I take two steps into the house and can make out the soft lump of humanity propped up against a desk at the far side of the room. Pete Laramer. His arms dangle loosely, palms up. He struggles fiercely to raise his right hand to his face.
Dark liquid stains his scrubs. The highest concentration spreads from just below his chest, the lowest edge of the rib cage, the apparent epicenter of a major wound. I rush toward him, then pause, taking stock.
“Heart okay… blood loss,” Pete manages to say.
I put my hand on his stomach to stanch the bleeding. Not a place you can tourniquet.
“Where are the girls?”
“Fuck you.”
He thinks I’m asking for purposes of attacking them.
“Are they safe, Pete?”
He takes a breath, and seems to accept my meaning. “Away with their mom. Fine… Happier without their workaholic… unfaithful father.”
“Don’t talk.”
“You can love someone completely… love your family, need them… and still lead a double life.”
He’s wheezing. Punctured lung, or lungs.
“Bullet?” I ask. I’m trying to focus him.
He shakes his head.
“Knife. Big one,” I say. It’s obvious now. There’s a wound too on his neck, missing the jugular, hitting some of the windpipe.
I pull out my phone. I turn it on. While I wait for it to come to life, I say, “We might have to do a trach.”
Battlefield tracheotomy. Stick a sharp object into the windpipe to allow breathing. I’ve never done one myself and have seen only a handful performed in person during med school. But it’s less complicated than it sounds.
“I didn’t know,” he whispers.
“Shh.”
“A walking server, Soylent Green 2.0… the digital version,” he says.
I want to tell him to save his strength, but what the hell does he mean?
My phone is alive. I dial 911.
“They’ve spread it already,” he says.
“Who?”
“She’s carrying a secret… They won’t stop until they get it.”
“Lane?”
He nods.
He must be referring to what Chuck told me — that someone has triggered Lane’s precipitous memory decline and they can’t let the secret get out.
The 911 operator answers. I’m about to speak when the interior door to the library opens.
“Intruder,” I say into the phone.
“Heavily armed one,” says the hooded man. He’s standing at the doorway, holding a hunting knife.
Chapter 47
“Slow, calm, deep breaths,” I tell Pete.
I should take the advice myself.
I stand, my adrenaline screaming. Fight or flight.
The hooded man moves to the middle of the room. He’s cut off my exits. I couldn’t flee if I wanted to. I couldn’t leave Grandma’s dying neurologist, much as I blame him for what’s happened, to a final hacking, or without telling me what the fuck is going on. That leaves: fight.
I look on the desk for a weapon. On the corner sits a stout porcelain lamp with a flower-pattered base. I lift it, but it slips from my hand. The hooded man assesses me in silence.
“Guns, fire, sharp objects,” I say. “You’re multi-talented.”
“In this economy, it pays to be versatile.”
“And a razor-sharp sense of humor.”
I need to buy time so the emergency operator can hone in on the phone signal and send the cavalry. The hooded man steps forward.
“You ever been to Davos?” I ask.
“Where?”
“You’re not from Switzerland.”
“Get ready to say gutenacht.”
“That’s German.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Am I allowed a weapon?” I ask.
“You can fight back with your face.”
He steps forward and I stumble back. I move right, behind the desk. This, I realize, constitutes a strategic error. If I try to use the desk as a barrier, it means putting Pete directly in the middle of the fray.
I slide further to my right, away from the desk. But into the open. Behind me, bookshelves. Further to my right, the library’s interior doorway, leading to the rest of the house, but the door is closed. The international man stands next to the desk, not far from Pete. He seems amused by my indecision and the apparent futility of my escape maneuvers. If I run for the interior door, he’ll get me from behind.
He takes a step forward, confident but cautious and strategic, cutting off my angles. He’s not breathing hard, but sweat glistens in the widow’s peak of his brow. I notice a slight wobble in his left leg. I take another step to my right and so does he. Wobble.
“ACL,” I say.
This pauses him.
“You’ve got a tear in your left knee. It’s weak. I’m not an orthopedist, but it looks to me like one wrong step and that thing could go.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He takes two big steps towards me and swings his knife. I leap to my left, edging back behind the desk and out of the way of his swing. I turn to face him and see his new look of intense determination.
I back away, feeling in my pocket for the wine opener. I pass Pete to my left. I speed up my backpedaling. In my peripheral vision, I see a low-backed reading chair, maybe small enough that I can throw it, or big enough to duck behind. But my window to decide and act is slamming.
The man runs at me, knife held high. He swings it downward. I turn my back away in hopes of avoiding razor on flesh. I lurch, and stumble forward, flailing and falling. Behind me, I hear a yelp, and a thud.
“Motherfucker!”
Scrambling back to my feet, I turn to look. The assailant is on the ground, facedown. He looks at me, starts to rise, grimaces, grabs his knee.
I can see why: around the knee is a cord of some kind. An electrical cord.
In an instant, I understand. Pete somehow has wrapped the lamp cord around the killer’s leg and tripped him, aggravating the knee injury.
Remarkable. For once, my penchant for snap diagnoses has actually helped me.
He starts to rise again. I leap towards him as I pull the wine opener out. I aim for the top of his back, piercing the tender, nerve-filled skin between his scapulae.
“AHHH. FUCK!”
He flails his arms behind his back, reaching for the opener.
It is the strangest moment for me to think: Canadian accent. Not Swiss. Canadian.
Then I see that the knife has spun free. It is a few feet to the intruder’s left, at the base of the bookshelves. I rush to it. I grab the warm handle, slick with sweat.
I walk to the would-be killer. He’s craning his neck my direction, looking now at me. Despite having the opener still in his back, he’s responding to the more immediate danger. He inches away from me.
I hear sirens. Police, maybe an ambulance, headed in our direction.
I look at the electrical lamp cord still wrapped around the man’s knee. I follow the cord where it leads — to the stubby porcelain lamp lying next to Pete. It survived the fall from the desk. It won’t survive the next impact. Without taking my eyes from him, I set down the knife beside Pete and lift the lamp.
I walk to the assassin and hold it over his head, as he struggles to scoot away and extricate the protruding wine opener.
“Where’s my grandmother?”
“He doesn’t know,” Pete rasps. “He asked me.”
“How can he not know? He’s the bad guy!”
The man has succeeded in dislodging the wine opener. He’s getting his bearings, looking around for a weapon.
“Lights out,” I say.
I slam the lamp over the man’s head. The porcelain shatters. The intruder slumps, unconscious.
“DSM,” Pete mutters.
“Thank you, Pete. Unbelievable teamwork. Hang on. The ambulance is almost here.”