Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

The guard, a stocky man with massive arms, scooped Anson up as if he were a rag doll and raced back into the hospital crying for help. In seconds, the physician's limp form was supine on a stretcher in the critical care room, and Claudine had readied the well-equipped crash cart. St. Pierre, a cool head in even the most dire medical emergencies, ordered a cardiac monitor, urinary catheter, and IV, then positioned Anson's head chin up, and began inflating his lungs with a breathing bag and mask. One of the medical residents from Yaounde offered to take over for her, but St. Pierre declined.

"No matter how proficient you are, Daniel," she said, "I will never trust your technique in situations such as this as much as I trust my own. Without this man, we are all lost. Check his femoral artery for a pulse. Claudine, prepare for me to intubate. A seven-point-five tube. Be certain to check the balloon on it before giving it to me."

There was a momentary, silent spark between the two women, unseen by anyone else in the room.

"He still has a pulse," the resident said. "Faint at one-twenty." "Help get the monitor running and see if you can get a blood pressure.

St. Pierre continued breathing effectively for Anson, whose color had marginally improved, although his level of consciousness had not. Claudine inflated the balloon used to seal the breathing tube in place inside the trachea and found it to have no leaks. Then, still as composed as if she were selecting fruit at the market, St. Pierre crouched at the head of the stretcher, had the resident hold Anson's head steady in the chin-up position, set a lighted laryngoscope blade against her colleague's tongue, and in just seconds, slid the tube between the delicate half-moons of his vocal cords. A syringeful of air inflated the balloon and sealed the tube in place.

St. Pierre then replaced the mask on the breathing bag with an adapter that hooked to the tube, and breathed for Anson until the tube could be taped in place and attached to a mechanical respirator. With six people working so closely and intensely, the heat and humidity in the small room was staggering. Only St. Pierre showed no external signs of being affected, although once she removed her glasses and wiped them on the hem of her shirt.

For fifteen minutes a tense silence held sway. There was no change in Anson's appearance, but his vital signs steadily improved. Then, with obvious effort, Joe Anson opened his eyes.

One by one, St. Pierre thanked her assistants and the nurses, and asked each to leave the room. Then she bent over the stretcher and positioned her face just a few inches from his.

"Easy does it, Joseph," she said when they were at last alone. "The heat and humidity were too much for you. You just had a complete respiratory arrest. Do you understand? Don't even nod if you do. Just squeeze my hand. Good. I know that tube is uncomfortable. I'll give you some sedation in just a few minutes. As long as the tube is in place, the danger of disaster is greatly lessened.

"Joseph, please, please listen to me. If this had happened in your apartment, we never would have gotten to you in time. We need you, Joseph. need you. Sarah-nine needs you. The world needs you. We can't have this happen again. Please, please consent to the transplant."

Minutely at first, then with greater force, he squeezed her hand.

"Oh, Joseph," she said, kissing him on the forehead, then on the cheek, "thank you, thank you. We're going to move quickly. Do you understand? Whitestone has a jet to fly you to India. It's waiting in Capetown right now. I will be with you all the way. We'll keep you sc dated and on the ventilator for the whole trip. Understand? Good. Please don't be frightened. This is what is needed. Soon all your troubles will be over and you will be back here making all of mankind better. I ask you one last time, do you understand? All right, Joseph, I will make the call. Soon we will be on the way to Yaounde Airport to meet our jet."

St. Pierre mobilized the team who would be caring for Anson while she was off arranging the ambulance ride to Yaounde Airport and the subsequent flight to Amritsar International. When Claudine moved in to take over the nursing, St. Pierre shook her head and motioned the woman outside.

"You almost killed him," St. Pierre snapped before Claudine could get out a word.

The nurse's eyes glossed over at the rebuke. Elizabeth St. Pierre was a person — a Yaounde-born woman- whom she had respected for many years. Had she not thought so much of her, she would have never agreed to add the mixture of tranquilizers and respiratory depressants to Dr. Anson's beer.

"I did nothing wrong," she said. "You told me to add one-point-four cc's to the bottle, and that is precisely what I did."

St. Pierre was at once fire and ice.

"Nonsense," she said. "All I wanted to do was force him into more difficulty so he would opt to go ahead with a transplant before it was too late, and while we had a perfect donor. I formulated that preparation based on his body mass and oxygen levels. If you had given the proper amount, he would never have stopped breathing."

"But it is extremely hot and humid today and — "

"Just imagine if that had happened five minutes later in his quarters. If he was unable to call for help, then he would be dead right now, and we would have lost one of the greatest men who ever lived. Clearly you misread the dose. Admit it."

"Dr. St. Pierre, I cannot admit to something I did not — "

"In that case, I want you packed and out of here by two. I'll have one of the guards drive you back to Yaounde. If you wish a positive recommendation from me, let there be no talk of what went on here today."

Without waiting for a reply, St. Pierre whirled, stalked to her office, and placed a long-distance call. Again, the man who called himself Laertes answered.

"All right," she said in English. "Set the team in motion. If this tissue match is all you say, A should be renewed and working for us for as long as is necessary. We have accomplished so much."

"Agreed."

"Has the donor been certified brain-dead?"

"Do you care, Aspasia?"

"No," St. Pierre said without hesitation. "No, I don't."

Let me get this straight, Mr. Callahan. Your source for this information about a recreational vehicle was an old man in an out-of-the-way garage, and you found him after being encouraged by a psychic not to quit your investigation."

"Urn…I suppose you could put it that way, yes."

"You believe the old man?"

"I do. I think the RV he described is the one we're looking for."

"And the psychic with the zodiac tattooed on her head?"

"She knew my cat was missing, and I don't remember telling her that."

"But she didn't tell you where to find him."

"No, no she didn't."

But you found him anyway?"

"He was in the bushes right in front of my building. I think he got enough mice and rats there without ever having to move."

Gustafson suppressed a grin, but not before Ben saw it.

"So," she said, "after a week of near futility in Florida, where we still don't know who the man was you were investigating, or why he had a bone marrow done, you want me to pay you to go to Cincinnati."

"It's only three hundred or so miles."

"Each way. I know that."

Ben leaned toward her conspiratorially.

"Don't tell anyone, Doc, but I'm going to Cincinnati whether you pay me or not."

Alice Gustafson leaned back across her desk and mimicked his gesture.

"Well then," she said, "in that case you'd better get a move on."

Ben made the drive from Chicago to Cincinnati in a steady, raw drizzle. For much of the trip he listened to a John Prine CD with most of the songs dealing with imprisonment — either behind bars or within the walls of one's life. When he wasn't listening, he was singing the chorus of his favorite cut on the album, which he had decided would be his theme song until something better came along.