Handgun ready, Natalie followed Rosa in that direction. At the edge of the building, sprawled on his back, peppered with bullets, was the man from Dom Angelo. Rosa hurried to him, cradled his head in her hand, then quickly turned to Natalie and shook her head grimly. Nearby, writhing on the ground, clutching his abdomen, his white turtleneck jersey saturated with blood, was another man — one of the security guards from the plane, Natalie reasoned.
'Oh, God! Goddamn it!' he kept moaning. 'Oh, please, help me.'
Without a flicker of hesitation, Rosa stood and, from five feet, shot the man in the forehead. Natalie was no longer amazed at her own detachment and lack of emotion. The world of Whitestone Laboratories was a world of big money, of violence, and of death. She had been unwillingly drawn into it, and now she had adjusted.
Sharing their unspoken concern for where Luis might be, and if he had been hurt, the two women inched their way back into the hospital and turned toward the portion of the main corridor that ended in Cho's laboratory. Natalie stopped in front of the closed door to Santoro's office and tried the knob. She was surprised to find it wasn't locked, and had taken a single step into the room when the door was viciously slammed, and Barbosa's powerful forearm slipped over her shoulder and tightened around her throat. He was nearly a full head taller than she was, with a bulging, rock-hard belly that pressed into her back. The hair on his arm was like sandpaper against her skin.
'Drop it!' he hissed. 'Drop the gun!'
Gagging from the pressure across her trachea and larynx, Natalie immediately complied. Barbosa opened the door slowly and, using her as a shield, moved into the hallway and called out, 'Drop it, Rosa! Drop it now or I will break her neck and kill you at the same time…You know I can do it and you know I will. Good. Now, get on the ground. Facedown! Quickly.'
Her lips drawn back in the snarl of a tiger, Rosa slowly did as the policeman insisted. At the instant she was prone, the outside door flew open and Luis lurched through. He was a disheveled apparition, wounded at least twice, once in the left shoulder and once in the chest on the right side. Blood, probably his and others', was smeared across his face and the legs of his khakis. His right hand, clutching a pistol, dangled impotently at his side. Natalie sensed Barbosa smiling.
'So, traitor,' he said, keeping his forearm tightly in place, 'it is over for you. Drop the gun and lie down next to your woman, and I will have one of our surgeons see if they can save your life.'
'That would be very kind of you, Oscar,' Luis said. 'I know I can trust you to keep your word.'
The warrior's arm snapped up like a striking cobra — so fast that Natalie barely understood what was happening until it was over. Orange fire spit from the muzzle of his gun. At the same instant, Barbosa's grip across her throat vanished. She dropped to one knee and whirled in time to see the policeman stumbling backward. His hand, blood oozing from beneath it, was pressed over where his right eye had been. His vast bulk slammed heavily against the wall by Santoro's office door, then slid to the floor, macabrely held in a seated position by his massive girth.
'I told you I was good at killing,' Luis rasped, before collapsing.
CHAPTER 37
Wealth and poverty? the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
For a time, Ben sat there on the ground, leaning back against the cedes, sipping the last of what little water remained in the canteen. He felt feverish and weak. His shoulder was throbbing, and a pounding headache was evolving directly behind his eyes. Natalie had been right to leave him. He should have suggested doing so, himself. Now, here he was. He wondered what Alice Gustafson's reaction would be to his predicament. She had risked her life a number of times to expose those trafficking in illegal organs, so maybe she wouldn't think much of his putting his survival on the line when he drove through that gate to the Whitestone compound back in Texas. But then again, she probably would.
Thanks to whoever had vandalized the car, the plan he, Natalie, and Luis had settled on had come apart almost before it had begun. It still seemed possible that Luis could get Tokima's drug into the food at the hospital. It seemed possible that the guards and professional killers who were defending the place could be overcome. It seemed possible that Natalie could make it to the hospital in time to help, and that she could somehow get Sandy off the respirator, into someone's car, and back up the hill to whisk him away.
It all seemed possible, but not very likely.
Ben pulled himself up and battled back the resultant dizziness and nausea. He had come too far merely to sit here and wait. Natalie had said that he might be of help i{he could reach the village and contact the priest there. If he tried and instead ended up moldering on the roadside, at least he would have died knowing he had gone for it. At least he would have made his return to the earth having cared.
As he pushed a step away from the car, his hand brushed across his pocket and the small revolver Luis had given him. He had actually forgotten that it was there. It was a.38 — a snub-nosed Saturday night special, not unlike the gun still in the wheel well of Seth Stepanski's Chrysler back in Fadiman.
He took several more steps, then forced himself up straight and marched back to the road. The two classy women in his life, Alice and now Natalie, would be proud of his grit. So would Sandy if she ever knew. It was strange to think of her lying there medicated to unconsciousness in the hospital while so much turmoil swirled about, and all of it involving her.
He turned away from the direction where he and Natalie had come, and headed toward the town. One step, then another. Head up, shoulders back, he tried to ignore the pain racking his body.
Keep going…keep going
Father forgive us for what we must do
You forgive us, we'll forgive you
Holy Mary, mother of God…
We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue
Pray for us sinners…
The afternoon sun was intense now, and because of the hour, the rain forest road offered little shade. First John Prine, then the Hail Mary, then John again…line by line, verse by verse, Ben kept walking, stumbling from time to time, but never falling. He might have walked a mile or just a few hundred yards. He couldn't tell and it really didn't matter. The water was gone, and his hope of making it anyplace was dwindling. His head was down now, watching his boots inch forward one painful step after another. Then, a slight downward change in the road caused him to lift his head, and there below him was the town — a postcard photo of Lilliputian structures, nestled in a lush valley. He was nearly insane from the pain and the dizziness, but he had made it. His cracked lips pulled upward into a raw, defiant smile.
He was still dragging more than walking when he reached the actual outskirts of the village. Curious eyes followed him as he made his way toward the center of town.
'Agua, porfavor,' he said to an old woman, using his feeble Spanish and hoping it bore some similarity to Portuguese. 'iDonde estd Padre Frank…a…Padre Francisco?'
The wizened woman offered no water, but did gesture up the street to a quaint chapel. Down several of the streets, Ben saw vehicles of one kind or another. If anyone could borrow or rent or even commandeer one of them, it would have to be the village priest. What shade there had been on the road was gone now, and heat radiated like a kiln from the hard-baked clay. He shuffled forward, but sensed that he might crumple at any moment. The surroundings grew dim, and as he approached the church, he felt his legs beginning to go.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord…
Bit by bit, life came back into focus. Ben's first major reconnection to the world was that he was on a bed — clean linens, a pillow, no, two of them. The aroma of brewing coffee helped nudge his consciousness along.
