The Second Opinion, page 27
Halfway between Hartnett and the door, facing away from Thea, was a standard vinyl and metal wheelchair, clearly nonferromagnetic, with the letters mri painted in white across the backrest.
“Scott, can you hear me?” Thea shouted. “Can you hear me?” There was no change in the man that she could see. It seemed as if he was violently shaking his head no.
No to what? Thea wondered.
The powerful strobe and the scene before her were hypnotic and unsettling, and were making Thea dizzy and slightly queasy. Her thinking felt pressured and unfocused. Was Hartnett hurt? Who had done this to him? With help, would it be possible for him to slip his arms out from under the chains? No, she decided. They actually seemed to be cutting into his skin. The best way, regardless of the cost and inconvenience, was to hit the Stop button.
“Scott!” she called again.
Hartnett’s wild thrashing persisted, as did a continuous opening and closing of his hands.
In the control-room window, crisscrossed by fine, metallic wires to block interfering radio waves, Thea could see her own reflection, illuminated repetitively by the strobe like some macabre Times Square advertisement.
All she could think about now was getting Hartnett loose and getting to the bottom of things, including tending to her mounting fears that something might have happened to Dan. She set her watch aside and removed her earrings. Then she quickly scanned herself for anything else metallic, and located the Stop button up on the wall to the right of the magnet. Through the unsettling light, Hartnett could see her. She felt certain of that. His eyes, if anything, were wider.
Comfortable that she had nothing further on that was ferromagnetic, Thea cautiously eased open the door. Something on the floor caught her eye—a pole of some sort from a broom or mop, reaching from the base of the door to the frame at the base of the wheelchair. Slowly, impelled by the inward- opening door and the pole, the chair began rolling toward the magnet. Six feet . . . five feet . . . it began to accelerate . . . four feet . . .
Suddenly, Thea realized that the seat of the chair was not empty, but piled with sharps—all manner of them. At the moment the situation became clear, the chair rolled past the protection of the self-screening apparatus and into the full three-tesla magnetic zone. As one, in a fraction of a second, the dozens of blades and other metallic sharps, including several hatchets, breached the gap from the chair to the magnet, drawn at ferocious speed.
Scott Hartnett’s death was instantaneous.
The objects piercing and passing through his body included countless nails, scalpels, needles, razors, knives of different sizes, pins, darts, and several knitting needles. Thea saw the projectiles in frightening detail as they shot through the strobe like missiles, summoned by the gargantuan electromagnet. The blade of one hatchet embedded itself dead center in Hartnett’s chest. Blood, spurting from gashes in his neck, arms, and face, was frozen in stop-action by the strobe.
Thea cried out and raced across to the magnet, but there was nothing she could do. Needles and nails and dozens of pins were embedded in Hartnett’s face. One of the sharps had cut through almost half of his neck. His head flopped impotently to the left. Blood continued to spurt out briskly from a severed carotid artery, forcing Thea to back away from the magnet.
The strobe, which she could now see was taped below one of the observation windows, was still pulsating, giving the scene a surreal cast that neutralized some of the hideous gore for Thea. The steel chains would be there in place until the magnet was quenched. Despite the horrible evidence before her that the maneuver was futile, she felt she had to turn off the machine.
Unable to take her gaze from the lurid scene, and unaware of the slowly opening chamber door, Thea took a single step toward the Stop button, primed to run if there was a failure in the helium evacuation system. Suddenly, a gloved hand shot out of the darkness behind her, and clamped tightly across her mouth.
CHAPTER 49
“Nicely done, Doctor,” the man said. His voice, low-pitched and gravelly, was one she had heard before, in the parking lot of the Sperelakis Institute. “We knew you had it in you. Serves that nasty man right for messing with you. Now, come along quietly. We’re headed out the back way.”
Thea could tell he was tall, though not as tall as Dan, and strong. She struggled and tried to bite his palm, but his hand easily controlled her as he pulled her through the MRI unit and out an emergency exit. The main entrance to the unit—the Grigsby entrance—was on a spur off the central tunnel. This emergency exit brought them out into an older, less well maintained, less well lit portion of that same offshoot.
Thea remembered this area of the tunnels. They were still on B-1, the uppermost underground level, but there was a stone staircase straight ahead, screened off by a padlocked metal accordion gate, that led down to a series of narrower tunnels on the B-2 level, and below that, the true subterranean passageways of B-3. On the B-2 level on either side were storage areas used primarily for older equipment—rolling carts, tray tables, bed frames, and gurneys—all on standby in case of a mass disaster. Farther down the B-2 corridor was a freight elevator made partially of wood, and probably dating back to the time of the father of the modern elevator, Otis, in the 1800s.
Thea shook her head violently, and the man loosened his grip. She had little doubt that he was Gerald Prevoir, who had surprised Dan outside the ICU, and whom Dan had been able to track to a seaside town in Delaware. If she was right, then he was also likely the man who had killed Albert Mendez, Dan’s street- smart private eye.
Prevoir was dressed as he had been when Dan stopped him in front of the ICU—in orderly whites. The difference this time was that, from what she could see, his hospital ID seemed to be in perfect order, including the photo and the name Elliot Smolensky.
“No screaming,” the man said.
A deep breath, a plea with herself to stay alert and focused, and Thea felt her pulse begin to drop. She was allowed to take a step back. Prevoir was, in fact, tall. He was in his thirties and looked and felt absolutely solid. His jet-black hair was carefully trimmed, and his dark brown eyes were soulless. He wore a diamond ring of several carats on the little finger of his right hand.
“Why did you do that to him?” Thea asked, motioning back toward the MRI suite.
“What else does one do with a liability but get rid of it? That’s the very essence of the insurance industry. Liability? Cancel the policy. The simplest rule in all of business—two words that pave the way to riches. Liability? Cancel. That was Hartnett behind the wheel of that truck, you know.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“And when he called you about meeting him at the MRI unit, he thought he was baiting a trap for you. Instead, it was us—we—who were baiting the trap for him.”
“Bravo for you. Who’s we?”
“Besides, the real question to be asked after such a magnificently imaginative piece of work is not why? But how?”
“I don’t care,” Thea said. “That was a terrible way to die.”
“So would drowning in that car have been.”
“I wouldn’t know. It didn’t happen. Boasting about killing is small and insecure. I watched teenagers do it all the time in Africa.”
Prevoir ignored her.
“You see,” he went on, “the magnet has very little pull beyond six feet or so, but very intense pull inside four. Make that very, very intense. Hartnett was unconscious with a surgical mask on, and tied to that wheelchair when I brought him down to the MRI room. First I lashed his wrists to the machine with rope, and then I just flipped the chain over his arms from three feet or so, and voila. The magnet did the rest. You should have seen it—a perfect toss. If nobody turns off that magnet, he’ll be there for all eternity.”
“Where’s Dan? You’ve got him, don’t you.”
“He’s a pretty sharp guy, but I think he was distracted thinking about hooking up with you at one. That was his undoing.”
“I want to see him.”
“All in good time, Doctor. All in good time.”
“Now!”
“Setting up the wheelchair to roll toward the magnet when you opened the door was sheer genius, don’t you agree? All it took was a mop handle—and of course, you.”
“If it was genius, you must not have been the one who figured it out.”
Without a hint of warning, Prevoir grabbed her hand and twisted it until her wrist was close to snapping. Thea cried out despite her determination not to.
“Watch your mouth!” he snapped, releasing her only after an additional twist.
She glared at him and shook the circulation back into her hand. In that moment, she knew that there was no way in the world that this man was going to let her live. Silently, she prayed that Dan was still alive. It had been foolish of her to set foot inside the MRI suite when he didn’t show up at one. She should have known better, although with Prevoir just a few feet away in the darkness, it really wouldn’t have made any difference.
Prevoir removed the padlock, which he had apparently left unlocked in the closed position. Then he slid the gate aside, closed it again behind them, replaced the lock from inside, and guided her down the stairs clutching the back of her blouse. The hundred feet leading to the elevator featured a well-worn cement floor and unpainted stone-and- brick walls, heavily caulked over many de cades with concrete, and illuminated from overhead by incandescent bulbs. To their right, labeled with a hand- painted white B, was a storage hall full to the ceiling with rusting stretchers, and looking as if it might not have been visited in months, if not years.
“The strobe was pure theater, wouldn’t you say?” Prevoir was rambling on. “Scary, distracting, hypnotic. Made you curious, huh? Made you not think about that pole.”
Thea cursed herself for being sucked in as she had been. Gullible. Dan had said he was glad she was gullible.
Nonsense!
She began concentrating on the situation and the man, searching for a way, any way, to get an advantage—to hurt him or, even better, disable him. His arrogance and confidence were her biggest allies. They had almost gotten him caught by Dan outside the ICU. He wore a snub- nosed revolver in a holster beneath his left arm. If she could only get at that. . . .
The narrow corridor was damp and cool, with a distinct odor of mold. Twenty feet or so before the elevator was a second storage area, not nearly as full as the previous one. A white A was crudely painted on the wall outside the entrance. Suddenly, from somewhere inside that space, she heard Dan.
“Hello? Anyone out there? Help. Help me. I’m in here.”
Thea broke free of Prevoir and rushed into the century- old space. Dan was on his back on a rusting metal gurney, tied in place with clothesline across his chest and ankles. He was naked except for his underwear, and had been badly beaten—especially across the face and the chest. His eyes were swollen, and drying rivulets of blood coursed from both nostrils. His lower lip was split down the center, and both his nipples were macerated and discolored. A pair of pliers resting on the gurney suggested how that was accomplished.
Thea held his face in her hands and kissed the bruises enveloping his eyes.
“Why’d you do this?” she screamed at Prevoir. “Why?”
“Many reasons,” Prevoir said calmly. “I needed to know how our friend learned about me, for one.”
“Because you were stupid, that’s how!” Dan cried hoarsely.
Prevoir, with his hands still gloved, punched him in the face, snapping his head to one side and creating a dense spray of blood and saliva that traveled several feet.
Thea recoiled from the viciousness of the killer’s assault. Dan seemed to lose consciousness temporarily, then was exceedingly groggy. In that moment, Thea spied something that impacted her own consciousness, and stuck. It was the opening to a narrow staircase that ran from this level down to B-3, the deepest bowels of the old hospital, three stories below the ground. A prison? An armory? A place of torture? A hiding place for treasure? She could only guess. The stairway was dark and narrow, and from what she could tell, steep. The walls were sheer stone. No railings. If she could somehow start the killer falling, there would be no easy way for him to stop.
“I’m losing my patience with both of you. I have questions that need answers. I either get them from you or you each get to watch while the other gets hurt. As you can see, not only am I adept at inflicting pain, I enjoy it.”
Thea cast about Storage Area A for a weapon of some sort, but saw nothing except the pliers, and Dan’s belt, which was lying on the floor with the rest of his uniform. He had a heavy flashlight and a nightstick, but there was no way she could see to get at them.
What about one of the gurneys? Could she shove one against Prevoir hard enough to do damage or send him down the stairs? There would certainly be some irony to that given the way Hartnett had been murdered, but it was doubtful she could get Prevoir in the right position, and loosen one of the rusty stretchers without making him aware.
It had to be the pliers.
In the time it would take a neurotypical person to remember facts in a book she had read a short while ago, Thea’s mind flashed through dozens of varied volumes, looking for some sort of idea, some sort of plan. What she found herself focusing on was a book called simply Rape, written by a karate man named Jeff DeLott. Thea had read it for a women’s self-defense course some years ago.
The situation may not present itself often, but one of the most vulnerable areas of a person is the backs of their knees. If you can somehow get behind a potential attacker, directly or at an angle, an unexpected block or kick to that area will cause the quadriceps muscles on the other side of the leg reflexively to relax, and the man will go down like a stone, long enough for you to turn if you are still standing, or to scramble to your feet, and run. If the blow is solid enough, count on dropping your attacker a hundred percent of the time. BUT HALF MEASURES WILL AVAIL YOU NOTHING! Your strike must be fearless, powerful, and precise.
Thea saw the words and the accompanying photograph as if they were etched on her mind. She bent over Dan and kissed him again, slipping the pliers into the pocket of her slacks, and testing the ropes that held him, which were not that tight. Dan moaned at her touch, and she thought he nodded, but otherwise he showed little reaction.
Burning for revenge, she approached Gerald Prevoir. The image in her mind was of the coquettes and charmers she had seen in the movies. Although role-playing had never been one of her strengths, she felt her best chance was to get him off guard and distracted—to say something that would shock him, something seductive. If she tried taking a line from a movie, he might recognize it. Her best chance was just to open her mind and improvise.
“Mr. Prevoir, could I talk to you over here for just a minute?” she asked in a kittenish voice, pulling her shoulders back the way she had done in front of her bedroom mirror before her first evening with Dan.
“I’m running out of patience,” he replied, following her to a spot right in front of the stairs. “I want cooperation from you or he’s in for an enormous amount of pain.”
“Please! Don’t hurt him again. I’ll tell you what. If you promise not to hurt him anymore, I promise you can have anything you want from me.”
“What?”
“I said if you want to, you can have it all. Everything.”
She gestured the length of her body for emphasis.
“I heard what you said. I’m just not at all sure I know where you’re coming from.”
“I’m coming from right here, and you can have me. Right on one of those gurneys if you want. I mean it. Let me just talk with him and I’ll answer any questions you have and do anything you want.”
She turned toward Dan and glanced back just as the killer looked away from her.
Fearless . . . Powerful . . . Precise.
Thea withdrew the pliers and with all her strength threw them over her shoulder and down the stairway. The clatter echoed off the stone like a Gatling gun. Prevoir whirled to the sound, and was instinctively reaching for his shoulder holster at the moment Thea dove at the backs of his knees like a football blocker. His legs collapsed just as the DeLott book promised they would, and he pitched face-first onto the steeply angled stairs, tumbling down into the darkness like a puppet. The sound of his head hitting the concrete below reverberated up the stairwell.
Then there was silence.
CHAPTER 50
Thea scrambled to her feet, ready to fight, ready to run. The narrow stone stairway was so steep, and the base so enfolded in darkness, that she could see nothing of the man she had just sent tumbling to the bottom. For a few moments, she held her breath and listened. The only sound she could hear was Dan’s sonorous breathing coming from behind her. She hurried over to him, ecstatic to share her news.
“Hey, you, big guy, can you hear me? It’s over. It’s over.”
She kissed him softly on the lips and gently took his hand. His body was even more battered than she had first appreciated—especially his nipples—but none of his wounds seemed mortal.
“Dan, it’s over, let’s get you up and get out of here.”
She untied the knots holding him to the gurney and cradled his head, searching for any signs of neurological injury.
“Thea . . .”
The sandpaper word was accompanied by what might have been a grin.
She kissed him on the lips again.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re not dead,” she said, as excited as she could ever remember being. “I would have really missed playing with you. Let’s get out of here. This is a very bad place. I’ll explain everything on the way to the ER or . . . on the way to get an ice cream if you want. You look like you could use an ice cream.”
Dan blinked up at her.
“Where’s Prevoir?”
“He had an accident when I pushed him down the stairs over there.”
Dan gritted his teeth and tried to pull himself up.
“I want to see.”
