, you son of a bitch," she rasped, testing the battery on Griswold's mistake, her two-way radio, then hooking it to her belt. "I'm coming for you."

  CHAPTER 58

  Three hours to go.

  So far so good.

  The mantra had started up again of its own accord as Gabe adjusted himself in the saddle of a muscular black stallion named Grendel, opened the trail map that the stable head, Joe Rizzo, had given him, and headed off into the state forest to plan where he and the president might break away from his Secret Service guardians. Gabe had parked the Impala in town and taken a cab to the visitors' entrance to Camp David. Then, cleared for entry by the president, he walked straight through the 125-acre compound and out the guarded north entrance to the nearby stables.

  There would probably be three agents accompanying them on their ride, Drew had said—all decent riders and armed with handguns that they knew quite well how to use. If things went as Gabe projected, by the time the agents realized that their mounts were not responding to their commands to speed up and the president and his doctor weren't responding to their commands to slow down, they would be too confused and too far out of range to risk a shot. If he was wrong about that, the first shot one of the agents did take would undoubtedly be at him.

  So far so good.

  His concern for Alison remained acute, but for the moment there was nothing he could do, and the task ahead was daunting. There were so many variables to consider—so much that could go wrong. In just three hours, if things went as he hoped, he would have become the second most wanted man on the planet.

  The afternoon was cool and overcast. Grendel was anxious to pick up the pace but responded nicely when Gabe called for a walk. His first goal was to determine how far out on the trail they would be after twenty-five minutes. At that point, with luck, the Secret Service horses would be in no shape to match the speed with which he and Drew would take off. After their break from the agents, on the first acceptable trail to the left, the two of them would cut toward the paved road, which was smudged on the map but might have been Route 491.

  Twenty-five minutes.

  Gabe had subtracted five minutes from the thirty Ellen Williams had estimated in order to make up for the time it would take them to get back to the stables from where they would have mounted up at the rear entrance to Camp David.

  Twenty-five minutes.

  Gabe grinned at the notion of treating this operation as if this were some sort of science. The size of the horses minus twice the weight of the agents plus the rate of absorption of the Williams potion squared minus the angle of the sun equaled . . . twenty-five minutes. No problem.

  At the spot on the trail, twenty-five minutes out, Gabe stopped Grendel, sharpened his hunting knife on a whetstone from his backpack, and marked several trees at horseman's eye level. They then proceeded at a careful walk, scanning along the left tree line for an opening. With luck, the next time he traveled over this portion of the trail, he and Drew Stoddard would be moving at a full gallop. He felt his mouth go dry at the prospect.

  Is there any other way? he asked himself for the thousandth time. Is there any other way?

  Now there were just three more pieces—a trail going off to the left toward the highway, a place to leave the horses where they would eventually be found, and finally a concealed spot just off Route 491 to leave the Impala. Gabe's best guess was that the car would have to remain undiscovered by the park rangers for at least two hours. If they found it and had it watched or towed, some trucker would have a hell of a tale to tell about the two guys he picked up hitchhiking.

  The first piece, a trail to the left, was a narrow track that had some dried hoofprints but didn't look as if it were used much. It was just a few minutes from where Gabe hoped he and Stoddard would be leaving their posse—closer than he would have liked, but far enough to work, and perfect in every other respect. The tree marks here were critical in that he would have to see them at a gallop. He made a few cuts, then dismounted and built a subtle cairn of stones on the right side of the main trail, ten yards before the path.

  When the Secret Service men secured help—probably in the form of some sort of four-wheel-drive vehicle—he didn't want to make the pursuit too easy. Once he and Drew were in the car, every mile they could put between themselves and the end of the path would widen the circle of possibilities the agents and police would have to consider and make it that much less likely that one of the roadblocks would snag them.

  The final two pieces were easier to find than Gabe had expected. A small clearing ten feet off the path and twenty yards from the paved roadway would be the perfect place to leave the horses, and a partially overgrown rest area just thirty or forty yards to the north offered some concealment for the Chevy without having it appear too suspicious. Now, there was just the matter of getting the car to the rest area from where he had left it in Thurmond, putting a sign on the windshield that it was disabled and awaiting a tow truck, and walking back to the stables to do what he could to help the stable man get ready for the president's early evening ride.

  First, though, it was time to let patient Grendel have his head. Gabe swung up into
the saddle, whispered a few words of encouragement into the stallion's ear, and then prodded him with a gentle nudge from his new boots. The horse hesitated for a beat, then shot back down the trail toward home like a missile.

  CHAPTER 59

  Alison spotted the man parked half a block down from her apartment the moment the cabdriver from Richmond Taxi turned onto her street.

  "Keep going!" she demanded, ducking down onto the floor.

  She instructed the driver on a circuitous route around several blocks and watched to ensure they weren't followed. Then she had him pull over in front of an apartment on the next block. The man in front of her place was either Secret Service sent there by Gabe or, much less likely, someone put in place by Griswold as the result of a change of heart on Constanza's part. Either way, Alison wanted no part of him.

  The driver took the hundred in cash they had agreed on for the trip and left the garden apartment complex by a different route. Alison had found the money—four hundred altogether—in the sock drawer of Gris-wold's bureau. As she had anticipated, when she made it upstairs from the basement Constanza and Beatriz were gone. Alison gave passing thought to a thorough search of the house but in the end decided that she had neither the strength nor the time for it. It sickened her even to touch his clothes. He had violated her in ways as vicious, dehumanizing, and unfeeling as rape, and somehow, soon, he was going to pay.

  There was one room she did opt to visit before calling for the cab—the attic space where the bulk of the training of Donald Greenfield's girls had taken place.

  The room, straight out of the sixties, she imagined, was repulsive enough so that she could only last a few minutes there. Circular water bed . . . red satin sheets . . . ceiling mirror . . . dense psychedelic curtains . . . various mood lights and lamps . . . sound system . . . and a huge HDTV with a large collection of video pornography, most involving older men and girls. Surprisingly, there were no cameras—at least none that she could see. She thought about the person who was blackmailing Griswold. If there had been a camera at some point, it seemed possible, even likely, that the blackmailer had the film.