Projection by Keith Ablow Page B

a chance to do myself in under cover of heroics.  Maybe guilt over letting Lucas stand trial for murder was driving me to serve myself up as his next victim.  I tried comforting myself by recalling that every moment of insight I had achieved with patients had been preceded by an impulse in me to back off.  The truth always felt like a barracuda on the line, at once beckoning and demanding to be cut loose.  Finally I had cut everyone loose, closing down my practice, then myself.
    What truth, I wondered, would be told now — something about Lucas’ suffering or my own self-destructiveness?  I felt my chances of escape dwindle with each of the Harpy's steps forward.  The beast closed to ten yards.  I noticed red spots appearing on Bishop's white pant leg.  At five I could see the ruby droplets falling through the air.  I squinted at the knives held to the nurse's throats, but saw no trace of blood.  Four yards, then three, and the Harpy stopped.  I looked at Lucas’ face.  His jaws were clenched.  His pupils were tiny black dots.  Pinpoints.  I noticed that the blood dripped from between him and Bishop, but the two men stood flush against one another, and I couldn’t see exactly where it was coming from.  I buried my fear by focusing on the details of the exchange we had planned.  "You agreed to release three hostages," I said.
    Lucas swallowed hard.  He was sweating.  "You doubt my word?"  He closed his eyes, as if overwhelmed with pain, then fastened them on mine again.  "Lies are your domain."
    "I took you at your word.  That's why I'm standing here."
    "Unless you're a fool.  Or a madman driven to your own demise."  He leaned slightly forward and thrust his neck out.  His eyes grew wider.  I focused on his lips and glistening white teeth, my heart pounding as every cue told me he was about to call out the word that had tripped the explosive assault on Winston.  I glanced at the hospital roof and saw sharpshooters kneeling at each corner.  But it was too late for me to run.  Too late even to dive.  Lucas raised his face skyward.  The muscles in his throat stood out like iron struts.  "Satan must be vanquished!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the building, then trailing off in a pneumonic gasp.
    Sweat dripped down my own brow.  "Three hostages," I repeated, clinging to the words as an anchor to keep me from drifting into sheer panic.
    Lucas stared at me, his face blank.  "One, two, three."
    The Harpy advanced another few feet.  Its arms lifted skyward.  Zweig and Bishop bared their teeth like Rottweilers.
    At that instant I was convinced I would die.  I had a single thought, really more a vision, of Rachel.  She wasn't propped on fluffy clouds or draped in flowing white robes.  She was naked, standing before me on a stretch of jet black, steaming asphalt that did not burn her feet.  Her arms were outstretched, palms up, and I could see that the scars from when she had slashed her wrist as a girl were gone.  Her skin was pristine again.  She said nothing, but her eyes told me she was at peace.  And as my throat tightened with wonder at that healing I realized that more than a few seconds had gone by.  Rachel disappeared.  I was still standing before the Harpy.  I looked at Lucas, then past him at three figures — two black men and an old woman — advancing from the sliding glass doors to the hospital.  Each was dressed in a hospital gown.  They were patients.
    "Three for one," Lucas said flatly.  The Harpy's arms relaxed.  "You're a valuable commodity."
    "You agreed to release the pregnant—"
    "Three lives," Lucas sputtered, grimacing in pain.  "Can we count any one more than any other?  Is anyone expendable?  Human refuse?"
    I heard the question as a reference to my letting Lucas stand trial in place of Kathy.  Or perhaps another person had brokered Lucas’ life before I had.  I wanted to know, hungered to know.  The barracuda beckoned.  "Let's go inside," I