the man was about to do. He wanted to ask him what he wanted, wanted to offer the man everything he had, wanted to beg the man for mercy, but his damaged mouth could only produce a gurgling noise. Bruce could only look up hopelessly with pleading, terror-filled eyes. Blood streamed down his face and onto his neck and chest.
Through a cloud of pain Bruce saw the look in the man's eyes.
It was not a wild-eyed, crazed look; not a hateful, bloodthirsty look; not the stare of a psychotic killer. The man was calm. Busy.
A man performing a tedious task. Detached. Unemotional.
This is nothing to this guy, Bruce thought. Another day at the office.
The man reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a pen and a piece of paper on the floor. Then he gripped Bruce's foot, one hand on the heel, the other on the toes. Bruce bucked in uncontrollable agony. The man's muscles flexed before he finally spoke.
"I'm going to twist your foot all the way around," the big man said, "until your toes are pointed toward your back and that broken bone rips through the skin." He paused, gave a distracted smile, and repositioned his fingers in order to get a better grip.
"I'll let go when you finish writing your suicide note, okay?"
Bruce made the note brief.
Saturday, September 14
Chapter 1
Sara Lowell glanced at her wristwatch. In twenty minutes she would make her national television debut in front of thirty million people. An hour later her future would be decided.
Twenty minutes.
She swallowed, stood slowly, and readjusted her leg brace.
Her chest hitched with each breath. She had to move around, had to do something before she went nuts. The metal of the brace rubbed against her, chafing the skin. After all these years Sara still could not get used to the clumsy artificial constraint. The limp, yes. The limp had been with her for as long as she could remember. It felt almost natural to her. But the bulky brace was still something she wanted to toss in a river.
She took a deep breath, willed herself to relax, and then checked her makeup in the mirror. Her face looked somewhat pale, but that was nothing new. Like the limp, she was used to that. Her honey-blonde hair was swept back from her beautiful, delicate features and large doll-like green eyes. Her mouth was wide, her lips sensual and full to the point where they looked almost swollen. She took off her wire-rimmed spectacles and cleaned the lenses. One of the producers walked over to her.
"Ready, Sara?" he asked.
"Whenever you are," she said with a weak smile.
"Good. You're on with Donald in fifteen minutes."
Sara looked at her co star Donald Parker. At sixty he was double her age and a billion times more experienced. He had been on Newsflash since the early years, before the fantastic Nielsen ratings and a market share that no news show had ever seen before or since. Simply put, Donald Parker was a legend in television journalism.
What the hell do I think I'm doing? I'm not ready for something like this.
Sara nervously scanned her material for the millionth time.
The words began to blur. Once again she wondered how she had gotten this far so fast. Her mind flashed through her college years, her column in the New York Herald, her work on cable television, her debates on public TV. With each step up the ladder, Sara had questioned her ability to climb any higher. She had been enraged by the jealous chatter of her colleagues, the cruel voices that whispered, "I wish my relatives were famous... Who did she sleep with?... It's that damn limp."
But no, the truth of the matter was much more simple: the public adored her. Even when she got rough or sarcastic with a guest, the audience could not get enough of her. True, her father was the former surgeon general and her husband was a basketball star, and maybe her childhood pain and her physical beauty had also helped her along the way. But Sara remembered what her first boss had told her:
"No one can survive in this business on looks alone. If anything they're a drawback. People will have a preconceived notion that because you're a beautiful blonde you can't be too bright. I know it's unfair, Sara, but that's the way it is. You can't just be as good as the competition you have to be better. Otherwise they're going to label you an airhead.
You
"II get blown off