by S A Gardner
Seemed to be the only explanation. He was exposing a mistake. Someone’s big mistake. And he was at once scared and elated that he finally had the chance to.
Wanna bet he was exposing Dr. Shrew over there?
I exchanged a full look with him. My question was clear, as I nodded my head towards her. His affirmative nod was almost farcical in its eagerness. His finger on the exact place where the error was saved me scanning the whole page.
Whoo-whee, son of a gun. How had that woman left this incriminating evidence lying around?
She probably hadn’t. But that weasel must have gotten access to it, kept a copy for future use. Like now.
I gave him a conspiring smile and a reassuring “Good job.”
Then I came to a halt outside the woman’s office and called out at the top of my voice, repeating her minutes-ago challenge. “Dr. Drew, would you mind stepping out here?” Then I added for good measure. “Something tells me you’re in big trouble. Huge.”
Twelve
The woman’s hand froze on the handset then she raised her head. I was almost surprised I hadn’t turned to stone.
That scowl had been Medusa-worthy. I waved the file at her, and her sallow tinge dipped to the green hues. She wasn’t sure what I had, but she knew it wasn’t good. She walked out to me.
I had to break her, and fast. It was the only way I was getting what I wanted, no questions asked. Good thing here was, she deserved it, big time.
“I am just wondering here,” I taunted. “All the times inspectors came here during the past ten months, how did you manage to fool them?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she spat.
“I’m talking about this!” I shoved the file at her to look at, waited long enough to see her turning liver-hued then withdrew my hot piece of evidence out of any snatching efforts’ reach. “This proves that the early phase of your trial with the patients I’ve seen today have shown no response after three months of cloned stem-cell therapy.
They only responded to treatments when you started them on stem-cells of cord blood origin, with a combination of an intensive regimen of traditional medications. This proves you’ve been lying to your sponsors all along, falsifying your results to keep them pouring the big bucks into your clearly bogus operation.”
“That’s not…” She choked then all but vomited the rest of her outburst. “…not how it happened. Some did respond with cloned stem-cells—but you know how hard the cellular transfer procedure is, what the success rate is like, let alone the stem-cell differentiation technology…”
“Don’t break my heart, Dr. Drew. It’s hard, it’s damned near impossible, and that’s why your sponsors have spent a billion dollars so far on it, because you told them it wasn’t, and that you were achieving it on a regular basis.”
“We are making progress now, and we haven’t harmed anyone—please, Dr. McAllister…” I raised my eyebrows at her groveling. Please, indeed. “Some patients receiving cloned stem-cells are responding and we are confident we’ll soon get consistent results. If you bring this project to an immature end, it would be a blow to medical science…”
My ridiculing look silenced her.
We both knew this had nothing to do with medical science. She was involved in unsanctioned, unregulated experiments, and God only knew how many women she’d harmed obtaining the eggs needed for the cloning process.
But right now, it wasn’t her project she was worried about. The moguls who’d poured that much money outside the boundaries of legality wouldn’t just withdraw their support and terminate her project. They would terminate her.
Whistleblower was in the background, triumph blazing on his face. The fool didn’t realize it wasn’t only those responsible for the con who would be eliminated, but anyone who was in on the whole thing, himself being a prime target, being so in the know.
I started to turn away from her and she clung to my arm. “You have to reconsider, Dr. McAllister. We are saving lives here.” I shrugged her off. “Please, I’ll do anything…”
Ah. Just what I wanted to hear.
I slowed down as I reached the mezzanine where I could see Damian and Matt downstairs prowling like a panther and a lion about to strike. I raised my voice. “You’ll do anything, Dr. Drew?”
The woman croaked the affirmation. I saw Matt’s tension deflate. Damian’s aura didn’t change. Figured. He’d engaged his impenetrable shields. Then he looked up, singed me with admiration. I bet he’d given me a suntan through my clothes.
I turned to the woman. “We’re both scientists, so we know money is not everything.” She nodded vigorously. “But since your sponsors don’t hold the same views, it’ll take far more than your word or this center’s results to even make them consider overlooking your falsifications, to consider their money well-spent after all. I want to help you, really, but I’m not sure…”
She lowered her voice to a rasping whisper for my ears only. “Whatever you want, it’s yours. I have personal funds…”
No doubt siphoned from the project.
I interrupted her. “I’m not up for bribes, Dr. Drew, I’m being paid too well for services I actually do. But since I am a fellow scientist and I am interested in seeing if any of your claims are true, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take a representative module of the whole primary clinical trial; a patient from the first batch and the regimen of treatment for the whole length of the clinical trial, and the cloned stem-cell line you’ve cultivated for that specific patient so we’ll continue his or her treatment in a facility of my choice. We’ll draw our own results and compare those with yours. If they are close, there would be no reason to expose your early scam and the web of lies you spun to cover it up. What the sponsors want are results, and if we prove cloned stem-cells are a viable treatment, you’re saved.”
“Yes, yes, that’s ingenious.” Go on, butter me up some more. She grabbed my hand in her boney, sweaty one. “Let me present you with all the patients’ files to choose from.”
For the next hour Matt, Savannah and I had to go through the charade of poring over said files, yakking all the time about the pros and cons of this case or that for our purpose; doing our hosts the service of saving their literal necks.
At last, I pretended great benevolence and leniency in choosing Anna, a young, previously superiorly fit woman, whose response to treatment had been unparalleled.
In another hour, we walked out of the center and into the sunset with Anna and everything we needed for her treatment.
We reached one of the limos Damian had gotten us to ride here in the consultants’ usual style and I handed Anna inside with Ayesha’s help. I took my seat in front of her beside Ayesha as Damian took the wheel, then I slumped, let the bottled anxiety of the close call froth over me in tremors.
Damian must have felt it, reached back a hand through the separating glass to infuse me with his stability.
As I clung to his hand and recharged, I noticed that Anna’s gaze was held prisoner by her former leader’s in the front mirror. And that her trembling had became quakes.
What had that man done now? Given her a glare dripping in promises of retribution? I’d brain him if he were so much as pouting at her! More guilt and turmoil was the last thing the poor woman needed. And none of this had been her fault anyway.
I blurted out what I’d been aching to since the moment I’d seen her, hoping it would defuse some of her distress. “Don’t worry, Anna. We’ll take care of you. Everything will be fine.”
And for answer she screamed. And screamed.
Thirteen
I’d heard hundreds, probably thousands of screams in my life.
It took me about thirty seconds of Anna’s uninterrupted, ones to access my inventory, cross-reference each scream in my memory banks and come up with an identification for their type and origin. And I had no doubt.
These were going-into-labor screams.
The premature, complicated variety.
And
just to underline the accuracy of my diagnosis, her water broke.
Judging by the amount, this probably was a twin birth. I only hoped it wasn’t more, and that the labor process wouldn’t be an abridged version. We had about two hours at least until we were back at the Sanctuary.
Ayesha was already helping her on her back as Damian kept shouting, “Dios—what’s wrong with her?”
I didn’t answer him until I opened our emergency bag, snapped on gloves and did a quick vaginal exam through her rising screams. She was already fully dilated.
Great. Just damned great. “She’s giving birth.”
That stunned him into silence for the moments it took me and Ayesha to do a full exam. And there was no doubt any more.
“Anna, you’ve got two babies in there, don’t you?” I asked just for more confirmation, just in case we’d both deciphered the bumps and protrusions wrong in each bimanual exam.
“Twins!” The boomed word was Damian’s. He sounded even more distraught than Anna who’d subsided into butchered keens as she nodded her confirmation.
So even a man of Damian’s caliber and power was reduced to jelly when assailed with the reality of being involved in an impending childbirth. This was one field experience it seemed he hadn’t been part of before.
His agitation wasn’t a good idea now. “Damian—slow down will you? We’re not making the Sanctuary anyway. The first baby in line is already crowning. So don’t go killing us all, OK?”
I heard his choking incredulity before he rasped, “Crowning? You mean she’ll give birth here? Now? But—she can’t!”
“The baby’s coming whether you think it’s timely or not, Damian. Now slow the hell down. Better still, find us a lay-by and park.”
Ayesha was already prepping Anna, spreading her in the best position she could in our situation. The moment Damian brought the car a halt, she turned to him. “Now take off your jacket and shirt—and anything else you can take off.” We both stared at her. She rolled her eyes. “We’ll be needing plenty of wipes and something to wrap the babies in. Among us, I bet it’s you nobody would mind having him walk around naked, OK?”
He gaped at her then back at Anna as he complied as if in a trance, all the time pouring out a litany of curses and invocations, reverting to his mother tongue in his agitation.
“Maldita sea, infierno y maldiciones! Dios—madre de Dios…”
I bet no atrocity had ever shaken him near as much as the sight of his former warrior giving birth. I spared him one last look, satisfaction spreading at witnessing to his unguarded reaction, and such an endearing one at that. Then I turned to Anna.
Ayesha had the real experience in obstetrics, so it was me who assisted her, my role mainly handing her supplies, soothing Anna, guiding her through the breathing and the pushing.
It was only minutes when the baby’s head was delivered, and Ayesha received it in her gloved hands. She then delivered the shoulders and the rest of the tiny body slithered out.
It was a girl.
Ayesha held the diminutive, livid creature upside down and moments of collective panting silence followed. Then it was pierced by another scream. The girl’s.
She’s OK. She’s OK. Thank you.
Thankyouthankyou.
All I wanted was to slump and weep like Anna did now. But there was no time for that. I had to take care of business.
As soon as Ayesha cut the cord, I turned to Anna, performed another exam on her. What I found had my blood congealing in my arteries.
Not only were her vital signs plummeting, the second baby was in a transverse presentation. There was no way we could maneuver this baby into any deliverable position here. Maybe not at all.
And Anna’s contractions were starting again.
Ayesha exchanged a glance full of horrified understanding with me as she suctioned the baby’s throat, nodded towards the baby. She wanted to finalize her deal first before turning to her mother’s crisis. Once we had her checked and wrapped in Damian’s jacket, I threw the limo’s door open. I knew Matt and the others were standing outside primed to help.
“Her Apgar Score is great,” I panted. And I wasn’t only saying this to placate Anna. I’d assessed the baby’s activity, pulse, grimace, appearance, and respiration at one and five minutes and she nearly had a full score in each.
“But she’s a premmie and a twin with low birth weight, so let’s get her to an incubator asap.” I jumped outside the moment Matt took the baby from me in utmost care. I didn’t want Anna to hear the rest. I closed the door. “Prep Surgery. We’ll need a C-section for the second twin. Go!”
I jumped back inside as they hurried away, met Damian’s eyes as he reached over from his compartment, stroking Anna’s hair in heartbreaking tenderness. “Dios, you women—you’re goddesses…”
I buried my face into his neck, whispered for his ears only, “Yeah, goddesses who need a fast ride to the Sanctuary.”
His other hand convulsed over my head. “Why? You’re not going to deliver the second baby here?”
“We can’t,” I whispered for his ears only. “We’ll do everything we can to stabilize Anna, but we need to operate— to save her and the baby.”
Fourteen
We operated.
At least Matt and Savannah did. Ayesha assisted.
Cesarean section, for some gut reason I had no understanding of or control over, was a procedure I wanted to avoid performing if I at all could. I’d avoided it this time, too, watched it through the plexi-glass of the observation room with Damian and Lucia.
But it had pulled Anna out of danger and she was now in Recovery, sleeping away her ordeal under chemical influence. There were still no guarantees for the second baby, a girl, too, an identical twin. She lay beside her serene and thriving sister’s incubator, still struggling.
“Do you think she’ll make it?”
Damian’s dark, troubled question lanced through me.
I turned to him, needing contact. He took me in a hug that crushed and assuaged.
“We can only pray for her now.” He squeezed harder, bleeding more tension from me. “God, Damian, we…”
“No! Don’t even think it. This was her…their time to come. Do you think those mercenaries would have taken care of Anna and her babies like you and the others did? That she would have felt soothed by their support and friendship, believed in their ability to help her like she did with you?”
Put that way, no. No way. They wouldn’t have cared if she’d died in childbirth, or if her babies had both died.
She’d already served their purpose, responded to the treatment and yielded the desired results. “No, it’s just…”
“No justs.” He put me at arms’ length, hammered his point home with a stop-blaming-and-second-guessing-yourself glare. “She’s safe, she’s here, you’re all taking care of her and her babies. And now it’d time for phase two.”
Reeling in Ed. Or should we say, letting Ed hurl himself into our net.
Ed must have already found out by now that Anna had been taken. He’d have figured out who and why. He’d probably think he knew by whom. He was in for a surprise.
But one thing was almost certain. He’d be calling any time now to negotiate terms.
I had all our cell-phones laid out in our ready room.
He’d probably be calling on one of the Colombian team’s phone. And sure enough, ten minutes after we left his twin girls in IC, Lucia’s phone rang. She answered, gave him directions. I was proud of my girl. She was formidable and not a little scary as she told him not to even think of doing anything stupid.
He took under an hour to arrive. He must have been near. Wondered if he’d already been on our trail. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been. Damian’s second-in-command was a force to be reckoned with. He’d trained him too well, too.
Two of our people who manned the Sanctuary’s superficial layer that posed as a beauty center, escorted him in, looking like they couldn’t escape the vicinity of th
e blond juggernaut fast enough. I didn’t blame them. Ed looked like he was liable to overload any second, his face gaunt, his eyes crazed, his vibe manic. And that was before he laid eyes on me.
Damian waited this out. Had I already cursed his theatrical tendencies? He gave Ed all the time he needed to stagger under the shock of seeing me alive. Then he made his entrance.
Ed gave a very good impression of someone whose sanity had just expired.
Ed collapsed against the wall on a litany of God, God, God.
After an endless minute of the otherwise stifling silence, he slumped to the floor, holding his head in his hands, his body rocking, quaking, his eyes glued to Damian. Then the tears came. And they didn’t stop.
Soon they mingled with shearing rasps, “Alive—alive—you’re alive—oh, God, oh, God…”
By now every eye in the room was on Damian. This was his call, his territory. This was his right arm, his soul brother, the one who’d been above all suspicion. And the one who’d betrayed him.
I knew, or thought I knew, what roiled in Damian’s breast towards Ed. The others could only guess.
He let Ed’s breakdown go on for about two more minutes. Then he approached him. He came to a halt a foot from his slumped figure. “Very touching to see you so overwhelmed that your plot to have me killed has failed. Let’s hope you heeded Lucia’s warning and didn’t run to your new bosses with your latest bargaining chip, your reconstruction of today’s events.”
The room’s temperature plunged to what had to be that of outer space. Damian’s void-like rage was even icier, deadlier. I shuddered. I bet everyone in the room did.
And though Ed had sinned against them all, irreparably, unforgivably, they seemed to think this was not for them to see. I barely noticed as they one after the other left the room. I didn’t. I was staying with my man. If only to make sure Ed survived this confrontation. All bets were off if he would.
Finally Ed managed to choke, “I haven’t—haven’t told them that you got Anna…”