The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [132]
“Dotty, please, you don’t know what you’re doing,”Armstrong begged, moving off her chair to grab at Dalrymple’s free hand. Before David could react, the nursing director pulled her arm free and swung a full backhand arc, catching the woman flush on the side of the face. With an audible snap, Armstrong’s left cheekbone shattered. Her slender body shot across the room and slammed against the wall fifteen feet away.
Her revolver still leveled at a spot between David’s eyes, Dalrymple glanced over her shoulder at Armstrong’s crumpled form. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” She smiled. “Now, Doctor, you have a choice to make.” She moved around the table, pushing it back with a trunklike leg to allow herself room. The muzzle of the revolver was only a foot from David’s forehead as she offered him the syringe. “Please decide,” she urged softly.
David was staring at her face when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw motion. Margaret Armstrong, on hands and knees, was inching across the floor. Desperately David forced his eyes to maintain contact with Dalrymple’s.
“Well?” said Dalrymple. “My patience is running thin.”
David took the syringe and studied it. “I … I don’t think I can get this in without a tourniquet,” he said, stalling. In the moment Dalrymple looked down he was able to catch another glimpse of Armstrong. The cardiologist was drawing closer. Then he noticed her hands. Each one held a small metal shield. The defibrillator! Armstrong had activated the machine. The paddles, connected to the unit by coiled wires, carried 400 joules.
David rolled up his sleeve and pumped his fist several times. The wires were almost out straight and Armstrong was still ten feet away. Dalrymple’s hand tightened on the revolver.
“Now,” she demanded.
“Dotty!” Armstrong yelled.
Dalrymple spun to the sound at the instant David made his lunge. He threw his shoulder full against her vast chest. The woman stumbled backward, catching the low coffee table just behind her knees. She fell like a giant redwood, shattering the table. As her bulk touched the floor, Armstrong was upon her, jamming one paddle on either side of her face, and, in the same motion, depressing the discharge button.
The muffled pop and spark from the paddles were followed instantly by a puff of smoke. Dalrymple’s arms flew upward as her huge body convulsed several inches off the floor. The odor of searing flesh filled the air. Vomit splashed from her mouth as her head snapped back. At the moment of her death the sphincters of her bladder and bowel released.
For several seconds David stood motionless, staring at the two women—one battered, one dead. Then, with resurgent terror, he broke from the room in an awkward, painful dash toward Four South.
Margaret Armstrong, rubber-legged, leaned against the sink, patting cold water on her face. She felt drugged, unable to sharpen the focus of her mind. Behind her lay the mountain of death that had, moments before, been Dorothy Dalrymple.
With great difficulty she forced her concentration to the situation at hand. If Christine were dead, she realized, David Shelton was all that stood against the continuation of her Sisterhood. Could he be eliminated? Should he be? Peggy Armstrong knew she would gladly confess to murder—sacrifice herself—to save the movement. But was she capable of killing an innocent person?
She walked unsteadily toward the door, then turned and looked back in disgust at Dalrymple. If a woman she thought she knew so well, trusted so implicitly, could have tried to buy her own security at such a price, how could she be sure that in a time of crisis there wouldn’t be others? Trembling, more from her thoughts than her injury, Armstrong supported herself against a wall. Was it over? After so many years, so many dreams, was