Michael Palmer - Flashback

"I asked if she believed you."

"Not completely, but after I tell her what I've learned, I'm certain she'll-"

"Not completely," Mainwaring cut in snidely. "Iverson, I sure hope you have one hell of a lawyer. Have you mentioned this nonsense to your brother?"

Zack glanced at his watch. The board meeting was already under way.

"Mainwaring, this isn't nonsense. If that child dies, if anyone who received that drug dies, then it's murder."

"Don't threaten me, " the surgeon said, shaking a finger at Zack. "Don't you ever threaten me. Now, I asked if you had shared this hokum with your brother."

"I did. Dammit, Mainwaring, doesn't any of this have an impact on-"

"When did you tell him?"

"Just a while ago."

"And his response?"

"Mainwaring, there's no time for this-"

"What was his response?"

"He ignored me."

"Just as I intend to do, " Mainwaring said. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

He rose. "Mainwaring, you can't do this." Zack said loudly. The grizzled observers' interest heightened, and one of them sputtered on the contents of the brown bag. "Can, and am," Mainwaring said just as loudly. "Now you just quiet down, Iverson, or you'll have even more charges to deal with than you already do."

"Mainwaring, are you some kind of fucking monster?"

The surgeon turned and headed for his car. "Well, are you? " Zack screamed after him. Mainwaring, now at his car, turned back and shook a finger at him. "Watch it, " he said venomously. "Just fuckin' watch it."

The sun, which had been gliding in and out of hiding all morning, slid behind a dense billow of gray cloud, instantly cooling the air. Zack pulled the camper onto a dirt track off the Androscoggin road and worked his way upward through a forest still sodden by the midnight rain. He felt ill over his unsuccessful encounter with Mainwaring, and could not dispel his anger-not only at the surgeon, but at his own handling of the man. Had he been too aggressive? Too abrasive? Would his arguments have been more effective if he had simply brought Mainwating to the hospital and let him see Toby Nelms for himself.? The questions burned in his thoughts as he picked his way uphill toward the Dortb side of the hospital. Only one thing was certain now. With Frank an enemy, and Mainwaring unwilling to expose himself to charges, Jack Pearl was all the hope the child had left. And without either of the other two men to back him up in a confrontation with the anesthesiologist, that hope was slim, indeed. Through the trees ahead, Zack could see the top two floors of the hospital. The broad glass windows were, he noticed for the first time, tinted just enough to give them an ebony cast. The effect was cold and uninviting. He moved up to the edge of the forest and flattened himself against a thick beech tree. To his left, just beyond an expanse of grass and past the corner of the building, was the patio of the cafeteria. A group of nurses sat laughing and talking at the only table in his line of sight. The entire north side of the hospital was deserted.

Cautiously, he picked his way along the treeline toward the corner farthest from the patio. He would have to dash across, perhaps, twenty yards of lawn to reach the delivery door. From there, he would walk nonchalantly through the kitchen, searching for a route to the corridor that did not take him through the crowded cafeteria itself Ahead of him the tinted windows of the hospital glinted ominously in the muted midday light. If there were faces behind those windows watching him, he would have no way of knowing. His heart was pounding in his ears, more so than even on the most treacherous climbs. A crouch, a final check of the building line, and Zack bolted ahead. He saw the blur of movement and color to his right at virtually the same moment he heard the barked command. "Stop!

Right there, right now!"

Startled, Zack stumbled forward, slamming heavily against the brick facing and nearly falling as he spun toward the voice. Standing not ten feet away, brandishing a heavy nightstick, was the security guard, Henry, the pockmarked behemoth who had been present at Guy's death and again at his funeral. "I been following you, Doc, " he said, rubbing a hand over the side of his nearly nonexistent neck. "From that window right there, I been following you all the way across."

"Jesus, Henry, you just scared the hell out of me, " Zack said, still gasping for breath. His shoulder was throbbing viciously at the point where it had collided with the building. Gingerly, he raised his arm.

Pain stopped it just below a horizontal position. He'd almost dislocated it. A first-degree separation at least, he guessed. "Didn't mean to scare ya, Doc, " the huge guard said, lowering his stick nearly, but not completely, to his side. "Just to stop ya."

"Henry, I've got to get in there, " Zack said. "Mr. Iverson left strict orders not to let you. That's why I was called in."

"There's a kid dying in there, Henry. A kid that only I can help.

You've got to let me pass."

"Can't, " the man said simply. "If I do, it's my job. No discussion, no excuses. That's what my boss said. I got three kids, and nothin' to support em with exceptin' what God gave me from the neck down. Jobs like this one don't come along that often to a man like me."

Zack started to argue, but then, just as quickly, stopped himself. He pictured the guard at Guy's funeral-his ill-fitting blue suit, his quiet, anxious little wife. The man was right. The job probably was a godsend to them and their children. And too many people had been hurt already. He would find another way to contact Suzanne, or perhaps a way to lure Jack Pearl outside the protection of the building. "All right, Henry, " he said. "I won't try to argue with you."

He turned and started back toward the woods. "Doc, wait…"

Zack looked back over his injured shoulder. "How old's the kid?"

"He's eight, Henry."

"I see… My Kenny's almost nine… Doc, what in the heck happened between you and your brother, anyhow?"

Zack laughed ruefully. "It's a long story, Henry."

"You know, he's not a very nice man, your brother."

"No, Henry, " Zack said. "I guess he isn't."

"He doesn't think much of people like me."

"Perhaps he doesn't." For a few moments, there was only the sound of the wind through the leaves overhead. "Doc, " the guard said suddenly, "why don't you just go ahead on in there and do whatever it is you have to do."

Zack eyed the man. "You mean that?"

"Talking to me and my wife the way you did at Doc Beaulieu's funeral-that was a really nice thing to do."

"Henry, your job may be on the line."

"I'll find another one if I have to.

You know, I really did think I was responsible for Doc Beaulieu's death.

I'm big, and I'm tough when I have to be, but I'm not mean. I couldn't eat or sleep after he died-that is, until you talked to me."

"If anyone was responsible, Henry, " Zack said, "it was my brother. He's the one who started all those rumors about Dr. Beaulieu."

"I believe it. You go on in there." Zack started toward the door. "You sure? " he asked. "Do it for Doc Beaulieu, " Henry said. Fony-nine years. Had Guy lived, Clothilde Beaulieu suddenly realized, they would have celebrated their forty-ninth anniversary in just one week. How strange that now, standing behind her chair, surveying the room of blank, bored, and patronizing faces, she should feel as close to her husband as she had at any time during those five decades. He had stood in rooms like this one many times over the past two years, confronting these faces, or faces like them. And although she had never been there with him, Clothilde knew that she was feeling exactly as he had. She knew, too, that even though there was little or no chance she would prevail, he was, at that moment, by her side, and he was proud."… For many years after my husband opened his practice in Sterling, " she was saying, "he was one of only three doctors in town, and the only surgeon for almost a hundred miles. He was a kind and skilled and caring man, who did nothing-nothing-to deserve the kind of treatment he was to receive from the administration of this institution and the corporation whose philosophy it has adopted…"