Robin Cook - Terminal

“I told you that you didn’t have to worry,” Tom said. “Nobody will ever bother us.”

Sterling Rombauer had always liked the adage that his schoolteacher mother had espoused: Chance favors the prepared mind . Figuring there were only a limited number of hotels in Boston that Tanaka Yamaguchi would find acceptable, Sterling had decided to try calling some of the hotel employee contacts he’d cultivated over the years. His efforts had been rewarded with immediate success. Sterling smiled when he learned that not only did he and Tanaka share the same profession, they shared the same taste in hotels.

This was a felicitous turn of events. Thanks to his frequent stays at Boston’s Ritz Carlton, Sterling’s contacts in the hotel were simply sterling. A few discreet inquiries revealed some helpful information. First, Tanaka had hired the same livery company Sterling himself used, which wasn’t surprising since it was by far the best. Second, he was scheduled to remain in the hotel at least another night. Finally, he’d made a lunch reservation in the Ritz Café for two people.

Sterling went right to work. A call to the maître d’ in the café, a rather crowded, intimate environment, produced a promise that Mr. Yamaguchi’s party would be seated at the far banquette. The neighboring corner table, literally inches away, would be reserved for Mr. Sterling Rombauer. A call to the owner of the livery company resulted in a promise of the name of Mr. Yamaguchi’s driver as well as a transcript of his stops.

“This Jap is well connected,” the owner of the livery company said when Sterling phoned him. “We picked him up from general aviation. He came in on a private jet, and it wasn’t one of those dinky ones either.”

A call to the airport confirmed the presence of the Sushita Gulfstream III and gave Sterling its call number. Phoning his contact at the FAA in Washington and providing the call numbers, Sterling obtained a promise to keep him informed of the jet’s movements.

With so much accomplished without even leaving his hotel room and a bit of time to spare before the luncheon rendezvous, Sterling walked across Newbury Street to Burberry’s to treat himself to several new shirts.

With his legs crossed and stretched out in front of him, Sean sat in one of the molded plastic chairs in the hospital cafeteria. His left elbow was resting on the table, cradling his chin; his right arm dangled over the back of the chair. Mood-wise, he was in approximately the same state of mind as he’d been the night before when Janet had come through his living-room slider. The morning had been an aggravating rerun of the previous day, confirming his belief that the Forbes was a bizarre and largely unfriendly place to work. Hiroshi was still trailing him like a bad detective. Practically every time Sean turned around when he was up on the sixth floor using some equipment not available on the fifth, he’d see the Japanese fellow. And the moment Sean looked at him, Hiroshi would quickly look away as if Sean were a moron and wouldn’t know that Hiroshi had been watching him.

Sean checked his watch. The agreement had been that he’d meet Janet at twelve-thirty. It was already twelve-thirty-five, and although a steady stream of hospital personnel continued to pour by, Janet had yet to appear. Sean began to fantasize about going down to the parking lot, getting into his Isuzu, and hitting the road. But then Janet came through the door, and just seeing her lightened his mood.

Although Janet was still pale by Florida standards, her few days in Miami had already given a distinctively rosy cast to her skin. Sean thought she’d never looked better. As he admiringly watched her sensuous movements as she weaved through the tables, he hoped that he’d be able to talk her out of whatever it was that was keeping her in her own apartment and out of his.

She took the seat across from him, barely saying hello. Under her arm she clutched an unfolded Miami newspaper. He could tell she was nervous, the way she continually scanned the room like some wary, vulnerable bird.

“Janet, we’re not in some spy movie,” Sean said. “Calm down!”

“But I feel like I am,” Janet said. “I’ve been sneaking around, going behind people’s backs, trying not to arouse suspicion. But I feel like everyone knows what I’m doing.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “What an amateur I have for an accomplice,” he joked. Then, more seriously, he added, “I don’t know whether this is going to work if you’re stressed out now, Janet. This is only the beginning. You haven’t even done anything yet compared to what’s coming. But, to tell you the truth, I’m jealous. At least you’re doing something. I, on the other hand, have spent a good part of the morning in the bowels of the earth injecting mice with the Forbes protein plus Freund’s adjuvant. There’s been no intrigue and certainly no excitement. This place is still driving me nuts.”

“What about your crystals?” Janet asked.

“I’m deliberately slowing down on that,” Sean said. “I was doing too well. I won’t let them know how far I’ve gotten. That way, when I need some time for some investigative work, I’ll take it and still be able to have results to show as a cover. So how’d you do?”

“Not great,” Janet admitted. “But I made a start. I copied one chart.”

“Just one?” Sean questioned with obvious disappointment. “You’re this nervous about one chart?”

“Don’t give me a hard time,” Janet warned. “This isn’t easy for me.”

“And I’d never say I told you so,” Sean quipped. “Never. Not me. That’s not my style.”

“Oh, shut up,” Janet said as she handed the newspaper to Sean under the table. “I’m doing the best I can.”

Sean lifted the newspaper and placed it on top of the table. He spread it out and opened it, exposing the copied pages which he immediately removed. He pushed the newspaper aside.

“Sean!” Janet gasped, as she furtively scanned the crowded room. “Can’t you be a little more subtle?”

“I’m tired of being subtle,” he said. He started going through the chart.

“Even for my benefit?” Janet asked. “There might be some people from my floor here. They might have seen me give these copies to you.”

“You give people too much credit,” Sean said distractedly. “People aren’t as observant as you might think.” Then, referring to the copies Janet had brought, he said, “Louis Martin’s chart is nothing but referral material from the Memorial. This history and physical is mine. That lazy ass on neurology just copied my workup.”

“How can you tell?” Janet asked.

“The wording,” Sean said. “Listen to this: the patient ‘suffered through’ a prostatectomy three months ago. I use expressions like ‘suffered through’ just to see who reads my workups and who doesn’t. It’s a little game I play with myself. No one else uses that kind of phraseology in a medical workup. You’re supposed to just give facts, not judgments.”

“Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I guess you should be flattered,” Janet said.

“The only thing of interest here is in the orders,” Sean said. “He’s being given two coded drugs: MB300M and MB305M.”

“That code is comparable to the one I saw in Helen Cabot’s computer file,” Janet said. She handed him the paper on which she’d written the treatment information she’d gotten from the computer.

Sean glanced at the dosage and the administration rate.

“What do you think it is?” Janet asked.

“No idea,” Sean said. “Did you get any of it?”

“Not yet,” Janet admitted. “But I finally located the supply. It’s kept in a special locker, and the shift supervisor has the only key.”