The Hunted

by Alan Jacobson

“Where am I?”

  “Virginia Presbyterian. You had a nasty car wreck and the paramedics extracted you from the vehicle and transported you here. I’m Dr. Farber.”

  The room was beginning to come into focus. Chambers rotated his head, searching for a wall clock. “How long have I been here?”

  “About two hours.”

  “Two hours—” He started to sit up, but he felt sharp thigh pain and his headache intensified. “Oh, that’s not a good idea.”

  “Careful there,” Farber said. “We had to do a little emergency surgery. Nothing major, but you had something lodged in your thigh and we had to get it out before you developed a nice little infection.”

  “Not to be ungrateful, Doc, but right now, my head is spinning and hurts a whole lot more than my leg.” Chambers put a hand on his forehead.

  “We gave you another shot for the pain, but it probably hasn’t kicked in yet. As for your head, I’ve got you scheduled for an MRI to make sure you don’t have any internal brain swelling. You took a hell of a blow. I’ve called neurology for a consult, but they’re a little backed up.” The doctor paused to sign a chart the nurse had handed him, then turned back to Chambers. “Mind telling me what your name is?”

  “My name?”

  “You didn’t have any identification with you, and the car you were driving in was reported stolen.”

  “My name. My name is... my name is... I don’t know. How can I forget my own name?”

  “You’ve suffered a concussion, probably from hitting your head on the steering wheel. Paramedics said you bent it pretty good. But it also appears as if you had another blow to the posterior portion of your head very recently. Judging by the looks of it, I’d say it’s not from this accident. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No, nothing.”

  Farber nodded. “How about where you were born, let’s start with that.”

  Chambers stared at the doctor, his mind as blank as the man’s white coat. “I don’t know.”

  “Can you recite the alphabet for me?”

  Chambers frowned. “A, B, C, D, E, F, G—”

  “Okay. I’m going to tell you a color, and I’m going to ask you in a minute what color I told you. Magenta. Got it?”

  “Magenta,” Chambers repeated. “Got it.”

  “By the way, what color is magenta?”

  “Kind of a purple-red.”

  “Good. Okay. Tell me, do you know where you live, what your home address is?”

  A long silent moment passed, then Farber clicked his pen open and jotted a note in the file. “How about what you ate for breakfast this morning?”

  “Eggs.”

  Farber regarded his patient for a moment. “You’re sure about that? Eggs?”

  Chambers looked away. “No, I’m not sure. I don’t remember eating anything this morning. I can’t even remember what I was doing before I woke up here.”

  “Can you count backwards by ones and threes?”

  “Look, Doc, are all these questions necessary?”

  Farber sighed. “Since I’ve called for neurology, I guess not. They’ll go through everything with you in much greater detail. I was just hoping to narrow down what we’re dealing with.”

  “How serious is this? I mean, I’m gonna get my memory back, won’t I?”

  Farber hiked his eyebrows. “Generally, the more severe the concussion, the more substantial the neurologic deficits could be. And if you’ve had any concussions in the past, it could make the effects of this one that much more significant.” Farber looked over to the nurse. “Can you page neurology again?”

  The nurse nodded and walked over to a wall phone.

  Chambers looked at Farber. The man was about thirty years old and had short, dark hair with deep rings beneath his eyes. “You look tired.”

  Farber smiled. “I’ve been on for thirty-three hours and I’m looking forward to a warm shower and a long, uninterrupted nap. Do you remember anything about what happened to you, how you got into the accident?”

  Chambers shook his head.

  “Do you know why you had a bullet in your thigh?”

  Chambers looked hard at the doctor. “A bullet?” Something wasn’t right. A stolen car, a bullet... am I a victim or a criminal? He felt an overwhelming sense of unease, of the need to protect himself. He looked away from Farber. “No, I—I don’t.”

  Farber pulled a penlight from his breast pocket and flicked it into Chambers’s eyes. Farber shook his head, then sighed again. “Well. Until we can find out your name, we’re going to call you John Doe. Like I said, you’re scheduled for that brain scan and I’ve been told the police have some questions for you—”

  “They asked me to let them know as soon as he’s lucid,” the nurse said.

  Chambers’s gaze shifted to the nurse. “The police—for what?”

  “Anytime a person comes into the ER with a gunshot wound, we’re required to notify them.”

  “Can’t it wait, I’m still feeling real tired.” He gave them a slow, gaping yawn and looked at the doctor with glassy eyes. “I don’t think I’m up to answering a bunch of questions just yet. Besides, I can’t remember anything.”

  Farber turned to the nurse. “Would you tell them he’s still out and it may be a little while?”

  The nurse frowned. “Yes, Doctor.” She disappeared out the door.

  “Doc, this memory thing is temporary, right?”

  “I’d prefer to look at it optimistically. But to be honest with you, until I get that consult from the neurologist, I can’t say how permanent, or temporary, it’s going to be. Diagnosing it properly is the key. There are a number of possibilities—postconcussion syndrome, retrograde or posttraumatic amnesia, and a host of psychological or organic causes. We’ve drawn blood and we’ll run a tox screen to make sure you haven’t ingested any kind of drug that’d explain your memory problems. The MRI will help. And depending on what that shows, we may also get an EEG to rule out epileptic disorders. Until we know when and where that bullet came from, it’s possible the bullet and the accident are completely unrelated. In which case, a seizure could explain why you drove off the road.”

  Chambers let his head fall back onto the pillow.

  Farber gently patted Chambers’s shoulder. “Radiology should be down for you shortly. You can rest here in the recovery room. When the X-ray techs come and wheel you out, the police may see you, so you may not have any choice but to speak to them at that point.”

  Farber scribbled his signature on the metal chart and hooked it to the end of the bed. “I’ll tell them they have to wait until after you get the brain scan, but my experience with the police is that they seldom listen to what I have to say.”

  “Thanks for your help, Doc. I’ll remember you in my will.”

  “Then for my sake, I hope that concussion isn’t too bad.” Farber turned and headed for the hallway.

  “Hey, Doc,” Chambers called after him. “You forgot to ask me something. Magenta.”

  Farber smiled, then walked out of the room.

  As soon as the door closed, Chambers eased himself off the bed, the pain from his left thigh finally masked somewhat by the medication. He felt a slight pulling sensation and reasoned it was stitches. As he stood upright, he felt dizzy and his head began throbbing more intensely, like a jackhammer on cement. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and waited for a few seconds for his eyes to clear before hobbling across the floor and through a pair of double doors that led to a supply room. There were trauma capes, surgical gloves, stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers, and an assortment of cath kits, electrode pads for ECG units, trach tubes... and surgical scrubs. He pulled out a pair of freshly folded burgundy pants, a shirt, and a surgical cap. He quickly slipped them on, tossing his hospital gown into a basket in the corner of the room.

  A bullet? he thought. That can’t be good.

  Until Chambers could determine if he was a felon wanted by the police or an innocent bystander, he could not put his trus
t in law enforcement. But one thing he felt he could trust was his instincts. And right now, they were telling him to put as much distance between himself and the cops as possible. Self-preservation was a powerful emotion.

  He took a stethoscope off a hook on the wall and wrapped it around his neck the way Farber had worn his. A few footsteps later, he was at the door and peering out. Two police officers were coming down the hallway, pointing at the adjacent room where he had been lying a few moments ago. He waited until the cops were nearly at the entrance to the recovery room, then pushed through the door.

  Chambers walked out of the supply room, heading down the corridor, trying to carry himself as naturally as the leg wound would permit. He wondered how long it would take the police to realize that he was the person they were looking for. They would probably grab a nurse or doctor and ask what had happened to the patient known as John Doe. Then, they’d flash on the doctor they had seen leaving the adjacent supply room, who was sporting a slight limp; they would do a quick search of the cabinets and find the bloodied gown. Then they’d be heading in his direction. All told, he probably had three minutes, unless something unexpected occurred.

  Chambers quickened his pace and a second later was turning down a long corridor where the hospital laboratory was located. He slipped into the sprawling, open suite, which was well-lit from above with banks of sleek, brushed-aluminum fluorescent light fixtures. A few lab techs were busy processing samples, and a nurse was dealing with a line of patients at a long counter.

  Chambers walked through the lab, still limping as he passed the reception station, and proceeded into the work area. He grabbed a patient chart and pretended to look inside while he thought about how he was going to get out of the hospital. He had no money, no car that he knew of—Farber had said the one Chambers had been found in was stolen—and nowhere to go.

  He closed the chart and headed toward the back of the lab, where he noticed an elevator. He took it up to the second floor and glanced out into the hallway: the sign indicated patient rooms, the cardiac care unit, and ICU. None of these would do.

  He needed food and a quiet place to think. But if the police started searching the hospital, it would be best if he was out of the building. Or would it? If he was lucky enough to avoid a search, he could wait a few hours and then leave. By then, they would be focusing their efforts elsewhere—why would a sane person remain in a place where the police were looking for him?

  The third floor was more promising, as the directory indicated that it was where the doctors’ lounge was located. As he approached, the smell of chicken and potatoes hung in the air. His stomach contracted again.

  He walked into the lounge and hesitated as he glanced around. A couple of physicians were sitting on a couch reading journals. Another was half-reclining, her eyes closed, the exhaustion of a long shift etched in her face. He continued on into the adjacent cafe, picked up a tray, and surveyed the food. I’ll take a little of everything, he felt like saying. Instead, he settled for a scoop of potato salad, a tall Coke, a ham-and-cheese sandwich on wheat, and a container of yogurt.

  At the register, an elderly woman smiled at him and began ringing up his food. “That’ll be six-eighteen.”

  “Oh,” Chambers said. “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you this is on Dr. Farber. He asked me to have you put it on his account.”

  The woman hesitated and crumpled her wrinkled face. “I really need verification—”

  “I should’ve told you before you rang it up.” He leaned closer to her graying hair and lowered his voice. “Dr. Farber lost a bet,” he said as he noticed the other cashier with the Washington Wizards T-shirt on. “Took the Wizards and lost big. Kept forgetting to pay up. Told me to grab a late lunch and have you put it on his tab.”

  “Dr. Farber shouldn’t be betting on basketball games. I didn’t never think of him as the gambling type.”

  Chambers shushed her with a finger to his lips. “He’s...a little embarrassed about it.”

  The woman nodded, consulted a hospital listing, and entered a key code into the register. She placed the receipt on the tray and nodded.

  Chambers shoved the receipt into his shirt pocket. “I’ll make sure he gets this so he can deduct it from what he owes me.” He winked at her and carried his food over to one of the tables in the far corner of the cafe, where he had a clear view of the entire lounge. With one eye on the entryway, he consumed the entire meal in less than five minutes.

  He pushed the tray aside and rested his face in his hands, trying to assemble what few facts he had into some sort of a cohesive scenario that might help him discover who he was: He had been shot in the thigh, stolen a car, and gotten into an accident on the highway after hitting a center median. He’d had emergency surgery, the police wanted to speak to him, he couldn’t remember his name, and he had no identification on him. Despite his best efforts, it was not coming together. He fought back a yawn, gathered his energy, and pushed himself up off the chair.

  Chambers left the lounge and felt the sudden heaviness of exhaustion pervading every part of his body. He made his way down the hall, checking nameplates on the walls, looking for a place where he could rest. He found the doctors’ on-call room and pushed in through the door.

  Three cots were set up inside the cramped room. He gingerly climbed on the one against the wall, curled into a ball on his side, and fell instantly into a deep sleep.

  The Virginia state policeman checked his watch and pressed the phone receiver to his ear. “We had security posted at all stairways and elevators the minute we realized he was missing.... Yes, sir, we’ve scoured the bottom floor.” The man looked at his partner. “Yeah, I guess it’s possible he got through to another floor before we posted the guards. He could have left the hospital, too. If I were him, that’s what I’d do. Get as far away as I could. But if he’s still here, what goes up has to come down, you know what I mean?” He nodded, then looked at his partner. “Any ambulances missing?”

  “I’ll check,” the other officer said, then walked off toward the ER intake desk.

  A few moments later, the officer returned just as his partner was hanging up the phone. “Well?”

  “All ambulances accounted for.”

  “Well, this is just fucking great. FBI’s getting involved. Agents are on their way over from the Washington Field Office.”

  “Feds?”

  “Yeah, they say he matches the description of a guy they’re looking for.”

  “We need to find him before they get here or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  The cop nodded. “We’ve got maybe thirty or forty minutes. Let’s do a thorough search of all floors. Between hospital security staff and the units already on their way, we’ll be able to cover the place in twenty, twenty-five minutes.”

  “Fucking feds,” his partner said as they strode purposefully down the hall. “This is our manhunt.”

  6

  Michael Chambers was in such a deep sleep he had hardly moved since lying down on the cot. In the past two days his body had been subjected to the type of trauma that would ordinarily take weeks to recover from. But for the time being, a few hours of uninterrupted sleep would have to suffice.

  At the moment, he saw himself wading barefoot through a rose garden. There were bright reds, whites, yellows, pinks... colors and varieties of roses such that he had never seen before. He stopped and looked down at his feet, which were standing in the cool, moist peat moss. A sweet scent hung on the air and he sucked it in deeply, filling his lungs with the competing aromas.

  He looked down again—and saw deep gashes across his feet, blood oozing everywhere, as if the thorns from the rosebushes had swarmed his bare legs and sliced the skin to shreds. He bolted upright in bed, instantly awake, and realized he was dreaming.

  As he struggled to see his feet in the dark, the door opened and light spilled into the small room, creating a tall, thin shadow on the wall next to the cot.

  Chambers threw a hand up to
his eyes to block the light. He looked around, still agitated from the nightmare, dizzy and completely disoriented. “What are you doing?” he shouted.

  His visitor, dressed in a light blue uniform, closed the door slightly and the room darkened again. “Sorry, sir, hospital security. I—I didn’t mean to wake you, but a patient’s taken off and he’s wanted for questioning by the police. We’ve got orders to search all rooms. Nobody’s come in, I take it.”

  “I’ve been on for thirty-three hours straight,” Chambers said, recalling what Dr. Farber had said to him. “I’ve been dead to rights ever since I fell asleep.”

  The man nodded, pulled out his flashlight, and swung it around the room beneath the three cots. “Okay. All clear.” He apologized again for disturbing him and left.

  Shit. They were searching the entire hospital. He wouldn’t be able to leave, at least not for a while. But since this room had already been checked, he would hopefully not have to pass the scrutiny of a real cop, one who wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded with a physician’s woeful story of exhaustion.

  He lay back, closed his eyes, and within seconds was drifting off again to a deep sleep.

  7

  The evening air had dipped below twenty degrees. Lauren hiked up the collar on her down jacket and watched as people filed into the cozy Herbert Green Middle School gymnasium. She tucked her gloved hands deeper into her pockets and closed her eyes. You can do this.

  Lauren caught sight of a smiling man who was bundled up in a parka, standing near the gym entrance. He was greeting people as they approached, even helping an elderly woman who was having a difficult time pulling the door open. After holding it for her, he took a moment to play with a little girl whose mother was reading a flyer she had been handed.

  The man reminded her of Michael... outgoing, always willing to help, good with people. Qualities Lauren wished she herself had.

  Lauren had gotten used to relying on Michael when facing an uncomfortable situation. He would be there by her side, coaxing her through it, always claiming to understand what she was going through. But having never been riddled with phobias of any sort, Michael could in no way understand the difficulties an agoraphobic faced in everyday life... the accommodations that had to be made. The excuses that had to be given. A fear of open spaces, of being out in public, of standing in lines, sitting in movie theaters, riding in elevators... as a psychologist, she understood what her problem was.