‘Oh, my God!’ exclaimed the director of Special Projects softly. ‘Good and evil, decided solely by you, sentences pronounced only by you. A legend of arrogance.’
‘That’s unfair! There was no other solution. You’re wrong’.’
‘It’s the truth.’ Payton stood up, pushing the chair behind him. ‘I’ve nothing more to say, Dr Winters. I’ll leave now.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘What has to be done. I’m filing a report for the President, the Attorney General and the congressional oversight committees. That’s the law… You’re out of business, Doctor. And don’t bother to see me to the door, I’ll find my way.’
Payton walked out into the cold grey morning air. He breathed deeply, trying to fill his lungs but unable to do so. There was too much weariness, too much that was sad and offensive—on Christmas Eve. He reached the steps and started down to his car when suddenly, shattering the grounds, was a loud report—a gunshot. Payton’s driver lunged out of the car, crouching in the drive, his weapon steadied by both hands.
MJ slowly shook his head and continued towards the back door of the vehicle. He was drained. There were no reservoirs of strength to draw from; his exhaustion was complete. Nor was there now the urgency to fly out to California. Inver Brass was finished, its leader dead by his own hand. Without the stature and authority of Samuel Winters, it was in shambles and the manner of his death would send the message of collapse to those who remained… Evan Kendrick? He had to be told the whole story, all sides of it, and make up his own mind. But it could wait—a day at least. All MJ could think of as the driver opened the door for him was to get home, have several more drinks than were good for him, and sleep.
‘Mr. Payton,’ said the driver, ‘you had a radio Code Five, sir.’
‘What was the message?’
‘”Contact San Jacinto. Urgent.”‘
‘Return to Langley, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, in case I forget. Have a Merry Christmas.’
Thank you, sir.’
* * *
Chapter 44
‘We’ll look in on him at least once an hour, Miss Rashad,’ said the middle-aged naval nurse behind the counter. ‘Rest assured of it… Did you know the President himself called the congressman this afternoon?’
‘Yes, I was there. And speaking of phones, there are to be no calls put through to his room.’
‘We understand. Here’s the note; it’s a copy of the one each operator has at the switchboard. All calls are to be referred to you at the Westlake Hotel.’
‘That’s correct. Thank you very much.’
‘It’s a pity, isn’t it? Here it is Christmas Eve and instead of being with friends and singing carols or whatever, he’s bandaged up in a hospital and you’re stuck by yourself in a hotel room.’
‘I’ll tell you something, Nurse. The fact that he’s here and alive makes it the best Christmas I could ever hope to have.’
‘I know, dear. I’ve seen you two together.’
‘Take care of him. If I don’t get some sleep, he won’t consider me much of a present in the morning.’
‘He’s our number one patient. And you rest, young lady. You look a mite haggard and that’s a medical opinion.’
‘I’m a mess is what I am.’
‘In my best days I should be such a mess.’
‘You’re sweet,’ said Khalehla, putting her hand on the nurse’s arm and squeezing it. ‘Good night. See you tomorrow.’
‘Merry Christmas, dear.’
‘It is. And have a merry one yourself.’ Rashad walked down the white corridor to the bank of elevators and pressed the lower button. She had meant it about needing sleep; except for a brief twenty minutes when both she and Evan dozed off, she had not closed her eyes in nearly forty-eighth hours. A hot shower, a warm room-service meal, and bed was the order of the night. In the morning she would shop in one of those stores that stayed open for the benefit of errant people who had forgotten someone and buy a few silly presents for her… intended? My God, she thought. For my fianc้. Too much.
It was funny, though, how Christmas undeniably brought out the gentler, kinder aspects of human nature—regardless of race, creed, or lack of both. The nurse, for instance. She was sweet, and probably a rather lonely woman with too large a body and a pudgy face unlikely to be chosen for a recruitment poster. Yet, she had tried to be warm and kind. She had said that she knew how the congressman’s lady felt because she had seen them together. She had not. Khalehla remembered every person who had come into Evan’s room and the nurse was not one of them. Kindness… reaching-out, whatever one cared to call it, it was Christmas. And her man was safe. The elevator doors parted and she walked into the descending cage feeling secure and warm and kind.
Kendrick opened his eyes to the darkness. Something had awakened him… what was it? The door to his room… Yes, of course, it was the door. Khalehla had told him he was going to be checked and re-checked all night long. Where did she think he would go? Out dancing? He sank back into the pillow, breathing deeply, no strength in him, all energy elusive… No. It was not the door. It was a presence. Someone was there in the room!
Slowly he moved his head, inch by inch on the pillow. There was a blurred splash of white in the dark, no upper or lower extensions, just a dull space of white in the darkness.
‘Who is it?’ he said, finding his barely audible voice. ‘Who’s there?’
Silence.
‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?
Then, like a rushing onslaught, the white mass came towards him out of the dark and crashed into his face. A pillow. He could not breathe! He swung his right hand up, pushing against a muscular arm, then sliding off the flesh into a face, a soft face, then into the scalp of… woman’s hair! He yanked the strands in his grip with all the strength he could summon, rolling to the right on the narrow hospital bed, pulling his predator down to the floor beneath him. He released the hair and hammered the face under him, his shoulder in torment, the stitches broken, blood spreading through the bandages. He tried to yell, but all that emerged was a throated cry. The heavy woman clawed at his neck, her fingers sharp, hard points breaking his skin… then up into his eyes, tearing his lids and scraping his forehead. He surged up, spinning out of her grip, beyond her reach, crashing into the wall. The pain was intolerable. He lurched towards the door but she was on him, hurling him into the side of the bed. His hand struck the carafe of water on the table; he grabbed it and, spinning again, swung it up into the head, into the maniacal face above him. The woman was stunned; he rushed forward throwing his right shoulder into her heavy body, smashing her into the wall, then lunged for the door and yanked it open. The white antiseptic hall was bathed in dim grey light except for a bright lamp behind the desk halfway down the corridor. He tried again to scream.
‘Someone…! Help me!’ The words were lost; only guttural, muted cries came out of his mouth. He limped, his swollen ankle and damaged leg barely able to support him. Where was everybody? No one was there… no one at the desk! Then two nurses came casually through a door at the far end of the hallway, and he raised his right hand, waving it frantically as the words finally came. ‘Help me… !’
‘Oh, my God!’ screamed one of the women as both rushed forward. Simultaneously, Kendrick heard another set of racing feet. He spun around only to watch helplessly as the heavy, muscular nurse ran out of his room and down the hall to a door beneath a red-lettered Exit sign. She crashed it open and disappeared.
‘Call the doctor down in emergency!’ cried the nurse who reached him first. ‘Hurry. He’s bleeding all over the place!’
‘Then I’d better call the Rashad girl,’ said the second nurse, heading for the desk. ‘She’s to be called with any change of status, and, Jesus, this is certainly that!’
‘No!’ yelled Evan, his voice at last a clear, if breathless, roar. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘But Congressman—’
‘Please do as I say. Don’t call her! She hasn’t slept in two or three days. Just get the doctor and help me back to my room… Then I have to use the phone.’
Forty-five minutes later, his shoulder restitched and his face and neck cleaned up, Kendrick sat in bed, the telephone in his lap, and dialled the number in Washington he had committed to memory. Against strenuous objections he had ordered the doctor and the nurses not to call the military police or even the hospital’s security. It had been established that no one on the floor knew the heavyset woman other than as a name, obviously false, through transfer papers presented that afternoon from the base hospital in Pensacola, Florida. Highly qualified nurses were coveted additions to any staff; no one questioned her arrival and no one would stop her in her swift departure. And until the whole picture was clearer, there could be no official investigations triggering news stories in the media. The blackout was still in effect.