Chapter 29
One of the two men seated on the rear cushions drew in his breath sharply. “What are you planning to do—beach us?”
“Take it easy, Doc,” Wickman replied. Still moving at just over idle speed, he maneuvered the narrow boat into a gap between two of the mangroves.
For a moment, the hull caromed gently between, then slid past, the bizarre root-tendrils of two mangrove trees, twisting like huge veins out of the water, while branches overhead bent and scraped against the Bimini in protest. Then they were free, inside a minuscule bayou where the foliage parted and the lone light revealed a watery glade completely covered by the green canopy.
Ahead lay the dim shape of a stone boathouse, its regular lines at odds with the surrounding vegetation.
Its doors were spread wide in welcome. Wickman maneuvered inside, killed the engine, and let the craft slide into its berth.
He jumped out, secured the lines, pulled the boathouse doors closed, took his guests’ single large suitcase in hand, then helped the doctor and his assistant out onto the improved jetty.
With the doors to the outside world closed, the boathouse interior was black as pitch; Wickman pulled the string of an overhead light, then fished in his pocket for the key to the padlock that led into the basement.
“Welcome to my humble abode!” he said with mock gravitas, ushering the two in.
He’d barely been able to keep a shit-eating grin off his face the entire trip to the public boat launch and back.
The last twenty-four hours had been as desperate and hectic as all his years of preparation and adaptation had been gradual—but that was behind him now.
He’d succeeded in finding a new and perfect resource just hours ago, with no need to delay Telligren yet again.
Both he and the resource had been unharmed during the taking.
The only witnesses had been in the bar, and they’d remember his disguise, not how he’d looked during his initial recon.
One couldn’t ask for a fresher harvest. And now, the last step—the arrival of the doctor and his assisting surgeon—was complete.
He could well see that Dr. Telligren was not at all in such high spirits.
He did not want to be here, and the lengths he’d taken to disguise himself had only added to Wickman’s mirth.
This man was a physician at the top of his field, a leading researcher in some of the most important work being done in his subspecialty, perhaps even ultimately a candidate for a Nobel…
and yet here he was, sneaking in via water to the basement of a rambling old mansion so decrepit it looked almost abandoned.
He’d been a ridiculous sight, arriving early and waiting at the launch site, disguised in sunglasses, a Panama hat, a floral shirt, and a big Tommy Bahama bag stuffed full of necessaries—all despite the fact the sun would soon be setting.
The other man, dark, silent, and poker-faced, made Wickman uneasy. He had known Magnus from the old days, but the man was very different now, having become a celebrated young surgeon. Unlike Telligren, it was impossible to know what he was thinking.
Wickman pushed aside his anxiety and briefly anticipated the happy results of the surgery, waking up afterward, his body finally fixed, his life transformed.
Entertaining himself with these thoughts, he led the two men down the stone hall toward what had once been, more than a century ago, storerooms for crops and canned goods.
Years earlier, when he realized that what he needed had to be performed here, he’d begun the lengthy, expensive process of transforming those rooms into a surgical suite.
And now—as he held the double doors to the sterile area open—he was gratified to see even Dr. Telligren’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Impressive!” said Magnus, an edge to his voice, placing the large medical cooler he’d been carrying with him on the floor. “Dr. Frankenstein would be envious.”
Telligren had always been something of a prude and a tight-ass. But Magnus, who had been an excellent fellow student, serious, high-minded, and ambitious, seemed ominously different now. Wickman felt reassured knowing the man was a superb surgeon—at least, that was now his reputation.
Dr. Telligren began to open his mouth, but Wickman guessed what he was likely to say and beat him to it.
“I know you’re eager to get started. So am I.
Let me quickly show you to your rooms and give you both a brief tour of the house.
I think you’ll find everything you need…
to keep yourselves comfortable, I mean, in addition to medical supplies to cover any unexpected complications.
After all, you’ll be here the better part of a week—and for at least several hours, I’ll be either sedated or coming out, and you’ll have to fend for yourselves. This way, if you please.”
Wickman took them up to the second floor, showed them their wing—which, unlike the rest of the manse, was in excellent shape, well furnished and clean—followed by the kitchen, the backup generator, and the storage areas for food, equipment, and medical supplies.
As they moved through the house, he wondered idly if the damn fool in the basement who’d slashed his arm so badly was still alive.
Not that it mattered; no noise could escape from the soundproofed room.
At last they returned to the surgical suite, where another quick tour familiarized the two men with the layout.
Wickman had the bags of saline ready, along with scalpels, retractors, cauterizers, and everything else—after all, he’d done the initial steps often enough himself now that he could probably teach a class in the procedure—and he watched as Dr. Magnus took the units of blood from the cooler, admiring the brisk, professional way he hung them on a nearby rack, ready for use.
Then Magnus turned toward Wickman. “Where is your better half?” he asked.
“Or should I say, better quarter?” And he laughed again.
It was the bark of a hyena, sharp but restrained, as if recalling he was in polite society rather than the swamp.
Wickman wasn’t sure he liked the implication of this quip, but he quickly brushed his doubts away as misguided pride.
“He’s in there—” Wickman nodded with his chin toward a metal-handled drawer set into a far wall, like a coroner’s corpse tray, only substantially larger.
“Wrapped in the arms of Morpheus, no doubt?” Dr. Magnus asked as he set out the other contents of the cooler—certain anesthetics that Wickman himself had been unable to procure—on a rolling metal table.
“Probably. I sedated him before leaving to pick you up, but—” he checked his watch—“I imagine he’ll be coming to shortly.
Don’t worry, however—he has plenty of oxygen and is too well restrained to harm himself.
Too well restrained, in fact, to move—you’ll have no trouble with the needle… when the time comes.”
Telligren looked around once more; exchanged glances with his fellow doctor; took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Shall we proceed?”
“In a moment.” Wickman moved to an equipment rack in the far corner of the improvised surgical bay, where he picked up a clipboard with several papers attached. He walked back toward the two, raising the clipboard as he did so. “I’d like you to both sign this, please.”
Dr. Telligren frowned. “What is it?”
Wickman held the clipboard out at arm’s length, miming an old man looking through a pair of spectacles at the end of his nose.
“Merely a short document that restates points we’ve already discussed.
First, this evil presence in my arm grew out of medical experiments you conducted on me.
Second, you understand that should anything happen to me, I possess evidence that would thoroughly incriminate you.
This evidence is secured in diverse locations unknown to you.
Third, you will not only perform the procedure but remain here until it is clear I am free of infection and well on the way to recovery.
Once the healing process is complete, I will turn over all original copies of my evidence to you and agree never to speak of the matter or to approach you again. ”
“You’ve waved these threats and promises in my face before,” Telligren said. “Why do you think I’m here? Since you have so much damning evidence locked away already, why ask us to sign this ridiculous paper?”
“Because—before I go under the knife—I wanted it on the record. One last time.”
“With any operation, there are risks,” the older surgeon said. “How can I possibly guarantee the outcome 100 percent?”
“Those pesky little scalpels,” Dr. Magnus said. “Always slipping.”
“You can’t,” Wickman told Dr. Telligren. “But this will, at least, make sure you are extra careful. Now—would you both please sign?”
He handed the clipboard, along with a pen, to each physician in turn. “Thank you.” Then he detached the pages, glanced at the signatures… and, turning to a paper shredder sitting next to the equipment rack, fed the sheets into its feeder slot.
“What—what perversity is this?” Dr. Telligren asked.
“Calm yourself, Doctor. It’s no perversity at all.
Shredding that was merely my way of demonstrating my trust…
just as signing it was your acknowledgment of what awaits you should anything go wrong.
” He had already begun shedding his clothes as he spoke these words and ended by flinging them into a corner with a flourish.
Then he donned a nearby surgical gown. “And now, Doctors, time to put me under and perform the operation.”
With that he slid onto the gurney, set beneath a large, bowl-shaped operating lamp, and lay back.
As he closed his eyes, he heard the snap of rubber gloves being fitted; the sound of a well-oiled drawer opening, along with the faintest of muffled moans.
“I think we’re ready,” said the voice of Dr. Telligren—it was some distance away, no doubt from where he was examining the resource.
Then Wickman felt a blood pressure cuff being fitted around his left arm, followed by a pulse-ox clamped lightly to his middle finger and a nasal cannula inserted beneath his nostrils.
He breathed in the heady, humid mixture—a pharyngeal concentration, he guessed, of 40 percent oxygen.
A rubber hose was deftly wrapped and tied around his upper left arm—always his left—then came the cool swab of alcohol on the inner edge of the elbow, followed by the sting of a needle.
“Pleasant dreams, Parker,” came the masked voice of Magnus. “See you on the far side.”