Contest - Hardcover

Reilly, Matthew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312286252 ISBN 13: 9780312286255

Verlag: St Martins Pr, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Unwittingly entered into a dangerous contest along with his young daughter, doctor Stephen Swain is placed into the labyrinth of the New York Public Library from which only one of seven contestants will emerge alive. 75,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matthew Reilly was born in 1974 and studied law at the University of New South Wales. He has written four novels and several screenplays, and has had several magazine articles published. In 2002, he sold the film rights his worldwide bestseller, Ice Station, to Paramount Pictures. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

 

Contest

FIRST MOVEMENT

Sunday, 1 December, 1:27 p.m.

The sun shone brightly over Norwood Elementary School. Even though it was a Sunday, groups of schoolchildren were out playing on the school’s enormous grassy playing field.

 

Status Check: Initialize electrification systems.

 

Norwood was one of the leading private elementary schools in Brooklyn Heights. An impressive academic record—and one of the biggest building funds in America—had made it one of the sought-after schools for the well-to-do. Today’s fun fair was but one of its annual fundraising events.

At the bottom corner of the grassy playing area, a cluster of children had gathered. And in the middle of this cluster stood Holly Swain, nose-to-nose with Thomas Jacobs.

“He is not, Tommy.”

“Is too. He’s a murderer!”

The crowd of children gathered around the two combatants gasped at the word.

Holly tried to compose herself. The white lace collar of her uniform was beginning to feel very tight now and she was determined not to let it show. She shook her head sadly, raised her nose a little higher.

“You’re so childish, Tommy. Such a boy.”

The girls behind her chirped similar comments in support.

“How can you call me childish when you’re only in the third grade?” Tommy retorted. The group assembled behind him echoed their agreement.

“Don’t be so immature,” Holly said. Good word, she thought.

Tommy hesitated. “Yeah, well, he’s still a murderer.”

“He is not.”

“He killed a man, didn’t he?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“Then he’s a murderer.” Tommy looked around himself for support. “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!” The group behind him joined in.

“Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”

Holly felt her fists clench by her side, felt her collar tighten around her neck. She remembered her father. Be a lady. Got to be a lady.

She spun around, her blond ponytail flinging over her shoulders. The girls around her were shaking their heads at the taunts of the boys. Holly took a deep breath. She smiled to her friends. Got to be a lady.

Behind her, the boys’ chant continued.

“Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”

Finally, Tommy called out above the chant, “If her father’s a murderer, then Holly Swain will probably grow up to be a murderer, too!”

“Yeah! Yeah, she will!” his group urged.

Holly’s smile went flat.

Slowly—ever so slowly—she turned back round to face Tommy. A hush fell over the crowd.

Holly stepped closer. Tommy chuckled, glancing around at his friends. Only now his supporters were silent.

“Now I’m upset,” Holly said flatly. “I think you’d better take back those things you’ve been saying. Would you, please?”

Tommy smirked and then leaned forward. “Nope.”

“Okay, then,” Holly said, smiling politely. She looked down at her uniform, straightened her skirt.

Then she hit him.

Hard.

 

The clinic had become a battlefield.

Glass exploded everywhere as test tubes crashed against the walls. The nurses leaped clear of the melee, hurriedly moving the multi-million-dollar equipment out of the line of fire.

Dr. Stephen Swain burst out of the adjoining observation room and immediately set about calming the source of the storm—a 57-year-old, 240-pound, bigbusted woman named Rosemary Pederman, a guest of New York University Hospital on account of a cerebral aneurism.

“Mrs. Pederman! Mrs. Pederman!” Swain called. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Just calm down,” he said gently. “What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem?” Rose Pederman spat. “The problem, young man, is that I will not put my head in that … that thing … until someone tells me exactly what it does!”

She jerked her chin at the enormous Magnetic Resonance Imaging—or MRI—machine which occupied the center of the room.

“Come on, Mrs. Pederman,” Swain said. “We’ve been through this before.”

Rose Pederman pouted, childlike.

“The MRI will not harm you in any way—”

“Young man. How does it work?”

Swain pursed his lips tightly.

At 39, he was the youngest ever partner in Borman & White, the radiologist collective, and for a very simple reason—Swain was good. He could see things in an X-ray or CAT-scan that no one else could, and on more than one occasion, had saved lives by doing so.

This fact, however, was difficult to impress upon older patients since Swain—sandy-haired and cleanshaven, with a lean physique and sky-blue eyes—looked about ten years younger than his actual age. Except for the fresh red vertical scar that cut down across his lower lip, a feature which seemed to age him, he could have passed for a third-year resident.

“You want to know how it works?” Swain said seriously. He resisted the urge to look at his watch. He had somewhere to be. But then, Rose Pederman had gone through six radiologists already and this had to stop.

“Yes, I do,” she said stubbornly.

“Okay. Mrs. Pederman, the process you are about to undertake is called Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It’s not unlike a CAT-scan, in that it generates a crosssectional scan of your skull. Only instead of using photovoltaic methods, we use controlled magnetic energy to realign the ambient electrostatic conductivity in your head in order to create a three-dimensional composite cross-section of your cranium.”

“What?”

“The magnet in the MRI machine affects the natural electricity in your body, Mrs. Pederman, giving us a perfect picture of the inside of your head.”

“Oh, well …” Mrs. Pederman’s lethal frown instantly transformed into a beaming, maternal smile. “That’s quite all right then. That was all you had to tell me, lovey.”

 

An hour later, Swain burst through the doors of the surgeons’ locker room.

“Am I too late?” he said.

Dr. James Wilson—a red-haired pediatrician who ten years previously had been the best man at Swain’s wedding—was already moving quickly toward him. He hurled Swain’s briefcase to him. “It’s 14-13 to the Giants. If we hurry, we can catch the last two quarters at McCafferty’s. Come on. We’ll go through the ER.”

“Thanks for waiting,” Swain hurried to keep up with his friend’s rapid strides.

“Hey, it’s your game,” Wilson said as he walked.

The Giants were playing the Redskins and Wilson knew that Swain had been waiting a long time for this game. It had something to do with Swain living in New York and his father who lived back in D.C.

“Say,” Wilson said, “how’s that lip healing up?”

“It’s okay.” Swain touched the vertical scar on his lower lip. “Still a bit tender. Got the stitches out last...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St Martins Pr
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312286252
• ISBN 13: 9780312286255
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar