by S A Gardner
This was going all wrong. I wasn’t supposed to talk.
Lucia was supposed to do the talking. But on entering the endless kitchen we’d been forced to separate. We couldn’t have insisted on being together without raising suspicions.
And this woman had just picked me out of the dozen new day workers to question.
It had to be my complexion. Even through full-body make-up and a black wig, I was still a couple of shades lighter than anyone else. I’d strived for a Hispanic look, hoped I’d be insignificant enough not to be examined closely. Guess I’d hoped too much. This woman was still waiting for an answer.
But the moment I opened my mouth, she’d know I wasn’t Argentinean. And how would I explain being a foreigner? What would one be doing here at the end of the world, doing menial work for just-above-slavery level wages?
A way out of this flashed in my mind. Before I thought any further, I did it. I opened my mouth—and let out a long wail.
Next moment, I almost burst out laughing. God, the look on the woman’s face—like a frog that had jumped into boiling water.
Before I succumbed to giggles, I diverted the reaction to another emotional center, started bawling for good measure.
I projected the outcomes of my gamble. The at-bests ended in me being thrown out, when I’d hope Lucia could manage our part of the plan on her own. The at-worsts ended in exposure.
Then to prove that I couldn’t project worth spit, two things I hadn’t factored in at all happened.
The woman tried to shut me up any way she could to the point of starting to soothe me and Lucia came running, flooding the woman in apologetic Spanish. I made out the random words of doesn’t talk, retarded, works like a donkey.
In two seconds flat, I was shoved at Lucia to handle.
They were having a banquet in three days’ time. Yeah, Alemyda did have a legitimate reason for turning down Desideria’s invitation. Anyway, they couldn’t afford to let any of the hired hands go in what promised to be a few days of pandemonium.
After two hours of working in the kitchen like the aforementioned donkey, our wrath-of-the-gods forewoman hurried out in answer to summons from her masters.
“Think she’ll be gone long?” Lucia hissed.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
We slipped out of the kitchen without any of the few dozen other occupants paying us the least notice.
The moment we were out, I tore off my soiled coveralls, the floorplans of this section of the house flashing in my mind.
After Damian’s brutal extortion, the provider hadn’t only agreed to let us into the house, he’d had another hired hand slip us our equipment in a bale of hay. Another one was to transport them from the stables into the house and hide them in a pre-designated spot. It was supposed to be behind the curtains that should be… Here!
Yes.
I grabbed my bag, let out the breath I’d been squashing. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything without my stuff. At least I would have had to improvise.
I’d rather follow my plan.
My plan was built on Almeyda’s severe asthma.
And on the fact that he had his physicians in residence.
It was three pm and time for their lunch. They wouldn’t be in their quarters. Time for me to be there.
To get there I needed a distraction.
Damian, José and Rafael had been hired as muscle rearranging the furniture for the banquet. It gave them context to move within the house. I buzzed Damian. “I’m at the spot. Need a clear route to the doctors’ rooms. Do your stuff.”
In seconds I heard raised voices and running feet.
The moment the guards who patrolled the doctors’ annex emerged from the corridor and headed towards the commotion, I tugged Lucia behind me and we ran up the stairs to the doctors’ quarters. Almeyda’s quarters were in a connected tower that only one servant and the doctors were allowed into. He had guards guarding his guards. But I wasn’t interested in reaching him like I had Worthington. It was enough to get to his doctors. Or rather, to his doctors’ supplies.
The guy actually kept two doctors, like he kept dogs. And not any doctors, specialists. It boggled the mind.
Four times a day, they went to him, checked him up, took whatever samples for new tests and followed up their measures. They were going to him for the third time today in an hour. His asthma was so severe it wasn’t held in check with the usual metered-dose inhalers, so they attacked it on all fronts with oral medications and nebulizer sessions where the breathing machine changed asthma medications from liquid to mist, so it could be more easily inhaled into his lungs.
If all worked OK, they’d go to him today with a deserved gift, from me.
Both rooms were locked. Of course. They wouldn’t just leave their stuff unattended with the swarm of hired hands in the house today. Or any other day for that matter.
Guards were never foolproof. As we kept proving.
Thankfully.
Lucia worked the lock of the first room. We ran in, locked it behind us. I knew Damian would figure out a way to keep the guards involved for a long as possible. But I had to assume we didn’t have long. It had better be enough.
I scanned the place. A bedroom with an en suite bathroom, a sitting room and another smaller room lines with locked glass cabinets that looked like a full pharmacy.
Figured. Almeyda would be ready for any contingency where his health was concerned with nothing but the best in drugs, the most tested and safest, while he flooded the world with poisons. What had Matt said? Time to give him a taste of his own medicine.
I turned to Lucia. “Look for the medicine bag.”
The doctor must have one ready to take with him on his regular visits to Almeyda, filled with all the medications and emergency measures he needed to treat his specific case. All I had to do was exchange his drugs with mine so that on his next visit to his employer an hour from now, he’d give him the infected, toxic treatments I’d prepared.
Two minutes later, we both stood panting, exchanging manic glances.
No such bag was around.
We ran to the other doctor’s quarters, repeated our breaking and entry and search routine and—nada.
I couldn’t believe it! Those guys stood in front of their mini-pharmacy every few hours and picked and chose different combinations of what they needed, before going to their master patient? This way I’d have to exchange all the damned drugs and supplies they’d possibly use in treating Almeyda to make sure they’d end up with my doctored ones no matter what they picked.
This meant one thing. I needed an impromptu alternative plan. One that would yield certain results.
Now think!
Almeyda had to be relatively stable at the moment, if he was arranging banquets. He must be on frequent puffs from his metered-dose inhalers and their visits could be just to check him over with no further medications administered. The one sure way to give him the attack I needed in the timeframe I needed was to sabotage the inhalers he had in his personal space.
This meant I had to get to his quarters.
Before I worried about how I’d do that, I had to wrap up here. I had to prepare the second stage in the new scenario. Working on the assumption that I would replace his inhalers with mine, the moment he took his next puff he’d manifest with an explosive status asthmaticus. All I had to do was put myself in the doctors’ shoes, anticipate their actions then.
With so many maintenance drugs, I couldn’t have possibly anticipated their maintenance method of choice to exchange the drugs they’d use. But as they ran to treat the emergency they were kept around for, I could anticipate their intervention measures down to the last detail.
The first thing they’d reach for would be oxygen.
I gestured towards the cabinets. “Get this and this open.”
Lucia pounced on her chore as I threw my bag open, produced my prepared substitutes.
“Done, Cali. What do you need?”
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��Oxygen tanks.” She reached for the first two, tossed them to me. I tossed back the tanks filled with nitrogen dioxide.
If all went to plan, Almeyda would take the next puff from his inhaler and gulp down pure nitrogen dioxide laden with colonies of mega-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, the number one cause of pneumonia.
As he wheezed and vomited and fought for breath as my mixture ate through his already tattered, emphysematous lungs, they’d come to the rescue and force a steady supply of the highly toxic, severely irritating gas down his lungs.
Since NO2 targeted the deepest parts of the respiratory tract with their damage, the exacerbation they’d have on their hands would be one for the medical history books.
At this point, shocked out of their wits, they’d scramble for the second line of defense, the drugs that relaxed the spasm in his airway that shut down his lungs down to the alveolar level and suffocated him. They’d hope some heavy-duty bronchodilation would let him breathe again until they figured out what had gone so wrong. I’d replace those, too.
“What are the Beta2-agonist agents they have?”
Lucia had already looked. “Albuterol and salbutamol are front and center.”
I’d send them a thank-you note later for being so by-the-book. I had their doctored duplicates right here, in ampoules that masqueraded as them but were filled with saline teeming with more bacteria. “Exchange the first row with these.”
On to the third line of defense. The life-saving corticosteroids that would be their last hope to decrease the intense airway inflammation and swelling and potentiate the effects of beta2-agonist agents.
Lucia was already onto my train of thought. “They have methylprednisolone and prednisone. Toss me your substitutes.”
I could go for fourth and fifth lines of defense medications, but that would be hyperkill. Even if at some point the doctors suspected their treatments were the cause for his cataclysmic plunge and started from scratch with different medications, he’d be in beyond-reach Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome and pan-system failure. Lucia put everything in order, locked up, a look of relief and urgency staining her features even through the course disguise. She thought this was over. Had to disappoint her.
“Hook up with the others and create a diversion.
Make it for as long as you can. I need to get to Almeyda’s quarters.”
Her groan shivered down my back as we exited the room. Yeah, just how I felt. My original plan had fallen apart and every step I was taking to fix up an alternative one could plunge us deeper into a one-way road to catastrophe.
But it was all I could come up with to make sure he died before our deadline expired.
I knew the way to his quarters, knew that he had two armed guards on each of the two doors dividing the great corridor leading there 24/7, adding the two on his bedroom door, they totaled six.
I hid behind a curtain before the corridor’s first door, waited to see how they reacted to Lucia’s diversion. In a minute I heard shouts. I recognized Lucia’s voice, raised on laments that she’d lost her retarded cousin. In seconds I heard feet stomping past me. Problem was, I counted only three sets of feet. Out of each post, one of the guards went to investigate, the other kept position.
I could take all three down. And expose the whole thing.
This meant I had to bypass two then figure out what to do with the last one, the one at Almeyda’s door.
I slipped on climbing gloves, adjusted my backpack, opened the window behind me. I jumped onto the ledge, closed the window and took stock of my situation.
This area overlooked the stables. Hoped anyone looking up right now would be one of our accomplices. I had enough to worry about with the dress and the two-inch foothold on my path to the window near the last sentry’s position.
At least I was wearing mountain climbing shoes for the terrain we’d walked over getting here. They were snug and sticky-soled, hard for edging without sacrificing friction. With the gloves I should have a good grip.
This was nothing like Worthington’s sleek-exterior house climbing where suction gear had gotten us up and down its surface in under a minute. This house was built with unfinished rock from Patagonia’s quarries and warranted the mountain climbing gear in my backpack. But since I didn’t have a ‘second’ to remove them, I couldn’t afford to leave behind belays, quickdraws and grappling hooks.
I summoned every scaling/climbing/human-fly skill Damian had drilled into me, and took my first step.
OK. Not bad. The next step was better. After a dozen, I was getting the hang of it, nearing my destination. Just fifty more feet and…
My foot slipped and I lost my grip.
I plummeted in silence.
Twenty-Four
I almost pulverized my upper teeth on the ledge as I plunged past it.
My hands shot up, my fingers clawed an anchor at its edge at the last microsecond.
I dangled. Couldn’t even afford to shake. My fingers were breaking off, phalanx by phalanx, my skin shearing off. Pain stormed my stamina, eroded my fear, started to make falling down the three stories to serious injury or death look like a viable way out.
Just plant a belay so you wouldn’t plunge to your death.
No—dammit. I hadn’t come this far to blow our stealth to kingdom come leaving behind incriminating climbing evidence.
So I hated buildering, and the only free solo climbing I’d done had been with a huge net beneath me.
But I had done it, hadn’t needed the net. I’d do it again now.
Now breathe, block out the pain.
I did, channeled all adrenaline to my fingertips, my feet finding wafer-thin edges in the wall to push against.
And I started the sideways crawl over the wall. What I’d give for some insect-like talents right now.
I’d grazed my knees, probably said goodbye to my surgical hands and dropped about two-dozen years off my life expectancy by the time I hauled myself up to my target window.
I maneuvered it open, jumped in. I couldn’t afford more than ten seconds behind its curtain to succumb to the ordeal.
Gulping shearing breaths, I peeked from behind the curtain. The guard was facing my direction, alert, waiting to find out the reason for the disturbance. I had to get rid of him fast before it ended and his comrade came back.
I’d use the combo of sodium nitroprusside and bradykinin that Damian had stopped me from using on Worthington’s guard. But for it to work he mustn’t know what hit him. I couldn’t risk letting him see me.
Closing my eyes, I dredged up the layout of this area.
This corridor ended in a stained-glass window. I could borrow a leaf from Damian’s book, catapult a rock through it. But it wouldn’t be attributed to a bird this time and I’d just about killed myself to avoid leaving suspicious evidence scattering the scene in our wake.
If I got to leave the scene.
I had to make him look the other way right now…
And it came to me. The distraction I needed to drag and keep his attention long enough for me to pump him full of my vasodilatory knockout combo.
I delved into my bag, produced the sound emitter I used to misdirect enemies into thinking there was more than me during a fight, especially in dark conditions. It had recordings of men’s shouts. Yeah, had to admit those worked better in intimidation during a fight.
I catapulted the emitter from the crack in the curtains. It was too tiny to make a sound hitting the ground. I waited two seconds then pressed its remote. The shout came, the guard turned, presented me with his broad back. I blew my dart, connected, dove back behind the curtain as he clapped his hand on the sting and turned.
It was less than a minute when I heard the distinctive sound of a huge guy impacting the ground.
I ran out, swooped down to snatch the emitter then ran back, worked the lock over his fallen body.
Ready with another dart, I entered the room, half-expecting to find Almeyda facing me like Worthington had done.
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The huge room was deserted. But I knew it couldn’t be. He had to be in the bathroom. Run, do it.
I sprinted to his nightstand, opened the drawers, found his many inhalers. I substituted each one with mine, was done in under a minute. Then the bathroom door opened.
Almeyda saw me at once. Our eyes locked across the distance in a moment of surreal stillness. Then he opened his mouth and let out a wheezing shout for help.
My heart fired, a flood of adrenaline inundating my system. I didn’t have time to fumble for the dart I’d put away.
OK, here came the ultimate improvisation.
I charged him, slammed him against the bathroom door, met eyes as dark as mine blasting with fear and pain and outrage. He opened his mouth again and I kneed him, with just enough force to silence him, to make him stop struggling while leaving him on his feet so I could drag him to bed.
I shoved him down on it, opened my bag beside me as I straddled him. I had to make sure he wouldn’t be in any condition to tell on me, from now till the moment he died.
I produced a few ampoules of acetyl salicylic acid and ketofan. Both were painkillers, but were also potent asthma inducers. I mixed mega doses of them together in one syringe, dumped them in his cephalic vein in one push.
He started struggling again. This time I squashed his testicles. He went flaccid between my thighs, his withered face coming apart in suffering. My heart almost knocked me over him. He was nothing like the bull-in-full-health Worthington, sallow and emaciated and barely able to breathe. Pity rose in a geyser in my throat, the blinding urge to care for the sick and the disabled threatening to take over.
Moron. He’s not a patient. He’s a monster who just happens to inhabit a sick shell. Do it.
With a heart still lurching behind my ribs, I reached over into his drawer, took out the inhalers I’d boobytrapped.
I held his nose closed and he gasped, gulped down the dozen infected puffs I dumped down his airway.
I then put the final touch to my macabre impromptu scheme. I injected him with diazepam to knock him out, and a high dose of LSD in a slow-release vehicle. He’d wake up hallucinating so they’d discount his reports of the crazy woman who’d entered his room, even if he could say anything past the barrier of severe respiratory distress. LSD also potentiated asthma, so it was a double-edged weapon.