And the Chechen terrorists were no different from the ones in Mogadishu. They were ruthless and cold-blooded, longing to kill and not afraid to die. They were perfect soldiers. And perfect bastards who were more than willing to blow up a hospital and murder a lot of innocent people. With a bomb! A goddamn bomb!
“We’ve got to do something,” Carolyn said, breaking into his thoughts.
“Yeah,” David agreed. “But what?”
Carolyn shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“The only thing that will really help is a unit of fresh whole blood,” David said. “With anything else we’re wasting our time.”
Carolyn nodded dejectedly. “And even if the terrorists agreed to let the blood come up, we’d still have a problem finding a match for Merrill. Remember how difficult he was to cross match earlier. And to make matters even worse, he’s got a rare blood type, very rare. He’s AB negative.”
David’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Are you absolutely certain about his blood type?”
“Yes,” Carolyn said, trying to read his face. “Why?”
“Are you doubly sure?”
“Yes,” Carolyn said and headed for the bedside. “Apparently, the blood bank was able to get a match for him after all. Come on and I’ll show you.”
At the foot of the bed she reached into a trash can and extracted an empty plastic bag that had been used to transfuse the President. She held it up and pointed to the label. “See? It’s AB negative.”
“That’s my blood type.”
“So?”
“So we can use my blood to transfuse the President,” David explained rapidly. “It’ll be risky, but it’s all we have to offer. And it just might work.”
Carolyn hesitated, a look of concern coming across her face. “What if he has a bad transfusion reaction?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” David said at once. “This is his only chance, Carolyn. It’s either do or die.”
Carolyn nodded slowly. David was right. But she also realized that a severe transfusion reaction could be fatal, particularly in a patient whose condition was already so fragile. “We could give the President a small amount of your blood as a test dose.”
“Right,” David agreed immediately.
“But there’s a problem,” Carolyn warned.
“What?”
“We don’t have the setup to draw your blood and put it in a plastic bag to transfuse the President. Only the blood bank has that.”
“There’s a way to get around that.”
“How?”
“Come on,” David said, taking her hand. “I’ll show you.”
They ran out of the suite and down the corridor, the terrorist guarding them close behind. Aliev came alongside, running hard to keep up. Two more terrorists appeared out of doorways, their Uzis at the ready.
“Where are you going?” Aliev huffed.
“To the treatment room,” David told him.
“Why?”
“For medicine to stop the President’s bleeding.”
Aliev moved aside and yelled out orders in Chechen. The other terrorists peeled off and went back to their duties. Except for the balding one. He remained close to David, even entering the treatment room with him.
David ignored the terrorist and asked Carolyn, “How many heparinized test tubes have you got?”
“Let me count.” Carolyn hurriedly opened a drawer and removed two cartons of test tubes that were coated with the anticoagulant heparin. “I’ve got forty-two tubes, each ten ccs.”
David calculated rapidly. “That’s a total volume of over four hundred ccs we can use for transfusion.”
“But how do we pool forty-two tubes of blood into a transfusable unit?” Carolyn said.
“That’s easy,” David explained. “And this is how we’ll do it. Using a Vacutainer, I want you to draw my blood into all forty-two tubes. The blood won’t clot because it’ll be heparinized. We’ll then take big 50-cc syringes and aspirate up the blood from the test tubes. In the end we’ll have over eight large syringes filled with my blood.”
Carolyn nodded quickly, now catching on. “And we’ll connect those syringes to the President’s IV line and slowly inject your blood. It’ll be like giving him eight mini-transfusions.”
“You got it,” David said, nodding back. “Grab a tourniquet and get started.”
Carolyn reached for a Velcro tourniquet and placed it tightly around David’s arm, then waited for a vein to pop up. “We’d better keep in mind that you’ve already lost a lot of blood, David. You may not have much to spare.”
“I’ve got a hell of a lot more than the President does, and I’m not the one dying,” David said. “So let’s get on with it.”
Carolyn found a vein in David’s antecubital fossa and expertly slid the needle in. As blood began to drip out, she pushed a test tube into the Vacutainer and watched it fill up with blood. Quickly she went through one test tube after another, loading each to the brim. Within minutes she had filled twenty tubes. “If you start to feel weak, let me know.”
“I’m fine,” David said, taking a deep breath. Suddenly he was aware of the perfume she was wearing. It was a fragrance he was familiar with. His late wife had used it. “Is that Arpège you have on?”
“It is.” Carolyn looked up at him and smiled. “How did you know?”
“Can I tell you another time?” David asked evasively.
“You sure can,” Carolyn said, removing a filled test tube from the Vacutainer and pushing in a fresh one. “If we ever get out of here, you’re going to have a lot of stories to tell me, aren’t you?”
“Just a few.”
“Liar,” she said, still smiling.
The terrorist guarding them moved in for a closer look. He obviously didn’t understand what was going on. He muttered something in Chechen and pointed to the thirty-two test tubes filled with David’s blood.
The smile vanished from Carolyn’s face. “What do you think he wants?”
“Nothing important,” David replied. “Otherwise he’d speak in English.”
The terrorist’s expression tightened. “Why blood?”
“For the President,” David answered.
“Oh,” the terrorist said and backed off.
Carolyn continued filling test tubes, one after another. David’s blood seemed to be flowing much faster now. “Three more to go,” she announced. “Do you want to aspirate the blood into the large syringes in here?”
“No,” David said after a brief pause. “We’ll do it in the President’s suite. That way one of us can be aspirating the blood into a syringe while the other is injecting the blood into the President’s IV line.”
Carolyn shook her head in admiration. “Is there anything you haven’t thought of ?”
“I haven’t thought of a way to get us out of here.”
“But you will, won’t you?”
“We’ll see.”
Carolyn watched the last test tube fill, then removed the tourniquet and needle from David’s arm. Quickly she gathered up all the test tubes as well as a carton of 50-cc syringes and a handful of #16 gauge needles. “All set!”
David jumped off the operating table and headed for the door. Abruptly he stopped and put his hand on Carolyn’s shoulder to steady himself. The room started to spin.
“Are you all right?”
“Just getting my sea legs,” David said and waited for the wooziness to pass. Gradually the spinning sensation stopped and his balance returned. “Okay, let’s go.”
They walked quickly down the corridor, David keeping his arm hooked into Carolyn’s. He tried not to lean on her, but found himself doing it anyway. And now his legs felt heavy as lead.
“You’re not all right,” Carolyn h
issed, becoming alarmed.
“It’ll pass,” David attempted to reassure her.
“No, it won’t. And you know it.”
“Once we get the President squared away, we’ll infuse a liter of saline into me. That’ll expand my intravascular volume and I’ll be fine.”
“You’d better not get sick and leave me here all alone, David Ballineau.”
“I don’t plan to,” he said, gritting his teeth together and willing his body to remain steady.
As they approached the President’s suite, the alarm on his cardiac monitor suddenly sounded. Ping! Ping! Ping! They dashed into the room and found Merrill draped over the edge of the bed, head down, with blood pouring out of his mouth and onto the floor.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn gasped.
“Start filling the syringes!” David yelled and rushed to the President’s side.
The cardiac monitor showed that John Merrill had no blood pressure.
Twenty-one
“What do you think?” Halloway asked Joe Geary over the speakerphone.
“That was our first and best option,” Geary answered without hesitation. “Unfortunately, ma’am, there’s a problem with any plan that goes through the adjacent rooms. A big problem. We discovered that the main support for that wing passes under the floor of the suites where the Secretary of State and his wife are located. If we set off our blasts there, the entire side of the Pavilion would collapse.”
Halloway shook her head despairingly. “Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Geary replied. “We had it checked by a structural engineer.”
“So you’ve settled on the plan to blast your way in through the President’s bathroom. Is that correct?” Halloway asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Geary said. “For now.”
“What do you mean ‘for now’?” Halloway asked quickly. “Are you considering other options?”
“No, ma’am,” Geary told her. “We’ll go with plan one. But if things suddenly change at the hostage site and we see a less risky opportunity to save the President, we’ll take it.”
Halloway didn’t respond. She did not like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation. She glanced at the expressions of the other council members. They were all stone-faced.
“Sometimes, ma’am,” Geary went on, “unforeseeable events occur, and everything changes in a matter of seconds.”
“Yeah,” Toliver groused in a low voice. “Like the Mexican police suddenly showing up to protect a drug lord, and damn near ruining everything.”
“Hold for a minute,” Halloway said and pushed a button on the speakerphone. Then she gave Toliver a stern look. “Keep in mind we’re amateurs when it comes to rescue attempts and they’re professionals. So we’d better listen to every word they utter. They’re our best and only hope.”
Toliver slouched down in his chair, unconvinced and grumbling to himself, obviously not in favor of giving the Secret Service free rein. He glanced around the conference table, looking for supporters, but found none.
Halloway watched Martin Toliver sulk, detesting the man and his boorish behavior. Keeping her face even, she returned to the speakerphone. “Agent Geary, how far away are you from Los Angeles?”
“One hour and twenty-four minutes,” Geary replied.
Halloway’s eyes went to the digital clock on the wall. There were forty-eight minutes until the deadline. When the Secret Service plane landed they would be thirty-six minutes late. Two hostages were certain to have been executed. One at the deadline, a second thirty minutes later.
“Keep us informed.” Halloway switched the phone off, then gazed around at the council and said with a sigh, “They’ll never get back in time. And because of that, two innocent people are going to die.”
“There’s not much we can do about it,” Walter Pierce said. “The plane is flying at top speed.”
“Somehow we’ve got to buy another hour,” Halloway urged.
“Our only choice is to release the Chechen prisoners,” Alderman said, checking the clock. “If we hurry, there still may be time.”
“What good would that do us?” Toliver challenged. “The Russians won’t negotiate, and the terrorists won’t go for half a pie.”
Halloway jerked her head around. “How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That the terrorists won’t go for half a pie.”
Toliver shrugged. “They never do.”
“I’m afraid Martin is right,” Alderman interjected. “It’s almost always all or nothing with these bastards.”
“Let’s find out for sure,” Halloway said and signaled to the communications officer. “I need to talk with the commanding general at Guantanamo Bay.”
“What are you planning to offer Aliev?’ Alderman asked.
“Everything and nothing,” Halloway said mysteriously.
She reached for the list of Chechen prisoners that had been faxed to the National Security Council. Somehow the terrorists had learned where every one of their fighters was imprisoned. There were twelve at Guantanamo Bay. None of the names were Arabic, but then Halloway knew that Chechens weren’t Arabs. They were from the Northern Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. And the type of terrorists the Russians and everybody else feared the most. Homegrown terrorists who knew the people and the customs and the terrain. They melted in with the rest of the population—until the killing started.
The communications officer called out, “Ma’am, I have General Nichols on the line.”
Halloway leaned forward and spoke into the phone. “General Nichols, this is Vice President Halloway.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“General, I’m going to fax a list of Chechens we have imprisoned at Gitmo. There are twelve in all.”
“I’m well aware of the Chechens, ma’am,” Nichols said promptly.
“Do they have a leader?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nichols reported. “Give me a moment to get his file.”
Halloway heard an order being issued, then the sound of papers being ruffled. She quickly organized the commands she was about to give.
Nichols’ voice came over the speakerphone. “Their leader goes by the name of Shamil.”
“Have him dressed and informed that he’s about to be released,” Halloway directed. “Then bring him to a room with a telephone. Tell him only that he is to speak with one of his Chechen brothers. Do you read me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was a pause as Nichols cleared his throat. “Ma’am, meaning no disrespect, but are you acting under the President’s orders?”
“I am,” Halloway said firmly.
“Could I have that order faxed to me, please, ma’am?”
Halloway hesitated and stared down at the unsigned document that transferred the powers of the Presidency to her. It was time to activate the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. She reached for her pen.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff grabbed the speakerphone and spoke into it. “Paul, this is Walter Pierce. Do you recognize my voice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then follow the Vice President’s commands,” Pierce said, his voice now rough as gravel. “We want that little bastard in a room with a phone in his ear, and we want him there within ten minutes. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The phone clicked off.
Pierce leaned back and apologized. “Sorry about that, ma’am. But you should know that Nichols is a top-flight officer. He was just being doubly careful.”
“As we would expect him to be,” Halloway said, nodding. “Have an order sent to him under my name.”
“We’ll need an interpreter to overhear the conversation,” Alderman advised.
Halloway glanced around the Situation Room filled wit
h staff and aides. Many were military, high-ranking and highly decorated. “Is anyone here fluent in Chechen?”
A middle-aged naval officer with a chest covered in ribbons stepped forward. “I am, Madam Vice President.”
“And you are?”
“Admiral Robertson, Director of Naval Intelligence, ma’am.”
“Stand by, Admiral.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Halloway took another sip of lukewarm coffee, again thinking all they needed was another hour. An extra hour would save two lives and give the Secret Service enough time to activate their rescue plan. And she could get that hour if only the Russians would help. But they weren’t going to budge. They weren’t going to release their Chechen prisoners under any circumstances. That would be too—
An aide hurried over to Emmett Sanders and whispered an urgent message in his ear.
“Get it up on the video screen,” Sanders ordered. “And show their projected course.”
“What have we got?” Halloway asked, redirecting her thoughts.
“Trouble,” Sanders said and walked over to the large video screen. “The Mexican fighter jets are now on a direct course to intercept the plane carrying the Secret Service Special Ops team.”
Halloway asked quickly. “How near are they?”
Sanders pointed to the screen that showed four Mexican jets slowly closing in on Eagle Two. “They are three hundred and thirty miles due south. They’ll make contact in twenty minutes.”
Halloway strummed her fingers on the tabletop, thinking fast. “How far away is the Reagan?”
“Our Hornets can be there in twenty-eight minutes if we launch now,” Sanders replied immediately.
“Damn it!” Halloway cursed at the thought of even more American lives being lost. “The Hornets will still be eight minutes late, and that exposes our plane for nearly the entire eight minutes. That’s an eternity up there.”
“Unless Eagle Two can somehow evade those Mexican jets,” Sanders told her. “Otherwise they’ll be forced to land or be shot down.”
Patient One: A Novel Page 22
