Neely thought a moment. “Just some vegetable broth. And a little salt and pepper.”
“Anyone else eat it?”
Neely nodded. “Yes. I did.”
“You feel anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
The doctor nodded again and turned back to Li Na. Her breathing had calmed, and she was listening to them. She suddenly clenched again and moaned, but only for a moment this time.
“Still hurts?”
Li Na nodded hesitantly. “Less now.”
“Good. Did you taste anything wrong in the food?”
“No.”
Kanna opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by Neely.
“Oh, wow!” Gently, she held up Li Na’s forearm and studied the skin. Kanna quickly moved around the bed to her side where he took Li Na’s arm, and reaching over his head, flipped on an overhead lamp.
“What the–” He slowly rotated Li Na’s arm back and forth, gazing at it under the bright light. A patch of tiny lines could be seen on the surface of the teenager’s soft, pale skin. “Looks like dry skin or something. But just right here.” Kanna circled the area with his finger, then rotated the girl’s arm even further. “Nothing up here…or down lower. Just this one spot.” His eyes moved to her other arm, and he reached across her to lift it. A similar patch was visible. “Strange.”
Dr. Kanna ran his finger gently over each spot. “Does that hurt, Li Na?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
The doctor turned to Neely. “Feel this and tell me what it feels like.”
Neely frowned. “Dry. Kind of scaly or flakey.”
Kanna nodded. He rubbed the spot more firmly, careful to watch Li Na’s reaction. He raised his thumb and examined it. “It feels flakey, but nothing’s coming off.”
“Li Na, do you feel anything different along your arms here? Anything at all?”
She thought about it. “A little maybe. Like…” She struggled with the translation and instead wiggled two fingers back and forth.
“Like a tingle?” Neely asked.
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Li Na shook her head.
Kanna stood up. “Let’s keep an eye on that. Could be some kind of allergic reaction, perhaps triggering a mild rash. So, we’ll need to be careful. The last thing we want to do is introduce something here that she’s allergic to.”
They both looked down at the teenager, whose breathing was finally beginning to slow. When she closed her mouth and breathed in deeply through her nose, Kanna raised an eyebrow. “Something else wrong, Li Na?”
She paused. “No.”
He continued studying her with a curious expression.
“Where is the other doctor?” Li Na asked.
“You mean Dr. Tricia?”
“Yes,” Li Na nodded.
“She’s here. Down the hall.”
When the girl did not respond, Neely gave her a sidelong glance. “Is there something…about Dr. Tricia?”
Li Na’s dark eyes looked into Neely’s, but there was no reply.
“Li Na?” she pressed. “Is something wrong?”
The girl’s reply was reluctant. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
The teenager checked the door again, nervously. “I feel when she is here.”
“You feel what?”
“Afraid.”
Neely and Kanna both looked at each other. “Why do you feel afraid?” When Li Na didn’t respond, Neely rephrased. “Is she doing something to make you afraid?”
The girl shook her head.
“Did she say something?”
“No.”
This time Dr. Kanna lowered his voice. “Li Na, what are you seeing that makes you afraid?”
She stared at the older man for a long moment. “I do not see something,” she said, just above a whisper. “I smell it.”
57
Kanna raised his head and looked directly at Neely. “I need to speak with you.”
Immediately, the doctor led her away from the bed, to the far wall. He kept his voice low. “Have you noticed anything about her? About Tricia?”
“Like what?”
“Like anything.”
Neely frowned. “I…don’t think so.”
“I have,” Kanna replied dryly.
“What do you mean?”
“Little things. Medical things.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Mistakes.”
“What sort of mistakes?”
“Just…procedural things. Medically. Things that she should know. That anyone should know with her kind of experience.”
Neely stared at him. “Like what?”
“Like Li Na’s GCS. The Glasgow Coma Scale that gives an estimate of a patient’s conscious state. What she gave to me after Li Na had woken up was completely wrong.”
“Maybe it was just a mistake.”
“Maybe,” Kanna said. “But there are other things. Like checking the girl’s muscle strength and range of motion before trying to sit her up. And you sure as hell don’t try to get her to stand! She also didn’t seem to know the word ambulate.”
Neely continued staring at Kanna. “What does ambulate mean?”
“It means to stand up. Even a medical dropout would know that.”
Neely’s gaze became curious. She calmly looked over the doctor’s shoulder to the room’s window and door. Then turned to Li Na, who was lying quietly in her bed and watching them.
“It’s not just that,” Kanna whispered fiercely. “There’s more. A lot of little things that just weren’t adding up. At first, I thought she was just nervous, or out of practice. But she’s missing things even a first-year resident would know!”
“So, what does that mean?”
Kanna shook his head. “I’m not sure. But something’s not right about her.”
Neely turned back to the teenager. With a frown, she approached the bed again.
“Li Na. Tell me more about what you’re smelling.”
58
The powerful odor wafting through the window of the small Subaru was easily recognizable to both Clay and Caesare. It was the unmistakable smell of oil.
Barely twenty miles south of the Port of Spain, and originally constructed as an emergency auxiliary air base during World War II, the small Camden Airstrip was now surrounded by Point Lisas, Trinidad’s world-class petrochemical plant. A truly impressive site created during, and in response to, a decades-long decline of the island’s sugar cane industry.
To the west and beyond a row of monstrous oil storage tanks, both men could make out heavy equipment and other signs of construction. It was a major upgrade of the three-thousand-foot Camden Airstrip, which would soon be the island’s second international airport.
Steve Caesare peered up through the front window as the Subaru Forrester passed one of the giant tanks, massive and gleaming in a bright white beneath the Caribbean’s blazing sun.
“Man, those things are huge. How many barrels do you think they hold?”
Clay whistled. “Hundreds, at least.”
“Are you ever serious?”
Clay turned and glanced at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Hey,” Caesare retorted, holding up a finger. “I’m affable! There’s a difference.”
“Right.”
Caesare chuckled and turned to peer out his side window, noting more tanks in the distance along what looked to be large sprawling neighborhoods was even farther out. “This is one big island.”
Clay nodded. “Big enough to have its own natural gas production.”
“Oh, Mr. Tour Guide, do tell me more. What other fascinating things do you know?”
“I was making conversation.”
“Do you have to read everything about every place we ever go?”
Clay leveled his gaze, only to find Caesare grinning directly at him.
Steve kept his grin and tur
ned back, his brawny arm resting out the open window. Outside, tall lime-green-colored grass sped past them in a blur. Warm tropical air whipped through the window, tousling his black hair. He fingered his upper lip curiously and turned back to Clay.
“I think I miss the ‘stache.”
Clay grinned. “Makes you look more responsible.”
“Greeeat.” After a long pause, Caesare turned again. “So, what do you think of Neely?”
“Commander Lawton?”
“Yes. Commander Lawton.”
“I already told you. I think she’s out of your league.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Caesare scoffed, proudly. “No one’s out of my league.”
“Sure they are. They just don’t realize it until it’s too late.”
“Oh, you’re funny.”
Clay corrected, holding up a finger, “Affable.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m still working with you,” Caesare deadpanned, shaking his head and looking back out the window. After the humor had faded, he shook his head again, keeping his eyes fixed on another towering oil tank. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“When we were part of the team, back in Virginia. Things were a lot easier.” He looked at Clay. “Simpler.”
“Well, for starters, we were a lot younger.”
“I don’t mean physically. It was easier back then because we knew who the bad guys were.”
Clay nodded.
“But getting older, things change. You realize it’s not as easy as you thought it was. That nothing is truly black and white. Especially people. Even those you thought you could rely on, implicitly, are usually a mass of contradiction beneath the surface.”
“Everyone more or less acts in their own interest,” Clay replied.
“Exactly. Everyone’s playing their own game.”
“I detect a revelation coming.”
Caesare wrinkled his nose. “Not a revelation. Enlightenment, maybe. Or a realization. Or maybe just a long gradual acceptance of the naiveté of our youth.”
“Spit it out.”
Caesare looked back at him. “My point is that there are no bad guys, John. Everyone, on all sides, believes they are the good guys. That they are the ones doing the right thing. For the good of their country, or their people, or whatever. No one actually believes they’re a bad guy. Everyone else is the bad guys.”
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Clay nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true.”
“With everyone acting in their own interest, whether individuals, groups, or entire governments, there are only good guys. Sure, we’re told the Chinese or the Russians are the bad guys, and in turn, they’re told that we are. But in the end, we all think we’re right.”
“That is enlightening.”
“So, are we really enemies? Or are we all just fighting over the same thing? Like dogs in some desperate battle over the same bone?”
Considering the question, Clay frowned. “I think you may be onto something.”
Caesare turned back to the open window. “The worst part is that it never ends. We all think we’re right, and we all continue to fight over it.” He shrugged. “I thought we were all supposed to be evolving here. You know, becoming better humans or something.”
“I guess that’s where things get a little gray.”
“Yeah. Everyone just wants more. Especially governments.”
“Even our own,” Clay acknowledged.
“Even our own. And let me ask you this. If we’re so damn smart, if humans are so evolved, why are we constantly fighting?”
Clay furrowed his brow, pondering the question.
“I mean sure, there’s the obvious, like oil and money. But then you throw in religion and politics, and everything else. So it’s not just about resources.”
“It’s about righteousness,” Clay answered. “Everyone thinks they’re right.”
“Exactly. Which brings us right back to everyone believing they’re the good guy.”
“Doesn’t sound very evolved at all.”
“So, are we really moving forward as a species? Or are we going backward?”
“I’m not sure. But I think we can be certain about one thing,” he said, grinning at Caesare. “You’re smarter than your average squid.” He glanced back at the road and then up through the windshield in time to see the faint shape of a helicopter approaching in the distance. Caesare’s ride.
It was then that his satellite phone rang.
Clay fished it out of a pocket and glanced at the screen before handing it to Caesare. “It’s Langford.”
Caesare quickly rolled up his window and answered on speakerphone.
“Hello, Admiral.”
“That you, Steve?” Langford’s stride slowed briefly as he approached the large double doors to his office. His secretary stood and extended a clipboard and pen, motioning to papers that needed signing. He nodded and took the pen as he spoke. “Is Clay with you?”
“Yes sir, he’s right here. And driving a little like my grandmother, to be honest.”
“Good,” Langford’s voice retorted. “I forgot to mention something earlier. I found more help for you and am flying someone down. A doctor to provide some relief for Dr. Kanna. I’m sure he can use it.”
Both men stared at the phone. “Another doctor?”
“Yes,” Langford answered. “A Navy man, out of Virginia. Name’s Tappan. Do me a favor and pass along my apologies to our good doctor. It took me a while to find someone we could trust.”
In the Subaru, Clay and Caesare slowly turned in unison and looked at each other.
“What about the female doctor?”
“What female doctor?”
“Tricia Rhoades.” Clay’s response was slow and deliberate. “She’s been here for a few days.”
On the other end, Langford finished scribbling and handed his pen back to his secretary. “Who the hell is Tricia Rhoades?”
59
SEAL team members referred to it as a scent, but in truth, nothing about Tiewater’s feeling had anything to do with his nose. It was more instinct than anything else. An inkling. That when something didn’t feel exactly wrong, it probably meant something wasn’t exactly right. A gut feeling that caused Tiewater to head soundlessly over the polished tile floor toward the room at the end of the hall.
In the fifteen minutes or so since Clay and Caesare had left, there was a distinct change in the female doctor’s demeanor. A new intensity, for lack of a better word, could be seen in the woman’s gaze as she passed Tiewater in the hall––before walking directly to the end and disappearing into the last room.
He slowed and remained standing near the wall for a few minutes, watching. Noting with curiosity that she never turned the light on. Instead, the room remained dark with the door partially ajar.
Tiewater stepped closer, continuing to watch the room’s entrance. Still no light. Only subtle sounds of movement from within.
He approached quietly, rolling each step from heel to toe. As he got closer, Tiewater calmly reached down to wrap his hand over the grip of his holstered Glock. And listened.
In his head, he knew it was probably nothing. The doctor likely just kept the lights off to get some needed rest. And the sounds were probably just her lying down and trying to get comfortable.
Since he had arrived, Rhoades had been friendly with him, even jovial with a hint of flirtation. Which even Tiewater had to admit, felt a little odd for the situation. Almost like someone trying a little too hard.
Tiewater abruptly stopped. He lowered his breathing and could now hear mumbling inside the room. He turned his head to one side but was unable to make out the words.
Most likely a phone call, he thought. Or trying to decompress before getting some sleep.
But barely ten feet from the door, things were not sounding much like a conversation. Instead, the sentences seemed short and brief, almost broken.
Tricia Rhoades had
left the door open intentionally, and for precisely the same reason as her pursuer. To listen. For sounds of anyone approaching. Like the faint rustling she now heard just outside her door.
She immediately lowered her arm, and with one hand, flipped the small phone closed.
She watched as Tiewater’s dark outline swept into view, as he quickly reached forward and turned on the light switch.
Tricia stared at him. “Can I help you?”
Tiewater didn’t reply immediately. Instead, his eyes scanned the near-empty room, noting the desk and chair positioned between them. His eyes switched to her and stopped on the phone in her left hand. Her right was empty and rested down by her side.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “I was just making a phone call.”
“We’re lockdown on comms. Which includes unauthorized cell phones.”
Tricia tilted her head. “Well, no one told me.”
“Langford didn’t mention that to you?”
“No.”
Tiewater’s eyes were unmoving. “Then what did he tell you?”
Rhoades suddenly glared at him. “Are you interrogating me?”
“I’m just wondering why everyone here knows we’re on lockdown, except you.”
Her glare turned to irritation. “Do you have any idea how far I had to come to help all of you? What I had to go through just to get here? And now you’re giving me the third degree?”
“I’ve asked you two questions, doctor. I wouldn’t call that the third degree.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“I’d call it two questions.”
She continued staring icily at him. It wasn’t working. Her aggression hadn’t put him off in the slightest. He was experienced.
“Fine,” she sighed. “I wasn’t supposed to make a phone call, but I did. My mother is sick. So sue me.”
The SEAL didn’t reply.
“Look, I’m sorry.” She dropped her phone onto the desk and brought both hands up in front of her as if pleading. “I just had to make sure she was okay.”
“Is she?”
“For the moment,” Rhoades nodded. “She’s going through another round of chemo, and it’s not going well.” She paused before taking a deep breath. “It’s a horrible thing to have to go through.”
Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5) Page 19