used for the photo-call. The large, silver-haired naval surgeon still wore a sterilized ward coat and ankle-high theater boots.
Anandale said at once, “What’s the change?”
“No worse. You can talk to her in a moment.”
“To tell her what?”
“You’ll understand better if you see the plates. I’ve set up a room along the corridor.”
Anandale followed the surgeon further into the building. Cables from an unseen, inaudible generator were taped along the newly shined corridor lined every five meters by Secret Servicemen who came to attention as the president passed. The room into whichDonnington led the president was bright from newly installed neon strips and against one wall glowed an already lighted X-ray viewing screen. There was a heavy smell of disinfectant.
Donnington slotted the first plate into its clip and traced his finger around a large, completely black area at the end of the shoulder. “That’s where the bullet hit Ruth. It’s called the brachial plexus. Into it run the nerves from the neck, routed from between the fourth cervical and first thoracic. In layman’s terms, think of it as a junction box. From the brachial plexus emerge three nerves specific to the arm, the radial, median and ulnar …” He changed plates, showing the arm. “The bullet that struck your wife destroyed those nerves at the branchial plexus ….”
“Does it have to be amputated?” demanded Anandale, hollow voiced.
“No,” said the surgeon, immediately, putting the third plate into place. “I’ve had to wait this long to ensure that there is no interruption to the blood flow. There isn’t. It missed the arteries. The First Lady will have a permanently numb and powerless arm but there is no risk of gangrene. The arm can stay.”
“No use in it whatsoever?”
“None,” said the surgeon, bluntly.
“Nerves can be reconnected. You read about it all the time,” blurted Anandale.
“The damage here is too great,” rejected Donnington.
“You could be wrong … there could be a medical-surgical-advance,” insisted Anandale.
“Of course you need a second opinion … and a third and a fourth, every expert you can consult,” acknowledged Donnington, unoffended. “I’m giving you my initial but at the same time considered, professional prognosis.”
“
“I don’t expect to change it. Believe me, Mr. President, I’d like to be proven wrong.”
“When can she be moved back to America, to see other people?” asked Anandale.
“I don’t want to risk disturbing anything for at least two days.Maybe longer. Waiting isn’t going to affect the arm in any way. It’s the shoulder I want stabilized before we start thinking of getting on and off airplanes.”
The president stared sightlessly at the X-ray for several moments. “What am I going to tell her?”
“Do you want me to?” offered Donnington.
“No,” refused Anandale, quickly. “I’ll do it.”
There was a frame over Ruth Anandale’s body, keeping off even the pressure of the bed coverings from her neck to her waist. Her face was sallow and shiny from how it had been swabbed and her thick, black hair was sweat-matted against the pillow because this early Donnington had refused even to allow the lightest of brushing to affect her neck. She lay with her eyes closed, mouth slightly open, her face occasionally twitching. Her uninjured arm was outside the frame, on top of the bed. A needle was inserted into a vein on the back of her hand through which pain killers could be administered. A catheter tube snaked from beneath the bedclothes and there were other leads connected to heart, respiratory and blood pressure monitoring machines across the screens of which tiny mountains peaked with reassuring regularity. The hair of the two uniformed attendant nurses was beneath sterilized caps. Both Anandale and the surgeon wore caps, too, and Donnington had changed his gown at the same time as the president had donned his. At their entry the two nurses withdrew close to the door but didn’t leave.
One of the nurses said, “The First Lady’s conscious,” and at the sound Ruth Anandale opened her eyes.
It took several moments for her to focus and when she did there was a brief smile of recognition. She said, “I can’t feel much. There’s some sensation in my shoulder but nothing else. I don’t remember …”
“There was a shooting,” reminded Anandale. “You’re under a lot of medication.”
“Am I badly hurt?”
“We’re going to get you home as soon as we can. Get you better there.”
“I can’t feel my right arm at all.”
“It’ll be all right.”
“When can I go home?”
“Soon.”
“I haven’t lost my arm, have I? I’m going to be all right!” Her voice rose, cracking.
“You’re going to be fine. We’re going to find all the specialists and get everything fixed, I promise.”
“Why … who …?”
“We’ve got the man. It’s all under investigation.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“The Russian president. Some guards.”
“They going to be all right?”
“We don’t know, not yet.”
The woman’s eyes flickered and drooped and Anandale felt Donnington’s hand upon his arm. As they scuffed out of the room Anandale said, “I didn’t lie. I will find the surgeon to fix her arm.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” said Donnington.
Charlie didn’t hurry responding to the internal messages that had finally arrived when he got back from the viewing theater. He first read what had come in from London and checked his e-mail and even then detoured to Donald Morrison’s office, just for the hell of it.
“I know it’s your assignment,” greeted the MI6 man.
As Morrison grew older and wiser he wouldn’t be so eager, Charlie thought. “It’s not quite that definite.” The assignment decision had been one of the waiting e-mail messages from Sir Rupert Dean.
“I’m to assist in any way necessary.” The younger man offered a package. “Everything Vauxhall Cross has got.”
Charlie took it. “Thanks, for getting it so quickly.”
“You won’t ask, will you?” anticipated Morrison, sadly.
“I don’t know,” said Charlie, honestly. “No one can guess which way this will go. It’s better to limit any possible diplomatic damage by keeping it to one service.”
“I expected them to send in a team.”
“Limitation, like I said.”
“I’d like to do something, if I can.”
“I’ll remember,” promised Charlie, who was still digesting the London edict. It put him as much in the firing line as he would have been on the White House podium with the two presidents. He’d have to be bloody careful- more careful perhaps than he’d ever been-that he didn’t become the fifth casualty.
Charlie hadn’t bothered to tell Richard Brooking he was on his way. When he arrived the head of chancellery seemed lost in thought behind a desk totally clear of any activity-actually appearing polished-with blotter, pen set and telephones regimented precisely in place.
“No one knew where you were,” accused the diplomat, abruptly aware of Charlie’s presence.
“Making enquiries,” said Charlie, unhelpfully. He had no intention of telling the man what he suspected and Anne Abbott had agreed it would be best to wait until the confirmation of the technical analysis.
“We’ve had Foreign Office instructions from London,” announced Brooking. “We’re formally requesting access …” The man paused, coming to unpleasantness. “ … And you’re to be included.”
“I’ve been told that independently, from my people,” said Charlie.
Brooking made obvious his head to toe examination of Charlie. “You’ll have inferred diplomatic status. Do you have another suit? And some half decent shoes?”
