Todd stands outside the ambulance in the sally port of the hospital. It’s a confined space with high block walls intended to prevent anyone from seeing the transfer of patients into or out of the facility. He watches as they move the unconscious Bog from the ambulance using a wheeled cart.
Todd looks up at the two-story, bronze glass building stuck in the remote Romanian countryside, its long sloping roof and broad eves, and considers it perfect stagecraft. He may have plenty of CIA contacts, but he still works for Lonnie and Cetron Corporation, making him easy to disavow. This is a Cetron facility, here by consent of the Department of State Security, as well as the old Securitate, the shadow of the former secret police under Ceausescu. They know nothing about it though, if asked.
Todd follows the gurney with the two EMTs through the automatic glass doors and down the hall of immaculate white tile, through an area that looks very much like an ordinary trauma center. They roll past a nurse behind an intake counter. She nods to them as they pass and activates the doors for one of the treatment rooms. The EMTs roll Bog in ahead of Harris. Instead of going in, Todd takes a detour to the nurse’s station to pour some coffee into a foam cup. He gets on his phone to Lonnie James and tells him where they’re at. Without dialing off Lonnie calls Ciaran Burris, and pretty soon they’re all on the phone together.
“So you got him, did you?” asks Ciaran.
“Of course,” Lonnie says before Todd has a chance to. Lonnie is always mindful about working Cetron’s PR. It’s innate.
“Yes. We have him under sedation.”
“And this is where?”
“Our Romanian facility,” replies Lonnie.
“Where? Near Bucharest?” asks Ciaran.
“No. Think Suceava. Think North,” says Lonnie.
“Ploiesti?”
Lonnie realizes that Ciaran is talking about the famous oil fields in the South of the country.
“Not even close,” Lonnie answers, wondering why people don’t learn geography.
“Okay. But how’s he doin’.”
Finally Todd weighs in.
“Fine. We’ll be taking him out of sedation,” says Todd.
“Well,” says Ciaran, “be careful. This is a US citizen. Just find out what you can.”
“We won’t leave any footprints,” Lonnie responds.
“Don’t worry. He won’t remember his name unless we tell him to,” says Todd.
“Jeez! I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” replies Ciaran.
He is still looking for a way to explain all this to Joe Cat. He doesn’t want Harris making things harder.
“Look, Ciaran, that’s a thirty thousand square foot facility we sprang for after the last war on terror. It has several dozen personnel and a bunch of MDs and PhDs to boot. Your guy is in good hands. We’ll know what he knows. And then some,” assures Lonnie James.
“If you fry him you’ll be answering to Joe.” Ciaran would dump it all on them without the slightest hesitation.
Lonnie scoffs.
“That has never happened,” he states.
Burris says goodbye and is gone, leaving Lonnie and Todd on the line.
“Do we have a problem?” Todd asks.
“No. Just do your job,” says James before clicking off.
By the time Todd re-enters the room with Bog, they have him strapped down and on intravenous with several crystal clear bags suspended from a pole next to his gurney and he’s coming to.
“Welcome back to the living!” Todd shouts in such a way that the sound seems to reverberate off the walls of the too white room. Set up for typical emergencies, it has a wrapped surgical kit sitting on a stainless steel tray nearby. The kind of surgery Todd has in mind won’t require it.
“What the hell?” Bog asks in a fog-like state.
Todd nods to the EMT controlling the intravenous. She starts to change the drip.
“Perceptive. Give the man a cigar.”
Chapter 61
On Fire Page 60