Ex-Kop (22 page)

M
AGGIE
and I sped down the hospital corridor. I didn't see Vlad posted by her door. I sped up, Maggie staying on my wing, our shoes echoing off the linoleum. We thundered through Niki's door. Niki was there, right where she was supposed to be. Her startled eyes said that if she could have jumped she would have. Maggie was already rushing over to her when Vlad came bursting out of the bathroom, his piece raised. He stopped half a second before frying a hole through my chest.

“Shit, Juno,” he said, “I almost killed you. You should've announced yourself before barging in like that.”

I grabbed Vlad's arm and yanked him out into the hall. “Why weren't you guarding the door? I thought you'd ditched her.” The only thing keeping me from yelling was the fact that I hadn't yet caught my breath.

“Relax,” he said. “I didn't think it was too smart to be hanging around outside her door. Might as well put a big sign up that says, ‘Here's Niki.’”

“Right,” I said as I tried to collect my haywire self. “When was he here?”

“About a half hour ago. One of the nurses came down to tell me, and I called you right away. She said he got very belligerent with the desk nurse upstairs. She told him Niki checked out, but he wasn't buying it.”

“But he left?”

“Not until after he threw up a big stink. Listen, Juno, I don't
think this is going to work much longer. If he comes back with a wad of bills, I don't think he'll have to ask around long before some orderly tips him off.”

Vlad was looking at me, waiting for me to tell him what to do. I had no idea what to tell him, none whatsoever. “I'll figure something out,” I said unconvincingly as I walked back into Niki's room.

Maggie had Niki turned on her side so she could check the skin ulcers that had formed on her backside from lack of movement. I took a look myself. They looked good. The staff was doing a nice job keeping them under control. There was nothing more life-threatening for Niki than those ulcers, which were sure to get infested with maggots if they broke open. And then, if they didn't heal quickly enough, the rot would set in, and once the rot set in, it was only a matter of time.

Maggie eased Niki over onto her back. Niki looked me straight in the eye. I stroked her cheek, which was just about the only place she could feel my touch. The door flew open. Vlad was there with a nurse I recognized as one of the nurses who took care of Niki when she was in Intensive Care. “He's back, boss. He's got a whole crew of cops with him, and they're going from room to room.”

The nurse took the purple
10
K bill Vlad held out for her and stepped away in a hurry.

“Shit. Let's move her. I'll get the bed, you get—”

Vlad interrupted. “No way, boss. I had them move her twice. It takes a whole team.”

“Well get them in here. NOW!”

“There's no time, boss. It's a big production.”

I was so panic-stricken, I was practically panting. “What am I supposed to do? Just let them come and kill her?”

Vlad looked down at the floor like a kid who just got in trouble.

“Yes,” said Niki in her ventilator voice.

I wheeled on her. “Shut up, Niki. Now's not the time.”

“Seems to me … now's the p—perfect time.”

“Shut up already!”

Maggie aimed a stern look at me before comforting Niki. “It'll be okay,” she said to her. “We'll think of something.”

Vlad poked his head out the door and looked both directions. “Nobody yet. They must still be upstairs.”

Fucking fuck!
I was about to freak out. My blood was boiling. My bobbing hand was waving like a blade of grass in high winds. My stomach burned like I'd swallowed a hot coal. I grasped for a little sanity and came up empty.
SHIT!

Vlad looked out again. “There they are. They're at the far end of the hall, two of them.”

From somewhere in my gut came the answer, like it was always there.
Today's the day I die.
I pulled my piece and spat orders. “I want Maggie and Vlad in the bathroom. It's me they want. I'll take the fight to them in the hall. Don't come to help. If they get me, they get me, understand? They'll leave once they have me.”

Maggie was shaking her head no.

“It's the only way, Maggie. If any of them come in, I need you and Vlad to ambush them from the bathroom. I'm counting on you.”

Maggie kept shaking her head.

I grabbed her hand. “I need you, Maggie.”

“No. You can't just provoke a firefight in a hospital.” She pulled Niki's blanket off and started wrapping it into an oblong ball.

“What are you doing?”

“We're in maternity, right?” She took the bundled blanket and tucked it under Niki's arm.

“This won't work.”

“Yes it will,” she said. “Now go get another blanket to cover this equipment.”

It won't work. It won't work. It won't work.
I was looking at Maggie. She was staring me down, her face hard as iron. I tucked my piece back in my belt. “You better be right.”

“A blanket.
Now
.”

“I got it, boss,” said Vlad. He took a peek out the door and slipped out.

Maggie started pulling tubes and wires, unhooking everything but Niki's air.

Could that rolled-up blanket really pass for a baby? I got busy wheeling equipment into the bathroom, packing it in with as much care as a dockworker. I slammed the heart rate monitor down on the sink with so much force that I heard the mortar cracking. I nabbed the IV stand and battled it into a tilted position by the toilet.

Vlad was back. “They're getting close, maybe eight or nine doors down.”

Maggie draped the extra blanket over the respirator and set the vase of flowers I'd sent to Niki on top. This
could
work. They'd be looking for tubes and blinking lights. When they looked in, they'd find the same scene they'd been seeing all along this ward, a woman sleeping with her baby.

Vlad went into the bathroom and stood on the toilet to make room for me to cram myself in. Maggie tilted Niki's head to the side, away from the door, making her look like she was asleep.

I could hear Niki whisper, “Let them kill m—me.”

Maggie soothed with her voice. “Shh. It'll be okay.”

Maggie was poised over Niki's air hose. I listened as the sound of opening doors came closer. Maggie stayed still, waiting as long as she could. Finally, she unhooked the plastic air hose from the stem that was planted in Niki's chest. Maggie
dropped the hose, letting it fall to the floor. She pulled the plug on the suddenly noisier ventilator then tucked both the air hose and the power cord under the blanket and hustled for the bathroom.

“Her chest,” I hissed.

Maggie skidded to a stop and pulled Niki's sheet up over the plastic valve poking out of her chest. I sucked my body in to make room for Maggie, who slammed into me. I started to tip over. Vlad steadied me with his hand. Maggie tried to yank the door closed, but my foot acted as a mashed-toe doorstop. I pulled my foot up and leaned into Vlad, while Maggie managed to make it latch on the second try.

I heard the door pop open next door. My heart was pounding. Any second now …

But then I heard another door open, this time closer and realized the first door I'd heard must've been two doors down.

“Damn,” whispered Maggie. She'd pulled the hose too soon. Niki could suffocate before we got the hose reattached.

And then another door. A baby started crying and a muffled, “Sorry, ma'am,” came through the bathroom wall.

Finally, Niki's door opened. The three of us were collectively holding our breath. I had my ear pressed up against the door. I had my piece in my left hand, and my right hand was on the doorknob, which was luckily a lever-style knob that I could easily open with my bad hand. Long seconds ticked by. I thought of my wife, lying there unable to breathe, thinking it had been too long already. Maggie had pulled the hose way too soon. She easily could've kept the air pumping for another twenty or thirty seconds and still would've had the time to hide.

The door closed. He was either inside or he'd moved on. I waited for the sound of the next door down, needing to breathe, but afraid of making any noise. I heard the latch pop
next door, and let out the breath I was holding. We rushed to Niki's bed careful not to make any noise. Maggie snapped the air hose back in while I stuck the plug back into the outlet. The ventilator whooshed into life.

Niki's eyes were open. Her skin was red with enough blue underneath to border on purple, but her eyes were open, and I saw them move. Relief overwhelmed me as Niki began to lose a shade of red with every pump of the ventilator.

Vlad clapped his hand on Maggie's shoulder. “Nicely done.”

Maggie nodded.

My legs felt weak. I took a seat on the end of Niki's bed. “Vlad, as soon as they're gone, get one of the doctors in here. We need to get her moved.”

The flyer lifted off, then banked to the right. I looked through the rain-streaked window as we skimmed over a building that had tightly concentrated patches of exposed rebar poking up. Looking around, I noticed most of the buildings had that same unfinished look, so many of them topped by tarps instead of tile. It was rare that a Lagartan developer could afford to construct a building in its entirety. Instead, money permitting, they'd add a floor at a time, each time leaving the rebar exposed for the next layer to attach to.

We moved east, the flyer's hum drowning out Niki's respirator. Below, I could see the Koba River, a broad black stripe arcing through the expanse of city lights. The river was everything to this city, everything. I'd drunk its water my whole life. I was raised on its fish. It was our all-in-one transportation system, irrigation system, and sewer system, the one constant in this fucked-up world. Without it, nothing was possible. This city was fortunate to have such an unbreakable backbone to depend on. I looked at my wife, who was looking at me with despondent eyes, her backbone nowhere near as strong.

She'd given up arguing with me. We'd spent hours in that hospital room, fighting it out while Maggie made arrangements to transport Niki to the Orzo family's plantation. I'd been stupid to think things were going to get better after I confronted Niki with my knowledge of her secrets. It was never the secrets themselves that were killing her inside. It was the truth behind those secrets that had been torturing her for all these years. How could I have thought anything different?

She was still looking at me. She didn't look angry. She looked resigned and defeated. God, how could I do this to her? I didn't want to be the cause of her suffering. Right then, all I wanted to do was unhook her from the respirator. Anything to relieve her pain. Anything to keep her from looking at me like that. No, I told myself. Things will get better. I clung to those words like they were the only thing keeping me afloat even as the words sank into nothingness and took me with them.

I don't know how long I stayed like that, feeling like I was at the bottom of a well that had been filled back in with me still inside, the dirt pressing down on me, crushing me until I couldn't move or breathe. I was nothing. No, I was less than nothing, powerless and insignificant.

I had to stay busy. I snapped myself out of it and used the flyer's comm system to call up my financials. I stared at the numbers, but was unable to comprehend them. Balance statements looked out of focus. Medical bills looked like they were written in a foreign language. I gradually shook off the malaise and regretted it as the numbers began to come through in full high-debt clarity.

This flyer ride was already showing on my statement, although it showed as a generic medical expense. I'd insisted that the hospital list it that way. Ian would be monitoring my finances by now. It was unbelievable how much it cost. Maggie
had tried to talk me into sharing the burden, but I refused. I don't take charity. First, she told me I was an idiot, then when I didn't respond, she came at me with a fresh argument, telling me that I was on her payroll, and I should think of relocating Niki as a business expense that she was responsible for. I told her not to argue. I'd had enough for one day.

We were skimming the jungle, or at least that was what the pilot said we were doing. When I looked out the window, all I could see was black.

It wasn't much longer before the flyer began losing altitude.

Maggie said, “There it is.”

I followed her gaze to a sprawling set of well-lit, interconnected buildings. I counted at least a dozen unique, brandy-era structures. They consisted of an open-air platform of polished wood raised on stilts with a pitched thatch roof on top. A series of raised walkways ran between the buildings, creating a network of giant jungle huts.

The flyer set down in a recently burned clearing, blackened vegetation all around. I unplugged the respirator from the flyer's outlet and plugged it into the portable generator I'd bought for the occasion. It was powered by kerosene, of all things. Lagarto was probably the only planet left that used crude oil products. The thing smelled awful, and it made a horrible racket, but the motor only had to kick in once every couple hours, and it only had to run for about ten minutes to charge the battery that could provide hours of power. I wedged the respirator under the gurney and folded Niki's legs to make room for the generator on the gurney's end. It took all three of us, Maggie, Vlad and me, to wheel Niki off the flyer's cargo loader. Then we made bumpy progress across the slashed-and-burned landing site, the still-smoldering foliage discharging puffs of choky black smoke.

The flyer took off behind us and made for Koba to pick up another high-priced charter. Maggie's aunt greeted us as we wheeled up the ramp. She was a stern-looking woman with a stiff smile. She gave Maggie a formal hug, and then the two Orzo women exchanged some starched niceties. Maggie introduced us all. Vlad and I received cold handshakes; she saved all her overly sugared warmth for Niki, who she talked to with a singsong voice most people reserved for the very young and the very old.

She ushered us from building to building, the gurney rattling over the horizontal wood slats, finally arriving in a private room with a curtain for a door. I was uneasy about the lack of doors and locks, but Maggie had assured me that the location was so remote there was nothing to worry about. The room was walled on three sides while the fourth was open to the jungle except for a railing. We moved Niki from the gurney to the bed and started puzzling over the best way to get Niki's tubes through the mosquito netting. The nurse I'd contracted thankfully arrived from a nearby jungle clinic soon after and, having a bit more experience on the matter, she was easily able to rig up a workable solution with the aid of some duct tape. With that settled, the nurse went looking for an extra bed. She wanted to sleep in Niki's room. Without any monitoring equipment, she said it was the best way to keep track.