The fifth vial

CHAPTER 11

"Where are we going?"

"You said the Intercontinental. This is the quick way."

"I don't want the quick way. I want to go back on the highway."

"You are a very beautiful woman."

"Take me back to the highway this minute1."

"Very beautiful."

The cab accelerates. The area around us deteriorates. What streetlights there are have been smashed. Most of the houses are shuttered. Almost nobody is on the street.

I am more frightened every second. I try to see the cabbie's license, but it is too dark. Something terrible is going on. Something terrible. Is there anything I can use as a weapon? Anything at all I can do?

"Goddamn it! Take me back to the highway."

"The customers at the House of Love will adore you. You will be very happy there…Very happy there…Very happy there…"

I am more terrified than I have ever been. I have heard of women being kidnapped and then addicted to narcotics and used in whorehouses. I have heard of women vanishing, never to be heard from again. The scene around me continues to blur then comes back into focus. It is so real one moment, so surreal the next. I need to get out. No matter how fast we are going, I need to get out of this cab. I can run. If I can just get out without hurting my legs, I can run faster than this bastard…faster than anyone. I will not be anyone's crack whore. Not ever. I would kill myself first. My passport. I need my passport and my wallet. I take them oat of my purse and jam them into my jacket pocket.

"Money. I'll give you money to let me? out right here. Three thousand reais. I have three thousand reais. Just let me go!"

I reach for the door handle and prepare myself to hit the pavement at forty miles an hour. But before I can move, the cab screeches to a halt, throwing me hard against the back of the passenger seat. What is happening? Again, the scene blurs. The movement around me is indistinct. Suddenly the door is ripped open. A large man reaches in and grabs me. I fight, but he is very strong. A black nylon stocking covers his face. I try tearing at the mask, but a second man is on me. His face is also covered. His breath smells terribly of fish and garlic. Before I can react, a syringe appears in his hand. The heavier man tightens his grip on me. No! Please no! Don't!

The needle is jammed down into the muscle at the base of my neck. I scream, but hear no sound. Heroin. It must be heroin. "This can't be happening to me. The cab peels away, spraying dirt and stones. I feel weak and disconnected from the two men. My mind is spinning, trying desperately to sore: things out. But that effort confuses me even more. It is still too soon for any drug to take effect. Don't let this happen. Keep fighting. Kick and punch and try to bite. Don't give in. Don't let this happen.

They have my arms now and are dragging me facedown through the dirt of an alley. I can smell the garbage. I twist and hick violently, and suddenly my right arm is free. The smaller man's groin is inches away. I punch him there with all the strength I have. He cries out and falls. Now l am on my feet, gasping for breath, terrified and angry. Goddamn animals!

Get away! Get away from them before the drug kicks in. The larger man comes at me. I punch him in the face. He stumbles backward. Run! Run! Down the alley is the only way to go.

There are buildings all around-one story, two, some even three. The details are vague and indistinct, yet I clearly see a light wink on in one of the windows. Everything is blurry now. I feel detached…distant…surreal. The drug must be kicking in.

"I have a pistol. Stop right now or I will shoot!"

My legs are fueled by terror. I would rather die than live as they plan. Ignore the gun. Just run! Run, damn it!

My body responds. I'm running…running as hard as I can.

Oh, God, the alley's blocked. A pile of trash and garbage and barrels and cardboard boxes…and a fence. There's a fence! I can make it. I can make it over the trash and the fence. I've got to.

From behind me I hear a shot. No pain. I wasn't hit. I can make it. Leg up onto the top of the fence. Almost there. Another shot. Burning pain in my back on the right. Oh, God! I've been shot. No! This can't be happening…

"Dr. Santoro, I think she is waking up."

Another shot. More pain. No! I don't want to die…

"She is waking up!"

The woman's words, spoken in Portuguese, forced themselves into Natalie's consciousness, dispelling the terrible images from the alley.

This has to be real…must be alive.

"Miss, wake up. Wake up and meet us. Just nod your head if you hear me. Good, good. Don't try and open your eyes yet. We have them covered."

Natalie could understand enough of the woman's Portuguese to interpret it. Still, she felt unable to speak.

"Dr. Santoro, she hears us."

"Well, well. Our dove begins to spread her wings." A man's voice — deep and calming. "Perhaps soon the great mystery will be over. Turn off the lights and we shall uncover her eyes. Miss, can you hear me? Please squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

"I…am…American," Natalie heard her strained, hoarse voice say in somewhat awkward Portuguese. "I…do not…speak…Portuguese…very well."

She felt extremely vague and hung-over, but one at a time, her senses were checking in. There was a pounding in her temples and behind her eyes that was extremely unpleasant, but bearable. The smell of isopropyl alcohol and disinfectant was distinctively hospital. The institutional texture of the sheets supported that conclusion. Then she became aware of the oxygen prongs in her nose. The message from her senses blended with the all-too-dear memories of being assaulted, nearly escaping, and then being shot in the back.

"Actually, it sounds as if your Portuguese is quite good," the man said in accented English, "but I will try and accommodate you. I am Dr. Xavier Santoro. You are a patient in the Santa Teresa Hospital in Rio de Janeiro. You have been a patient here for a number of days. The lights have now been turned off. I will take the pads from your eyes, but I will have to replace them soon. Your corneas were quite scratched, the right more than the left. They have responded nicely to treatment, but they are not all better. After I remove the pads, please open your eyes intermittently to allow them some time to adjust. If you have any significant discomfort, we will immediately replace the patches."

The tape, holding pads over Natalie's eyes, was gently pulled away. She kept her lids closed for a minute as she tested her hands and feet, then her arms and legs. Her joints were piteously stiff, but they all seemed to be working. No paralysis. Her hand brushed across a urinary catheter, which suggested she had been in Santa Teresa's for some time. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The room was dimly lit from fluorescent light flowing in from the corridor outside her door. The glare was unpleasant, but objects quickly came into focus. An IV was draining into her left forearm. There was an ornate crucifix over the doorway. There were no windows on the three walls she could see.

Dr. Xavier Santoro, wearing scrubs and a surgical coat, gazed down at her benignly. His face was scholarly, long and narrow with a prominent nose and wire-rimmed glasses, and from where she lay, he seemed quite tall.

"I…I was shot," she said. "Am I all right?"

"Here, let me help you up in bed a bit."

Santoro pulled her up toward the head of the bed, then raised it forty-five degrees.

"I'm a medical student…a senior medical student in Boston…My name is Natalie Reyes…A taxi driver took me from the airport to an alley and…am I all right?"

Santoro inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.

"You were found in an alley with only your panties on, Miss Reyes. No bra. As you said, you had been shot twice — twice in the back on the right. We estimate you were there, lying unconscious beneath a pile of trash in the alley, for two days. You lost a good deal of blood. This is midwinter here in Brazil. The temperature at night has been less than ten degrees Celsius — not freezing, but cold enough."

"What day was I brought in here?"

Santoro consulted her bedside chart.

"The eighteenth."

"I flew in on the fifteenth…and was attacked on the way from the airport, so it was three days…What day is it now?"

"It is the twenty-seventh, a Wednesday. You have been in a coma since your arrival — probably from the prolonged exposure, shock, and infection. We had no idea who you were."

"Nobody called the police…looking for me?"

"Not as far as we know. The police have been here, though. They will want to come back and get a statement from you."

"I feel short of breath."

Santoro took her hand.

"That is understandable," he said, "but I promise you that symptom will improve with time."

"With time?"

Santoro hesitated.

"You were quite ill when you were brought in," he said finally, "badly dehydrated and in shock. Your right lung had collapsed completely from the gunshots and the bleeding into your chest. There was life-threatening infection…I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but with the bullet wounds and infection we could not reinflate the lung and your vital signs were slipping. The decision was made that to save your life, the lung had to be removed."

"Removed?"

Natalie felt a sudden wave of nausea sweep over her. She began to hyperventilate. Bile swept up into her throat. My lung.

"We had no choice," Santoro was saying.

"No, this can't be."

"But on the positive side, you have made a remarkable recovery to date."

"I was an athlete," she managed to say. "A…a runner."

Please…please let this be a dream.

Images of herself dragging ahead using a walker swirled through her brain. My lung! She would be a pulmonary cripple forever, never to run again, always short of breath. She tried chastising herself for not responding to the fact that these people had saved her life, but all she could focus on was that life as she had known it was over.

"An athlete," Santoro said. "Well, that explains your response to the surgery. I am sure this is a terrible shock to you, but take it from a chest surgeon, Miss Reyes, having this operation does not mean you will no longer be able to run. With time your left lung will compensate and your breathing capacity will increase to the point where it could come close to equaling what you could do with both lungs."

"Oh, God. I can't believe this."

"Perhaps you would like us to contact someone back home?"

"Oh, yes, yes. I have family who must be frantic with worry. Dr. Santoro, I'm sorry for not sounding more appreciative to you and everyone for saving my life. I just can't believe what's happened."

"It is normal in situations like this. Believe me. But your life will not be altered nearly as drastically as you think."

"I…hope so. Thank you."

"When you are able, we have some hospital business to attend to. You were in the intensive care unit for several days, but because the hospital has been filled to overflowing, you have been moved to the building we call the annex. It is not connected to the actual hospital. Estella will be in to take some information for billing and for our records."

"I have insurance that will cover everything…I can get the policy number when I call home."

"We do a great deal of charity work here at Santa Teresa's, but we certainly appreciate it when we can get paid. We have a small rehabilitation room here in the annex, and we would like to get you up on the treadmill or the bicycle as soon as possible."

Natalie recalled the countless hours she spent in physical therapy re-habbing her torn Achilles. Would this rehabilitation be as bad? It was probably normal after a trauma like this, but she wasn't able even to consider the prospect of recovery. First the suspension from school, now this. How could this have happened?

"A phone?" she asked.

"Of course. I'll have Estella take care of that also."

"I wonder if you could stay around…I'm going to call my professor, Dr. Douglas Berenger… Maybe you could speak with him."

"The cardiac surgeon in Boston?"

"Yes, you know him?"

"I know of him. He is regarded as one of the very best in his field."

"I work in his lab."

Natalie had neither the desire nor the wind to go into the reason for her ill-fated trip to Brazil. All she really wanted, in fact, was to get home as soon as possible.

"You must be a very brilliant student," Santoro said. "Wait here, we'll get the phone. Also, the police have asked to be notified if — when — you woke up. They would like to take a statement from you as soon as you are strong enough to give one. And I must replace those eye patches."

"I don't feel any pain."

"We have used numbing drops."

"I will tell the police what I know…but it isn't much."

"Contrary to what we Brazilians often hear when we travel, our Military Police are quite efficient and effective."

"Even so," Natalie replied, "I doubt they'll have much success with this case."

…I reach for the door handle and prepare myself to hit the pavement at forty miles an hour. But before I can move, the cab screeches to a halt, throwing me hard against the back of the passenger seat. What is happening? Again, the scene blurs. The movement around me is indistinct. Suddenly the door is ripped open. A large man reaches in and grabs me. I fight, but he is very strong. A black nylon mask covers his face. I try tearing at the mask, but a second man is on me. His face is also covered. Before I can react a syringe appears in his hand. No! Please no! Don't!

As in the past, Natalie was at once both a participant and an observer in the events that were so radically altering her life. She was a prisoner of her memory, watching and feeling, terrifyingly involved yet strangely detached, and above all powerless to escape the scenario or to alter the outcome. As always, the cab driver's voice was as distinct as his appearance was blurred. He might be sitting next to her and she wouldn't have recognized him, but if he said just one word, she would know.

…The alley's blocked with trash and garbage and cardboard boxes…and a fence…

An unwilling captive, Natalie, as always, ran from her masked pursuers and clambered over the boxes and trash, and heard the shots and felt the pain, and collapsed into blackness. Then, as had often happened, a voice wedged itself into the hideous experience. This time, the voice was a familiar one.

"Nat, it's me, Doug. Can you hear me?"

"Oh, thank God. Thank God you're here."

"You're at the airport, Nat, ready to fly home. They gave you something to knock you out for the transfer and the ambulance ride out here. It should wear off in just a few minutes."

"How…long since I called you?"

"It's less than twenty-four hours since we spoke. I came down on a medevac flight to get you. The school has consented to pay for whatever your insurance doesn't."

"Thank you…Oh, thank you. This is terrible."

"I know, Nat. I know it is. But you're alive, and your brain is intact, and take it from me, your body will improve more than you can imagine. Emily Trotter from Anesthesia is here with me just in case. She's waiting in the plane. Terry's here, too."

"Nothing could keep me from coming, Nat," Millwood's comforting voice said. "We have to get you home so we can go running again. I've told everyone who would listen about how you ran away from those arrogant high-school track stars. Now I need some more stories."

He stroked her forehead and then squeezed her hand.

"Nat, we're all so sorry for what's happened," Berenger said. "We've been worried sick."

"The policeman who came to interview me…said that no one had called."

"That's nonsense. I even had one of the Boston police who's originally from Brazil call them."

"The one who interviewed me…couldn't get away fast enough…It was like he just didn't care."

"Well, we certainly called and called."

"Thank you."

"Dr. Santoro says you're strong and your recovery has been astonishing — a miracle, he calls it. He says your left lung is doing incredibly well, and your body is compensating beautifully for the loss of the other one."

"My eyes…"

"I spoke to the ophthalmologist. They're covered because you've had some temporary damage to your corneas from exposure in that alley. He said that if your discomfort isn't too bad, we could remove the patches for good when we have you settled on board. We'll have someone from the eye service go over you as soon as we get home."

Natalie felt the stretcher begin to roll across the tarmac. In just a few minutes, she had been transferred to one inside the plane. Moments later, her eye pads were removed. Berenger, stethoscope in place, was listening to her chest.

"Doing great," he said.

Natalie reached up and touched his face.

"I never got to present our paper."

"That's okay. You can do it next year."

"That depends. Where's the meeting?"

Berenger grinned.

"Paris," he said. "Now get some rest. Everything's going to be all right."

As always, the conference call of the Guardian council took place on Tuesday at precisely noon, Greenwich mean time.

"This is Laertes."

"Simonides, here."

"Themistocles. Greetings from Australia."

"Glaucon."

"Polemarchus."

"The meeting is called to order," Laertes said. "I have heard from Aspasia. The operation on A has been a complete success. The match was twelve out of twelve, so only minimal drugs will be required, if any at all. Aspasia expects A to be back at work within two weeks. His prognosis is for a full recovery and unimpaired life span."

"Well done."

"Marvelous."

"Other cases?"

"Polemarchus here. We might as well start with me. This coming week we have two kidneys, one liver, and one heart scheduled. The recipients have each already been certified as worthy of our services, and all necessary arrangements — logistical and financial — have been taken care of. In the case of kidneys, the procedure would usually result in the transplantation of both kidneys into our recipient. The liver would result in transplantation of the largest organ segment anatomically possible. Let's consider the kidneys first. Twenty-seven-year-old male laborer, Mississippi, United States."

"Approved," all five called out in unison.

"Forty-year-old female restaurant owner, Toronto, Canada."

"What sort of restaurant?"

"Chinese."

"Approved," they all said as one, and laughed.

"The liver, a thirty-five-year-old male teacher from Wales."

"Glaucon, here. I thought we agreed no teachers. Have we any options?"

"None that I know of," Polemarchus said, "although I can check again. This is a perfect twelve-point match for L, number thirty-one on your lists. As you probably know, he is one of the wealthiest men in Great Britain. I do not know what he has agreed to pay for this procedure, but knowing the way Xerxes negotiates, I would guess it was substantial."

"In that case," Glaucon said, "approved, but let us not make this a precedent."

"Approved," the others echoed.