Presidential Donor (15 page)

* * *

"His rhythm is stable," one of the nurses said, standing over Lloyd.

The cardiologist heaved a sigh. "That was close. I think we better call Dr. Gregg.
Zero hour is approaching
."

Inside The White House, Alice Johnson was staring at her fax machine in mute astonishment. A moment earlier, she was putting a get-well card in an envelope for her boss, Thomas Lloyd, when the fax machine behind her clicked off an incoming message. After the noise stopped, she swung her chair around and read the fax.

Now, she read it again as if she'd read it wrong the first time.
This can't be!

She was in a full jog when she entered the West Wing conference room, where the senior staff was assembled. Defense Secretary, Hal Traynor, glared at her in disbelief as she barged in unannounced. He was confused, however, when he saw her face. It was a mask of disorientation and fear.

"What is it?" Traynor said, moving toward her.

Johnson teetered, as if she were about to pass out.

The other members turned around in their chairs and stared at the slight black woman, who despite her petite size was usually as tough as nails.

"What?" Traynor persisted.

"I'm sorry... to come in like this," she choked, her voice frail as her trembling hand held out the facsimile to him. "But I think you better see this."

Bewildered, Traynor took the fax from her and scanned it.

His jaw dropped open.
"My God!
When did this come in?"

"Just now," Johnson said, still shaking.

Traynor shot a look to the other cabinet members, then back to Johnson.

"Get me Halpern at the FBI.
Now!"

Steve Charles stood with the phone against his cheek after Jack hung up. He jammed the receiver to get a dial tone and dialed the number for Davis Airport where his Lear 260 jet was housed. It rang several times until a pleasant female voice answered. "Davis Airport, can I help you?"

"Skip Breur, please."

Steve heard the call transfer.

"Skip Breur," he said, answering his call.

Skip Breuer was the dispatcher for private jets, maintained at Davis. He arranged for pilots, and just about anything else you might need related to your plane. Skip was indispensable as far as Steve was concerned.

"Skip, this is Steve Charles. I need a big favor."

"Sure, Steve, what can I do for you?"

"I need my plane gassed up, with a pilot standing by to go to Switzerland... in the next hour."

"Boy, Steve, you don't want much do you?"

"I know it's spur of the moment. I'll take care of you, though. If you can just get it done, I'll be there in the next hour. I'll be going to Zurich International Airport."

"I don't know if I ca--"

"Just do it, Skip, this is important."

"Okay, I'll do my best."

"Thanks, I owe ya."

* * *

Skip started to speak, but the line went dead. He stood there.
Where was he going to find a pilot on such short notice?

Mark Andrews, a freelance pilot was just headed out the door when Skip spotted him. "Mark!"

"What's up, Skip?"

"I need a pilot to fly a Lear 260 to Switzerland... it's an emergency."

"When?"

"In the next hour."

"
What
! You can't be serious. You said emergency, not fantasy."

"Skip smiled. "It pays big bucks."

"I hope so, with that much notice. Well, I'm already in the doghouse with the wife. I guess another day won't make any difference. All right, I'll do it. I hear the skiing is good there. Let me call home, then grab a quick shower, and I'll be ready."

"Great," Skip said. "I'll file a flight plan."

"By the way," Mark asked. "Who am I taking to Switzerland?"

"Guy by the name of Steve Charles."

Andrews furrowed his brow. "Wouldn't be of Charles Industries, would he?"

"That's the one."

"You're right, that is big bucks."

Eva Smorzak came out of the bathroom and stopped abruptly in the narrow hall of her chalet. Jonah was talking to Jack in the other room, and she was fascinated by what she heard. She realized as long as they'd been friends, Jonah had never revealed much about himself. But as he talked to Jack, he had recited a small biography.
Must be a man thing.
She stood in the hall and continued to listen...

"My father was a sharecropper," Jonah said. "Hell, when you come from that kind of background, you're glad to be anywhere."

"A sharecropper, huh?" Jack asked.

"Yep, and there were eleven of us kids to feed."

"Jesus."

"Yea, he helped too," Jonah said. "My mama saw to it that we all went to church every Sunday. She wanted me to be a preacher, but I always wanted to be a doctor. So I studied hard, even overcame a stuttering problem. Anyway, I ended up with a scholarship to Missouri State. Back then, they called em nigger hand outs, if you got one and you were black. I didn't much care, though. All I knew was that I was going to be a doctor. It meant everything to me."

"So how did you end up here?"

"After med school, I took a fellowship at Oxford to study Pathology. When it ended, the founder of the trauma center asked me to head the Pathology department here. The rest is, well, just as you see. Been here twenty years now. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Beautiful country, nice people, couldn't ask for more."

"What about your family?"

"You're beginning to sound more like a journalist."

Eva almost laughed at Jonah's observation. She was glad Jack was asking so many questions. Otherwise, she may never have learned those things about Jonah.

Jonah kept talking. "My family, they're all fine. All ten of my siblings are successful one way or another. Dad died when he was ninety-three. Mom, she just died last year. She was ninety-one."

"Good genes," Jack said.

"I guess. And hard work."

The conversation ended and Eva peeked around the corner. Jonah and Jack had their heads cocked as if listing for something.

Then, Eva heard it,
too--voices outside.

The skies were clear and the sun was a huge orange ball hanging off to the East. Steve Charles parked his Mercedes sedan and spotted his plane parked on the tarmac next to a row of corporate jets. A gleaming white Lear with its oversized engines and upswept wingtips. The company name: CHARLES INDUSTRIES emblazoned in midnight blue on the fuselage. He admired the fine lines of his luxury business jet as he climbed the portable steps.

Mark Andrews was already going through the preflight checklist and warming up the engines when Steve stuck his head in the cockpit. "Mr. Charles," he said, part question, part statement.

"Please call me Steve."

"I'm Mark Andrews."

"Skip tells me you can get me to Zurich in a hurry."

Andrews smiled. "I'll do my best."

"How fast is that?" Steve Charles asked.

"So far, the weather looks good. If we can run this baby flat out, we can probably get there in about seven hours."

Steve nodded. "Have you flown one of these before?"

"I fly Lear jets all the time, not one this nice, though. She's a real jewel, lots of bells and whistles to help fly it. Great onboard computer, too, practically flies the plane by itself." Andrews cocked his head. "If you don't mind me asking. What's the urgency?"

Steve Charles hesitated; thinking about what Jack had told him.
I'm in danger.
He thought it best not to create any undue anxiety for the pilot. He needed to keep his mind on flying the plane.

"A last minute business meeting," he finally answered. "I may expand my company over there. They have great banking laws."

"I've heard about that," Andrews said, flipping several switches on the instrument panel. He finished the last of the flight checklist, and then radioed the tower he was ready to go. "Our flight plan has been filed. We can book."

"Let's go, I'll ride up front with you," Steve said, as he bent down and climbed into the copilot's seat.

After taxiing to the runway, Steve heard the tower clear them, and a second later the engines began to whine as Andrews pushed them to full throttle. Steve was pushed backward in his seat as the jet tore down the runway and lifted off. Outside, the jet's nose rotated and the ground dropped away at a dizzying rate. Before Steve had his headset on, they were already rocketing through the clouds. As the plane banked hard to the east, Steve Charles felt a wave of fear hit him.

Jack's voice echoed faintly.
They're trying to kill me!
Steve stared out the window.
Hold on Jack, I'm coming.

With the reemergence of voices outside her chalet, Eva Smorzak already had figured out what to do. "Come on," she said, as she yanked down the cord to the attic door above them. The three stepped to the side as the retractable stairway slid down from the door. She bounded up the steps with Jack right behind her. A moment later, the stairs creaked as Jonah took the first rung. He hesitated, then lunged upward at the sound of breaking glass. He plopped down on an old trunk and dust flew in every direction. Jack leaned out of the opening and jerked the stairs back up, closing the attic door.

Now in total darkness, a panting fog hung over them in the freezing air.

Eva was trembling. Not so much from standing motionless in the cold, but from disillusionment over what she was listening to. Below in the kitchen, the voices became painfully clear.

"They've been here."

"Where's Barnes?" a voice asked.

"I don't know, he was supposed to be here," was the reply from mystery voice two. Then a third man yelled. "He's down here."

Eva figured Barnes must be the guy she clocked with the boat oar. The voices went silent for a few minutes. Then the sound of footfalls directly below them filled Eva with panic.
He's coming this way!
She was sure someone was going to pull open the attic door any second and grab her. She looked down toward the door and saw a small crack where she could see out.

A man's head was right below the door. She could almost count the hairs on his scalp he was so close. Her heart nearly came to a stop as the man leaned against the wall, his arm outstretched, drumming his fingers.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Eva moved back, knocking over a box in the process.

Now he's definitely going to pull the door open and find us.

Her fear was only equaled by the blackness of the attic, and despite the fact Jack and Jonah were there, she felt alone. Someone strode down the hall, this time going the other way. Eva froze motionless in the darkness. Below, the conversation resumed. Over the sound of her pounding heart, Eva heard one of them....

"We need to get him to a hospital."

"You know, Barnes," a voice said. "It's bad enough you let them get away at the hospital. Now, you let them do this. You idiot!"

"Well I--"

"I don't even want to hear it."

"We're wasting our time," a third voice said. "Let's get out of here."

Eva exhaled silently when the door closed. The sound of tires on crunching snow gave her enough courage to get up.
Finally!

Jonah put his hand on her arm. "Let's make sure they're gone," he whispered.

They sat there for another ten minutes. At last Jonah said, "I think it's safe to go now."

Eva bent down and gave the door a shove. It screeched opened and swung down to the hall floor with a thud. She placed a cautious foot on the first step as Jonah helped steady her.

He climbed down behind Jack and shoved the attic door closed. He looked at Eva and blew out through pursed lips. "That was close."

Eva went and locked the door, as if it might give her more security. It was more symbolic than anything.
They could get in any time they wanted.

"Now what?" Jonah asked.

"We need to go back to my friend's cabin," Eva said.

"I think you're right, they'll be back." Jack said.

Jonah brushed the attic dust off his shirt. "Let's go."

"Now I'm really mad," Eva said, "they broke my door."

Jack turned around. "You can bill Uncle Sam for it."

FBI director Louis Halpern had just sat down to his daily stack of paperwork when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom.

"You have a call from the President's secretary, sir, she says it's urgent."

Expecting to hear the secretary's voice, Halpern was surprised when it turned out to be the Secretary of Defense on the other end. "Lou, we have a problem--a serious problem. We need you at the White House, now."

He knew better than to ask over the phone. He simply replied, "I'll be right there."

Halpern pushed the paperwork off to the side of his desk. He was glad to postpone it since it was the least favorite part of his job.

He hoped he'd still be glad at the end of the day. He could only imagine what the terse phone call was about. He took two Tums and walked out the door.

* * *

In a top secret section of Graznvia hospital, in Red Square, Moscow, amid dim light and broken-down medical equipment, two respected Russian cardiologists poured over copies of the medical records just delivered to them by special courier. As they studied the records closer, both agreed, the tissue and blood type were fairly common. However, this anomaly was not one either was familiar with. Of course, their patients were all comatose and hadn't had the kind of test available to them that would reveal such an anomaly. Theirs' was only an experimental section of the hospital. Anomaly notwithstanding, their orders remained.
Find a suitable donor from the available population of the hospital--no patient is exempt.

These were direct orders from Viktor Chermonovik. The two doctors were puzzled by the orders and the language used
--find a donor at any cost.

In return they were promised a complete upgrade of all their facilities and equipment. They had no clue as to the identity of the recipient. The medical records were altered to hide his name.