Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

"Sounds like a plan," Ben said. "What about Sandy'"

"Assuming you can make it, you and I will cut through the forest to where I have left the Mercedes of the policeman I killed. Then we'll drive around to the access road and down to the hospital. By the time we arrive, there should be absolute chaos. Somehow, then, we've got to wheel Sandy out and get her into the car. Luis and his people will then just have to melt into the forest."

"He's ready to do that?"

"He loved his sister very much."

Ben patted the man on the arm. Then, unwilling to have either of the others know that his light-headedness was returning, and that both knees and his lower back were throbbing, he took a mug of water, shuffled out to the granite shelf in front of the cave, and sat, his back against the rock. Be low him and to the south, sparkling in the late-morning sun, was the hospital. Hospital. Ben laughed ruefully. Aside from Nazi Germany, the word had probably never been more inappropriately used. The brutality of what had been done to him there, and to so many others, made him shudder. Now, hopefully, it was going to end.

We're coming, he thought savagely. We're coming.

A short while later, Tokima returned, her red plastic pail filled to overflowing with thick, gnarled, rust-colored roots, glistening from having just been washed. With hardly a word, she set about preparing the poison. Luis, moving like the predator he was, headed down the hillside. Natalie moved outside the cave, settled down next to Ben, and took his hand.

"A private eye, huh," she said. "Do you own a gun?"

"Of course."

"Ever had to use it?"

"Of course. Boot Hill in Chicago is full of the men I've put there — women, children, and pets, too."

He shot the hospital with his finger and blew the smoke from the barrel.

"Absolutely terrifying," she said, gently folding his finger back in place. "They don't stand a chance."

"Do you think we do?"

"Of course."

"We're both sort of living on borrowed time anyway."

In another fifteen minutes, unheard and unseen, Luis suddenly appeared at the side of the cave opening.

"People are nervous about the disappearance of Vincent," he said. "It is being assumed that Ben killed him. I am supposed to be out looking for his body right now."

He went into the cave and returned with a heavy clay bowl containing the root preparation, covered with leaves.

"You ready, Ben Callahan?" Natalie asked, helping him to his feet.

Ben clenched his fists and willed the dizziness to lessen.

"Ready," he managed.

"The kitchen staff is preparing lunch," Luis said, allowing time for Natalie to share the information with Ben. "I need to get the final ingredient down to them. The doctors are in with their patient, awaiting the arrival of the one who is to receive her heart. The flight crew is sunning by the pool. Santoro is everywhere, preparing for two operations. Barbosa and the other guards are ready for trouble. The time is now."

"The time is now," Natalie repeated.

"Come," Luis said, "I will point you in the direction of your car. Plan on being outside the hospital with it in one hour. With any fortune, we will be bringing your patient out to you for a ride."

The trek through dense forest to the Mercedes was a bear. The heat and humidity were intense, and the journey was uphill nearly all the way. Using the sun as a marker, Natalie and Ben gave the town a wide berth, and continued to head due north. She was convinced that if they just stayed true to that direction, they had to hit the Dom Angelo road at some point. Then, a turn to the right, and she was certain she could find the dead-end path where she had hidden Vargas's car.

She and Luis had allowed an hour and a half for him to get the toxic hallucinogen into whatever was being served for lunch, and then to get it disbursed throughout the hospital, and for her and Ben to retrieve the Mercedes and drive it around to the rear entrance. It was, as Ben had said, a plan, but it was a shaky one. With timing tight and the hospital on red alert because of Vincent's disappearance, the chances for things to go wrong were many.

Natalie had only a rough idea how far away the road actually was, or how difficult the terrain, so she pushed ahead more aggressively than she would have liked. Now, after half an hour, the altitude and steady upward climb were taking their toll on her compromised stamina. But she could see that Ben, though he was keeping up and refused to ask any quarter, was having an even tougher time.

"Let's take a break," she said, breathing heavily as she handed him the canteen.

"You holding up?"

"I'm managing. It shouldn't be too much longer now."

She didn't bother to ask him the same question. He would say he was doing fine, but Natalie knew he wasn't. The pallor had returned to the area around his lips, and he had a disturbing glaze over his eyes. It was inconceivable to her what he must have endured before being set off into the forest to be hunted down. There were nasty electrical burns speckled over much of his body, his fingers were swollen and discolored, and both the entry and exit wounds on his shoulder, despite Tokimo's poultices, were showing early signs of infection. She wondered how he could possibly hold up much longer. Fortunately, she reminded herself, all they had to do was make it to the car. From then on he would be a passenger.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Lead on. I can do this."

"Have a little more water."

"If you say so, although I have the feeling that all this water I've been drinking isn't exactly from a Crystal Springs bottling plant. Dr. Banks, my doc back in Chicago, will have a field day trying to diagnose all the injuries, parasites, and other diseases I'm going to bring home from this trip. You better hurry up and finish med school so you can help him take care of me.

"No problem. Like many women, I'm cursed with the need to take in wounded, broken men and fix them up."

They stopped once more for rest and water, and just as Natalie was questioning whether or not they might have drifted off course, they hit what she felt certain was the Dom Angelo road. Ben was dragging badly now, and no longer able to disguise his weakness. Still, as long as they found the Mercedes without difficulty, they were doing reasonably well for time.

"Hang on, Ben Callahan," she urged. "We're almost there."

A right-hand turn toward what she hoped was the town, and five more minutes of walking, and she found the overgrown cutoff. Ben was so far behind that at some points after rounding a bend, she lost sight of him completely. She waited until he caught up, and then led him to the car. The moment she saw the branches she had used as camouflage lying on the ground, she knew there was trouble.

Rodrigo Vargas's Mercedes was right where she had left it, but it was not going to be driven — not now and probably not ever. All four tires were slashed and flat. The hood had been pried open, and much of the engine destroyed. The driver's side window had been smashed. As deflated as the tires, Natalie checked beneath the driver's seat for the extra ammunition she had left there. Gone.

"Trouble in paradise," Ben said, bracing himself on the trunk. "This damage seems too total and meticulously done to be senseless vandalism."

"I was thinking the same thing," Natalie replied, checking her watch. "Ben, I can make it down to the hospital, but I don't think you can."

"I don't know. I think — "

"Please. You look as if you're about to fall over. Either wait here with the water or try and make it into town. I told you about Father Francisco. You can find him there. Tell him what's happening, and what happened to you. He'll take care of you. I'm sure of it. Maybe he'll even have access to a car to drive you down to the hospital."