by Todd Borg
I peered through the glass. Nothing but darkness below.
I thought of Paco. Maybe he was already cut open, his organs being carved out. Or maybe Garcia hadn’t gotten to that point. Paco might still be conscious, waiting his fate with indescribable terror. There was no time to find a better way in.
I took the tire iron and put the tip at what looked like the most vulnerable point on the window-jamb. Tensing my muscles and grunting with effort, I rammed it in as far as it could go, then levered it up and down with ferocious force.
The metal skylight latch tore and popped with a screeching sound loud enough to be heard a block away.
I jerked the skylight up. Stepped over the skylight skirt and lowered myself through. Hung for a moment from the edge of the skylight. Based on the height of the wall, I guessed the drop to be maybe six feet. But when you can’t anticipate, you can’t land with any skill. I let go and fell.
FIFTY-ONE
My feet hit, and I crumpled to the floor, startled but unbroken. I got up. Going on Spot’s tail wag at the double door at the back of the building, I turned that direction. I put my arms out, moved in the darkness, feeling for something, anything.
My hands hit a wall. I followed it sideways. Came to a door. Found the knob, turned it, yanked it open.
I was in some kind of room, mostly dark but with little green and red lights here and there. LEDs from high-tech equipment.
I felt a stabbing prick in my neck. I jerked sideways and down, hitting some kind of bench.
Lights went on. I reached up and pulled a syringe out of my neck. I looked at it and saw that the plunger was half-way in.
“I’m sorry you had to intrude, Mr. Owen McKenna,” a man’s voice said from behind me.
My elbows were on the top of a low, wide cabinet. My knees were on the floor. My hand still gripped the syringe.
I felt dizzy, and I started to sink down. I gently stuck the syringe’s needle into the loose fabric of my shirt. I pushed the plunger in the rest of the way, allowing the remaining liquid to squirt out under my clothing where it wouldn’t be seen. Then I collapsed onto the cabinet. As I lay helpless, my last significant move was to drop the spent syringe on the floor where the man would see it and notice that the plunger was depressed all the way. I wanted him to think that I’d gotten the full dose.
“I could tell when I met you that you were dedicated,” the man said. “But this time your dedication has reached its end thanks to a shot of ketamine.
“Lovely stuff, I think you’ll agree. It’s sold on the street in small diluted quantities. Special K, its devotees call it. Makes for a wonderful escape from the real world.
“In full strength, it’s a great anesthetic for vets operating on animals because it doesn’t impair respiration as much as most other drugs. Pediatric physicians use it, too, because it works so well with children. Not so good with adults, though. With the dose I just gave you, it anesthetizes so thoroughly that the body eventually shuts down and turns off. But before you die, you’ll experience double vision and hearing problems and then something like nightmares. Finally, just minutes before you expire, you’ll get to enjoy severe hallucinations. It’s not a pretty sight, let me tell you. But don’t despair, it doesn’t take all that long, even though I injected it into your muscle instead of your vein.”
I gritted my teeth, grunted again, and rolled so I could see him.
Dr. Andrew Garcia stood between two gurneys. On one was his son Martin, covered with a sheet, a gas mask of some kind over his face. There was an IV pole with a bag and a tube running down to his arm. He looked to be unconscious.
Above were large flood lights, turned off.
On the other gurney was Paco, immobilized by straps at his ankles, wrists and across his chest. There was tape over his mouth. He strained, lifting his head and moaning. His eyes were huge, his lower lids raised and twitching.
I tried to call out to Paco, to reassure him, but my words were garbled. It felt like my entire mouth had been shot with Novocaine.
“Of course,” Garcia continued, “because I’m all by myself and can’t monitor Martin’s respiration while I operate, I’m using ketamine on him as well. But he has been gradually building up an adaptive comfort level with the drug, taking it in small amounts, adjusting his body and brain to its effects. He’s already part way under. I need only increase his dose a touch before I begin operating.”
Garcia held his arm out and turned around in a circle. He looked blurry, and his movement seemed to warp and shift in my vision.
“Do you like my little operating room? It’s not as sterile as you would find in a human hospital, and of course I don’t have the luxury of the latest medical equipment. But this place served me well for countless operations in years past. Mostly dogs and cats, of course. But also rabbits and guinea pigs, parrots and pigeons and hawks. I’ve operated on a pig and a cow. Why, I’ve even operated on a snake and an iguana.
“This operation on my son is a bit heavy with emotional involvement, but it is no more complicated than what I’ve done before.”
Garcia turned and looked at a computer screen.
“The time is near,” he said. “It’s been a long time waiting for the perfect donor match, struggling with the idiotic health protocols in this country. We came close with a good donor a year ago, but bureaucratic red tape prevented it from going through. So I took matters into my own hands. Fortunately, I had the sense to follow those stupid thugs when they followed you to your trap.
“For three days I’ve been giving Martin chemo in preparation for this moment. And just today his final, most powerful dose. I’ve just taken his blood sample and put it on one of those new biochemical assessment chips. It’s the latest miniaturized method for analyzing blood. I put a drop of blood on it and connected it to the computer. It looks for markers that indicate the existence or absence of the item we’re seeking. In this case, we need to know if all of Martin’s cancer cells have been killed. The result will be up on the computer soon. When I know that we’ve killed the last of his cancer, I can proceed to give him the bone marrow and kidney transplants that will give him back his life.”
I watched as two Garcias sat down at the computer, clicked two mouses in perfect synchronized movement.
My head throbbed. My tongue felt so swollen that it took up the entire inside of my mouth.
Both Garcias swiveled in their chairs to face me.
“A few more minutes,” they said, voices not quite in synch, echoing in my head.
“You know, when I was a child, my mother was prone to a terrible melancholy. She should have had anti-depressant medication. But she was not the kind to go to a doctor for such a thing. She called it la oscuridad. The darkness. I remember when it would get bad. She’d sit up in the night, her tears invisible to me except by touch. Sometimes she’d sob out loud. She told me about her own teenage years in Spain during the Depression and during the Civil War in the land.
“My mother asked her parents, my grandparents, if they would be safe, and they told her yes, there was nothing to worry about. Then came the bombing at Guernica. You’ve probably heard about it. One of the most cowardly atrocities ever, committed by Hitler and Mussolini and ordered by the despicable dictator General Franco.
“My grandparents told my mother that it was a terrible thing that Franco had done, bombing women and children. The Basque men who came back to Guernica were understandably outraged. But some of them – instead of focusing their anger on General Franco – they took out their passions on anyone that they felt were Franco sympathizers.
“My parents had always kept out of politics. When accosted by people who were angry, they said that they were neutral. But after Guernica, some people didn’t believe them. One day, some Basque teenagers accused them of being Nationalists, of being Franco supporters. My grandparents explained that they were neutral. Nevertheless, that night their house was lit on fire.”
Garcia’s voice got very quiet. “The family
had a dog, a terrier named Ruidoso. The dog slept in my mother’s bedroom. When the fire began to roar, he barked and woke my mother. They got out of the house. But my grandparents died, burned alive in their own home.
“While my mother lived, she said that it was only her body that escaped. The rest of her, her heart, her love, her life, burned up with her parents.”
Garcia stopped talking as if all energy had gone out of him. But I saw his chest rise and fall with heavy breathing. The red in his cheeks intensified. The color pulsed in my vision, and his face changed shape like it was melting, like in a Dali painting.
“I grew up in California. I had a good childhood. But when I was eight, my mother took her life. And with her life she took most of me. Ever since, I’ve felt as if I was only going through the motions. I’ve suffered the same darkness as she did. I would give my life to have her back for one day. Even in my veterinary practice, I was consumed with my loss. Every little dog or cat that I saved, I pretended it was my mother I was saving.
“I’ve never been to Europe, never been to the Basque country. But those Basque teenagers destroyed my life just as thoroughly as they destroyed my mother.
“Then along came Martin. Ironically, his mother was Basque. Our marriage didn’t last. But Martin made it worth it. Finally, I had some joy back in my life. And he was the embodiment of my mother. He looked like her. He talked like her. He moved like her. He smelled like her.
“Then he got cancer. This time, the darkness came for me worse than before. A bone marrow transplant was the only thing that could save him. But there was no match. We scoured the data banks. We hired a blood research lab to focus on our problem. The blood researchers told us that the best marrow donor would be type O negative, which is somewhat rare among most people but very common among the Basque.
“The researchers also identified several other specific components we had to match if Martin was to have the best chance of survival.
“So my genius was to talk Robert Whitehall into medical philanthropy. I told him about how Basque people had unusual blood and unusual DNA, different than all the people of the world. I told him that if researchers had more information about Basque people, it would hugely expand science and benefit all of mankind. I suggested that Whitehall fund medical services in communities where Basque lived. The stipulation to participating doctors was that they had to forward blood work information as part of the research project.
“When Whitehall agreed, I picked the communities where his foundation would offer his services. I even worked with his foundation’s secretary and helped him send out the proposals. We focused on several communities that had a good number of Basque people.
“Then, when we began to receive the blood work information on large numbers of people, I forwarded it on to the blood researchers we’d hired.
“Whitehall’s foundation performed an enormous service to the medical world. Not only did we find Paco, who is a perfect match for Martin, but we provided valuable information to the medical research community.
“I was able to strike up a relationship with Paco’s mother, become one of her customers, and learn more about her and the boy.
“Of course, hiring a research lab took a lot of money, but I figured out a great way to play the stock market by learning where Tahoe business people traveled and then researching what that might indicate about their companies. I had Cassie include information on Robert Whitehall’s movements. Of course, I already knew his travel plans, but it seemed a good way to keep me above suspicion. I made a lot of money playing the market with Cassie’s information, enough to pay for all of Martin’s medical care.
“It could have been so simple. After I’d developed a relationship with Cassie, I pretended to be one of the researchers and contacted her about further testing for Paco. She said that the research data that Dr. Mendoza forwarded to the foundation was supposed to be anonymous. So I explained that a person’s life was at stake. Even so, she evaded me. I knew the real reason why. She worried that Paco would be identified as an illegal alien and deported.
“That woman put immigration issues in the way of saving a man’s life!”
Garcia was panting. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly.
The room wavered. It looked like he would fall off his chair.
“So my choice was simple. After Franco killed so many Basque, the Basque took my grandparents’ lives and in the process destroyed my mother’s and mine. Now the Basque will give life back by saving Martin.
“At every step, people have gotten in the way, tried to keep me from having the most basic thing, life for my loved ones. Now I have taken control. I will do what I have to do.
“You should know that I offered Cassie a very large sum of money. All she had to do was let Paco be a donor. The operation would have been done by the best surgeons and taken place in the best hospital.
“But she said no. She didn’t trust me. She didn’t trust the immigration police. She didn’t trust our country.
“I didn’t want Cassie to die. But she left me no choice. So, using my travel/investment pseudonym of John Mitchell, I called her and set up a meeting. Then I had those men go to that meeting in place of me. They were to take care of her and bring me Paco. What a joke. I found out that the boy was more than a match for the men I hired. Good genes in that boy!” Garcia looked over at Paco who squirmed on the gurney. “But now I finally have him.”
I tried to speak, tried to say something that might slow him down, give me and Paco a little more time, but it came out as a long grunt with saliva sputtering off my buzzing lips.
“Martin is dying,” Garcia said as if in response to my gibberish. “There is no time left to wait and do yet more paperwork and get permissions and find an appropriate treatment facility. I’ve done bone marrow transplants on dogs. I’ve done kidney transplants. It is one of the simpler organ transplants. The internal organs of humans are quite similar to those of dogs.
“Unfortunately, Mr. McKenna, you have gotten in my way. But you will be gone, soon. The amount of ketamine in your system is fatal. And no one will find your body.
“I know a very nasty secret about a man who is the manager of a rendering plant. In exchange for my silence, he will arrange for you to join the cattle carcasses and other euthanized animals that are the supply line for his factory. They make a special meat and bone meal that is used in fuel for power plants. The efficiency achieved in burning this material is right up there with fossil fuels, yet it’s all recycled. It’s a really marvelous way to utilize a resource that is normally wasted. Your dried tissues and ground bones will eventually help run our electric lights and charge our smart phones.
“And, while I’m hoping that the boy survives this operation, the risk is substantial. If he doesn’t make it, he will join you, recycled for a better world.”
The computer printer made the sudden soft noise of pulling a sheet into the machinery. It began printing. Garcia picked up the sheet as it came out of the printer. He angled it toward the light to read it.
“Excellent,” he said. “The test results on Martin.” He looked at the paper. “Perfect. His cancer is gone, destroyed by the massive chemo treatment. Of course, that means his bone marrow is destroyed, too. This is the break point. From this point, Martin either lives and gets better, or he dies soon. No more purgatory. It is time to begin the process of saving his life.
“In the hospital, they begin the transfer of bone marrow as they are simultaneously doing the kidney transplant. However, I am just one doctor. So I’ll remove the boy’s bone marrow first, put it into Martin’s drip, and then remove the boy’s kidney.
“First, I’ll prepare the boy.”
Garcia rolled Paco’s gurney over near Martin’s. Paco strained at the straps holding him, his eyes frantic, his panicked cries barely coming through the tape over his mouth.
Garcia raised Paco’s gurney up several inches. He opened a drawer in a rolling cart and pulled out a 5 inch-long ne
edle as thick as a 16-penny nail. It had a red plastic, pistol-grip handle. Garcia set it on a tray. Next to it he set a syringe without a needle attached.
He reached into another drawer, pulled out a bottle and checked the label. From the same drawer, he took a small syringe with needle attached. He inserted the needle into the bottle and drew out liquid.
This was the moment. I needed to rise beyond the constraints of the drug in my body. I couldn’t talk, and my eyes saw everything in two images that wouldn’t come together. But I thought I could roll off the cabinet and let my upper body fall to the floor.
Maybe I could make it a controlled fall. A fall with forward momentum. If I could will my legs to make one or two steps, I might make it to Paco. But I was so light-headed that I thought I’d faint.
I remembered from my cop days something a medical instructor said. She told us that if you are wounded and suffering from trauma, you can sometimes avoid passing out by simply bearing down and clenching your abdominal muscles as if you’re about to cough. The tension keeps your blood pressure up and helps maintain blood flow to your brain.
One other thought came through from a decade or more in the past. A fight instructor had spoken about the power of a roar. His example was lions and elephants who can immobilize most creatures with a simple thundering vocalization. Although I couldn’t speak, if I could make a loud noise while I made some kind of movement, maybe I could distract Garcia from his deed.
I shut my eyes and tried to contract my core muscles like I was doing abdominal crunches. Then I twisted my legs, rolled off the cabinet, and fell to the floor.
FIFTY-TWO
I landed with my left foot forward and my right foot back. My right knee smashed onto concrete. I spread my arms out and down, fingers splayed, hoping to catch myself if I fell sideways. Yet I had no clue whether I was listing sideways or not. My focus was on clenching my gut, keeping up the inner tension, trying to maintain consciousness.
