Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (36 page)

Lumbergh couldn’t possibly conceive what kind of bond the two had seemingly formed
while Carson was a captive, but it was clear whatever foundation it had been built
upon had just come crumbling to the ground. It was also apparent, to the chief ’s
immense frustration, that he couldn’t take off after Sean. Not now. He couldn’t leave
a direly wounded Andrew Carson—who was asking for his help—alone at the hands of
one of the people who had abducted him.

Lumbergh cursed and pulled his radio to his mouth. He got Redick back on the air
and told him to call for an ambulance. Redick pushed back, demanding more details.

“A man’s been shot, Redick! Now get me that ambulance and get your fat ass out here!
I need you to take my place!”

As the lawmen argued back and forth over the radio, Lumbergh’s eyes drifted to the
gaze of the little girl who sat in the corner of the room. She was sitting perfectly
still, clearly too frightened to do much else. She took shallow, labored breaths.
The purity and innocence in her face provided a surreal contrast to the chaos that
was ensuing around her.

He could only imagine the emotional damage the scene being
played out caused her,
adding to whatever ailment she was dealing with physically.

“Anna,” said Jessica. “If you need your oxygen, it’s under your bed, okay, Peanut?”

The girl shook her head.

“Sir,” Jessica said to Lumbergh. “Can you put something under his feet? They need
to be raised up again.”

Lumbergh waded up some small blankets and used them to elevate Carson’s legs. It
was then that he noticed for the first time that Carson had been treated for an older
injury. He had large bandages and gauze wrapped across his stomach. They were poking
out from under what was left of his shirt.

“Are you touching me?” Carson unexpectedly asked. “My legs?”

Lumbergh nodded through narrow eyes.

Carson’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling. He looked utterly defeated. “I can’t feel
them,” he stuttered. “I can’t feel my legs. Not again.”

Lumbergh and Jessica exchanged sober glares.

When Jessica turned her head to Carson, her eyes bulged and she screamed out, “Oh,
Jesus!”

Carson’s eyes were rolled up into his head and his body began to seize.

“What’s happening?” Lumbergh shouted.

Chapter 32

S
ean couldn’t believe he had fallen for the doctor’s stunt with the snowmobile.
It was a common ploy used in countless television programs and movies in the 1980s,
and thus he should have known better.

Lock the accelerator down and let the vehicle drive on its own
. Misdirection 101.

“We’ve never been properly introduced, mate,” said the doctor with some gruff in
his voice.

Both men stood facing each other inside the small shed as the weather wailed outside.
The doctor was a small man, much smaller than he had looked from the road. His back
was to the door. Sean’s arms were raised. The flashlight beam trained on his face
by the doctor kept him partially blind while the red laser light pasted to his chest
kept him still. Sean could barely make out the features of the doctor’s face and
he couldn’t see the gun well. All he knew was that it was definitely a handgun, not
a rifle. The sound of the snowmobile’s engine buzzed steadily, somewhere in the background.
The vehicle was probably pinned up against a tree, still in gear.

Sean said quickly, “You’re Dr. Phillip Robinson, Australian asshole.”

The doctor said nothing for a moment. Sean’s brazen words seemed to leave him stunned.
He finally let out a snort and a snicker. A wide grin formed on his face from behind
the glare of the flashlight.

“Well, they told you who I am, did they?” he said.

“They told me enough. They think you’re some kind of hero. An angel sent from above
to save a little girl’s life.”

The doctor nodded. “But you don’t think so?”

“No. I think you’re the first doctor I’ve met who doesn’t care about life at all.”

The doctor’s body tensed and he angrily snapped the laser beam from Sean’s chest
to his forehead. Sean fought back the urge to turn away. If he was going to die,
he was going to go out with dignity. He glared forward, nostrils flaring.

“You ignorant bastard!” the doctor growled. “What I’m doing, I’m doing to save
many
lives!”

“Bullshit!” Sean fired back. “Someone smart enough to have come up with a cure for
cancer wouldn’t have to treat a patient in some backwoods, boarded-up restaurant.”

The doctor’s body shook in rage. Sean expected his finger to pull the trigger at
any second.

“She doesn’t
have
cancer, you bloody toad!” he screamed out.

“What the hell does she have then?”

“It’s called amyloidosis. I wouldn’t expect you to have heard of it!”

The term was completely foreign to Sean, but he recognized that the doctor’s contemptuous
need to validate his actions might buy him some time. He half wondered if that was
all that had kept him from getting shot outside.

“What is it?” he asked, remembering the wrench wedged in the back of his pants. His
shirt was pulled down over it, so the doctor hadn’t seen it when they were outside.

The doctor scoffed. “I’m not going to waste my time explaining concepts like amyloid
protein, blood marrow, and platelets to a man of your limited intellect, Mr. Coleman.
Not to some mall cop.”

“I ain’t a mall cop, asshole.”

“Whatever. In commoner terms, let’s just say that it’s a rare disease that leads
to a person’s organs shutting down. Most people
who have it are much older than Anna,
but that’s what the girl has nonetheless.”

“Why is she bald if she doesn’t have cancer?” Sean asked.

“Oh Christ, you imbecile,” the doctor sneered in condescension. “Chemotherapy isn’t
just used for cancer patients.” He was about to continue when Sean interrupted him.

“So you think you can take whatever’s in Norman Booth’s blood plasma and use it to
cure amy-loid-whatever it is?”

“Amyloidosis,” the doctor pronounced in irritation. “No. I don’t
think
I can cure
it. I
know
I can.”

“And you’re going to do it here? Instead of in a hospital?”

The doctor’s shoulders lowered. “My methods are considered too controversial for
the medical community; not just in the States, but also in my country.”

“Is there
any
country in which kidnapping someone, strapping them to a bed, and sucking
their insides out
wouldn’t
be controversial?”

The doctor cackled and shook his head. “You narrow-minded buffoon. You and the rest
of the reactionary sheep. . . You never think about the big picture. You never think
outside of the box,
as they say. Every genius of his time was considered too unorthodox—too
abstract for what society was comfortable with. Darwin. Tesla. . .”

“So you’re a genius now?” Sean asked with a forced chuckle. “
Dr. Phil
is the next
Einstein?”

The doctor glared at him coldly. “No, Mr. Coleman. I don’t presume to be one of the
historical greats, but I do aspire—at the very least—to acquire the recognition of
James Harrison.”

“James Harrison? The president?” asked Sean.

“You bloody moron!” the doctor sputtered. “You’re a Yank and you don’t even know
your own bloody history! William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison!
They
were
your bloody presidents!”

“Thanks for the history lesson. I’ll remember that next time I’m on
Jeopardy
.”

Something outside caught Sean’s attention, something just
around the edge of the
broken door. It was a streak of light that lit up the blowing snow for the briefest
of moments. It went unnoticed by the doctor who still had his back to the door. The
light didn’t seem to have come from the snowmobile. The beam was too thin and the
direction was wrong.

“James Harrison is an Australian bloke,” continued the doctor. The comment drew Sean’s
eyes back to him. “He’s the most famous plasma donor in the history of the world.
The man with the golden arm
, they call him. Harrison has an unusual plasma composition.
So unusual that it is used to treat Rhesus disease. He’s been donating regularly
for years, and it’s estimated that his plasma alone has saved around two million
unborn babies from the condition.”

The light flashed through the air outside again. This time it was broader in scope.
Someone was approaching the shed. Sean shifted his focus back to the doctor. “How
can you compare
yourself
to Harrison?” he asked. “If Norman Booth’s the one with
the super-plasma—the plasma that’s gonna save lives—isn’t
he
the next James Harrison?”

“He could have been,” the doctor answered quickly. “And that’s what Jessica and Adam
told him when they met with him. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to be a part of history.
So I’m afraid he won’t be sharing the spotlight now. His sacrifice, however, will
be preserved in the work that I’m doing. Just as Anna’s will.”

Sean’s heart skipped a beat. His eyebrows shot up in shock. “What do you mean by
that? Anna’s sacrifice? What sacrifice?”

The doctor hesitated before continuing. “I’m afraid it’s too late for the girl. If
I had gotten to her sooner . . . if Booth would have agreed months ago to work with
us . . . I possibly could have saved her.”

Sean’s mouth hung open. He couldn’t form the words to speak.

The doctor continued. “Her organs . . . her heart . . . Her body’s going to shut
down regardless of what I do. It’s too weak, too damaged. She’s on a transplant list,
but she won’t reach the top
of it in time. People with amyloidosis aren’t prioritized
due to the systemic nature of the disease. The postoperative mortality is high as
well. Many doctors believe a transplant is a waste of time.” He took a breath before
continuing. “What I learn from her before she dies is going to save many others who
suffer from amyloidosis, or
will
suffer from amyloid heart disease in the future.
How her body reacts to what I pull from Booth’s
super-plasma
, as you call it, will
provide every answer I need. The others will live because of her, and I will never
forget that she gave me the tools I needed to make that happen.”

“That’s what all this is about, you son of a bitch?” Sean shouted. “Your
legacy
?
That girl’s family thinks you can save her! They think that every single thing they’ve
done has been to keep Anna alive!”

The doctor remained silent.

“You lied to them! You told them that she was going to live!”

“Yes, I lied!” shouted the doctor, his body shaking with anger. “Because this work
is more important than them. It’s more important than Norman Booth. It’s more important
than Andrew Carson. And it’s sure as hell more important than Sean Coleman.”

Sean watched over the shoulder of the enraged doctor as the door directly behind
him was slowly pulled open—not by the wind—but by someone.

“I was
meant
to do this!” screamed the doctor in a tantrum. “Do you understand that?
I was meant to! Just weeks after I explained my theories over the phone to Jessica,
she miraculously found the very type of donor I needed! Do you have any idea what
the odds were of that? Do you have the foggiest notion of how rare and valuable a
man like Norman Booth is?”

Sean said nothing. He held his eyes on the doctor.

“Anna’s death won’t be in vain, I assure you. Others will live because of her. And
before
you
die, Sean, you should know that your sacrifice will be equally appreciated
as well.”

“Phillip!” a man’s voice rang out from the dark.

Sean’s forearm instinctively covered his own face.

The doctor lunged against the wall beside him and spun around, keeping his gun pointed
at Sean while he directed the flashlight in the opposite direction from where the
voice had come.

Adam’s wet glasses and swollen face were suddenly lit up like that of a monster from
a climactic scene in a horror movie. Blood from the beating Sean had given him earlier
stained his upper lip. He wore a thick jacket and strands of his otherwise matted
hair were swaying in the wind. He held a flashlight, pointed at the floor. He held
something else in his other hand. His intense eyes scorched a hole right through
the doctor.

“Adam!” the doctor said nervously, flipping his head back and forth between him and
Sean. “I got him. He didn’t get away!”

With no beams now directed at him, Sean carefully lowered his right hand, inching
it toward the swell of his back.

“I heard you,” said Adam in a hoarse, bleak voice. His head shook ever so slightly.
“I heard it all.”

The doctor said, “I don’t know what you think you heard, Adam, but—”

“You used us, you son of a bitch!” Adam howled. “She’s going to die. Anna’s going
to die and you used us! You told us she would be all right!”

Thick tears rolled down Adam’s cheeks from under his glasses as the expression on
his face leapt between despair and rage.

Sean’s hand gripped the large wrench wedged in his jeans.

“Take it easy, mate,” said the doctor. “Listen, there are things I can do for her.
Things to make her more comfortable.”

At those words, Adam’s face recoiled, twisting into something that nearly didn’t
look human. A mask of pure fury. His arm rose quickly, and in his hand was the gun
Sean had lost back in Anna’s room. The laser sight left Sean’s chest. Sean gripped
the wrench tight and lunged at the doctor.

Two deafening gunshots rang out in the small building, each lighting up the entire
room for a fraction of a second. The flickers of light granted Sean a flash of visibility
just long enough to deliver a stiff shot into the side of the doctor’s neck. Both
sets of flashlights fell to the floor, as did all three men.

The crackle of broken glass and plastic left only one flashlight operable. It rolled
across the floor and came to a hard stop against something. Its beam projected the
haunting shadow of an equipment blade across the wall opposite the men.