Michael Palmer - Extreme Measures

"A wonderful idea," Eric said. "Let's do it now."

Arms folded, Devine turned to him.

"I think it's time you left," he said. "You have learned all there is to learn here."

"Mr. Devine, please," Laura said.

"No. I have work to do. Now, would you please go." Laura and Eric exchanged looks, and silently decided that this was not the time for a major confrontation.

"You know we'll be back, don't you," Laura said.

"My brother is all the family I have, and we're going to find him or learn what happened to him."

"I wish you luck," Donald Devine said.

The two of them had started toward the door when Eric turned back.

"Donald, I'd suggest you go right out and get yourself some more handkerchiefs," he said. "Before we're through, you're going to need a bunch of them."

For nearly a minute after the door closed behind his two visitors, Donald Devine stood statuelike by his desk.

"You can come out now," he said finally.

From the back room a tall man with broad shoulders and thick, graying red hair emerged. He wore chinos and a turtleneck that seemed to be stretched to the limit across his chest.

"Y-you see, Les?" Devine said, shifting uncomfortably. "I told you I could handle them."

"Yeah, Donald," the man said. "You did great. Just great.

Devine, who barely reached the man's chin, backed away.

"You really mean that?" he asked.

"Course I do, Don," the tall man said with a mirthless smile.

"Do you think they'll be back?"

"Now why would I think that, Don?"

"I… I don't know."

"You stayed so cool that I'm sure they don't suspect a thing."

"L-look," Devine said. "I've done exactly what you all told me to do."

"And been damn well paid for it."

"I just don't want any trouble. Those people at the hospital told me this wouldn't happen."

The man reached in his pocket, pulled out one of Laura's posters, and handed it to the mortician.

"Are your two visitors right?" he asked. "Is this the man?"

"I… I think so."

"Don, that's not good enough. This is the bastard who filmed us that night. Now the question is: Is he the man you brought to Charity or not?"

"Maybe."

The redhead grabbed Devine's tie and twisted it tightly around his fist, nearly lifting the little man off the floor.

"No 'maybe's."' "Y-yes. Yes, it's him," Devine croaked.

The man loosened his grip and went to the phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"Who do you think, Don?"

"Dr. Barber?"

"Good guess. If you're right, and this is the guy, then we don't have anything to worry about."

"Listen, I have nearly two hundred dollars in phone bills and another two hundred in gas that no one's paid me for yet."

"Don, just shut up." The man picked up the phone, and then he smiled.

"How ironic," he muttered. "Sandy North almost blows our whole operation, takes out two of Gambone's best men, and then ends up shuffling around in pajamas at Charity. I guess there is a God after all."

He stayed on the phone for just two minutes.

Then he slammed the receiver down.

"The bastard's gone," he said. "Escaped."

"That's not possible, is it?"

"I just said it happened, didn't I? So I guess it's possible."

His face was crimson.

"I don't like this," Devine said, again beginning to mop his brow. "I … I don't like this at all."

The man appraised him, his lips pulled back in an odd, icy grin.

"I know you don't, Donald," he said. "I know you don't.

Dr. Roderick Corcoran held appointments to the pathology staffs of all the medical schools in the city. A medical examiner for nearly thirty years, he was, in the words of one police official, long on experience but short on enthusiasm. In fact, the call that had brought him to the White Memorial autopsy suite had interrupted a session with the architect who was designing his retirement home on Cape Cod.

Now, as he completed his notes on the external examination of the body of Loretta Leone, Corcoran wrestled with the decision of whether or not it was worth adding a set of solar panels to the south roof.

Behind him, the White Memorial autopsy technician, Sang Huang, was preparing to make the huge "Y" incision that.would expose the woman's chest and abdominal contents. Sang Huang was nervous. After a four-month apprenticeship in the department, he was doing his first unsupervised case. He was a superstitious man, and not that comfortable around corpses. But the job had nearly doubled his salary, and for that kind of money he was willing to endure a lot.

He paced from one side of the steel autopsy table to the other, wondering whether he should wait for the pathologist's order, or simply proceed on his own.

This was not the case Huang wanted to start on.

The examiner was a man he didn't know. Everything seemed rushed and disorganized. And the corpse was fresher than any he had ever dealt with. He glanced down at the body. The skin was waxen and uniformly pale. There were none of the external signs of death that he was used to-no fatal wounds, no rigor mortis, no dependent lividity.

Involuntarily, he shuddered. excuse please, Docta," he ventured, "you want I start here now?"

"Whassat?" Corcoran glanced over his shoulder.

"Oh, sure, kid, sure. Get me six vials of blood from her heart, then set everything out on the table. I'll be done with this goddam paperwork in a minute."

Huang hesitated, then shrugged and used a scalpel to make incisions from each of the corpse's shoulders to the upper breastbone, then down past the navel to the top of the pelvic bone. At the touch of the blade, the skin beneath it seemed to tighten before falling away. Again, Huang shuddered. There was more bleeding from the incision than he had ever seen before. Much, more.

He glanced over at Corcoran, who was still engrossed in his writing. The last thing Huang wanted was to look uncertain or incompetent. He was nervous.

That was all. With a resigned sigh he took the huge bone shears, forced them through the thick intercostal muscles, and snipped through the ribs where they intersected with the breastbone. Midway through the procedure, he felt certain the woman had moved. It took every bit of his courage to continue. He worked his hand beneath the left side of the breastbone, and then pulled it up, exposing the heart.

Instantly, bile welled in Huang's throat. He vomited, and collapsed to the floor.

Roderick Corcoran whirled at the commotion and rushed to the autopsy table. Loretta Leone's steadily beating heart gleamed obscenely beneath the bright overhead lights.

"Oh, my God " Corcoran cried. "Oh, my God!"

At that moment, a dreadful gurgling moan-a cry that seemed to come from the very depths of hell welled up from the woman's throat. Her body stiffened, then went limp. Her shimmering heart quivered, then stopped.

Reflexively, Corcoran reached down to attempt cardiac massage.

But just as quickly he stopped. With the chest cage mutilated, and no help available, there was no sense in it.

He bent down by his prostrate assistant and assured himself that the man's pulse was strong. Then, bathed in a cold sweat, his hands shaking, he skimmed through the woman's chart looking for a name.

After a final nervous glance at the corpse on his autopsy table, he snatched up the phone.

"Page operator," he said angrily, "get me Dr. Marshall. Dr. Reed Marshall."

Eddie Garcia stretched the stiffness from his neck and shoulders and dropped his rig into fifth for the climb into the Rockies. The night was coal-black, and he was down to one staticfilled country/western station, but thanks to a decent night's sleep at his mother's and a few tablets of "Trucker's Friend," he felt keen and alert. It was a good thing, too, because the man he had picked up, wandering along a deserted stretch of Highway 163 hadn't spoken ten words in almost as many hours.