Michael Palmer - The First Patient

With the glimmer of an idea beginning to form, Gabe ignored the burning pain in his hip and managed to stand on the balcony wall, propping himself against one of the pillars that supported the glass canopy. Then he tested the main pipe, which seemed solidly anchored to a metal frame that came down from the roof. Whether or not it could hold more than double a man's weight was anyone's guess, but that was what he would be asking it to do.

The knife was gone, and he was hardly mobile enough to go foraging for another weapon. But he did have a weapon-at least a potential one-in his backpack, and he knew damn well how to use it. Carefully, he removed the rope he had used to entertain and educate the stable master's son, Pete-forty feet of excellent lariat cord, purchased in the store where Gabe had gotten his boots. Then he took one end and swung it over the pipe. Finally, he tied that end around his waist and used it and the descending length to test the pipe and lower himself back to the balcony floor.

No problem.

It would be a hell of a throw, but somewhere in a box in his basement were dozens of tarnished trophies that said he could make it.

Spent from the pain and the effort, Gabe sank onto the stone floor of the balcony and waited, trying not to gasp out loud with each breath. It seemed likely that when Carl was upright the two killers would separate again. The knife wound to Carl's leg would have them angry, anxious, and even a little shaken-a recipe for error. All Gabe could hope for now was that one of them didn't come up to the balcony.

He shifted his position and felt a daggerlike pain from his wound into his groin. He was about to check to see if there was an exit hole when he heard noise and sensed movement from below. Peering between the cement balustrades, he could make out a man's form, moving cautiously along the pool. No limp. Then, light through the canopy glinted off his shaved pate.

Crackowski.

Gabe shifted again, checked the knot that fixed the lariat around his waist, then the slipknot he had tied at the business end of the rope. A glance overhead to ensure everything was in place and he gathered in the slack, moved into an agonizing crouch, and waited as, a step at a time, the killer headed toward the spot just beneath where the rope looped over the rain pipe.

Under ordinary circumstances, Gabe knew he could make the throw ten times out of ten-but that was without walls behind him and overhead, and allowing for a few warm-up spins, and, finally, provided the subject to be roped wasn't holding a gun. This time Gabe would have one chance and only one. A miss and he would be trying to outrun a professional gunman on a leg that was barely functional.

He hefted the lasso and tried to imagine the moves he would make to close the loop as he was dropping over the balcony wall, using Crackowski as counterweight to keep him from smashing to the concrete poolside.

Just another Sunday hangin' in Dodge.

No mercy , he pleaded with himself. No mercy … No hesitation …

He took a step back, then leaned over the balcony, swung the lasso once to open a small loop, and floated it around the killer's head. Before Crackowski could react, Gabe toppled off the balcony, grasping the rope from the rain pipe with all his strength. The drop was rapid, the snapping neck sickening, and Crackowski's death instantaneous. Gabe hit the concrete floor with force, but only enough to stun him. He released the rope, still tied to his waist. The killer crumpled to the floor beside him, the stench of excrement already filling the air.

For most of a minute, Gabe stayed dazed on the floor, trying to orient himself from what he knew had to be a concussion. Finally, thoughts and images of Carl worked themselves into his hazy consciousness, intermixed with images of Gabe's high school coach, kneeling over him, administering smelling salts, and asking if he knew where he was and if he was able to go back into the game.

He had to move. Carl was painfully wounded, but he was mobile and he had a gun. For a moment, Gabe became excited about finding Crack-owski's pistol. Then he vaguely remembered seeing it clatter down into the empty pool. Had that really happened?

Groaning with every movement, he crawled to the edge of the concrete hole and peered down. He could barely make out what he thought was the bottom and could not discern anything else.

Perhaps he was wrong… Maybe the gun was still nearby… Maybe it was under Crackowski's body.

Gabe knew he wasn't thinking clearly, but he was unable to focus any better. His head was pounding, and the wound beside his hip made turning especially unpleasant. He crawled over to Crackowski's body. The killer's eyes were bulging nearly out of his head and his protruding tongue looked like a plum. Blocking out the odor, Gabe rolled the corpse over once, then again. No gun.

Still trying to shake the fog from his brain, he tried to rise, then fell back to his knees. When he turned back to the pool, Carl was standing there, watching him curiously, his heavy pistol resting loosely in his hand.

"Now this here's a scene you just don't see every day," he drawled.

The jolt of adrenaline dispelled Gabe's fogginess like sunlight.

"That knife in your thigh hurt?" he asked.

"Not nearly as much as you're going to."

"Such a wit."

From time to time, Gabe wondered what his patients might have been feeling at the moment of their death. Now he acknowledged that it really wasn't all that bad. Carl whatever his last name was, was going to pull the trigger and Gabe Singleton wasn't going to exist anymore. It was as simple as that.

"Stand up!"

I'm not going to make it easy, Carl, Gabe was thinking. I promise you I'm not .

"Do I look like I can stand up?" he said.

"Stand up or I swear I'll shoot through every joint in your body starting from the toes up."

Gabe had heard enough.

Let it end here, he was thinking. Let it end here for both of us .

Without hesitation, he planted the right toe of his boot and drove his head with all his remaining strength into the man's groin. Carl went over the edge of the pool backward, with Gabe clinging to him like a chimpanzee to its mother. Somewhere during the fall there might have been a gunshot. Gabe felt another tearing pain-this one through his shoulder. Then there was a fearsome impact, with air exploding from his lungs.

Then there was nothing.

Stilettoes of bright light penetrated Gabe's lids and pierced his eyes. He felt himself coming to like a patient in the recovery room following major surgery, only without any analgesia. Bit by bit, he was able to catalogue the pain. His right hip was throbbing, but no less than his left shoulder. The top of his head and space behind his eyes were like cardiac monitors, recording every heartbeat with a totally unpleasant pulsation. Bile and acid grated across the back of his throat.

He opened his eyes a slit, squinting at the glare, and was surprised to see the chandeliers and tattered pennants of the great room. Bit by bit, visions of his struggles with the two killers came into focus. He forced his eyes to open wider.

"Quite a mess you made in there, Doc. You should have seen ol' Carl's brains splattered all over the bottom of that pool."

Gabe stiffened but made no attempt to turn toward the voice. There was no need.

"Do you think you'll be in line for another performance citation for this, Griswold?" Gabe asked.

"We each gotta do what we each gotta do."

"And you just gotta destroy the life of the man you've sworn to protect."

With no small discomfort, Gabe rolled over and managed to get up to his hands and knees-actually, his hand and knees. His left shoulder simply refused to bear much weight. There was a high-backed dark wood chair not far away. He crawled to it and pulled himself up with no help from Griswold. Blood was congealing in Gabe's jeans and shirt.