Unacceptable Risk (17 page)

Ayala's face showed the stress he felt. He was probably wondering how he'd explain all of this if someone brought it up when the chief resident returned tomorrow.

Gaudet's greatest concern had been that Grady Wade would suspect him. So far, there had been no sign of any recognition whatsoever. Things were going remarkably well.

It was late evening in Rio. At such times people in a hospital naturally held their voices down and moved quietly. Almost all of the rooms were semidark or dark and they encountered only two nurses the entire length of the hallway. The hospital was designed with large wings and elevators in the center core. When they arrived at the elevators, Grady, the Japanese, two of the security men, and Dr. Ayala all got aboard. By his own observation it seemed to Gaudet that Grady and the big Japanese were by far the most observant. In the close quarters of a crowded elevator, they, if anyone, would discern that most of his face was a creation.

Grady held Michael's hand and watched his face in silence. When he looked back at her, it felt, as always, as if he were speaking to her, even though they said nothing.

The doctor from France, on the other hand, acted strangely. Actually, it was how he looked. He appeared to wear makeup. Was this a French affectation? And why would two doctors take a man to be x-rayed? She glanced at Dr. Burre. He looked like a man who wanted to shrink. The younger doctor Ayala from the hospital didn't seem comfortable either. It almost seemed as if they had terrible news they were reluctant to divulge.

The dark of the hallway began to make her uneasy, and the farther they went, the more they were becoming isolated. They went through a section subject to remodeling and the ceiling was partially torn out, exposing conduit and wires. This ugly wound in the building reminded her of a war zone.

She looked back at Yodo. He seemed watchful, as always. Their eyes met; now he knew that she was afraid. The gurney rolled silently over the vinyl tile and eight pairs of feet made a quiet patter as they walked. Normally, in a large group in a hospital one would feel completely safe, but Grady did not and she didn't know why.

"How much farther?" Yodo said.

"Almost there," Dr. Ayala replied.

The lights were inadequate here. It was dark enough that Grady could no longer tell the color of the paint on the walls.

They turned a sharp left, then went right through two large double doors and into a waiting area that was obviously closed for the evening. They proceeded through another large single door and into the back and then into a central working area with X-ray viewing screens all around.

"We'll need you all to wait out here," Doctor Ayala said.

"I'm going with him," said Grady, "and so is Yodo."

"There is radiation in the room when we take a picture. Normally, you would be in the waiting room and not here. We have brought you as far as we can."

"Perhaps the young woman could come as the patient's representative," Dr. Burre said.

"There is a shield," Yodo spoke up. "In the wall. I have seen them. You stand behind it. So will we."

"I also wear a lead apron. And the rules don't allow for people in the X-ray area. But you can be right here and we will be right through that door."

"It'll be fine," Michael said. "Like the doctor said, Grady can come."

Yodo obviously didn't like it but acquiesced at least for the moment. Grady and Michael passed through the door and into a large room with odd-looking machines. Dr. Ayala kept going.

"Where are we going now?" Grady asked.

"Into another X-ray room with the correct equipment." Dr. Ayala flipped a light switch.

They went through a doorway and into a smaller X-ray room. It was very bare and seemed to have been built and furnished in an earlier era. In the middle stood a large metal bed with an X-ray unit overhead.

Dr. Burre closed the door and walked over to Dr. Ayala. As he did so, the young doctor's eyes seemed to freeze. He was trying to say something. His mouth seemed to be forming an O, as if to express surprise. Then he slumped forward. Dr. Burre was holding him up and then lowering him to the floor.

"What's wrong?"

Then Grady saw it. Protruding from the doctor's lab coat, just below his chest, was a bloody wooden handle and thick, deep red blood flowing onto the floor.

In horror Grady saw the gun aimed at her belly. In that moment she knew who he was.

"Dios mio."
Michael sighed. He understood it as well.

"Please go through that door." Gaudet directed Grady to get behind the gurney. Tentatively she pushed it; it rolled easily. "This is going to be a mess here."

Gaudet had the gun to her back and there was nothing she could do. "Don't say a word. You understand?"

They rolled into another room that opened into a back area filled with strange-looking machines. Grady's mind flashed around the place, looking... thinking... how to escape. Having Michael on the gurney was like having her in shackles. Doorways, a hall, a gun at her back.
Think, think!

They proceeded out of the next room and into a hall, apparently having circumvented the main workroom where the others waited. There were several doors off this hall, but only one was labeled. It was in Portuguese and Grady couldn't understand its meaning. Grady guessed it was another lab, or perhaps a back door.

"In there," Gaudet said.

Inside were three treadmills and IV stands alongside each. It was some kind of physical-fitness testing area.

"Put your hands behind you," Gaudet said.

Instead, she looked around desperately, trying to imagine some way of escape, some salvation. Anything. But there was nothing.

"If you don't do it, I'll cut your face." A metallic sound, and she saw his razor-sharp knife.

She put her hands behind her and felt the cool steel close over her wrists. She felt herself starting to cry but stopped the tears knowing it would only incite Gaudet.

"See there, Michael? She's already imagining what I'll do to her and I haven't even told her yet. See the fear in her face? You could save her from great suffering."

"What do you want?"

Gaudet took a cord from his pocket. One end was tied with a hangman's noose.

"I carried this just for you. All that time we were walking from the room to the elevator and then from the elevator to here, I was playing with it in my pocket, waiting for the moment when I would slip it around your neck. Back up," he said to her. There was a wall and there were hooks on the wall for lab coats. He put the noose around her neck and drew it taut until it bit into her neck, constricting her airway. Next he was tying something and then he lifted her and it choked her again. Her eyes felt as if they were filling with blood. She fell back. Again he tied the line and lifted her. This time it remained taut.

"Stand on your toes." Pushing herself up, she could just breathe. Sharp pains cut through her feet as she struggled to keep the noose from tightening further. She had to remain on the balls of her feet or suffocate.

"Don't hurt her," Michael said. "Tell me what you want. Be rational."

Gaudet spoke quickly and without emotion. "You discovered some organic material and sent it to Northern Lights. They in turn sold it to Grace Technologies. It had a profound effect on the human immune system. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?"

"I've heard about this substance, yes. And I believe it came from my work in the Amazon. But I collect thousands of samples each year. I have no idea which one worked in this way."

"Come, Dr. Bowden. You can do better than that." The knife tip bit into Grady's cheek. Blood trickled down to her neck.

"Depraved bastard," she said, through clenched teeth. "Don't tell him."

"Stop!" Bowden shouted. "Northern Lights showed special interest in a freshwater sponge. Maybe that's what you need. I first located it in 1998."

Gaudet seemed not to hear him. "You've heard how rape terrifies women, haven't you? It's nothing,
nothing,
compared to what a woman feels when you start cutting her face."

"I just told you what I know."

"Keep telling."

"I found it in a deep water stream in the Yavari Reserve. Six days' fast walk from a point about thirty miles above Angamos. The coordinates are in my 1998 journal."

"Where is the journal?"

"On its way to Cornell University."

"You understand how that doesn't help me, don't you?" The steel was back at Grady's face, the point working its way into her flesh.

"Tell him something." Michael plead with Grady.

"Raval," Grady choked out. "A man named Raval."

"What about Raval?"

"A Grace scientist. He may know how the m-molecule w-works," Grady sputtered.

"What molecule?" Gaudet demanded.

She quit talking.

"Tell him," Michael said again.

"It's Chaperone."

"Do you know about Chaperone?" Gaudet asked Michael.

"I heard about it from Grady's associate. Robert Chase."

"Oh, is that what he calls himself now? Well, Chaperone is merely a word. Make it more than a word."

"I would if I could. I don't understand it," Michael confessed.

"Mmm-hmm. Do you want me to cut her face or her body first? Which will it be?"

"We're telling you everything we know."

Gaudet ripped the buttons down Grady's blouse and the yanking motion choked her. Grady lost her footing and struggled. The ceiling was starting to move. As the rope bit into her neck, she began gagging and couldn't stop. It felt as if her eyes were going to explode.

"Well, look at that, she's going to die."

His words were echoing now and she knew he was right. Her feet wouldn't support her and her legs were giving way. She felt her bladder go and the urine running down her legs. Then her body was hanging. It felt separate from the rest of her, quivering as Gaudet's hands touched her and his voice moved in circles like the ceiling.

"She pissed herself." She realized that Gaudet was propping her feet under her. In a few moments her legs supported her, but she was still on her toes.

"This can be terrifying as well," Gaudet was saying. "Hitler slowly hanged his errant generals repeatedly with piano wire. Doesn't your girl deserve better?"

Ignoring the pain in his leg, Michael rolled off the gurney and lunged at Gaudet. The look on Gaudet's face was gratifying, but a terrible thought entered Michael's mind. If he took down Gaudet, Grady would hang unsupported and suffocate.

Gaudet smiled as if reading his mind. Then the door behind Michael burst open. Michael fell clumsily to the ground, white-hot pain shooting from his leg up his spine.

Robert Chase stood in the doorway.

Gaudet was backing away, his gun aimed at Grady, who was beginning to choke as the rope tightened. Robert moved swiftly to Grady to stop her strangling. Gaudet fired a single shot at Robert, then vanished out the door.

The bullet knocked Robert to the floor, and Grady began to choke again. Miraculously, Robert jumped back up and untied Grady, who fell into his arms. Her voice was barely more than a rasp, but Michael thought he heard her moan, "Sam."

Yodo entered, then ran out in the direction of Sam's nod. Sam closed up Grady's shirt and held her in his arms, but she pulled away and knelt over Michael, her eyes drawn to his leg.

The leg hurt and blood was seeping through the bandages, but Grady had stopped crying, indeed she was smiling at
him,
and that was all that mattered to Bowden.

Sam forced his mind away from the pain in his chest where the steel breastplate had compressed the flak jacket under the force of the bullet. Even experienced killers like Gaudet in the heat of the moment, and desiring an easy target, often automatically shot for the center of the chest.

As much as he wanted to chase Gaudet, his rational mind told him to stay with the targets, Grady and Michael, or risk losing them forever.

He lifted Michael back onto the gurney, and Grady rolled it back down the hospital corridor. It was still quiet; one would never know that a half-dozen bodyguards were chasing a madman through the bowels of the hospital.

One of Sam's men from upstairs ran to Sam and stopped.