On Call: An Original Short Story (5 page)

Radcliffe came at me. “Gabe, please!”

I whirled and pointed the gun at her. “Back off, Hannah. You don’t want to get involved in this. In fact, why don’t you just get out of here? Go to your sister’s like we planned.”

“This isn’t like you, Gabe,” she said. “Please stop!”

I turned back to Kincaid. It was clear I was no longer in control. “You were too good to get caught. I’m not going to let you get away with this while my best friend rots in prison.”

“No, I didn’t kill her. I didn’t!”

“She was blackmailing you about the affair. That’s why you gave her a third ownership of Medtransit.”

“No, it’s not true.”

“Admit it!” I was screaming now, shaking violently, face flush with rage. I dug the barrel of the gun against his temple. “You get until three. The first shot is going to be through your hip. Okay, one.”

“Please, Gabe,” Radcliffe begged. “You don’t have to do this.”

George began to whimper.

“Two.”

“No! God! No!” Radcliffe cried.

“Three…” I cocked the hammer and aimed at his right hip.

Radcliffe fell onto the ceramic shards on the floor, sobbing. “It was me,” she blurted out. “It was me, I killed the bitch. I did it.”

I lowered the pistol. “You arranged a meeting with her in room six and paralyzed her with a sudden shot of succinylcholine, didn’t you?”

“How did you—?”

“It wasn’t that hard to figure out. Forty seconds and she could barely move. When the paralysis had partially worn off, you were able to strangle her without a struggle. Then, last night, when I told you I was going to the police about George, you couldn’t face losing him, and tried to kill me.”

“It was all that bitch, Stern. She turned his head when all she wanted from him was his money and another notch in her belt. She was sick and she deserved to die, and I’m glad I did it.”

I handed Kincaid the gun. “Don’t worry, George. Like I told you when we set this up, I pulled the firing pin years ago.”

“Gabe, what about the DNA from Lou?” he asked.

I looked down at Radcliffe, who was bleeding at the knee through her pajamas and glaring up at me with brimstone eyes. “Want to tell him, Hannah? Might as well…Okay, I’ll tell him. It all came clear to me last night when I decided to believe that Lou couldn’t have committed murder, no matter what the evidence to the contrary. Ironically, it’s the lab you designed years ago that I helped you run with the second-year students, where they take samples of one another’s buccal smears for DNA analysis. You kept the frozen samples and then, when you decided to kill Annabelle, remembered that one of those samples was from Lou when he was a second-year.”

“You have no proof,” she said.

I laughed and unbuttoned my shirt enough to show her the wires. “Even if I didn’t have you on tape, we have the nail extender that broke off when you tried to bludgeon me to death, as well as your fingerprints taken from the pipe. Guys, I think it’s time.”

The front door opened, and Detectives Anderson and Rodriquez entered the kitchen, along with a flood of police. George Kincaid made no attempt to help his wife up so she could be handcuffed.

Kincaid buried his face in his hands. “I loved Annabelle,” he said. “We were going to get married. Hannah knew I was leaving her, but I didn’t think her anger would lead to murder.”

“Well, maybe the one-third stake Annabelle had in your business pushed her over the edge.”

“Annabelle never blackmailed me, Gabe. I did that out of love.”

I flashed on all the men and women pining for Annabelle in her big box of love notes. “Well, I guess love can make us do some pretty unpredictable things,” I said.

Two days later, Los Tres Médicos were together once again. A bunch of the senior residents had gathered at McSorely’s Extra Special Watering Hole, our unofficial hospital bar, to celebrate Lou’s release from prison. In light of the tragic events—one murdered chief resident and one jailed chief of pathology—I thought it was in somewhat poor taste to hang a
WELCOME HOME JAILBIRD
banner behind the bar. Nobody else shared my sentiment. Annabelle Stern may have had many lovers, but she hadn’t made many friends among the staff.

“To Lou,” I said, raising my goblet.

Paul, Lou, and I clinked glasses. My Diet Coke tasted flat, but I didn’t complain. Life was inching toward normal. Justice had been served, at least in part. Annabelle Stern, despite all her failings—and the drugs she had planted in Paul’s locker—was a hell of a doctor, and did not, for my money at least, deserve her fate. But that’s the way it was.

“I sure owe you, big fella,” Lou said, setting his hand on my shoulder. “My freedom hinged on your faith in me. I’ll never forget you for that.”

“Hey, what are friends for? So I guess that’s it, then. Case closed.”

“Case closed,” Lou echoed. “Except for one thing—a toast to our new chief resident.” He raised his glass again. “To Paul Brosnan.”

“That remains to be determined,” Paul said. “If they offer it to me, I’ll take it.”

“They will and you should,” I said. “Any hope for you and Victoria?”

“None. I’ve seen jealous streaks before, but hers is bigger than the Great Wall of China. Maybe Annabelle’s death will send her on the right path, but I don’t want to walk it with her.”

“Jealously, betrayal, murder, and lies,” I said. “Just another typical week at Eisenhower Memorial. I’ve got to tell you, boys, this didn’t do much for making me want to stay.”

“You’re moving back to Wyoming, aren’t you, Cowboy?” Lou said.

“I hate to say it, but horses are a heck of a lot easier to figure than people.”

We clanked glasses once again, hugged, and then I shambled out of the bar.

Read on for an excerpt of

POLITICAL SUICIDE

By
New York Times
Bestselling Author Michael Palmer

On Sale January 8
^th
, 2013 from St. Martin’s Press

Find Michael Online and Pre-Order at:
www.michaelpalmerbooks.com

May 3, 2003

The three men, members of Mantis Company, slipped out the open hatch of the C130 transport as it flew sixty-five thousand feet above the world. They had trained for this jump countless times. Their gear, ballistic helmets, oxygen masks, Airox O2 regulators, bailout bottles, all fastidiously maintained, assured them a successful landing. Altimeters marked their belly-to-earth rate of descent at one hundred fifteen miles per hour. Minutes of free fall were spent in an effortless dive, with the men dropping in formation, still and straight. Automatic activation devices engaged the parachutes eight hundred feet before impact, the lowest altitude allowed for combat high-altitude/low-opening jumps.

They descended through the low cloud covering like missiles, emerging out of nothingness beneath a starless predawn sky. Their landings, each completed with a puma’s grace, would have made their instructors back at Quantico proud. Perfection. Mantis demanded nothing less. In silence, the three exchanged their polypropylene undergarments, vital to protect against frostbite at high altitudes, for white cotton robes and the traditional head coverings of Taliban fighters. Then they zippered shut their fifty-pound combat packs.

Wearing their dusty garments, the men anticipated they would not immediately rouse any suspicion. Each of the three had a tanning-booth tan supplemented by professionally applied makeup, as well as a closely trimmed moustache and a fully grown beard. Moving stealthily, the trio blended in with their surroundings—a mountainous, rocky region in southern Afghanistan, barren as a moonscape.

“Any injuries?”

“No, Sergeant,” the two men replied in unison.

“Miller, how many klicks to the target?”

Miller checked his handheld GPS.

“Five kilometers south, southwest of the target, Sergeant.”

“Gibson, ditch the gear.”

Gibson knew not to look long for a suitable location in which to hide their parachutes and other equipment. By the time any Afghani stumbled upon the array of high-tech military paraphernalia hidden behind a jagged boulder, it hopefully would be too late.

They walked in single file, moving silently across the rock-strewn terrain, with Miller and his GPS taking the lead. Behind them, dawn rose in streaks of brilliant pinks, yellows, and blues—giant fingers extending skyward, beckoning the new day. If anyone had checked the men’s pulses at that moment, none would be above fifty.

Miller found the road, a rutted stretch of dirt that would carry them to the outskirts of Khewa, a town of twenty thousand that would look the same today as it did a century and a half ago. Young women wearing chadors stopped farming the fields of wheat, rice, and vegetables lining the roadside to give the trio a cursory glance before quickly resuming their duties. The Marines’ disguises were good enough that none of the women bothered with a closer inspection. They had estimated that unless their luck was extremely bad, they could survive twelve hours or so before they were identified by soldiers or one of the villagers.

Way more than enough time.

The men of Mantis Company reached the crumbling clay brick walls of Khewa’s borders without incident. The town was defined by its absences—no cars, no electricity, no running water. Evidence of twenty years of war was seen everywhere. Craters left by bombs and land mines made what limited roads there were treacherous to pass even on foot. Bombed-out buildings and homes were in greater number than habitable ones.

The smells of the market guided the men toward their destination. They wandered about casually through shabby stalls built of boards, sheets, and mud and bunched together on each side of a single-lane dirt road. The central market was already bustling despite the newness of the day. In some stalls, slabs of fly-covered meat dangled like macabre wind chimes, while bloodstained butchers called out the day’s prices in Pashto. Persian music blasted from cheap radios as the Marines continued their stroll past stalls selling fruit, breads, and rudimentary household supplies.

Two hours had brought a sweltering midmorning before they caught the attention of a town elder.

“Don’t look now,” Gibson said, his voice hushed, “but it looks like we’ve been noticed.”

The Afghani, with a white beard descending to his chest, carrying a Kalishnikov assault rifle, approached the men the way he might a poisonous snake.

The three Marines turned their backs to the man and moved well away from the women and children in the crowded market. To the extent they could control it, this operation was going to be soldiers only. When they finally stopped, the Afghani took two cautious steps toward them…then a third. His dark eyes narrowed. Then he began to shout and point frantically.

His shrill voice rose above the market’s din, catching the attention of more men dressed in dirty grey or white robes, each, it seemed, carrying a weapon different in make and age from the others. The commotion rapidly crescendoed, with more Afghani men, some armed, some not, racing up from all directions to surround the intruders. They were screaming, shouting in Pashto, and pointing long, dirt-encrusted fingernails at the three men, now trapped inside the rapidly expanding circle.

“How do you like the show so far, Miller?” the sergeant asked, barely moving his lips.

“Just what you told us, Sarge,” Miller said, without a waver in his voice.

“Provided they go and get Mr. Big.”

He moistened his lips with his tongue.

The Taliban fighters were ten deep now, a hundred and fifty of them at least, many with weapons leveled—PK machine guns, ancient Lee-Enfields, plus a variety of handguns. They were pushing and shoving to get a closer look at the men who had so brazenly strolled into the center of their city.

“Just keep your hands raised,” the sergeant said to both his men, “and keep scanning the crowd for Al-Basheer. If our intelligence is correct, none of them will make a move until he gets here.”

The closest men in the milling circle were a smothering five or six feet away.

Miller spotted Al-Basheer first. His orange beard and bulbous nose were distinct giveaways.

“That’s him, Sergeant,” Miller said, as the crowd parted to admit their leader, one of the most powerful and influential fighters in the region.

Al-Basheer strode through the ranks. The sergeant smiled and nodded, and immediately the three Marines formed a tight triangle, facing outward with their shoulders touching. The sudden movement caused some of those surrounding them to step back.

But not Al-Basheer.

“Whatever it takes,” the sergeant said.

“Whatever it takes,” Miller and Gibson echoed.

In a singular motion, the three men threw off their robes.

The crowd began screaming

Strapped to each intruder’s chest were bricks of explosive, three on the right side and three on the left, with wires connected to a battery hinged to their waists.

“Whatever it takes,” the sergeant said again.

The push of a button, a faint click, and in an instant, every man within the warrior circle was vaporized within a white hot ball of carefully concentrated light.