Dead End Deal (39 page)

“And guess what, Richard. The manuscript was accepted. I’m sure you realize what that means for you, but in case you don’t immediately see it, let me spell it out. The submission date was three days ago, which means that what I’m giving you today is already a matter of public record. And that invalidates any chance for anyone—especially you—to patent it. So go ahead, use it, here you are,” throwing the papers into the air.

Stillman’s face grew crimson over the several seconds it took to sink in. He stabbed a finger at Jon. “No, dog, you’re fuck—”

The window exploded, spiderwebbing into shards of flying glass. Stillman jerked forward, turned, and fell across his desk.

Fisher yelled, “Get down,” knocking Jon to the carpet.

Seconds passed with nothing but the sound of traffic outside the broken window. Jon crawled to where Stillman lay motionless on the desk, saw an entrance wound in the back of the chest in what he expected would go straight through his heart. He palpated for the carotid artery but didn’t feel a pulse. He looked at Fisher. “He’s dead.”

65

T
HE KNOCK ON THE
door jarred Jon from staring out the window. He realized he was gazing at the same view as the night of Gabe’s murder. Wayne stood in the doorway dressed in a dark suit, crisp white shirt, and sharp tie. Always the snappy dresser. “How’d the call go?”

Jon sighed, leaned back in the chair, set his right foot on the open lower desk drawer. “Not well. Seems that the funding was pulled before the money was officially awarded us, so it’s gone. By now, a grants and contracts office at another university has it.”

“That’s depressing as hell.” Wayne picked up manila folders on the only other chair in the office, dropped them on the floor, sat down, crossed his legs.

“There are a couple bits of good news. Jin-Woo’s medical center had enough political juice to squelch any publicity on our work there.”

“So you’re saying no one knows about it?” Wayne smoothed the pants over his knee, sharpening the crease.

“Correct.”

Wayne sighed. “And Feist?”

“Vanished. Hasn’t been seen since he returned from Seoul. Fisher suspects he may have slipped out of the country on another passport and is back in Australia by now, but no one knows. Not that they have any proof of his involvement in the shooting. Like everything else, it just stands to reason.”

“Fisher still thinks he intentionally shot Stillman?”

Jon nodded. “From where I was standing—after all, Fisher should know—that’s what their ballistics indicates. Especially with it centered so perfectly through his heart.”

Wayne nodded solemnly. “You said there were two bits of good news. What’s the second?”

“Detective Park had their geeks enhance the video surveillance that was recorded the night the patients were murdered. They were able to verify that the person entering the building with my ID tag wasn’t me.”

“That mean you’re cleared of the charges?”

Jon nodded. “I’m cleared of the murder charges. Don’t know if they’ve pressed charges for the escape.”

Wayne asked, “Any way to find out?”

“Not for a while. Maybe never. Not unless there’s a compelling reason to.” Jon checked his watch, realized he better get moving. He stood, shrugged on his sports coat.

Wayne looked puzzled. “Where you going? Don’t we have a meeting scheduled in five minutes?”

“Sorry, forgot to tell you I need to cancel. I’m heading out to the airport.”

Wayne’s puzzlement increased. “What’s up?”

Jon stood next to an empty baggage carousel outside of Immigration, watching weary travelers file out of the sliding glass doors in ones and twos, some obviously familiar with the airport, others glancing around to orient themselves. Then Yeonhee appeared, a black purse in one hand, a duty-free bag in the other. He waved. She caught his eyes with hers and beamed and quickened her pace. He moved closer to the exit. Then she was in his arms, hugging him. He hugged her back, then leaned down and kissed her without even realizing what he was doing. With a smile, she pulled him closer and kissed him more deeply.

Yuen Studio, Seattle

Allen Wyler was an internationally renowned neurosurgeon until he became medical director of a startup medical technology company that he helped to take public. He now chairs an institutional review board of a major medical center in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to numerous scientific publications, he has written two prior thrillers,
Deadly Errors
and
Dead Head
, and served several years as a Vice President for the International Thriller Writers. Presently, he and his wife, Lily, split their time between Seattle and one of the San Juan Islands. For more information visit
www.allenwyler.com

Also by Allen Wyler

DEAD HEAD
DEADLY ERRORS

*e-book

Forthcoming novels to be published by
Astor + Blue Editions, LLC

DEAD RINGER
DEAD WRONG

DEAD RINGER—high-flying neurosurgeon Lucas McRae is tangled in a web of grisly murders run by a gang of body snatchers—ALLEN WYLER.

A DARK, ILL-FORMED
premonition punched Lucas McRae in the gut so hard it stole his breath. He froze, aware of something drastically wrong. Involving someone close to him.

Laura? Josh? Were they safe?

A second later it vanished, leaving only a lingering vague sense of foreboding.

He’d heard of stories like a mother suddenly awakened, knowing her son was just killed by an insurgent’s RPG half a world away. He rejected these tales as nothing more than folklore. Mental telepathy—or whatever you wanted to call it—was scientifically impossible. But, Jesus, this thing, this awful feeling in his gut . . .

“Dr. McRae, over here!”

Lucas looked toward the voice. To his right, over the roof of a taxi and beyond the hotel loading zone, Jimmy Wong waved from the rolled-down window of a red compact. A Toyota or Nissan, but a model that isn’t available in the States. Thankful for the distraction, Lucas trotted over to the car. But the free-floating, ill-defined dread returned, burrowing in his gut.

He slid into the passenger seat, his skin already sticky from the thick tropical humidity and sinus-clogging smog. Buckled in and shut the door.

Wong Yiw-Wah, or Jimmy to Westerners, extended a hand. “Welcome to Hong Kong.” The president of the Hong Kong Neurosurgical Society had a friendly, oval face of indeterminable age. Wong’s temples had turned to gray, like Lucas’s.

Lucas shook hands, said, “Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.”

Wong merged into morning rush hour traffic and accelerated. “Sorry our group cannot afford the Peninsula. Your hotel accommodations are adequate?” He spoke with a slight British accent. Lucas figured he’d probably been schooled in England.

“Yes, very nice. Thank you.”

The Harbor View International Hotel was an okay, no-frills, three-star place to sleep at night and shave in the morning. With spending the day at the meeting, a fancier place would be a waste of money. It could be quieter, though. A rattling elevator door across from his room woke him repeatedly throughout the night.

“And your flight over?”

“Perfect.” Which was one of those white lies you tell a host.

“Sorry I was unable to meet you at the airport, but the operating theater became frightfully backed up and my case dragged on and on. Certainly, I don’t have to tell
you
how those things go.” Wong glanced over his shoulder, preparing to change lanes. “The car picked you up without a problem, I am told. True?”

“It did. Thanks.”

Lucas had rolled in about eight last evening, dog tired and coated with a layer of stale sweat and eyelids that felt lined with sand. He didn’t bother with dinner, just showered and then poured a minibar scotch to use as an Ambien chaser before hitting the sheets. The combination worked like a sledgehammer to his brain, putting him out within minutes. Otherwise, with the change in time zones he would have been wide awake until just before time to get up again. Business trips. He hated the fatigue jet lag caused. Especially when you were expected to socialize at cocktail parties and dinners.

“Very good, then.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “I hope you are up to demonstrating your skills today. Your audience will be keen to see you work.”

Lucas nodded, but his mind returned to the god-awful premonition from moments ago. What was that all about? He tried to distract himself by watching the city’s buildings fly by as Jimmy Woo sped down West Kowloon Highway. Hong Kong: a vertical city of breath-stealing Western architecture built to ancient feng shui standards. But hard as he tried, he couldn’t shake it. Something bad had happened. What?

This wasn’t stage fright. Demonstrating tricky surgeries had become second nature to Lucas. And was a well-earned by-product of an international reputation. Years ago he experienced little shivers of anxiety at the start of a talk or a demonstration but not anymore. Besides, this feeling was entirely different. It had nothing to do with the immediate future. Rather, he knew—just knew—something bad happened within the past twenty-four hours.

Again, he tried to ignore it and concentrate on today’s tasks.

He had made a career choice years ago. Rather than being good at general neurosurgery, he became outstanding at a few extremely tricky surgeries. His expertise became a double-edged sword; he derived comfort from knowing his chances of screwing up were low because he had mastered the difficult techniques. The price, of course, was monotony from doing the same cases over and over. Not only that, but the subsequent notoriety forced him to become even more specialized. Initially, he took satisfaction in being referred problems no one else would touch. But he quickly learned the downside: fear. The high-risk cases were also the ones to very quickly and unexpectedly blow up in your face, leaving the malpractice lawyers licking their chops.

Today would be easy because he would be using a cadaver instead of a live person. So why did he feel like something terrible had happened?

Well, there was Laura. As it turned out, this trip couldn’t have come at a worse time in their failing marriage and the decision to talk to their separate attorneys. But this was not something he could have foreseen when invited to be the guest lecturer ten months ago. And truthfully, it was sort of nice to escape the tension for a few days.

The harder he tried to identify the cause of the foreboding, the more it danced away, like a familiar word on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it was just his imagination. He hoped so.

For a distraction, he asked Wong, “Your case yesterday, what was it?”

A
FTER THEY BOTH CHANGED
into green scrubs, Wong led Lucas down the hall to the lounge of a classroom. A cozy room of blond wood paneling, industrial beige carpet, and two leather couches. Eleven scrub-clad surgeons were milling around, chatting animatedly, most of them holding white Styrofoam cups of steaming tea. The drab sameness of hospitals struck Lucas. This could be anyplace in the world—Cincinnati or Calcutta—and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Well, except for the Chinese characters on the plaques covering a trophy wall.

Wong introduced Lucas to each surgeon, one of whom—an older man with the face of a bulldog—he’d already met. The guy had accompanied Wong to Seattle to watch Lucas in action. Two weeks afterward Lucas received an invitation to be the society’s guest lecturer. Thankfully, Lucas remembered the man’s name before embarrassing himself. Strange how the mind worked. As a premed student he memorized the periodic table, but at parties he forgot a person’s name within seconds of being introduced.

For the next ten minutes Lucas made sure to spend a few moments chitchatting with each participant, all of whom had been trained with English as their second language. Then Wong ushered everyone into the classroom, a large utilitarian corner room smelling of overheated electronics and formaldehyde. The space had been laid out to optimize this type of demonstration and benefited from natural light from two walls of windows. At the front was a table on a six-inch riser. The remainder of the room was filled with tables, each with two chairs on opposite sides. Suspended from the ceiling above each table were parabolic surgical lamps and two Sony HDTVs. Except for the televisions this could’ve been one of his old classrooms in med school.