The Society

a chair, and hurried out of the apartment.

Watkins slowly, dramatically lifted his hand and checked his watch.

“You really fucked up, asshole,” he said, careful not to move any further against the knife. “I’m five minutes late. Your little honey’s probably dead already.”

“Call Gold,” Will said.

“No way.”

Will tightened his grip across Watkins’s chin, but this time the killer didn’t react at all.

“I said call in!”

“Drop the knife.”

At that instant, Watkins’s cell phone began ringing.

“Answer it.”

Watkins laughed derisively. Another ring.

“Five rings and the recording starts,” he managed.

Three.

Will stepped back and threw the carving knife to the floor.

Grinning, Watkins flipped on his phone.

“Sorry, Mr. Gold. We were getting the envelope and I lost track of the time. No, he’s right here. He had a little accident and banged his face, but he’ll be all right. . Yessir. I’ll bring him. We’ll be back soon. No problem. He’s been acting up some, but I know he’ll behave from now on.”

Watkins flipped the phone shut and dropped it in his pocket. Then, without warning, he swung from his hip, smashing Will flush in the face. Will heard his cheekbone snap an instant before the pain exploded from it. He was sputtering on a gush of blood down his nose and throat before he hit the floor.

CHAPTER 34

Discipline. . Discipline. . Don’t move. . Not a flicker. . Not a twitch. . Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. . Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. . Discipline. . Discipline. .

For most of a year during college, Patty and one of her roommates had taken yoga classes together. They had both dropped out, partly because of the pressures of class work, but also because each had met a man.

What in the hell was his name? she wondered now. He was supposed to have been The One. Now she couldn’t even remember his name. Why hadn’t she stayed with yoga?

Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. . Slowly. . Slowly. . Don’t move. . Don’t move. .

At least an hour had passed since Will was sent off with the man named Watkins-probably closer to two. Boyd Halliday and Marshall Gold had departed just a few minutes after that for an important session with their lawyer and hadn’t returned. Before they left, they had said enough for her to know that tomorrow at ten there was a meeting scheduled at which the Excelsius takeover of several companies would be completed. The new conglomerate, still to be called Excelsius Health, with Halliday as CEO, would instantly be among the largest health-care providers in the east, if not in the country. Power and money. The managed-care killings, believed by almost everyone to be about revenge and retribution, had never been about anything except power and money. Now, unless she or Will could do something, the body count of those sacrificed on that altar was about to rise.

Patty had begun experiencing momentary glimmers of consciousness for a while before she was taken from the ICU, but it wasn’t until she was being transferred from her bed to the stretcher that she had started to come around on all levels. By the time she was secured inside the ambulance, the conversations around her were increasingly penetrating the darkness that had enveloped her mind. In snatches, she heard about her brain surgery and her persistent coma. Some sort of a diversion-maybe a fire-had been set off in the hospital solely for the purpose of getting her out of there. She had no idea where she was being taken, or why, but what she did hear told her that the best she could do was to remain still-absolutely still.

As the ambulance ride wore on, beneath the patches that covered her eyes, she opened and closed her lids. Then, carefully, concealed by the sheet that was draped over her, she tested her arms and legs. From what she could tell, everything was working. But she also knew of the phantom pains of amputees and the phantom movements of paralyzed limbs in stroke and spinal-cord victims.

Breathe in. . Hold it. . Hold it. . Breathe out. .

Since Will and the others had gone, she had been alone with the torturer Krause-the man Gold had referred to as the good doctor. He was seated toward the door, maybe ten or fifteen feet from where she lay. Several times he had come over and stood beside her, breathing heavily and, she sensed, touching himself. First it was just a few seconds at a time, then a minute, then even more.

Good, she thought, stoking her anger, the more you get turned on, the better. Creep.

As the visits to her stretcher became longer, they also became more frequent. It was as if Krause was battling his own instincts-and losing. Each time Patty tried, through the man’s breathing and the sound of his movement, to create a mental picture of him and to focus in on his position and posture. She felt certain from his footfall and at what height she placed his mouth that he was slightly built and not very tall. Finally, perhaps unable to control himself any longer, the good doctor pulled her sheet down below her breasts and stood by her shoulder, staring down at her. She was wearing some sort of hospital pajamas, or perhaps a set of surgical scrubs, but still she felt naked, exposed, and vulnerable.

“How beautiful you are. . How beautiful.”

His breath reeked of cigarettes and garlic. His voice was raspy and rather high-pitched. She honed in on the image of a very thin, wiry man, maybe five-six or — seven, and for no objective reason whatsoever, decided that he fancied himself an intellectual and a poet.

Krause replaced the sheet, and Patty silently sighed relief. He had stopped short of uncovering her hands and the loose IV tubing that rested beneath them. The clear plastic tube was the only accessible weapon she had, but applied quickly and with the proper leverage, she felt it might be enough. The green polystyrene oxygen tubing was a bit thicker, with perhaps less give, but it would be impossible to get at without lifting her arms and risking the loss of the small advantage surprise was going to give her.

Strangulation, from the front and back, was a maneuver they had studied at the academy, mostly so that they could learn how to defend themselves against it. She had never paid that much attention to technique when she was the attacker. Now she wished she had. It frightened her that any move she made would have to be done with the patches covering her eyes, but she sensed, right or wrong, that this unpleasant little man was physically weaker than Gold or Watkins, or even Halliday. If she was going to defeat any one of them, he was the best bet, and if he gave her the chance, she was going to take it.

She had barely completed the thought when he was back. Again the sheet went down. This time, after muttering how beautiful she was, he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips, at the same time setting his hand on her breast. It was all she could do to keep from cringing. Instead, her resolve grew. Krause was testing now, perhaps seeing how much he could get away with without waking her up, perhaps fearful of being caught by Gold or Halliday should he linger too long. However, excitement and his perverse nature clearly had a grip on him.

Not knowing whether he was watching her or not, Patty had not yet dared to move enough to wrap the IV tubing around her hands. If she tried and he was looking at her, it was all over. Still, she felt she was running out of time. She had to sense the opportunity and make her move.

“You’re so beautiful,” he was whispering again, increasing the pressure on her breast. “Just so beautiful.”

His vocabulary was woefully limited, Patty noted, distracting herself from being touched by him. If he was a poet, he was a very bad one.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Krause lifted his hand from her breast and again drew the sheet up. She listened to his heavy breathing and envisioned him standing there, a hand down his pants, fondling himself. Then she heard the scuffing of his shoes as he turned away from her to return to his chair. For a few precious