“Adrienne…”
“And what are the chances, anyway—that we’ll pull this off? It’s not like the plan is so great. I mean, it’s not even a plan, really.”
“Yeah, it is,” McBride insisted, sounding defensive even to himself. “It’s just… “ He didn’t want to say “simple.” “Elegant,” he decided.
She replied with a funny look, and took a sip of Rémy Martin.
In point of fact, McBride thought, the plan was neither simple nor elegant. It was just basic. They’d gone over it in the room—though only for a minute, because that’s all it took to explore the scheme’s every nuance. Adrienne was to wait in the hotel while McBride went into the clinic, posing as a workman with a box of curtain rods for the director’s office. Asking to use a telephone, he’d call Opdahl and, speaking as Lew McBride, tell him he was in Switzerland and on his way to kill him. That would flush the security team from hiding, and focus their concern on the clinic’s exterior—from which the threat would be thought to be on its way. In the confusion, McBride would make his way to Opdahl’s office, and put the gun to his head. If he got what he wanted, he’d call the police, and then Adrienne. If he didn’t—and if she didn’t hear from him within an hour—Adrienne was to call the police, tell them what she knew, and ask for protection.
“It’s really just a mugging,” Adrienne remarked. “Not so much a plan as an information stickup.”
McBride didn’t want to argue with her. “Yeah, well, it’s all I’ve got,” he said.
She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. A clear bell-like tone emerged, so loud that she clapped her hand over the rim and looked around guiltily. “I know.”
“So?”
They sat there for a long time. Finally, she said, “Let’s just go upstairs.”
Polar Bears.
Every March at Bowdoin College, a contingent of crazies drove out to Popham Beach, a motley caravan of Saabs and Jeeps and junkers winding through the winter landscape. Once at the beach, they’d build a bonfire, toss back a shot of Jaegermeister and hurl themselves into the freezing surf. It was an homage to the school’s mascot, and also, as someone put it, a chance to “give the finger to winter.” There was only one way to do it—and that was fast, without thinking about it too much.
And that was how McBride covered the short distance between the Belvedere and the Prudhomme Clinic. Fast. Sprinting through the swirling snow, up the driveway onto the walk—and suddenly he was there, just outside the double doors. Where a simple chrome plate announced:
He brushed the snow from the field jacket he was wearing, and slapped the watchcap against his thigh, as the automatic doors swung open on a skylit reception area. The space was remarkable for its uncluttered expanse, its odd angles, and the sheer minimalist luxury of the appointments: red leather Barcelona chairs, scrubbed pine floors, a scatter of small, jewel-like Persian rugs. He stepped inside, carrying the long brown box marked Vorhang-Stangen. Looked around. Smiled.
To the right, just past the entrance, he spotted a small hallway appointed with restrooms and a bank of three telephones. These were of the latest, sleekest Swiss design, futuristic cylinders of stainless steel that enclosed the caller in a space reminiscent of a landing pod. He was happy to see them.
A dour blonde in a soft pink uniform sat behind a circular, brushed chrome reception desk. Seeing McBride in his blue jeans, and watchcap, carrying a box full of curtain rods, she took him for a worker or deliveryman—as he hoped she would. “Bitte?”
With a boyish smile, he went up to the reception desk and, leaning toward the blonde, showed her the box. “Für Herr Doktor Opdahl,” he told her, speaking in German.
“You can leave those here,” she said. “I’ll see that he gets them.”
“Thanks, but—do you mind if I use one of the phones?” He nodded toward the ones in the hallway. “I’m supposed to call in.”
The blonde didn’t reply, at first. A frown flitted across her face—and then she smiled. “As you like,” she replied, dismissing him with a flick of her fingers.
McBride glanced at his watch as he strode toward the phones. 10:35. He’d been up since dawn, but had forced himself to wait until the clinic would be busy with deliveries, visitors, staff meetings, sessions. It was, he felt, the most innocent of hours, the most unexpected time for a takedown.
Apart from the short hall which led to the public telephones and restrooms, he saw that two other corridors gave off the reception area. One led to a bank of elevators. Though he couldn’t see them, he knew the elevators were there because of the noise and activity they engendered: the chimes when they arrived, the whoosh of doors opening and closing, the rattle of carts transitioning to the hall. Signs pointed the way to the pharmacy, a hydrotherapy room, and a gymnasium.
He could tell nothing about the other corridor. Since this was a residential facility, and patients must be housed somewhere, it was a good guess that it led to patients’ rooms.
That the clinic was bigger than it seemed, he’d already determined. There were no cars anywhere, which suggested a sizable underground parking area. And from the vents that he’d seen from his room in the Belevedere, he guessed that there was more to the underground than just parking.
Walking over to the phones, McBride fished a phone card from his coat pocket and slid it into the receptacle. Almost instantly, the liquid crystal display told him that he had 23.7 Swiss francs worth of calling time left. Consulting a slip of paper, he punched in the clinic’s numbers, and listened as the phone began to ring—and ring, and ring.
Actually, it was more a chirp than a ring—but still annoying. Turning, he saw that the receptionist was busy with a phone call of her own, talking animatedly into the receiver. Finally, her demeanor changed. She punched a button on the phone and said: “Bitte?”
McBride looked away.
“Bitte?” she repeated.
“Doctor Opdahl, please…”
Down the hall, an older woman in a pink uniform emerged from a doorway, flanked by a pair of severely emaciated young women. Each was carefully groomed, fashionably dressed, and fully made-up—the effect of which was ghastly, as if they were on their way to a fashion show in a concentration camp.
The phone began to ring in Opdahl’s office as the nurse and her charges disappeared around a corner. Then the clinic’s boss was on the line. “Ja?”
Opdahl’s voice sent a spike of adrenaline through McBride’s heart. For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
“Ja—ist wer es?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s Lew McBride.”
There was a long silence at the other end. Finally, Opdahl said, “Well, hello!”
As soon as he heard the man’s voice, McBride sensed that something was wrong. Or maybe not. “I’m going to kill you,” he said.
“Are you, really?!”
“You’re fuckin’ right I am,” McBride told him. “And soon.”
Opdahl chuckled. “Now, Lew—I don’t think for a second that you mean that. You’re not the type…”
This isn’t working, McBride thought. There’s something in his voice—or not in his voice. Something missing.
“… so why don’t we get together—”
“We’re going to!” McBride promised.
“—and talk it over?”
“There isn’t that much to talk about,” McBride began. Then it hit him—what was missing from Opdahl’s voice. There was no surprise in it.
“Of course there is,” the surgeon continued. “There’s lots to talk about—it’s a very exciting time for the Institute, as I think you know.” He chuckled for the second time. “Why don’t you let Rutger show you the way?”