Michael Palmer - Flashback

Desperately, he tried reminding himself that he was too tired and in far too much pain to maintain any semblance of a positive, objective outlook. Perhaps it would take several hours to see any real change.

Perhaps several days. And perhaps, he acknowledged, it was better, anyhow, to expect the worst. "One minute."

He signaled with his flash, and glanced about the unit. Mainwaring…

Pearl… Suzanne… Toby It was all so bizarre, so sad. He had come back to Sterling with such high hopes, so many expectations. "Thirty seconds Never, he vowed. No more expectations He heard the doors to the darkened ICU glide open. Then there were footsteps. "Fifteen seconds."

He turned and peered through the darkness, past Mainwaring, toward the doors. Just inside the glass, he could see the silhouette of a woman in a business suit. Barreling past her was Frank. "Wake him up, Jack!"

Zack whispered urgently. "Quick! Wake him up,9 "What in the hell is going on here? " Frank bellowed. "Turn these lights on!

Turn them on right now!"

Jack Pearl stepped back from Toby's bed. The plastic syringe slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor just as the lights in the unit came on. Frank, his fists balled at his side, stood beside the nurses' station. "You've been fired, " he snapped at Zack. "Get the fuck out of this hospital before I call the police."

"No way, Frank."

Frank turned to the unit secretary. "Call security, and then call the police. Tell them that a physician who has been fired from this hospital is refusing to leave. 9' The woman did not move. "Do it! " Beneath his tan, Frank was livid. One nurse rushed to close the glass partitions to other patients' rooms. Zack stepped from Toby's cubicle to confront his brother. "Frank, listen, " he said. "Shut up! " Frank shouted, looking wildly about. Leigh Baron moved a few steps closer. Behind her, a wheelchair appeared. "I tried to tell you, Frank, " Jack Pearl whined.

"I tried to tell you we should have waited. "Jack, shut up…"

"… We should have been doing a retrospective study. "Goddamn you, Jack! "

"… But you wouldn't listen. You wouldn't give me a chance to fix my Serenyl."

Frank stepped forward and punched the anesthesiologist squarely in the face. Pearl's head shot back. Blood sprayed across his face as he dropped to the floor. Frank's fine features were twisted and distorted with rage. "Get out! " he screamed. "All of you. You're fired! This is my hospital, dammit! You're all fired!"

"Frank, stop, " Zack said quietly. "It's over. Stop and listen. You've done terrible things here-sad and very terrible things… Frank, don't you see?

Look around. Look at all these people. Don't you see that it's over for you now? It's over."

"Damn you! " Frank shrieked as he hurtled over a chair and leapt at his brother. "I'll kill you! I swear, I'll fucking kill you!"

The force of his attack sent both men smashing through the plate glass partition of an empty cubicle. A nurse screamed. Zack's injured shoulder struck the floor, exploding with nauseating pain.

Dazed, he rolled to one side, over a mass of broken glass that cut into his arms and back. He stumbled to his feet, staggering drunkenly. Before his vision could clear, Frank was on him again, snarling like an animal, his hands viselike around Zack's throat, driving him backward.

Powerless, Zack's arms went limp. The pressure of Frank's thumbs against his windpipe was inexorable, and he knew, as he listened for the snap of his own larynx, that he was going to die. At the moment that his legs gave out, he soiled himself. The pain gave way, and he sensed himself falling, drifting. Then the back of his head slammed against the corner of the metal bedframe. There was a blinding, searing flash. And then, instantly, there was nothing. The light, a soft, warm glow, washed over the darkness in waves.

One by one, faces began floating through the void. Zack followed the images with a detached curiosity, pleased when he was able to spot an old teacher or relative or classmate among them. Gradually, the faces grew more defined-and more current. An anatomy professor at Yale… a Wellesley coed from-from where?… a climbing partner in Wyoming…

Then Annie Doucette… Toby… Suzanne… and finally, Frank, his face, pinched and crimson with hatred, spinning through the glow like a dervish. I'll kill you… I'll kill you… "I'll kill you. I'll kill you." At first the voice was Frank's. Then, it was Zack's own, moaning the words over and over again. "Iverson. Iverson, open your eyes. It's all right. You've had a concussion."

"Concussion?"

"That's right, Iverson. Look up here."

Zack's eyes fluttered and then opened. For several seconds, the face above him remained blurred. Then its features grew more distinct.

"Ormesby?"

The surgeon nodded. "You hit your head. You've been out for over an hour."

"An hour?

Suzanne He struggled to rise, but quickly fell back. "Easy, Iverson.

Easy."

Ormesby put a calming hand on his arm. Zack's thoughts began to clear.

He was in bed, on a monitor, in the intensive care unit. An IV was draining into his arm. "Did I have a seizure?"

"From what I hear, you did. Probably from the concussion. The CT scanner's warmed up and waiting for us right now."

"Don't need one."

"Iverson, you're the patient here, not the doctor. Got that?

I've changed my mind about your being a nut case. Don't make me change it back."

Zack nodded meekly. His bead was throbbing, and jabs of pain were beginning to spark from half a dozen other places on his body. The discomfort helped clear his mind. "Suzanne…" he said. "Did she-"

"Right there, Iverson. Just turn your head to the right."

Through a brief, machine-gun burst, Zack did as the surgeon asked.

Suzanne, wrapped in a blanket, her fv on a transport pole, waved at him from a chair not four feet away. She looked pale, but otherwise seemed none the worse for her ordeal, "Hi, Doc, " she said. "You come here often?"

"God bless you, Clarkin, " Zack murmured. "What?"

"Oh, nothing. How's Toby?"

"Still out, Zack. But he's lighter, I think he may be coming around, but it's hard to tell. The people from Boston are due here any minute to get him."

Behind Suzanne, near the nurses' station, Zack could see the Judge watching intently. "Listen, " Ormesby said. "I'm going to get them ready for your scan. Afterward, I have a few dozen stitches to put in you."

"My shoulder, I think it's-"

"We know. Sam Christian's already seen you. Now just relax, will you?"

"Where's Frank?" ("In jail by now, I would guess. You owe that big guard over there a hell of a thank-you, Iverson. Apparently everyone was sort of paralyzed. If he hadn't pulled Frank off you when he did, I think your ticketmight have been canceled."

"Bless you, Henry, " Zack rasped, rubbing at the soreness in his neck.

"Now, just stay put. I'll be back."

"Stay put, " Zack echoed. He waited until the surgeon had left and then reached over for Suzanne's hand. She inched her chair closer to him.

"Sorry I can't get up, " she said. "I get dizzy when I try."

"Why don't you go back to bed. We'll talk later."

"You okay?"

"I feel like shit, if you want to know the truth. But I'm okay. Fucking Frank nearly killed us both."

"Almost. But it's over now, Zack."

"What time is it, anyway?"

"Two. Almost two."

"Damn."

"What is it?"

"The board meeting… Do you know what happened there?"

She squeezed his hand. "I think your father wants to talk to you about that. I'll see you after your test."

"Sure. Meanwhile, stay away from the radio."

Suzanne smiled. "Not to worry, " she said. "Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have to, um, face the music."