Extreme Measures

by Michael Palmer

  They're responsible for everything. For Norma, for Loretta Leon-everything.

  "Eric, just shut up and get the hell out of here, Silver said.

  "Come along now," Wheeler ordered. "And do it quietly."

  "I didn't kill anyone! They did! Why doesn't anyone believe me?"

  "I believe you," Haven Darden said loudly.

  The crowd fell away, revealing the medical chief standing calmly beside the security guard.

  "Now you must believe me that I had nothing to do with this Caduceus, or any other plot."

  Joe Silver, totally bewildered, stared at the man.

  "What in hell is going on?" he managed.

  "As soon as you called sul-cinylcholine an anesthetic, Eric," Darden went on, "I knew it was water.

  Captain Wheeler is a criminal. Dr. Najarian meant only to frighten me.

  This man tried to murder me, and confessed to murdering someone named Laura.

  Sir, you are an animal."

  Before anyone could react, Lester Wheeler drew his pistol and fired.

  Darden grabbed at his left shoulder as he reeled backwards and dropped to the floor.

  People screamed, falling over one another as they scrambled to find cover. Wheeler managed to get off another shot, this more wild, before the security guards were on him. Groaning loudly with every step, he dragged the three guards toward the main entrance like a fullback hauling tacklers toward a touchdown.

  Two muscular young men raced from the crowd and helped wrestle him down.

  Suddenly, it-from within the melee, Wheeler's gun sounded again.

  Immediately the struggling stopped. The guards moved back. The policeman, on his knees, toppled over in slow motion and lay wide-eyed and motionless. Blood was rapidly soaking into his shirt from a dollar-sized hole in his chest.

  "Call a code Ninety-nine!" Joe Silver screamed at the receptionists.

  "Someone get to the E.R. and bring back two stretchers."

  He raced over to where Haven Darden lay while the residents hurried to tend to Wheeler.

  "The keys to these handcuffs," Eric said, scrambling to where the policeman lay. "They're in his shirt pocket." The residents were already stripping Wheeler's clothes away. The wound, Eric could see, was almost certainly mortal, even with immediate surgical help.

  One of the guards retrieved the keys and freed Eric's hands. A stretcher arrived, and Wheeler's lifeless body was transferred to it and rushed to the E.R.

  For a few frozen seconds Eric stood alone, trying desperately to sort out what had happened, what had been said. Laura and Scott both dead.

  Was Wheeler telling the truth about that? And Dardeh-how could he not be Caduceus?

  Numbly, he crossed to where Haven Darden lay.

  Joe Silver had already ripped the man's shirt away, exposing a wound that entered and exited through his shoulder. Darden, though in obvious pain, remained completely conscious and surprisingly calm.

  "You thought very quickly, Eric," he said. "I always admired that in you."

  "I… I'm sorry I had to do what I did," Eric said.

  "I was desperate."

  "And do you now believe that I am not part of this Caduceus plot?"

  "I don't know what to believe."

  A stretcher arrived, and Eric and Joe Silver gently lifted the medical chief onto it.

  "Perhaps," Darden said, "it would help if I told you that I know who your mysterious Anna Delacroix is. Dr. Silver, if you could, I'd like a minute alone with Eric."

  Joe Silver looked about uncomfortably.

  "Perhaps I'd better stay," he said. "I need to hear this too."

  The battle to save the life of Lester Wheeler was shortlived. Eric stood by the doorway of the trauma room, watching the monitor and the furious efforts of the thoracic surgical team, and hoping against hope for the miracle that might save the one person who could tell him Laura's fate.

  In a room just down the hall, Joe Silver was attending to the father of Rebecca Darden, known to Silver as Ariel Dumonde and to Eric as Anna Delacroix. Haven Darden would, in all likelihood, be Silver's last case at White Memorial. As soon as he was certain the medical chief was stable, Silver had promised Eric he would drive to the private psychiatric facility where Reed Marshall was being treated and offer Marshall what help he could. He would also strongly recommend that the hospital keep him on the emergency staff in some capacity.

  Then, in the morning, he would submit his resignation to the hospital administrators, explaining to them how he had been seduced by a beautiful woman, and later blackmailed by her.into changing his vote on the search committee. He knew nothing of the reason he had been ready to delay the vote, but with his own career, marriage, and children at stake, he had made a choice he would now have to live with for the rest of his own life.

  Eric felt his heart sink as the surgeon working on Wheeler shrugged, stepped back from the table, and flicked off the police captain's monitor. The lone spark of hope he had nurtured was gone.

  At a loss for what he could possibly do next, Eric wandered down the hall to Haven Darden's room. The medical chief, alone save for a nurse, was sitting up on his stretcher, an IV draining into his wrist.

  Heavy bandages swathed his wounded shoulder.

  "Is he dead?" he asked.

  "He is."

  Darden motioned Eric inside, and then asked the nurse to leave.

  "Rebecca was always too beautiful for her own good," he said.

  "She is that, sir. I'm sorry for what you're going through."

  "And I for what you are going through. Obviously, as far as my daughter is concerned, things are going to get much worse. She has a great deal to answer for."I hope she can shed some light on what's happened to Laura."

  "I hope so too," Darden said. His voice was husky and distant.

  "You know, my wife and I began worrying about Rebecca when she was still in grade school, when we found she was getting other children-boys mostly-to do things for her or give her things in exchange for kissing her or touching her or just being her friend. We… we brought her to Haiti with us any number of times in hopes of breaking through her narcissism, and insdmng in her some sort of social conscience. She seemed like a different person there-so interested in everything, so anxious to know the country. There was no way to know that she would just take what we were giving her and…

  He began to weep. Eric took his hand and held it.

  "You're a good man and a great doctor," he said.

  "I don't know what to say except that you deserved better.

  "Thank you. Is there any more you can tell me about what Rebecca was involved in? What those people were doing?"

  "Not precisely. But when I amp; know, I promise you and I will sit and talk about it "

  "I would be grateful. I'm very sorry about your friend. I hope Captain Wheeler was mistaken about her."

  "I hope so, too, Dr. Darden, but I fear he wasn't Do you think Rebecca might be home now? I'd like to call her."

  "She might She doesn't have a job, you see. Never seemed to need one. I should have asked her about the sports car and the furs and all the other things, but…"

  "Please, sir, try to get some rest. You've lost a fair amount of blood."

  Eric left the emergency room and headed through the crowded corridors to the Proctor Building and Dave Subarsky's lab. Remarkably, the hospital seemed perfectly normal, as if the violence he'd witnessed had never happened.

  It was unlikely that Dave had heard anything at all from Laura, but there was always the chance. If there had been no word from her, at least his friend could help him decide whether it was better to call Rebecca Darden immediately or try to confront her at the Cambridge address Haven Darden had given him.

  The research floor was largely deserted, and the door to Subarsky's lab locked. Eric found one researcher-a young biochqkist named Jessica Marshlocking up for the evening, "Excuse me," he asked, "have you seen David?"

  "He left a while ago," the woman said
.

  "Do you have a key to his lab? Dave must have assumed I had mine', but I left them at home."

  "I have keys to all the labs on the floor," she said.

  "But I'm not allowed to-"

  "Please, Jessica," Eric implored. "Dave was supposed to meet me here..

  I'm sure he's left a — note for me inside. There's a call that might have come in on his phone that I've got to know about."

  The woman hesitated.

  "Please, it's very important," Eric urged. "Listen, you've seen me working here alone dozens of nights.

  You know Dave and I are friends."

  Reluctantly, she pulled her keys from her purse and opened the door.

  "I shouldn't be doing this- " she said.

  "Thank you, Jess. You won't regret it."

  As she was turning the key, the phone inside began ringing. Eric raced inside, slamming his thigh against the corner of a lab bench as he rounded it to the inner office. He snatched up the receiver.

  "Hello?"

  "Yes, I'm trying to reach Dr. Dave Subarsky."

  Eric felt his pulse leap.

  "Laura?"

  "Eric, yes, it's me! Oh, God, I've been worried about you."

  "You've been worried-I thought you were dead."

  "I almost was. Eric, it's Captain Wheeler, the policeman I told you about. He's behind everything."

  "I know. I know. Laura, Wheeler shot himself here in the hospital.

  He's dead. You don't have anything to worry about anymore.

  Where are you?"

  "I'm at a house in East Boston. Eric, I found Scott. He…

  Wheeler killed him."

  "Jesus. Oh, Laura, I'm so sorry. Listen, just tell me where you are.

  I'll come and get you. You can tell me all about everything then."

  "I'm at this couple's place not far from the docks.

  They picked me up by the road. I spent some time in the water, and I was chilled to the bone, but I'm okay now.

  "Tell me the address," he said, feeling through the top desk drawer until he found a pen. "I'll be right over."

  "You don't have to. I spoke with your friend Dave an hour or so ago. I thought he would be here by now.

  I was just calling to make sure he had left."

  "well, he's not here."

  "That's strange. Maybe the traffic was-Wait a minute. The doorbell just rang. He might be here now… Yes, yes, it's him.

  Eric, listen, I know where that tape is. Scott remembered before he died be right down, Mrs. Pbletti. just tell him to wait a minute. You still there?"

  "Oh, I'm here. I'm here. I can't believe you're all right."

  "I'm fine. Eric, get this. The tape is in an old tractor trailer right in the lot where we parked that day we went to the docks. We were right next to it!"

  "Amazing."

  "We're going to stop by and get it on the way back to Boston, Where will you be?"

  "I don't know… How about Bernard's apartment?"

  "Perfect I'll see you there in an hour or less. And Eric?"

  "Yes."

  "Eric, I love you."

  "I love you, too, kiddo."

  Eric hung up and leaned back in his chair, his fists clenched, his arms stretched upward. The nightmare was over.

  A few moments of quiet and absolute exultation, and then he pushed back from the desk and stood up.

  Below him, in the partially open desk drawer, something caught his eye-Wmething that he must have pulled forward in his search for a pen.

  He picked it up and halted it in his hand for a moment, his mind I unwilling to accept what it was and what it meant.

  But he knew.

  What seemed a lifetime ago, he had stood beside the occupational therapist as she demonstrated an electrolarynx for him.

  His heart pounding, Eric pulled on the other desk drawers. Both were locked. Using a letter opener, he forced the first of them open and spilled its contents onto the desk. Tucked among the computer printouts and lab reports was a five-by-seven color photo, clearly taken in a tropical setting. Dave Subarsky, wearing a baggy surfer's bathing suit, stood leaning against a palm tree. Nearly dwarfed inside his arm, her perfect body glistening in the sun, was Rebecca Darden.

  Barely able to breathe, Eric forced open the bottom drawer and withdrew something enclosed in a brown paper bag. His hands were shaking as he set the bag on the desk and ripped it open. Lying there, glowering eerily up at him in the dim light of the desk lamp, was the death's-head mask.

  With a cry of pain, Eric snatched up a phone book. Paolini?

  Paretti? What in the hell did she say their name was? Did she even say the name of their street?

  He spent half a minute staring at the columns of names before shoving the book aside. Then he grabbed the hideous mask and bolted from the lab.

  Eric's cab ride through the heavy evening traffic was an agonizing exercise in frustration, beginning with a tie-up on the Mystic River Bridge that stretched back almost to the hospital. To make a bad situation even worse, within minutes of his leaving White Memorial, a furious wind-driven thunderstorm erupted, sending torrents of water cascading down the access ramp and instantly flooding the roadway beneath overpasses.

  Strobes of lightning flashed through the taxi as the cabbie pawed at the thickening film of condensation on the windshield.

  After three fruitless attempts at convincing the man that this was an emergency worth taking risks for, Eric forced himself back into his seat, fidgeting constantly as he stared out through the pounding rain.

  If, as he suspected, Subarsky and Lester Wheeler had coordinated their efforts, Laura was in a situation as potentially lethal as his had- been. Except for the question of why, the final pieces of the Caduceus nightmare had fallen into place. And now, through the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, Eric cursed himself for not seeing his friend's involvement sooner.

  The biochemist's insistence on accompanying him to the Gates of Heaven, his appearance in the hospital library at just the right moment, his knowledge that Eric would be at the county, and finally, his convenient disappearance just before Norma Cullinet's death-the signposts were all there, clear as fucking day.

  It had undoubtedly been Dave's idea to try to enlist him as Craig Worrell's replacement in Caduceus, and Dave's finger that had been on his pulse ever since.

  Why hadn't he seen it? Why hadn't he at least considered the possibility?

  The cabbie inched along the bridge and then stopped, unable even to change lanes. Eric gauged the distance across to East Boston and knew they had no chance. It was perhaps half a mile to the exit, and another half a mile to the docks. Leaving the death'shead mask on the seat, he shoved a ten-dollar big into the Plexiglas scoop, raced from the cab, and dodged between cars to the narrow sidewalk.

  Before he had sprinted even a dozen yards he was soaked to the skin.

  Rain lashed at him as he bounded up the steep grade toward the crest of the bridge. Far below, the harbor and city flashed like white gold beneath sharp volleys of lightning. By the time he reached the downward slope of the span, he had slowed to an awkward trot, pulling in the moist, exhaust-filled air with desperate gulps. A stitch of pain became a knife, cutting into the side of his chest.

  Every stride seemed the last he could take, every breath a hand twisting the blade. still he ran, down the narrow exit ramp and over the McArdle Bridge across the Chelsea River.

  Finally, as he stumbled onto Meridian Street on the East Boston side, he had to stop. Propped against a telephone pole, he gasped for breath, begging the pain in his side to abate. The parking lot was just a few hundred yards away. If Laura and Subarsky were there, he had to be ready. Gradually, the stiff ache in his chest subsided. His breathing grew steadier. He pushed himself away from the pole and walked quickly along the dark side of the street. Cars and trucks sped past, showering him with street water.

  As he neared the lot he began casting about for something he could use as a weapon. Subarsky was inches
taller than he was, and perhaps seventy-five pounds heavier. Eric's main advantage in any match with the man would be surprise-that and the mounting rage he was feeling for all he and Laura and so many others had been put through. The best his brief search could produce was an empty whiskey bottle.

  Still, it was something.

  The lot was just ahead. It was cut into a tree- and brush-covered slope that paralleled the roadway, and was dimly lit only by a streetlamp diagonally across the road near the dock area. Eric crouched low and made his way to the edge of the trees. Through the persistent, driving rain, he could make out the two — decker hulks, propped up on railroad ties at the farside of the lot. Otherwise, the place appeared deserted.

  Cursing the situation, and trying to sort out what his next move should be, Eric slogged through the muddy puddles to the waers. One had only a faded shield and the letters D amp; E painted on the side. The other, at least at one time, had been the property of the Aphrodite Moving and Storage Company. Both the trailers were rusted well beyond any practical use other than storage, perhaps.

  The rear doors were gone from the D amp; E trailer, and its wooden floorboards were splintered and decaying. Even from several feet away and through the rain, Eric could smell the odor of stale urine coming from inside. The Aphrodite trailer, which was intact and in much better shape, was secured with a bulky padlock.

  Eric halted the surprisingly heavy hardware in his hand as he weighed the possibility that he was in the wrong place against the likelihood that he had somehow beaten Laura and Subarsky to the spot.

  There was, of course, a third option-that the two of them had already been and gone, but he refused to allow himself to consider that.

  He checked beneath the trailer, searching for some sort of trapdoor, and was walking around to the front end when twin spears of headlight swung into the lot and stopped not twenty feet behind the trailer.

  Eric flattened himself against the side and inched along to his right until he was concealed from view.

  Even through the gloom he could discern the distinctive silhouette of a Saab 900 Mirbo-Subarsky's car.

  Eric had been in the Saab, a year-dd convertible, any number of times.

  Why had he never even wondered what a man constantly scrambling for research grants was doing with such elegant transportation?