The patient

the long version

As taken from the author's website at http://www.michaelpalmerbooks.com: Neurosurgeon Jessie Copeland works at the very frontier of neurosurgery, developing technology that could revolutionize the treatment of brain tumors. But her work brings her to the attention of an infinitely dangerous man. Claude Malloche is brilliant, remorseless—a terrorist without regard for human life. He is also ill with a brain tumor considered to be inoperable. Nothing can stop Malloche from getting to the woman he believes can cure him. For those caught in his path, the nightmare has just begun…and no one is more aware of the stakes than Jessie Copeland. In brain surgery there are no guarantees—but that’s exactly what Malloche demands. With disaster just one cut away, Jessie faces the most harrowing case of her life—and the price of failure may be thousands of lives…