Preston Child - The Babylonian Mask

Marlene Marx gently took Nina’s arm and checked her vitals. “Your pulse is quite weak. Let me have a look at your BP.”

“My God, I feel like I cannot lift my arms, Nurse Marx,” Nina sighed heavily. “It feels like…” She had no good way to ask, but in light of the symptoms she was feeling she had to. “Have you ever been Roofie ’d?”

Looking a little worried that Nina knew what it was like to be under the influence of Rohypnol, the nurse again shook her head. “No, but I have a good idea what a drug like that does to the central nervous system. Is that how you feel?”

Nina nodded, now barely able to open her eyes. Nurse Marx was alarmed to see that Nina’s blood pressure was extremely low, crashing in a way that totally belied her previous prognosis. “My body feels like an anvil, Marlene,” Nina slurred softly.

“Hang on, Dr. Gould,” the nurse said urgently, keeping her voice sharp and loud to wake Nina’s mind while she ran to summon her colleagues. Among them was Dr. Eduard Fritz, the physician who had treated the young man who had come in two nights go with the second-degree burns.

“Dr. Fritz!” Nurse Marx called in a tone that would not alarm the other patients, but would relay a level of urgency to the medical staff. “Dr. Gould’s BP is dropping rapidly and I’m struggling to keep her conscious!”

The team hastened to Nina’s side and pulled the curtains. Onlookers stood stunned at the response of the staff to the small woman who singly occupied the double room. Visiting hours had not seen such action in a long while and a lot of visitors and patients waited to see if the patient would be alright.

“It’s like something out of Grey’s Anatomy ,” Nurse Marx heard a visitor tell her husband as she ran past with the meds Dr. Fritz had asked for. But all Marx cared about was getting Dr. Gould back before she crashed completely. They opened the curtains again twenty minutes later, conversing in smiling whispers. From the looks on their faces the bystanders knew the patient had been stabilized and returned to the bustling atmosphere usually associated with this time of night at the hospital.

“Thank God we managed to save her,” Nurse Marx exhaled as she leaned on the reception desk to sip a cup of coffee. Little by little visitors started to vacate the ward, saying goodbye to their confined loved ones until the morrow. Gradually the hallways grew quieter as footsteps and subdued tones died down into nothingness. It was a relief to most of the staff members to catch a quick breather before the final rounds of the night.

“Well done, Nurse Marx,” Dr. Fritz smiled. It was rare for the man to smile, even at the best of times. As a result, she knew that his words would have to be savored.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she replied modestly.

“Really, had you not reacted immediately we may have lost Dr. Gould tonight. I’m afraid her condition is more serious than her biology indicates. I must confess to being confounded by it. You say that her vision had been impaired?”

“Yes, Doctor. She had been complaining that her vision was blurry until last night when she used the words ‘going blind’ outright. But I was in no position to give her any advise, as I don’t have a clue what could be causing it, other than the obvious immune deficiency,” Nurse Marx speculated.

“That is what I like about you, Marlene,” he said. He was not smiling, but his statement was respectful nonetheless. “You know your place. You do not pretend to be a doctor or presume to tell patients what you think is plaguing them. You leave it to the professionals and that is good. You will go far under my supervision with that attitude.”

Hoping that Dr. Hilt did not relay her previous behavior, Marlene only smiled, but her heart went wild with pride at Dr. Fritz’s approval. He was one of the foremost authorities in the field of wide spectrum diagnostics ranging from various medical avenues, yet he remained a modest physician and advisor. Considering his career achievements, Dr. Fritz was relatively young. In his late forties, he had already authored several award-winning papers and lectured all over the world during his sabbaticals. His opinion was highly regarded by most medical academics, especially mere nurses like the fresh-from-internship Marlene Marx.

It was true. Marlene knew her place around him. No matter how chauvinist or sexist Dr. Fritz’s statement might have sounded, she knew what he meant. However, of the other female staff, there were many who would not have understood his meaning so well. To them, his authority was egotistical, whether he had earned the throne of not. They saw him as a misogynist both in the workplace as well as socially, often speculating about his sexuality. But he paid them no attention. He was only stating the obvious. He knew better and they were not qualified to diagnose out of hand. Therefore, they had no right to give their opinion, least of all when he was on duty to do it properly.

“Look alive, Marx,” one of the orderlies said in passing.

“Why? What’s happening?” she asked, wide-eyed. She usually prayed for a bit of action during the night shift, but Marlene had had quite enough nervous tension for one night.

“We’re moving Freddy Krueger in with the Chernobyl lady,” he answered, as he motioned for her to get started on preparing the bed for the transfer.

“Hey, have some bloody respect for the poor man, you asshole,” she told the orderly, who just laughed off her reprimand. “He is someone’s son, you know!”

She opened the bed for the new occupant in the faint, lonely light above the bed. Pulling aside the blankets and top sheet to form a neat triangle, if only for the moment, Marlene contemplated the fate of the poor, young man who had lost most of his features, not to mention his abilities from the onslaught of nerve damage. Dr. Gould moved in the shadowy side of the room a few feet away, appearing to be resting well for a change.

They brought in the new patient with a minimum of disruption and transferred him to his new bed, grateful that he was not awake for what would certainly have been unbearable pain during their handling of him. They left quietly once he was settled in, while in the basement slept equally soundly, an imminent menace.

“My God, Schmidt! I am the commander, the Inspector of the Kommando Luftwaffe!” Harold Meier shrieked in a rare moment of lost control. “These journalists are going to want to know why the missing airman used one of our combat fighters without permission from my office or the Joint Operations Command of the Bundeswehr! And I find out only now that the fuselage has been recovered by our own people — and hidden?”

Gerhard Schmidt, second in command, shrugged and looked at his superior’s flushing face. Lieutenant General Harold Meier was not a man to lose control of his emotions. The scene playing before Schmidt was highly unusual, but he understood fully why Meier would react this way. This was a very serious matter, and it would not be long before some snooping journalist got their eye on the truth of the escaped airman, a man who had single-handedly made off with one of their million-Euro planes.

“Has Airman Löwenhagen been found yet?” he asked Schmidt, the officer unfortunate enough to be designated to bring him the shocking news.

“No. There no body was found at the scene, which leads us to believe that he is still alive,” Schmidt responded thoughtfully. “But you must also take into account that he may very well have died in the crash. The explosion could have disintegrated his body, Harold.”

“All this ‘could have’ and ‘may have’ talk of yours is what bothers me most. The uncertainty of what ensued from the whole affair is what makes me restless, not to mention that some of our squadrons have men on short leave. For the first time in my career I’m feeling anxious,” Meier admitted, finally sitting down for a moment to give it some thought. He looked up suddenly, staring into Schmidt’s eyes with his own steely gaze, but he was looking further than his subordinate’s face. A moment passed before Meier made his eventual decision. “Schmidt…”