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The First Patient - Hardcover

Palmer, Michael

 
9780312343538: The First Patient
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0312343531 ISBN 13: 9780312343538
Verlag: St. Martin's Press, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

The disappearance of the president's personal physician reunites country doctor Gabe Singleton with his former Annapolis roommate, Andrew Stoddard, now president of the United States, when he is asked to take the missing man's place, a role that leads him to evidence that Andrew is going insane and that the condition may not be the result of natural causes.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael Palmer is an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society Physician Health Services, devoted to helping physicians troubled by mental illness, physical illness, behavioral issues and chemical dependency, including alcoholism.

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The First Patient

By Palmer, Michael

St. Martin's Press

Copyright ©2008 Palmer, Michael
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312343538
Chapter 1

The rotors of Marine One slowed, then stopped. Dust clouds billowed into the still air. Minutes later, a second, identical helicopter landed twenty yards away. A short staircase lowered to the parched ground. A Marine sergeant in formal dress left the shelter of the first chopper and took a position at attention at the base of the staircase. The door of the chunky Sikorsky Sea King swung open.

And with no more fanfare than that, the most powerful man on Earth, his ubiquitous, well-publicized dog at heel, stepped out into the warm Wyoming evening.

Fifty feet away, still in the saddle, Gabe Singleton calmed his horse with a few pats behind the ear. The mid-morning appearance of a Secret Service agent at the Ambrose Regional Medical Center had given Gabe warning that the presidential drop-in was going to take place, but the man hadn’t been specific about the time and, following an exhausting all-nighter caring for two patients in the ICU, even a visitor of this magnitude couldn’t keep Gabe from his customary ride out into the desert and back.

“Hey, cowboy,” President Andrew Stoddard called out, descending the stairs and sincerely saluting the lone Marine as he passed, “whattaya say?”

“I say you and your choppers scared the crap out of this world-weary old nag. . . . Frightened my horse, too.”

The two men shook hands, then embraced. Stoddard, who Gabe felt looked presidential even when they were first-year roommates at the Naval Academy, showed the stress of three and a half years in office. Silver highlighted his razor-cut dark brown hair, and deep crow’s-feet had appeared at the corners of his iridescent blue eyes. Still, he was every bit the man in charge—the decorated Desert Storm pilot and former governor of North Carolina, whose star had been on the ascendancy since the day he took his first privileged breath.

“One of the downsides of the job,” Stoddard said, gesturing toward his entourage. “Twin helicopters so that any whacko who decides to take a bazooka shot at one of them has only a fifty-fifty chance of blowing me away, Secret Service studs checking out every inch that’s gonna be stepped on by these size elevens and every toilet seat that’s gonna be graced by these presidential cheeks, plus a medical team trained to know that it’s not if something terrible happens to their boss, it’s when.”

“If you’re looking to make a job change, I could use a wrangler on my ranch.”

“How many do you have working for you now?” Stoddard asked, glancing about.

“You would be the first. I’m afraid our benefits package is a little thin, too, starting with that you’d have to pay me to work here.”

“Hey, put me on the list. I don’t know if you follow the polls or not, but I haven’t got a hell of a lot of job security at the moment. Got some time to talk with an old pal?”

“If you’ll let me put my other old pal Condor, here, in the stables.”

“Fine-looking horse.”

“And that’s a fine-looking pooch. Liberty, right?” Gabe patted the dog’s rock-solid flank.

“Good memory,” Stoddard said. “Liberty’s making quite a name for himself, tagging along with me and changing people’s misperceptions about pit bulls, just like we’re changing people’s misconceptions about America. I’ve had dogs all my life, Gabe, but Liberty, here, is the best. Strong as a tiger, wise as an owl, and as gentle and dependable as that horse of yours.”

“Maybe you should have named him Simile.”

The president laughed out loud. “I love it. This here’s my trusty dog, Simile. He’s tough as a Tennessee hickory nut, but gentle as baby powder. Carol will think that’s very funny, too, especially since, unlike her husband, she’s actually likely to know the difference between a simile and a metaphor. Hey, Griz.”

A thick-necked, barrel-chested, balding Secret Service man wearing the obligatory black suit and reflective shades seemed to materialize from nowhere.

“You rang?”

“Griz, this is my old college roomie Gabe Singleton. Doctor Gabe Singleton. It’s been five years or so since we last saw one another, but it seems like yesterday. Gabe, this here’s Treat Griswold, my number-one protector and probably the number-two man in the whole Secret Service. Obsessive to a fault. Swears he’s telling the truth when he says he’ll take that proverbial bullet for me, but with that crooked smile and those beady little eyes of his, I just don’t believe him.”

“In that case, sir, you’ll just have to wait and see,” Griswold said, stopping just short of pulverizing the bones in Gabe’s hand at the same time. “I’ll be happy to get Condor settled in, Doctor. I used to muck out stables and ride warm-ups when I was a kid.”

Gabe liked the Secret Service agent immediately.

“In that case you’ve come a long way,” he said, handing over the reins. “Tack room’s in the barn. Maybe we can go for a ride sometime.”

“Maybe we can, sir,” Griswold said. “Come on, Liberty, let’s put this big ol’ fellow to bed.”

Stoddard took Gabe by the arm and led him to the back door. The house, seven rustic rooms that still had the feel of the cabin it was before some additions, was Gabe’s cut from the end of his five-year marriage to Cynthia Townes, a bright, vivacious nurse from the hospital who loved him to pieces from day one to day last. Her mistake.

Cinnie’s last words to him before she handed over her keys and took off for a teaching job in Cheyenne were to beg him to finish dealing with his past before he made any further attempts to build a future with anyone. For seven more years he had taken her at her word, and so had carefully avoided another in-depth connection. He might be done dealing with his past, but he had serious doubt it was ever going to be done dealing with him.

“Sorry I haven’t gotten out here for so long,” Stoddard said. “I used to really enjoy the evening rides and our fishing trips up into those mountains.”

“The Laramies. There’s no place on earth quite like them. But stow the apologies, matie. From what I’ve heard, you’ve had a few other things on your plate—like saving the world.”

Stoddard grinned wistfully.

“It’s a little bigger a job than I once thought,” he said, settling in at the round oak table in the kitchen, “but I still intend to make a dent in it.”

“I remember you talking like that during our first or second night of bar-hopping together at the Academy. I kept trying to stay cynical and believe that you were an idealistic jerk, but this little voice inside me kept saying that this was a guy who might actually be able to do it. Then, when you drank me under the table, I really decided to give you the...

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Verlag
St. Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312343531
ISBN 13 
9780312343538
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
371
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