by Karen Randau
Cliff touched my leg. “Do as he says.”
Tears spilled as I rolled up my window, turned around, and drove toward Mule Train Trail. “Cliff, I need to get you to that neurologist in Phoenix.”
“I know, and you will. When I was a wilderness ranger, I sometimes used another route to get to Phoenix. It’s steeper. Few people know about it. It’s probably overgrown. It will take us twice as much time to navigate it.”
Panic flared inside me. “The first time I drove this road, I shredded a tire. We don’t have another spare.”
He caressed my hand. “You’ve got this, love. I’ll talk you through it.” He leaned against the headrest. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face.
22
At the first steep climb of Mule Train Trail, Cliff told me to turn left.
“There’s no road.” My fingers felt numb from grasping the steering wheel so tight for such a long time.
“Trust me.”
I turned left and inched up a steep incline covered with knee-high grass. At the peak, I could see a rocky and rutted path. I kept my foot on the brake to creep down.
“Turn right.”
“But Phoenix is to the left.” I worried that his fever rendered him delusional.
“Left leads to a dead end. Right leads to a turnoff that will take us to Fishhook Trail.”
Memories of a white-knuckle ride to a remote, lakeside campsite made me shudder. “That’s a one-way dirt road that tourists in big RVs don’t know not to drive.” I thought of the drop-off to the water below.
“Yes.” He coughed and wiped sweat from his forehead.
I turned right. Within ten minutes, the trail opened to a wider lane that climbed up to Fishhook Trail. At the apex, Cliff directed me to turn right toward Phoenix.
Rounding a hairpin curve, I stomped on the brake. In front of me was the bumper of a hefty RV. The driver’s wide eyes looked as scared as I felt. I backed to the widest part of the curve, pulling to the side and hoping for enough room for the RV to pass. My side mirror touched a rock that jutted from the wall next to me.
The RV driver waved and eased his vehicle forward, coming within an inch of my other side mirror as he crept past. My heart pounded for the next half an hour, expecting another hair-raising encounter at each curve.
At the bottom of the hill, I stopped to calm my nerves before entering the highway. Cliff slept for the rest of the trip, leaving a silence that seesawed between helping me feel more relaxed and making me worry he was too quiet. I checked his breathing several times.
When we approached Phoenix, the GPS led us past a Whole Foods market on the way to the Sisters of Benevolence hospital. I stopped in front of the hospital’s white building, sporting a circular drive and a garden with grass and red flowers in the middle.
I stopped in front of a revolving door set into a wall of windows and tapped Cliff’s shoulder. “We’re here. I’ll go get a wheelchair.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair.” Cliff sounded indignant.
“I’m still getting it.” I ran to the revolving door and entered a lobby with a shiny floor.
I nabbed a wheelchair that sat behind a reception desk with no one staffing it.
When I returned to the Jeep, Cliff opened his door but couldn’t even lift his legs over the lip of the floorboard.
He stopped trying. “Okay. I’ll ride.”
I helped him into the chair and wheeled him toward the lobby, leaving him long enough to return to the Jeep and find a spot in the adjacent lot. I retrieved my backpack of electronics and walked up a flight of stairs from the asphalt parking area to a sidewalk that led to the lobby.
When he saw me, Cliff said, “Admitting is over there.” He flicked his wrist toward a bank of three cubicles with an Admissions sign above them and guest chairs on the other side of the desks. Beside the cubicles, a nurse in purple scrubs and multi-colored sneakers led another new patient through a door.
I wheeled Cliff to the first cubicle, toward a thirty-something receptionist with long, dark hair and red lipstick. I sat in her guest chair. “We’re here to check-in my husband, Cliff Avery. His physician is Dr. Vincent Jackson.”
As she tapped on her keyboard, I leaned toward Cliff and whispered into his ear. “Are we sure we want to do this?”
“We have little choice.” He grasped my hand and kissed it. “Stay with me as long as they’ll let you.”
After I showed our insurance information and Cliff signed the papers agreeing to treatment, the purple-clad nurse I’d seen earlier approached him.
“Hi, Mr. Avery. I’m Tiffany. I’ll take you to your room.” She flipped her long, blond hair onto her back as she leaned down to shake his hand.
“I want my wife to come with me.”
“No problem,” she said with a perky voice. “Hi, Mrs. Avery. I know this has to be scary for you, but your husband will be fine.”
I tried to smile despite a rolling stomach.
She peeled my hands from the handles of the wheelchair as if it wasn’t the first time someone was too distraught to let go of a loved one.
She talked the entire time she wheeled Cliff through the door by the cubicles, onto another shiny floor, and down a hallway. “Dr. Jackson has ordered tests. As soon as we get you settled, an orderly will take you to the lab. Mrs. Avery can wait in your room.”
“What about my son, Travis Warren?” I asked. “And my friends Mary Zagby and Taylor Finnegan?”
“Your son and Ms. Zagby are in ICU until they stabilize,” Tiffany said. “Mr. Warren’s wife is with him. Ms. Finnegan is conferring with the CDC in another building.”
We entered an area that looked like every other hospital room I’d ever seen. A curtain separated two beds, each with a nightstand, a visitor’s chair, and a small closet beside it. There was a bathroom on one side of the room.
Tiffany handed Cliff a gown and asked him to change into it in the bathroom. “Take off everything else.” She handed him a clear urine container. “Fill this while you’re in there, and leave it on the counter.”
She directed me to the bed closest to the window. “You can wait here until your husband returns if you like, but I think he could be two hours. There’s also a waiting room down the hall to the left.” She handed me a large, white plastic bag. “This is for his belongings.” She left.
I placed my backpack on Cliff’s guest chair and watched traffic on the road below the window while I waited.
Cliff exited the bathroom wearing the gown and handed me his clothes. I stuffed them into the plastic bag and placed it inside his closet. He climbed into bed and curled up on his side. “I feel lousy.” He was asleep within seconds.
An orderly with a round face and shaved head took Cliff away in his bed for an MRI and other tests. “You have a couple of hours,” the man said. “You’re welcome to stay here, or you could come back later.”
“Where’s the ICU?”
He pointed to the left and wheeled Cliff and his bed out the door.
I wanted to run. Or hide. I wanted to see Travis smile at me and know where the CDC took Taylor. I called my daughter-in-law Katy.
“How’s Travis?” I asked when she answered.
“He’s hooked up to a bunch of monitors and is sleeping. I’m scared.”
“Me, too. I wanted to come visit, but Travis needs his sleep.” I gave Katy our room number, disconnected, and sat in the guest chair wishing I could make everything okay.
Since that wasn’t an option, I got lost in research and opened the folder David kept on Mary’s attack and illness.
I read Mary’s account of the attack.
According to Mary, an Afghan woman demanded to see the commanding officer, Colonel John Brandish. The woman accused another soldier of killing her cow. Captain Jason Wall offered to go. Major Kyle Park suggested that it would show respect for the highest ranking field officer to go to the woman’s village and question her about the claim. The explosion disoriented her, but she remembered a d
rone spraying her with green liquid.
I reflected on the many times I thought I’d heard Mary say Walled in Park when she was talking about Wall and Park.
The report explained that Afghan women only spoke with other women, and Mary’s training qualified her for that assignment. Brandish had ordered Mary to accompany him.
Her special training explained why the military deployed Mary despite being a part-time soldier and a single mother.
Flipping the page, I read the military report of the event, noting that Major Kyle Park had signed it.
David was right that the two descriptions didn’t match.
In Park’s description, Mary’s head injury rendered her confused, making her story unreliable. Park reported that the Afghan woman accused the Army of killing her cow, not a specific soldier as in Mary’s rendition.
While Brandish and Mary spoke to the Afghan woman, the cow exploded from an IED booby trap, and both Brandish and the Afghan woman died. Villagers took Mary to safety. Park and Wall searched for Mary and found her in the village where she was being cared for and hidden from unfriendly forces nearby.
Why were Mary’s and Park’s accounts of the event so different? Why would Park eliminate the part about Wall offering to go instead of Brandish? Why didn’t he even mention the drones that Mary said sprayed her with a liquid she believed made her sick?
Worse, did the same thing happen to Rim Vista? And why?
As I turned to the notes of Mary’s military doctor and glanced at a heavily redacted section, the orderly brought Cliff back. He now had an oxygen tube in his nose and was connected to an IV.
I pushed aside my worry about Cliff and my question about why a military doctor’s report would be censored, trying to greet Cliff with a smile.
23
Dr. Vincent Jackson entered the room within minutes after the orderly brought Cliff back. A forty-something man about Cliff’s height, a slim build, well-groomed strawberry blond hair, and amber eyes, the doctor looked like he belonged on the cover of a glamor magazine more than in a hospital wearing a brown suit with a white lab coat over it.
As he introduced himself, I moved to stand.
“Don’t get up,” he said.
I dropped back down into Cliff’s guest chair. “I’m so tired. Thanks for coming in even though it’s getting late.”
The doctor flashed a gracious smile while sliding the room’s second guest chair in front of the one I occupied. He sat so close that his knees nearly touched mine. He leaned forward until his face was inches away.
With my chair against the wall, I couldn’t move back or avoid looking into his eyes. I felt like I entered another dimension where breathing, moving, and thinking were impossible. I inclined my head against the wall and white-knuckled the arms of my chair.
“I know how worried you must be,” he said with a hypnotic, baritone voice. “First, I want to tell you that because of your friend Taylor Finnegan, I believe both your husband and your son will recover.”
At last I could exhale. I had to turn my face to avoid breathing on him.
He straightened a fraction of an inch, giving me the room to think. “Taylor saved them?” I pressed on his shoulder to get him to sit back, then pushed his chair away six inches.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I want my patients and their families to know they have my full attention. Getting close helps me keep theirs.”
“That’s for sure. I wonder if they remember what you said after you’ve been so intimidating.”
He grinned for a second before returning to his serious, caring doctor demeanor. “To answer your question, let’s say Ms. Finnegan gave your husband and son the time they needed for you to find me, and for me to partner with the CDC. With her help, our team of doctors, herbalists, and chemists from around the country will develop a cure for the pathogen that made so many people in Rim Vista sick.”
“What about Mary Zagby?”
“I’m not at liberty to share Mary’s medical information with you, but I can say Ms. Finnegan also gave Mary time.”
“Do Travis and Cliff have what Mary had?” I asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“What they have seems to progress the same as Mary’s ailment. Food poisoning. Then meningitis. Does whatever she has come next?”
“Probably not. She didn’t receive the same treatment your husband and son are getting.”
Probably? I wanted to hear, definitely. Not probably.
My mind wandered to questions about how Mary could have the same thing Cliff and Travis had. She got sick in Afghanistan. Rim Vista is a small mountain town with friendly people and a broken water treatment plant. We didn’t have the same diseases they had on the other side of the world.
Did I look as baffled as I felt?
The doctor must have read my thoughts. “The CDC keeps track of illnesses worldwide. However, this might be a special case.”
He explained that Cliff’s condition started with a manmade pathogen that resembled listeria and was antibiotic resistant. That progressed to meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
“What causes meningitis?”
“Most of the time it’s viral. Sometimes it’s caused by bacteria or fungus. The latter two are more serious and can cause complications like those Mary exhibits.”
“What kind does Cliff have?” I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. I sent up a quick prayer he would say it was viral.
“Bacterial,” he said, causing me to feel like the floor dropped out from under me.
A thousand questions zoomed through my brain. I latched onto one and asked it. “If Cliff’s infection started with an antibiotic-resistant kind of listeria, is the meningitis also resistant?”
“We’re using a strong broad spectrum antibiotic along with natural supplements that will boost its effectiveness. I’m an integrative neurologist, meaning I combine traditional medicine with alternative medicine and functional treatment to improve the effectiveness of all three.”
He explained that Taylor’s alternative medicine was an example of blending different disciplines, along with acupuncture and other Eastern practices.
According to the CDC, Taylor’s mixture gave time to those people in Rim Vista who used it.
“It also gave the CDC an important clue they needed to develop a cure for the Rim Vista patients,” he said. “It kept your husband’s disease from advancing.”
“Tomorrow you’ll meet the management team assigned to your husband. He should be in the hospital about two weeks. Tonight, you and he should rest. There’s a decent hotel across the street.”
The doctor wanted me to take Taylor’s cocktail as a precautionary measure since I had been in close contact with all three of his Rim Vista patients. “I don’t want to use antibiotics unless I have to.” He handed me a bottle of liquid and gave me instructions for how to use it before leaving.
With him gone, I doubled over to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. Who could have made the listeria-like pathogen? Why? And was Mary right when she suggested the Rim Vista attack was practice for something bigger?
I held my arms close to my body to control my trembles.
When my phone buzzed, I took two deep breaths, checked caller ID, and hoped I sounded calm when I answered.
“I talked to the doctor,” Katy said with a wobble in her voice. “Travis’ brain is swollen.” She whimpered and paused before being able to continue. “Dr. Jackson wants me to take what Taylor gave Travis and Cliff.”
“Their diseases have progressed the same way,” I said. “I wonder why Cliff isn’t as critical as Travis. The doctor also wants me to take Taylor’s cocktail as a precaution.”
As my phone alerted me to another incoming call, Katy gave me directions to the ICU.
“I need you,” she whispered.
“I’ll be there soon. We’ll compare notes.” I hung up and answered the call from David.
“
Dr. Jackson says Mary has Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus,” David said. “It started with the food poisoning she got at the hospital in Afghanistan. That turned into meningitis, which progressed to the NPH. It went undetected because the explosion could account for her brain damage. Besides that, she had severe PTSD. And she’s a drug addict. I didn’t know that. How? She criticizes people who take drugs. Where would she get them? Anyway, since NPH often occurs in older people, they never attributed her strange behavior to anything other than the PTSD and brain damage caused by the blast.”
“Both Cliff and Travis have meningitis,” I said. “Are you sure Mary got her food poisoning in the hospital? Was it really from whatever the drone sprayed on her? Could the drug addiction have started there? And did the same designer pathogen somehow infect Rim Vista?”
A long silence followed.
“I hope that isn’t the case, especially given what Mary’s been through. And the potential implications to our nation are scary. How could it be the same though? It took Mary more time to progress to meningitis than it has taken Cliff and Travis. That probably means it’s different. Right?”
“I hope so.”
He told me where Mary was in the ICU, and we disconnected.
I called Taylor, but the call went to voicemail. I received a text from her seconds later as I gathered my belongings to head toward the ICU for a long embrace with Katy.
I can’t tell you why, but you, Katy, and David need to stay with Cliff, Travis, and Mary always. Don’t let them give Cliff medications until you check them. Remember who the staff are. I’m not sure when they’ll let me leave here. Watch your surroundings and report anything unusual to the police.
I forwarded the message to Katy and David before returning my belongings to where they had been and checking the label on Cliff’s IV bottle before texting Taylor.
What medication should I watch for?
I got no response.
24
A pudgy, middle-aged nurse with eyelash extensions, purple framed glasses, and a double chin arrived not long later. She introduced herself, but I was too overwhelmed and exhausted to remember anything but Linda.