Side Effects (40 page)

At that instant, from below, there was a sharp explosion. Then another. Jared watched as Paquette lurched away from him and then pitched heavily to the floor, blood pouring fro m a wound on the side of his neck.

Jared dropped to one knee beside the man, surprised and confused by what was happening. "Paquette!"

"Notebook ... Kate ..." were all Paquette could manage before a torrent of blood sealed his words and closed his eyes.

It was then Jared realized the man had been shot, that the explosions he had heard were from a gun, not from the lab. He turned at the moment Nunes fired at him from the base of the stairs. The bullet tore through his right thigh and caromed off the floor and wall behind him. The man, blackened by smoke and bleeding from cuts about his face, leveled the revolver for another shot. Distracted by the burning pain in his leg, Jared barely reacted in time to drop out of the line of fire. Behind him and from the mouth of the tunnel, alarms had begun to wail. Below him, the man had started up the stairs through the billowing smoke.

Notebook ... Kate ... Jared plucked the black notebook from beside Arlen Paquette's body, tucked it under his arm like a football, and in a gait that was half hop and half sprint, raced down the tunnel toward the main hospital.

Zimmermann, Paquette, and probably Walter Macfarlane as well: all dead, quite possibly because he had gone to the subbasement rendezvous without enough help. The distressing thought took his mind off the pain as he pushed on past the security gate. Paquette had promised answers for Kate, and now he was dead. Silently, Jared cursed himself.

A gunshot echoed through the tunnel. Hunching over to diminish himself as a target, Jared limped on, weaving from side to side across the tunnel, and wondering if the evasive maneuver was worth the ground he was losing.

The main tunnel was less than thirty yards away. There would be people there--help--if only he could make it.

Another shot rang out, louder than the last. The bullet, fired, Jared realized now, from Macfarlane's heavy service revolver, snapped through the sleeve of his parka and clattered off the cement floor. He stumbled, nearly falling, and slammed into the far wall of the main tunnel.

"Help," he screamed. "Somebody help!" The dim tunnel was deserted. A moment later he was shot again, the bullet impacting just above his left buttock, spinning him a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and sending white pain lancing down his leg and up toward his shoulder blade. He tumbled to one knee, but just as quickly pulled himself up again, clutching the notebook to his chest and rolling along the wall of the tunnel. Somewhere in the distance he could hear another series of alarms, then sirens, and finally a muffled explosion.

He was, for the moment at least, out of the killer's line of fire, stumbling in the direction away from the
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main hospital and toward the boiler room and laundry. Despite the pain in his leg and back, he was determined that nothing short of a killing shot was going to bring him down. With Paquette and Zimmermann dead, the black notebook, whatever it was, might well represent Kate's only chance. The gunman, crouching low and poised to fire, slid around the corner of the Omnicenter tunnel just as Jared reached the spur to the laundry. Jared sensed the man about to shoot, but there was no explosion, no noise. Or was there? As he pushed on into the darkened laundry, he could swear he had heard a sound of some sort. Then he understood. The killer had fired. Macfarlane's revolver was out of bullets, tapped dry. Now, even wounded, he had a chance.

The room he had entered was filled with dozens of rolling industrial hampers, some empty, some piled high with linen. Beyond the crowded hamper lot, Jared could just discern the outlines of rows of huge steam pressers.

He gave momentary consideration to diving into one of the hampers, but rejected the notion, partly because of the helpless, passive situation in which he would be and partly because his pursuer had already turned into the tunnel and was making his way, though cautiously, toward the laundry. Ignoring the pain in his back, Jared dropped to all fours and inched his way between two rows of hampers toward the enormous, cluttered hall housing the laundry itself. Pressers, washers, dryers, shelves and stacks of linens, more hampers--if he could make it, there would be dozens of places to hide ... if he could make it.

There were twenty feet separating the last of the canvas hampers from the first of the steam pressers. Twenty open feet. He had to cross them unnoticed. Kneeling in the darkness, he listened. There was not a sound--not a breath, not the shuffle of a footstep, nothing. Where in hell was the man? Was the chance of catching a glimpse of him worth the risk of looking? The aching in his back was in crescendo, dulling his concentration and his judgment.

Again he listened. Again there was nothing. Slowly, he brought his head up and turned. The killer, moving with the control and feline calm of a professional, was less than five feet away, preparing to hammer him with the butt of Macfarlane's heavy revolver. Jared spun away, but still absorbed a glancing blow just above his left ear. Stunned, he stumbled backward, pulling first one, then another hamper between him and the man, who paused to pick up the notebook and set it on the corner of a hamper before matter-of-factly advancing on him again.

"It's no use, pal," he said, shoving the hampers aside as quickly as Jared could pull them in his way, "but go ahead and make it interesting if you want."

Jared, needing the hampers as much for support as for protection, knew the man was right. Wounded and without a weapon, Jared had no chance against him.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Nunes smiled and shrugged. "Just a man doing a job," he said.

"You work for Redding Pharmaceuticals, don't you."

"I think this little dance of ours has gone on long enough, pal. Don't you?" In that instant, Jared thought about Kate and all she had been through; he thought about Paquette and the aging watchman, Macfarlane. If he was going to die, then, dammit, it wouldn't be while backing away. With no more plan in mind than that, he grabbed another hamper, feigned pulling it in front of him, and instead drove it forward as hard as he could, catching the surprised gunman just below the waist. Nunes lurched backward, colliding with another hamper and very nearly going down. Jared moved as quickly as he could, but the advantage he had gained with surprise was lost in the breathtaking pain of trying to push off his left foot. The killer, his expression one of placid amusement, parried the lunge with one hand, and with the other, brought the barrel of the revolver slicing across Jared's head, opening a gash just above his temple. Jared staggered backward a step, then came on again, this time leading with a kick which connected, though not powerfully, with the man's groin. Again Nunes lashed out with the gun, landing a solid blow to Jared's forearm and then another to the back of his neck. Jared dropped to one knee. As he did, Nunes stepped behind him and locked one arm expertly beneath his chin.

"Sorry, pal," he said, tightening his grip.

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Jared flailed with his arms and shoulders and tried to stand, but the man's leverage was far too good. The pressure against his larynx was excruciating. His chest throbbed with the futile effort of trying to breathe. Blood pounded in his head and the killer's grunting breaths grew louder in his ear. Then the sound began to fade. Jared knew he was dying. Every ounce of his strength vanished, and he felt the warmth of his bladder letting go. I'm sorry, Kate.

I'm sorry. The words tumbled over an dover in his mind. I'm sorry.

Through closed eyes, he sensed, more than saw, a bright, blue-white light. From for, far away, he heard a muffled explosion. Then another.

Suddenly the pressure against his neck diminished.

The killer's forearm shook uncontrollably and then slid away. Jared fell to one side, but looked up in time to see the man totter and then, in grotesque slow motion, topple over into a hamper. Jared struggled to sort out what was happening. The first thing he saw clearly was that the overhead lights had been turned on; the second thing was the stubbled, slightly jowled face of Martin Finn.

"I was halfway back to the station when I decided there was no way you would have chanced popping me like you did unless the situation was really desperate," Finn said. "How bad are you hurt?" Jared coughed twice and wasn't sure he was able to speak until he heard his own voice. "I've been shot twice," he rasped, "once just above my butt and once in my thigh. My legs are all cut up from broken glass. That lunatic beat the shit out of me with his gun."

"The emergency people are on their way," Finn said, kneeling down. "It may be a few minutes. As you might guess, there's a lot of commotion going on around here right now. Is Zimmermann dead?" Jared nodded. Then he remembered Macfarlane.

"Finn," he said urgently, "there's a man, Macfarlane, a night watchman. He was--"

"You mean him?" The detective motioned to his left.

Walter Macfarlane, one eye swollen shut and the side of his face a mass of dried and oozing blood, stood braced against a hamper.

"Thank God," Jared whispered.

"We would never have known what direction to go in without him," Finn explained. At that moment a team of nurses and residents arrived with two stretchers. They helped Macfarlane onto one and then gingerly hoisted Jared onto the other.

"As soon as these people get you fixed up, Counselor, you're going to have a little explaining to do. You know that, don't you?"

"I know. I'll tell you as much as I can. And Finn ... I appreciate your coming back."

"I think I might owe you an apology, but I'll save it until someone explains to me what the fuck has been going on around here."

"Okay," one of the residents announced. "We're all set."

"Wait. Please," Jared said. "Finn, there's a notebook around here somewhere. A black, looseleaf notebook."

The detective searched for a few moments and then brought it over. "Yours?" he asked.

"Actually, no." Jared tucked the notebook beneath his arm. Then he smiled. "It belongs to my wife." Saturday 22 December

"Mr. Samuels, I'm here to take you up to your room.

Mr. Samuels?"

Jared's eyes opened from a dreamless sleep. He was on a litter, staring at the chipped, flaking ceiling of the emergency ward where a team of surgical residents had worked on his wounds. His last clear memory was of one of the doctors, a baby-faced woman with rheumy eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses, announcing that she was about to give him a "little something" so that his wounds could be explored, cleaned, and repaired.

"I'm Gary Dunleavy, one of the nurses from Beren son Six," the man's voice said from somewhere at the head of the litter.

Jared tried to crane his neck toward the nurse, but was prevented by a thick felt cervical collar and a broad leather restraining belt across his chest. He ached in a dozen different places, and he sensed that
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he was seeing little or nothing through his left eye.

Dunleavy took several seconds to appreciate his patient's predicament. Then he muttered an apology and moved to a spot by Jared's right hand. "Welcome to the land of the living," he said. His voice was kind, but his eyes were sunken and tired. "You've been out for quite a 316

while. Apparently they overestimated how much analgesia to give you." Jared brought his left hand up and gingerly touched the area about his left eye.

"It's swollen shut," the nurse announced. "You look like you've been kicked by a mule." Jared felt his senses begin to focus, and he struggled to reconstruct the hazy events following the explosion in the Omnicenter. His first clear image was of William Zimmermann spinning wildly about, his clothes ablaze, the skin on one side of his face hideously scorched. That one was for you, Katey, he thought savagely. An I'm-sorryfornotbelieving-you present from your husband. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Almost four."

"In the morning?"

The nurse nodded. "According to the report I got from the ER nurses, you've been out for about three hours since they finished working on you. We've been too busy on the floor for anyone to come and get you until now.

Sorry."

"I need to get out of here," Jared said, fumbling at the restraining strap with his left hand. His right hand, with an intravenous line taped in place, was secured to the railing of the litter.

"Hey, partner," the nurse said, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Easy does it."

"I've got to see my wife. I've--" Suddenly, he remembered the notebook. "My things. Where are my things?"

"We've got 'em, Mr. Samuels. They're put away safe awaiting the moment when we read a legitimate order from your doctor discharging you. Rounds are usually at seven. Until then, if you go, you go in a Johnny."

Jared glared at the man. I'm a lawyer, he wanted to shout. I can sue you and this whole hospital for violating my civil rights, and win. Instead, he assessed his situation. In just three hours or so his physicians would make rounds and he could explain to them his need to leave. Three hours. Almost certainly, Kate would be sleeping through them anyhow, under the effects of her anesthesia. He sank back on the litter. "You win," he said. The nurse said silent thanks with a skyward look and started maneuvering the litter out of the small examining room.

"Just one thing," Jared said.

The man stopped short and again walked around to make eye contact. "I'll listen, but no promises." His tired voice was less good-natured than he intended.

"I had a notebook. A black, looseleaf notebook. It should be in with my things. Get me that, and I promise to be a model patient."

Gary Dunleavy hesitated, but then withdrew the notebook from the patient's belongings bag, which was stashed on the litter beneath Jared. "I'm taking you at your word, Mr. Samuels. Model patient. I'm nearing the end of a double. That's over sixteen straight hours of nursing on a floor that would fit right in at the Franklin Zoo. It's been one hell of a long night, and my usual overabundance of the milk of human kindness is just about dried up. So don't cross me." Jared smiled, made a feeble peace sign with his bandaged left hand, and tucked the notebook between his arm and his side. The exhausted nurse returned to the head of the litter and resumed the slow trek through the tunnels to the Berenson Building.