Michael Palmer - The First Patient

Kidnapping? Illegal alien trafficking? Pedophilia? Statutory rape?

She reached across her notes to the corner of her desk and extracted a letter from its envelope. It was the second time she had read it that night but possibly the twentieth since she had received it about a year ago.

Dear Cro ,

Do people still call you Cro? I used to think that was the coolest nickname in the world.

Surprise! It's me, Janie, this time coming to you from beautiful downtown Bakersfield, home of The Driller Diner, where I am currently employed waitressing tables. The only thing here less appetizing than the patrons is the food.

It's been a few years, so I hope this address in Texas is still a good one to get this to you. As for me, this is like the tenth city I've lived in since I got shoved out of my job in the ICU at Shitcan General Hospital, and onto the street for doing exactly nothing wrong. Needless to say, since the hammer fell I never have gotten my nurse's license back. I've had a lot of lousy jobs like this one, but that's okay because I've never been able to hang on to any of them for very long. You know, depression, meds, worse depression, more meds.

The reason I'm writing is that my sister sent me the obituary on Dr. Numbnuts Corcoran, the incompetent bastard who started it all. Two columns and a photo in the L.A. Times. No mention at all of the lives he took or the one-mine-that he and his cronies in the Cognac and Cuban Cigar Club ruined. Well, at least it was cancer. I hope it was a slow and painful kind. I hope it for all of us.

Thank you for trying to fight them, Cro. At least you tried. That's more than anyone else can say, and plenty besides you knew I didn't do anything wrong. Thank you for trying. I don't blame you for bailing in the end. I never did. I hope you know that. You tried.

Take care. I hope whatever you're doing, you're happy. Me? I get to go into L.A. every few months and see how much my kids have grown. I was always a good mom and I still love them no matter what.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Janie

Keep fighting the good fight.

By the time Alison had finished reading, the Merlot had kicked in. Good thing. Sleep wasn't going to come easily. Now, as she padded unevenly to bed, she was grateful that fade to black was only minutes away.

She was in over her head-maybe way over. In the end, if she kept pushing, she might well end up in Janieville, waiting tables or working at Wal-Mart and wondering what in the hell had happened to her life. Had Treat Griswold been an L.A. surgeon, he most certainly would have been a member of the Four Cs. In the Secret Service, he was The Man-respected, even revered. Now, she was contemplating trying to take him down.

There was still time to just drop the whole thing and take the low road out of town and back to the desk in San Antonio. There was still time…

"Baby, I want to spend some time upstairs with Beatriz."

"Donnie, honey, it is one o'clock in the morning. She's sleeping."

"So, she'll wake up. I'll be gone all day tomorrow. There'll be plenty of time for her to sleep then. I've been working really hard lately, and I need a back rub."

"I can give you one. I know just how you like them."

"I want her to know how I like them. I want her to know how I like everything. You know the rules. Your time with me is coming to an end. It's your job to help me get her ready. Then it is your job to manage things until Beatriz is ready to take over for you with whoever follows her."

"That is what I'm doing, yes?"

"Yes, baby. You're doing a good job as long as you understand the way things work here."

"I do. When the time comes I will be ready to leave."

"That time's still a ways off. Now go and wake Beatriz and bring her upstairs to the room. I'm going to shower. Then I'll be up. I want her showered, too."

"Her hair also?"

"If you think so."

"I understand."

"Excellent. I love it when you understand."

"I did good telling you about the woman in the nail place, yes?"

"You did good… maybe very good depending on what fingerprints we find on that bottle of nail polish I bought from Viang."

"Marooned on a Desert Isle. That is what she chose. Women notice things like that."

"Marooned on a Desert Isle," echoed Donald Greenfield, running his hand over Constanza's firm breasts and down her lean, cocoa body to the smoothly waxed mound between her thighs. "We shall see what tales our little bottle has to tell us."

The nightmare must end…

It was everything Gabe could do to keep from racing over to the White House at 2:00 A.M. to inspect the third photo from the right on his office wall. He had enjoyed looking over at the black-and-white studies but was embarrassed now that he had never examined them in any detail and had no idea that Jim Ferendelli was the photographer. Given the quality of the sketch of Lily Sexton and of the landscape by the upstairs window at the physician's house, little about the man's creative abilities was surprising.

More exciting than being contacted by Ferendelli, though, was the knowledge that he was alive. It would be difficult to keep such good news from the president.

Ultimately, Gabe accepted that after yet another long, emotionally grueling day what he needed more than anything else right now was sleep. As excited as he was to be moving closer to the end of the Ferendelli mystery, learning what meeting place his predecessor had chosen could hold until morning. Gabe already had plans to check the president over first thing and to make an item-by-item approval or rejection of his typically overloaded schedule. He also had to sign out to the covering doc and to get Drew's approval to travel "out of range" to Lily Pad Stables from late morning until what would probably turn out to be early evening.

Heavy-lidded, he read Ferendelli's urgent note one more time.

We must meet.

Tell no one.

Come alone.

Go to the office we both have occupied.

The meeting time is to be exactly twenty-four hours from now.

In the office there are four framed photos taken by me. Examine the third photo from the right. I will meet you beneath that structure.

The nightmare must end.

J.F.

Gabe managed four dreamless hours of sleep, after which it looked as if he hadn't once shifted position. He awoke wondering if the man who had tried to kill him and the one who had attacked Kyle were one and the same. The notion made little sense, but until he and Jim Ferendelli stood face-to-face, Gabe knew that nothing much was going to.

Two sets of thirty push-ups sandwiched around a hundred sit-ups, followed by some fresh-squeezed orange juice, a prolonged shower, and a travel mug of a startlingly rich Sumatran blend and he was totally ready for the day.

Something was going to give, he told himself as he headed to the garage. Whether it was news from Kyle Blackthorn, or insight into Lily, or resolution of the mystery of Ferendelli's disappearance, or even some hint as to what the president might have been holding back during his neuropsych testing, before much longer things were going to begin to come together.

Before being summoned to work in the heart of the White House, Gabe had never even visited the place-not as a tourist, not as a student, and not even as a midshipman at the Academy. He wondered how long it would take, if ever, for him to get used to walking up to the security station, being recognized by the guards, and, after a brief check of his credentials, strolling into the seat of the country's executive power. Now he smiled inwardly at the notion that, with Jim Ferendelli alive and at least making contact, he might be back on his ranch before he ever found out the answer.