The Secret Patient

by Vaughan W. Smith

  His legs were more than just complaining now. Each step was painful and forced. He wanted to stop constantly, but kept forcing himself to make that one more step. He tricked his mind, by promising to stop soon. Just a few more steps. But he kept changing the goal posts, and keeping his momentum.

  As he passed a rubbish bin he tossed in his hat. He was outside now, and there was less chance of being recognised. Wearing a hat might bring himself more attention. He didn’t break stride, and watched his hat sail into the open bin.

  “Ha-ha, good shot,” he thought. He used the good feeling to push through a few more steps. He heard the sound of a man walking, and turned slowly to take a look. He recognised the man as one of those who had run past him as he had left the hospital doors.

  “Shit, maybe that’s the guy. Just take it easy, play cool,” Nathan told himself. He wanted to change direction, his pace or go hide somewhere. But decided to act normal. Surely he would attract more attention by changing his behaviour. He kept walking, trying not to look behind him. He heard the footsteps loudly, like they were closing in. But he couldn’t tell where they were. So he just kept walking, hoping that he didn’t suddenly get tackled out of nowhere.

  He saw the gates that Frank had mentioned, and the footpath on the main street. Nathan got a renewed surge of energy, and made for the main exit. Once he was out there, he was almost free. Freedom was so close, he could feel it. The pain in his legs was forgotten and he pushed forward. The loud footsteps of his pursuer were distant now, clearly the man had not spotted what he was looking for. The exit was getting closer, only steps away.

  And like that he stepped out of the hospital grounds and onto a main street. He turned left as Frank had suggested and looked behind him. The hospital looked large and imposing, but he was finally leaving. The pain and anguish of the past few months started to leave him with every step. Like he was leaving it there.

  That pain was replaced by the fire in his legs. The surge of adrenalin that got him out, had been exhausted. Now his legs were giving up too. The initial danger seemed to be over, and they were threatening to collapse on him. But Nathan had come too far to give up now. He slowed, but kept moving. Frank would find him, in time. Until then, he knew what to do.

  30

  The Secret

  Elizabeth looked at Dr Malberg. Her mind was filled with doubt. Had she done the right thing? Had she missed something?

  “Why don’t you just let him go and we will forget about this,” she said, using a bluff to buy more time.

  “You don’t get it do you? You don’t have anything useful, certainly not a bargaining chip. Why would I cave in to your demands?” Dr Malberg said, taking the bait. Elizabeth needed to keep him on the hook longer. She didn’t know how this would play out, but until she heard something to suggest that Nathan was free she had to keep playing along.

  “You keep saying that, but don’t explain why I’m wrong and why the information I have is not a threat to you,” Elizabeth said.

  “Look, I’ll admit you are resourceful and definitely clever. You have made it this far, and you’ve tried to bluff me. But I know the game. If you knew more you would lead with it, not keep it in reserve.”

  “So it’s that bad huh?”

  “Keep trying, you won’t succeed. I will repeat myself: I am not giving you anything. You are just wasting time here. My colleagues will arrive soon and they can deal with you,” Dr Malberg said. Elizabeth wondered about that. If Don and Nod were going to take her again, why was Dr Malberg threatening her with it? Was that some sort of signal? Her train of thought was interrupted by Dr Malberg’s phone ringing on the floor.

  “I should answer that,” he said, looking over at it. Elizabeth ran over and picked up the phone, looking at the number dialling. It was Don.

  “This is your backup?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. I do make a habit of answering my phone though,” Dr Malberg said. His reply frustrated her, but she ignored him. If Don was calling Dr Malberg it meant one of two things. Either they had succeeded, or they had failed. But which was it?

  Elizabeth held onto Dr Malberg’s phone and pulled hers out. No calls or messages.

  “Why have I heard nothing?” she wondered, staring at the phone. They had a plan, and it should have worked. She had clearly missed something, that much was clear due to Dr Malberg’s frustrating smugness. But it shouldn’t matter if they could get Nathan clear. That was what mattered the most.

  “How long are you going to hold my phone hostage? I thought this was a negotiation?”

  “As long as I need to think this through,” Elizabeth said. It was the truth, she needed to figure out the best path out. If someone was coming, she had to leave. But if Frank had failed, she needed to get something useful from Dr Malberg. Which way did she go?

  Elizabeth felt a vibration, and looked at her phone again. There was a single message.

  Go

  She didn’t know if it was success or failure, but she couldn’t waste time processing it. She had to trust Frank. She returned her phone and threw Dr Malberg’s phone at him.

  “Catch,” she said. It was ringing again, and he was focused on catching the phone. Elizabeth turned and ran, heading straight for the door. She had no idea what was coming, so sped down the stairs as fast as possible. She didn’t look back once, just focused on moving ahead. She burst out from the building and rounded the corner, heading for her car. As she closed in, she retrieved her keys and opened the door, jumped in and turned on the engine. Within moments she was away, driving.

  “Well, that’s done. I don’t feel great about that though,” she thought. In her mind she had built up a big confrontation between her and Dr Malberg. She would batter him with evidence and he would confess and give up everything in exchange for telling his story. It was all neat and perfect, her investigation solving the day. But the reality was that she had no story, he laughed at her, and her every hope was pinned to Frank getting Nathan out of there. It was completely different to her last big story.

  “At least I haven’t been hospitalised yet,” she said and laughed. There were certainly drawbacks to how she had done things in the past. And if she was honest, that approach would have failed here. Well she may have failed anyway, she wouldn’t know until she reached the meeting point.

  Elizabeth drove on for another hour, until she reached an old run-down house. It was out of town, and the front garden was completely overgrown. She parked the car across the road, and walked up to it. The rusted gate was closed but not locked, so she unlatched it and walked down the pebbled path. It was a cute little house, but had certainly seen better days. But it would be safe. She knocked on the white front door three times, and waited. There was no response. She noticed some movement in the curtains from a nearby room, and then heard footsteps. The door opened, and Frank was standing there.

  “Come in,” he said, giving nothing else away. Elizabeth walked in and followed him down the hallway. At the back was a kitchen, with a dining table opposite. Seated at the table was Nathan. He smiled at Elizabeth.

  “Forgive me for not getting up, I’ve had quite a night.”

  “I’ll bet. I can’t believe it,” Elizabeth said, running over and giving Nathan a hug.

  “Easy there, everything hurts,” Nathan said.

  “But you’re here. Great work Frank.”

  “It was a team effort, we all played our part. How’d you go with Dr Malberg?” Frank said.

  “He was a tough one. Didn’t crack no matter what I threw at him, even laughed me off. I missed something crucial. There’s still a mystery to be solved here.”

  “This might help,” Frank said, emptying the contents of his backpack onto the table. Paper spilled out everywhere, and at the end a USB stick bounced out.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “If you’re thinking the contents of Dr Malberg’s files then yes.”

  “I wasn’t sure you could get these. This is incr
edible. He’s going to freak out when he discovers they are gone.”

  “Well I employed a few of my lesser known skills to liberate these documents. I hope they prove useful.”

  “Whatever we need will be in here somewhere.”

  “Well, as curious as I am I don’t think I can keep my eyes open any longer. Besides, this was your invention, your story. You get the honours,” Nathan said, pointing to the pile of paperwork.

  “Thanks, although why do I get the suspicion that you hate paperwork?”

  “No reason,” Nathan said with a smile. “I’ve got a room set up for you Nathan, I’ll take you over,” Frank said. He helped Nathan stand up and the two of them walked out of the room.

  “Just me and the paperwork. Just you wait Dr Malberg,” Elizabeth said. She grabbed all the paperwork and started sorting it out. From flicking through she could see that there were different types of records. Patient records, payment information and letters. The patient records she sorted into many different patients. However she focused on just two piles: Nathan and Susan.

  Nathan’s records were not all that interesting. Records of his medication, which she already knew from the blood test information. His vital readings were noted, but that didn’t seem to be too telling. Another interesting thing to note though, was the fact that they took blood from him regularly. And recently they did so again right after the botched attempt where he had smuggled her out a sample.

  “Interesting,” Elizabeth thought. She noted that for future reference.

  Next she scanned through Susan Montgomery’s records. She was on a similar list of medication, which made sense with Elizabeth’s theory that they were using Nathan as a guinea pig for treatments. But apart from the fact that she knew something was missing, there was another thing to note. Susan didn’t get anywhere near the same number of blood tests, and she even received regular transfusions.

  “They are taking blood from Nathan regularly, and giving blood to Susan. Let me look at the dates,” Elizabeth said to herself. She compared the dates and noticed a pattern. The blood transfusion always followed the blood samples from Nathan by a day, without fail.

  “So, if I’m right they were putting Nathan’s blood in Susan? Why?” Elizabeth wondered.

  “Turn up anything yet?” Frank asked as he entered the room.

  “Maybe, some odd correlations between blood samples taken from Nathan and blood transfusions to one of the patients that Dr Malberg was treating.”

  “That sounds like something.”

  “Possibly. But what I’m most concerned about is trying to find out about Nathan’s condition and health. I’m no doctor, but the vital charts they have recorded seem within the normal levels. But since he’s not monitored and not receiving treatment I want to make sure that we’re not being irresponsible by having him here.”

  “You think he might need to go back to hospital?”

  “I hope not, but I’d rather find that out now than later.”

  “Makes sense. I’m sure the last thing he wants is to go back to a hospital, but we should do our best to eliminate that as an option,” Frank said.

  “Why don’t you help me read through this stuff? How are you with financial statements and payment ledgers?”

  “Not great, but I’ll take one for the team,” Frank said. Elizabeth directed him to a pile and he started looking through.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “How about any reference to Susan Montgomery. We know she’s currently being treated, and Dr Malberg referenced donations when I first contacted him. If she’s top of the list I bet there’s some money involved,” Elizabeth said.

  “Right, I’m on it,” Frank said. Elizabeth exhausted her stack of patient records and started thumbing through the letters.

  They were mostly generic letters, reporting results and getting approval for continued research. However there wasn’t anything useful that jumped out at her. She saw a few references to ‘CM’ but not enough to draw any conclusions about it.

  “I keep seeing references to CM, and I know that was a label on Nathan’s door. I think it’s most likely the codename for the research program Dr Malberg was running.”

  “Sounds about right. I’ll note any references to it in these statements,” Frank said. Elizabeth kept flipping through, then stopped and turned back to the letter she had just been looking at. Something had jumped out at her. She read the letter back again.

  “This is it,” Elizabeth said looking over at Frank with excitement. He looked up and waited to hear more.

  “You are hereby granted approval to begin the CANCERMAN program,” Elizabeth said, reading out the letter.

  “Who authorised it?”

  “The head of research.”

  “Well that’s going to come back to bite him.”

  “It should, it really should. Well we have a name now, and I’m guessing that’s what CM stands for,” Elizabeth said.

  “Has to be. Nice find,” Frank said.

  “One step closer. But I’m still missing something,” Elizabeth said. She went back to reading through the letters, but after a few minutes exhausted her stack.

  “I think the really sensitive stuff is not here. But maybe...” she said out loud sweeping through the piles of documents with her hand. She uncovered the USB data stick and held it up.

  “You have a computer here?” she asked Frank.

  “Yeah, let me show you,” Frank said. He led Elizabeth back down the corridor to a separate room set up as a study. There was a monitor and keyboard sitting on a brown desk, with the computer tower sitting on the floor nearby.

  “It’s an older machine but still works fine. I’ll log in for you,” Frank said. Once he had done so he let Elizabeth sit down and went to fetch a chair. He plonked one down next to her. Elizabeth inserted the USB stick and waited for the computer to respond. On the drive was a single folder labelled ‘CM’.

  “This looks like it lets take a look,” Elizabeth said. She opened the folder and was prompted for a password.

  “You don’t think it would be this obvious would you?”

  “What are you thinking?” Frank said. Elizabeth typed in ‘CANCERMAN’ and hit enter. The password prompt disappeared for a few seconds, and then the folder opened, showing a list of documents.

  “Bingo. Now we’ve hit the pay dirt. Great find getting this USB Frank.”

  “No worries, glad you could crack it open.”

  “Let’s see here,” Elizabeth said scanning through the list of documents. She opened up one titled ‘Executive Summary’.

  “Oh my god,” Elizabeth said, once she read the first few paragraphs.

  “Does that say what I think it says?” Frank asked, looking at Elizabeth with surprise.

  “Yeah. These guys are super literal. When they say Cancer Man, they mean it. Nathan is the man. I can’t believe I’m saying this. Nathan is the fucking cure for Cancer,” Elizabeth said. Her voice rang out in the room, hanging in the air. It was a preposterous notion, but there it was in the report.

  “How is that even possible?” Frank said.

  “I don’t know enough about this stuff, but it says there’s something in his blood. His white blood cells can target and eliminate cancerous cells. That explains all the blood transfusions. And Dr Malberg talking about the problems scaling up his treatment. They were bleeding Nathan to cure other people,” Elizabeth said. She leaned back in the chair. It explained so much, but it just seemed so unbelievable.

  “This is big. This is really big. How can something like this fly under the radar?”

  “Well, you did say Dr Malberg was profiting from it. I’ll dig through the financials more. Do you think there was any high powers privy to this?” Frank said.

  “You mean the government?”

  “Yeah. If they are, this changes everything.”

  “I’m not sure let me read through more of these documents,” Elizabeth said. Frank left the room to go back to the financial statemen
ts and documents. As Elizabeth kept reading she discovered that initial trials were done by treating Nathan with the same chemotherapy as used on the patients, to make sure there weren’t any strange reactions. However once they noticed the impact on his energy levels, they decided to keep the chemotherapy up at low levels as a safety mechanism to prevent him leaving on his own.

  “This is madness. How can they get away with this?” Elizabeth thought. They were not only ignoring their duty of care, they were slowly killing him. And profiting from it.

  “Donation method used to subside funding problems,” Elizabeth read out loud. It was all there in black and white. Elizabeth just stared at the screen, trying to understand the magnitude of it all. Frank returned carrying some paperwork.

  “I’ve got a theory,” he said.

  “Sure, throw it at me.”

  “When did you say the last museum burglary was?”

  “Oh it was a few weeks ago.”

  “Well strangely enough, there was a large donation on behalf of Susan Montgomery about one week later. I think if we look back and corroborate with a source at the museum we might see a pattern.”

  “So you think Albert was stealing to fund his daughter’s treatment?”

  “Sounds like the right motive to me. Would also explain why they never publicised the thefts.”

  “Yeah, it makes sense. That explains the weird connection between the museum story and Nathan’s story,” Elizabeth said.

  “I don’t know how you ended up picking those two stories.”

  “Yeah, pretty strange. Something to mull over, when I’m bored,” Elizabeth said. She went back to looking through the files on the computer. Then she stopped and turned to Frank.

  “What do we do about this?”

  “We sleep on it. We can talk about it with Nathan tomorrow.”

  “Good idea, I’m going to go crash on that couch I saw,” Elizabeth said.

  When she awoke, it was early in the morning. She sat up, stretched and then walked off to the kitchen. She saw Nathan up and sitting at the kitchen table.