The Society

by Michael Palmer

  Images of her father and of Will, of Lieutenant Court and Brasco, of Marshall Gold’s victims and their families flowed through her mind as she crouched on one knee and waited. It was going to be over soon, she told each of them—very soon. Finally, she heard footsteps outside the door. An instant later, it swung open and Marshall Gold strode into the room.

  “So, Doc,” he said cheerfully, “how’s our prize patient?”

  He reached Krause’s side and actually touched the corpse on the shoulder before realizing that the stretcher was empty. At the same moment, the body and chair toppled over, taking the table and Coke with them. The glass shattered on the floor.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Gold,” Patty said, standing and kicking the door shut. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Patty was totally unprepared for Gold’s reaction. Without a moment’s hesitation and with a furious bellow, he charged her. Teeth bared, he covered half the distance between them with a single step and launched himself, arms outstretched, at her head. His hands slammed ferociously against her shoulders, driving her backward and off her feet. She was in midair, almost parallel to the floor, when she heard a shot. She landed heavily on her back, air exploding from her lungs. Her head snapped against the polished wood with stunning force, sending an explosion of white light through her brain.

  She lay there dazed, unable even to lift her arm to fire, helpless to keep Gold from finishing the attack. Then she realized he was screaming.

  “You bitch! You fucking bitch! Goddammit! Oh, shit! My leg! You bitch, you bitch!”

  Desperately, he grabbed her ankle, but Patty kicked at him and pulled free easily. His face, twisted with rage, was ashen. He was clutching at a spot just above his right knee. Blood was seeping between his fingers.

  Bone, Patty thought. The shot had to have shattered his femur. She pushed herself out of his reach and lay there, propped on one elbow, breathing heavily.

  “Next time I’m going to aim,” she said.

  It was a while before the dizziness and the pounding in Patty’s head allowed her to move. During that time, she twice thought she saw Gold’s hand drift toward his left ankle. Her eyes riveted on him, her revolver aimed at his mid-chest, she crawled around to his feet and felt up inside his pant legs. Even though she tried to be gentle on the right, he cried out with even the slightest movement. His gun, a slender .9mm Glock, was strapped just below his calf on the left. She removed the bullets from the Colt, then sent them and the revolver skidding across the floor to the far end of the room. Now, with the Glock, she had some serious firepower. Warily, she patted Gold down, even though there was precious little else he could have hidden beneath his turtleneck and form-fitting slacks.

  He seemed to have regained some composure, although the pallor around his mouth said that he was in some degree of early shock.

  “Who else is in the house?” she demanded.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Those are really nice shoes. How about I just tap that right one on the sole?”

  “Why not? You asshole cops are no better than Krause there, anyhow. Go ahead. Do it, bitch.”

  Jarred by Gold’s words, Patty stood up and stepped back, glaring down at the man who had brought so much terrible pain to so many.

  “Not tonight,” she said softly.

  She moved cautiously to the door and listened. If anyone else had been in the house, surely they would have reacted to the gunshot. All she had to do now was find a phone and call 911. Was there danger in leaving Gold here unguarded? It would take a hell of an actor to fake the signs of early shock, but if he were acting and the bullet hadn’t shattered his femur, there was plenty of danger. At that moment, from somewhere nearby, a door opened and closed. Moments later, a man called out Gold’s name.

  “Mr. Gold. Mr. Gold, we’re back. I have the package. I’ll bring our friend into the blue room.”

  Watkins!

  Patty pushed the door closed and again flattened herself against the wall.

  “One word, Gold,” she whispered fiercely, “one sound, and I’ll put a bullet into your face. I swear I will.”

  “Fuck you,” Gold moaned, but there was little force behind the words.

  The door opened and Will, his wrists handcuffed and a blood-soaked pillowcase over his head, was shoved rudely onto the floor.

  “Get in there, jerk,” Watkins said, stepping in after him, his boot drawn back, poised to land a kick.

  Patty came at him from behind and jammed the Glock against the base of Watkins’s skull.

  “Police. Down on your knees!” she snapped. “Put your hands on your head or I’ll blow it off. Now! I mean it, dammit!”

  In slow motion, the giant complied.

  Will pulled the pillowcase off. His face was a bloody mask, his left eye swollen shut. Blood was still oozing from his misshapen nose.

  “He’s got a gun in his right jacket pocket,” he said thickly. “The keys to these are in his pants pocket.”

  Keeping the revolver in contact with Watkins’s skull, Patty pulled his jacket off and threw it aside. Then she forced him onto his belly, had him retrieve the key, and helped Will remove the manacles.

  “Hands behind your back! Will, can you put those on him?”

  “I can do anything you want,” he said, looking from Krause to Gold and back. “Bad things happen to people who don’t.” He snapped the handcuffs onto Watkins. “I think I’ll swallow this key and bring you a week’s worth of my dung so you can look for it.”

  He dropped it into his pocket.

  “Do you need help right away?” Patty asked.

  “My cheekbone is broken and I’m a little dizzy, and I can’t see so good out of this eye, but I’m not in any immediate trouble. Patty, I can’t believe you pulled this off.”

  “I don’t think I’ve told you yet, but I have quite a nasty temper.”

  “I don’t think I’ll have much trouble remembering that.”

  “Find a phone and call nine-one-one. Take Watkins’s gun just in case. Make sure the safety’s off and don’t shoot yourself by mistake.”

  Will retrieved the pistol, had her check that he had released the safety, and headed off. Patty surveyed the human wreckage around her—one handcuffed, one disabled, one dead. What would Tommy Moriarity say if he could see her now? Probably that she had violated some protocol or procedure and had just lucked out. She smiled. At least there’ll be photos of the scene from the crime-lab people. Maybe she could have one matted and framed for Father’s Day.

  She was still smiling a few minutes later when Will returned. He stopped in the doorway, staring at her strangely, not moving or speaking.

  “Will, are you okay?” she asked. “Did you make the call?”

  Will stepped into the room, followed immediately by his partner, Susan Hollister, her hair still wet from the shower. The powerful automatic weapon held expertly in her right hand was aimed directly at Patty’s heart.

  CHAPTER 35

  “Sit down, you stupid bitch! Right there! Now, or I swear I’ll just blow you apart! Did she do this, honey? Did she do this to you? God but this room stinks. Krause? Is that smell from Krause?”

  Not even in the most critical surgical situations had Will ever seen anything approaching such fire in his partner. There was a pressure to her speech and a detached, chilling wildness in her eyes that left no doubt she would carry out any threat instantly and without remorse. She knelt next to Marshall Gold, stroking his face and hair with her left hand while keeping her submachine gun leveled at Patty with the other. Gold had quieted down considerably, but Will wondered if his demeanor might be a reflection of persistent, even worsening shock. He suspected Susan sensed the same thing.

  “Will, get over here and tear off his pants leg,” she ordered. “Hurry, or I’ll cut your girlfriend in half!”

  She punctuated the order with a burst of bullets that splintered the floor between Patty’s legs. One actually grazed her. Blood instantly began seeping
through a rent in her pajamas, just below the knee. Will started moving to help her, but she stopped him with a raised hand.

  “I’m okay, Will,” she said, her voice meek and whiny. “Just do whatever she says.”

  Will remembered the fearlessness with which Patty had dealt with the two toughs by Steele’s Pond, and could only imagine how, in her condition, she had managed to take out both Krause and Gold. Sounding fearful and subdued at this moment was purposeful. He was certain of it. Patty knew, as did he, that there was no chance either of them would be allowed to live. In truth, there never had been. She was sizing up both Susan and the situation, searching for an opening—any kind of an opening—that would give them a chance at the gun.

  The best he could do to help was to keep Susan as calm as possible and make himself essential by helping to stabilize Gold. When the moment was right, he would try to heighten the tension and create chaos in the room. At that point, he and Patty would have only seconds for some sort of coordinated, unscripted attack before one or both of them were dead. He inserted two undamaged fingers into the bullet hole in Gold’s trousers and, with difficulty, ripped the leg off. Gold, still awake though definitely slowed, moaned in pain at even the slightest movement.

  “Careful, Will,” Susan warned. “You and I both know you’re not that clumsy.”

  “That’s when my fractured cheekbone isn’t throbbing and I have all my fingernails.” Will showed her the bandages.

  Gold’s leg looked bad—very bad. There was a massive amount of swelling in the thigh beneath the wound—a unit of blood, Will guessed, possibly even two. Almost certainly the femur had been shattered, and the femoral artery had probably been severed, as well.

  “Use his belt. Put a tourniquet on.”

  “Rather than jostle him any more than necessary, I’ll use mine. . . . So, it was you and Gold all the time. And here I thought you were just a mild-mannered surgeon.”

  Susan laughed.

  “Compared to the life I’ve led, surgery has been a big yawn. Over the last six years this man has taught me things and taken me places surgery never could.”

  “You’re the one who sabotaged my shoes.”

  “I had to. Otherwise you would have operated on that Davis woman, and we just couldn’t have that.”

  “Because I would have discovered that she didn’t have any breast cancer at all. I get it now.”

  “We had a bit of a problem because we had developed you so carefully as our public spokesman, but something had to be done quickly to get you out of the OR. Killing you would have been so messy and so final, and would have started people wondering if they were wrong about you and the Society and the managed-care killer all being on the same side.”

  “So, after you crucified me and took the Davis case back, you threatened Jim Katz to try and get me reinstated at work.”

  “As long as the attention was diverted from Excelsius, you were serving your purpose. Your pal the Law Doctor actually helped us out by planting those shoes in that ER closet.”

  “He planted them?”

  “Of course. What kind of a dummy do you take me for? I would never have just left your Chuck Taylors lying around the hospital. The lawyer made a calculated guess about how we got the fentanyl into you, and he guessed right. I’m sure the insoles of those shoes will turn out to be loaded with fentanyl. It’s not that hard to get.”

  Will couldn’t help but smile. Augie realized that the only one who could prove he had hidden a pair of counterfeit, fentanyl-soaked sneakers in the ER was the person who had actually framed Will. The man had rolled the dice for him with both his law and medicine careers at stake, and he had won.

  “So, how many women got treated for breast cancer they didn’t have?”

  “Enough to force Steadfast Health into selling out to us. They were paying over a hundred thousand a case. With more and more women getting breast cancer these days, it wasn’t hard. Besides, we had a one hundred percent cure rate.”

  “But Halliday couldn’t do that with every other company he wanted to take over.”

  “No. It was a brilliant idea that worked, but we needed to develop a more . . . direct method.”

  “Jesus. Listen, Susan, this belt isn’t tightening enough. He’s still bleeding. I suspect his femoral artery’s torn. If so, this leg’s in trouble. He’s in trouble. I think we should use that IV tubing tied around Krause over there, and maybe break off the leg of the chair to twist it tight. Rope would be even better. He’s really getting shocky. You’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

  “Watkins, get up and help us,” Susan ordered. “My medical bag is in the trunk of my car. Get the bag and also some rope. And I need something like a tire iron to tighten the tourniquet.”

  “Look at me, Dr. Hollister. I’m handcuffed. He’s got the key in his pocket.”

  “Will, unlock his cuffs. . . . Now!”

  Susan swung her machine gun toward him, and Will saw Patty instantly change her stance so that one leg was beneath her now, ready to shove off. It was time to raise the ante. Without thinking twice about it, he pulled the key from his pocket and swallowed it.

  “I told him I was going to do that,” Will said lightly, hoping to lessen Susan’s anger and the tension in her index finger.

  “God damn you!” she shrieked, her cheeks crimson.

  From the corner of his eye, Will saw Patty shift again.

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Hollister,” Watkins said. “I’ve got another key in my room, in the drawer right by the bed. I can get it.”

  The giant began struggling awkwardly to his feet, lost his balance, and tumbled heavily onto his side. Another distraction. It had to be now. As Watkins was righting himself, Will kneed Gold’s thigh at exactly the fracture point. The killer bellowed with pain and took an ineffectual, floppy swing at Will. Reflexively, Susan turned toward them. In that instant, Patty sprang forward, viciously swinging her bare foot upward in a punting motion against Susan’s wrist. The machine gun flew out of Susan’s hands and landed at the base of the wall, a dozen feet away. Will, who was on one knee, was trying to stand when Watkins slammed into him like a semi, driving him back against the wall. Powered by adrenaline, Will hammered at the man with his fists and feet and managed to pull himself upright.

  Patty followed her kick by trying to dive over Susan toward the gun, but the surgeon moved with the quickness of a gymnast, striking her with a backhand fist flush against her skull flap, while in the same motion spinning and lunging toward her weapon. Patty cried out from the blow and dropped to her side. Dazed, she remained composed enough to grab on to one of Susan’s legs. Absorbing kicks to her face and chest, she hung on for a few precious seconds, but there was no way she could beat the woman to where the machine gun lay.

  “Run, Will!” she shouted, losing her hold and rolling over and over toward the open door. “Run!”

  Will grabbed her by the arm as he raced past and dragged her to her feet and through the doorway. They were sprinting down a long corridor toward what seemed to be the back of the house when they heard a burst of gunfire from behind them. Will risked a glance over his shoulder. Susan had fired wildly from inside the room and hadn’t yet reached the hallway.

  “Straight ahead,” Patty gasped, pointing to a windowed doorway that led outside.

  They charged past a richly appointed conference room and a vast, gleaming, brilliantly lit kitchen. Neither held any hope of protection or concealment. Getting outside was their only chance. Will dropped back a step to allow Patty to reach the door first. If only one of them was going to make it, he wanted it to be her.

  Please don’t be locked. Please . . .

  Patty had already considered the possibility. With her left hand, she slid the dead-bolt lock aside and simultaneously pulled open the door with her right. The aluminum storm door, with a full pane of glass, was also locked. Without hesitation, she drove her knee and forearm into the pane, shattering it outward onto a small unlit porch.

  “
Stay low!” she screamed.

  Without hesitating, she stepped onto the shards of glass with her bare right foot, then leapt over three stairs and onto the lawn, finishing with a perfectly executed roll. It was an incredibly athletic move, and not one Will had any chance of duplicating. Instead, he pulled the inside door nearly closed behind him and was carefully stepping through the storm-door frame when a staccato of bullets snapped into the wood. One of them ripped into the muscle overlying his right hip. He fought through the intensely burning pain and drove ahead. Susan had to be wondering whether she could chance leaving her lover to go after them, or whether any risk was worth taking to keep them from getting off the farm alive. The longer they could keep moving, the more they could increase her indecision, the less effective she was going to be.

  By the time he reached Patty, she was braced against a tree, pulling a two-inch-long stiletto of glass from the sole of her foot. He moved to help, but she waved him off, then raced with him toward the barn. The night was black and raw, the grass unpleasantly cold and slick, and she was barefoot and battered. Still she ran. It was as if by example she was willing him not to be hesitant or afraid.

  Ignoring the searing in his hip, he hobbled along beside her until they had rounded the small corral and flattened themselves against the far side of the barn. Clouds of their breath hung in the chilly blackness as they gasped for air. Ahead and to the left of them, all was dark and quiet, but to their right, not too far away, were the lights of another house.

  “What . . . happened . . . to your leg?” Patty asked between breaths.

  Will needed several seconds before he could answer.