Chapter 24
It didn’t take long to land in the parking lot of Waverly’s lab when they traveled by helicopter. Jordana had given Waverly the overview of the process while they’d been flying. Now Jordana was a step behind Waverly as she entered all the security codes to get into the building.
“There are your things,” Waverly said, rushing across the beautifully clean and spacious lab. “I don’t exactly do the same science as you do, but let me see what we can use.”
Waverly hurried off in search of a list of things Jordana had told her she needed.
Jordana opened the refrigerator and pulled out the plant samples and got to work.
Waverly kept stopping at the table next to where Jordana was extracting the part of the plant needed to make the medication and placing the items Jordana had asked for.
They worked well together as they started the lengthy process of making a medication. Jordana was so focused that she didn’t even know if Forrest was still there. Her world revolved around two lab tables.
“Now what?” Waverly asked.
“Now I need to get it in titratable levels. I need five IV bags for different levels of medication.”
“I don’t have IV bags, but I there’s a medical supply store nearby,” Waverly told her before calling Forrest over. “This is what we need,” she said, showing him a picture. “I’m calling them right now. They should have it waiting for you.”
“Got it.” Forrest took off and Jordana wanted to say thank you, but he was gone before she even could.
“How much longer?” Ryker asked.
“I need maybe five minutes after Forrest gets back,” Jordana told him.
Ryker nodded and pulled out his phone. “Gavin, Forrest is running a half a mile to get the last of our supplies. See if Rowan knows how fast he runs.”
“He’s running?” Jordana asked.
“Not like we have a car,” Ryker replied.
“Okay, then taking that into account, Jordana’s timing and then the flight length, we’ll be there in exactly nineteen minutes.”
Jordana measured out the different levels of medication she needed and mixed them with saline to get the correct total volume she needed per IV bag. The ones she needed were much smaller than a standard fluid bag.
“Here.” Bags suddenly appeared in front of her.
Jordana looked up and saw Forrest sucking in air. He’d sprinted the entire mile. Also, she noticed Ryker was no longer there. He must be starting the chopper.
“I’ll hold the bag. You fill them.” Waverly held up the first bag, which she’s used a Sharpie to mark “1” on. The remaining bags had freshly inked “2-5” on them.
Jordana and Waverly worked in silence. All she could hear was Forrest’s heavy breathing. Each finished bag was placed in Waverly’s insulated lunchbox, which was filled with cold packs.
Forrest was standing across the room holding the door open. “Let’s go, ladies.”
Jordana grabbed the lunchbox and held it to her chest as they ran. They filled the helicopter and were lifting off before Waverly fully shut the door. Ryker flew the helicopter as if it were a sports car. She clung to the seat and to the medication. “Ryker, did something happen?”
“Your father has worsened.”
Jordana’s heart sank and now suddenly it seemed as if Ryker wasn’t flying fast enough. It was then that she noticed it was dark out. How had she not seen that? They’d been working for eight hours. Eight hours was a lifetime when your entire system was being attacked.
She saw lights in the distance. Lots of lights but only at one place. “Why is there only one set of lights?”
“The townsfolk turned off their lights when I let Granger know we were on our way. Only the Bells’ house is lit up so I could more easily find it.
” Four strong lights were shooting straight up from the backyard beside a pool.
“Hang on. We’re landing on a slight slope, but it’s the closest I could get to the house. ”
Jordana hung on because Ryker landed as fast as possible. It was then that Jordana noticed the lights were actually bright flashlights held by Clark, Suze, Gage, and Maggie.
“Give me the medication!” Gavin yelled as he ripped the door open even as the helicopter hadn’t even been turned off yet.
“Start with bag one!” Waverly yelled as Jordana handed over the lunchbox.
Gavin was already in the house by the time Jordana got out of the helicopter. Forrest grabbed her hand and they were sprinting to the house right behind him.
“Hook him up, Kenzie,” Rowan ordered. “You have the most experience with administering medication as an ER nurse.”
Kenzie worked efficiently getting the bag up and running wide open. Jordana saw the change in her father instantly from this morning. His skin was sweaty. His breathing was rapid. His blood pressure was reading dangerously low.
“What’s the protocol?” Rowan asked her as he was going through the lunchbox and finding bag 2.
“We have to titrate it up. Give a new bag every half hour,” Jordana told him as Kenzie stepped back, giving Jordana access to her father.
“We should see positive results in the first ten minutes. Then with each bag he’ll improve.
In theory, he’ll be fully recovered in two and a half hours.
However, it’s only been tested on mice.”
“Impressive,” Kenzie told her. “In the ER, they can start working in an hour or so, but it would take at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours to see the full effect.”
“It’ll only be impressive if it works.” Jordana kept glancing back and forth between her father and his monitor.
She felt Forrest move to stand behind her and then his hand rested on her shoulder offering silent support and comfort.
“I’m afraid we had to take the chance,” Gavin told her.
“Obviously the antibiotics he’d been given in Brazil weren’t working.
While we gave him IV antibiotics this morning, they were either not effective or it was taking too long to work.
We were afraid he wouldn’t make it to the morning.
Your medicine is our best hope to have him pull through or to help him hold on long enough until our antibiotics kick in. ”
Jordana squeezed her father’s hand. She felt so frantic when he didn’t even respond. He was unconscious and she needed to fix this somehow.
Nine minutes to go.
It might not be enough to wake him up, but there should be some response.
“There’s something else,” Rowan told her and Forrest moved to hold on to both of her shoulders in silent support.
“We did an ultrasound of the surgical site. There’s a reason he’s septic.
There was a complication with the surgery.
Stabilizing him is the first step. Redoing the surgery is the second step.
I’m sorry, but the doctor in Brazil totally botched the surgery. ”
Eight minutes to go.
“So, even if my medicine can pull my father through, he’s still not out of the woods?”
“Correct,” Rowan told her.
“We have been trying to work up a game plan for where to do this surgery. It’s too big to do in my office,” Gavin told her.
“I think we can get him in and out of the hospital I used to work at,” Kenzie told her.
Seven minutes to go.
“Gavin, my friend, Jen, who is also an ER nurse, and I can assist Rowan,” Kenzie continued to tell her.
“You’re just going to stroll into a hospital with my father and ask to borrow an operating room?”
“Not exactly,” Gavin told her.
“We’re going to sneak into the back of the hospital and use the surgical theater,” Kenzie began to explain.
Six minutes.
“It’s only in use when we have new techniques or surgical treatments to teach other surgeons and nurses.
It has everything we need for a major surgery like that.
Jen can get us in and out unseen. We’re also friends with the EMTs.
I have one guy I trust who’d come pick up your father and transport him back here post-surgery,” Kenzie finished explaining.
“And if you get caught?” Forrest asked, looking at Rowan.
“I might have my medical license suspended if I can’t bluff my way out of it. Same with the others.”
Five minutes.
“I can’t ask you all to risk that,” Jordana said, looking at the people who were willing to put their livelihoods on the line to save her father. He wouldn’t approve. She knew that. She only hoped they could get him stable enough to pull through until they no longer had to hide.
“You don’t have to ask,” Rowan told her. “We’re doing it. Besides, maybe the secretary can help if we’re caught.”
Four minutes.
Jordana took a shaky breath. How did she find people so willing to help her half a world away when she would have trouble finding this in her own town? “Thank you all. I can’t thank you enough for all you’re doing to save my father.”
Three minutes.
“Save me from what?”
Jordana jumped back with surprise, hitting Forrest’s body, only for him to steady her. “Dad?”
Her father’s eyes flickered open and Jordana’s racing heart was nothing compared to the fear that she was only imagining it. However, Rowan and Gavin rushing to his bedside and Kenzie gently easing her out of the way so she could assist in the exam told her she hadn’t made it up.
“Why are you all looking panicked?” her father asked as his heartbeat and his oxygen stats began to show marked improvement on the monitor.
Rowan pulled the stethoscope back and Gavin put his on her father’s chest while Kenzie took another round of blood pressure readings and checked his temperature. Gavin turned to Rowan, both of whom were wide-eyed and then gave a nod to each other.
“You gave us quite a scare, sir,” Rowan told him. “You were septic and unconscious. Your daughter’s new treatment is what saved you.”
Her father looked to her even as silent tears spilled down her face.
“Blood pressure is rising and his temperature is decreasing,” Kenzie told them with wonder.
“I always knew my daughter was brilliant.” Her father squeezed her hand and Jordana leaned across Kenzie to be able to hug her father.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, Jory. Thank you for saving my life.”
“We’re not done yet,” Rowan told him. “I’m sorry to say the doctor in Brazil who did your surgery didn’t do it well. I need to go back in and fix it.”
Her father frowned. “I don’t remember any of it. I really only remember bits and pieces until we landed here. I actually don’t know where here is.”
“We’re in Forrest’s hometown of Shadows Landing, South Carolina, Dad.
” Jordana told him even as she kept an eye on his improving numbers.
“I called President Vara and he accepted Secretary of State Ramsey’s offer to bring you to America to help you.
Everyone thinks you’re in a New York City hospital, but really an agent is there hoping to catch who is behind this. ”
“I had to be getting close. That’s why I was shot,” her father said as color began to creep back into his face.
“Our team,” Forrest told her father, “has heard it was someone named Rei da Floresta.”
Her father nodded. “That was the direction I was going with the investigation. I was getting closer to his identity. There was evidence coming in that he isn’t some poor gang member, but someone well-positioned in society.
I had a meeting scheduled to interview someone who thinks they had seen him.
He was going to work with a sketch artist. I was shot before I could make that meeting. ”
They discussed the findings before Kenzie snuck back in and administered the second bag of medicine. She had also drawn blood and told Jordana she would draw blood before giving each bag so they could study the effect of the medication after each treatment.
Her father was stronger, but still his eyelids began to slide closed. However, this time, his breathing was returning to normal, his temperature now just a low-grade fever, and his blood pressure—while still low—was out of the danger zone and improving with every test.
“Jordana, you might have just found a lifesaving treatment that could change the world,” Forrest whispered to her. “I’m so proud of you.” He kissed her temple and continued to hold her.
“Let him sleep. His body is working so hard to fight this infection,” Gavin told them. “If he continues along this pace, we could do the surgery as early as tomorrow.”
Rowan nodded in agreement and looked at his phone. “I have to get to the hospital. Can you two stay the night? I’m off tomorrow and can spend the night then.”
“Wait!” Jordana called out, jumping up. “Rowan, give me five minutes.”
Jordana hurried through the house, past the agents, one of whom was asleep, and found the kitchen. Five minutes later she came out with a giant sandwich and some fruit for Rowan. “Eat on the way to the hospital. You need to fuel your body too.”
Rowan leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re far too good a woman for Forrest.”
Forrest gave him the middle finger, but was smiling as Rowan headed out.
“Do you want to go home to get some sleep?” Forrest asked, already having an idea what she’d say.
“No. I want to stay with my father.”
“Okay.” Forrest headed out of the room and came back shoving an overstuffed chair with the help of Agent Mayfield. “Gavin or Kenzie can take the couch and you and I can take the chair.”
Gavin took the couch and fell asleep in seconds.
Kenzie took another overstuffed chair that Forrest and Agent Mayfield dragged in and pulled out her e-reader.
She was going to take the night shift to continue the titration, and Jordana crawled into Forrest’s lap.
His arms wrapped around her as her legs dangled off the side of the chair and her head rested on his shoulder.
She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but the day’s emotions were too much.
Jordana closed her eyes and fell asleep.