Now the machines were really going apeshit. The doctor said something and a nurse approached with a needle, stabbed it into the drug-delivery seal on the IV, emptied it.
Pendergast, unable to escape, knelt closer. “What is it? What did you see?”
“Oh, God!” Gasparilla’s anguished voice strangled and choked, fighting the sedative.
“What?” Pendergast’s voice was low, urgent. Gasparilla’s hand had Pendergast by the suit, screwing it up, dragging the FBI agent still closer. The awful stench seemed to roll in waves from the bed.
“That face,
“What face?”
It looked to Hazen as if, lying on the bed, Gasparilla suddenly came to attention. His body stiffened, seemed to elongate. “Remember what I said? About the devil?”
“Yes.”
Gasparilla began thrashing, his voice gargling. “I was wrong!”
“Nurse!” The doctor was now shouting at a burly male nurse. “Administer another two milligrams of Ativan, and get this man out
“I said
Hazen scowled.
“I was wrong!” Gasparilla shrieked. “I was wrong,
The nurse stabbed a second syringe into the IV, pumped in another dose of sedative.
“None of you are safe,
The doctor turned toward the nurse. “Get security in here,” he barked.
An alarm went off somewhere at the head of the bed.
“What did you see?” Pendergast was asking in a low, compelling voice.
All of a sudden, Gasparilla sat up in bed. The nasogastric tubing, ripped out of position with a small spray of blood, jittered against the bedguard. The clawed hand went around Pendergast’s neck.
Hazen grappled with the man. Christ, Gasparilla was going to choke Pendergast to death.
“The devil! He’s come! He’s here!”
Gasparilla’s eyes rolled upward as the second injection hit home. And yet he seemed to cling even more fiercely. “He
“Yes?” Pendergast asked.
“And he’s a child . . .
Suddenly Hazen felt Gasparilla’s arms go slack. Another alarm went off on the rack of machinery, this one a steady loud tone.
“Code!” cried the doctor. “We’ve got a code here! Bring the cart!”
Several people burst into the room all at once: security, more nurses and doctors. Pendergast stood up, disentangling himself from the now limp arms, brushing his shoulder. His normally pallid face was flushed but otherwise he seemed unperturbed. In a moment he and Hazen had been sent outside by the nurses.
They waited in the hall while—for ten, perhaps fifteen minutes—there was the sound of furious activity within Gasparilla’s room. And then, as if a switch had been turned off, there came a sudden calm. Hazen heard the machines being shut down, the alarms stopping one by one, and then blessed silence.
The first to emerge was the attending physician. He came out slowly, almost aimlessly, head bent. As he passed them he looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. He glanced at Hazen, then at Pendergast.
“You killed him,” he said wearily, almost as if he had passed the point of caring.
Pendergast laid his hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “We were both only doing our jobs. There could have been no other outcome. Once he had me in that grip, Doctor, I assure you there would be no escape until he had his say. He had to talk.”
The doctor shook his head. “You’re probably right.”
Nurses and medical technicians were now wandering out of the room, going their separate ways.
“I have to ask,” Pendergast went on. “How exactly did he die?”
“A massive cardiac infarction, after a long period of fibrillation. We just couldn’t stabilize the heart. I’ve never seen anyone fight sedation like that. Cardiac explosion. The heart just blew up.”
“Any idea what caused the fibrillations to begin with?”
The doctor shook his head wearily. “It was the initial shock of whatever happened to him. Not the wounds themselves, which were not life-threatening, but the profound psychological shock that came with the injury, which he was unable to shake off.”
