CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ordinarily, Bryson Witner’s thrice weekly exercise walks were a time to relish the fresh air and the rhythm of movement, a time to let his thoughts emerge and converse. But a sharp blade of foreboding had wedged in his mind ever since he’d read about the murder of a Ukrainian journalist in New Canterbury. Gina was dead. Something had gone awry with her spying mission. The subsequent news that the medical center would be acquired by HWA had lightened his mood a bit, but not entirely. With Haines in possession of the hospital, what relevance did he himself now possess to either of them, especially Potemkin? Trust was a dodgy business, and Potemkin was one of the dodgiest persons on earth.

A crow screeched overhead. He gazed up, jingling the handcuffs at his back. The bird soared away, leaving a sky full of cold clouds, as impenetrable as the questions he’d been asking himself. With Gina dead, his communication link to Potemkin had been severed. How and when would Potemkin reach out to him regarding the escape plans? During his final meeting with Gina last week, he’d had a fleeting sense she was hiding something. He should have dug deeper. Now he was in limbo, waiting, reliant on the goodwill of others. Because of that, he had begun collecting information that might be useful as leverage against them someday, keeping it in a safe location, to be revealed only if the need arose. It was, he liked to think, a healthy exercise of paranoia.

A frigid gust rinsed across his scalp as he strode over the Astroturf back toward the doorway where Gordon the guard stood leaning against the cinder block wall, his eyes fixed on a cell phone as intently as if it contained the tablets of Moses.

Gordon looked up. “You done already, old guy? You’ve got a few more minutes.”

“A fact of which I’m not unaware, but I want to go in,” Witner said. “Thank you for the nugatory solicitude.”

“The what?” Gordon puzzled. Then he shrugged. “Never mind. Your room inspection probably isn’t done yet. But suit yourself. You want in, we’ll go in.” They shuffled down the dingy beige corridor toward Witner’s quarters. “Looked like you were having quite the talk with yourself out there today, Witner,” Gordon said. “I heard you’ve got multiple personalities. Is it for real?”

Guards didn’t last too long at Patterson. The pay was poor. Not surprising that many of them liked to add a little spice to the job by probing into the lurid histories of their charges. Gordon had only been here a few months and was still soaking it in. But Witner wasn’t in a mood to humor him.

“We all contain multitudes, Gordon,” he said. “Somewhere inside of you, for example, there’s a Buddhist monk seeking to become one with the universe.”

Gordon laughed. “You sure come up with lots of crazy crap,” he said. “But seriously, you look a little, I don’t know . . . somewhere else today.”

They came to his room. A notice was taped to the door. Cleaning and inspection in progress. Do not interrupt.

“See, like I told you, Witner. He’s not done yet.”

“How thorough of him. Behold your tax dollars at work.”

These weekly room shakedowns had been instituted after a patient in a different state had fashioned a knife out of a toothbrush and took out the eye of a visitor a few years ago. One of the guards would rifle through his dresser, his toiletries, his books, look beneath his bed, under the rug.

The door swung open and a guard emerged, one that Witner had never seen before. He was a scrawny middle-aged man with a ropey neck and a robust five o’clock shadow.

“All is in order,” he said, peeling the notice off the door. “Back in you go, amigo.”

“Merci beaucoup,” said Witner. “Amigo.”

Gordon undid the cuffs and Witner stepped inside. The heavy door slammed shut. Ordinarily this would have been the end of his daily contact with other human beings, supper being served in a cardboard box slid through a slot. But his weekly counseling session with Geoffrey Nettles, MSW, scheduled every Wednesday at 1 p.m., had been pushed back to 4 p.m. today. It was 3:50 now.

As was his habit, he strode around the room and into the bathroom, checking to see if anything was missing or disturbed. A guard last year had made off with his deodorant. At least one could say he needed it. The last thing he checked was his desk drawer where he kept his favorite coin. He liked to look at this piece regularly, and the guards would never be brazen enough to steal it. Everyone knew it was there, and the room was under constant video surveillance.

There it was, safe and sound, tucked into a clear plastic case—a 1970 Washington quarter from the Denver mint, one of a small number of them that had been inadvertently stamped onto blanks intended for dimes and released into circulation before the mistake was caught. He’d bought it at an auction at the Boston Numismatic Society back in 1987 for thirty-five hundred dollars, outbidding Potemkin, who had ridiculed him for spending so much money. But the last laugh was his. Two days later he’d refused a four thousand dollar offer from another collector.

Looking at it pleased him inordinately. In its bungled creation and distribution, this disc exemplified the potential for human beings to foul things up. And being a rare mistake, it was of value. Humanity in a nutshell. He wondered again when and how Potemkin would make contact.

Closing the drawer, he settled into a chair. He’d come to enjoy these “stability assessment sessions” with Geoffrey, a well-read person who possessed a quick wit. Their relationship had grown relaxed over the years. Geoffrey had made the guards dispense with handcuffs, comfortable in the knowledge they were being video monitored. After the usual questions about hearing voices or having suicidal or homicidal thoughts, they’d chat, often about politics (the counselor was a rabid Democrat), and Geoffrey would go away and file his report.

At exactly 3:58, the lock clattered and the door creaked open. Geoffrey sauntered in wearing a brown fedora and a black trench coat. He was a pudgy man with a blond crew cut and a red-veined nose, the only clue that he’d once been a tippler, on the wagon—or so he claimed—since the birth of his first child.

“Forgive the change in schedule, Bryson,” he said, shuffling off his coat. “My wife needed to see the OB.”

“All is well?”

“Yes, thank you. The pregnancy is on track.”

“Your third, right?” Witner asked.

“Fourth.”

“You’re quite the satyr.”

“Nature calls; I respond. And how are you doing? The guard tells me you were talking up a storm with yourself in the yard this afternoon. Are you having any auditory hallucinations?”

“I’m not hearing voices, per se,” said Witner. “I’m simply communicating with various aspects of my stunning personality. My internal committees and I meet frequently to discuss the general situation.”

“Well, just so long as you and your inner colleagues talk about the real world. Anything else new?”

An image of Gina came to mind. “Not really. They didn’t disturb the spiderwebs during the inspection today. That’s something new.”

“Ah, yes, your arachnid pals,” Geoffrey remarked, smiling.

“I believe there are three of them living in my room now. Two yellow sacs and one daddy longlegs. Seriously, don’t you think it strange that spiders conjure such revulsion in us humans? Imagine if we were similarly repelled by the sight of a robin hopping in a puddle.”

“I’d rather not.” Geoffrey set his hat on the table and picked up Witner’s Kindle. “Mind if I see what you’ve been reading?”

“When have I ever denied you that pleasure?”

Geoffrey took the reading device, settled into a chair opposite Witner, and began swiping away. “You must really like P. G. Wodehouse,” he said.

“I enjoy his tragic dimensions.”

“Right,” said Geoffrey. “Find me a tragic passage in Wodehouse and I’ll . . .”

“You’ll what? Eat your fedora?”

“It’s awfully hot in here,” Geoffrey said, looking up. “Or is it me?”

“Must be you,” Witner said. ”You’re flushed. Don’t you feel well?”

“No,” Geoffrey said. “I don’t. I’m getting nauseated.”

“Maybe that intermittent fasting is catching up with you. I warned you.”

A sheen of sweat had blossomed on the counselor’s forehead and his mouth was sagging open. Witner leaned forward, feeling a surge of clinical interest.

“Geoffrey?”

Geoffrey shook his head as if to clear it. Then he began blinking rapidly and swallowing. “Bryson, could you pass me a waste can? I’m going to vomit. Something is not right.”

Something was definitely amiss. When Witner returned from the bathroom with a trash can, Geoffrey was staring blankly, straight ahead, a string of saliva oozing onto the e-reader. As Witner slid the trash can between the counselor’s legs, the Kindle slipped from Geoffrey’s hands and clattered into it. Geoffrey made a moaning sound.

“We’d better get you lying down,” Witner said.

“Oh God,” said Geoffrey, hunching forward. A stream of vomit gushed from his mouth, most of it flying over the can. Then another and another, leaving him gasping and choking. He swayed and pitched forward onto the floor, upsetting the trash can and hitting his head. Witner looked up at the monitor camera above the door. Where were the bloody guards? They usually appeared at the drop of a piece of toast. Geoffrey began convulsing, his limbs jerking rhythmically, neck drawing back, face turning purple, eyes fixed and bulging.

Glaring up at the camera, Witner waved his arms. “Yoo-hoo! Damn you! We could use some help here.” The control room was only a hundred feet down the hallway. They should have been here immediately. He waved again. “Get the paramedics, you imbeciles!”

No response. Very bizarre. He was on his own. As a physician, he’d witnessed many people seizing. You protect them from banging their heads and keep your own fingers out of their mouth. They will not swallow their tongues, but they will bite off your finger. Mainly, though, you medicate them to stop the seizure activity.

He grabbed a blanket off the cot, eased Geoffrey onto his side so he wouldn’t aspirate, folded the blanket, and put it under Geoffrey’s thrashing head to protect it from the concrete floor. The most common reason people seize is an inadequately medicated underlying convulsive disorder, but Geoffrey had always said he was in good health and took no medication.

There was nothing more to do but wait for help. Where the devil were those blockheads? Seizures could go on for a long time, but eventually they would stop. Only very rarely did people die from a convulsion. Geoffrey’s seizure activity was weakening and growing more sporadic, with longer and longer pauses of no movement.

Witner stared again at the camera. Obviously there’d been a malfunction. Two guards monitored the bank of screens. The chance of both taking naps simultaneously was about that of a meteorite landing on one’s doghouse. This was odd. Nefariously odd. Something malign was afoot.

Typically, when a seizure finally ends, the patient goes into a coma-like postictal state that might last half an hour or more, and they would sleep it off. Geoffrey’s seizing had finally stopped.

But so had his breathing.

His face was growing bluer and bluer, his eyes wide open and bloodshot, his lips flecked with froth and blood. Witner ground his knuckles into Geoffrey’s sternum, checking for any response. None.

Then came a slow, gurgling expiration of air, followed by silence. Witner felt for a carotid pulse. Nothing. This was not a postictal state. Geoffrey was dead. His left arm was extended as if he were reaching for the vomit-streaked Kindle that had slid out of the overturned trash can.

He thought of starting CPR but found himself staring instead at the Kindle. He took a deep breath as a realization blossomed. “Yes,” he said. He looked up at the camera, noticing how it resembled a one-eyed snake. Rising to his feet and gazing around, he imagined himself encircled by a team of residents and medical students, his clinical committee.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, we have a moderately overweight Caucasian male in his forties—recovering alcoholic, occasional cigar smoker, in otherwise good health—who became suddenly flushed and diaphoretic. Shortly afterward, he vomited forcefully, collapsed, and experienced generalized seizure activity, followed shortly thereafter by death. All this transpired within the space of ten minutes after he’d picked up and handled my e-reader. Would anyone hazard a diagnosis?”

“Hypoglycemia, Professor?” he answered himself in a reedy voice.

“Not at all likely,” he replied in his normal tone. “Anyone else?”

“Anaphylaxis, Professor?”

“Not convincing. How about you, young Bryson?”

“Thank you for calling on me, Dr. Witner,” he said. “This looks like an acute toxic exposure. There are very few poisonous substances that act this quickly. Cyanide is one. Another is the highly potent cholinergic nerve agent called Novichok, developed by the Soviets and often used by modern Russians to murder their enemies. It is rapidly absorbed across intact skin and requires only a minuscule dosage to be lethal. It is often smeared onto a surface that the victim will touch. The symptoms resemble this.”

“Ha! Brilliant, Bryson,” he said. “And what do you think might have been the vector for this agent?”

“Obviously, the Kindle, sir. It was lying on the table after the inspection today. You were the intended target, but your counselor got to it first.”

“Yes, poor Geoffrey. I will miss him, as will his wife and children. But continue with your analysis. We so love to hear your mind at work.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s likely that at least one member of the Patterson security force is a clandestine agent for whoever is behind this. The one who inspected the room today is a prime candidate. But he obviously wasn’t aware of the change in Geoffrey’s schedule. You have been betrayed, sir.”

“And I think we know by whom.”

“Yes.”

“And the camera? Why didn’t they see and respond?”

“It’s playing a pre-recorded loop. At some point, the agent who did this will switch it back to the live feed and sound the alarm. He’ll use a solvent to swab the Kindle and remove traces of the poison. Unaware of the foul play, the authorities will call his death a cardiac arrest. An autopsy will be performed, but Novichok doesn’t show up on the standard tests.”

“Indeed,” Witner said. “Interestingly, the pre-recorded loop on the CCTV is currently rendering us invisible to the other guards. Does that not present us with a window of opportunity to turn the table?”

“I believe it does, sir. For how long, I do not know. But yes, a window has opened.”

“By heavens, Bryson. What would we do without you?”

“You’ll never know, sir.”