Dana Cartwright Mission 1: Stiletto (11 page)

She scoffed, “And just where would that be?”

He declined to say, but touched his voice-badge. “Two to Base.”

They materialized on an open platform.

“Welcome to SSID-HQ, Doctor Cartwright.” Sierra pointed to the railing.

She took it all in from the reception level — or, more accurately, the observation deck two stories above an expansive hub — the command and control center for all of Earth’s intelligence agencies.

“Do I have clearance for this?” She wondered aloud.

A young cadet in the SSID traditional gray, jumpsuit uniform approached, smiled, and strapped onto her wrist a device that blinked green and blue.
 

“You do now,” Kieran Jai answered. His voice was nebulous…as if it came from the heavens.

Dana looked all around but did not see him. “Kieran?”

“Colonel Sierra, will you escort the Doctor to the conference room?”

Sierra led the way.

“Forgive me for not rising,” Kieran apologized. He sat in the high-backed chair at the head of the mighty oak conference table. There were chairs enough for twenty. Two other men were at Kieran’s left and right. They were big and nasty…just the type for SSID security details.

“Doctor Dana Cartwright, meet Majors Perry and Roberto, my aides.”

The two men rose and bowed in her direction.

She gave them a perfunctory nod, but her eyes drilled Kieran’s, demanding, silently,
Why am I here?

He didn’t respond to her thoughts, but he did smile in her direction.
 

He was more interested in the ‘evidence’ that Colonel Sierra presented and the details of what they’d found at her apartment.

Dana watched Kieran’s face. He was doing his damnedest to present a brave front before the three men. Clearly, he suffered severe back pain and should have been in bed resting.

She heard nothing of what he said to Colonel Sierra and the two majors, before they filed out, taking her padlet with them, presumably to retrieve fingerprints from the screen of the device. It was the last thing on her mind just now.

“You must rest, Kieran. Let me do a scan?”

“It can wait,” he countered, dismissing her concerns.

She moved closer and set her medical kit down before him. “It can’t wait! You’re undoing twelve hours of surgery.”

He relented. “At least let’s go somewhere private…”

“Nonsense…I’m not going to strip off your uniform or anything.” She retrieved her scanner and ordered him to lean forward. “The scan is registering massive amounts of inflammation. This is not good.” She reached in her medical kit for a DIA and programmed the dermal injector. “When did Garcia last give you anti-inflammatory meds?”

“He’s in the brig at One, facing a court martial,” Kieran told her.

“How long since he gave you meds?” She snapped.

“Nothing since you injected me,” Kieran answered, recognizing that scolding tone she’d used before when they were in the crawlspace under the wreckage.

She scowled. “Kieran, you need therapy — aquatic therapy would be good. The buoyancy of the water would be very beneficial. You can’t be putting this much stress on your spine.”

“Dana, something big is happening. I just can’t…”

“Let these men do the leg work. Delegate! Doctor’s orders.”

He reached for her hand. “I can’t…”

She sighed. The DIA-dermal injector hissed against his neck. Then she packed up. “In my professional opinion, as your doctor and as your surgeon, I recommend bed rest.” She locked stares with him. “If you do not follow doctor’s orders, I will not be held responsible.”
 

She took off the wrist device and set it on the table then started for the door. “Can I transfer out of here?” Starting to feel very, very angry, she didn’t wait for his answer, touched her voice-badge, and asked, “Computer? MAT transfer me back to Patriarchs.” The rest was a muttered, “Because I need another drink.”

Taylor welcomed her back. “That was quick.”

She held up her hand. “Don’t ask.” In all honesty, she couldn’t tell him — or anyone — what had just happened.

He did
 
ask, however, “Is everything okay? You look flushed. How about my new, special wine cooler?”

She nodded to the drink then complained, “Someone broke into my place, but they took nothing. Why?”

Taylor’s face held a barely perceptible frown, “Because you weren’t there.”

“You think they were after me? Why not wait? Why not watch me come and go at the public MAT station.”

“Do you use the public booths often?” he asked, while making her a tall drink on his side of the bar.
 

“On personal business, sometimes, but not when…” She decided not to reveal more. He probably knew her profession or, at least, her employer. MCE uniforms had the logo on the breast, just under where her voice-badge attached. Besides, Sierra and Regis had both addressed her as ‘Doctor.’

“Well, don’t forget, all the public booths are tied up with the Meeting of the Masters.”

She sighed. “Yes, I forgot about that.”
 

Taylor shook his head, setting a glass with a pinkish colored liquid before her. “This should help.”

“So, do I go home?” She wondered aloud, enjoying her first sip of the sweet, pink lemonade flavored cocktail. “This is good.”

“Absolutely not — unless you have a zoo-weight gorilla bodyguard. Even then, I’d be worried.” Taylor drifted away to tend to other patrons.

Dana sulked as she sipped, musing, “Were they really after me? Or after something else? The Ambassador’s cloak perhaps? It’s at my office still. Or… Or what? I must need sleep! Why didn’t I think of this sooner! The blade…”
 

She slid her hand down her crossed leg to her boot, rather surreptitiously checking that the blade was still there. Yes, it was. The Sterillian blade! Perhaps they were looking for it.
 

Who knew she had it except Kieran? They were so rare and valuable, made of bone so they did not register on normal weapons scans. How had Kieran described it? Class four non-metal...

Kieran knew…Who else knew? No one, unless he told them. Unless…unless, someone telepathically read his mind or hers - but that didn’t make sense. He was a trained SSID officer. He surely had techniques to block intrusive attempts. So, who could do that? Only another SSID telepath. Colonel Sierra was Galaxean, not Alphan. They could do mind-links and retrieve memories, but required physical contact.

Who else had access?

Doctor Garcia - but Garcia was human. He… Wait, his adoptive brother was an Enturian/Galaxean hybrid. Could he be…

Her head began to swim. What if… What if…

It didn’t matter.

“Focus, Dana!” It was becoming harder to concentrate. She felt a bout of nausea coming on and her esophagus and stomach burned. “Oh!” She pushed the drink away and stood up, using the bar to steady herself. The room began to revolve.

“Oh, no!” She tapped her voice-badge. “Computer? Emergency MAT transfer: MCE! Severe allergic reaction!”

The MAT pad in the reception area had a single step down. It was just outside the doctors’ lounge. Three of her colleagues were chatting there, just having come from the clean room.

Dana Cartwright reached out her hand toward them, gasped, and then she collapsed and lost consciousness.

“Dana?” Francis Calagura smiled down at her. “Lady, you need to eat! Your blood sugar is at sixty.”

She stared up at him from a diagnostic bed. “Francis… The drink… I think it was the drink.”

He scowled. “Sulfites? You know better.” He ran more diagnostic scans. “Yes, sodium sulfite! That’s it! Quite a heavy dose!”

He programmed the DIA-dermal injector for a counter agent. Soon after he administered the medication, her head began to clear.

“Much better…” Dana commended, as her brain fog departed and the room stopped spinning, “…but my hands are burning.” She showed him.

“That’s not from ingestion,” he commented, quickly taking a reading and spraying her liberally with an anti-toxin. “Maybe you should go through decon!”

She nodded.

He helped her up from the diagnostic bed and walked her into the decon chamber, where any trace of the toxin would be vacuumed off her body and clothing.

She began to feel much better.

“I think you should stay in an exam room for a little while longer. I’ll come back and collect you. Just have one case needing attention before I log out.” Calagura told her.

He pointed to an exam room.
 

“No, let me wait in your office,” she suggested.

He patted her shoulder and helped her from the room and across the corridor to his executive office. Once she was settled on the brown leather sofa, he rushed away.

Dana sat up for a short time but soon sank down, prone, to rest with a velvet pillow for her head. Her hair had that straw feel and her throat and eyes were irritated from the decontamination process.
 

“Sodium sulfite! Damn! I have to be more careful.” She moaned, recalling all the hazard warnings from her textbooks. The odorless, solid, white crystals were often used as a preservative in wines and fruit juices.

“How’d I get it on my hands?”

She waited for a long time, but Francis didn’t come back. When she dared to sit up, the room swayed a little, but righted itself, making her wonder if inner ear equilibrium was also an issue.
 

While she waited for Francis to return, she ran her own basic diagnostic scan. Sure enough, sulfites. The quantities seemed far more than just what might be in a cocktail.

Her Enturian half just could not tolerate any exposure, obviously. Taylor had no way of knowing, so she did not blame him at all. She’d have to warn him.

“Maybe I should lay off all alcohol,” she decided, remembering DOC’s lectures on the evils of strong drink. He never touched the stuff, not even a hot toddy, or a nightcap.

She frowned. DOC Cartwright had no vices. In fact, Greg often griped that his father seemed more of an android than the android nurses.

DOC was fiercely protective of her; well, the situation with Doctor Garcia was a perfect example. Facing a court martial…for snooping in a colleague’s personnel file and surreptitiously running a DNA scan? It seemed outrageous.

“Rules are rules; respect breeds respect,” DOC repeated it like a mantra.

Every intern broke the rules at some point, but for a Chief Surgeon aboard
Navitor
? It was verboten. Why would Garcia risk it? Her head still wasn’t clear enough to process a motive.

Kieran sank back in the conference chair and closed his eyes. The throbbing pain in his legs grew steadily worse. He hated to admit it; Dana was right. He needed rest. And he needed therapy.

Colonel Sierra stuck his head in from the corridor. “Turn on your viewer! Massive riot at the quarterfinals of the Meeting of the Masters. Channel one.”

Kieran tapped the screen and watched the live shots as Star Service security officers waded into the stands to break up fisticuffs, hardly a riot. Kieran was more concerned that several ambassadors were ringside — one was Cray.

“Why aren’t they being escorted out?” he demanded of the viewer. Had he been on the detail that would have been his first instinct - protect the dignitaries.

“Finally!” Kieran grumbled, seeing three uniformed SSID agents swarming the ambassadors. To his horror, the three attacked.

Kieran watched Ambassador Cray fall.

“Dana? We’ve got incoming! All seven ERs — but only six doctors on duty. Are you up to it?” Calagura pleaded. He was at her elbow, extending his hand.

She jumped up, which may have been unwise, but duty called.

“I’ll log in and scrub!” She followed her friend and joined in, elbow-to-elbow, with the rest of their colleagues.

“Room six is an Alphan!” Calagura called. “Give that one to Cartwright.”

They stowed their outer clothes and boots, went through decontamination, and then quickly dressed in sterile tunics, drawstring pants, and sterile fabric disposable boots.

The EMTs had the coffin in room six already in position and two android nurses were prepping the patient.

“Ambassador Cray!” Dana gasped, recognizing the man in spite of his massive injuries.

“Doctor?” Cray managed through bruised lips, greenish gray blood seeping from a gash on his jaw. She addressed the wound first, sterilizing, closing, and using ultrasound to heal so there would be no scar.

Then she reviewed the other injuries on the scanner, double-checked, and then triple-checked the readings. His left eye was swollen shut, but the damage was far worse. Detached retina.

She understood his embarrassment at being nude — or nearly so — and fetched a thin blanket from a cabinet to cover his torso.

“Now I know,” he muttered in his native Alphan. “Poor Kieran. This thing…” Cray struggled for words. “Terrible indignity!”

Dana nodded. “I understand.” She administered a muscle relaxer sedative and, as with Kieran, an anti-inflammatory compatible with Alphan physiology.

The Ambassador’s eyelids closed and he actually snored. That gave her the opportunity to repair his thumb on the left hand. With Kieran’s recent surgery still fresh in mind, she easily handled the relatively minor dislocation.

Francis Calagura’s voice came over the com. “Case review?”

Dana itemized what she’d done to date. “Left eye will require additional surgery once further neurological evaluation deems it wise. Recommend admission.”

Calagura concurred. “Do so.” He then asked, “You okay?”

“Fine…but hungry.”

“Afraid I can’t take you to dinner.”

“I’ll grab something from the digitizer.”

Francis chuckled. “Get some rest. Doctor’s orders.” He cut off.

Dana did the formal admit instructions and watched as the android nurse pushed the coffin out of the ER.

With a strange feeling of synchronicity, she returned to the doctors’ lounge, ordered a cup of broth with some crackers and a mock-chicken tofu sandwich that tasted an awful lot like glue.

One by one the MCE doctors began to join her, after wrapping up their cases. No one seemed eager to chat. Dana certainly didn’t feel up to it. She waited quite awhile for Doctor Calagura, but he did not appear. He must have taken the most severe of the incoming cases.