Michael Palmer - Natural Causes

"Not a chance," he said, laughing out loud and intensifying his grip. "Not a-"

Sarah felt his bulk suddenly shift and his hold on her lessen. He had taken a single step backward. She knew that. But then something had happened. He was off balance, falling backward and to his left… falling into the shaft. Still clutching Sarah too tightly for her to break away, Blankenship began to scream.

"My leg!.. Jesus, my leg!.."

He howled, again and again, bellowing as he toppled backward in what seemed to Sarah to be slow motion. She was frantically trying to sort out what was going on, what action she might take, when Blankenship's two lower leg bones snapped. The moment she heard the crunch and his hideous wail, Sarah understood. He had stepped into the space between the metal frame and the concrete floor. What little force she had provided against his chest was just enough to keep him from recovering his balance. He swung backward rapidly now, his leg bending at a newly created joint several inches above his ankle.

Still conscious and screeching in agony, he hung upside down in the pitch-black shaft, clinging to Sarah's right wrist, dangling her beneath him. Then, wailing piteously, he let her go.

Sarah had the briefest warning before Blankenship's grasp on her wrist released. In that second, countless thoughts and bits of advice on how to fall and land flashed through her mind. Roll… relax… land on your feet… land on your butt… land on your side… push off when you hit… flatten out… So desperate was she to do something to keep from dying that she was completely unprepared for the actual impact, which came after a free fall that lasted only moments, and covered less than six feet. She landed heavily on the steep slope of a mountain of rubble that extended upward into the shaft almost two stories from the subbasement.

Clawing at the chunks of concrete and other debris, she stopped herself from tumbling downward. For half a minute she lay there, gasping for breath. She hurt badly in spots, but none of the injuries seemed incapacitating. Above her, enveloped in the intense darkness, Blankenship continued to moan. He had not passed out, she realized, because he was suspended upside down. There was no reflex blood vessel dilation, no drop in blood flow to his head. No merciful lapse into unconsciousness.

She peered through the gloom. Her vision now adjusted to the circumstance, she could see the slight changes in the shaft above and below her at what must have been the doorways at the first floor and basement. She was inching her way downward when she suddenly remembered the keys. Blankenship had slipped them into his clinic coat. Of that she was almost certain. Without them she had no option but to find a window and try to break through the boards.

Fifty minutes to go. Perhaps less now. With Blankenship suspended the way he was, could she possibly reach his pocket? She turned and began picking her way back up the slope of shattered concrete. She would work on obtaining the key until there was half an hour to go, she decided. And then she would try the first-story windows.

"Eli," she called out. "Eli, listen to me. I'm just below you. I need the keys. Can you work your clinic coat off and let it drop?"

The soft, whining moan from above continued. Sarah pushed herself up the rubble another foot. She was opposite the very top of the first-floor opening now. But the slope had ended. She was as high as she could go. Blankenship was close. Just a few feet above her at the most. She tried to picture his down-stretched arms and imagine how his clinic coat might be hanging. If she leapt up and out, could she reach it? Could she hang on to it enough to pull it free? What if the keys had already fallen out? She stood at the very top of the slope, her back pressed against the rear wall of the shaft. Blankenship's heavy breathing seemed almost within arm's reach. Still, she could see nothing.

One try. One try and that would be it.

Expecting to connect with nothing but air, she braced her foot against the wall behind her and threw herself up and out. Blankenship screamed as her outstretched arms, flailing for his coat, collided with him. She hurtled on through the blackness, landing heavily on the unyielding slope and tumbling over and over toward the basement doorway. At the bottom of the slope she dropped out of the shaft, falling several feet from the rubble onto the basement floor. Air exploded from her lungs at the impact. She lay there, battered and sobbing, struggling to catch her breath, to regain her composure, to will herself to move. Suddenly she realized that she was clutching Blankenship's clinic coat.

The key ring was in the right-hand pocket.

Painfully she limped to the stairway and then made her way down to the subbasement. She called out Matt's name, and followed his voice to the room that had so nearly become their tomb. The darkness was suffocating.

"It's over," she whispered, touching his face with her fingertips. "I've got Blankenship's keys. Now we've got to get you out of here, and I've got to get to Annalee."

She kissed him, and then reached behind to where he was bound to the pipe.

"It's wire of some sort," he said. "It's cutting my wrists to shreds. I'm not sure you can do anything back there in this dark without pliers."

"Let me try."

"Sarah, Blankenship's a demon. He had Rosa and Warren Fezler killed. He wired explosives to the ignition on Colin Smith's boat, and then arranged for Ettinger to be arrested for it. He's engineered everything-everything… Singh is dead, too. Blankenship shot him and set it up to look like Ettinger did that one as well. He was just about home free. You were the last loose end and-ouch! Careful, that really hurts."

"Sorry. Matt, I can't do this. The wire's too tight…"

"Well, we've got forty minutes or so. Get hold of Paris. Have him stop the countdown and get some people down here. Is Blankenship dead?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Listen, there's a phone just outside the outer gate in the tunnel. I'll be right back."

"You'd better be," he said. "I don't like it here too much. I think it's a very unlucky spot."

She kissed his forehead, then moved as quickly as she could down the corridor and through the two security gates. Until she picked up the receiver, she hadn't considered that the house phone outside the second gate might be disconnected. The dial tone was a hymn.

"I need to reach Mr. Paris," she told the operator. "This is Dr. Baldwin. It's an emergency."

"He's in his office," she said. "I just put a call through to him. In fact, he's still talking."

"Break in," Sarah said.

In seconds, Glenn Paris came on the line. The moment she heard his voice, Sarah knew the nightmare was truly over. The last problem-the Chilton Building countdown-was under control. She gave him the briefest summary of what had transpired and asked him to send someone down to the Chilton subbasement with flashlights and a wire cutter.

"We'll also need a stretcher for Dr. Blankenship," she said. "And maybe one for Matt as well. I'm not sure he'll be able to walk. And I think we'll need an orthopedist. I don't know how we're going to get Eli up from where he is."

"Don't worry," Paris said. "I'll take care of everything. Just stay right where you are by the security gate. I'll stop the countdown, and I'll be down in a minute with help."

"Thank you."

"And Sarah-"

"Yes?"

"You've done a hell of a job."

"Thank you, sir. Please hurry. There's another problem going on right now with Annalee Ettinger. And to overcome it, I may need your help with Dr. Snyder."

"We'll be right there."

Sarah sighed and sank to the floor. Her jeans and shirt were torn. Her face, legs, and arms were bleeding from dozens of scrapes and cuts. But far more painful to her than any of her injuries was Matt's news about Rosa Suarez. Rosa had wanted so badly to have everything turn out all right.