Harvest

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As Vivian Chao's plane touched down at Logan International, she felt her anxiety tighten another notch. It wasn't the flight that had rattled her. Vivian was a fearless flyer, able to sleep soundly through even the worst turbulence. No, what was worrying her now, as the plane pulled up at the gate and as she gathered her carry-on from the overhead bin, was that last phone conversation with Abby. The abrupt disconnection. The fact that Abby had never called back.

Vivian had tried calling Abby at home, but there'd been no answer. Thinking about it during the flight, she'd realized that she didn't know where Abby had been calling from. Their connection had been severed too quickly for her to find out.

Lugging her carry-on, she walked off the plane and into the terminal. She was startled to find a huge crowd waiting at the gate. There was a forest of bright balloons and mobs of teenagers holding up signs which read: Welcome home, Dave.t and Atta Boy.t and Local Herof Whoever Dave was, he had an adoring public. She heard cheers, and glancing back, she saw a grinning young man stride out of the elevated walkway right behind her. The crowd surged forward, practically swallowing up Vivian in their eagerness to greet Dave, the local hero. Vivian had to navigate through a crush of squealing kids.

Kids, hell. They all towered over her by at least a head.

It took good old quarterback drive to shove her way through. By the time she emerged from the mob, she was pushing ahead with so much momentum, she practically bowled over a man standing on the periphery. She muttered a quick apology and kept walking. It took her a few paces to realize he hadn't said a word in exchange.

Her first stop was the restroom. All this anxiety was putting the squeeze on her bladder. She ducked inside to use the toilet and came back out.

That's when she saw the man again — the one she'd bumped into only moments ago. He was standing by the gift shop across from the women's restroom. He appeared to be reading a newspaper.

She knew it was him, because the collar of his raincoat was turned under. When she'd collided with him earlier, that tucked-in flap was what her eyes had focused on.

She continued walking, towards baggage claim.

It was during that long hike past an endless succession of airline gates that her brain finally clicked on. Why was the man waiting at her gate unless he was there to meet someone? And if he had met a passenger, why was he now by himself?.

She stopped at a newsstand shop, randomly picked up a magazine, and took it to the cashier. As the woman rang up the purchase, Vivian shifted just enough to cast a furtive glance around her.

The man was standing by a do-it-yourself flight insurance counter. He seemed to be reading the instructions.

OK, Chao, so he's following you. Maybe it's a case of love at first sight. Maybe he took one look at you and decided he couldn't let you walk out of his life.

As she paid for the magazine, she could feel her heart hammering. Think. Why is he following you?

That one was easy. The phone call from Abby. If anyone had been listening in, they'd know that Vivian was arriving at Logan on a 6 p.m. flight from Burlington. Just before the call was disconnected, she'd heard clicks on the line.

She decided to hang around the newsstand shop for a while. She browsed among the paperbacks, her eyes scanning the covers, her mind racing. The man probably didn't have a weapon on him; he would have had to bring it through the security check. As long as she didn't leave the airport's secured area, she should be safe. Cautiously she peered over the paperback shelf. The man wasn't there.

She came out of the shop and glanced around. There was no sign of him anywhere.

You are such an idiot. No one's following you.

She continued walking, past the security check and down the steps to baggage claim.

The suitcases from the Burlington flight were just rolling onto the carousel. She spotted her red Samsonite sliding down the ramp. She was about to push closer when she spotted the man in the raincoat. He was standing near the terminal exit, reading his newspaper.

At once she looked away, her pulse battering her throat. He was waiting for her to pick up her luggage. To walk past him out that exit, into the night.

Her red Samsonite made another revolution.

She took a deep breath and edged into the crowd of passengers waiting for their baggage. Her Samsonite was coming past again. She didn't pick it up but casually followed it around as it made its slow circle. When she was standing on the other side of the carousel, the crowd blocked her view of the man in the raincoat.

She dropped her carry-on bag and ran.

There were two carousels ahead of her, both of them unused at the moment. She sprinted past them, then darted out the far exit doors.

She emerged into the windblown night. Off to her left she heard a commotion. The man in the raincoat had just pushed his way out of the other exit. A second man came out a few steps behind him. One of them pointed at Vivian and barked out something incomprehensible.

Vivian took off, fleeing up the sidewalk. She knew the men were chasing her; she could hear the thud of a luggage cart toppling and the angry shouts of a porter.

There was a pop, and she felt something flick through her hair.

A bullet.

Her heart was banging, her lungs gasping in air thick with bus fumes.

She saw a doorway ahead. She ducked in it and raced for the nearest escalator. The moving stairs were going the wrong way. She ran up them two at a time. As she reached the upper level, she heard another pop. This time pain sliced her temple, and she felt a dribble of warmth on her cheek.

The American Airlines ticket counter was straight ahead. It was fully manned, a line of people snaking in front of it.

She heard footsteps pounding on the escalator behind her. Heard one of the men shouting words she couldn't understand.

She sprinted for the ticket counter, bowled over a man and a suitcase dolly, and leaped onto the counter top. Her momentum carried her straight over. She landed on the other side, her body slamming against the luggage loading belt.

Four astonished airline reps were staring down at her.

Her legs were shaking as she rose to her feet. Cautiously she peered across the countertop. She saw only a crowd of stunned bystanders. The men had vanished.

Vivian looked at the reps, who were still frozen in place. "Well aren't you going to call Security?"

Wordlessly, one of the women reached for the phone. "And while you're at it," said Vivian, "Dial 911."

A dark Mercedes crawled along the road and came to a stop beside the phone booth. Abby could just make out the driver's profile, backlit by the lights of a passing car. It was Tarasoft.

She ran to the passenger door and climbed inside. "Thank god you're here."

"You must be freezing. Why don't you take my coat? It's on the back seat."

"Please, just go! Let's get out of here."

As Tarasoff pulled away from the kerb, she glanced back to see if anyone was following them. The road behind them was dark. "Do you see any cars?" he asked. "No. I think we're OK."

Tarasoft released a shaky breath. "I'm not very good at this. I don't even like to watch crime shows."

"You're doing fine. Just get us to the police station. We can call Vivian to meet us there."

Tarasoft glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. "I think I just saw a car."

"What?" Abby looked back, but saw nothing. "I'm going to turn here. Let's see what happens."

"Go ahead. I'll keep watching."

As they rounded the corner, Abby kept her gaze focused on the road behind them. She saw no headlights, no other cars at all. Only when they slowed to a stop did she turn and face forward. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Tarasoff cut the headlights. "Why are you…" Abby's words froze in her throat. Tarasoft had just pressed the lock release button.

She glanced right in panic as her door swung open. A gust of wind swept in. Suddenly hands reached in and she was being dragged out into the night. Her hair fell across her eyes, obscuring her vision. She fought blindly against her captors but could not succeed in loosening their grips. Her hands were yanked behind her back and the wrists bound together. Her mouth was taped.

Then she was lifted and thrust into the trunk of a nearby car. The hood slammed shut, trapping her in darkness. They were moving.

She rolled onto her back and kicked upwards. Again and again she slammed her feet against the trunk lid, kicking until her thighs ached, until she could scarcely lift her legs. It was useless; no one could hear her.

Exhausted, she curled up on her side and forced herself to think. Tarasoft. How i Tarasoft involved?

Slowly the puzzle came together, piece by piece. Lying in the cramped darkness, with the road rumbling beneath her, she began to understand. Tarasoft was chief of one of the most respected cardiac transplant teams on the East Coast. His reputation attracted desperately ill patients from around the world, patients with the money and the wherewithal to go to any surgeon they chose. They demanded the best, and they could afford to pay for it.

What they could not buy, what the system would never allow them to buy, was what they needed to stay alive: Hearts. Human hearts.

That's what the Bayside transplant team could provide. She remembered what Tarasoft had once said: "I refer patients to Bayside all the time."

He was Bayside's go-between. He was their matchmaker.

She felt the car brake and turn. The tyres rolled across gravel then stopped. There was a distant roar, a sound she recognized as a jet taking off. She knew exactly where they were.

The trunk hood opened. She was lifted out, into a buffeting wind that smelled of diesel fuel and the sea. They half-carried, half-dragged her down the pier and up the gangplank. Her screams were muffled by the tape over her mouth and lost in the thunder of the jet's take-oft. She caught only a glimpse of the freighter deck, of shifting blackness and geometric shadows, and then she was dragged below, down steps that rattled and clanged. One flight, then another.

A door screeched open and she was thrust inside, into darkness. Her hands were still bound behind her back; she could not break her fall. Her chin slammed to the metal floor and the impact was blinding. She was too stunned to move, to utter even a whimper as pain drove like a stake through her skull.

Another set of footsteps clanged down the stairway. Dimly she heard Tarasoft say: "At least it's not a total waste. Take the tape off her mouth. We can't have her suffocating."

She rolled onto her back and struggled to focus. She could make out Tarasoff's silhouette, standing in the faintly lit doorway. She flinched as one of the men bent down and ripped off the tape.

"Why?" she whispered. It was the only question she could think of. ' Why?"

The silhouette gave a faint shrug, as though her question was irrelevant. The other two men backed out of the room. They were preparing to shut her inside.

"Is it the money?" she cried. "Is it that simple an answer?"

"Money means nothing," Tarasoft said, 'if it can't buy you what you need."

"Like a heart?"

"Like the life of your own child. Or your own wife, your own sister or brother. You, of all people, should understand that, Dr. DiMatteo. We know all about little Pete and his accident. Only ten years old, wasn't he?We know you've lived through your own private tragedy. Think, doctor, what would you have given to have saved your brother's life?"

She said nothing. By her silence, he knew her answer. "Wouldn't you have given anything? Done everything?"

Yes, she thought, and that admission took no reflection at all. Yes. "Imagine what it's like," he said, 'to watch your own child dying. To have all the money in the world and know that she still has to wait her turn in line. Behind the alcoholics and the drug abusers. And the mentally incompetent. And the welfare cheats who haven't worked a single day in their lives." He paused. And said, softly, "Imagine."

The door swung shut. The latch squealed into place.

She was lying in pitch darkness. She heard the rattle of the stairway as the three men climbed back to deck level, heard the faint thud of a hatch closing. Then, for a time, she heard only the wind and the groan of the ship straining at its lines.

Imagine.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Pete. But there he was standing in front of her, proudly dressed in his Cub Scout uniform. She thought of what he'd said when he was five: that Abby was the only girl he wanted to marry. And she thought of how upset he'd been to learn that he could not marry his own sister…

What would I have done to save you? Anything. Everything.

In the darkness, something rustled.

Abby froze. She heard it again, the barest whisper of movement. Rats.

She squirmed away from the sound and managed to rise up onto her knees. She could see nothing, could only imagine giant rodents scurrying on the floor all around her. She struggled to her feet.

There was a soft click.

The sudden flare of light flooded her retinas. She jerked backwards. A bare bulb swung overhead, clinking softly against the dangling pull-chain.

It was not a rat she had heard moving in the darkness. It was a boy.

They stared at each other, neither one of them saying a word. Though he stood very still, she could see the wariness in his eyes. His legs, thin and bare beneath shorts, were tensed for flight. But there was nowhere to run.

He looked about ten, very pale and very blond, his hair almost silver under the swaying lightbulb. She noticed a bluish smudge on his cheek, and realized with a sudden start of outrage that the smudge was not dirt, but a bruise. His deep-set eyes were like two more bruises in his white face.

She took a step towards him. At once he backed away. "I won't hurt you," she said. '! just want to talk to you."

A frown flickered across his forehead. He shook his head.

"I promise. I won't hurt you."

The boy said something, but his answer was incomprehensible to her. Now it was her turn to frown and shake her head.

They looked at each other in shared bewilderment.

Suddenly they both glanced upwards. The ship's engines had just started up.

Abby tensed, listening to the rattle of chain, the squeal of hydraulics. Moments later, she felt the rocking of the hull as it cut through the water. They had left the dock and were now underway.

Even if I get out of these bonds, out of this room, there's nowhere for me to run.

In despair, she looked back at the boy.

He ',was no longer paying any attention to the sound of the engines. Instead, his gaze had dropped to her waist. Slowly he edged sideways and stared at her bound wrists, tucked close to her back. He looked down at his own arm. Only then did Abby see that his left hand was missing, that his forearm ended in a stump. He had held it close to his body, concealing the deformity from her view. Now he seemed to be studying it.

He looked back at her and spoke again.

"I can't understand what you're saying," she said.

He repeated himself, this time with an edge of petulance in his voice. Why couldn't she understand? What was wrong with her?

She simply shook her head.

They regarded each other in mutual frustration. Then the boy lifted his chin. She realized that he had come to some sort of decision. He circled around to her back and tugged at her wrists, trying to loosen the bonds with his one hand. The cord was too tightly knotted. Now he knelt on the floor behind her. She felt the nip of his teeth, the heat of his breath against her skin. As the lightbulb swayed overhead, he began to gnaw, like a small but determined mouse, at her bonds.

"I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over," said a nurse. "Wait, you can't go in there. Stop!"

Katzka and Vivian walked straight past the nurses' desk and pushed into Room 621. "Where's Abby?" demanded Katzka.

Dr. ColinWettig turned to look at them. "Dr. DiMatteo is missing."

"You told me she'd be watched here," said Katzka. "You assured me nothing could happen to her."

"She was watched. No one came in here without my express orders."

"Then what happened to her?"

"That's a question you'll have to ask Dr. DiMatteo."

It was Wettig's flat voice that angered Katzka. That and the emotionless gaze. Here was a man who revealed nothing, a man in control. Staring at Wettig's unreadable face, Katzka suddenly recognized himself, and the revelation was startling.

"She was under your care, doctor. What've you people done with her?"

"I don't like your implications."

Katzka crossed the room, grabbed the lapels of Wettig's lab coat, and shoved him backwards against the wall. "Goddamn you," he said, "Where did you take her?"

Wettig's blue eyes at last betrayed a flicker of fear. "I told you, I don't know where she is! The nurses called me at six-thirty to tell me she was gone. We've alerted Security. They've already searched the hospital but they can't find her."

"You know where she is, don't you?"

Wettig shook his head.

"Don't you?" Katzka gave him another shove.

"I don't know!" gasped Wetfig.

Vivian stepped forward and tried to pull them apart. "Stop it! You're choking him! Katzka, let him go!"

Abruptly Katzka released Wetfig. The older man swayed backwards against the wall, breathing heavily. "I thought, given her delusional state, she'd be safer in the hospital."Wettig straightened and rubbed his neck where the collar of the lab coat had left a bright red strangulation mark. Katzka stared at the mark, shocked by the evidence of his own violence.

"I didn't realize," said Wettig, 'that she might be telling the truth after all."Wettig pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Vivian. "The nurses just gave that to me."

"What is it?" said Katzka.

Vivian frowned. "This is Abby's blood alcohol level. It says here it's zero."

"I had it redrawn this afternoon and sent to an independent lab," Wetfig explained. "She kept insisting she hadn't been intoxicated. I thought, if I could confront her with undeniable evidence, that I could break through her denial…"

"This result is from an outside lab?"

Wetrig nodded. "Completely independent of Bayside."

"You told me her alcohol was point two one."

"That was the one done at 4 a.m. in Bayside's lab."

Vivian said, "The half-life of blood alcohol ranges anywhere from two to fourteen hours. If it was that high at 4 a.m., then this test should show at least a trace left."

"But there's no alcohol in her system," said Katzka.

"Which tells me that either her liver is amazingly fast at metabolizing it," said Wettig, 'or Bayside's lab made a mistake."

"Is that what you're calling it?" said Katzka. "A mistake?" Wettig said nothing. He looked drained. And very old. He sat down on the rumpled bed. "I didn't realize. . didn't want to consider the possibility…"

"That Abby was telling the truth?" said Vivian.

Wetfig shook his head. "My God," he murmured. "This hospital should be shut down. If what she's been saying is true."

Katzka felt Vivian's gaze. He looked at her.

She said, softly: "Now do you have any doubts?"

For hours the boy had slept in her arms, his breath puffing out warm whispers against her neck. He lay limp, arms and legs askew, the way children do when they are deeply, trustingly, asleep. He had been shivering when she'd first embraced him. She'd massaged his bare legs, and it was like rubbing cold, dry sticks. Eventually his shaking had stopped, and as his breathing slowed, she'd felt that flush of warmth that children give off when they finally fall asleep. She, too, slept for a while.

When she woke up, the wind was blowing harder. She could hear it in the groaning of the ship. Overhead, the bare lightbulb swayed back and forth.

The boy whimpered and stirred. There was something touching about the smell of young boys, she thought, like the scent of warm grass. Something about the sweet androgyny of their bodies. She remembered how her brother Pete had felt, sagging against her shoulder as he slept in the back seat of the family car. For miles and miles, while their father drove, Abby had felt the gentle drumming of Pete's heart. Just as she was feeling this boy's heart now, beating in its cagelike chest.

He gave a soft moan and shuddered awake. Looking up at her, recognition slowly dawned in his eyes.

"Ah-bee," he whispered.

She nodded. "That's right. Abby. You remembered." Smiling, she stroked his face, her finger tracing across the bruise. "And you're �. Yakov."

He nodded.

They both smiled.

Outside, the wind groaned and Abby felt the floor rock beneath them. Shadows swayed across the boy's face. He was watching her with an almost hungry look.

"Yakov," she said again. She brushed her mouth across one silky blond eyebrow. When she lifted her head, she felt the wetness on her lips. Not the boy's tears, but hers. She turned her face against her shoulder to wipe away the tears. When she looked back at him, she saw he was still watching her with that strange, rapt silence of his.

"I'm right here," she murmured. And, smiling, she brushed her fingers through his hair.

After a while his eyelids drifted shut and his body relaxed once again into the trusting limpness of sleep.

"So much for the search warrant," said Lundquist, and he kicked the door. It flew open and banged against the wall. Cautiously he edged into the room and froze. "What the fuck is all this?" Katzka flipped on the wall switch.

Both men blinked as light flooded their eyes. It shone down with blinding intensity from three overhead lamps. Everywhere Katzka looked, he saw gleaming surfaces. Stainless steel cabinets. Instrument trays and IV poles. Monitors studded with knobs and switches.

In the centre of the room was an operating table.

Katzka approached the table and stared down at the straps hanging from the sides. Two for the wrists, two for the ankles, two longer straps for the waist and chest.

His gaze moved to the anaesthesia cart, set up at the head of the table. He went to it and slid open the top drawer. Inside lay a row of glass syringes and needles capped in plastic.

"What the hell is this doing here?" said Lundquist.

Katzka closed the drawer and opened the next one. Inside he saw small glass vials. He took one out. Potassium chloride. It was half empty. "This equipment's been used," he said.

"This is bizarre. What kind of surgery were they doing up here?" Katzka looked at the table again. At the straps. Suddenly he thought of Abby, her wrists tied down on the bed, tears trickling down her face. The memory was so painful he gave his head a shake to dispel the image. Fear was making it hard for him to think. If he couldn't think, he couldn't help her. He couldn't save her. Abruptly he moved away from the table.

"Slug?" Lundquist was eyeing him in puzzlement. "You OK?"

"Yeah." Katzka turned and walked out the door. "I'm fine." Back outside on the sidewalk, he stood in the gusting wind and looked up at the Amity building. From street level, one saw nothing unusual about it. It was just another rundown building on a rundown street. Dirty brownstone facade, windows with air conditioners jutting out. When he had been inside it the day before, he had seen only what he'd expected to see. What he was supposed to see. The dingy showroom, the battered desks piled high with supply catalogues. A few salesmen listlessly talking on telephones. He had not seen the top floor, had never suspected that a single elevator ride would bring him to that room.

To that table with its straps.

Less than an hour ago, Lundquist had traced the building's ownership to the Sigayev Company-the same New Jersey company to whom the freighter was registered. That Russian mafia connection again. How deep into Bayside did it reach? Or were the Russians merely allied with someone inside the hospital? A trading partner, perhaps, in black market goods?

Lundquist's beeper chirped. He glanced at the readout, and reached into the car for the cellular phone.

Katzka remained in front of the building, his thoughts shifting back to Abby, and where he should look next. Every room of the hospital had already been searched. So had the parking lot and the

HARVEST

surrounding areas. It appeared that Abby had left the hospital on her own. X;here would she go? Whom would she have called? It would have been someone she trusted.

"Slug!"

Katzka turned to see Lundquist waving the telephone. "Who's on the line?"

"The Coast Guard. They've got a chopper waiting for us."

Footsteps clanged on the stairway.

Abby's head snapped up. In her arms Yakov slept on, unaware. Her heart was thundering so hard she thought it would surely wake him, but he didn't stir.

The door swung open. Tarasoft, flanked by two men, stood looking in at her. "It's time to go."

"Where?" she said.

"Only a short walk." Tarasoft glanced atYakov. "Wake him up. He comes too."

Abby hugged Yakov closer. "Not the boy," she said. "Especially the boy."

She shook her head. "Why?"

"He's AB positive. The only AB we happen to have in stock at the moment."

She stared at Tarasoft. Then she looked down atYakov, his face flushed with sleep. Through his thin chest she could feel the soft beating of his heart. Nina Voss, she thought. Nina Voss is AB positive…

One of the men grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. She lost her grip on the boy; he tumbled to the floor where he lay blinking in confusion. The other man gaveYakov a sharp prod with his foot and barked a command in Russian.

The boy sleepily stumbled to his feet.

Tarasoffled the way. Down a dim corridor, then through a locked hatch. Up a staircase and through another hatch, to a steel walkway. Straight ahead was a blue door. Tarasoft started towards it, the walkway rattling under his weight.

Suddenly the boy balked. He twisted free and started to run back, the way they'd come. One of the men snagged him by the shirt. Yakov spun around and sank his teeth into the man's arm. Howling in pain, the man slapped Yakov across the face. The impact was so brutal it sent the boy sprawling.

"Stop it!" screamed Abby.

The man jerked Yakov to his feet and gave him another slap.

Now the boy stumbled towards Abby. At once she swept him up into her arms. Yakov clung to her now, sobbing into her shoulder.

The man moved towards her, as though to separate them.

"You stay the fuck away from him!" Abby yelled.

Yakov was shaking, whimpering incomprehensibly. She pressed her lips to his hair and whispered: "Sweetheart, I'm with you. I'm right here with you."

The boy raised his head. Looking into his terrified eyes, she thought: He knows what's going to happen to us.

She was shoved forward, across the walkway, and through the blue door.

They passed into a different world.

The corridor beyond was panelled in bleached wood, the floor was white linoleum. Overhead glowed a haze of softly diffused light. Their footsteps echoed as they walked past a spiral staircase and turned a corner. At the end of the passage was a wide door.

The boy was shaking even harder now. And he was getting heavy. She set him down on his feet and cupped his face in her hand. Just for a second their gazes met, and what could not be communicated in words was now shared in that single look. She tookYakov's hand and gave it a squeeze. Together they walked towards the door. One man was in front of them, one behind them. Tarasoft was in the lead. As he unlocked the door, Abby shifted her weight forward, every muscle tensing for the next move. Already she had released Yakov's hand.

Tarasoft pushed the door and it swung open, revealing a room of stark white.

Abby lunged. Her shoulder slammed into the man in front of her, shoving him against Tarasoft, who stumbled across the threshold to his knees.

"You bastards!" yelled Abby, flailing at them. "You bastards/' The man behind her tried to seize her arms. She twisted around and swung at his face, her fist connecting in a satisfying thud. She spied a flash of movement. It was Yakov, darting away and vanishing around the corner. Now the man she'd shoved was on his feet again, coming at her from the other direction. Together the two men trapped her between them and lifted her from the floor. She didn't stop fighting and thrashing as they carried her through the doorway into the white room.

"You've got to control her!" said Tarasoft.

"The boy-'

"Forget the boy! He can't go anywhere. Get her up on the table!"

"She won't hold still!"

"Bastards? Abby screamed, kicking one leg free.

She heard Tarasoff fumbling in cabinets. Then he snapped, "Give me her arm! I need to get at her arm!"

Tarasoft approached, syringe in hand. Abby cried out as the needle plunged in. She twisted, but couldn't break free. She twisted again, and this time her limbs barely responded. She was having trouble seeing now. Her eyelids wouldn't stay open. Her voice came out barely a sigh. She tried to scream, but could not even draw the next breath.

What is wrong with me? Why can't I move?

"Get her in the next room!" said Tarasoft. "We have to intubate now or we're going to lose her."

The men carried her into the adjoining room and slid her onto a table. Lights came on overhead, searingly bright. Though fully awake, fully aware, she could not move a muscle. But she could feel everything. The straps tightening around her wrists and ankles. The pressure of Tarasoff's hand on her forehead, tipping her head back. The cold steel blade of the laryngoscope sliding into her throat. Her shriek of horror echoed only in her head; no sound came out. She felt the plastic ET tube snaking down her throat, gagging, suffocating her as it moved past her vocal cords and into her trachea. She could not turn away, could not even fight for air. The tube was taped to her face and connected to an ambubag. Tarasoft squeezed the bag and Abby's chest rose and fell in three quick, lifesaving breaths. Now he took off the ambubag and connected the ET tube to a ventilator. The machine took over, pumping air into her lungs at regular intervals.

"Now go get the boy!" snapped Tarasoft. "No, not both of you. I need someone to assist."

One of the men left. The other stepped closer to the table. "Fasten that chest strap," saidTarasoff. "The succinylchotine will wear off in another minute or two. We can't have her thrashing around while I start the IV."

Succinylcholine. This is how Aaron died. Unable to struggle. Unable to breathe.

Already the drug's effect was starting to fade. She could feel her chest muscles begin to spasm against the insult of that tube. And she could raise her eyelids now, could see the face of the man standing above her. He was cutting away her clothes, his gaze flickering with interest as he bared her breasts, then her abdomen.

Tarasoft started the IV in her arm. As he straightened, he saw that Abby's eyes were fully open now, and staring at him. He read the question in her gaze.

"A healthy liver," he said, 'is not something we can take for granted. There's a gentleman in Connecticut who's been waiting over a year for a donor."Tarasoffreached for a second IV bag and he hung it on the pole. Then he looked at her. "He was delighted to hear we've finally found a match."

All that blood they drew from me in the ER, she thought. They used it for tissue typing.

He continued with his tasks. Connecting the second bag to the line. Drawing medications into syringes. She could only look at him mutely as the ventilator pumped air into her lungs. Her muscle function was beginning to return. Already she could wiggle her fingers, could shrug her shoulders. A drop of perspiration slid down her temple. She was sweating with the effort to move. To regain control of her body. A clock on the wall read eleven-fifteen.

Tarasoft had finished laying out the tray of syringes. He heard the sound of the door open and shut again, and he turned. "The boy's loose," he said. "They're still hunting him down. So we'll take the liver first."

Footsteps approached the table. Another face came into view and stared down at Abby.

So many times before she had looked across the operating table at that face. So many times before, she had seen those eyes smiling at her above a surgical mask. They were not smiling now.

No, she sobbed, but the only sound that came out was the soft rush of air through the ET tube. No…

It was Mark.