Rod finally sat down and Lucifer jumped back in his lap. He stroked the cat absent-mindedly.
Vincent had been observing Mike work on his computer. He leaned over to Heather and whispered, “Your friend, Mike, he’s very smart?”
Heather nodded back and muttered, ‘genius,’ under her breath. She wondered why Vincent asked. Maybe he had a plan. It seems Rod was thinking along the same lines.
“We need to get organized,” Rod said. “I already booked us rooms at a hotel near the airport. But what if they really won’t let us visit Michelle? She might need to stay in the hospital a few days to recuperate. And if Omar’s there, he’ll try to prevent us from taking her back to Hawaii.”
Vincent said, “We’ll have to overwhelm the hospital administration so we can get access to Michelle. I’m going in as her father. Omar couldn’t prevent her own father from visiting her. And Mike, I want you to study as much as you can on that computer of yours, because you’re going to be her doctor.”
Mike’s swallowed visibly with such a look of such bewildered surprise Heather had to stifle a giggle. He was totally astonished by the idea.
“You can do it. You’re already a doctor,” Heather said, smiling at Mike.
“Of meteorology and geology. Not a physician,” Mike said seriously.
Vincent said, “Concentrate on fertility problems, and try learning a little about how human ovum are stored; the temperature, how long they can remain viable, that sort of thing, so you can converse with the doctors at the clinic.”
“I don’t speak Spanish very well, but it says here the staff is fluent in English,” Mike commented as he went back to the fertility clinic website. Then he started looking up medical information on his computer in another overlapping window.
Mike added, “There’s a page for communication with the clinic, emailing the individual doctors. Maybe I can track down Michelle’s doctor. Say I’m coming to check on her prognosis. Doctors usually show courtesy to other doctors. Perhaps they’ll give me a tour and we can figure out the best way to sneak Michelle out of there.”
“Excellent idea,” Vincent said. “Because sneak Michelle out is exactly what we’re going to have to do.”
It won’t be easy, Heather thought. Especially with Omar around. Then she had another thought. “Michelle won’t leave without her eggs.”
Rod said, “Mike, see if there are places, anywhere in the world, where we could have the eggs transferred and stored safely.”
Mike nodded. He took a little time, then said, “I checked Hawaii first. There’s a fertility clinic on Oahu. The problem would be safely transferring the eggs from Mexico. They’d be frozen and stored in nitrogen. A constant temperature is essential.”
Heather had an awful thought, “What if all of Michelle’s eggs have already been implanted with Omar’s sperm?”
“Let’s just concentrate on finding Michelle and getting her home,” Vincent said. “Mike, you’ll have to find out if you can arrange a meeting with her doctor.”
“I just emailed a Dr. Julian Franz. He’s the onsite surgeon and head of the clinic. I said I was Michelle’s GP and I was coming to see how she’s doing.”
Heather was thinking that their alternative would be to go to the police. But they would be in a foreign country and had to make sure that Michelle really was abducted and forced into surgical procedures she didn’t agree to. Then they could contact the Mexican Police and the American Embassy.
Chapter 11
Omar had watched earlier as two nurses came into the bedroom of their suite to prepare Michelle for surgery. They’d covered her hair with what looked like a transparent shower cap. They were quick and efficient, handling Michelle like a giant pliable doll, removing her clothing for the operation and putting a paper gown on her. He could tell they were concerned that she didn’t wake up. One nurse kept tapping her cheek, saying something in Spanish.
They were even more upset about the prominent red scar that went from Michelle’s lower abdomen and straight up between her breasts, ending at her clavicle. It had happened when Samson, Omar’s former bodyguard and all-round flunky, had become a little too enthusiastic with the knife when he raped Michelle. Accidents happen, Omar thought indifferently.
Omar couldn’t understand what they were saying because the nurses were talking in Spanish, but the scar didn’t detract from the attractiveness of her form, as far as he was concerned. Michelle was even more beautiful than when he’d first seen her. After the rape she’d begun serious martial arts training, and she was now in superb shape.
He concluded, as he watched the nurses, that they were disturbed because the scar was obviously caused by a severe knife wound that had healed over, but would remain noticeable forever.
There was a knock on the door and a woman in a lab coat came in and asked him for his specimen jar, which he had filled to capacity. She took it and Omar tried to get a glimpse of her face, to see if she was impressed, but she had her head down, like she might be embarrassed.
She wrapped it in a towel and said, “Must keep warm,” in very accented English and hurried out of the suite. Probably to take it to the fertility clinic laboratory.
The collection procedure had been a bit demeaning. Omar hadn’t done the alone, hand-jobby thing, since he was an adolescent. He found himself inordinately proud of the copious amount he produced. Especially since he wasn’t as young a man as he appeared to be. He’d had several surgical procedures. The first had been to remove the epicanthic folds over his eyes which proclaimed his Asian ancestry. The others had just been to tighten the jowls and some extra
