Michael Palmer - The Last Surgeon

Three feet.

Nick closed his eyes and lunged for the canvas flap hanging in front of the Dumpster chute, barely aware of the pain in his arm. The flap gave way, and in an instant, he plunged into darkness, flying downward three stories inside Noreen’s makeshift trash-can slide.

The trip down was bruising. The hard rubber of the barrels gouged at his face and chest as he sped toward the disk of evening light at the bottom.

The Dumpster itself was hardly a sanctuary. It was half filled with splintered boards, broken glass, jagged metal, and nails.

Nick shot headfirst from the end of the tube, dropping two feet into the potentially lethal trash, shielding his face from the impact. When he hit, it was into a blanket of pink fiberglass insulation. Glass fragments embedded in the insulation tore at his skin. He rolled to the right as he landed, gashing his scalp just above one eyebrow on a strip of rusty metal. Blood began pouring into his eye.

His thoughts were fogged and his vision blurred from the combination of pain, blood, and what he had endured in Noreen Siliski’s office. Partially by feel, he found the Dumpster’s edge and began to climb out, jamming an exposed nail through his sneaker and into his foot. He cried out, but kept on scrambling.

He hit the asphalt of the parking lot heavily, and immediately toppled over, pawing at the blood that was oozing down into his eye. Closing that eye, he looked up for any sign of Koller and saw him ripping down the canvas covering the window. It was too gloomy to see if the nail that had pierced through the man’s hand was still lodged there. But then, with a warrior’s pride, the killer held it out for Nick to see that it was.

“You look bad, Doc,” he called out. “Real bad.”

God, he’s smiling! Nick realized.

Koller hoisted his gun and Nick took off running. Two shots snapped harmlessly into the asphalt several feet from him. He clambered for the woods, blood continuing to blur his vision, and reached the tree line knowing that although he was still alive, he was not in the least safe.

Koller would follow.

Weaving awkwardly, Nick hobbled across the parking lot. The impact of the asphalt on his injured foot sent jolts of pain up his leg. His upper arm was afire, and any number of lesser injuries were also making themselves known. Blood continued to flow down into his eye. It took most of a minute to reach the woods. He tangled with a wall of saplings and thick brush that lined the forest perimeter and lost his balance, falling face-first onto the rain-soaked ground. The damp leaves turned red with his blood. His face was muddied and bruised.

Keeping low to the forest floor, and running clumsily ahead, Nick ripped a strip of fabric from his shirt and tied a makeshift bandage around his head. Even with pressure in place, blood from the cut still oozed down into his eye. With branches snapping across his face, he risked a glance over his shoulder, but could not see his pursuer through the rain and mounting gloom.

Veering to his left, Nick tried to gauge where the road might be. The building housing Noreen’s office was an odd one, and quite isolated, as if a developer had bought a lot of land, built the first building of a planned office park, and then simply stopped. Nick sensed that he was heading not toward the highway, but deeper into the dense woods.

He thought about trying to find the road but rejected the notion and plunged ahead.

Another thirty or forty feet and he stopped and listened. The rain was continuing steadily, and he was breathing heavily, making it difficult to hear anything else. He held his breath and risked a furtive glance behind him. It took several seconds for him to make out the soft crunching of brush. Koller had traversed the parking lot and was moving stealthily but steadily toward him.

Hide or run?

Through the dark, he thought he saw the man’s silhouette. He cast about, trying to get a sense of his position. There really was no place to hide.

The darkness was his ally. His injuries were his foe. But Koller was hurt, too, he reminded himself.

Crawling forward on hands and knees, Nick waited until the trees grew taller and denser before rising to his feet again. His only chance was to push deeper into the darkening woods. The predator was closing in.

Ignoring the burning from his gunshot wound, and sacrificing his forearms to the whipping branches, Nick shielded his face and barreled ahead. Here, the forest floor was uneven, and decaying leaves hid sinkholes that with one unfortunate step could break an ankle. He accelerated toward a small clearing. That was when the ground dipped unexpectedly. He failed to see an exposed rock directly in his path. His foot caught the solidly embedded stone and he tumbled down a steep embankment, landing heavily on his back in the middle of a slow-moving stream. His head snapped against a rock with dizzying force.

The water instantly soaked through his shirt and jeans, weighing him down when he tried to stand. Again, he paused and listened. Again he heard branches breaking somewhere up the embankment behind him.

Damn.

For no well-conceived reason, he decided to let the bank of the stream be his guide. His lungs were burning now with each labored breath, and a painful stitch had developed in his right side.

Soaked through, he began following the stream as it widened and snaked its way through the forest in what seemed like an east-west flow. Dusk had given way to a deepening darkness. The going was slow. Twice the muddy bank gave way, dropping him into the water. Despite his intense exertion, he quickly began to chill. Now, though, when he stopped, he heard nothing except the spattering of rain and the white noise of insects.

Have I lost him?

Twenty feet… thirty… forty. Oblivious to the pain, Nick dove ahead.

Suddenly, from behind and to his right, he heard the crack of a gunshot followed by the hum of a bullet cutting through the heavy air. At almost the same moment, a small tree to his right splintered. Whirling, he saw Koller’s silhouette, perhaps a hundred yards away, climbing over a fallen log. Given the distance, the accuracy of the shot was astounding. Driven by new, intense urgency, he pushed forward.

Another shot zipped past, this one slicing into a tree, only inches above his head. The thought of hiding from the killer, even in the mounting darkness, vanished with that near miss. His only chance was to somehow get out of the woods to a neighborhood and call for help. It seemed, though it was probably totally irrational, that continuing to follow the water was his best chance.

Once again the storm intensified. Rain pelted his face, washing away the mud and blood. His injured foot ached with every step, sending hot needles up into his calf.

“Give me what I want and I promise your lady won’t be hurt.”

Koller’s taunts seemed to echo from every direction. Nick kept his vision focused forward as he thrashed ahead. He would have sacrificed himself for Jillian without hesitating, but if Koller even had her, he was bluffing about letting her live. Ramsland could never leave survivors now. Despite his bluster, he had never really intended to. There was too much blood on his hands to chance putting his patriotism to the test. He might believe in the horrible things he had done or authorized, but it was doubtful the electorate would.

Nick forged on for what he guessed to be a quarter of a mile without slowing down. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground in front of him as he dodged treacherous rocks and heavy roots. He had done well to avoid going down as the last fragments of light seeped from the forest. Several checks behind showed no sign of Koller, and Nick began allowing himself to believe he might have somehow lost the man.