Robin Cook - Foreign Body

Their curiosity piqued, the women crowded in against the table, looking at the maps.

“I hope you realize that including them will add a new level of complexity to get us all hooked up if and when the plan is activated,” Durell told Cal.

“You can work that out at a later date,” Cal said. “Let’s hear the pitch!”

Durell went back to setting out the photos of the vehicles. While he did so, he explained to the women that he’d come up with an idea of how to get out of the country if the need arose.

Veena and Samira exchanged a nervous stare. This was a subject related to what they had come to talk about.

“First, these are a few potential vehicles to buy and store in that fortress garage we have on the property. The idea would be to have it fueled, packed, and ready to go. I believe it should be four-wheel drive because the roads on my proposed route are not in the best of shape.”

“What’s the route you are recommending?” Cal asked.

“We’d head southeast out of Delhi and use the main highway to Varanasi. From there we’d head northeast to cross the border into Nepal at the Raxaul-Birgunj border crossing.” Durell traced the route on the maps.

“Is that a good place to cross?”

“I think the best. Raxaul’s in India, and Birgunj is in Nepal. They apparently are both sprawling shithole cities only a few hundred meters apart, whose major industry, as far as I can tell, is the commercial sex trade for the two-thousand-plus truckers who use the crossing each day.”

“Sounds delightful.”

“For what we’re looking for, I think it sounds perfect. It’s such a backwater crossing, they don’t even require visas. It’s really just a customs stop.”

“Is this in the mountains?” Cal asked.

“No, it’s tropical and flat.”

“It does sound perfect. Then what, once we cross?”

“It’s a pretty straight drive up the Prethir Highway on the Nepalese side to Kathmandu and an international airport. At that point, we’d be home free.”

“There’ll be mountains in Nepal, I suppose?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Then I recommend the Toyota Land Cruiser,” Cal said, picking up the photo and brandishing it. “We got our six seats plus four-wheel drive.”

“You got it,” Durell said, picking up the other photos. “It was my first choice, too.”

“Buy it, get it ready, and put it out in that garage. Have the groundspeople start it once a week. Also, let’s all pack an overnight bag.”

“If the car keys are going to be left out there, I’m not sure I recommend leaving our bags out there. The fence at the far rear of the property has fallen down in one section.”

“Let’s use that dungeon-like room below. The door that goes down to it locks, doesn’t it?”

“It’s got a big old key that looks like it belongs to a medieval castle.”

“That’s what we’ll do. We’ll each prepare a small suitcase and lock them in the dungeon.”

“What will we do with the key?” Durell asked. “We all should know where the key is. If a major problem happens like this plan is supposed to cope with, we all should know where the key is located. One hang-up could be a problem.”

Cal glanced around the library. Besides the sizable collection of antique books, there were many knickknacks on tables and shelves. Cal’s eyes soon came to rest on an antique Indian papier-mâché box sitting on the marble mantel. He got up and went over to it. It was intricately painted and glazed and certainly large enough. After a bit of a struggle, he got it open. It was conveniently empty. “The key will go in here. What do you say?” He held the box up so everyone could see.

Everyone nodded as Cal put the Indian craft box back in its original position. As he came back to his chair, he regarded the women. “Are you okay with all this? You can get a small bag together and get it to Durell? And I mean small, just for a couple of days.”

The women nodded again.

“It all sounds terrific, Durell,” Cal said, “especially since the chances of needing it are about zero, but it’s best to be prepared.” Cal thought but didn’t say that the stimulus had been Veena’s suicide gesture, which certainly had not been anticipated. He glanced at her, amazed at her apparent turnaround. Yet now knowing the story of abuse that she’d had to quietly suffer, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was as stable as he needed her to be.

“I’ll let Petra and Santana know the details,” Durell said to Cal, as he gathered up the maps. Then, to the women, he said he’d get back to them later about how they would all hook up in the unlikely case the emergency plan had to be activated.

Cal nodded to Durell, but his attention was now directed at Veena and Samira. “Okay,” he said. “It’s your turn. What’s this possible problem?”

Veena and Samira erupted together, stopped, and started again before Samira gestured that she’d give the floor to Veena. Veena described her meetings with Jennifer Hernandez and the Hernandez case manager.

Cal raised a hand to stop her and then called out, “Durell, maybe you should listen to this!” Durell was on his way out the door, wrestling to get his maps folded. He turned around and came back. Cal summarized what the girls had already said, then motioned for Veena to continue.

Veena went on to tell how Jennifer was thwarting the hospital’s ability to deal with the Hernandez body and, more important, that she was actually investigating her grandmother’s death. Veena said that the case manager even used the words error and intentional to describe how Jennifer thought the death had been caused. “I’m afraid she doesn’t believe it was natural,” Veena summarized. “And you told me that that could not happen, that it was impossible for someone to even imagine such a thing. But this Jennifer Hernandez is doing just that, and it gives me a bad feeling about all this—”

“Okay, okay,” Cal said, raising his hand and gesturing for Veena to calm down. “You are getting yourself too worked up here.” Cal looked at Durell. “How the hell could this Hernandez girl be thinking the way she is?”

Durell shook his head. “Beats me, but I think we’d better find out. Could there be some aspect of this succinylcholine strategy we’re not taking into consideration?”

“I can’t imagine,” Cal said. “The anesthesiologist was very specific in our hypothetical case. He said the victim should have a history of some kind of a heart problem; exactly what it was didn’t matter. The person should have had general surgery within twelve hours, and the drug be given in an existing intravenous line. That was it, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what I remember,” Durell said.

“She’s a medical student,” Veena added. “She knows about this stuff.”

“That shouldn’t matter,” Cal said. “We got the plan from an anesthesiologist, and he said it was foolproof.”

“She has arranged for two medical examiners to come to India,” Samira said.

“That’s right,” Veena agreed. “It’s not just she we have to think about.”

“And she mentioned my patient, Benfatti, to Veena, meaning she already knew about him,” Samira added.

“Once the information has been on CNN, anyone can know about it,” Cal said. “That’s not an issue.”

“But aren’t you worried about the medical examiners coming?” Veena asked. “They are forensic pathologists. It certainly worries me.”

“The medical examiners don’t worry me for two reasons: one, it sounds like from what you’ve said the Queen Victoria has no intention of allowing an autopsy to take place, and two, even if one was done and they found some evidence of succinylcholine, it would be attributed to the succinylcholine the patients are known to have been given as part of their anesthesia. The only thing that worries me to an extent is this Hernandez having a suspicion in the first place. What could have caused her to suspect anything?”