Resistant (16 page)

Emily got quiet.

“Well, actually…”

“Hey, wait, I was kidding,” Lou said. “You really did solicit Betty Crocker?”

“It’s General Mills,” Emily replied, “and yes, I’ve been in touch with the public relations department. I put together a PDF of all of Cap’s good deeds and got testimonials from some of the kids he’s helped get off the streets.”

“A PD-what?”

Emily sighed. “PDF, dad. Portable Document Format. It’s … it’s like a brochure for the Web.”

“Oh, I was thinking of the other PDF. Listen, I really want to help, so just let me know what I can do.”

“Check out the pages I made on GiveForward, Fundbunch, and GoFundMe,” Emily said, “and let me know what you think. I’m trying to put together a street team through my Facebook friends.”

“What do you need to get the ball rolling?” Lou asked.

“Just money from you and Mom, and Grandpa Dennis, and Nana, and Uncle Graham, to add to the five hundred the people at General Mills will be sending.”

“Consider it done,” Lou said.

He left out the part where he was scheduled to meet with his tax guy later that afternoon to help him figure out which of his raggedy collection of mutual funds he could sell. Based on hours of phone calls with Cap’s doctors in Atlanta, and his own research, Lou estimated the total cost of his sponsor’s care would exceed 150,000 dollars.

Still, brownies were a great start.

“I’ll e-mail you the links,” Emily said. “Can you get back to me in, say, an hour with your ideas?”

Once again, Lou eyed the stack of work surrounding him—the forms and follow-up reports dealing with the docs he was monitoring—each in serious, potentially career-ending trouble. Somehow, someway, he would find the time to do it all, including his weekend plans to fly back to Atlanta. The only person who might get squeezed out of seeing him was high-powered attorney Sarah Cooper, but their on-again, off-again relationship had been steadily drifting toward off-again, anyhow.

“Of course, sweetie,” he said. “Send the links my way and I’ll give them a look. Together, and with Mom’s help, we can pull this off.”

“You bet we can, Pops.”

“I love you, princess.”

“Love you, too.”

As Lou was hanging up, Walter Filstrup marched past his cubical without a word or even a glance, then left the office. The usually bombastic director, as difficult to read as time on Big Ben, had been icy and distant since Lou’s return from Atlanta. With the man’s wife out of the ICU and improving from her cardiac problem, it was clearly the lost election that was continuing to vex him—the lost election and the man he believed was responsible for it.

CHAPTER 20

           That which is attained without conflict or strife is rarely worth attainment at all.

        
—LANCASTER R. HILL, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION TO ROBIN BROADY, 1942

Three days later, Filstrup’s gloomy state of mind was unimproved. The man had not once mentioned the election results and had shown no curiosity at all regarding Cap’s condition.

Pleasantville.

Several times, Lou ticked through what he had explained to Filstrup in the call from Arbor General. He and his best friend went for a run. Cap fell, sustained a compound fracture of his femur, and nearly bled out. Lou administered first aid and possibly saved Cap’s life. They took a helicopter to the hospital, and Lou missed giving the speech. A reasonable sequence and explanation if ever there was one.

Now, Lou was debating rolling out plan B—earnestly sharing with Filstrup his gut instinct about the unlikelihood of the man’s ever squeaking out a victory in the election, even if Lou
had
given his speech. For the moment, he chose to shelve the idea. He expected his boss would evolve back to his baseline, self-absorbed, testy state in a matter of no time. He always did.

This time, Lou was wrong.

He had opened the top folder on his bottomless stack of dictations while awaiting a return call from Emily regarding the bake sale, when his desk phone rang.

“Hey, sweetie,” Lou said. “What took you so long?”

“Excuse me,” answered an unfamiliar male voice, “I’m looking for Dr. Louis Welcome.”

Lou cleared his throat, heat from the embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were my daughter calling back,” Lou said. “This is Dr. Welcome. How can I help you?”

“Dr. Welcome, this is Dr. Win Carter, I’m the president of Arbor General Hospital in Atlanta. Do you have a minute to talk with me about Mr. Hank Duncan?”

Lou went cold. He clutched the lip of his desk, steeling himself against a rush of panic. Barely able to catch his breath, he tried willing his racing heart to slow down.

“I’m fine,” he managed. “I mean, this is a good time. Is he all right?”

Everyone at Arbor, it seemed, had heard about Lou and Cap’s exploits in the woods, so he was not that surprised his name had reached the hospital president’s desk. Maybe while Cap was still in the hospital, they wanted Lou to give a grand rounds talk to the medical staff about the treatment—bring Cap down for his version. Maybe the call was about Cap’s ballooning hospital bill. The thoughts were quickly replaced by a far more frightening one. He was Cap’s medical proxy. Something bad—real bad—had happened. But the two of them had just spoken yesterday, and aside from some new aching in the leg, everything seemed okay.

Hey, easy does it!
he shouted at himself.
Easy frigging does it.

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” Carter was saying. “I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but I wanted you to know that we’ve begun work to contain an infection in your friend’s leg.”

Lou strained to pick up any clue in Carter’s voice regarding the severity of the infection, trying to block out the reality that Carter simply making such a call was all the indication that was needed.

“He told me yesterday he was experiencing some new discomfort,” Lou managed.

Why is the president of a huge hospital calling to tell me this?

“Well, his surgeon has done an aspiration of pus from an area beneath the incision. A drain was placed there during the surgery as a precaution, but apparently it wasn’t enough. They’ve called in the infectious disease consultant on the case, and have changed antibiotics. But what we have learned has made us all a bit nervous here, and Mr. Duncan’s team is considering taking him back to the operating room.”

“Nervous?”

The word was unusual in this context, and Lou had picked up on it immediately.

“It’s complicated,” Carter said.

Anxiety was now swarming in Lou’s throat like army ants on the march. He had little doubt Carter was holding something back—something big.

“Complicated?” Lou asked, feeling like an idiot for repeating the man’s word again.

“It looks like Mr. Duncan is the second case we’ve had at Arbor General of a very unusual bacterial infection. Something we’re not entirely sure how to contain.”

Very unusual?

Lou stopped himself at the last possible instant from another echo. He sucked in a breath and gritted his teeth as though expecting to take a punch to the gut.

“Please, tell me what you know,” he said.

“Truthfully, it’s best not discussed over the phone,” Carter said. “Obviously, I am calling you instead of having Dr. Standish do it because this germ is of concern to the whole hospital.”

“How is Cap at the moment? Can I call him? I was planning on flying down this weekend.”

“To be frank, Dr. Welcome, you may want to consider coming down sooner. I just came from visiting him. Your friend isn’t very toxic yet, but he is febrile, and there clearly has been a turn. When you get here, you can stop by my office if you wish, or better still, go to the seventh floor of the Baron Building, and have them page Dr. Ivan Puchalsky, the ID consultant handling this case.”

“I’ll do that. I’ll do it as soon as I can. Thank you, Dr. Carter. Thank you for calling.”

Lou ended the call and popped up from his chair as though it had become electrified. He raced out of the cube and was passing Babs Peterbee’s desk, headed to Filstrup’s office, when she held up her hand.

“Dr. Welcome, I wouldn’t go in there. He’s asked me to hold all his calls.”

Lou leaned over and saw that the secretary’s desktop switchboard had no “in use” lights on. The maneuver was one of Filstrup’s favorites.

“Sorry, but that call was from Cap’s hospital. It’s an emergency, Babs.”

Lou knocked twice and opened the door an instant before Filstrup gruffly invited him in.

“Sorry to butt in, boss, but I just got a call from Arbor General in Atlanta. Cap’s getting toxic from a wound infection. His condition has started to deteriorate.”

Seated behind his immaculate desk, Filstrup, wearing his typically wrinkle-free white dress shirt and power-red tie, lowered his glasses and eyed Lou with a chilly look.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes … Well, they’ve asked me to come down to Atlanta. I’m quite worried.”

“To dash away from your job, you must be
very
worried,” Filstrup said, sounding not at all worried or even that interested.

“I’m certainly concerned,” Lou said. “As you know, he’s the best friend I have. I give him credit for turning my life around. I’ll take some work with me. Nothing that will violate any confidentiality, of course, but I’ll get stuff done.”

“No need,” Filstrup said.

“There’s a lot to catch up on,” Lou said. “I realize I’m behind, but I’ll make up the time. From what his surgeon said, Cap needs me there.”

“That’s fine,” Filstrup said. “But there’s no need for you to take any work.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think you understand. There’s no need for you to take your work with you because you no longer have a job here.”

“Walter, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re fired, Dr. Welcome. Now, go pack up your desk. I wouldn’t want you to miss your flight back to Atlanta.”

CHAPTER 21

           It is not our nature to suffer, and most of those who are offered government handouts in place of effort will take them.

        
—LANCASTER R. HILL,
Climb the Mountain
, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1941, P. II

Kazimi had never seen anything like the Great Room.

While growing up in Kohat City, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, he believed all homes were made from dusty brown clay bricks. The densely clustered buildings of his youth were still etched in his heart and mind. As he grew older, he escaped his daily travails through books, and began to excel in school. Finally, he was accepted as an exchange student in Los Angeles, and from there, off to Stanford.

Kazimi loved America … much of it, at any rate.

The over-the-top opulence of Red Cliff and its whiskey-gulping master were well more than he could take. Doug Bacon, and his dedication to eliminating programs assisting the poor, was an anathema to Kazimi as was One Hundred Neighbors, the extremist organization he embodied. And despite his captor’s self-important attempt to use Kazimi’s religion to enlist his help, the overriding consideration for him was still escape.

For the better part of two days, he had kept to himself, waiting. He ate well, exercised, used the sunlamp in the bathroom for vitamin D, and slept as much as he could manage. He was determined to build his strength. The opportunity to escape might at any minute present itself. When he was not meditating, he prayed to Allah using the prayer rug and beautiful copy of the Koran Bacon had supplied, while at the same time forcing thoughts of escape from his mind.

After his afternoon prayer, and after seeking Allah’s guidance, Kazimi had summoned Harris to his room.

“I want to meet with Bacon,” he said.

Red Cliff was vast, and the butler was slow. It had taken ten minutes to reach the Great Room. Most of the trip was down—both straight and spiral staircases. At the head of the first flight, Bacon’s two buffalos met them and took over as Kazimi’s guides. There were no windows along the way, and even had the guards not been there, he had no sense that escape was possible. The stone passageways, lit by gas lanterns, were dank, smelling increasingly of mold and, surprisingly, of the sea.

The sea … Where was this place?

He had been unconscious from the moment Alexander Burke injected him until he awoke in his bedroom prison. Where in Allah’s name was he? How long had it taken to get there? Fortunately, there was some comfort in his resignation to whatever fate was determined for him. Still, he had decided, any action he could take that would return him to his laboratory, he would take. Many times each day he had recited the hadith attributed to Imam Tirmidhi:

If you put your whole trust in Allah, as you ought, He most certainly will satisfy your needs, as He satisfies those of the birds. They come out hungry in the morning, but return full to their nests.

After a long walk, the guards guided him past a pair of French doors through which, for the first time, Kazimi got a glimpse of where he was. Beyond the doors was a narrow gravel path, bordered by a fringe of lawn, and just beyond that, and far below, was the ocean, stretching to the horizon. Before he could ask any questions, the huge men motioned him through an arched opening, and into a cavernous stone room. The scientist’s mouth fell open. To his right was an enormous bank of windows, at least twenty feet high and, in total, perhaps fifty feet across.

Incredible as the windows were in both size and scope, it was the view outside that held Kazimi spellbound. He was gazing out from the edge of a cliff, easily a hundred feet high, at a steel-gray ocean capped this day by frothy waves. No land. His sense told him East Coast and north. The cliff was daunting. The gravel path and strip of grass was all that separated the spectacular windows from the sea. Any attempt to escape from here could well end in a plunge to his death.

“After we talk I’ll take you outside so you can see the waves crashing against the shoreline. It’s truly a marvelous sight.”