Veil

Sharon had been only a moment before.

Then he collides painfully with a hard surface that he knows must be.

Chapter 26

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The floor of the hospital room.

Veil struggled to his hands and knees, then tried to stand. The room spun around him, and he crumpled back to his knees. He leaned on his thighs and shook his head, trying to clear it. His mouth was dry and filled with a strong medicinal taste. His forearms stung where needles had been torn from his flesh.

Some recovery, he thought.

Sounds of struggle came from somewhere across the room, slightly to his left. Veil lurched to his feet, staggered backward, and came up hard against a hospital gurney. His vision cleared slightly, and he found himself leaning over the empty gurney where he had lain. Parallel to it was the bed on which Pilgrim lay. Pilgrim was still unconscious, but his smile of rapture was gone. At the head of the bed was another gurney holding Sharon's still body.

Twenty feet away, Ibber and Perry Tompkins were rolling on the floor, their legs wrapped around one another as they struggled for control of a set of electric paddles connected to a portable emergency cardiac unit. Perry was losing; Ibber had the angle and was pressing the paddles inexorably closer to the sides of Perry Tompkins's head as the painter struggled to keep the other man's hands apart; veins popped and writhed in Perry's blood-flushed neck and forehead.

'Gun!' Tompkins gasped through clenched teeth. 'On the floor under the bed!'

Veil started to lean over and almost passed out. Even if he managed to find the gun, he thought, there was no certainty that he could control his vision and movements well enough to aim it properly. Besides, there was no time; the live paddles were now barely an inch away from Perry's temples, and the artist appeared close to the point of physical collapse. When the steel paddles touched Perry's temples, Ibber would press the red buttons on their handles and send a deadly current through the other man's brain.

Veil pushed off the gurney, reeled across the room, and fell across the cardiac unit. He grabbed the heavy cables connected to the paddles and yanked. Flames arced, and sparks flew from the empty sockets, but the rubber insulation on the cables protected Veil from electric shock. He wrapped the ends of the cables around his wrists and yanked again, hoping to catch Ibber off balance. But Veil had no strength. Ibber, who had already pulled away from Perry's grasp, yanked back on the cables, pulling them away from Veil. Then he hit Perry on top of the head with one of the paddles, knocking the other man unconscious.

Veil swayed, partially supporting himself by leaning on the unsteady cart as Ibber, whirling the paddles by their cables like bolos, advanced on him. Suddenly Veil lunged forward, ducked under the paddles, and drove his forehead into Ibber's chest. Ibber grunted with surprise and fell backward as Veil wrapped his arms around the man's waist and fell with him, hoping to pin Ibber until more of the anesthesia passed out of his system and his strength returned, or until help arrived.

Ibber's fists pounded against the back of his head and neck, and into his kidneys; Ibber twisted one way, then another, until finally Veil's grip was broken. Ibber pushed Veil off and away from him, then rose to his feet. Veil, desperate to prevent Ibber from getting to the gun under the bed, clutched at the man's ankle.

But Ibber was not even going to bother searching for the gun; he didn't need it. The KGB agent disdainfully pulled his ankle out of Veil's grasp, then settled himself down on Veil's chest and reached out for the exposed throat before him. Veil barely managed to raise his own hands in time to momentarily shield his windpipe; it was a hopeless, desperate move, leaving him vulnerable to a dozen other deadly strikes, but he had no other alternative.

Ibber, however, seemed content to strangle Veil. Sweat glistened on the man's high forehead and in the hairs of his mustache, but his eyes were cold as he methodically pried Veil's locked fingers apart, then reached under the palms and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around Veil's throat.

Veil caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, over Ibber's left shoulder, and he shifted his gaze in that direction.

Pilgrim's body was twitching. The twitching stopped, and a moment later Pilgrim abruptly sat up in bed and clutched at his chest.

Ibber slowly tightened his grip on Veil's throat. Veil bucked beneath the other man's body, but Ibber had him firmly pinned. He could no longer breathe, and his own fingers were growing numb. He clawed at Ibber's hands, but the pressure on his windpipe steadily increased.

Pilgrim shook his head, then tore the needles out of his arms and looked around. His eyes met Veil's.

Veil wanted to shout, 'No, you'll hemorrhaged But no sound would come from his blocked throat. Shimmering red stripes were beginning to flash across his field of vision.

Pilgrim swung his legs over the side of the bed, hesitated just a moment to suck in a deep breath, then lowered himself to the floor and began walking unsteadily toward them. A red blotch had appeared on the bandage across his chest, and he walked slumped forward.

The red stripes were growing broader, then breaking up into black and gray dots that danced before Veil's eyes.

Pilgrim was only a few feet away when he stumbled. He caught himself, then coughed spasmodically. A red mist spurted from his mouth and nose, and the blood soaking the bandage suddenly blossomed like some malignant flower.

Ibber, startled, released his grip on Veil's throat and twisted around. He saw Pilgrim and immediately started to spring to his feet. Pilgrim coughed another spray of blood, then raised the hook that was his hand into the air and fell forward. Ibber's fist slammed into Pilgrim's chest at the same time as Pilgrim's hook penetrated the other man's skull and buried itself in the brain with a soft, curiously oral sound, like a tsk.

Then Veil lost consciousness.

He awoke to the feel of something cold and wet over his eyes. Veil swiped the ice pack away and started to sit up, but he was restrained by the strong arms of Perry Tompkins. He sighed, then lay back on the pillow someone had placed under his head. He was still on the floor.

'Easy, Veil, easy,' Perry said soothingly. 'The doctor who looked at you said you'd just passed out, but let's wait a few minutes to make sure that's all it is before you start moving around. The way you were flopping around on that cart—'

'Are you all right, Perry?'

'Yeah. I've got a hard head. In fact, I'm surprised that son of a bitch was able to knock me out.'

'What doctor?'

'Dr. Dries. This is a pretty small shop, really not much more than a clinic, so most of the time there's just a skeleton crew of nurses and orderlies on the floors. The doctors have their own sleeping quarters in chalets at the back. I had to get Dries out of bed. Anyway, he's gone to try to call the State Police. He's not going to get very far, because all the phone lines have been cut. I tried to tell him that, but he insisted on seeing for himself. He'll be back in a few minutes.'

'How long have I been out?'

Perry glanced at his watch. 'About half an hour from the time I came around; I don't know how long before that.'

Veil grunted and sat up. 'I'm all right now. I guess all I needed was a nap. The anes—' Suddenly he remembered, and he gripped Perry's massive forearms. 'Jonathan—?'

Perry bowed his head, then straightened up and moved to one side so that Veil could see the two sheet- draped bodies on the floor a few feet away. Both sheets were soaked with blood—one at the head, the other over the torso.

'He's dead, Veil,' Perry said softly. 'Hemorrhage; he bled to death. He did manage to put a very neat hole in Ibber's head before he died, though.'

'I know,' Veil said distantly. 'It happened just before I passed out.'