Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

Get away! Get away from them before the drug kicks in. The larger man comes at me. I punch him in the face. He stumbles backward. Run! Run! Down the alley is the only way to go.

There are buildings all around-one story, two, some even three. The details are vague and indistinct, yet I clearly see a light wink on in one of the windows. Everything is blurry now. I feel detached…distant…surreal. The drug must be kicking in.

"I have a pistol. Stop right now or I will shoot!"

My legs are fueled by terror. I would rather die than live as they plan. Ignore the gun. Just run! Run, damn it!

My body responds. I'm running…running as hard as I can.

Oh, God, the alley's blocked. A pile of trash and garbage and barrels and cardboard boxes…and a fence. There's a fence! I can make it. I can make it over the trash and the fence. I've got to.

From behind me I hear a shot. No pain. I wasn't hit. I can make it. Leg up onto the top of the fence. Almost there. Another shot. Burning pain in my back on the right. Oh, God! I've been shot. No! This can't be happening…

"Dr. Santoro, I think she is waking up."

Another shot. More pain. No! I don't want to die…

"She is waking up!"

The woman's words, spoken in Portuguese, forced themselves into Natalie's consciousness, dispelling the terrible images from the alley.

This has to be real…must be alive.

"Miss, wake up. Wake up and meet us. Just nod your head if you hear me. Good, good. Don't try and open your eyes yet. We have them covered."

Natalie could understand enough of the woman's Portuguese to interpret it. Still, she felt unable to speak.

"Dr. Santoro, she hears us."

"Well, well. Our dove begins to spread her wings." A man's voice — deep and calming. "Perhaps soon the great mystery will be over. Turn off the lights and we shall uncover her eyes. Miss, can you hear me? Please squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

"I…am…American," Natalie heard her strained, hoarse voice say in somewhat awkward Portuguese. "I…do not…speak…Portuguese…very well."

She felt extremely vague and hung-over, but one at a time, her senses were checking in. There was a pounding in her temples and behind her eyes that was extremely unpleasant, but bearable. The smell of isopropyl alcohol and disinfectant was distinctively hospital. The institutional texture of the sheets supported that conclusion. Then she became aware of the oxygen prongs in her nose. The message from her senses blended with the all-too-dear memories of being assaulted, nearly escaping, and then being shot in the back.

"Actually, it sounds as if your Portuguese is quite good," the man said in accented English, "but I will try and accommodate you. I am Dr. Xavier Santoro. You are a patient in the Santa Teresa Hospital in Rio de Janeiro. You have been a patient here for a number of days. The lights have now been turned off. I will take the pads from your eyes, but I will have to replace them soon. Your corneas were quite scratched, the right more than the left. They have responded nicely to treatment, but they are not all better. After I remove the pads, please open your eyes intermittently to allow them some time to adjust. If you have any significant discomfort, we will immediately replace the patches."

The tape, holding pads over Natalie's eyes, was gently pulled away. She kept her lids closed for a minute as she tested her hands and feet, then her arms and legs. Her joints were piteously stiff, but they all seemed to be working. No paralysis. Her hand brushed across a urinary catheter, which suggested she had been in Santa Teresa's for some time. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The room was dimly lit from fluorescent light flowing in from the corridor outside her door. The glare was unpleasant, but objects quickly came into focus. An IV was draining into her left forearm. There was an ornate crucifix over the doorway. There were no windows on the three walls she could see.

Dr. Xavier Santoro, wearing scrubs and a surgical coat, gazed down at her benignly. His face was scholarly, long and narrow with a prominent nose and wire-rimmed glasses, and from where she lay, he seemed quite tall.

"I…I was shot," she said. "Am I all right?"

"Here, let me help you up in bed a bit."

Santoro pulled her up toward the head of the bed, then raised it forty-five degrees.

"I'm a medical student…a senior medical student in Boston…My name is Natalie Reyes…A taxi driver took me from the airport to an alley and…am I all right?"

Santoro inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.

"You were found in an alley with only your panties on, Miss Reyes. No bra. As you said, you had been shot twice — twice in the back on the right. We estimate you were there, lying unconscious beneath a pile of trash in the alley, for two days. You lost a good deal of blood. This is midwinter here in Brazil. The temperature at night has been less than ten degrees Celsius — not freezing, but cold enough."

"What day was I brought in here?"

Santoro consulted her bedside chart.

"The eighteenth."

"I flew in on the fifteenth…and was attacked on the way from the airport, so it was three days…What day is it now?"

"It is the twenty-seventh, a Wednesday. You have been in a coma since your arrival — probably from the prolonged exposure, shock, and infection. We had no idea who you were."

"Nobody called the police…looking for me?"

"Not as far as we know. The police have been here, though. They will want to come back and get a statement from you."

"I feel short of breath."

Santoro took her hand.

"That is understandable," he said, "but I promise you that symptom will improve with time."

"With time?"

Santoro hesitated.

"You were quite ill when you were brought in," he said finally, "badly dehydrated and in shock. Your right lung had collapsed completely from the gunshots and the bleeding into your chest. There was life-threatening infection…I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but with the bullet wounds and infection we could not reinflate the lung and your vital signs were slipping. The decision was made that to save your life, the lung had to be removed."

"Removed?"

Natalie felt a sudden wave of nausea sweep over her. She began to hyperventilate. Bile swept up into her throat. My lung.

"We had no choice," Santoro was saying.

"No, this can't be."

"But on the positive side, you have made a remarkable recovery to date."

"I was an athlete," she managed to say. "A…a runner."

Please…please let this be a dream.

Images of herself dragging ahead using a walker swirled through her brain. My lung! She would be a pulmonary cripple forever, never to run again, always short of breath. She tried chastising herself for not responding to the fact that these people had saved her life, but all she could focus on was that life as she had known it was over.

"An athlete," Santoro said. "Well, that explains your response to the surgery. I am sure this is a terrible shock to you, but take it from a chest surgeon, Miss Reyes, having this operation does not mean you will no longer be able to run. With time your left lung will compensate and your breathing capacity will increase to the point where it could come close to equaling what you could do with both lungs."

"Oh, God. I can't believe this."

"Perhaps you would like us to contact someone back home?"

"Oh, yes, yes. I have family who must be frantic with worry. Dr. Santoro, I'm sorry for not sounding more appreciative to you and everyone for saving my life. I just can't believe what's happened."

"It is normal in situations like this. Believe me. But your life will not be altered nearly as drastically as you think."

"I…hope so. Thank you."

"When you are able, we have some hospital business to attend to. You were in the intensive care unit for several days, but because the hospital has been filled to overflowing, you have been moved to the building we call the annex. It is not connected to the actual hospital. Estella will be in to take some information for billing and for our records."