Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

Anson pulled a chair to the bedside and sat down, taking the man's emaciated hand in his.

"Rennie, are you able to hear me?"

Faintly, Ono nodded, although he was beyond speech.

"Rennie, you are a good and kind man. It will go well for you in the life after this one. You have fought your illness bravely. Are you afraid now?"

Ono shook his head.

"May I read to you, Rennie? May I read to you? May I read you through the passage? Good."

Anson opened a well-worn looseleaf notebook — his notebook. It was filled with drawings, short essays, diary entries, and poems, and he added to it in some way nearly every day. There was no title to what he was about to read, only the words, carefully printed on a sheet that was whiter than the others:

The world can be hard, full of trickery,

Full of deceit,

Full of injustice,

Full of pain.

But there is an emptiness waiting, my friend — a great, glowing emptiness,

Soft and fragrant with the essence of peace,

The essence of serenity.

You are almost there, my friend.

The magnificent emptiness is the eternal harbor for your soul.

Take my hand, friend.

Take my hand and take a step, just one more step,

And you are there.

Anson felt Rennie Ono's grip go slack. The faint rise and fall of the sheet over his chest vanished. For several minutes they remained silent and motionless — nurse, doctor, patient. Finally, Anson stood, bent low, and gently kissed the man's forehead. Then, without a word, he left the room.

It was nearing dawn, the most cherished time of Anson's day. From the moment in Amritsar when he had realized the deception of the surgeon Khanduri and the woman claiming to be Narendra Narjot, along with the tacit participation of his dearest friend, Elizabeth, he had been sad and perplexed. Sleeping little, he had thrown himself as never before into his work and into caring for the patients in the clinic and hospital. All the while, he waited for understanding of what his response should be. Now, after several conversations with the nurse Claudine, who had been let go by Elizabeth, he was ready.

When Anson reached the lab, his friend Francis Ngale was waiting just outside.

"Dr. Joe, the laboratory is prepared," the huge security guard said. "Dr. St. Pierre has just arrived at the hospital." "Good."

"Did Rennie pass on?"

"He did."

"Peacefully?"

"Very peacefully, Francis."

"Thank you, Dr. Joe. He was quite a good man."

"Now we have business to attend to. Might I have the remote control?"

Ngale handed over a small, rectangular box.

"Tested and retested," he said. "I hope you don't have to use it."

"If I do, I do. The chair is in place?"

"It is."

"You are a good friend, Francis. You have always been so."

The two men embraced briefly, and then Anson sent Ngale back to the hospital. A minute later, the man reappeared, leading Elizabeth into the room. She was wearing a loose, filmy white cotton skirt and matching blouse. Not even her expression of bewilderment and concern could mask her enduring beauty. Anson motioned her to the chair, and stood in front of her — sometimes pacing like a barrister, sometimes standing quite still and erect.

"Well," she said in English, "summoning me here at four o'clock in the morning is certainly a first."

"Yes," Anson replied, "it is. As you know, prior to your arranging our trip to India to visit the widow of my benefactor, I made you a promise that I would share the final secrets of my research on Sarah-nine with the scientists from Whitestone."

"That is correct."

Her bewildered expression intensified. Why would he be retelling something she knew so well?

"All you are missing is the identification of which of the ten strains of yeast in our vats we are actually using, and also one step in the process of stimulating the yeast to actually produce the drug."

"Yes?"

"Well, I have decided to renege on my part of the bargain."

"But — "

"You have been deceitful, Elizabeth. You built our friendship, and then abused it."

Anson had always been an extremely peaceful man, but his temper, once triggered, could be intense. He cautioned himself against going off at this moment. Not with the remote in his pocket.

"I don't know what you're talking about," St. Pierre tried.

Anson rattled off a few sentences in Hindi.

"I assume you recognize the language, even if it is one of the few you do not speak. I am reasonably fluent in it — at least fluent enough to identify that ridiculous charade in Amritsar."

"I don't understand," she tried again.

"Of course you do. Upon our return, hoping against hope that I had somehow misread the whole dreadful scenario, I contacted a journalist friend in New Delhi. There is no evidence that a T. J. Narjot ever existed, nor that there was ever an outbreak of Serratia in the hospitals of Amritsar.

"Wait," St. Pierre pleaded, now clearly beginning to panic.

"There's more," Anson said. "Ever since my operation and recovery, I've been mystified by the convenience of my respiratory arrest here in the hospital. I called the nurse, Claudine, who was here that day. At first she tried to protect you, or rather her future as a nurse, which you threatened. But ultimately her allegiance to me won out, and what do you suppose I learned? I learned that my dear friend Elizabeth, my dear old friend, nearly killed me out of her own self-interest."

"That was done for your own good, Joseph. You needed the transplant."

"You mean you needed me to have the transplant. My work wasn't going fast enough for you. Or was it that you were fearful I would die before your damn scientists had picked my brain clean?"

"Now, Joseph, that isn't fair. Whitestone built this hospital. We built these labs."

Anson withdrew the remote from his pocket.

"You know my friend Francis, yes?" he asked, motioning to Ngale.

"Of course."

"Francis is something of an expert in demolition. At my request, he has wired this entire research wing with explosives. Elizabeth, you have exactly fifteen minutes to satisfy me you are telling the truth, or this lab is going up in smoke."

"Wait, no. You can't do this!"

"Fifteen minutes, and all this will be rubble, including those precious vats of yeast, and my notebooks, which are piled right over there in the corner.

"Joseph, you don't understand. It is not my place to tell you anything. I–I need to make some calls. I need to get permission to share some things with you. My life is in danger if I don't, I–I need more time."

Anson theatrically checked his watch.

"Fourteen minutes."

St. Pierre looked frantically about as if searching for a rescuer.

"I need to make a call."

"As long as it takes less than fourteen minutes."

St. Pierre raced off.

"Shall I go with her?" Ngale asked.

"Her only option is to tell us the truth. The people who employ her are smart — very smart. They will see that."

In just a few minutes St. Pierre was back.

"All right, all right," she said, breathless. "I've been authorized to tell you certain facts, but no names. Is that acceptable?"

"You are the liar, Elizabeth. You are the deceiver. I will make no promises."

"All right, then, sit down and listen."

Anson nodded to Ngale, who brought over a chair, and then, with one final look at his friend, excused himself from the room.

"Proceed," Anson said. "Just remember, though, if I feel you are lying, I will not give you a second chance."

He held up the remote for emphasis.

St. Pierre straightened herself and met his gaze defiantly.

"A number of years ago," she began, "maybe fifteen, a small group of transplant specialists — medical and surgical — began getting together at international transplant meetings to discuss the awesome pressures of our specialty, and our dissatisfaction and frustration with the system of organ donation and allocation."