Dark Heart (DARC Ops Book 3) (7 page)

“Gentleman, can they be discreet?”

“Of course, of course,” they said, nodding emphatically.

“Okay. And your men, too, Jackson?”

Jackson turned, grinning far too widely for Jasper’s liking. “Jasper, can you be discreet?”

“Of course.”

“And I need to be clear about something,” said Clarence. “The whole world doesn’t stop spinning because the prince needs a hospital visit. Do you understand?”

“What do you mean?” asked Bandi.

And then another man asked him in Arabic, “What does he mean?” This time Jasper did roll his eyes.

“It means that we’ll be honored to have him,” said Clarence. “And we’ll do everything we can to protect him and to perform a successful surgery. But aside from that, he’s just like everyone else. Flesh and blood like everyone else.”

The Saudis just stared at him.

Vice President West jumped in, saying, “Respectfully, we will do everything we can to—”

“Just like everyone else,” said Clarence again, interrupting the Vice President. “Know what I mean? This Saif fella, he puts his pants on one leg at a time.”

“Excuse me,” said Bandi. “Why are we talking about the prince’s pants?”

“I’m not talking about his pants,” Clarence said, sounding a little exasperated.

“He’s just trying to make a point,” said Jasper. And then in Arabic, “The prince, in America, looks at the same sky.”

They didn’t seem to care for Jasper’s update of an old Arabic proverb.

“What did he say?” asked Clarence.

“No,” Bandi said with a scowl, and in English. “If he looked at the same sky in America, none of us would be here right now. Does DARC Ops help everyone who sees that same sky?”

“Okay,” said Jackson. “I think we’re getting off track here.”

“I don’t know, Jackson,” Clarence broke in. “I think we’re finally getting into some interesting concepts.”

“Excuse me?” said Vice President West. “Excuse me? Can everyone still here me?”

Jackson nodded. “Go ahead, sir.”

“I would just like to convey my sincerest promise, on behalf of the government of the United States, that Prince Saif will be absolutely protected.”

“Yes,” said Bandi. “Thank you.”

The Vice President kept going. “And, if it makes you feel any better, my own mother went to Lambert Memorial Hospital. Now, I know she wasn’t being targeted for assassination, but the care she received at that hospital was nothing short of miraculous.”

Clarence smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Vice President.”

“Okay,” said Jackson. “So are we in agreement about Lambert?”

The Saudis huddled around each other, talking quietly, and then one asked, “Mr. Vice President. Did you say, your mother?”

“I can assure you that Prince Saif will be well taken care of,” Clarence said coldly.

Jasper heard his boss whisper his name.

“And you’re okay with our men being there?” asked Bandi.

“Jasper,” called Jackson, a little louder.

“If they’re discreetly carrying weapons?”

“Yes.”

“Jasper!”

“Okay then,” said Clarence, turning to the computer screen. “I think it’s a go, Mr. West.”

“Excellent,” said the Vice President as Clarence walked up to the Saudis to shake hands. “Does that sound good to you, Jackson?”

“Yes, it does,” said Jackson.

“Great, so now we’ll—”

“Sorry Mr. VP,” Jackson interrupted. “But Jasper and I have to check something in the lobby. Could you please keep talking?”

“Keep talking?”

Jasper caught his wink.

“Yes, we’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” said Clarence. “What?” He didn’t seem to want to be left alone with the Saudis and a laptop version of the Vice President.

“Well, isn’t there a lot more to discuss?” asked Jackson. “How about time frame? Does anyone even know when the prince will be at the hospital?

“That’s right.” Clarence spun around back to the men. “When should I expect him?”

“Just keep talking and we’ll be right back,” said Jackson.

“Is everything alright?” Jasper heard West ask, but he and Jackson had already began moving toward the door, out of earshot and definitely out of sight of the laptop.

* * *

T
he hallways
of the Watergate Hotel had become much more crowded since their meeting began. Men and women in similarly formal attire, with similarly concerned expressions, bobbed in and out of each room like a pack of moles. Perhaps spillover meetings from nearby facilities that were also in lockdown. Jackson had to push Jasper out of the way of a rush of people, bracing him against the wall, and talking quietly.

“I had to talk to you in private,” he said as another rush of people flowed by. It wasn’t so private, but it seemed better than the stiflingly awkward boardroom.

“What’s going on?” said Jasper as he gently pushed Jackson away. He didn’t like how stressed Jackson appeared. That glint in his eye.

Jackson looked down the hall nervously, checking both ways, his head twitching around like a bird. “Our job has started earlier than I expected. I’m trying to catch whoever it was that was spying on us.”

“On the call with Mr. West? I thought it was secure.”

“It was
mainly
secure,” he said, finally focusing his attention on Jasper. “But I left a door open just enough to see if anyone wanted to step inside.”

“I’m guessing someone did?”

Jackson nodded. “So I need you to go back in there and cover for me. More importantly, keep the call open with Mr. West so I can keep—”

“What do you mean keep the call open?”

“Keep them talking.”

It was slightly out of Jasper’s range of experience, talking to dignitaries and political figures, somehow persuading them to this or that end, the shmaltz and small talk. He was a grunt with stethoscope around his neck, not someone who was in charge of fast-talking the fastest talkers there were: politicians.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jackson “You can’t do that?” He asked as if it was no big deal to string along the Vice President of the United States and representatives from Saudi Arabia.

But Jasper was a terrible actor. And an even worse liar.

But it wasn’t really lying. It was . . .

Think, think, think.

That would be the advice he’d give some new recruit during an assessment trial. Worthless advice, really.

“Just make something up,” said Jackson, pulling out his phone and checking the screen. “Anything. Some issue that has to be ironed out.”

“Like what?”

Jackson thought for a second, and then shrugged and said “I don’t know.”

If
he
didn’t know, then . . .

“Ah, fuck it,” said Jackson. “Fine. Come on.”

He finally relented.

“Let’s go and find this guy,” said Jasper. “You need backup, anyway.”

They jogged off down the hall, blending in, for a while, with the stream of traffic.

F
resh off her shift
, a hospital was the last place Fiona wanted to be. There were far better options. Especially on a Friday night. And especially after the kind of shifts she’d been having. The natural choice would be the TGI Friday’s right around the corner from her hospital. She wouldn’t even have to drive there. Just walk straight out of the door and take a right. And then take a seat at the bar, maybe order something ridiculous like a blooming onion, or calorific like bacon cheese fries. Plus numerous gin and tonics.

Since no one she knew would be caught dead in there, she’d be left alone in relative peace. Just her and that college-boy bartender. A perfect escape for her to drown her sorrows with the cheap, non-threatening atmosphere, the shitty drinks, the frosted tipped bartender.

Or she could drive straight to another hospital, through an hour’s worth of traffic, to go check on how close her sister was to dying today. How dead her brain had already become, the rate of deterioration from visit to visit.

Her sister had been hit by a car while training for a half marathon, running five miles every morning until that one morning when a texting teen decided that her social life was more important than life itself for someone else. They said she went flying in the air, ten or twenty feet backward, and then landed on her head. She sprang back up somehow, like a headless chicken perhaps, a bundle of energy stored in the nerves operating in some basic primal reaction to the blow. But it was short lived, and she collapsed back down within seconds. And that was the only walking she’d ever done since the crash. Probably the last time she’d done a lot of other things too, like talking, or looking at something with some semblance of understanding and consciousness. Or even breathing on her own. For now that was taken care of by a machine. Everything was taken care of.

“Yes,” said her nurse cheerfully. “She’s comfortable. She has everything she needs. And she gets a lot of visitors.”

She was the popular sister. The pretty one. News anchor for a small-market news channel.

“She had a good day,” said the nurse, checking and re-checking her sister’s charts.

Fiona didn’t want to let on that she was a nurse herself, and that she knew the ins and outs, and what the words on the charts actually meant. She also knew what it was like to have nothing real to say to a family member, and thus, “She had a good day.” Fiona herself used a whole arsenal of those in her shift just a few hours ago.

She’s doing well. She’s comfortable. She had a good day.

This was the kind of stuff you’d say for someone who couldn’t say it themselves, that is, if what they said would actually correspond to it. She looked down at her broken sister with pity, wondering just how good a day she could’ve possibly had.

What would her sister have really said about her day?

Did she even know what a day was anymore?

Did she know who Fiona was?

“Look,” the nurse said, pointing to some uptick in her live EEG reading. “She remembers you. She hears your voice.”

It was a little too hopeful. And while it was nice, and no doubt made with good intentions, it was deceiving and unprofessional.

“She likes getting visitors,” said the nurse, still admiring the feeble hints of brain activity from the EEG.

It wasn’t necessarily wrong to lie to visitors like that.

What was she supposed to say? The truth?

Or how about nothing at all? The job would certainly be a lot easier that way.

“Thanks.” Fiona smiled at the nice nurse. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

She didn’t have any gifts or chocolates. Just a thanks, from one nurse to another.

“Oh, don’t even mention it, Sweetie,” said the nurse as she finished rearranging the sheets over her sister’s motionless body. “I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”

When the nurse and her good-natured comments left the room, it was the sound of her sister’s beeping EEG that took over. And of her ventilator, the sucking sound of air whistling through the tubes. More beeping, more air, the whole thing passing for “breathing.” She followed these tubes, starting at her sister’s white and cracked lips, down to her chest, along the bed, and into a machine. And then Fiona followed another lifeline, a little cord that went from the machine, spiraling down along one of its legs, and then on the floor toward an outlet in the wall. It all came down to that little plug, some little piece of rubber and plastic and wiring. It all came down to a decision, to when it should be unplugged.

Fiona looked back to her sister’s face, her pale cheeks still spotted with a few of those youthful freckles she’d always try covering up before telecasts, her muscles completely relaxed. Her mouth seemingly almost curved up in a gentle smile.

There was a knock at the door. The doctor. A small, brown-skinned man with a soft and pleasant face. He spoke with an Indian accent, greeting Fiona and then, very quietly, expressing his sympathies about the situation.

“A terrible tragedy, yes. But we are all doing our best. Including her.”

Or was it a Pakistani accent?

Fiona wasn’t sure about the difference.

“Channel 7, yes?”

Yes. She was on her second year with the road crew of Channel 7, driving around to this or that inconsequential news event. Small-time stuff for the newbie, things she could handle. Stories like cats in trees or the outrage surrounding the police raid of a 12-year-old’s lemonade stand.

The doctor was doing something with one of the electrodes attached to the cap on her sister’s head. He applied a jellylike substance to the end of it, and then placed it back against her forehead. “Yes,” he said again. “Very beautiful. Very talented.”

Fiona nodded. “And she was a good sister.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said, wiping his jellied fingertips on his white coat. “Would you like to see her brain activity?” He took out a tablet and began sliding through some pages. “I have it condensed, so you can see.”

Fiona leaned in and took a look at his screen. It was a long chart of squiggly lines, almost like sheet music. But instead of notation, there were the peaks and valleys of her brain activity throughout her stay at the hospital.

“As you see,” he said, zooming in to the early days. “There has been progress. An increase in most faculties.” He slid the screen over, jumping a week ahead, where the mountain peaks began to taper off, the concerto having already reached its climax. “And then, they plateau, as you see.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I see.”

And then he skipped forward another week, the current week, to where the music got even quieter, the melodies dipping lower and lower.

“Is that bad?” asked Fiona.

“We expect it to pick up,” he said, sliding the screen to the end, to today. “Since she’s plateaued, it will go in cycles. And the activity itself, even down here, is still very promising.”

Fiona nodded.

“She’s fighting,” he said, putting away the tablet. “She’s still fighting.”

Fiona looked at her sister again, sending her whatever mental energy she could, whatever she could do to tell her to keep fighting.

“We’ve tried testing her breathing, by turning off the machine.” He was shaking his head sadly. “But not yet. Sometimes they’ll start breathing, but . . .” He looked at her sister. “But not yet.”

Fiona had never heard of that before, or seen anything like it at her hospital. It was hard for her to imagine, almost like holding a sleeping puppy underwater to make sure it was alive. She tried not to show her confusion, or protest about it, but maybe she didn’t do a good enough job. The doctor gave her a strange little look.

“She wasn’t in any discomfort,” he said.

Fiona couldn’t help but think that was a lie. She probably was in discomfort, but just didn’t know it.

“And it’s a controlled experiment, with many people here, helping.” He was nodding casually, as if to attach some normalcy to what he was saying. “Just something we do.”

Her sister’s beeping had been steady the whole time, her lines from the EEG traveling along the same plateau. How much longer would they keep this up? It wasn’t her place to answer, of course. But it was definitely her place to wonder.

By law, it would be up to her parents. They had the exclusive cord-unplugging rights. But they haven’t even talked about it yet, at least to Fiona or any other members of the family.

If it was up to Fiona, they’d at least be talking about it.

Maybe the discussion happened at night, in bed, in privacy, and probably in tears.

“How much longer should we be doing this?” Fiona asked the doctor, glad that she could pretend that she was just a normal civilian.

“Well,” he said, taking a big breath. “It’s a very . . . philosophical matter. And religious. Are you religious?”

“No.”

“Is she?”

“No.”

“Life, naturally, wants to continue,” said the doctor. “Like electricity, it wants to continue through whatever it can until it can be grounded. Or like water flowing down a mountain.” He rolled his eyes. “But I think I’m getting too . . .”

“No, no, it’s fine.”

“What I should say is that her body wants to survive. See her heart here—he pointed to the readout—“see her mind.” His finger traced the lines of her EEG. “See what happens when we shine a light.” He took a small penlight from his breast pocket it, leaned over her sister, and flashed it at her closed eyes.

Fiona stepped forward to see the response, if any.

Her sister, under the light, moved her head slightly. It was so slight, but monumental.

“See?” He turned off the light. “She responds to stimulus. To light. And voices.”

“Yeah . . .”

“Your sister is very much alive. It can be difficult to see that at times, I know. But she’s alive.”

“How do I convince her insurance about that?”

“Excuse me?”

She really shouldn’t get into it.

“I shouldn’t really comment on . . . insurance,” the doctor said. Of course not.

“I know, I know . . .” She knew better than that.

“Sadly, some insurance companies give up sooner than others.”

Fiona was well aware of that. As well as some hospitals viewing patients like her sister as carbon footprints, a drain of the hospital’s resources. Or even worse, as “beating-heart cadavers.” There had been a number of occasions already this year where the plug was pulled too early. Sometimes for profit.

“She’s an organ donor,” said Fiona.

“Yes?”

“Do you harvest organs here?” she asked.

“Of course. Every hospital does. Where else do you expect it to happen?”

“I mean, do you profit from it?”

“Excuse me?” he said again. This time he seemed to know more about what she asked. And this time he seemed more displeased.

“I understand that some hospitals profit. And I heard about one hospital, right here in DC, where they harvested too early. The patient woke up without organs.”

“That happened . . . somewhere else. And I of course don’t want to comment on it.”

No one wanted to comment on it. They had mistakenly—if not fraudulently—pronounced a patient dead, claiming she had irreversible brain damage. That she’d suffered cardiac arrest. They began slicing away even with the patient’s heart still beating.

“I don’t talk about other hospitals,” said the doctor. “I don’t care about other hospitals. I just care about the Hippocratic Oath. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.” Who, aside from Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the infamous Nazi doctors, would be against such a basic ethical principle? “First, do no harm,” she said, repeating part of the oath. “Right?”

“Actually no,” said the doctor. “That part is actually a misconception. It’s not in the Greek original. Although there
is
something about rejecting harm and mischief.”

Fiona frowned. That wasn’t as comforting as the doctor thought.