The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (79 page)

“I know you do. We'll see.”

“I want them,” Lesko showed his teeth. “And then I
want a nice, private talk with Bannerman because be
fore I crush his face I want him to explain why he gave
those two another crack at my daughter just so he could
nail them.”

Elena explained again about the suppository. An in
surance device. That it would melt, depending on its
coating, in anywhere from twenty minutes to four hours
and
would have brought on irreversible cardiac arrest
before any trauma team could find its cause.

“He still took a goddamned big chance. What if they
gave her an injection instead? Or stuck an ice pick in
her ear?”

“They couldn't, Lesko,” Molly explained patiently.
“It's an Intensive Care Unit. The way Susan's wired, any direct assault would have set off an alarm the instant her
system reacted to it. It was you, charging in here, that
put Susan at risk. Paul knew what he was doing.”

“Is that so?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Well, I'm getting very fucking tired of Paul Banner
man knowing exactly what he's doing. I'm getting fuck
ing tired of all of you.” He threw his ice towel on the
floor and stomped off in the direction of Susan's bed.

The curtains had been drawn again. The nurse
parted them to let two doctors enter. She saw him ap
proaching and held up a hand that said he should wait.
Now she showed ten fingers. Ten minutes. And now an upraised thumb and a nod of encouragement. Lesko felt
his eyes go moist.

He looked toward the room where Elena and Molly
waited. Then toward the front entrance. Then at his
watch.

Ten minutes is ten minutes.

He walked quickly down the corridor.

Billy, in the rented BMW, was exiting the hospital
parking lot when Paul emerged. Paul took an extra
thirty seconds to find another unlocked car, push it into
the narrow curb cut of the lot, lock it and leave it block
ing the exit on the chance that the Basses—or whoever
they were—had indeed left their car there and would
double back for it. Failing that, Paul could see only two
other directions they might have taken. One was to
ward the station. Too easily trapped down there. Up toward the town was more likely. Billy agreed. He
dropped the BMW into its lowest gear and started up
the hill.

“Carla and the Doc aren't armed,” Billy said as he
passed Paul a Belgian automatic and laid his
own si
lenced Ruger across his lap. “Molly wouldn't give them
any ‘cause they
’d
been made. Swiss cops
would have
put 'em away.”

“She was smart.” He peered ahead. “Billy, if Carla
spotted them going up this way, what would she do?”

“She'd split off from the Doc and try to get ahead of
them. The Doc isn't real good at this, so, I was her, I'd
tell him to stay back and be a decoy. Slow 'em down, get
them looking over their shoulders.”

“Good call, Billy.” Paul pointed up ahead and to the
left. “There he is.”

“Not what I had in mind,” Billy shook his head rue
fully. “Hugging along that wall's a good way to get his
throat cut.”

Had Billy looked in his rearview mirror, he would
have seen Susan's father, on foot, chugging up the hill
behind them.

Gary Russo was damned if he was going to walk like a
dummy up the middle of the street where they
could
see every move he made. He might not be all that
expert in surveillance
techniques,
which he was tired of
hearing, but he knew common sense. Out in the street
like that, he might as well be shouting and waving his
arms.

As he approached the corner at which the man and
woman had turned, he could see that it angled off about
forty-five degrees to the left. If it was the same as the
last stretch, it would soon zigzag the other way, which means they would be out of sight if he didn't hurry. He
stopped at the corner and peeked around it. They were
gone already. Damn. Lose them and he could look for
ward to about a month's worth of crap from Carla.

Rounding the corner, he lengthened his stride. As he
passed a recessed doorway, his eyes locked upon the
corner ahead: his inner brain told him that something
was wrong. There was a shape there and now he sensed
movement. His head turned to glance over his left
shoulder, but a hand seized it before he could focus. A
gloved hand. Clamped across his face,
j
erking him back
ward. Another arm, he felt it, coiled around his waist. At
its end a sharp, stinging point had punctured his chest.
He felt it gouging at his ribs as it probed for a path to his
heart
.
Russo choked on his own scream.

”Car-mo-dyyy.” A distant call. Heard through a red
veil of pain. Carla's voice. Then the squeal of a car's brakes. “This way, Carmody. Up here.”

Who was Carmody? a part of Russo's brain wondered dimly.

The gloved hand came down from his eyes but
seized him across his burning chest. He could see,
through welling tears, but he could barely breathe. He
looked down past the arm and saw, to his horror, the
long, thin knife, blood running down its blade, that had
entered his body. He could not tell how far except that
he saw no tapering at all, only parallel edges of steel.

“Just ease it back out.” A voice to his right. Billy's
voice. Oh
...
Billy. Oh, good . . . good. His head
shuddered in the direction of the voice. There was Billy,
his face dipped low over the barrel of a silenced pistol aimed at a point just behind him. And Paul, in the seat
next to Billy, climbing out now. And Carla. Here comes
Carla. She's walking with the woman, half-dragging her. The woman's face is smeared with blood.

“Well, I'll be
…
” Russo heard the voice at his ear.
There was no fear in it. More a sense of wonder. “Hello
there, Carla honey. Little rough on an old friend, aren't
you?” Russo felt himself being dragged backward. He
wanted to shriek from the pain, but he could only gag.

“Paul?” Billy's voice. “I got no shot.”

Carla was close now. With the woman. He saw a
knife in Carla's hand pressed against the woman's tem
ple.

“Lurene?” The voice again. “Lurene, darlin', are
you all right?”

“I'll mend,” she said thickly. “Just don't you let go of
that hole card.”

“Paul, my friend,” the man who'd been Ray Bass
pressed his back against the padlocked door, “I'd say we
got ourselves a standoff here.”

Paul rounded the BMW. Carla caught his eye and motioned down the hill. There was Lesko, slowing,
breathing heavily, trying to assess the scene he'd come
upon.

Paul's expression didn't change. His eyes locked back upon those of Harold Carmody.

“Billy,” Paul held out a hand toward the Ruger,
“give me that and get the trunk open.”

“Darn it,” Carmody clucked his tongue. “I just knew
there was somethin' about you.” He shrugged and
sighed. “Anyhow, Paul, put that thing up. Shoot me and
you as good as kill your friend here.”

“You stick him any more, Harold,” Carla warned,
“and you'll watch me core old Lurene's eye like a fuck
ing apple.”

“Paul?” Carmody's voice went higher as Bannerman
shifted the Ruger into his left hand and approached.
“Paul, it weren't personal. Fact is, me and Lurene liked
you two real
…
”

Paul grasped Russo's right hand, which was hovering
feebly over the hilt of the knife. He lifted it, then fired
three times through Russo's armpit.

Lesko was the first to return to the hospital. He came
alone. The look in his eyes, thought Elena, who was
waiting for him, was strangely distant.

“Did you find them?” she asked.

Lesko nodded. “I want to see Susan.” He walked past
her into Intensive Care, and through the curtain sur
rounding Susan's bed. Elena followed.

“The news from the doctor is good,” she said to his shoulder. “She's responding. He says the coma has be
come sleep. Her lips have been moving.”

“Her face,” he said. That was all. He had barely
glimpsed it when he first came in. He hadn't realized
they had done that to her.

“Being knocked unconscious,” Elena said gently, “helped save her life. The doctor said so. Because of it
she swallowed less. Even being left in the snow helped
to slow the absorption of. . .
”

“Yeah, look . . .” he said without turning. “Leave us alone, will you?”