Dr. Ramil sat on the chair in the narrow hallway above the steps, eyes closed. He felt as if he were falling into a narrow well, his body surrounded by thick walls of stone. The earth’s surface was many miles above.
I’m losing my mind because of the pressure. It’s the stress that’s making me hear voices, not the other way around.
He’d been under much worse pressure in Vietnam several times. Once he’d come close to being shot by a South Vietnamese soldier gone mad, two or three other times he’d stayed in the operating room while the base was under a mortar attack. Those times were worse than now, far more dangerous.
But he was a kid then, young.
“Up,” whispered a voice above him.
Ramil opened his eyes and saw Lia.
“Ssshhh. Come on,” she said, taking him by the hand and grabbing the chair. “Down to the first floor. Quickly. They’re coming.”
“It’s clear,” said Asad’s bodyguard.
Dean went into the examining room. He gestured for Asad to sit on the table.
“Charlie? This is Dr. Goldstein. We’re going to begin with some standard questions. While you’re doing that, you should check for pupil reaction, then take his temperature and blood pressure. We’re especially interested in the blood pressure, so we’ll walk you through that slowly.”
Dean followed the doctor’s instructions, doing a rudimentary workup before examining the site where the bug had been implanted.
“Charlie, can you put a fly on one of the instruments so the doctors here can get a look at the wound?” asked Rubens.
Good idea, thought Dean — though the bodyguards complicated things. He went to the cabinet at the side of the room and, hands trembling, pulled it out to the stops. Then he dropped the tray on the floor.
“Give him some room,” Asad told the men in Arabic. “I don’t want him nervous.”
Dean knelt and picked up the instruments.
“You want the second drawer from the bottom,” said Chafetz. Dean opened it after he picked up the instruments he’d dropped. He took out the light, but there was no way he’d be able to get one of the bugs from his pocket, let alone install it without being noticed.
“I need a drink of water,” he told Asad. “Would you like some?”
Asad shook his head. One of the bodyguards followed him through the door, but he stayed near the threshold as Dean went to the cooler. He slipped the bug from his pocket, concealing it in his fingers. Back inside, he attached it and activated it as he pretended to adjust the light.
“The sutures are leaking a tiny, tiny bit,” said the doctor in the Art Room. “That’s normal. It’s not the problem. He doesn’t have a fever, so it’s unlikely he has an infection. Could you take his blood pressure again? Your last result was low and we just want to confirm it. Then listen to his heartbeat.”
Dean took Asad’s blood pressure, then used the stethoscope, asking his patient to breathe. He had a little trouble picking up his heart at first, slightly confused, but then he heard it, a dull thump that seemed to race for a few beats and then slow.
“Do you smoke?” he asked his patient, trying to think of a way to communicate the heartbeat to the Art Room. He had audio flies in his pocket, but no way of attaching them to the stethoscope.
“I don’t smoke,” said Asad. “Nor do I drink.”
“When his heart beat,” said the Art Room doctor, “did it sound steady, slow, or jump a bit?”
“Your heart sounded a little, what is the word, jumpy,” Dean told his patient. “Not a good steady beat. Sometimes weak, even. Different.”
Asad shrugged.
“He mentioned feeling faint,” said the doctor in the Art Room.
“Have you felt as if you would pass out?” Dean asked.
“Light-headed,” said Asad. “Even coming up the stairs.”
“Ask him if he has a heart condition,” said the doctor in the Art Room.
Dean walked back across the room. “I wonder,” he said, playing with his stethoscope. “Have you ever been tested — what are the words in English? Has anyone ever asked if you had a heart condition?”
“I have a headache, Doctor. What does that have to do with my heart?”
“Tell him his heartbeat is irregular, and you’re concerned about his health.”
Dean repeated what the doctor told him.
“I think these stitches should come out,” said Asad. “That’s why I have a headache.”
“It has nothing to do with that,” said the doctor.
“I can take them out if you wish,” said Dean. “But they’re not the cause of your problem.”
CHAPTER 57
“His heartbeat is erratic and he has a low blood pressure,” the doctor told Rubens. “He should get a full workup at a hospital.”
“I’m afraid that would be very inconvenient,” Rubens told him.
“Look, this guy is sick. I’m five thousand miles away, but I’d guess that he has a pretty severe heart condition. That CAT scan from the other day should be reviewed to look for signs of a TIA,” said the doctor, using the specialist’s abbreviation for transient ischemic attacks. They were precursors to strokes and a sign of heart disease. “I’ll bet you’ll find plenty.”
Rubens looked to the screen at the front of the room, where Dean was preparing to take out Asad’s stitches.
“I have a responsibility as a doctor to do something for this man,” added the doctor.
Ruben pressed his lips together; this wasn’t an argument he cared to get into just now.
“What will a stroke do to your mission?” added the doctor. “Or a coronary?”
“I understand that you have a duty to a person in medical need,” said Rubens. “When the subject is taken into custody, we’ll have a team address his disease. In the meantime, please continue to work with Mr. Dean.”
CHAPTER 58
Dean’s fingers slipped as he tried to cut the end of the stitches.
“Problem?” asked Asad.
“Please don’t move,” said Dean. He pushed the scissors back and snipped. Then he reached to the nearby tray and took the tweezers, pulling the stitches out.
“Good work,” said the doctor coaching him. “From what I can see, frankly, the wound is fine; it’s healed quicker than expected. The blood he saw is old, probably from the first few hours and he didn’t notice. Clean it a little bit and use one of the suture strips, the butterfly bandages in the top drawer. Honestly, his problems have nothing to do with that.”
“You’re sweating,” said Asad as Dean followed the doctor’s directions.
“Am I?”
“You were worried about doing a good job.”
Dean shrugged.
“My men are just overzealous,” said Asad. “I trusted Allah to guide your hands.”
“It’s not always easy to follow His guidance,” said Dean.
