got all the indications of a barbiturate overdose, but the tests came back negative.”
Overdose. That sounded right. Jack could not believe it had been a coincidence that Chappelle and Cox and the warden had all gone down at the same time. Someone had taken them down.
“If it were an overdose, how would you treat it?”
“Well, the simplest way would be to lower the level of barbiturate. You can do that with a gastric lavage and time.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t have time. What if it were an emergency?”
The doctor looked at him as though he were an idiot. “It’s not an emergency. He’s on life support, he’s stable.”
Jack had no more time for subtlety. He pulled Peter’s gun from under his shirt and said, “Imagine it’s an emergency because I’m pointing a gun at you, Doctor. Now what would you do?”
Dr. Czikowlis gasped and looked around as though the security guard might suddenly appear.
“Stay calm,” Jack said soothingly. “I don’t want to hurt you or him. I just need to ask him a question. I think someone poisoned him. Get him awake. Now.”
Dr. Czikowlis hesitated. She was not particularly heroic, but she was responsible for this patient, and she did not like demands being made on her. Still, her mind went instantly to the treatment. Massive amphetamine injection. Prep nitropresside to prevent cardiac arrest. She might be able to wake him up without causing much damage to him.
“Now,” he repeated, a little more threateningly. The doctor weighed the risk versus the reward and then went to the cabinet.
12. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 A.M. AND 8 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
The phone rang shrilly, jolting Mark Kendall out of his sleep. He sat up, his huge heart pounding in his chest. He looked around, befuddled by the confusion of deep sleep. His sense of himself and his place came back to him as the phone continued incessantly.
“Hello?” he said in a rough morning voice.
“Hey.” That soft voice, that understanding voice. He loved that voice.
“Hiya, babe,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “How are you ladies doing?” His eyes focused and he checked the clock. It’d be about ten in the morning back home.
“Oh, you know,” she said breezily, “up all night at the clubs, breakfast at the Waffle House, then appointments at the hair salon. It’s a full life.”
He laughed. She always made him laugh. But then he heard crying in the background, crying that pierced him and dug into his gut. “How’s she doing?”
“The same,” his wife said, suddenly weary. “She can’t stop crying, poor thing. I took her back to Dr. Krasnoff, but he says we can’t use any more pain medication. We might have to put her back in the hospital.”
Mark grumbled, “They don’t help her there, either.”
He heard his baby wail even louder in the background, as his wife said, “She needs that operation.” “I know. She’ll get it,” he vowed. “Markie, I just wanted to call and say I hope you
know, you’re my, my champion, either way. I hope you know that.”
He smiled, big and boyish in that way only she could make him feel. “I love you. And I’m going to get her what she needs. I promise.”
“I’m going to watch tonight.” “You are?” She had never come to his fights, never even watched them on pay-per-view. “It’s your big comeback. I figured it’s time I worked up the guts. You’re going to do great.”
He looked at the envelope the bald little man had given him. He hadn’t opened it. But he hadn’t thrown it away, either.
“Like I said, I promise. I’m getting her what she needs. No matter what.”
Before Dr. Czikowlis could slide the syringe out of the IV shunt, Ryan Chappelle’s chest heaved and his heart rate soared, turning the monitors into panic buttons. His eyes popped open and he gasped like a man coming up for air.
“Jesus, it worked,” the doctor said. “You know what this means?”
“Yeah, I can talk to him,” Jack said.
“It doesn’t make sense. The tests came back negative. No barbiturates in his system. This shouldn’t work.”
Jack leaned over Chapelle, but said to the doctor, “Someone poisoned him. That same person could have switched the test results. Chappelle!” He tapped Chappelle’s thin, pale cheek. “Chappelle, it’s Bauer!”
Chappelle turned toward Jack, but his eyes were unfixed. “Chappelle!” Jack called out again.
“Bauer,” Chappelle whispered, his voice barely audible. “Should be. jail.”
“Yeah, I know. I need help. I need you. I need your Zapata resource!”
Chappelle breathed a long but shallow, rattling breath.
“Your Zapata resource. I need her now.”
Chappelle blinked several times before saying breathlessly, “Gerwehr. Talia Ger. wehr. RAND.”
“Gerwehr,” Jack said, his shoulders releasing enormous amounts of tension. “Thanks. Thanks, Chappelle.”
Martin Webb woke up without the alarm, but feeling heavy. Old men didn’t sleep, but they needed to. It was after ten o’clock on the East Coast. That’s what he got for staying up till all hours watching sports on television. He sat up and put his feet down, slowly turning his feet in circles the way his physical therapist had told him to, trying to get the circulation going in his feet. His steel-trap mind recalled clearly training camp from his college football days, but to his feet they were a distant memory.
Martin put his glasses on and checked the clock. “Oh, damn it, old man,” he said aloud, “all you’ve got left is your brain and it’s turning to mush. That call is right now.”
Martin dialed the front desk and had them put a call through to the Secretary of the Treasury at his home.
“Lou, it’s Marty. Is now still good?”
Across the country, Lou Friedman sat in the leisure chair in his den, but he was anything but leisurely. As Treasury Secretary, he was ostensibly responsible for the country’s coffers, and those coffers were dangerously low, while the debt to other nations was alarmingly high.
“No time like the present,” he replied glibly. He’d known Marty Webb since college. A good man, maybe the best man to lead them out of this mess. “So what do you think of the President’s stimulus package?”
“Malarkey,” Webb said. “More like a favor to big business than a goose to the economy. I’d rather see more effort put into lowering the value of the dollar overseas.”
He and Marty had gone through this debate before. “You know that’s going to mean less revenue for businessmen here.”
“It’ll mean more volume,” Webb replied, as weary of the debate on his side as Friedman was. “We’re not talking about benefiting a few of your political friends. We’re talking about real stimulus. More volume means more revenue overall, including shipping, packaging, lower prices for imported goods.”
Friedman sighed. “Marty. You and I both know that a word from you is going to do more to relax Wall Street and the consumers than anything else. The plan isn’t all that important. Your endorsement is everything. “
Webb caught the whiff of politics. It was unavoidable, of course. But Martin had become the Fed Chairman because he saw it as a way to serve the public good without prostituting himself too badly.
Of course, his distaste for politics didn’t mean he was politically inept. He knew that Lou was giving him an opening.
“I know the papers will print what I say,” he said coyly.
