Extreme Measures (49 page)

“Scott Enders. Never heard of him.”

“I think you have. Maybe not by that name, but I think he’s here, and I think he was brought here by Donald Devine.”

Barber’s attempt to mask his reaction was too slow, and he obviously sensed that.

“Very good,” he said. “Good timing, decent delivery. I’m impressed. What else do you know?”

“I know enough to tell you that the best thing you can do is come clean about what’s going on here, and hope that I believe enough of your story to help you deal with the authorities.”

“You
help
me
?” Barber began pacing again. “Talk about chutzpah. You sit there trussed up like a goddam Thanksgiving turkey offering to help me. Well, let me tell you something, friend: This is no fly-by-night operation you’ve stumbled onto. There’s more at stake here than you could ever imagine, and minds a hell of a lot sharper than yours have worked out a response for every contingency.” He took a small strongbox from a locked metal cabinet, and withdrew a vial of powder and a pair of rubber gloves. “And right here just happens to be our response for this one.”

The man’s eyes were growing wider and wilder. Bernard had read the account of Eric Najarian’s night of horror, and had no trouble making the connection to what he was experiencing.

“It won’t wash, Dr. Barber,” he said. “Too many people know where I am.”

“I don’t think so,” Barber replied. “I think you came here snooping around because nobody knows anything for sure. If anyone does show up, we have certification for our facility and perfectly documented files on all of our patients. You see, we’ve been very, very careful about that sort of thing. Now then, what else do you have to tell me?” He slipped on the rubber gloves. “Amazing stuff, this,” he went on. “Active if taken orally, active if just rubbed on the skin. Absolutely amazing.”

“Is that what you fed to the Colsons?”

Barber stopped momentarily. Then he smiled and shook his head.

“No good. Content decent, delivery poor. You found their remains somewhere out there in the desert, and now you’re pissing into the wind and hoping you won’t get soaked.” He withdrew a small spatulaful of the powder from the vial, moistened three of his gloved fingertips, and carefully spread the powder on them. “Better try something else.”

“I’m telling you,” Nelson said, desperately clinging to his crumbling façade of control, “too many people know. They know about you, about Donald Devine, about the little room in Devine’s basement, everything.”

The physician brushed the glove close to Nelson’s face. Bernard closed his eyes and instinctively pulled his head away.

“I listen to you, and I still hear bluff,” Barber said. “You had better come up with something more pithy, or, I promise you, you’re in for a long—or perhaps I should say a short—afternoon.” He glanced at his watch. “Time’s run out, Mr. Nelson. Either you have shot your wad and you don’t know anything more about us, or you’re not taking me seriously enough.

“Well, sir, let me tell you how this stuff works. I’m primarily a research Ph.D., but as I said, I
am
an M.D. as well, and a very well trained one at that, so I know what I’m talking about. At this dose, you will have about, oh, one or two hours before the air you’re breathing starts to feel like molasses. After that, it’s just a matter of time. Your arms and legs will go numb, and your guts will stop moving. You’ll start coughing your lungs out. Finally, your heart will slow to the point where your blood’s hardly moving at all. The only thing that will be working is your brain, and that will keep working right up until near the very end. At that point, if I want to keep you around for, say, a little work in our cornfield, I can stop the process and start you on the tranquilizers we use—that is, if you even
require them. Otherwise, I’ll just get you a mirror and let you watch yourself terminate. Sound okay?”

“Give it up, Barber,” Nelson said. But he heard the fear in his voice, and could tell that the madman holding him could hear it too. It was all happening too fast. He hadn’t expected it to be this way.
There has to be something I can do … anything
.

“Suit yourself,” Barber said.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“Okay. Okay, you’re right. I don’t know what’s going on here or who is involved beyond Donald Devine.”

“That’s better, Mr. Nelson. Much better.”

“But people do know where I am.”

“As I said, we can deal with that.”

“Perhaps you can, but then again, perhaps not. Listen to me, please. If the work you’re doing here is as important as you say, I’m sure you don’t want to jeopardize it. I’ve got friends—important friends—in politics and on the police force. Tell me what’s going on here and what you’re doing. If you can help me understand what’s at stake, I’ll do everything I can to get the right people to understand.”

Barber continued pacing as he thought about the proposal. Then, quite suddenly, he kicked a folding chair close to Bernard and sat down, resting his gloved hand palm up in his lap.

“Mr. Nelson, every day thousands of people are dying unnecessarily from dozens of so-called incurable diseases—diseases like hepatitis, influenza, encephalitis, and many forms of cancer. And of course we both know that the world is on the brink of an epidemic that, in just a few years, will make the horror of the black plague seem like a cartoon. Well, detective, what you’ve bumbled into here is a project which, at this moment, is this close to having an answer.” He held up his thumb and forefinger for emphasis.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a universal antiviral antibiotic, that’s what I mean. The ultimate cure!” He nearly shouted the words, then deflated noticeably when he saw the lack of comprehension on Bernard’s face.

“I’m sorry if I look confused,” Bernard said, trying not to glance at the man’s hand. “I always thought penicillin was a pretty decent antibiotic.”

Barber groaned his impatience.

“Pearls before swine,” he muttered. “First of all, penicillin is effective only against bacteria, not viruses. And second of all, like the dozens of other antibacterial drugs on the market, it’s useless against most organisms because they become resistant about as fast as you can get the stuff home from the pharmacy. Our drug not only kills the little beasties, but changes in the body as fast as they do.
Ergo
, no resistance. It will save millions of lives.”

And be worth hundreds of millions to you
, Nelson thought. He tried to appear impressed with what he was hearing, but he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that Barber was prolonging this purely out of boredom and the need to assure himself of his own importance. In the end, nothing Bernard could say or do was going to move the man one iota.

“Tell me more,” he said.

Barber smiled and stood up, shaking his head.

“I think not, Mr. Nelson,” he sang, moistening his lips with his tongue. “I think not.”

“Please, wait,” Bernard said, squirming in his seat. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you ab—”

“I had hoped you’d be a little more intellectually stimulating, being from Boston and all. I don’t mind telling you, you’re a great disappointment in that regard. A great disappointment. Well, sir, I suppose you will simply have to find another way to amuse and educate me.”

“Don’t do it, Barber. Please listen to m—”

“This dose is roughly ten times what your friends the Colsons received. Will it work ten times as fast?
Will it work the same way? Will Little Nell find true happiness? Will
E
continue to equal
MC
squared?”

Continuing a stream of nonsense questions, Barber reached out, grabbed Bernard’s hair viciously with one hand, and meticulously smoothed the damp powder across both his cheeks with the other. At the man’s touch, Bernard felt his heart stop, and truly believed it was going to end for him right there. Moments later, it began to beat again.

“Whether or not I’m here to see it, you’re through, Barber,” he rasped.

“Will the South rise again?” the man went on in his chilling, singsong voice. “Will there be peace in the valley someday?”

He turned, scooped up the strongbox, and left the room.

Gripped by fear unlike any he had ever known, Bernard first tried to rub his cheek against his shoulder. Then he hurled himself to the floor, attempting to scrape the powder off on the linoleum. Some of the poison did come off, but he knew it was not nearly enough.

For a time, he could only lie there, silently praying that Barber’s performance was a ruse—his version of the hideous charade that had been played with Eric Najarian. But as minutes passed and he began to feel a heaviness settling into his chest, he knew better.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said softly. “I’m sorry for being so damn stupid.”

He struggled to his feet, threw himself on the bed, and rubbed what more he could from his cheeks onto the cotton blanket. Finally, totally winded by his efforts, he stopped.

“I’m so damn sorry,” he said again.

Helpless now, Bernard closed his eyes, listened to the pounding of his heart in his ears, and waited.

C
arrying Donald Devine’s ledgers, Eric entered White Memorial through a little-used side door, and took the subbasement tunnel and back staircase to Haven Darden’s lab. Tucked carefully in the pocket of his jeans was the loaded syringe. As the medical chief had promised, the entire floor was deserted. Through the darkness of the lab Eric could see light spilling from Darden’s inner office.

He paused by the outer door, trying to solidify his composure and his resolve. He thought about Scott Enders and Loretta Leone; about Laura’s torment and Reed Marshall’s shattered career; about all those others who had suffered. And finally, he conjured up the images of the obscene, makeshift voodoo shrine and of the death’s-head priest—quite possibly Darden himself—leering down at him through the candlelight. The man was evil—fully deserving of the terror he was about to experience.

“No mercy,” Eric whispered as he opened the door. “No mercy at all.”

He walked between a row of incubators and then turned left toward Darden’s office. The medical chief, natty as usual in a custom-tailored shirt, silk tie, and black suspenders, met him at the door. Eric was pleased to see that he wore no suit coat.

“Come in, Eric, come in,” Darden said. “I was relieved to get your call. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that your friends here at White Memorial have been most concerned about you.”

“I didn’t really feel I had any of those left,” Eric forced himself to say.

“Oh, you do. You do.”

Darden sat down behind his desk, but Eric remained standing, his hand cradling the syringe in his pocket. He imagined the man making love to Anna Delacroix, and sensed his anger and disgust grow even stronger. Haven Darden had a family, children. The woman—half his age, if that—was beautiful enough to have any man. How much was he paying her for her services? What did he lay out for her assistance in destroying Eric Najarian?

No mercy
.

“Sit down, sit down,” Darden said. “I don’t mind telling you that the things you alluded to in your call have me most intrigued.”

Don’t fool around. Don’t wait!

“I’d like you to look at this,” Eric said, setting Devine’s ledger on the desk. “It was taken from a safe in the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home.”

As Darden opened the cover Eric stepped behind him and slid the syringe free.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing here,” Darden said, suddenly swiveling around to face him.

Eric thrust the syringe back into his pocket.

“It … it’s the list beginning on the second page.”

Darden pulled open his desk drawer and reached inside.

It’s a gun!
Eric’s mind shrieked.
Move, dammit, move!

Before he could react, the medical chief pulled out a pair of reading glasses and slipped them on.

“Perhaps I’d do better if I could see the words,” he said, turning back to the desk.

Once again Eric eased the loaded syringe free. He focused on Darden’s left trapezius, the heavy muscle just at the base of his neck. A final, deep breath and …

Now!

In synchronized motions, he shoved Darden’s chair in, pinning him against the desk, locked his left arm tightly beneath the man’s chin, pulled the plastic needle guard off with his teeth, and drove the needle down to the hilt in the spot he had chosen. Darden cried out at the pain and tried to squirm free, but Eric held him fast. He spat the needle guard onto the floor.

“Move again and you’re dead!” he said. “I mean it!”

“What are you doing?” Darden rasped.

“This syringe is loaded with succinylcholine,” Eric said. “Two hundred milligrams—enough to paralyze you totally in a matter of fifteen or twenty seconds. At the slightest provocation, I’m ready to give you every bit of it, and you had better believe that.”

“Y-you’re crazy!”

“You bet I am, Doctor. It’ll help us both if you remember that. It would also help if you think about what it’s like to be paralyzed and unable to breathe while you’re still wide awake. Surely you’re an expert on that. Now, first you’re going to tell me where Laura Enders is, and then you’re going to tell me about Caduceus.”