Higher Cause

by John Hunt

  Blood sprayed from his nose as he attempted to stifle his next cough. Jeff knew that it was quiet enough in the abandoned factory that the men in pursuit would hear any noise. He had to move. With great caution, he rolled onto his left side and pushed himself up to his feet. But he fell back into the supporting cold metal surface of the heavy press, as even the effort of standing was exhausting. More blood. More of metallic and salty taste. He spit into the fabric covering his left shoulder, and slumped to the ground. He would make his stand here.

  He saw the face of the youngest Russian gangster peek around a corner of a machine several rows down. Almost simultaneously, a long shadow climbed the far wall of the building. From the angle of the shadow, Jeff reasoned that this man was now only ten paces away from him.

  The sound of two pistol shots resounded through the building, and the tall shadow on the wall suddenly melted downward — no longer visible. Jeff assumed the man had ducked to take cover from the flying bullets, but who had fired the shots?

  He heard a rustle to his right. He lifted the pistol from his lap — an act that seemed to require an inordinate amount of strength for such a small weapon — and aimed it through the shadows toward the corner of the machine upon which he was propped. The noise had been only a few meters away. It seemed that an eternity passed. Jeff was aware that the other Russian, to his left, must be closing in on him, but if he turned to look now, the stalker to his right would appear around the corner. Jeff’s only chance was to fire before that stalker could find him in the darkness.

  He was losing his vision, a veil being drawn inexorably across his eyes. A shadowy figure stepped out from behind the machine. Jeff, already aiming at that precise spot, pulled the trigger without hesitation. The palm of his hand felt the click of the trigger mechanism, but he heard no explosion, and felt no recoil. The gun had jammed.

  A flash of fire spewed from the middle of the shadow in front of him, then another and another. Jeff felt nothing as the veil drew further closed. Initially, he did not know what the noise to his left was, but he turned his head slowly to see the second Russian gangster squirm and twist as several rounds pounded into his chest. Jeff let his head fall back to the right and his torso began slipping to the ground. He thought he was imagining the pleasant scent of a perfume, the soft brush of silky hair across his face, and a pair of hands gently cradling his head as he settled to the cold cement floor. The dark veil lifted for just a moment, and he gazed upward into the kind eyes of Tanya, the lovely, ignorant, unaware prostitute. She was speaking to him in perfect English.

  “It will be okay Jeff,” she was saying.

  And then all was black.

  The wind rattled the old wooden shutters. Everyone was accustomed to the sound. It was almost always there. Especially at night.

  There were only six men at the table. But there were still seven oranges in the bowl. The youngest of the group was absent. The old man had his suspicions as to why.

  “We have heard that someone poisoned Petur Bjarnasson.”

  “Yes. I have heard it also. Fortunately, he is alive.”

  “Perhaps it is not so fortunate.”

  The old man shook his head. “What are you saying? This is not our purpose! There is no role for killing. No role! What have we become? What are we doing?”

  “Why do you assume that we were involved?”

  “Come now. We were involved. Where is our seventh?”

  “He’s away.”

  “He is in the Paradise Islands.”

  “And someone tried to kill Bjarnasson. Accept responsibility, gentlemen. This was our man.”

  “Acting without a mandate. We have never agreed to this.”

  “But perhaps we should.”

  “No.”

  “Never.”

  “It is not our way.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “He cannot be allowed to continue with us.”

  “What are you saying? Do we expel him?”

  “We have to.”

  The leader spoke for the first time. “Yes. We have to.”

  The room was silent. Such a thing had never before been done.

  Then the old man said, “What is the news from Mexico?”

  Across the table, the man in charge of the Mexican situation spoke. “Things are moving forward very well. All the relevant players are on board. The plan is increasingly likely to be successful.”

  “It had better work.”

  The old man nodded. “Yes. There is no way we can stop Bjarnasson otherwise. We decided. We will not kill a man for any cause, even our most noble cause. Let’s make sure Mexico works.”

  “Mexico is only beginning. And we may already be too late. Any day they could find it. With all the people on Paradise, and more coming every day, it is only a matter of time.”

  “I understand that they will be opening a resort later. Pools, beaches, activities. People. Lots of people. I agree. Someone will find it all. The truth will come out. Weeks. Months. Years, maybe. But it is inevitable.”

  “Unless the Mexican plan works.”

  “As I said, it had better work.”

  12. Survival

  ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL. Jeff had been trying for what seemed like an eternity to determine just what the scent was. His sense of smell seemed to be the only function of his body that was working. His vision was limited to a dim red glow with some sparkles of light that he could not look at directly. He tried to move his arms, but received no sensation to tell him whether or not his effort had succeeded. A sound — a rhythmic noise like the crashing of waves on a rocky shore — played occurred over and over. Jeff listened to it, and then decided that it was unreal and considered his ears useless too. He thought that any sane man would panic in this situation. But he was totally calm. Maybe his mind was not working either. Maybe he indeed was not sane.

  Jeff slept. When he became conscious again, a new scent greeted him. It smelled like the kind of exhaust that sneaks into a commercial jet’s cabin as it backs away from a loading ramp before taxiing. He was also cold, very cold. Then, nothing.

  The dim red glow seemed brighter now. The slow, repetitive noise of the waves hitting the shore came again. But this time he knew that it was a real noise, not a figment of his imagination. Jeff attempted to move his right hand but again his body did not respond. His mouth felt dry and he could not move his tongue. He did not seem to know how to make a noise with his mouth and vocal cords. Back into darkness.

  Isopropyl alcohol. And the noise of the surf. And the brighter red glow through which a horizontal line of white light now appeared. And now he could move his tongue. He felt his lower lip as he rubbed his tongue along it. It was dry and sticky. Something that felt like a thick drinking straw put pressure on the top of his tongue and all the way to the back of his mouth. He pushed the thing around with his tongue and, then, suddenly he panicked. He was choking! He became obsessed with one thing only — get it off his tongue. He thrashed his head to the left and pushed the straw with his tongue, over and over again — get it out, get it out. Each effort worsened the feeling of choking and increased the tsunami of panic and distress. His arm moved! He could feel his fingers jabbing clumsily at his face, but there was no coordination. Hit it! Hit it harder! Then his arm did not move anymore. So he arched his back and thrashed up and down like a bucking horse. Pain — so much pain. He was vaguely aware of a warmth rushing up his hand and into his heart, and then the panic was gone. The pressure on his tongue remained but he did not care. His arm and his tongue could no longer move and the white horizontal light was gone. The smell of alcohol remained, and he thought he heard someone shouting before sleep took him once again.

  The next time he came close to consciousness was different. The pressure on his tongue was gone — thank God. A soothing voice appeared above his face and the white horizontal line appeared again, wider than before. Blurry gray shadows moved nearby — and he opened his eyes further. The shadows took form: two people — o
ne clean-shaven, one with a beard. His brain worked for the first time in this nightmare and he knew he was in a hospital and that this gray-bearded man was a doctor. The clean-shaven face crystallized and became the round face of a woman. A closer inspection, as his vision rapidly became normal, revealed that this woman was not clean-shaven after all — indeed had a modest growth of hair above her upper lip, in the midst of which lay a substantially sized mole.

  The doctor was telling him about his condition, but Jeff seemed to absorb nothing. He shook his head as he tried to clear his brain of residual fogginess from the sedatives. It partially worked, for now he could understand the doctor’s words.

  “Mr. Baddori, are you understanding anything that I am saying?” the doctor asked in a gentle voice.

  Jeff tried to make a coherent sound but his throat was too sore, like he had severe laryngitis. All he could do was to croak in assent, with a corresponding nod. It was enough to encourage the doctor to go on.

  “You have been in a serious condition for some time now. But things are looking better. You are in University Hospital in Zurich, and I am Dr. Steinmann. No need to talk. I will do all the talking for now.

  “It has been almost two weeks since you arrived here. Apparently you received your wound more than a day before that. You are in the Intensive Care Unit, and we have just removed you from a mechanical ventilator. You no longer need it, as you can tell. You have lots of tubes going into various orifices. I apologize for that, but we will remove them all in good time.”

  Jeff nodded slightly to acknowledge that he understood, and the doctor went on. “You should be reasonably well fit and walking in the very near future. Your throat will be sore for another day or so. That is from the breathing tube. You must not move much yet, for you still have a variety of attachments that would move with you, quite uncomfortably, I’m afraid. You have oxygen tubing in your nose, several intravenous catheters, a catheter in your bladder, one in your rectum, and another one in your chest, where the wound is. We will remove most of these in the next day or so. Please lay still until then.” The doctor’s mouth smiled briefly but his eyes did not, and then he was gone.

  The hairy nurse remained. She began to pull the tape off his arm, apparently attempting to evaluate the integrity of the underlying IV. After finishing, she adjusted the catheters in his various orifices. Jeff found this onerous. The whole time she said nothing. However, before leaving his bedside she looked at him and smiled with her eyes — gentle wrinkles indented the corners of her eyelids — a smile that was sincere and reassuring. She was suddenly much prettier.

  The hours passed and Jeff learned that he had been very near death. He was aware when the bullet hit him that the wound would likely be fatal, but having survived it, he was surprised to learn what he had been through in the two weeks since then. Much of his right lung had been removed — first by the bullet and then by a Russian surgeon. The remaining lung tissue on both sides had been deprived of adequate blood flow long enough to cause ‘shock lung,’ as fluid filled the air spaces. A young doctor who always seemed to be in the ICU told him that this condition itself was often fatal, and if survived, it was only after much longer periods of mechanical ventilation. So he had made a remarkable recovery.

  It was not until near the end of the day that Jeff thought about Sophia and the message she left for him in Moscow two weeks ago. As he recalled this, he urgently searched around his bed for a telephone. He did not find one. All the staff were busy working on a nearby patient. Jeff recognized that in his current situation he did not have the power to do anything, whatever the emergency with Sophia might have been, and so he attempted to calm himself and contain his worry. The long delay before he recalled Sophia’s message, however, reminded him that he may be overlooking other important things, and he thus began a concerted effort to thoroughly clear his muddled mind and systematically recall the events leading up to his shooting.

  He recalled the layout of the dark factory building, the mafia men, and the conversation before Andrei recognized Jeff’s bluff. He remembered the aimless shots that the panicked gangster fired, and he recalled feeling the cold metal of the machine which he had leaned on when he tried to stand up. He dimly recalled that the prostitute had cradled his head in her hands. Something disturbed him about that but he could not identify what.

  Other important pieces of information were missing. Who patched him up in Russia? How did he get to Zurich? How did this Swiss doctor know his real name? He would need to answer these questions. And it was not long until the first answers came, for that evening, Tanya, the prostitute, appeared at his bedside.

  Pheromones, which matter so much in relationships, generally do not influence bedridden patients. But although sex did not cross Jeff’s mind, he was acutely aware that he was highly attracted to this woman. She seemed entirely different than the girl he knew in Moscow. Although beautiful, her generally vacant intellect had made her seem irrelevant. She had been too vapid to matter to Jeff. Now she was entirely different. He could sense confidence, intelligence, and concern in her eyes.

  She smiled. She pushed her silken black hair behind her ear, then reached to hold Jeff’s hand. She spoke in a soft voice. In perfect English.

  “I am so pleased you are getting better. You had me worried for a while.”

  Jeff smiled back, although it was painful to move his facial muscles. “I guess I was worried myself. But it seems I needn’t have. Apparently I was in very good hands.” Jeff tilted his head slightly, questioningly.

  Tanya replied, “You were about to die. I had to do something.”

  “Well, thank you. How did I get to Switzerland?”

  The hairy-lipped nurse walked in and said in halting English, “You will need to discuss that later. I am sorry. The doctors will be rounding soon, and visits in this unit must occur during visiting hours.”

  Tanya squeezed his hand and turned to leave. She was out the door immediately. Jeff tried to call her back, but a buzzer from a nearby patient’s cardiac monitor overpowered his weak voice.

  Jeff had slept, but it had not been a restful sleep. He could not toss and turn, as the remaining tubes in his body prevented him. He was eager for Tanya to return so he could figure out what had happened while he was unconscious. His mind functioned normally now — the fog had lifted. Only, now that the fog was gone he had nothing to look at but the walls of the hospital and the hairy-faced nurse.

  The nurse had helped him by telling him what his body had endured during the last two weeks. He would need to find a way to thank the people who had kept him alive.

  The nurse had also provided him with a telephone and the international access codes he needed. He dialed a number that, when used, informed the recipient of the call that he was not on a secure line. The elderly woman’s voice answered after two rings. “Hello?”

  Jeff smiled as he thought about the old woman. He had never met her, as far as he knew. He probably had never even seen her. But her voice had always reminded him of home when he had most needed it. He was quite fond of her.

  “How are you, Mother?”

  Jeff could hear her quickly inhale in shock. She would assuredly have thought he was dead. But she recovered quickly. “Are things well with you? We have all been missing you at home.”

  Jeff replied, “I am pretty well wrapped up in bandages here in Zurich at the University Hospital. It may be some time before I can return.”

  “I am worried about you. Do you need me to come and help you?”

  “Not at all. I’ll be home soon enough. I am not yet sure how long I will need to stay here. I will call you soon. Tell Dad I love him. Bye, Mother.”

  The old lady hung up and Jeff listened for almost another minute. He did not hear the clicks that would suggest that someone was listening in on a nearby line. He placed the receiver in its cradle and rolled delicately onto his side, trying to take some pressure off his progressively more sore buttocks. Dialing and talking had been tiring enough, but turni
ng was exhausting.

  Drained, he let his eyes close, and when they opened Tanya was beside him. She wore a thin wool cap and a long dark coat. She took the coat off and lay it across the foot of his bed and then removed the cap, letting her hair fall over her shoulders. She wore a shapely and attractive blue dress — actually, he could not imagine what would not appear attractive on her.

  “Are you feeling better?” she asked pleasantly.

  “Actually, I am full of energy now, and feeling fine — other than not being able to move without severe pain.” He grinned and quickly moved from pleasantries to the point. “What were you doing with that gang?”

  She was not surprised by his sudden question. “Trying to accomplish the same thing that you were. Just with a different tactic.”

  Jeff eyed her, and said, “You are not Russian, are you?”

  “Actually, I most certainly am Russian.” Tanya smiled, but she said no more.

  “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

  Tanya shook her head slightly, and told Jeff, “You ask so many questions! All in good time. Don’t you wish to know all that happened since you were shot? Much has happened to you, and good has come from your efforts in Moscow.”

  Jeff assumed his near-death experience had accomplished little, so this surprised him. “Tell me more.”

  “Well, most important to you, the dealings between the mafia and the Colombian cartels seems to have been abandoned for the moment. Andrei Tomolov was the dreamer behind that scheme; others do not seem to be as interested in it. Indeed, word is that Andrei still thought he was in the KGB. He was more interested in raising havoc in the western hemisphere by supplying guns than he was in making money.”

  Jeff nodded. “I was beginning to suspect that myself.”

  Tanya continued. “Others will follow up on his effort to unify the mafia, but I think he was actually close to accomplishing it. I must thank you for interceding in the way you did. Our initial thinking was that assassination would only stall things for a short while, but the way you did it caused a great deal of consternation for those Andrei left behind.”