Nano

CHAPTER 14

Pia walked back to the ER, her head full of questions. Most of them centered on Mariel Spallek. Mariel wasn’t an overly friendly person, which was something that Pia usually appreciated, as she thought it was more honest. She was authoritarian, to be sure, but was knowledgeable and a good supervisor, both constructive and demanding. She could also be passive-aggressive, which she’d been that morning, but Pia didn’t care, she wasn’t looking for a social interaction. Pia had gotten to the point of knowing what to expect from Mariel, at least up until having called her for help in regard to the downed Chinese runner.

But Pia could never have imagined that Mariel would show up with four armed guards and proceed to sign out a patient without a diagnosis or even a hint of an explanation for the man’s apparent cardiac arrest!

Pia reentered the ER in somewhat of a daze. She saw the place was getting back to normal. There were still a few clusters of people standing around, talking about what had happened. The cop who had shown up with the ambulance to pick up the runner was still there, but he was deep in conversation with several of the hospital security people. Pia couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been when the Nano contingent had first shown up and stormed into the ER. A few of the administrator types were still there, but not the hospital president. Apparently, with the acceptance of Mariel’s money, he felt the situation had been resolved; the patient had been seen and the bill paid.

On a side table in the room where the runner had been taken, Pia found her cell phone. She figured she’d take a cab back to Nano — in her cell phone case she kept a twenty-dollar bill for emergencies.

As she retreated toward the ER’s front desk where she intended to inquire about getting a taxi, Pia recognized she was more shaken up than she initially had admitted to herself. The sight of guns disturbed her. It was a common enough occurrence to see armed guards with weapons, even assault rifles these days, especially at an airport, but the memory of seeing Will McKinley getting shot in the head at point-blank range was still fresh, and she herself was kidnapped by men with guns. She’d seen firsthand what a bullet could do to flesh and bone.

As Pia approached the desk, she heard her name being called. It was Paul Caldwell.

“You’re still here. I thought you had abandoned us with the rest of the Nano contingent.”

“My phone,” said Pia, showing it to Paul. “I left it behind.”

“Are you okay? That was a weird experience.”

“Sure, I’m fine. But it was weird, as you say.”

“Hey, how about we get a coffee in the hospital coffee shop,” Paul suggested. “Now that things are back to the usual emergency room stuff, the team here can handle it. I want to hear more about this Nano place. It must be very exciting if things like this are going on every day.”

“Hardly,” Pia said seriously. “At least not in the section I work in. It’s a research facility, and nothing exciting has happened since I’ve been there for almost two years.” As Pia spoke she realized that a lot of things could be going on at Nano that she would have no idea of, given the size of the facility and the staff.

“I’m teasing,” Paul laughed. “But I’m not teasing about the coffee idea. What do you say? I’d like to hear how you happened to come out here to Boulder rather than start your residency.”

A red flag went up in Pia’s brain. Although she was ravenously hungry, having missed a meal following her attenuated run, she couldn’t but help wonder about Paul’s motives. He was a man, a good-looking man, but she had had quite enough of men since she’d been a young girl in foster care. Perhaps more important than her need for food, she was really curious about the Chinese runner’s situation. She wanted to find out what Paul might be thinking as to his diagnosis. And she wasn’t excited about getting back to Nano quite so quickly and having to face Mariel. With such thoughts in mind, she decided to ignore the red flag, at least for the time being.

“What do you say?” Paul repeated. He could tell that Pia was miles away.

“Okay, sure,” Pia said. “Would they have something to eat as well as coffee?”

“Absolutely,” Paul stated. “But for food I’d recommend the cafeteria. A much bigger selection.” He motioned for Pia to follow, and together they went to the hospital cafeteria, still bustling with its lunchtime crowd.

Paul guided a tray past the food selections, and Pia absentmindedly placed a prewrapped egg salad sandwich and a bottle of water on it. She was not a finicky eater. She tried to pay, but Paul would have none of it, saying her money wasn’t good at his hospital. They took a table in the back of the room.

“So where do we start?” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. It was the only thing he had selected.

“What do you mean?” Pia asked, unwrapping her sandwich and opening the water bottle.

“I mean, that was pretty intense, right. You obviously know that woman who showed up. And what exactly is this Nano place? I don’t know anything about it.”

So Pia told Paul Caldwell about her work and about Nano. Paul had cycled on that same mountain route that she used for jogging, but he had no idea what went on inside the sprawling complex. As Pia talked, he began to think she didn’t, either.

“Your specialty is salmonella?”

“I did a lot of work on salmonella,” Pia said. “It’s what got me the invite to come out here to try to solve a problem that salmonella and other flagellated bacteria cause with a new way to fight sepsis through nanotechnology.” Pia stopped herself, remembering what Mariel had told her about secrecy. But Paul was an ER doctor — what interest could he have in nanotechnology, other than a professional curiosity?

“Go on,” said Paul. As he listened to Pia, Paul reconfirmed that she was undeniably gorgeous, with exotic features and lovely skin. He knew she had an athletic runner’s body, having caught a glimpse of her in her spandex when she’d first come into the ER and before she’d been given the white coat she was still wearing. And she was a medical researcher, operating on some technological frontier he knew almost nothing about. He was enthralled with her. But he sensed she was aloof and not completely comfortable talking with him. He wondered why. There were lots of things he wanted to talk to her about, but he restrained his usually ebullient and talkative side and concentrated on the medicine. He didn’t have to pretend. That, too, fascinated him.

“Tell me,” Paul said when there was a pause in the conversation. “Have you been taking advantage of the great Colorado outdoors? That’s what lured me here.”

“I have,” Pia said. “Mostly running, but I have been biking a bit, too.”

“No skiing?”

“Some. I at least tried it. It’s more of a commitment than I’m willing to make. How about you?”

“Skiing, mountain biking, running, even mountain climbing. I can’t get enough. It’s a major reason I’m in emergency medicine. When I’m off, I’m really off, and I’m out there doing something. Maybe we can hook up sometime and go for a run or something. I have to say, I like you.”

“That’s nice,” Pia said noncommittally. She wondered if coming to the cafeteria had been a good idea, remembering the red flag issue.

Pia’s reaction to his innocent offer to get together was hardly encouraging, so Paul quickly turned the conversation to their recent shared experience.

“So this runner you came in with. You said when you found him he was unresponsive. How long would you say it was that he wasn’t breathing?”

“I have no way of knowing,” said Pia. “All I know is that he wasn’t breathing when I examined him. And I couldn’t feel a heartbeat, not until I had done CPR.”

“And yet the neuro seemed fine, and the EKG was absolutely normal,” said Paul. “Very curious, to say the least.”

“He recovered as if he had been sleeping. I know no Chinese at all, but it didn’t sound as though he were slurring his words when he woke up. And he had full motor function. Immediately he tried to get up.”

“If you had to guess how long he’d not been breathing, what would you say?”

“I saw him on the ground from quite a distance, and noticed he hadn’t moved. I mean, it had to be fifteen, twenty minutes at least. I know that sounds impossible.”

“It would be very interesting to get some follow-up. Since he’s somehow associated with Nano, do you think you could ask about him? Do you think he works there?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Pia said. “He didn’t strike me as a scientist, for some reason. But my boss said he was a representative of the Chinese government, whatever that meant.”

“That woman is your boss?”

“I’m afraid so,” Pia admitted. “Actually my direct boss. I have to work with her every day.”

“My sympathies,” Paul said.

“Actually, she’s not that bad. Professionally, she’s very good at what she does. She’s trained as a molecular biologist and oversees most of Nano’s bio-research. She’s very helpful with my research.”

“I’m glad she’s not my boss,” Paul said, making an exaggerated expression of disgust. “She’s so bitchy. And that hairdo…”

Pia couldn’t help but reflect on Paul’s choice of an adjective to describe Mariel. Accurate as it was, it seemed somehow out of place.

“If you can find out anything about him, I’d appreciate hearing,” Paul said.

Pia finished her sandwich, and Paul could see she was lost in thought again.

“Let me drive you back to work,” said Paul. “It’s the least I could do, after all your help.”

“Oh, no,” said Pia, “I’ll get a cab. Really!”

“No, I insist. I’m part of a large group of ER docs contracted to run the Memorial’s ER. I called one of my colleagues to come in early. I’m off at three anyway, but I was going to go up to see the president, Noakes, and tell him what a spineless buffoon I think he is. The way he handled that situation was inappropriate, to say the very least.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” said Pia.

“No, it isn’t, so you’d be doing me a favor by saving me from my foolish self.”

Paul slid a business card across the table to Pia. “I want to stay in touch in case you find out anything about the Chinese runner. And I’ll let you know if there is any fallout here at the hospital. Do you have a card? I suppose you don’t, given that you were out for a jog. Give me your cell number, and I’ll put it straight in my phone.”

Pia stood up and took the card. “It’s okay, Paul, I know where to reach you.”

Paul winced inwardly. He knew Pia thought he was being pushy, and he was, a little, but not for the reasons she probably thought. He liked Pia’s detached calm, and he sensed they shared a lot of the same interests, which he couldn’t say for a lot of people. And she was so damned gorgeous. At least Pia had taken the card.

“So are you going to save me from making a fool of myself, getting myself fired, even? My car’s right outside the ER entrance. One of the perks is my own parking slot.”

Pia eyed Paul. She debated. One of the realities was that she didn’t know if twenty dollars would be enough for a cab all the way to Nano, and even though Paul was socially aggressive, there was something about his nature that suggested it wasn’t the boringly typical male sexual come-on. “Okay,” Pia said suddenly. “To save you from yourself, I’ll accept a ride.” She smiled. “But let me tell you a little secret. I’m black belt in tae kwon do.” Now she laughed.

“You’re joking?”

“I’m not joking at all. I learned it at school, starting when I was fourteen.” What she didn’t say was that the school was essentially a reform school, and she had used martial arts to protect herself.

A broad smile spread across Paul’s face. To him, she was getting more and more interesting. “Fabulous!” he said, and meant it.

They walked in silence to the car park and found his Subaru with combination ski and bike racks. A dark blue Trek Madone bike was locked into the rack. In the back of the station wagon were loops of climbing robe. As Paul unlocked the car he looked over the top at Pia.

“Pia, you aren’t going to need tae kwon do when you’re with me.”

“I know,” Pia said. “That’s why I told you about it. If I thought I’d need it, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

They both climbed into the car, which was as clean and ordered as Paul’s person. Paul turned the ignition and looked across at Pia. “The reason I asked for your cell number is that I’d like to call you, and not just about this runner guy. Perhaps we could go for a drink and talk about medicine, or whatever floats your boat.”

“That’s a possibility,” said Pia. She wasn’t used to people being so disarmingly frank. Pia also felt safe with Paul. She could usually tell that a man thought she was attractive because he would check her out and leer. Here was a man who just said he liked her. It made a nice change.

They drove out of the hospital parking lot, and Pia directed him to Nano. When they got to the gate, Pia showed the security guard her ID and said that Paul was just dropping her off. Paul pulled up to the front of the main building. He was clearly impressed.

“This place is huge. And that landscaping is to die for. The whole effect is intimidating, I have to say.”

“It is,” said Pia, who was seeing Nano from a new perspective after the strange episode with the Chinese runner. She didn’t like the feeling. She got out of the car, and Paul did, too.

“So stay in touch,” he said, leaning on the car’s roof. “No pressure, remember.”

“I have your card,” said Pia. She remembered she was wearing a Boulder Memorial lab coat, and slipped it off. Folding it over, she held it out to Paul. “This is yours,” she added.

“Not mine personally. I’d say it belongs to Mr. Noakes, in which case, you can keep it. Seriously, keep it as a souvenir of your visit to Memorial.”

“I have plenty of lab coats. I really don’t need it. It’s going to go to waste.”

Pia continued to hold out the coat, but Paul refused to take it. Instead he just smiled and raised his arms as if in surrender.

Pia relented and unfolded the coat to put it back on. As she did so, something fell out and landed on the tarmac of the parking lot. It was the first blood-collecting vacuum tube used on the runner. Pia had forgotten she had jammed it in her pocket. The tube bounced on its rubber stopper. Responding by reflex, Pia reached down and snatched up the tube before it could bounce again and break. She held it up, and both Paul and Pia could see that the tube was intact.

Paul walked around and Pia offered him the tube.

“Hey, clever you! I never knew you kept back a blood sample.”

“I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t do it deliberately. I stuck it in my pocket to keep it out of the way when I was drawing the second and third samples.”

“Great to have this, since they confiscated the other two. I’ll keep it, if you don’t mind. It will be interesting to see if it’s normal, which is what I suspect, since he was acting so normal himself.”

“Please,” said Pia. She thought about checking out the blood herself, but she knew there was a chance it could get confiscated on her way into Nano. She thought it would be in safe hands with Paul.

“Just don’t use it all up,” she said. “I might want to look at it, too.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“You want my mobile number?” she said.

“Absolutely,” Paul said. He got out his own phone to add it directly into his contacts.

Pia told Paul her cell phone number. She had yet to change from a New York plan. Paul took it down and put the sample of blood in his own lab coat. He gave Pia a salute of sorts and a friendly smile before climbing back into his car to drive out of the parking lot.

When Paul stopped at the security gate to be let out onto the state road, he glanced in his rearview mirror. He could still see Pia standing where he’d left her. Once the security gate had been raised, Paul accelerated toward Boulder.

A few minutes later he found himself whistling. He was happy despite the run-in with Noakes over the Chinese runner. Paul was not currently in a serious relationship, thanks to a recent breakup, and he thought that meeting Pia was just what the doctor ordered to take his mind off negative thoughts. He was definitely looking forward to getting to know her. She was the most interesting and intelligent woman he’d met in a long time. He was also looking forward to seeing what the Chinese runner’s blood chemistries might show, if anything.