The Fifth Vial

by Michael Palmer

  “They do transplants,” he said softly, “transplants of body parts. Many times the donors of the organs transplanted do not survive. In those instances, we are told to bury the bags containing their bodies.”

  “But…I was shot,” Natalie said. “How could they transplant my lung when it had already been destroyed?”

  “I do not know. I do not often see the patients—when they are alive, I mean.”

  “Luis, I am sure you are risking much by telling me what you have. Please know how grateful I am. Do you have a family here?”

  “A woman only, Rosa. She is the only person in Dom Angelo who is tougher than I am. She knows—knew—my sister, and will be very upset at the news she has been murdered. Rodrigo Vargas was not a man she liked or trusted. She will also be willing to help you in any way she can. You should know that something is scheduled to be happening at the hospital over the next few days. I have been instructed to assemble a squad of eight guards—two shifts of four—to keep watch on the hospital beginning in the morning.”

  “In that case,” Natalie asked, “is there any way I could get into the place tonight?”

  Luis Fernandes thought for just a few seconds.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “there is.”

  Thirty

  The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

  —PLATO, Apology

  “You may bring your torch,” Luis said, “but do not turn it on until I tell you it is safe to do so. Unless there is something happening I do not know, only Dr. Santoro and Oscar Barbosa, the policeman, are at the hospital right now. If this is a typical night, each of those men will have a woman with him.”

  “I will do whatever you say.”

  The night was moonless, and the forest as black as it was noisy. Initially, even though there was no discernible path and he was operating with one eye, Luis moved through the dense underbrush with the vision and stealth of a jaguar. At first, Natalie was able to keep pace. Soon, though, the altitude and her injuries weighed in, and she had to ask him to slow down. He did so without comment. He was armed with at least one handgun and a long, slender knife, sheathed just above his right ankle.

  They moved south, then west, then south again, over rolling terrain that in the main continued downward. The air was cool and incredibly clean. How ironic to lose a lung in such a place, Natalie thought.

  It was after midnight when they ascended the steepest grade of their journey. At the top of the rise, with Natalie breathing heavily, Luis raised a finger to his lips and pointed ahead. Below them, much closer than she had expected, was the hospital, bathed in the light from half a dozen lamps set on tall poles. It was a single-story structure of pristine, whitewashed clay, sprawling across a plateau, surrounded by a four-strand barbed-wire fence. There was a long wing extending away from them to the right.

  “As you can see, the building is shaped like an L. The wire does not extend all the way around it,” Luis said. “Now, I must ask you a serious question. How badly do you want to get inside?”

  “That depends on how much time I will have once I am there.”

  “Twenty minutes. No more. Maybe less. Try for eighteen.”

  The hospital was hardly small. There were ten windows along the wall facing them.

  “How many operating rooms are there, Luis? Remember to speak slowly, please.”

  “Two. Right in the center. Those windows you see open on a long corridor that connects all the rooms. There are also two hospital rooms right inside the third window from the right. I think they are recovery rooms for those who have had surgery. Next, right where the wing comes off, are the dining room and the kitchen, and beyond them, in the wing itself, are two small clinic rooms and the sleeping quarters—maybe ten rooms in all, but I really don’t know exactly how many. The dining room has some couches and soft chairs at one end where families wait for the surgery to be completed.”

  “And at the other end, after the operating rooms?”

  “Dr. Santoro’s office and one other for the surgeons who fly in.”

  “Do you know if those offices are locked?”

  “I do not. When I am around they are always open, but there are usually doctors all over the place.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes. No, wait, there is one more room, at the far left. It is a large room, at least as large as the operating rooms, filled with electronic equipment. In the middle of that room is a chair—an elaborate chair like the kind you might find in a dentist’s office. And screens—several television screens on the wall. I have only been there once or twice. They do not like me or my security people to be inside the hospital unless there is trouble. They do not have uniforms for us, and we are not clean enough for them as is.”

  Natalie studied the structure, trying to visualize beyond the windows and imagine how, in twenty minutes or less, she might go about finding any information filed away about her. Tomorrow, there would be people arriving. Word might filter down from someone in Dom Angelo to Santoro or a military policeman that a woman was in the village asking about Dora Cabral. Tomorrow might be too late.

  “You asked a question, Luis, about how badly I wanted to get inside.”

  “Yes?”

  “The answer is I am willing to risk everything.”

  “By everything, do you mean your life? Because Oscar Barbosa is a powerful pig of a man, who has more brawn than brains, and who is truly poisoned by his power.”

  Natalie wondered what she would have ultimately done had not the phone call come in from her insurance company, raising questions about Santa Teresa. It didn’t seem then, nor did it seem now, as if she had very much to look forward to in her life—except answers.

  “As I said, I am willing to risk everything.”

  “You are a brave woman, Senhorita Natalie, but I already knew that. In back of the hospital, some distance from where the residence wing and dining area come together, is a swimming pool. Beside the pool is a metal shed. In the floor of that shed is a trap door covered by a reed mat. The tunnel beneath the door was built as an escape route to the airstrip. I am not certain why. When you mount the staircase at the other end, you will be in a pantry in the back of the kitchen. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “There are electric eyes guarding the rear of the hospital, where you will be. The diversion you want will come when I shoot out the control box for those electric eyes. One shot. The moment the shot rings out, an alarm will sound and your time starts. Barbosa and Santoro may have women in their rooms, or they may have sent them back to the village, but no matter. The women will stay in their bedrooms no matter what while the men investigate. Twenty minutes is the absolute most I can keep them occupied. Your way out is the same as your way in. The control box will be damaged beyond a quick repair, so the electric eyes will not be a problem. Wait ten yards beyond the pool until you hear my shot. We will meet back here. Do you think you can find this spot?”

  “I do.”

  “I will give you time to get in place. Take a wide route around the hospital.”

  “Thank you, Luis. Thank you for doing this for me.”

  “I do it for my sister,” he said.

  As directed, Natalie took a track well to the east of the hospital. The forest was so dense that at times she lost the spotlights altogether. Finally, though, she saw the pool—a small, dark rectangle surrounded on all sides by a concrete patio, and separated from the hospital by twenty yards or so. Lights from several windows washed across the broad courtyard. The corrugated metal shed was just where Luis had said it would be.

  I am willing to risk everything.

  Natalie’s bold pronouncement echoed in her thoughts as she crouched in the brush forty feet or so from the shed. If she was caught, she would die. There was nothing more certain than that. Did it make any difference? No matter what, her life was going to be led as a cripple, probably because of her unusual transpla
nt antigen pattern and her low lung allocation score, but also possibly from the side effects of the powerful meds that would keep her from rejecting a lung that wasn’t closely matched to her in the first place. She would gladly have changed places with Odysseus, facing the monsters Scylla and Charybdis.

  I am willing to risk anything.

  Did she really feel that way? she wondered now. Did she really not care to see her life play out—to learn her destiny?

  Before the answer became any clearer, a shot rang out, and an instant later, a siren began wailing from not far away. Without hesitating, Natalie activated the stopwatch mode on her wristwatch and sprinted forward to the shed, slipped inside, and dropped to one knee, breathing heavily. In moments, the siren stopped. By then, she had located the heavy wooden trap door and swung it open. Eight stairs led down to a concrete floor that crossed over to the hospital—maybe a hundred feet, she estimated.

  She followed the flashlight beam to the far end of the tunnel, mounted the ladderlike stairs to the trap door, and pushed it open, struggling to maintain control of it. Above her, she hoped, Santoro and the policeman Barbosa had left the hospital and, guns drawn, were cautiously searching the grounds and the forest beyond.

  The heavy aroma of mixed spices and foods told her that Luis had once again been absolutely accurate. She cut the flash and pushed herself up into a rather large, cluttered space, twelve by twelve, stocked floor to ceiling with food and supplies, and faintly lit through a glass panel in the door. Closing the trap door and replacing the mat that covered it, she crawled quickly across the dining area and lounge. The room was airy and comfortable, with seating for twenty-five—ten more counting the lounge. For the moment, the entire area was dimly illuminated from the corridor beyond the wide, open-arched doorway to the hospital. When she reached that arch, she paused just long enough to listen, then moved ahead. From what Luis had said, there was no sense in checking either of the small examination rooms to her right, so she moved down the main corridor.

  The two nearly identical recovery rooms were small but well appointed with state-of-the-art, wall-mounted monitors and electronic IV infusion pumps. One glance at the crucifix over the door of the first room, and the clock on the wall to the right of it, and Natalie knew that she had been in that room before. So much for Santa Teresa. There were no filing cabinets in either room, nor did she expect there to be.

  Four minutes.

  The first operating room was incredibly large and technologically well equipped, with a cardiopulmonary bypass machine and elegant operating microscope. Between it and the next OR was the prep room where the surgeons and OR nurses scrubbed in. The second OR had no bypass machine, and less sophisticated equipment. Natalie felt certain that this was the room where her lung was removed. The questions resonated louder and louder. How did she get here from Rio? Why was her damaged lung removed, and not the good one? And perhaps most perplexing, why was she allowed to live?

  Seven minutes.

  The solid doors of the two offices to the left of the second OR were both locked. One was labeled with a bronze plaque reading DR. XAVIER SANTORO, and the other DEPARTAMENTO DA CIRURGIA—department of surgery. Natalie felt herself sink. She had eleven minutes left, thirteen at the outside, before Luis feared he would not be able to maintain his diversion, and the records she was seeking, if in fact such records existed, were almost certainly behind one of those two locked doors. Was it worth trying to break one of them down? She hesitated, aware that the seconds were ticking past. Finally, almost in spite of herself, she moved on to the final room off the hallway—the electronics room, as Luis had described it. The door, like those of the other offices, was closed. The brass plaque read simply, DR. D. CHO.

  Ten minutes.

  Expecting the worst, and prepared to race back to the pantry, Natalie tried the knob. The door swung open. She stepped inside and closed it behind her before turning on the flash. A quick scan showed no windows, so she found a switch on the wall by the door and flipped it on. Instantly, brilliantly bright fluorescent light filled the room, which would have been unlike any she had ever seen were she not suddenly and absolutely convinced that she had been there before—many times before.

  Screens, electronics, and speakers were on every wall. In addition, there was a glass cabinet of medications. The focus of the room was the chair Luis had described—plush leather with a number of segments that were all adjustable. Hanging down over the elaborate setup, on a heavy adjustable steel arm, was a thick, square, full-head helmet made of some sort of metal. Attached to it was a smoky black plastic visor. Several cables, dangling down from the ceiling, were connected to each. Natalie pictured herself clearly, being transferred from a stretcher to the chair. She imagined, no, recalled, the helmet being slipped into place, and the visor being pulled down.

  Virtual reality. Natalie was certain of it. The room was set up to create and implant situations that had never really happened. And since her scar, X rays, and diminished pulmonary function were all quite real, the scenario that resulted in her surgery had to have been what was manufactured.

  Fourteen minutes.

  Natalie rushed to the desk, which was strewn with papers and letters, all of which were addressed to Dr. Donald M. Cho at either a post office box in Rio, or one in New York City. She folded several of the more interesting-looking ones and stuffed them into her pocket. Then, one letter caught her eye. Actually, it was a fax to Cho, written in English, from Cedric Zhang, Ph.D., Psychopharmacologist, Audio-Visual Implantationist.

  Transfixed, despite the crush of time, Natalie read the note.

  Dear Dr. Cho:

  I was so pleased to learn how successfully you have adapted my methods for the implantation of virtual scenes into the minds of your subjects. As you have discovered, the potential for my theories and equipment is limitless. We are clearly geniuses, you and I, and are now in possession of a technique that can quite literally change the world. Over a short course of treatment, witnesses can be programmed to testify that they saw or did not see whatever we wish. Agents and soldiers can relent in the face of torture, and give out implanted information they absolutely believe is true. The modifications you have made and tested, especially the addition of electrodes that produce legitimate sensations of pain, heat, and cold, are brilliant. I suggest we meet at your earliest convenience after your return to New York.

  With deepest respect,

  Cedric Zhang, Ph.D.

  Seventeen minutes.

  The circle of confusion was beginning to close. Natalie knew now that she had never been shot. The last real thing that happened to her was the injection into the base of her neck. The recurrent nightmares were nothing more than glitches in the system created by a Dr. Cedric Zhang and modified by Dr. Donald Cho. She still had questions, piles of them, but some of the most disturbing ones had just been answered. Somewhere in the room, she felt certain, was a DVD or film of some sort showing, from her point of view, the attack and ultimately the gunshots that brought her down—gunshots that had never happened except through the lens of a camera.

  Nineteen minutes.

  Clutching her flashlight, her pockets stuffed with hastily folded papers, Vargas’s gun in her waistband, she flicked off the light and slipped out into the corridor. It was foolish to have stayed so long. If she was caught now, she almost certainly would crumble under the weight of torture and drugs, and give them Luis Fernandes. It had been selfish and foolish of her to stay.

  Crouching lower than the windows, she sped down the corridor toward the entrance to the dining room. She had just reached it when the main door to the hospital opened. Without looking back to confirm her impression that it was Santoro, Barbosa, or both, she dove to her right into the family lounge area and flattened herself behind a sofa. The gun was partially pinned beneath her, but she dared not move to get at it. Moments later, the two men entered the room. They were speaking rapidly—too rapidly for Natalie to pick up everything they were saying.

  W
inded from her dash, and certain the men could hear if they but listened, Natalie pulled her shirt up over her mouth and breathed into it, forcing herself to pause for a few seconds after each breath. She pushed herself tightly against the back of the sofa as they walked past, less than ten feet away. From what she could make out, they were angrily trying to sort out who might have taken a shot at the hospital’s security electronics. Once, she heard Luis’s name, but she had no idea of the context.

  The lights in the dining room were still off, but she could see both men clearly, and she knew that if they turned in her direction, they could see her as well.

  Please, no…. Don’t look…. Don’t look.

  Barbosa was an absolute bull, short and solid with a surprisingly high-pitched voice. Santoro was as she remembered—smooth, slightly built, with glasses and a prominent forehead. He motioned the policeman to the lounge, and to Natalie’s horror, Barbosa sank down onto the sofa behind which she was hiding. Fortunately, her breathing had begun to slow, and the policeman’s respirations, by virtue of his size, were grunting and noisy. Natalie pressed her shirt even more firmly against her mouth. There was no way she could move to get at her gun.

  “Who would dare shoot at us?” the bull asked.

  “Probably whiskey,” Santoro responded around words Natalie couldn’t make out.

  She had drawn herself into a fetal position. Barbosa’s backside, through the sofa, was no more than a foot from her. The large pistol in her waistband drove painfully into her already injured hip.

  Go! Please go.

  There was more conversation, which Natalie could not completely decipher. Then finally, after what seemed an eternity, the two men stood.

  “Tomorrow will be fun,” Barbosa said. “I like this place when there is action.”