Point of Balance (24 page)

“Jim, your granddaughter will spend next weekend with you. This weekend is out. I'm sorry, I have to leave.”

I stormed off and tried not to run, while Jim shouted behind me and underlined each sentence by slamming the table.

“She's my flesh and blood, damn it! My flesh and blood! You can't keep her away from me!”

Kate

Kate went back to her car and drove to the outskirts until she found a quiet spot in a parking lot by a carpet store. Huge “FOR SALE” and “CLOSING DOWN” notices covered the storefront. Another of the many businesses the economic slump had put paid to. The loud but faded letters matched her feelings.

She had gotten an enormous weight off her chest with the words she had just spoken over the phone to Barbara, and massive relief had been left in its place. But those words were out there now, and there was no getting away from them.

I've been smitten ever since I first saw him.

For many years she had been incapable of admitting to herself that she was in love with her sister's husband. Now she had let the cat out of the bag, just like that.

She cried for a good while.

She didn't feel sorry for herself. She never had, and despised those who did. She cried because it was so unfair, because she wasn't strong enough, and out of exhaustion. She was physically and mentally tired out with all that was going on. She turned up the ringer volume on her cell and moved to the backseat. She needed to rest her eyes, for a few minutes only, to recover after being up almost all night.

She cried there for a while longer and let the long salty tears comfort her, until she fell asleep.

The cell woke her up.

Her mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage and her neck muscles were as taut as piano wire. She blinked in astonishment at the low light. Night was falling, so she must have been out for hours.

Shit
, she thought when she saw the caller ID.

“Hi, boss,” she said.

“You're not coming in,” McKenna replied. It was not a question.

“I'm afraid I'm still sick.”

“Robson, guess what? Suddenly tomorrow's venue is your brother-in-law's goddamn hospital after all. Those cabinet guys are making a lot of very stupid decisions in a very short time. I have to set up briefings again tonight and do a shitload of overtime. And everybody is on edge. Especially me, because I'm wondering why the agent who gathered all the intel from the simulator isn't here to lend a hand.”

Way back when, Secret Service agents prepared for important missions using maps and cardboard models made to scale by specialists. Now it was all done by computer. The parameters were entered into a program which perfectly simulated the surroundings the agents would operate in, so they could run over multiple scenarios, as well as plan access and escape routes, without drawing attention to themselves. Kate didn't usually do fieldwork, but she had stepped forward on this occasion. The week before she had been to St. Clement's a couple of times. Both incognito, both without David's noticing, both without admitting he was the real reason she had volunteered to go there. She had pulled together an impeccable scenario, so McKenna didn't make a fuss. But it was her obligation to be beside her boss to give the briefing.

“Sorry, sir.”

“If I had a nickel for every one of your excuses, I could buy myself the
Post
. Something's cooking here, Robson. I don't know what it is, but I can smell it. I've asked Renaissance to cancel tomorrow's gig, to postpone it.”

No. That cannot be. If the operation doesn't take place . . .

McKenna waited for her answer.

“You don't say? That's big news,” Kate lied, her voice faking relief. “If we can put it off until Monday everything'll be so much easier. At least I could take part in the preparatory briefing. I hope to fin—”

“She said no.”

Kate felt her heart falling back into place.

“Pardon me?”

“Everybody's gone plumb loco over this, and no wonder. For now, only the cabinet and those of us on duty tomorrow know about it. The agents have no clue what kind of op Renegade's having, just that it's a bigger secret than the color of the Pope's underwear. But tomorrow they'll have to activate protocols, there'll be more people in on it and there could be setbacks during transfer. Somebody will see him, somebody will tweet it, or whatever. And before lunch everyone and their dog will know Renegade is in St. Clement's. This is Grade A explosive shit. There's no way to keep it under wraps. And that's what I told Renaissance.”

“Let me guess. She didn't take the least bit of notice.”

“Like talking to the wall. A half hour going over all the cons of the operation, the pros of going to Bethesda exactly as they'd told me they would do this very morning, damn it. And when I finished, she says, ‘Thank you for expressing your point of view, but we'll stick to the original plan.' And I got to wondering . . . is your bro-in-law Jesus Christ? Do they work miracles in that place, Robson?”

“I think not, sir.”

“Well, neither do I. I met him yesterday, I don't know if he told you.”

“Truth is, we're barely on speaking terms, sir.”

“Why am I not surprised? You may be family, but he's an unbearable, smart-assed mother.”

Takes one to know one.

“I agree.”

“Now I'm off to St. Clement's to run over the scenario with my own eyes, and while I'm at it, to talk to your in-law. I'm going to shove a microscope up his ass, and if I find so much as an atom of shit, Renegade will not set foot in that hospital if I have anything to do with it.”

“Sounds fine to me, sir.”

“This isn't about you. You're out of it.”

Those last words hit Kate like a hammer to her head.

“What did you say?”

“You heard. You're off the case and suspended until further notice.”

“You can't suspend me just for being ill,” Kate protested.

“No, but I can suspend you for staying off work and dragging your ass all over Baltimore.”

Kate was dumbstruck.

So Barbara's been telling tales to McKenna. What a bitch, she couldn'
t even wait five hours.

Kate hadn't expected to be let down so soon, but to a certain extent her friend had done her a favor. McKenna was married to the job. No kids, no partner and the most paranoid kook in the whole agency. He must have had a hunch something was fishy about Kate's story, so he'd be wondering what it was. She couldn't let his anxiety over the next day's operation fuel his suspicions. Luckily, her boss, as well as being paranoid, was an old-school macho pig. He thought all women were capricious.

“Sir, I—”

“Shut up. You once got through an eleven-hour mission running a temperature of more than a hundred. Did you really think you'd get away with that ‘I'm sick' baloney? I can forgive your human failings, even for lying to me. But not if you take me for a jackass.”

There was no anger in his words, just a leaden, barren and sullen sadness. He was convinced he was right.

And the worst thing
,
Kate thought,
is that he is
.

“You've disappointed me, Robson,” he said, and hung up.

She burst out of the car, leaving the back door open behind her. She loped along to the middle of the deserted lot, its ethereal yellow lamplight her sole company.

She screamed.

It was a shrill, tooth-jarring outburst that emptied her lungs. Blood coursed through her veins as she looked around, but the only echo was the far-off roar of cars on the highway.

How much more? How much more shit must I swallow?

Her cell rang. She took a deep breath and picked up the call.

“Robson.”

“Barbara here. I'm sorry.”

“Sure you're sorry. I'm suspended.”

“What did you expect? I waited until nobody was around and then I triangulated the device. I did what you asked, but I got caught. An alarm tripped in my boss's office; I guess I must have gotten twitchy and didn't plug in the—”

“Take it easy, Barbara.”

“They summoned me to McKenna's office. McKenna! He stares at you with those Sphinx eyes of his and you have to talk. He tells you it'll be worse if you don't.”

Kate stayed quiet. It was true. It was almost impossible to get away from that stare. She knew because she'd been there, many times.

“Are you mad at me?”

The childlike naivety of the question surprised Kate.

“I won't be if you tell me where my boyfriend is.”

“McKenna kept hold of the file. And he revoked my system access for a few hours.”

“That's not what I asked you.”

“They've forbidden me to tell you.”

“Meaning you know.”

“Yes, I know. It's registered in the name of V. Papić, 6809 Bellona Avenue, Baltimore.”

An address. A surname.

“Last known position?”

“Also a Baltimore address. But I can't tell you. McKenna says three separate federal laws have been broken, which should teach you not to use agency resources just to make a booty call.”

“Barbara, I've got no time to lose.”

“It may be more than my job's worth.”

“It may be. But they've already thrown me to the dogs, which is partly your fault. You owe me.”

“I don't owe you zip. You were the one who asked me. It's your own fault you got suspended!”

“And it'll be your fault if it was all for nothing.”

Barbara took some time to answer. Kate could hear her thinking on the other end of the line.

“Six fifty-four Whitehead Court. You'd best get moving. The last known position was an hour and a half ago. By the time you get there, he may have skedaddled,” she said, and hung up before Kate had time to thank her.

Kate entered the address in the map app on her cell. It wasn't far, a mere ten minutes away. Unfortunately, time was running out for Julia.

She looked at the timer she had set up on her phone.

14:31:21.

She ran to the car. There would be no stopping her now that she was locked on to a target.

28

My pager beeped as I fled from my father-in-law, summoning me to a security briefing. By the time I got to the fourth-floor meeting room, the whole gang was there. Manager Meyer and Dr. Wong were sitting down, as stiff as pokers, opposite four Secret Service agents I did not know.

And seated at the head of the table was the boss, the huge ­shaven-headed guy I'd had a spat with the day before, in the bunker where they took me blindfolded.

I remembered his name was McKenna and that he was an asshole. He didn't seem ready to forgive and forget, either. There was a glimmer in his eyes when I sloped in and he didn't take them off me.

“Glad you could make it, doctor. Sit down.”

I walked past him and across to the first free seat, affecting casualness, but it seemed to take an eternity. I could feel McKenna's gaze boring into me, his eyes hooked into my back. When I turned around, a smile crept across his face.

That was why he'd said the day before that we'd be seeing each other. He obviously had it in for me and would do his utmost to make me feel ill at ease or make my life difficult. I wondered what he was cooking up and how he could harm me. I realized I had better watch out.

And then some.

I scarcely paid attention to the boring security briefing. The president's entry route was decided upon, as were the parts of the hospital that would be off-limits and which staff would operate. I was glad they picked Sharon Kendall to be the anesthesiologist; it was an excellent choice. It was also a good idea nobody should know the Patient's identity until minutes before the operation. That way they wouldn't have time to get stressed out or to let the weight of responsibility hinder their performance. The foreknowledge that you were to operate on the most powerful man on the planet could drill holes in your brain. I knew all about that.

They discussed more important matters, but I was too frazzled and worried to get too involved.

“I personally will assist Dr. Evans in the operation,” Stephanie said.

I grunted in agreement. I knew my boss would show me up every which way and make sure everybody knew she was chief medical officer in the post-op press conference. Her specialty was the spinal column, an area in which operations were three times as expensive, that drew three times as many patients and in which a third of them died on you. But the public did not know that, and in the eyes of the world she would get all the credit. I couldn't give a damn. But the next sentence shook me out of my complacency.

“The White House has also asked me to locate three expert advisers who will supervise the operation from the balcony. These specialists have been—”

“You said nothing about experts.” I couldn't help jumping in.

“Excuse me . . . do you mind if I speak while you're interrupting?” McKenna protested.

“There was no talk of hand-holding and I'm all grown up now. It strikes me as a staggering lack of trust. At the very least you could have consulted us over this.”

I looked at Wong and Meyer. They were as annoyed as I was but remained silent. They weren't going to back me on this one.

McKenna took his time, to make it clear I was on my own here.

“There will be no discussion on this point.”

“I have already talked this over with the First Lady. And she has made her choice.”

“Which has not changed. You are the head surgeon. You'll have extra pairs of eyes watching you, that's all. It's nothing personal. We merely wish to do what's best,” McKenna said, joining his hands and leaning over the table.

“Then you ought to do something about your taste in ties while you're at it,” I snarled.

The agent lowered his eyes to his boring blue tie, realizing a second too late that he had reacted to my childish jibe with a sign of insecurity. He frowned.

“The expert advisers will be Lowers, Ravensdale and Hockstetter. The first two are flying to Washington as we speak.”

His tone of voice hardly wavered. The operative word is
hardly
. There was a sign of something coarse and feral in him, which gave me the shivers. That was when I realized I would have one more flaming hoop to jump through.

I had heard of them. Both Lowers and Ravensdale were first-rate neurosurgeons, one from the West Coast while the other was British. They weren't as expert as Hockstetter or I in removing tumors from the speech area of the brain, but they were highly competent. What really unsettled me was my old boss's name. And the way McKenna had pronounced it.

There was something more than mutual bad blood here. Mc­Kenna was clearly suspicious of me, and the timely “accident” Hockstetter had met with in the parking lot.

“I thought Dr. Hockstetter had had an accident.”

“He can't operate,” McKenna said. “He has broken fingers. Were you aware of that?”

“The First Lady told me.”

“Dr. Hockstetter cannot help out in the operating theater. But he will be with us on the balcony. That way we can count on his advice.”

And for sure he would rattle my nerves and pour poison into my ears over the intercom when I most needed to be at ease. Circumstances were conspiring to prove the old saying, that success has many parents but failure only one. My name was down as being responsible for the op, although if it turned out well, anybody who had so much as dabbed a swab would take the credit for it.

What really had me spooked was how White's plan would fit in with all that. How the hell did he expect me to kill the president? With so many vital veins nearby and scalpel in hand, it wouldn't be too hard, assuming I had the nerve to do it. But White had insisted it should look like a complication arising from the operation. There could be no overt violence. And under the attentive eyes of three of the best neurosurgeons in the world—one of whom hated my guts—who would be hanging on my every move . . . how was I to carry out White's orders?

“I'm not overjoyed about that, Agent McKenna. Dr. Hockstetter and I do not really get along.”

McKenna stood up.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we're done. Thank you, see you all tomorrow.”

Everyone followed suit and headed toward the door, myself included. Even so, I knew perfectly well what McKenna would say next:

“Dr. Evans, a moment please.”

Stephanie Wong gave me a wary glance before she left. I limited myself to sitting back down again.

“I'm beat, McKenna. Be quick about it.”

“Hard day, doc?”

“Aren't they all?”

“Anything especially eventful happen to you today?”

“Same old, same old. Patients, rounds, paperwork.”

“Really. And where were you around one this afternoon?”

Danger. Here we go.

“I went out for lunch.”

“Did you go with a colleague.”

“No. What's the point of all this?”

“You just answer the questions, doctor.”

“I don't have to.”

McKenna filled his lungs and starved the room of air.

“Actually, you do. The protocol says you should have been through strict security clearance before being in the position you are in. But circumstances got in the way.”

“And you think asking me where I had lunch is going to be of any use?”

“I asked if you went with anybody. But now you're getting all—”

“I ate where I usually eat. In the Corner Bistro.”

“I see. Is it far?”

“Three blocks.”

“And so you always take the car to go three blocks?”

My heart stopped for a split second.

“What did you say?”

He pretended to shuffle some papers he had in a folder in front of him.

“According to the hospital parking lot log, your car left at eleven thirty-eight. Did you know all that stuff is on record? It's because of the access card you use. It's all in there. Modern technology, you know.”

I made no reply. That had caught me out. I wondered what else the asshole might have on me.

“Where were you off to at eleven thirty-eight, doc?”

McKenna kept up his stony, unfaltering stare. It was suddenly terribly hot in that room. Beads of sweat began to form on my back and the palms of my hands while I tried to seek a tenable explanation for the two-hour gap in my story. I plumped for sticking as close to the truth as I could.

“I have a patient called Jamaal Carter,” I said at last. “He has family in Anacostia and I went to see them.”

McKenna raised an eyebrow. Now, that had surprised him.

“Are you trying to tell me a patient in this ritzy joint,” he said, making a circle with his index fingers, “has relatives in Anacostia?”

“Not only that; he lives there.”

“You're putting me on, doc. You know that lying to a federal agent is obstruction of justice?”

“I'm not putting you on. He's a gangbanger who stopped a bullet in a shoot-out and was rerouted from MedStar because their emergency room was full. I removed a bullet from his spinal column which would almost certainly have left him paralyzed. In doing so I flew in the face of my bosses, who thought it would be enough for me to stabilize him and let somebody else pick up the astronomic tab that'll be more than that kid will earn in his life, and one he'll never pay us back for.”

I would never have spoken about myself that way unless I had a Secret Service agent in front of me . . . who rightly suspected I was capable of assaulting a rival surgeon and putting him out of the game. I thought it might help me to win over my interrogator by stressing my humane side.

“Aw, how sweet, doc,” he said with a caustic smile. “In my opinion a wheelchair's the best place for that piece of shit, rather than out on the street playing with guns, or in jail, wasting the taxpayers' dime. But who am I to judge the motives of a bleeding heart like yours?”

I thought wrong.

“I don't play God. I'm merely a doctor. But I don't cut corners or sit in judgment. I just heal the sick.”

“Really. And does visiting a gangbanger's relatives come under your Hippocratic obligations?”

I lowered my voice in a bid to add a confidential edge to my words.

“Not really. It was a personal favor the patient asked me for, and I thought what the heck. If word were to get out in the hospital, it could spell trouble for me.”

“Really. And what did you discuss with the family?”

“That's private. It's covered by doctor–patient confidentiality.”

The sly smile widened.

“You just said it was a personal favor. That cannot be covered by confidentiality.”

I sighed, trying to gain enough time to think up my next lie.

“The kid's got a girlfriend, see? And I was stupid enough to agree. I feel responsible for him. He's had a screwed-up life and it's not asking too much for somebody to look after him for a change.”

McKenna got to his feet. With his dimensions, the only way to describe that is in geological terms. He was a mountain rising in slow motion. He came around the table and sidled over to me. I got up in turn.

“We done here?”

“No, we are not.”

McKenna raised a hand and placed it on my shoulder. I'm not exactly a featherweight, but in comparison that paw was as heavy as concrete and the arm attached to it a steel piston rod. He had as little trouble making me sit down as he would a five-year-old.

“What the fuck?”

McKenna rammed the chair with me in it against the table, squashing me against the woodwork. I groaned as the sharp rosewood edge connected with my broken rib. The pain was unbearable. And he did not let up. The agent leaned on me, his bulk cutting off any retreat, while his mouth whispered in my ear.

“I don't like you, doc. I don't like shit about you. I don't know if you're an unbearable jerk who thinks he's God, or whether you're hiding something. I don't give a flying fuck if you're a rock 'n' roll star at what you do; nobody comes close to my guy with a blade unless they're clean as a whistle.”

I tried to get my breath back, although I was fainting from the pain in my chest. I needed to talk clearly. If he happened to roll up my coat sleeves, he would see the grazes I had gotten in the fight, and it would be all over for me.

“You picked on the wrong guy,” I finally said.

“Where were you at one p.m. today?”

“I've already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“I went to see a patient's relatives, I ate something, then came back to my consulting room.”

“Oh yeah? Well, it just so happens that at that very time Dr. Hockstetter, who only yesterday was chosen to replace you in the operation, was mugged in a garage. His assailant broke his fingers in a car door.”

I could just about turn my head enough to see his face. We were so close we could have kissed. His breath smelled of nicotine gum, his skin of the sweat of a caged animal.

“They told me it was an accident,” I said, trusting that the fear he instilled in me—and the pain—would be taken for surprise.

“That's what they said, yes. A fluke. But in my line of work flukes don't exist. And what can I tell you? You stand to gain a lot from this. That's motive. And you were away from the hospital. That's opportunity.”

I pressed my feet on the floor and tried to overcome the force leaning against me, to push back a fraction of an inch so I could breathe. My hospital clogs slipped over the carpeted floor. I shook them off and succeeded in backing up a little.

“Did the First Lady tell you I didn't want to operate on him? That she had to ask me as a favor not once but twice? What kind of a half-assed motive is that, McKenna?”

He blinked a couple of times. It was clear he didn't know. That comment seemed to unsettle him briefly, but then he counterattacked with the third element he needed to establish guilt. He had already constituted motive and opportunity. Now he needed the means.