“Are you sure?” said Benadir.
“I won’t be using it,” she said, glancing at the building. “I’m stuck here at the hospital for the duration of my shift.”
She and Doc walked towards the medical centre while Benadir stayed in the car making some phone calls. Doc paused before entering the building. There was a litterbin fixed to the wall outside the door with a cigarette disposal box fitted to it. Doc bent down and picked up the cigarette butt discarded by Mr Sun. The cigarette was lavender coloured with a gold foil filter tip with the word Sobranie on it and a Russian double-headed eagle crest. Doc thought it was rather a girlie cigarette for a businessman to be smoking, but maybe this colour had a quite different cultural significance in China.
He strode to the litterbin and discarded the butt in the cigarette disposal box. Dr Flowers watched with approval. “That was very thoughtful of you. You’d think if people are going to insist on smoking, at least they could get rid of their garbage properly.” They walked in through the sliding doors.
The medical centre was a cool, pleasant L-shaped building. Her office was in the short section of the L, along with what been a specialised geriatric ward. “But there’s now a dedicated geriatric hospital across town and we use the ward for special situations, which is useful because I’ve put the paralysis cases in there, and isolated them. They’re being treated as we would any other coma patients, with one crucial difference. We’re making sure that there’s very limited access by nursing and clinical staff.”
“In case of infection,” said Doc.
“That’s right.” Dr Flowers glanced at her watch. “For the next twelve hours, I’m the only one authorised to go in there.”
She and Doc were sitting in her office which was decorated with various striking examples of native art, including a particularly handsome soapstone walrus which lay curled up on her desk between her computer and the fan unit from the gravid trap, waiting for its tiny prisoners to be removed.
“We’d like to talk to the patients immediately,” said Doc, “if they should recover the ability to speak.”
“Of course, although I wouldn’t be too sanguine about the prospects of that. The progress of the disease seems to be loss of speech, general paralysis, coma and then death.”
“Death?” Doc looked at her. “How can you be sure of that?”
Her hazel eyes were wide. “Didn’t I tell you? The little girl, Bleeke Drakeman. She had slipped into coma by the time her parents called us. The poor thing was admitted in a coma and died an hour later. She’s now in isolation in the morgue.”
Doc and Flowers sat there for a moment in silence. “Well,” she said, “I’d better get those mosquitoes transferred and ready for shipment to the mainland.” She smiled. “They’re probably buzzing mad about being cooped up all day.”
“Okay,” said Doc, rising from his chair. “Thanks again for letting us use your car.”
“No problem.”
“We’ll have it back here by the end of your shift.”
“Great, see you then.”
Doc walked out through the sliding glass doors of the medical centre into the bright sunshine of the parking lot. Benadir was waiting for him in the Jeep with the windows wound down. He opened the door and sat down beside her. She had her iPhone in her lap. “Are you sure you should have the windows open?” said Doc.
“You mean in case of mosquitoes?” She looked around. “We’re not even sure that the mosquitoes carry this infection. We just have the coincidence of two people being stung before they fall ill.”
Doc looked back at the small hospital. “Dr Flowers seems pretty convinced.”
“Well, I haven’t seen any mosquitoes yet, but if I do you can be damned sure I’ll swat them before they get a chance to bite.”
“You might not see them,” said Doc. “That’s the whole point. Millions of years of mosquito evolution have been shaped towards perfecting and insect we don’t see coming.”
“All right,” sighed Benadir. She pushed a button and all the windows in the Jeep slid shut. “Happy?”
“Not much,” said Doc. “She told me the little girl is dead.”
“Already? My god.”
They sat there in silence for a moment. Then Benadir said, “Speaking of mosquitoes, I’ve been thinking. Sofia and her research team would be the ideal people to study some samples, and to see if they can find the cause of the disease.”
“Good idea,” said Doc. “If Dr Flowers doesn’t mind sharing. She hasn’t got as many as she’d was expecting.”
“Yes, that was a bit weird about the other traps being wrecked.”
“Weird and suspicious,” said Doc.
“You don’t think it was kids then?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. Anyway, if we can get some samples of the mosquitoes I was thinking that the quickest way of getting them to Sofia would be for me to fly them back to Comox in the de Havilland Beaver and then have them airlifted to Milan in the Gulfstream.”
“I’d better check that Eva doesn’t mind parting with some of her skeeters.”
Doc walked back through the sunshine to the medical centre. The glass doors whispered open in front of him and he stepped into the air-conditioned coolness. As he turned down the corridor towards Dr Flower’s office a man in a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck was striding purposefully in the other direction. He disappeared into the isolation ward.
Doc took another three steps before he realised what he’d seen.
Then he froze.
What had Dr Flowers said?
For the next twelve hours, I’m the only one authorised to go in there.
8: Garrotte
Doc ran back down the corridor and through the double doors that led into the ward. It was a box-shaped room with four beds on either side, designed to be separated by curtains that enclosed them. Three of the beds on each side were unoccupied with their curtains drawn back. On the fourth bed on the right was a rotund man with white hair, face pale, eyes shut, wired up to a monitor.
In the bed on the right was a young Asian woman, similarly wired up. Standing bending over her was the man in the white coat.
He had a syringe in his hand.
He stared at Doc. “What are you doing in here?” he said. “This is an isolation ward.”
“I was just about to say exactly the same thing to you,” said Doc.
“I’m going to have to call security,” said the man. Doc noticed that he slipped the syringe back into his pocket.
“Let’s do that,” said Doc.
The man stepped away from the bed and strode briskly towards Doc. “Who exactly are you?” he said.
“I’ll show you my ID when you show me yours.” Doc turned to fall into step beside the man. As he did so, the man suddenly spun around and shoved his shoulder against Doc, like a rugby forward bursting out of a scrum. Doc was knocked backwards off his feet. He crashed down between two of the beds. For a fraction of a second he had the wind knocked out of him, then he began to scramble up. As he did so he heard the door of the ward slam shut.
Doc grabbed one of the beds as he struggled to his feet. But as soon as he put his weight on it the bed shifted on its wheeled legs and swerved to one side. Doc lost his balance and fell again, driving his right leg painfully down on the floor.
He cursed and fought his way to his feet. He ran for the door and slammed it open with an extended arm, emerging into the hallway just in time to see the man in the white coat disappearing through the sliding glass doors into the parking lot. Doc got to the doors just as they slid shut again. The man was halfway across the parking lot, moving fast towards the street.
There was no way Doc was going to catch him on foot. But Benadir, in the Jeep — Doc reached for his phone.
As he did so he heard Dr Flowers scream.
He turned and ran down the corridor towards her office. There was another scream. He reached the door and grabbed the handle. It was lock
ed.
A third scream.
Doc threw all his weight against the door and it burst open with a splintering of wood all around the frame. Inside Dr Flowers was standing at one end of her desk. At the other was a man in a business suit. The desk between them had been twisted around and disordered. The computer screen on it had been knocked flat and was lying face down, the fan unit from the mosquito trap was lying half on and half off the desk and the soapstone carving of the walrus had fallen off and was lying on the carpet near the door.
Evidently the desk had been at the centre of their struggle.
The man was holding his hands tensely stretched apart in a strange fashion, as if indicating the width of some invisible object. But he shifted position slightly as Doc came in and a tiny thread glinted in a tight horizontal between his hands. It was a length of monofilament, like fishing line.
Dr Flowers stared at him. “Doc, help me, he’s trying to —”
The man relaxed his posture, letting the monofilament go limp. He shook one of his hands, freeing it from the line. “Don’t move,” said Doc. But the man already had his hand in his pocket.
He took out a gun.
Doc stepped into the room, picked up the heavy soapstone carving of the walrus and threw it at the man. It hit him on the chest with a solid chunking sound and the man went back, legs in the air, gun flying from his hand, and landed on his back.
Dr Flowers darted for the door, colliding with Doc as she ran through it. Her eyes were wide with terror and Doc didn’t blame her for getting the hell out of there. But the collision delayed him for a second and the man was back on his feet.
The gun had landed in the corner of the room between two filing cabinets, just to the left of the door. Doc lunged towards it as the man reached down and scooped up the walrus carving. As Doc’s hand closed on the gun he heard the sound of breaking glass. He looked up to see that the window behind the desk had shattered and the man was climbing through it.
“Halt or I’ll fire!” shouted Doc over his shoulder, even though he was only holding the gun by the barrel. The man kept moving through the window. Doc shifted his hand on the gun, wrapping his fingers around the grip. It was a Walther P99 with a green polymer frame. It had the words Warning: Read Safety Manual embossed on the side in English and German. The thought flashed through his mind that there wasn’t going to be time for that. He’d used Walthers before. He checked for the red dot at the rear on the right side of the slide that confirmed there was a bullet in the chamber.
The gun was ready to fire.
He moved to the window just in time to hear a squeal of tyres. A tan Mercedes was accelerating across the parking lot. The man in the business suit was in the passenger seat. At the wheel was the man in the white coat. They were speeding towards the exit. Doc took aim, but even as he did so, he knew it was futile. He was too late. The car was already on the street, turning right, gathering speed.
A moving target, too distant for a handgun.
Too much chance of hitting a bystander.
He took his hand off the trigger and lowered the Walther. His heart was hammering in his chest and blood drummed in his ears. He took out his phone. For a second he thought of telling Benadir to give chase.
But it was too late for that, too. By the time he described the car to her it would be miles away.
He heard a sound behind him and turned to see the Dr Flowers was standing there, her face pale, eyes glinting with tears. She was shaking. “I thought he was a drug company rep. That’s what he said he was. But as soon as he was in my office he took out this thing, like a piece of wire —”
A garrotte, thought Doc.
“He tried to get it around my neck.” She stared at her desk and absent-mindedly moved the fan unit from the gravid trap back from the edge, then lifted her computer screen upright again. Tidying up. “Is he gone?”
Doc nodded. “Both of them are.” He punched Benadir’s number.
“Both of them?”
“There was another man, in the intensive care ward.”
Dr Flowers head swung sharply to stare down the corridor. “What?” she said.
“He was dressed in a white coat, but I don’t think he was a doctor.”
“He wasn’t,” said Dr Flowers fiercely. “I’m the only doctor who’s on duty today.”
Benadir answered her phone. “So what’s the story on the mosquitoes?” she said cheerily. “Is Eva going to share?”
“Get in here, Ben,” said Doc tersely and hung up. Dr Flowers was moving towards the door of the office and out into the corridor. He followed her.
She looked back over her shoulder at him. “The patients, are they all right?” She was moving swiftly now, almost running.
“I think so,” said Doc, trotting after her. “This guy had a syringe in his hand —”
“What?” Dr Flowers spun and stared at him.
“He didn’t have a chance to use it,” said Doc. But she wasn’t listening to him. She dashed to the ward, throwing the doors open, and disappeared inside. Doc followed her, reflecting on the impressive speed with which she’d forgotten all about her own plight, at the first hint that her charges might be in danger.
*
The policeman’s name was William Hestings. He was an inspector in ‘E’ Division of the RCMP — in other words, a Mountie. But he wasn’t wearing the scarlet jacket or wide brimmed hat one associated with Mounties. In fact he was dressed like any other policeman — white shirt and dark blue trousers. He was a thin, nervous looking man with large hands and a small light brown moustache. He didn’t particularly look like a cop, but he had an efficient manner and he asked all the right questions. His people had received notification about Doc and Benadir and their connection with Z5, which saved all manner of complications.
He took down descriptions of the men and their vehicle from Dr Flowers and Doc and then went off to put out an alert. “For all the good that will do,” said Doc. He and Benadir and Dr Flowers were sitting in the small canteen at the medical centre, since Eva’s office was now a crime scene. The canteen was a bright cheerful space with children’s paintings of butterflies on the wall and the coffee was good.
They had the plastic sample box of mosquitoes on the table in front of them. None of them were letting it out of their sight. Dr Flowers was convinced that the man with the garrotte had been after the mosquito samples. “It was the way he looked at the fan unit when he saw it on my desk. Like he knew what it was, and that it was important.” She squared her shoulders and her face assumed a determined expression. “Well, let me find a suitable sample container and then we’ll transfer some of these mosquitoes for you to send to your friends in Milan.”
Dr Flowers had the materials at hand for shipping the mosquitoes live, since she’d been expecting to send a large consignment to her friends at the university in Vancouver. These materials consisted of a pint ice cream container with a square of fine mesh spread over the open end. Once the mosquitoes were under the mesh she placed some tufts of moist cotton wool on top of it, and then added some raisins she had soaked in warm water. She smiled at Doc and Benadir. “The cotton is to provide a suitably moist environment for the mosquitoes. High humidity without any actual water droplets.”
“And the raisins?” said Benadir.
“Food for the trip.”
“I didn’t know mosquitoes ate raisins.”
“When they’re not drinking human blood,” said Dr Flowers. She snapped the plastic lid on the ice cream container, sealing in the mosquitoes under their cosy layer of mesh, complete with humidity control and food supply.
Doc examined the carton, which boasted that it contained Madagascar vanilla ice cream with Amaretto ripples. He looked at Benadir.
“You better warn our air crew not to sample the ice cream.”
She smiled. “Raisin and mosquito ice cream,” said Benadir.
“That’s a good point,” said Dr Flowers. She took the carton back and carefully sealed the lid
with tape and then added a large black and yellow sticker that read Danger Bio-Hazard. “That looks a little less appetising,” she said, and handed the carton to Benadir.
Dr Flowers was still insisting on working her shift that evening, and on lending her Jeep to them, so Doc and Benadir said goodbye and left her in the medical centre. “We’re going to need another vehicle,” said Doc as they stepped out into the sunshine.
“I’m way ahead of you,” said Benadir. “While you were inside I called up a car rental place.”
“So while I was fighting off assassins you were renting cars.”
“Just one car. That’s about the size of it.”
“Okay,” said Doc. “What did you rent?”
“I got you an Audi A4 sedan.”
“Oh I see, so I get the Audi and you get the Jeep.”
Benadir smiled. “I’m doing highway driving. You’re going to be hanging around town.” She shot him a glance. “At least, I assumed that’s what you’d be doing. What are you going to do?”
They came to the Jeep and got in. “I got the address of Edgar Honnington.”
“The first man to fall ill.” Benadir checked the rear view and started the engine.
“That’s right. I thought I’d pay a little visit to his house.”
“I hate to state the obvious, but there isn’t going to be anybody at home.” Benadir backed out of the parking space. “If I read his file correctly he didn’t have any next of kin.”
“No, but he did have a housekeeper and I’ve phoned her and arranged to meet her there.”
They pulled out into the street. “What do you hope to find out?”
“Whether he was stung by a mosquito, for a start.”
They drove into downtown Nanaimo — a small shopping area in the pleasant little harbour city — and collected the rental car. Doc and Benadir kissed goodbye and then she drove off. He watched her go wistfully then frowned at the Audi. It was a silver sedan, a nice enough car, but he still envied Benadir the Jeep, as she disappeared in it towards the airport in Cassidy with the box of mosquitoes riding shotgun.
Hard Targets: A Doc Palfrey Omnibus Page 19
