"As I said, we can deal with that."
"Perhaps you can, but then again, perhaps not.
Listen to me, please. If the work you're doing here is as important as you say, I'm sure you don't want to jeopardize it. I've got friend important friends-in politics and on the police force. Tell me what's going on here and what you're doing. If you can help me understand what's at stake, I'll do everything I can to get the right people to understand."
Barber continued pacing as he thought about the proposal. Then, quite suddenly, he kicked a folding chair close to Bernard and sat down, resting his gloved hand palm up in his lap.
"Mr. Nelson, every day thousands of people are dying unnecessarily from dozens of so-called incurable diseases-diseases like hepatitis, influenza, encephalitis, and many forms of cancer. And of course we both know that the world is on the brink of an epidemic that, in just a few years, will make the horror of the black plague seem like a cartoon. detective, what you've stumbled into here is a project which, at this moment, is this close to having an answer."
He held up his thumb and forefinger for emphasis.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean a universal antiviral antibiotic, that's what I mean. The ultimate cure!" He nearly shouted the words, then deflated noticeably when he saw the lack of comprehension on Bernard's face.
"I'm sorry if I look confused," Bernard said, trying not to glance at the man's hand. "I always thought penicillin was a pretty decent antibiotic."
Barber groaned his impatience.
"Pearls before swine," he muttered. "First. of all, penicillin is effective only against bacteria not viruses.
And second of all, like the dozens of other antibacterial drugs on the market, it's useless against most organisms because they become resistant about as fast as you can get the stuff home from the pharmacy.
Our drug not only kills the little beasties, but changes in the body as fast as they do. Ergo, no resistance. It will save millions of lives."
And be worth hundreds of millions to you, Nelson thought. He tried to appear impressed with what he was hearing, but he couldn't shake the sinking feeling that Barber was prolonging this purely out of boredom and the need to assure himself of his own importance.
In the end, nothing Bernard could say or do was going to move the man one iota.
"Tell me more," he said.
Barber smiled and stood up, shaking his head.
"I think not, Mr. Nelson," he sang, moistening his lips with his tongue. "I think not."
"Please, wait," Bernard said, gquinning in his seat. "I have some questions I'd like to ask you ah-"
"I had hoped you'd be a little more intellectually stimulating, being from Boston and all. I don't mind telling you, you're a great disappointment in that regard. A great disappointment, sir, I suppose you win simply have to find another way to amuse and educate me."
"Don't do it, Barber. Please listen to me-"
"This dose is roughly ten times what your friends the Colsons received. will it work ten times as fast?
Will it work the same way? Will Little Nell find true happiness? will E continue to equal MC squared?"
Continuing a stream of nonsense questions, Barber reached out, grabbed Bernard's hair viciously with one hand, and meticulously smoothed the damp powder across both his cheeks with the other. At the man's touch, Bernard felt his heart stop, and truly believed it was going to end for him right there.
Moments later, it began to beat again.
"Whether or not i'm here to see it, you're through, Barber," he rasped.
"Will the South rise-again?" the man went on in his chilling, singsong voice. "will there be peace in the valley someday?"
He turned, scooped up the strongbox, and left the room.
Gripped by fear unlike any he had ever known, Bernard first tried to rub his cheek against his shoulder. Then he hurled himself to the floor, attempting to scrape the powder off on the linoleum.
Some of the poison did come off, but he knew it was not nearly enough.
For a time, he could only lie there, silently praying that Barber's performance was a ruse-his version of the hideous charade that had been played with Eric Najarian. But as minutes passed and he began to feel a heaviness settling into his chest, he knew better.
"I'm sorry. Maggie," he said softly. "I'm sorry for being so damn stupid."
He struggled to his feet, threw himself on the bed, and rubbed what more he could from his cheeks onto the cotton blanket. Finally, totally winded by his efforts, he stopped.
"I'm so damn sorry," he said again.
Helpless now, Bernard closed his eyes, listened to the pounding of his heart in his ears, and waited.
Carrying Donald Devine's ledgers, Eric entered White Memorial through a little-used side door, and took the subbasement tunnel and back staircase to Haven Darden's lab. Tucked carefully in the pocket of his jeans was the loaded syringe. As the medical chief had promised, the entire floor was deserted. Through the darkness of the lab Eric could see light spilling from Darden's inner office.
He paused by the outer door, trying to solidify his composure and his resolve. He thought about Scott Enders and Loretta Leone; about Laura's torment and Reed Marshall's shattered career; about all those others who had suffered. And finally, he conjured up the images of the obscene, makeshift voodoo shrine and of the death's-head priest-quite possibly Haven himself-leering down at him through the candlelight. The man was fully deserving of the terror he was about to experience.
"No mercy," Eric whispered as he opened the door. "No mercy at all."
He walked between a row of incubators and then turned left toward Darden's office. The medical chief, natty as usual in a custom-tailored shirt, silk tie, and black suspenders, met him at the door. Eric was pleased to see that he wore no suit coat.
"Come in, Eric, come in," Darden said. "I was relieved to get your call. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that your friends here at White Memorial have been most concerned about you."
"I didn't really feel I had any of those left," Eric forced himself to say.
"Oh, you do. "You do."
Darden sat down behind his desk, but Eric remained standing, his hand cradling the syringe in his pocket. He imagined the man making love to Anna Delacroix, and sensed his anger and disgust grow even stronger.
Haveia Darden had a family, children.
The woman-half his age, if that-was beautiful enough to have any man.
How much was he. paying her for her services? What did he lay out for her assistance in destroying Eric Najarian?
No mercy.
"Sit down, sit down," Darden said. "I don't mind telling you that the things you alluded to in your call have me most intrigued."
Don't fool around. Don't wait!
"I'd like you to look at this," Eric said, setting Devine's ledger on the desk. "It was taken from a safe in the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home."
As Darden opened the cover Eric stepped behind him and slid the syringe out.
"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here," Darden said, suddenly swiveling around to face him.
Eric thrust the syringe back into his pocket.
"It… it's the list beginning on the second page."
Darden pulled open his desk drawer and reached inside.
It's a gun! Eric's mind shrieked. Mow, dammit, mole!
Before he could react, the medical chief pulled out a pair of reading glasses and slipped them on.
"Perhaps I'd do better if I could see the words," he said, turning back to the desk.
Once again Eric eased the loaded syringe free.
He focused on Darden's left trapezius, the heavy muscle just at the base of his neck. A final, deep breath and…
Now!
In synchronized motions, he shoved Darden's chair in, pinning him against the desk, locked his left arm tightly beneath the man's chin, pulled the plastic needle guard off with his teeth, and drove the needle down to the hilt in the spot he h
ad chosen. Darde" cried out at the pain and tried to squirm free, but Eric held him fast. He spat the needle guard onto the floor.
"Move again and you're dead!" he said. "I mean it!"
"What are you doing?" Darden rasped.
"This syringe is loaded with succinylchohne," Eric said. "Two hundred miligrams-enough to paralyze you totally in a matter of fifteen or twenty seconds. At the slightest provocation, I'm ready to give you every bit of it, and you had better believe that."
"Y-you're crazy!"
"You bet I am, Doctor. It'll help us both if you remember that.
It would also help if you think about what it's like to be paralyzed and unable to breathe while you're still wide awake. Surely you're an expert on that. Now, first you're going to tell me where Laura Enders is, and then you're going to tell me about Caduceus."
"I… I don't know what you're talking about."
"Dammit," Eric rasped, forcing the needle down harder. "I don't have for this. The only person in the world I care about right now is missing, and you know what's happened to her. Now, I know who you are.
I know about Donald Devine and Norma Cullinet, and that goddam place in Utah. I even know about Anna Delacroix. My fuse is really short right now, so I'm suggesting you: Stop playing games with me!"
Eric felt the tension in the man's muscles let up.
Still, he continued to hold him fast, his thumb poised on the syringe.
"Eric, listen to me," Darden said with sudden calm. "I know you've been through a lot. You may think that what you believe is right. But I promise you that I know nothing of what you're saying.
Nothing!"
"And I suppose it wasn't you who called me the morning of the committee vote and promised me the position if I joined Caduceus."
Eric, I have been your supporter in that matter all along. I told you that several weeks ago. It was Dr. Silver who changed his mind and asked for an extension of the vote. I swemto you it was."
"I… I don't believe you," Eric said, feeling the first sickening doubt begin to take hold. "And I suppose I was just an in s when I saw you in a tender little just im m g g acroix. clinch with AnZDel "I assure you, Eric, I know no one by that name.
No one. I. am a happily married man. Now, please, pull that needle out of me before you do something you'll regret for the rest of your life."
"No. You're a liar and a goddam monster. There's no telling how many people have died because of you.
Anna Delacroix or whoever the hell she is set me up, and I saw you with her on Charles Street'just a few hours ago. Now I want the truth, dammit. Where is Laura?"
"She's dead, Doctor. and don't move. Don't move a muscle."
Eric barely managed to maintain his grip as his head spun toward the voice. The tall man standing just inside the doorway was wearing a police captain's unfforin and holding a gun leveled at Eric's chest.
Suddenly, his words registered.
"What do you mean she's dead?" he asked, a horrible emptiness swelling in his chest.
"Please, Officer," Haven Darden cried. "This man's crazy. Please get him to pull this needle out.
He's trying to kill me."
"Oh, I know what he's doing," Lester Wheeler said. "Why, thanks to the miracle of modern telecommunications, I knew what he had in mind almost as soon as he did. You really should have paid more attention to the two men repairing the phone line outside that apartment you were staying in, Doc." Eric's eyes narrowed.
"Wheeler?" he asked.
"At your service. Now, if you would be so kind as to administer that drug-"
"No, wait! You don't understand," Darden pleaded.
"I understand exactly," Wheeler said. "Unfortunately, the good doctor has already shared far too much with you."
"Darden's not Caduceus?" Eric said, loosening his grip around the man's neck.
Before Darden could respond, Wheeler leaped forward and, with animal quickness, slammed his fist down on the top of the syringe, emptying its contents into him. Darden screamed in pain as the policeman whirled and jammed the muzzle of his pistol up under Eric's chin.
"Not a move!" he ordered.
"Jesus," Eric said. "You just killed this man."
"No, Doctor," Wheeler said smugly. "You did." He glanced at his watch and then looked down at Darden, who sat staring numbly up at the two of them. "Fifteen or twenty seconds. Isn't that what you said?"
"I… I don't know," Eric said, now forced to his tiptoes by the gun barrel. "Succinylchohne is the most powerful anesthetic we have, but its onset of action is unpredictable. I… I never really intended to use it.
Now please, if you'll just let me get to some equipment, I can save him."
Haven Darden tried to rise, but Wheeler reached out and shoved him back into his seat.
"Please," Darden whimpered. "Please help me."
Already his speech was beginning to thicken and slur. In just another ten seconds, his arms and hands began to tremble.
"No!" he cried. "Oh, God, no!"
Wheeler forced Eric several steps back as the medical chief's body jerked spasmodically, his head twitching uncontrollably. Then, suddenly, he pitched from his chair onto the floor, his legs snapping and kicking. In less than half a minute it was over. The hideous contractions in his limbs vanished as quickly as they had appeared.
His head lolled to one side and stopped moving, his cheek pressed helplessly against the linoleum, spittle oozing from the corner of his mouth.
Wheeler quickly manacled Eric's hands behind him. Then he knelt down and peered at Darden for fully half a minute, assuring himself that the drug had done its job.
"Okay. Now, Doc," he said, standing. "You and I are going right out the front door of this hospital to my cruiser. If you want to scream and kick, that's okay with me. I want everyone who will listen to know what you've done, and why I'm taking you in. They all think you're insane anyway."
"What happened to Laura?"
"Oh, yes, sweet Laura. Well, I'm afraid she and her brother discovered that the water in Boston Harbor wasn't to their liking."
"She found Scott?"
"She did. They were even together at the end.
Now, let's get out of here."
"You can't possibly get away with this," Eric said.
Wheeler grabbed Eric by the back of the neck and shoved him over Haven Darden's inert body and out the door.
"Wanna bet?" he asked.
Yu have the right to remain silent," Lester Wheeler said as he half-shoved, half-dragged Eric into the elevator of the research building. If you choose to speak, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law or other proceeding… He pushed Eric out of the elevator and into the bustling main thoroughfare of the hospital.
"What happened to Laura? What did you do to her?" … You have the right to consult with an attorney before answering any questions and you may have him present with you during questioning…
"Dammit, Wheeler, give it up. You're not taking me out of this hospital," Eric said, increasing his resistance as they approached the main lobby.
"Do us both a favor and make a break for it," Wheeler whispered.
He continued in a voice loud enough for everyone around to hear."..
If you cannot afford a lawyer and you want one, a lawyer will be provided for you by the Commonwealth without cost to you. you understand what I have told you? Okay, move aside, folks. Please move aside."
The crush of bewildered early-evening visitors parted like the Red Sea to allow the policeman and his prisoner to pass. Eric recognized several of the nurses and residents who were watching.
"Find Dr. Silver for me, please," he called. out as Wheeler hurried him past.
"You've got no friends around this place," Wheeler said. "Least of all Dr. Silver. Earlier today he had the hospital attorneys file a restraining order to keep you out. Face it, you're finished." He tightened his grip on Eric's arm and continued loudly: "… You may also waive the Not to counsel, and your right to re
main-"
"God damn it, I'm not going with you!" Eric screamed as they entered the busy main lobby.
Instantly, the huge reception area was silent. A hundred or so people stopped miwng about and froze, as one. A security guard, who was standing off to one side, spoke quickly into his radio and began moving toward the two men. Eric stumbled forward and fell to his knees, shouting words of protest. Wheeler grasped the handcuffs and pulled him to his feet by jerking his arms straight up behind his back.
Eric hollered out in pain, twisted his body to one side, and fell heavily to the tiled floor. Bystanders tripped over one another, trying to move away. The guard reached them just as two more security men raced into the lobby.
"Can we help?" he asked Wheeler.
The captain flashed his shield.
"I've just arrested this man for the murder of Dr. Haven Darden," he said. "His body is up in his lab."
Several in the crowd gasped. A woman cried out.
"We know Dr. Najarian," the guard said. "He was alone with one of our nurses when she died this morning. There's a restraining order out against him.
We've been on the lookout for him all day."
"Please," Eric begged, still on his side on the floor. "You've got to help me. I didn't kill anyone. He did. He did!"
The two other security men arrived and spoke briefly with their colleague- One of them immediately sprinted off for Darden's office.
The remaining pair helped Wheeler pull Eric to his feet. At that moment Joe Silver and two residents arrived.
"I'm this man's chief of service," he said. "What on earth is going on now?". He looked stonily at Eric as he spoke.
"Captain Wheeler, BPD," the officer explained calmly. "I've just arrested this man for the murder of Dr. Haven Darden by some sort of lethal injection.
Haven is a personal friend of mine. He called me a short while ago and told me Najarian here had phoned and threatened him. I hurried over to escort him home, but when I got there, I was too late. I found this man with an empty syringe in his hand, standing over Haven's body."
"Damn you, Najarian," Joe Silver said.
"I didn't do anything," Eric pleaded. "It was this man. He's crazy.
He's working with Dr. Darden. Craig Serell was involved with them too.
Extreme Measures Page 34
