David Morrell - Desperate Measures

Amid the drone of fluorescent lights and the pungent odor of antiseptics, Pittman frowned in response to Jill’s frown as she came back from speaking to a nurse at the counter outside the cardiac-care unit.

“What’s the matter?” Pittman’s hands suddenly felt cold. “Don’t tell me he died.”

“He’s gone.”

Mrs. Page stepped forward, ashen. “He is dead?”

“I mean he literally isn’t here. He’s gone. He left,” Jill said. “The nurse looked in on him at five A.M. His bed was empty. He’d pulled an IV needle from his arm. He’d turned off his heart monitor so it wouldn’t sound a warning when he pulled the sensor pads from his chest. His clothes were in a cupboard in his room. He put them on and snuck out of the hospital.”

“It’s a wonder he had the strength,” Pittman said. “What the hell did he think he was doing?”

George shook his head. “Last night, it was exhaustion. But if he’s not careful, he’ll give himself a heart attack.”

“Obviously he believes the risk is worth it,” Jill said. “To get back at them. The remaining two grand counselors. I can’t imagine anything else that would have made him act so obsessively.”

“Damn it, now we’ve got a wild card out there,” Pittman said. “He’s so out of control, he scares me. God knows what he might do to interfere with our plan.”

“But we can’t let him worry us,” Mrs. Page said. “We have to go ahead. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Pittman stepped forward. “Mrs. Page, how are your connections with the Washington Post ? Do you think you can get someone in the obituary department to do us a favor?”

Eight hours later, in midafternoon, Pittman was back in Fairfax, Virginia, quickly passing through it, taking 29 west, then 15 north toward Eustace Gable’s estate. During his second telephone call to Gable, which Pittman had made exactly at ten as promised, using a pay phone in Washington, Gable had given him instructions how to get to the estate. As Pittman drove toward the rendezvous, squinting from the sun, he glanced toward his rearview mirror and was reassured to see that despite congested traffic, the gray Ford van remained behind him, Jill visible behind the steering wheel. The van and the equipment inside it had been rented using George’s credit card, and Pittman thought morbidly that George certainly deserved a bonus, the trick being for all of them to stay alive so he could receive it. Pittman passed farms and strips of woods, the sunlight making them seem golden, and he prayed that he would have a chance to see them again, to see Jill again. He thought about Jeremy, and as much as he missed his son, he felt strangely close to him, as if Jeremy were with him, helping him. Give me strength, son.

As instructed, Pittman came to a sign-EVERGREEN COUNTRY CLUB-then headed to the left, trees casting shadows from the sun. A mile later, he went right, along an oak-lined gravel road. This time when he glanced toward his rearview mirror, he saw Jill stopping the van, parking it among bushes at the side of the gravel road. She was doing what they had agreed upon. Nonetheless, he wished she didn’t have to. Until now he hadn’t felt alone.

He rounded a curve and proceeded up a gentle rise flanked by April-lush fields, and he couldn’t help contrasting his increasing fear with the peaceful setting. More, he couldn’t help contrasting his apprehension as he approached Gable’s estate with the indifference to his safety that he had felt a week earlier when he had snuck into the estate in Scarsdale to find out why Jonathan Millgate had been removed from the hospital.

Back then, Pittman’s only motive had been to get a story for Burt Forsyth, to relieve his obligations to his friend. Obsessed with the need to commit suicide, Pittman had felt liberated from apprehension as he had crept through the rainy darkness, circling the Scarsdale mansion, finding Millgate surrounded by a nurse, a doctor, and the grand counselors in a makeshift hospital room off a deck above the five-stall garage. The effort had been easy, the sense of danger nonexistent, because Pittman hadn’t cared what might happen to him. Prepared to kill himself, he had felt immune to any risks.

Not anymore.

At wide intervals, mansions were set back from the road. White wooden fences enclosed horses. Ahead on the left, Pittman saw a high stone wall. He came to a closed metal gate and stopped within view of a security camera mounted to the left on top of the wall. As instructed, he leaned out his driver’s window so that the camera could have a good look at him.

Immediately the gate whirred open. Pittman drove through, checking his rearview mirror, noting that the gate closed behind him while he followed a paved lane through spacious grassland. The lane went over a hill, and on the other side, snuggled into the slope, just below the crest on the right, was a distinctive, sprawling one-story complex that reminded Pittman of homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The main impression was of limestone, terraces, and beams, and the way it conformed to the landscape, aided by plentiful trees and shrubbery, would make it invisible from the golf course below, Pittman guessed.

From the moment that the gate had opened, allowing him onto the estate, Pittman had noted the absence of guards. To anyone who might be watching from the road, there was nothing out of the ordinary. To all appearances, Pittman was an unremarkable visitor who knew Eustace Gable well enough that the gate had been opened without delay. The closer Pittman came to the house, taking a downward curve in the lane, proceeding to the right, passing fir trees, the more Pittman was struck by the lack of activity on the property. Given the size of the estate, he would have expected gardeners at least, maintenance personnel, someone to take care of the horses that came into view below him in a paddock next to a long, low stable rimmed by more fir trees and made from limestone, matching the house. But the place seemed deserted. There weren’t any cars, which presumably had been placed in a garage on the opposite side of the house.

Perhaps the lack of guards was intended to make him feel unthreatened, Pittman thought. To encourage him not to change his mind. To lure him into a trap. But if the purpose was to lull him, the opposite effect had been achieved. Instead of lowering his defenses, the eerie solitude intensified Pittman’s apprehension, sending warning signals throughout his body, compacting his muscles.

He reached a circular driveway in front of the house, stopped the car, and got out, surveying the apparently deserted area. He heard water trickling from somewhere, presumably a fountain. He heard a breeze whispering through the fir trees. A horse whinnied.

A door opened, and Pittman, who had glanced toward the stable on the slope below him, whirled toward the house. An elderly man, narrow-faced, with white hair, spectacles, and wrinkle-pinched features, stepped from a polished wooden doorway onto a stone terrace. Tall and slender, he wore a dark blue three-piece suit that conformed to his rigidly straight posture. Pittman recognized him from photographs and the incident at the Scarsdale estate. Eustace Gable.

“Four P.M. precisely. I admire punctuality.” Even at a distance, it was obvious that Gable’s chest heaved. “We have much to discuss. Come in, Mr. Pittman.”

Pittman took one last look around and, seeing no threat, climbed steps to the terrace. He frowned when Gable offered his hand.

“This won’t do, Mr. Pittman. Rudeness is a poor way to begin a negotiation.”

“I’m not used to civility from people who want to have me killed.”