Thomas Hoover - Life blood

The intern, a young black guy, led me past a row of gurneys and into a private room at the rear of the huge space. Lou was bandaged all around his chest and hooked up to an IV and a monitor. He looked better, but I wasn't sure he'd be ready for what I was about to tell him.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" I asked as I walked in, trying to seem upbeat.

"Fucking cops." He was boiling, his face actually red. "Where do they get them these days? McDonald's rejects?"

"Easy, don't get your blood pressure up." I reached over and touched his brow. It felt like he had a mild temperature. "Let's all just calm down and try to think rationally."

"Yeah, I'm thinking rationally. You saw that fax I got from Williams."

"You think that was Alex Goddard seated next to her, right?"

"Who else? When she was in her moonbeam phase, she must have heard about him and gone up there and ended up in his clutches. But why did she let him take her down to-?"

"He told me he has a clinic in Central America. He called it 'a place of miracles.' And then Colonel Ramos shows up, part of the Guatemalan diplomatic corps. Put two and two together. That's got to be where they're taking her."

"Who knows, but I'm going to get the boys downtown to put out a missing-persons APB nationwide. Gerry'll do it for me if I ask. Fuck New York's Finest. They ain't gonna do crap anyway."

I listened wondering how to impress my bright idea upon him. The chances were Ramos was taking Sarah back to Guatemala. Probably right this minute. For some kind of unfinished business. Or just to hold her there as an insurance policy that Children of Light would never be mentioned in my picture.

"I seriously doubt a missing-persons alert is going to do any good Lou, because I seriously doubt she's going to be walking the streets of this country. That bastard Ramos is taking her where he knows he can hide her."

"You mean… Jesus." He stared at me as though the idea had never crossed his mind. I think he'd just repressed it. "What are we going to-?"

"The only thing we can do. I'm going down there. I'm going to go straight down there and locate Alex Goddard."

"That's an exceptionally lousy thought process." His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance.

"Why? Give me one good reason why. You think the police down there are going to bring charges against a colonel?" I really could have used some encouragement. "It's the only way-"

"Morgan, you've always been high-strung." He sighed and then winced. "Ever since you were a kid. I worried about you then and I'm worried about you now. I don't want you to go down there and get into trouble. Because believe me, that's a seriously wrong place to get crossways with the pricks who make the rules. You don't know your way around that Third World craphole. Wouldn't be that hard to end up a statistic. We can alert the embassy. Have them start looking for her."

"Listen, there's a lot more going on between Alex Goddard and me than you know." This was definitely not the time to tell him about the babies, or about Carly and the threats. "Trust me. I'm going down there. In the morning, if I can. Who knows? Sarah and Ramos might even be on the same plane."

As I was finishing that pronouncement, two nurses came in rolling a gurney and announced that his room was ready. Then they gave him a sedative.

Was I being irrational? The thing was, though, what would you do? I was absolutely sure Ramos had taken her. So it was obvious that was where he would go next. He was a "diplomat," apparently, so he could easily fudge the passport formalities.

As the nurses were helping Lou onto the gurney, I stood there holding his hand and thinking about what lay ahead. Steve was in Belize and maybe not even reachable, but I decided to start by giving him a call the minute I got home.

Then a middle-aged WASP, with dark hair, slightly balding, strode in the room. The photo ID on his chest read "Dr. M. Summers."

"So, how's the patient?" he enquired cheerily, ignoring me as he immediately began checking the chart at the foot of Lou's bed.

"Felt better," Lou said, not being taken in by his pro forma cheer.

"Well, we're going to make sure you get a good night's rest." Dr. Summers finished with the chart and started taking his pulse. "What's left of it."

"How long am I going to be in here, Doc?" Lou asked, flinching as the nurses removed the IV stuck in his arm.

"A couple of days. For observation. To make sure there're no complications." He smiled again. "You're a lucky man, Mr… Crenshaw. Just a superficial cut. But we don't want you out playing handball for a few days." He turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink, then glanced back. "Okay, up we go."

"Can I come with him?" I asked, not optimistic but hoping.

The doctor looked genuinely contrite. "I'm really sorry, but he's going to be fine and visiting hours are long past. You can call in the morning. And you can come up anytime after two P.M. tomorrow. Let's let him get some rest now."

I walked around and took Lou's hand, hot and fevered, feeling so agitated.

"Don't think about anything tonight, okay? Worrying won't help. Just get some sleep. I'm going to find her, I promise you."

"Don't-" He mumbled some words, but I think the sedative the nurses had given him was seriously starting to kick

"Look, you can call down to 26 Federal Plaza tomorrow. See what they can do. In the meantime, let me follow my nose."

He tried to answer, but he was too far gone. I then watched wistfully as he disappeared down the sterile alley of beds.

After I stopped by the desk and helped them fill out the insurance forms, I caught a cab downtown to retrieve my Toyota. The time was now two-fifteen in the morning, but I still had plenty to do. When I got home, the first thing I did after I walked in the door was grab a phone book and call American Airlines. They had a flight, in the morning at nine-thirty. I gave them my credit card specifics and made a reservation.

I no longer thought that Alex Goddard's Children of Light and its Guatemalan accomplices were merely doing something shady. My hunch now was that it was completely illegal. They were getting hundreds of white babies in some way that couldn't bear the light of day, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to prevent me from highlighting them in my film. And with the Army involved, and now Sarah taken, their game was beginning to feel more and more like kidnapping. They certainly knew how.

Sarah had become a pawn, and all because of me. I almost wondered if I'd been unconsciously led to him by her, though that was impossible. Whatever had happened, the remorse I now felt was overpowering. It was, in fact, an intensified version of the guilt that had dogged me for the past fifteen years, the horrible feeling I'd somehow let her down, not done enough for her. I could have flown back for her high school graduation, but I was cramming for grad school finals and didn't take the time. Things like that, which, looking back, seemed terribly selfish. And now I'd brought this on her. God.

Okay, I thought, glancing at the clock, time to start making it up to her. Screw up your courage and wake Steve.

The problem was, Lou had been right about one thing. It'd been years since I'd been to Guatemala, and I wasn't sure I knew beans about how things operated down there these days. I was high on motivation and only so-so in the area of modus operandi. I needed Steve's help in plying the tricky waters of that part of the planet. He was busy, but this was definitely "us against the world" time, so maybe he could drive over to Guatemala City and help.

I picked up the phone again and punched in the number of his hotel in Belize City, which seemed to be embedded permanently in my brain. That wonderful accent at the desk mon, and then they were ringing his room. I had no reason on earth to assume he would be there, but…