Patient One (30 page)

“Understood,” David replied, certain that Aliev was referring to the escape plane carrying a nuclear weapon. “But they’ll never let you reach the airport, even with hostages. They’ll never allow you to board that plane.”

“I have no need to go to the plane,” Aliev said, smiling thinly. “I will arrange for the plane and its cargo to come to me.” The terrorist nodded to himself, obviously pleased, then glimpsed at his watch. “Yes, my plane will fly into the Los Angeles area within the hour.”

David’s jaw dropped.
Oh, my God! He’s going to drop the nuke on Los Angeles, not the Russian oil fields! Aliev knows he can’t escape, so he’s decided to die here in a nuclear holocaust! And the plane carrying the bomb is only an hour away! They’ll never find that damn plane in time! Never! They don’t know its ID or flight plan or even where it will cross the extensive U.S.-Mexico border. They’ll never locate that damn plane!
“Wh … what cargo?” David managed to ask.

“That’s not your concern,” Aliev snapped. “Now, if you wish to live, you will do exactly as you are told. Make one foolish move and it will be your last. Have no doubt, I will kill you without giving it a second thought. You are to do only the things I tell you to do. Understood?”

David nodded, straining to refocus his brain and think of a way to disarm Aliev. But how? How? One slip-up, and he and Carolyn were dead. And Kit was parentless and all alone in the world.

Carolyn shifted around on her feet and asked weakly, “M-may I please come down?”

“No,” Aliev said sharply. “You will stay there. If the Secret Service refuses to follow my orders, you will help me blast a large hole in the roof with a grenade. This will give me a clear view of the sky and allow my satellite phone to work properly.” He quickly came back to David and pointed the Uzi at his head. “And remember, one false move and I will kill you.”

“You may not be able to,” David said, staring up at Carolyn as a plan of action flashed into his mind. It was very risky and required split-second timing from Carolyn, but it was their only chance. David pushed his fear aside and willed his expression to stay neutral. “As a matter of fact, I’m certain you won’t be able to kill me.”

“Why not?” Aliev sneered.

“Because of the ceiling,” David said, sending a subtle message to Carolyn by nodding to her. “It’s about to fall down on you.”

“Ha!” Aliev scoffed. “Do you expect me to look up?”

“No,” David said and gave Carolyn another exaggerated nod. “I expect something to fall on you.”

Carolyn got the message. She hesitated a moment to gather her courage, then dropped her full weight down on Aliev. They crumpled to the floor. Yet Aliev managed to hold on to his Uzi. He sprayed the room wildly, the bullets missing David but blowing out the large glass window.

David lunged for the Uzi and ripped it from Aliev’s grasp. The submachine gun tumbled to the floor. Aliev tried to retrieve it, but David jerked him away and threw him against the counter. The terrorist went for his knife and held the blade like an experienced fighter. He slashed at David’s chest twice, missing by inches. David backed up, his leg wound throbbing badly and bleeding more. Aliev slashed again, but this time David stepped inside the stroke and, grasping the terrorist’s wrist, spun him around. Then David shoved him toward the blasted-out window, intending to push him through it. But Aliev broke free and came at David again, now circling and moving more deliberately. He held the knife in close and waited for an opening. His eyes came off David for a fraction of a second. He glanced over at Carolyn, then slowly began inching his way toward her.

David backed up, trying to keep himself between the terrorist and Carolyn, but his strength was fading rapidly. His legs felt weak and heavy again, and he knew they would soon give out. And that’s when Aliev would make his move. The pain in David’s leg abruptly intensified, as the large muscles surrounding his wound went into spasm. He grimaced and clutched at his bloody thigh, then dropped down to one knee. Aliev smiled malevolently and came in for the kill.

Get a weapon!
David’s brain yelled.
Any weapon!
He hurriedly reached for his stethoscope, planning to swing the metal end at Aliev’s head. But his hand found the scalpel he had secreted away earlier. He grasped the blade and kept it in his pocket until Aliev was close enough to smell. Then David slashed at the terrorist’s hand. The sharp edge cut through the flexor tendons to Aliev’s fingers. He screamed in pain as his knife fell to the floor.

Struggling to his feet, David grabbed the back of Aliev’s collar and pushed him toward the blasted-out window again.

“You’d better grow wings, you son of a bitch,” David growled. “You’re going to need them.”

At the last moment, Aliev dug in his heels and tried to twist away. David pushed harder and slammed the terrorist down on the windowsill. Aliev’s head went out the window, but his neck came down on the jagged edge of broken glass. A fountain of blood spurted out of his severed carotid arteries. He flailed his arms in a frantic attempt to disengage, but the more he tried the more he bled. His blood was everywhere, with most of it on the windowsill and adjacent wall.

David held the man down with his last bit of strength. It took Kuri Aliev less than a minute to become motionless. His breaths were now agonal, his arms simply dangling.

David limped over to the door and opened it. He gave the Secret Service agents in the corridor a thumbs-up “all clear” signal. Then he urgently motioned Joe Geary over. “The plane from Mexico is going to drop its nuke somewhere over Los Angeles! It’s within an hour away!”

“It’s only minutes away,” Geary said hurriedly, all of his attention directed to the conversation coming in over his earphone. “And it’s headed straight for us!”

“Jesus!” David breathed, his pulse racing again. He watched Geary anxiously and tried to read his expression, but the agent’s face remained impassive. “What’s happening now?”

“The grand finale,” Geary told him, pressing in on his earpiece so as not to miss a word. “And the crazy bastard won’t listen.”

“Listen to what?”

“The repeated warnings from our interceptors,” Geary answered. “We’ve shut down all the air corridors between the U.S. and Mexico. Planes approaching from the south have been instructed to go into a holding pattern while preparations are being made for them to land in Mexico. There’s one plane that won’t comply. He’s making a break for the border, twenty-five miles south of San Diego. That’s less than three minutes from U.S. soil.”

Seconds ticked off. Then more seconds.

“Come on!” Geary urged, his face tightening. “Blow his ass out of the sky!”

More time passed. It seemed like an eternity to David as he envisioned the aircraft coming closer and closer to California. The plane was already near enough to detonate its bomb and cover San Diego with a blanket of deadly radioactivity.
And they can’t even be certain they’re tracking the right plane! It could be an innocent cargo jet with a malfunctioning radio. Or maybe the fleeing airplane was trying to evade the authorities because it was packed to the brim with cocaine and other illegal drugs. How can they determine if the plane they’re zeroing in on has the nuclear bomb? Or do they just shoot it down and hope for the best?

“Come on, damn it!” Geary implored, now with great urgency. “They’re going to run out of time up there!”

If they haven’t already,
David thought miserably. That plane had to be at the U.S. border by now. Or across it.

Geary crooked his neck and listened intently to his earpiece, then let out a long sigh of relief. “Good riddance,” he said before turning to David. “The terrorist plane is sitting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, compliments of the United States Navy.”

“Are they sure it was the plane carrying the nuke?” David asked at once.

Geary nodded. “The pilot was yelling ‘God is great!’ and ‘Death to America!’ on his way down.”

“That’s good enough,” David said and nodded back, then inquired, “What happens to the nuke now?”

“I suspect they’re already making plans to fetch it with a deep-sea submersible.” Geary glanced around David and peered into the treatment room. A Secret Service agent was carefully removing grenades from the terrorist’s motionless body. “Is Aliev dead?”

“He’s been neutralized,” David said, using a term he hadn’t used in over twenty years. But it still meant the same. Aliev was no longer a threat and would never be one again.

Geary’s gaze went to the stunned nurse on the floor. “Is she hurt?”

David shook his head. “Just bruised.”

As Geary relayed the new information to the Secret Service team, David spun around and rushed back to Carolyn’s side. Helping her to her feet, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Fi-fine,” Carolyn stammered and gulped back her fright. She glanced over to Aliev’s mangled body, and swallowed hard once more before adding, “I’ve never seen a man butchered like that before.”

“Let’s hope you never see it again,” David said, and held her close. He took long, deep breaths to calm himself, but his pulse was still racing, his level of adrenaline sky high from his close calls with death. He looked over to Aliev and the pools of blood around him. It was poetic justice, David thought. Aliev was willing to let the President bleed to death. Instead, it was the terrorist who bled out.

Taking another deep breath, David brought his attention back to Carolyn. “You saved my life, you know. I owe you.”

Carolyn smiled and brushed her lips against his. “I’ll try to think of a way for you to repay me, David Ballineau.”

A Secret Service agent stuck his head in the doorway. “The specialists are on their way up.”

David nodded and took Carolyn’s hand. “Let’s go get the President and Karen squared away.”

In the corridor, blankets had been placed over the two dead Secret Service agents. The dead terrorists were left uncovered. Circling flies were beginning to gather above their bodies.

David checked his watch. It was 2:30. It was just six hours since the President first arrived at the hospital. But it seemed like a lifetime.

Carolyn walked over to Sol Simcha, who was lying next to the overturned wheelchair. Beside him was a Hebrew prayer book that was opened to a page that contained the mourner’s Kaddish—the prayer for the dead—that Sol must have been reading before he reached for Aliev’s gun. She put the open book on Sol’s chest and covered him with a blanket.

The door to the elevator suddenly opened. The gastrointestinal and hematology specialists hurried out, carrying bags of blood and fresh concentrates of Factor VIII. Two nurses from the ICU were a step behind them.

David pointed down the corridor. “The President is in suite one. And there’s a doctor next to him with a pneumothorax.”

As the group dashed down the corridor, Carolyn ran alongside and filled them in on the details. “His vital signs are a little shaky, but they’re holding up. There’s bright red blood in his nasogastric tube, but not as much …”

David leaned against the counter at the nurses’ station and watched as Carolyn pushed aside the horror of what she’d been through, and went right back to nursing. Most people, man or woman, would have come apart. But she didn’t. She never faltered. She really was some woman. And some nurse.

Joe Geary came up to him and said, “Doc, you might want to see this.”

David followed the agent into the treatment room. Aliev was still impaled on the dagger-like slivers of the broken window. But now he was convulsing as his brain went totally anoxic. An occasional small spurt of blood came from his neck. Gradually the convulsions stopped, and so did the spurts.

“Nothing much we can do, huh?” Geary asked.

“Nothing at all,” David said, and left the room.

In the corridor he looked down at the faces of the dead terrorists, now partially covered with buzzing flies that were feasting on fresh blood. Suddenly David’s mind flashed back to Somalia, and to the stacks of bloody corpses and the swarming flies. The sounds and the smells all came back to him. Then the picture changed. Now he was searching a village in the bush, looking for Lewis Daly, the Tennessee sharpshooter the terrorists had caught and mutilated.
Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
David’s brain wailed. He knew what was coming next.

But it wasn’t a picture of Lewis’s head. Instead, in his mind’s eye he saw a crisp cold day at Arlington National Cemetery. The sky was blue, with only wisps of white clouds. David was standing at his best friend’s headstone, and he heard Lewis’s voice. “Let it go, David. Let it go. You’ve paid the price, and then some.”

David blinked his eyes, and the picture and voice disappeared. He gazed down at his hands. There was only a slight tremor. And although his chest felt a little tight, he was moving air in and out with ease. David took a deep breath as he realized the new images had aborted the panic attack. He nodded to himself, remembering that the psychologist at Walter Reed had urged him to conjure up pleasant visions to ward off the attacks. Visions like small waves lapping gently against the shore, or floating butterflies. But those hadn’t worked for him. The images at Arlington National Cemetery had. Yeah. Arlington. Where a ton of nightmares, and the men who endured them, had finally come to rest.

Joe Geary came alongside and held out a cell phone. “Somebody wants to talk with you, Doc.”

“Who is it?”

“Somebody important.”

David took the phone and said, “This is David Ballineau.”

“Dr. Ballineau, this is Vice President Halloway. I want you to know how grateful we all are to you for saving the President’s life. Goodness knows how you did it, but I thank God you were there.”

“I’m glad I was able to help, Ms. Vice President.”

“Oh, according to Agent Geary you did much more than help.”

“I think he’s giving me too much credit.”

“We don’t, and I’m certain the President doesn’t,” Halloway told him. “When things have settled down a bit, I’m sure the President will invite you to the White House, where he can honor your heroism.”