Divide and Conquer

NINETEEN

The ride to the VIP Hospital took just under ten minutes. The VIP was the only hospital the American embassy deemed to be up to the standards of western health care. They had an arrangement with Dr. Kanibov, one of the city’s few English-speaking physicians. The fifty-seven-year-old Kanibov was paid off the books to be available for around-the-clock emergencies and to recommend qualified specialists when necessary.

Tom Moore didn’t know if a specialist was going to be necessary. All he knew was that Pat Thomas had woken him twenty minutes earlier. Thomas had heard David Battat moaning on his cot. When Thomas went over to check on Battat, he found him soaked with perspiration and trembling. The embassy nurse had a look at him and took Battat’s temperature. He had a fever of 105. The nurse suggested that Battat may have hit his head or suffered capillary damage when he was attacked. Rather than wait for an ambulance, Thomas and Moore loaded Battat into one of the embassy staff cars in the gated parking lot and brought him to the hospital themselves. The medic called ahead to let Dr. Kanibov know that they had a possible case of neurogenic shock.

This is all we need, to be down a man, Thomas thought as he drove through the dark, deserted streets of the embassy and business district. It was bad enough to have too few people to deal with normal intelligence work. But to find the Harpooner, one of the world’s most elusive terrorists, was going to take more. Thomas only hoped that his call to Washington would get them timely cooperation on a Saint Petersburg connection.

Dr. Kanibov lived just a block from the hospital. The tall, elderly, white-goateed physician was waiting when they arrived. Battat’s teeth were chattering, and he was coughing. By the time a pair of orderlies put him on a gurney just inside the door, the American’s lips and fingernail beds were rich blue.

“Very restricted blood flow,” said Kanibov to one of the orderlies. “Oxygen.” He looked in Battat’s mouth. “Traces of mucus. Suction, then give me an oral temperature.”

“What do you think is wrong?” Thomas asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Kanibov said.

“The nurse at the embassy said it could be neurogenic shock,” Thomas said to the doctor.

“If it were, his face would be pale, not flushed,” the doctor said with annoyance. He looked at Thomas and Moore. “You gentlemen can wait here or you can go back and wait—”

“We’ll stay here,” Thomas informed him. “At least until you know what’s wrong.”

“Very well,” the doctor said as they wheeled Battat into the ward.

It seemed strangely quiet for an emergency room, Thomas thought. Whenever his three boys hurt themselves back in Washington or in Moscow, the ERs were like the West Wing of the White House: loud, purposeful chaos. He imagined that the clinics in the poorer sections of Baku must be more like that. Still, the silence was unnerving, deathlike.

Thomas looked at Moore. “There’s no sense for both of us to be here,” Thomas said. “One of us should get a little sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Moore said. “I was making those contacts we discussed and reviewing files.”

“Did you find anything?” Thomas asked.

“Nothing,” Moore said.

“All the more reason for you to go back to the embassy,” Thomas said. “David is my responsibility. I’ll wait here.”

Moore considered that. “All right,” he said. “You’ll call as soon as you know something?”

“Of course,” Thomas said.

Moore gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then walked back through the lobby. He pushed the door open and walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side.

A moment later, Tom Moore’s head jerked to the right and he dropped to the asphalt.