“I hate seeing what I did to her,” Nick said, looking at Anna’s toned abdomen with an angry scar running its full length. After they had closed the large abdominal incision with surgical staples, Maggie cleaned the blood from Anna’s body.
“She’s alive,” Maggie said.
“I’m trying to keep her pressure up as well as I can, but I’m afraid she’s pumping more saline than blood cells,” Becker added. “I will keep her in an induced coma for now. It will be easier on her heart. I’m sorry we don’t have a respirator. I can support her breathing on the anesthesia machine for now, but we need to get her to a place that does.”
“What do you think?” Nick asked Maggie.
Maggie wiped a smudge of dirt from Anna’s forehead and sighed loudly. “Oh Lord, what have we done?” She used her shoulder to wipe a tear from her own eye. “I need to call her parents to let them know what happened. They need to know.”
“Your friends are outside,” Becker’s wife said. “Let me cover her up and bring them in. We need to pray together,” She placed a dressing over the wound and pulled a blanket over Anna’s pale body. Then she called Buck and Katelyn into the OR.
Buck had found a wheelchair and rolled in anxiously. Katelyn followed.
When he saw Anna’s ghostly face and the breathing tube down her throat, Buck burst into tears. He wheeled to the OR table and put his hand on her shoulder. “Oh, Anna, I am so sorry,” he sobbed. “Please forgive me.”
The team gathered around the bed and laid their hands on Anna.
“Jesus, help us,” Maggie cried. “We need you, Father. Breathe life into Anna. Spare this child, Father.”
“Yes, Father, we ask for your love and mercy to fall on her,” Becker added.
Becker’s wife stomped her foot, “We command the grip of death to let go of Anna, in the powerful name of Jesus.”
Nick’s mind swirled. He stumbled for the door. Thinking he was going to vomit again, he raced out the back door of the small hospital. Darkness filled his vision, and he fell to his knees in the courtyard. Severe pain in his knees kept him from passing out, and he rolled on his side, acutely aware of the crushing pain in his chest. It felt like every sorrow, every mistake, every regret crushed his chest. He couldn’t breathe.
Was this how it was all going to end? Here in this stupid little hospital?
He knew loneness, but never like this. Emptiness and fear were swallowing him.
“Help me,” he cried between gasps. He struggled to speak and clutched his chest.
Grief and shame tore at his mind.
What have I done? What have I not done? Things done, things left undone.
Deep sorrow inundated him as he gasped and sobbed. His body shook violently. He coughed, and the coughing nauseated him. His stomach heaved. He rolled on his other side and curled into a fetal position.
“Father, forgive me,” he whispered, his lips quivering. “Of all the people I know, she does not deserve this. Oh God, let me take her place.” He sobbed. “Lord, I offer my life for hers. Take me, Father, that she might live. Forgive me, Father, for my sins. Forgive me for living my own life and not realizing who you are. Please, Father, save her.”
Nick broke into loud sobs.
Unbearable fear gripped his heart and visions of his recent dreams swamped his mind. The raging storm of his imagination and the inability to find John fueled Nick’s desperation. “God, help me!”
As the words filled his mouth, he saw a vision of John calling to him to take shelter amongst the rocks. The scripture in John’s office scrolled like a banner across his cerebellum: ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; The God of my strength, in whom I will trust.’
It was taking all his strength to fight it, to consciously ignore what he understood in his heart, what his analytical brain resisted. His mind reeled back to Tikal where he saw Anna standing by the large sacrificial rock where John had taken his last breath. He heard her say: The only divine King I know is Jesus.
He listened to his heart. “Jesus…save me,” he said.
Nick surrendered.
The words lifted the pressure off his chest. His clenched fists and his legs relaxed.
Nick was no longer afraid. He realized that Maggie was sitting beside him with her hands on his head. Emotion welled inside him, and he struggled to think and to speak. She stroked his hair, and he wept.
Finally, when he was able to speak, he said, “Maggie, I am so lost. I feel like I have so blown it. I haven’t lived up to anyone’s expectations of me. I’m not John, I’m not a good enough surgeon, I’m not the perfect son, and I’m not a good friend. I don’t know what to do.” He looked into her eyes, pleading for answers. He saw compassion.
She pulled his head onto her lap and let him grieve.
His body continued to relax as she wiped tears from his face.
“You only have to be who God made you, nothing more,” Maggie said, leaning over him and kissing his forehead.
* * *
The sun lay low on the horizon when Suk parked down the road from their rental. He had wondered if he would have visitors and was not surprised to find them. Two local police cars sat in front of the house, their lights flashing.
Suk hoped they would not be smart enough to decipher any of his scientific writings, even if they found the hidden research book.
He had to make a decision. Should he risk hiding out somewhere in town for the day and then go back to the house and get his book, or should he set off immediately and work his way out of the country? Mexico was close to the north, but the only legitimate road to Mexico was six hours to the west, and the border could be much more difficult to cross.
Belize was only an hour and a half drive. After seeing the city of Melcho de Mencos at the border, he imagined it would be simple enough to find someone to pay to take him across undetected.
He looked at his watch. The DHL office would be closed now. He was relieved. Would he even want to send a note to the professor telling him of Hwang and Cho’s missteps? He was confident that nothing at the house would point to North Korea, especially if the bumbling, local police investigated it.
Looking through the trees surrounding the house, Suk knew it was time to go. He hoped someone would feed the ferrets.
* * *
Maggie wiped her eyes as she hung up the phone. Anna’s parents had been shocked and afraid and livid almost simultaneously. Anna’s father, a high-powered attorney in Alabama, had emptied both barrels of anger and frustration at Maggie.
“There will be hell to pay. Why in the world would you allow Anna to go to that part of Guatemala?” he had raged. He’d closed by telling Maggie they’d catch the first plane to Guatemala. She was unable to tell them if they would be retrieving Anna’s body or bringing her home.
It was one of the most uncomfortable calls Maggie had ever had to make, but she understood. The team did, too.
Her next call was almost as uncomfortable. It was to the local drug cartel. Nick told her that if Anna was going to have any chance at surviving, they needed to get her out of San Benito. There was no way she would survive a five- or six-hour ambulance ride to Guatemala City or Quetzaltenango. Tikal was about equal distance between them. Guatemala City had more to offer as far as an Intensive Care Unit, but the Hope Center had a respirator, and they would have more control of her care.
Most ICUs crawl with antibiotic-resistant bacteria that kill patients more often than what sent them there. Because of that risk, the team decided it was best to take Anna to the Hope Center.
The fastest way back was by helicopter, and the drug cartel’s helicopter was the fastest and the closest. Fortunately, a year ago, John had saved the life of the son of the cartel leader. The boy had had a ruptured appendix. It was time to call in that chip.
“They can be here in forty-five minutes,” Maggie told the team as she hung up. “I told them what you said, Dr. Becker, to land on the street in front of the hospital.”
“Great. I wish we had blood to give her. I’m afraid we don’t keep it here. Do you happen to know her blood type?”
Maggie shook her head, “I’m afraid I don’t.”
Katelyn spoke up. “I am O negative. Doesn’t that make me a universal donor?”
Becker looked at Nick. “It used to. Folks can still have a violent reaction to it. Nick, what are your thoughts?”
“We’ve really moved away from it at the trauma center. It’s just so easy to give patients an exact match. It’s risky, but it’s always a balance between risk and reward, isn’t it?”
“Her pressure is still really low, and her heart is pumping as fast as it possibly can. I think it is worth the risk,” Becker said.
“I think so, too,” Nick agreed.
Katelyn rolled up her sleeve. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
Suk was shocked at how simple it had been to get into Belize. The official border crossing was on the main road and was heavily guarded and difficult to cross. But ten blocks south, he was able to simply walk across the street and into Belize.
A man in the local cantina had been eager to help, and the FOCO SUV was more than enough payment. Suk was instructed to walk two miles down the dirt road to Benque Viejo Del Carmen where he would see a Pizza Hut on the main road. He was to wait there for a man to pick him up and take him into Belize City. From there, he could go anywhere in the world. Cash would make any visa problems disappear.