Gradually, his vision came into focus, along with his memory, beginning with the moment of Vincent’s gruesome death—some sort of dart to the side of his face, then a knife through his neck. The lethal arrow Ben had expected was never fired. Instead, what he remembered was a woman, kneeling beside him, speaking English and reassuring him that he was going to be all right. Smooth, tanned skin; dark, vibrant, concerned eyes. Along with a man wearing an eye patch, she had gotten him to his feet and struggled to get him to walk. The rest was a blur, except for her face. It was a lovely, intense, interesting face.
Steeled against the pain, he tried to sit. The woman singing nearby, more ageless than aged, made no attempt to stop him. She was a tribal native. Her face, though deeply lined, had features not unlike the man who had helped Vincent torture him. Behind her, Ben saw the source of the scent that was filling the cave—a pot, boiling on a small fire, emitting wisps of gray smoke.
He managed to get upright and remain that way for a few seconds before a wave of dizziness forced him back. The woman caught him with one hand and lowered him down. Then she eased a small ladle between his lips and held his head as he drank the thick, aromatic liquid that was there. In just minutes, the pain was completely gone, replaced by a cascade of remarkably pleasant thoughts and images. Soon after, as she was replacing the dried poultice on his shoulder with a moist one, the light from the cave opening began to dim. The tumbling images slowed, then faded.
Minutes or hours later, when his consciousness returned, the woman from the forest was kneeling beside him. Her face made him smile.
“Hi,” she said, “my name is Natalie Reyes. Do you understand me? Good. Here’s some water. You must drink.”
Ben nodded and took cautious sips from an earthen cup. Behind Natalie, the other woman worked away at her fire and pot.
“Ben,” he managed after his lips were moist enough. “Ben Callahan from Chicago. Are you Brazilian?”
“American. I’m a medical student from Boston.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“My friend Luis did the saving, not me. The people who run the hospital murdered his sister for trying to help me. Friends of his down there told him you were being tortured. We were watching from right out there when that man with the bow followed you out of the hospital and down the road. Luis knew what was about to happen and he decided to save you.”
“I’m glad he did,” Ben understated. “I never thought—”
“Easy,” Natalie said. “There’s time.”
Ben again forced himself upright. This time, the dizziness was minimal. His shoulder was carefully wrapped in gauze that looked as if it might have been used before. As his thoughts cleared, his expression darkened.
“No, there isn’t much time,” he said excitedly. “There’s a woman in the hospital. Her name’s Sandy. She’s going to be killed—operated on and then killed. I think they are going to take her heart. They—”
Natalie calmed him with a gentle finger to his lips.
“You are very dry and dehydrated,” she said. “You need water. If we can’t get enough fluids in you, you won’t be able to help anyone.”
“That woman behind you, she’s giving me some sort of incredible drug.”
“She’s a shaman, and a friend of Luis’s. Her name is Tokima, something like that. She speaks a mix of Portuguese, which I understand fairly well, and some kind of tribal dialect that I don’t understand at all, but Luis does.”
“Well, ask Luis to see if she wants a permanent job making me feel like this.”
“The color just left your face, Ben Callahan. That’s your blood pressure dropping off the table. In a few more seconds, you are going to start feeling rotten—very rotten. I think you’d better lie down.”
“You can predict what’s going to happen?”
Natalie checked his pulse, which was rapid and weak.
“Your cardiovascular system is under stress. You need rest and lots of fluids.”
“And some more of that medicine,” he said, just before he drifted off.
Ben awoke twice more. Each time Natalie Reyes was nearby, looking down at him with deep concern and caring.
“I saw you on the rock down there when that monster was hunting you,” she said at one point. “You were so weak and you were so brave. Now that I know what brought you here, I think you’re even braver.”
She gave him water, and the medicine woman, Tokima, treated him with some of her mixtures. Each time he felt stronger and sat up longer. Piece by piece they were able to share the accounts of how they came to be in Dom Angelo.
When Ben opened his eyes for the third time, Natalie was still there as before, but crouching next to her was the man who had saved his life.
“Luis,” Ben said, rolling to one side and extending his hand.
“Ben,” Luis said, his grip incredibly strong.
“Luis doesn’t speak English,” Natalie said, “but he’s kind enough to speak Portuguese slowly, so I can translate what needs to be translated.”
“Tell him I’m sorry about his sister,” Ben said.
“You’re a very sweet man to think of that,” Natalie replied. “Brave and sweet. I like that combination.”
She had a brief conversation with Luis, who met Ben’s gaze and nodded. Ben saw the intensity of a warrior in the man’s good eye.
“The woman you are worried about,” Natalie said, “is still unconscious in the hospital and on a breathing machine.”
“She’s drugged,” Ben replied. “She was kidnapped, and now she’s drugged. Back in Texas she was screaming about her child. She yelled that she was being kept in a cage. Then someone, probably Vincent, shut her up.” He sat up with no assistance. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked.
“Tell us exactly who came in with you on the airplane.”
“Three in the cockpit, four in the cabin—now three, thanks to Luis. One of those is—was—Vincent’s girlfriend. There were also two aft with the patient. One of them is an older woman—I think she may be an anesthesiologist.”
Natalie translated for Luis and got some information in return.
“At the hospital we have Barbosa, he’s a crooked policeman; Santoro, he’s a crooked doctor; Vincent’s assistant, whom apparently you met; plus a few kitchen, housekeeping, and janitorial people.”
“Long odds,” Ben said.
“They’re going to get longer. Another group—the nurses from Rio and those others surrounding the recipient of that poor woman’s heart, are due very soon.”
“Somehow we’ve got to get her out,” Ben said.
“What do you mean, we?” Natalie asked. “You are in no shape for battle.”
“I’m going to do what I can. I’ve come too far not to. Here, give me a hand.”
Ben reached out and was effortlessly pulled to his feet by Luis. For a few seconds, the cave reeled, but he braced himself against one wall and remained upright.
“Sweet, brave, and tough,” Natalie said. “Nice. Okay. We’ve got the two of us, plus Luis, his girlfriend Rosa, and one other guy from the village that Luis says we can count on. How good are you at war strategy?”
“I got an A in it in college. Do I have time to get my notes?”
“Luis,” Natalie said, gesturing to Ben, “I think we are five.”
Luis did not reply. Instead, he crossed over to where Tokima was working, and spoke with her. She nodded, took a small plastic pail, and headed off into the forest.
“Tokima has been healing people for many years,” he said. “Perhaps eighty.”
Natalie translated for Ben, who merely grinned, nodded, and commented that although she had already worked a miracle for him, he hoped the medicine woman could give him something long-acting for the hours ahead.
“Does she know my insurance probably won’t cover this treatment?” he asked.
Natalie translated for Luis, who actually smiled. Then the two of them spoke for some time, before she turned to Ben.
/> “As you probably know, there are many, many psychoactive drugs in the plants out there,” she said. “Tokima has gone out to get the strongest of them all—a root. Luis only knows the Indian name for it, which is something like Khosage. Dried, ground, and smoked, it is a very powerful hallucinogen, but taken in excess, there is little time to enjoy the more pleasant and interesting effects. Violent vomiting and diarrhea, along with severe abdominal pain, disorientation, and even death will soon intervene. Assuming Tokima can find enough of the root, Luis thinks he can either get it into the food that is being prepared for lunch, or have one of the kitchen help do it for him. With any luck some of the people at the hospital with guns can be disabled, as well as those who are scheduled to assist with the surgery.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ben said. “What about Sandy?”
“Assuming you can make it, you and I will cut through the forest to where I have left the Mercedes of the policeman I killed. Then we’ll drive around to the access road and down to the hospital. By the time we arrive, there should be absolute chaos. Somehow, then, we’ve got to wheel Sandy out and get her into the car. Luis and his people will then just have to melt into the forest.”
“He’s ready to do that?”
“He loved his sister very much.”
Ben patted the man on the arm. Then, unwilling to have either of the others know that his light-headedness was returning, and that both knees and his lower back were throbbing, he took a mug of water, shuffled out to the granite shelf in front of the cave, and sat, his back against the rock. Below him and to the south, sparkling in the late-morning sun, was the hospital. Hospital. Ben laughed ruefully. Aside from Nazi Germany, the word had probably never been more inappropriately used. The brutality of what had been done to him there, and to so many others, made him shudder. Now, hopefully, it was going to end.
We’re coming, he thought savagely. We’re coming.
A short while later, Tokima returned, her red plastic pail filled to overflowing with thick, gnarled, rust-colored roots, glistening from having just been washed. With hardly a word, she set about preparing the poison. Luis, moving like the predator he was, headed down the hillside. Natalie moved outside the cave, settled down next to Ben, and took his hand.
“A private eye, huh?” she said. “Do you own a gun?”
“Of course.”
“Ever had to use it?”
“Of course. Boot Hill in Chicago is full of the men I’ve put there—women, children, and pets, too.”
He shot the hospital with his finger and blew the smoke from the barrel.
“Absolutely terrifying,” she said, gently folding his finger back in place. “They don’t stand a chance.”
“Do you think we do?”
“Of course.”
“We’re both sort of living on borrowed time anyway.”
In another fifteen minutes, unheard and unseen, Luis suddenly appeared at the side of the cave opening.
“People are nervous about the disappearance of Vincent,” he said. “It is being assumed that Ben killed him. I am supposed to be out looking for his body right now.”
He went into the cave and returned with a heavy clay bowl containing the root preparation, covered with leaves.
“You ready, Ben Callahan?” Natalie asked, helping him to his feet.
Ben clenched his fists and willed the dizziness to lessen.
“Ready,” he managed.
“The kitchen staff is preparing lunch,” Luis said, allowing time for Natalie to share the information with Ben. “I need to get the final ingredient down to them. The doctors are in with their patient, awaiting the arrival of the one who is to receive her heart. The flight crew is sunning by the pool. Santoro is everywhere, preparing for two operations. Barbosa and the other guards are ready for trouble. The time is now.”
“The time is now,” Natalie repeated.
“Come,” Luis said, “I will point you in the direction of your car. Plan on being outside the hospital with it in one hour. With any fortune, we will be bringing your patient out to you for a ride.”
Thirty-Six
Here is no path…the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on.
—PLATO, The Republic, Book IV
The trek through dense forest to the Mercedes was a bear. The heat and humidity were intense, and the journey was uphill nearly all the way. Using the sun as a marker, Natalie and Ben gave the town a wide berth, and continued to head due north. She was convinced that if they just stayed true to that direction, they had to hit the Dom Angelo road at some point. Then, a turn to the right, and she was certain she could find the dead-end path where she had hidden Vargas’s car.
She and Luis had allowed an hour and a half for him to get the toxic hallucinogen into whatever was being served for lunch, and then to get it disbursed throughout the hospital, and for her and Ben to retrieve the Mercedes and drive it around to the rear entrance. It was, as Ben had said, a plan, but it was a shaky one. With timing tight and the hospital on red alert because of Vincent’s disappearance, the chances for things to go wrong were many.
Natalie had only a rough idea how far away the road actually was, or how difficult the terrain, so she pushed ahead more aggressively than she would have liked. Now, after half an hour, the altitude and steady upward climb were taking their toll on her compromised stamina. But she could see that Ben, though he was keeping up and refused to ask any quarter, was having an even tougher time.
“Let’s take a break,” she said, breathing heavily as she handed him the canteen.
“You holding up?”
“I’m managing. It shouldn’t be too much longer now.”
She didn’t bother to ask him the same question. He would say he was doing fine, but Natalie knew he wasn’t. The pallor had returned to the area around his lips, and he had a disturbing glaze over his eyes. It was inconceivable to her what he must have endured before being set off into the forest to be hunted down. There were nasty electrical burns speckled over much of his body, his fingers were swollen and discolored, and both the entry and exit wounds on his shoulder, despite Tokimo’s poultices, were showing early signs of infection. She wondered how he could possibly hold up much longer. Fortunately, she reminded herself, all they had to do was make it to the car. From then on he would be a passenger.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Lead on. I can do this.”
“Have a little more water.”
“If you say so, although I have the feeling that all this water I’ve been drinking isn’t exactly from a Crystal Springs bottling plant. Dr. Banks, my doc back in Chicago, will have a field day trying to diagnose all the injuries, parasites, and other diseases I’m going to bring home from this trip. You better hurry up and finish med school so you can help him take care of me.”
“No problem. Like many women, I’m cursed with the need to take in wounded, broken men and fix them up.”
They stopped once more for rest and water, and just as Natalie was questioning whether or not they might have drifted off course, they hit what she felt certain was the Dom Angelo road. Ben was dragging badly now, and no longer able to disguise his weakness. Still, as long as they found the Mercedes without difficulty, they were doing reasonably well for time.
“Hang on, Ben Callahan,” she urged. “We’re almost there.”
A right-hand turn toward what she hoped was the town, and five more minutes of walking, and she found the overgrown cutoff. Ben was so far behind that at some points after rounding a bend, she lost sight of him completely. She waited until he caught up, and then led him to the car. The moment she saw the branches she had used as camouflage lying on the ground, she knew there was trouble.
Rodrigo Vargas’s Mercedes was right where she had left it, but it was not going to be driven—not now and probably not ever. All four tires were slashed and flat. The hood had been pried open, and much of the engine destroyed. The driver’s side window had been smashed. As deflated as the tires, N
atalie checked beneath the driver’s seat for the extra ammunition she had left there. Gone.
“Trouble in paradise,” Ben said, bracing himself on the trunk. “This damage seems too total and meticulously done to be senseless vandalism.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Natalie replied, checking her watch. “Ben, I can make it down to the hospital, but I don’t think you can.”
“I don’t know. I think—”
“Please. You look as if you’re about to fall over. Either wait here with the water or try and make it into town. I told you about Father Francisco. You can find him there. Tell him what’s happening, and what happened to you. He’ll take care of you. I’m sure of it. Maybe he’ll even have access to a car to drive you down to the hospital.”
“But—”
“Ben, please. Luis is risking everything to help us. I need to get down there. It’s mostly downhill, and I can take the road. I’m a runner. I can do this.”
“O-okay.”
“Keep the water, I won’t need it.”
“Don’t you forget to come and get me,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll add it to my to-do list: Get Ben. See you soon, my friend. Promise. Give my best to Father Francisco.”
She kissed him on the cheek, whirled, and for the first time since the fire in Dorchester, Massachusetts, five thousand miles and several lifetimes away, she ran.
In her biggest challenges on the track, Natalie never pushed her body any harder than over the next twenty minutes. She was running on a single, damaged lung, carrying a backpack containing Vargas’s heavy pistol, duct tape, rope, and a Swiss Army knife. The downhill slope put a heavy strain on her ankles and knees as well as on her balance. The more winded she got, the more out of control her balance became. Twice she stumbled, once she fell, scraping skin off her palms. Her chest was on fire. At no time could she get in enough air. She slowed, then slowed some more. Still, she drove herself. Finally, unable to get a decent breath, she stopped, clinging to a tree trunk, gasping. Thirty seconds and she was off again, lurching down the steep grade like a drunk.
The Fifth Vial Page 32