Michael Palmer - Flashback

"I wish. But what about Toby Nelms?"

"What about him?"

"Frank, if what Zack believes is true, that child might not have until the first thing next week. Is there any way you could try and reason with Jason and Jack, just in case?"

"Jason's away, but if it will make you feel better about things, you and I can meet with Jack at, say, five o'clock today, right here."

"Thank you. Would you mind if Zack comes, too?"

"If you insist. Suzanne, you're one of the best things that has ever happened to this place. I would do anything I could to keep you here and happy. But now, if you'll pardon me, there is a meeting room filling up with people. We can plan on getting together again at five o'clock."

By then, his thoughts continued, I'm sure I will have come up with some more permanent way of dealing with both you and my brother. "Frank, I appreciate all of this very much, " she said, rising. In that moment, inexplicably, she began to sense that something was wrong-very wrong.

The whole session had gone much too smoothly. There was too great a difference between the man Zack had described firing him and the one she was confronting now. "Hey, no problem, " Frank was saying, his hand extended. "I'm as committed as you are to making sure this place is the best."

Suzanne took his hand and, for just a few seconds, continued to hold it.

There was an unnatural feel to it-a coolness, a tension.

"Frank, tell me one last thing, " she said, releasing his hand but keeping her eyes firmly fixed on his. "Were you responsible for all those rumors and stories that circulated about Guy?"

Frank held her gaze unwaveringly. "Absolutely not, " he said. In that instant, Suzanne knew. The unflinching darkness in his eyes, the earnest set of his face-it was a look that had confronted her before. Many times before. It was Paul!

"Frank, you're lying to me, aren't you? " she said, "Nonsense." He forced calm into his voice, but beneath his lightweight suit, he had begun to sweat. There was no way, he reaffirmed even more strongly, that Suzanne Cole was going to that board meeting. In the back of his desk drawer was a small revolver. Carefully, Frank eased the drawer open.

Then he stopped. If Zack was right, there was an easier, far easier, means of regaining control of the situation. It was certainly worth a try. "Suzanne, sit down, please, " he said calmly, rising from his own chair. Puzzled, she did as he asked. "There's something I want you to listen to."

"Okay, but I don't see what-"

"Please."

"A-All right."

She followed him with her eyes as he crossed to his stereo, switched on the tape deck, and replaced the cassette that he had listened to earlier. After just a few notes, she recognized the music. "Have you heard this before? " Frank asked, returning to his desk and opening the drawer another inch. Suzanne did not answer. Instead, she began to stare at the large aerial photo of the hospital complex. The colors were growing more and more intense. Get up! her mind screamed. Get up and run! Her legs would not respond. "Well, have you? " he asked again. His voice was rumbling and muted, his face twisted in a strange, bemused smile. "Well, I'll be damned, " she heard him say. Suzanne rubbed at her eyes. The sounds in the room-Frank's breathing, her own, gave way to the music, which itself drifted farther and farther away. Then she heard the voice-slow and patient and reassuring. "All right, Suzanne, now I want you to count back from one hundred…"

"One hundred, " she heard herself say. "Go on… go on."

"Ninety-nine… ninety-eight The blue Johnny covering her was pulled away, exposing her breasts. She shivered at her nakedness and the sudden chill. 71 "Ninety-seven… ninety-six… "She's under, Jason."

"Excellent. Let's get started, then."

"No, Jason, " she begged as russet anesthe ic was swabbed over her breast. "Please wait. It hasn't worked yet. The anesthe ic hasn't worked."

"Turn the music up a bit. Fine, that's fine. Okay, then, knife."

"No, wait! Ninety-five!.. Ninety-four! Please hurry, please work."

Overhead, the bright, saucer light flashed on. Gloved hands appeared just below Jason Mainwaring's sterile, blue eyes. Nestled in the right hand was a scalpel. In agonizing slow motion it drifted down toward her.

"Jason, no! " she screamed as the blade cut into the skin by her shoulder, releasing a spurt of crimson. The pain intensified as the scalpel began slicing a slow arc around the base of her breast. But before she could scream, a gag was pulled tightly between her teeth and tied behind her head, and her arms were bound just as vigorously to her sides. Soundlessly, praying for the relief of unconsciousness, Suzanne endured the agony of the surgical removal of her breast. And when the dissection was complete, she looked down at herself in wide-eyed terror.

Where once there had been skin and breast tissue and a nipple, now there was only a gaping, bloody crater. In that moment, amidst a final, silent scream, blackness mercifully intervened. Fascinated by what he was observing, Frank set the stereo playing Fantasia on Greensleeves for automatic repeat and turned up the volume. For once, at least, his goddamn brother had been something of a help. Suzanne lay semiconscious on her back on the rug, twitching and shuddering from time to time, and crying out as much as the handleerchief tied tightly through her mouth would allow. Frank loosened the sleeves of his suitcoat, which he had used to bind her arms, and then cut a bath towel into strips. It was probably overkill, he realized, even to bother tying her up.

Mainwaring's syrupy music was doing as fine a job of immobilizing her as any truss. Still, at least until she could be removed from the hospital to some safe-and permanent-resting place, it was worth the extra precaution. He rolled her onto her side and bound her hands tightly behind her.

Then he laid her back and secured her ankles. Her eyes remained closed, but her restless movements had increased-almost in reflection. to the intensity of the music. Frank knelt beside her. Even under such difficult circumstances, she was a real beauty. Brains and looks-Leigh Baron without the hard edge. When Suzanne had first come to Sterling, he had made several carefully gauged attempts to start something up between them. Each time, she had politely but firmly refused him. It angered him that, after just a few weeks in town, his brother was already getting inside her pants. Well, so be it, he thought. The two of them deserved one another. And as soon as the board meeting was over, he would set about seeing to it that they got to spend an eternity together. He had tried to play it easy with both of them, but that approach had nearly blown up in his face. They had forced him to take off the gloves, and now they would see what kind of competitor Frank Iverson really was. He had always played to win, and now there was far, far too much at stake even to think of backing off. He reached down and ran his fingertips over Suzanne's face and then down over her breasts. She really did have a phenomenal body. Phenomenal! Lisette, Suzanne-Zack was spiteful enough to be planning on screwing them both, if he hadn't done so already. No way, Zack-o, Frank thought as he dragged Suzanne into his bathroom and set her on the damp floor of his shower stall. No way you're ever going to humiliate me like that. He smoothed out his suitcoat and then combed his hair. The music reverberated through the tiled room. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, Suzanne continued to jerk spasmodically.

Perhaps, Frank thought, after the meeting, before he set about arranging an accident of some sort for her and his brother, he would take a few minutes to enjoy the favors she had denied him. To miss such an opportunity would be a shame. Besides, he mused as he checked himself in the mirror, a moment before setting off for the board meeting, it would be a crime to waste such romantic music.