May 1
1:03 a.m. PST
Porter opened his eyelids, the fuzzy world rocking left and right. Nothing he did helped him to focus, so he tried to keep his eyes shut.
They opened again.
There was too much talking.
Faces looking down and then leaving him.
The motors of cars.
Something over his nose.
A constant hiss coming from just outside his mouth.
He couldn’t move.
Beeping sounds.
He needed to cough, but as soon as he started the voices intensified, the scrambling increased.
What were they saying?
The light disappeared.
A blinding whiteness followed, and Porter blinked and thought he saw green exit signs, monitors, and ceiling tiles. Where was he?
He smelled plastic and…mild chemicals? He wanted to cry, especially when he thought he smelled his own bowel discharge.
More faces appeared, then disappeared. Hands brushed his shoulder. Moved his arms. He thought he heard someone talking to him. Something about St. Mary’s Hospital. “Where do you hurt.” Some question about previous medical problems.
Something tugged at him slightly, and Porter tried to lift his head to see what was happening.
They were cutting the clothes from his body.
He wept, realizing his nakedness, and tried to move to cover himself, but they held him down.
The air blew warm over his body, but the tips of his toes and fingers felt chilled.
He saw another monitor, then shut his eyes as they moved him onto what had to be a hospital gurney.
Porter hated hospitals. He despised them when he was the patient, at least, which really hadn’t ever happened until now.
Someone moved his arm. He glanced at the IV as they set it. Nausea rippled through him, and Porter slammed his eyes shut.
He looked down when he realized they were poking a second time for a new IV and again to draw blood.
A new voice materialized, more forceful than the rest, but slow and in control. “What’s his pressure?”
Someone answered.
“Good evening Mr. Porter, glad to have you with us. What’s his heart rate?”
Another sound from another side.
“What’s his rhythm?”
The world spun, and Porter realized he’d stopped crying. He couldn’t start again, though he wanted it.
He shuddered when a number of the beings around him went to his left side and log-rolled him onto his right.
Pain jolted his insides, and he needed to cough again badly. He needed to rest. He was hurting, but couldn’t understand where or why. He just wanted to sleep.
“Get respiratory here stat!”
“Putting in the foley,” said a different voice.
It was all nonsense. The words meant nothing. Porter only They were doing something below the belt, and he felt a burning sensation and knew he was being utterly violated.
He had to trust the hands of the doctors. Porter hoped he’d pass out. This had gone on too long already.
Someone put gentle clips on his fingers, but he couldn’t look anymore.
“I want a med. blood panel and a type and cross for four units!” A woman disguised as an Egyptian mummy in bright-colored cloth looked down at him.
They moved him but he didn’t care, he didn’t pay attention anymore. Would he die? If so, why?! Because of the man in the shadows, the man who spoke of truth and reality and knowledge? Because Porter was important to the stranger? It was hopeless to understand.
Porter listened to the hiss from the plastic mask over his mouth and nose. It was soothing…goodness amid the chaos.
“I want X-ray for a stat C-spine, chest and abdomen. Move your legs sir,” said the dominant voice, a woman with power-how exciting!
But Porter didn’t realize she spoke to him.
“Move your legs,” she said again, touching his skin with her cold rubber-laced fingers.
He lifted one leg, only slightly. Then the other and coughed.
“Move your arms. I’ve got two entrance wounds. Looks like close range, left-upper quadrant, one or two exit wounds.”
Porter shut off his ears. She wasn’t talking to him anymore.
Porter felt more liquid in his lungs and had to cough again. Weakness crushed him, and he thought for a moment they were slowly packing gold-bullion on his chest. Breathing grew difficult under the pressure. He wanted to tell them to get off, but “He’s becoming more tachypneic!” said a different voice with serious concern in his tone.
Porter opened his mouth to draw more air.
“I hear a lot of wheezes.”
“Respiratory give another treatment,” said the doctor. “Get me a gas!”
“O2 stat’s falling.”
“Specifics!”
“Only 86.”
Porter felt fingers poking up his abdomen, something jabbed at his rectum, other hands shoving in points along his chest wall.
What was it?!? he worried. Don’t ask questions! he told himself.
The cold disc of a stethoscope on his breast opened his eyes.
The world had grown white. Porter knew he could see-had the ability to focus if he desired-but he pinpointed all his energy on breathing…
From the other side came the doctor’s voice. “Let’s give him some SUCC to paralyze him.”
Was time passing, or was everything happening at once? He counted breaths, but lost track after eight.
Porter had to cough once more, but felt the need to sit up. His arms and legs wouldn’t budge. Could he even feel them? What had they said? Paralyze?
Why would anyone paralyze a patient in an emergency room!?!
Behind closed eyes, Porter saw the man who called himself Smith. The man who’d shot him…because Smith needed Porter-isn’t that what Smith had said before the flash?!
Did Smith stand in the room now, watching Porter suffer. Would he watch Porter die?
“He’s having more trouble breathing.”
“He’ll need to be intibated.”
“Mr. Porter,” said the doctor.
Porter didn’t want to have to move again. He realized he couldn’t. He knew he was immobilized and it was Smith’s fault and the doctors would realize he was dying and he’d perish right there on the gurney in another minute.
“A tube is going to be placed down through your mouth and into your airway. We are hooking you up to a breathing machine…to release the pressure you feel.”
They moved things on his face; Porter wasn’t sure what number of plastic and rubber contraptions clung to his head.
But he felt the rubber tube pass down his throat. He still couldn’t move, but saw the tears building in his upturned eyes. How horrible this was. How unreal and terrible. Porter wished they would just finish him off so he “No need to worry, Mr. Porter,” said the doctor.
How could she tell what he felt? Was he rigged to some emotion meter or something? He was dying!
“Your belly is looking soft. The x-rays look good.” Her voice fluctuated as if she busily worked with other devices and was talking to herself. “Your blood pressure is good… Your oxygen is getting better.”
But Porter’s throat hurt. It was the tube-he didn’t want to imagine it, there in his throat. So uncomfortable…unnatural. They had to take it out. Porter wanted to reach up and remove it himself. He wanted to tell them to…but how could he speak?!
He was moving again. Upstairs and down a hall. Into a room. Someone told him something, but all he heard was “Intensive Care unit.”
Intensive. What a frightful word.
He listened one last time to the person speaking. He wanted to throw up, but concentrated on her voice. “You’ve been shot in the left upper abdomen, and you’ve had a severe asthmatic attack. The tube that is helping you breathe will probably come out in less than a day…”
The gray clogging his vision turned steadily to white. In seconds, it all disappeared.
On the outskirts of Yaizu, Japan, there were few houses interspersed between wide tracks of wet rice fields. Porter walked along the edge of one of the patties beside a straight road as he looked at the sky.
The thunder heads had turned away. They danced and waved their mountainous forms in the otherwise blue air. They transformed into orange masses as he stared at them. No telling when they’d return to shower again.
Porter smelled the passing rain and the sweetness of the fields as he tightened the grip on the strap attached to the bag over his right shoulder. He eyed layers of soaring and dipping hills to the South. Mountains leapt up in the North. Touching the ground, a brilliant sun, red as hot coals, blazing trails of light to the East, West, and straight up, reminded Porter of the origin of the Japanese flag. The beams turned everything in the world to gold: the acreage full of glistening water, the skinny road, the distant housetops.
The scent of faraway forests, mirror lakes, and pink blossoms from forgotten lands caressed the missionary in the warm wind.
Porter turned around as he walked. “ Hayaku! ”
Stan Clusser in a white shirt with short sleeves continued wearily with a smile. He lifted a hand to indicate he was still coming. A fast breeze caught the tip of the Elder’s blue and burgundy tie, tossing it over his shoulder. He pulled it back into place and grinned. The color of his teeth matched his shirt, contrasting his dark skin like the keys and body of a grand piano.
Porter stopped and stared at the sun, fire lighting his face as he breathed in the wet air. His chest heaved and burned. Goose-bumps grew over his naked forearms. “Have you ever seen anything like this, Elder?”
Stan touched his arm with cold fingertips. “You’ll be fine, Porter.”
May 2
8:25 a.m. PST
When his eyes opened again, Porter’s vision wasn’t any better.
Immediately a buzzer came to life to the right of his head.
Hard heels banged the floor as someone came to his side. “All right now, Mr. Porter,” said a woman’s voice, “I need you to take a deep breath.”
The sound didn’t dissipate. Porter only wanted to rest. His throat ached. He took a little breath.
“Deeper, Mr. Porter,” said the woman, whose face was unclear. “One, two, three-deeeeep breath!”
Porter sucked air hard…his lungs wouldn’t operate for some reason, and he really wanted to go back to sleep.
The squealing went away.
Porter thought something and made himself say it with shivering lips. “W-w-what…h-happened.”
Was that his voice?
“You were shot twice in the stomach. Do you remember getting shot?”
Porter didn’t say anything. He was suddenly too cold to speak.
The buzzer went off again.
“Take another breath.”
Porter took a breath, but knew it was shallow. The sound didn’t stop.
“Come on Mr. Porter, we need to get you breathing on your own again.”
He forced his chest to swell, feeling with his mind for the bullet wound. Nerves signaled to his brain a sensation of tightness and depth. He didn’t want to move anymore.
The sound ceased.
“This alarm is tracking your respiration,” she said, though for some reason he didn’t believe her; there was nothing on his face that he could feel. How could the machine know when he was breathing? “It will go off whenever you are not drinking enough oxygen.”
Porter closed his eyes as they grew wet.
“We didn’t know your medical history, and consequently used anesthesia that we now see you are allergic too. The planned extubation, the removal of the tube, was delayed, but you continued to improve. Your blood count remains good. No blood in your urine. We took the tube out of your bladder and removed the tube from your mouth and airway. You were kept another twenty-four hours for observation in the intensive care unit. You’ll be okay. But concentrate on your breathing. Take long breaths. Open your lungs. You’ve been on a machine and need to draw air on your own now. Do you understand.”
The alarm went off, screaming.
Porter heaved his chest, sucking as if it were the last time he’d taste oxygen. He couldn’t fill his lungs though he tried. He sank when the speaker sang silence.
“I don’t think anyone should see him,” she said, walking.
Porter replayed the words in his mind and realized the nurse wasn’t speaking to him just then.
There was another voice…a man in the room.
Picturing black turtlenecks and revolvers with silencers attached, Porter kept his eyes closed, hoping the world would go away.
“FBI?” she said. “I guess.”
FBI, Porter thought, right!
“Hey, hen na yatsu,” said the man in his ear. “You awake, Porter?”
Porter lifted his heavy eyelids and moved his head like a newborn’s, weaving in the direction he wanted to see. He made out the dark figure.
“They said you’ve taken a couple bullets. Hurts, doesn’t it.”
“Clusser?” said Porter, shivering out a sigh. He fluttered his eyelids, but couldn’t clear his vision. “I’m freezing.”
“Can you get this man another blanket!” Clusser said to the nurse. His voice was powerful, deep as a growling steam engine, fueled like a volcano made of endless burning stone.
“He’s reacting to the anesthesia used in surgery,” said the nurse. “It’ll go away. He’s not cold.”
Porter reached up with imploring eyes, though he couldn’t get them to latch onto his old missionary buddy. He already had weighty blankets over him, but…“P-p-please?”
“He’s in a hospital for heaven’s sake,” said Clusser. “Appease the man with another blanket!”
Porter stared at the floating ceiling, thankful for Clusser’s powerful voice. He sniffed cleaning chemicals and new plastic.
He heard the nurse storm across the room and pull a blanket from a cupboard, mumbling under her breath.
She put the blanket over him, and Porter made a frail smile.
“There’s a policeman outside your door, Porter. Try to relax,” Clusser said.
“Unless h-h-h-he’s working for G-Gadianton. Than-nks for coming, Stan.” Porter tried to put his left hand on Clusser’s, but it went aimless until his old missionary companion took it and gave it a squeeze.
“Well, he’s making the nurse nervous.”
Porter tried to focus on his friend, but confusion mixed with his dancing vision, so he closed his eyes. “How’s the w-wife.”
“Porter…I came after I got your e-mail. But I am here on business.”
“Convenient. Just-just like you to find a way to b-bring your business with you. You said FBI agents don’t jump state to state like in the movies.”
“You’re wanted by the Bureau and Customs, John,” Clusser said, looking down.
Porter made his face point at Clusser’s. “But the FBI…isn’t in-involved,” Porter told himself.
Clusser’s foggy face jumped, a shadow against the white walls behind him. “We are now.”
Feeling a hand touch his left forearm again, Porter closed his eyes. “I’ve made the want ads.”
Standing, Clusser said, “You don’t worry about that. Relax. I’ve got some things to do. I’ll take care of everything.” He went to the door.
Porter gazed at the rippling figure against the light background. “The guard…he’s to keep me here, isn’t he. Not p-protecting me.”
Clusser turned in the haze of the open portal. “He’ll do both, Porter. Hang in there.”
“Right.” No wonder the nurse wasn’t quick to fetch a blanket.
The alarm wailed…
6:50 p.m. PST
“You have another visitor, Mr. Porter,” said the nurse with a flat voice.
Porter opened his eyes. He could focus, now, so he examined his surroundings. He saw the IV tubing first, which didn’t please him. Baby-blue flowers lined the white wall close to the ceiling, and light pink hills rolled three feet from the floor around the room. There was an open curtain between his bed and another, but no one else slept there.
The nurse was beautiful. Solid black hair, sharp eyes, and lips that needed no liner. Too bad she looked at him with so much disdain.
Two men stood behind her. One, he recognized. “Mr. Porter, we’ve met before,” said the fellow without putting out his hand. He wore a dark blue suit, a Nick Hilton most likely, with a slight pattern Porter couldn’t make out. His tie was bloodshot red sprinkled with transparent paisley. His tight eyebrows were so perfectly shaped, Porter figured he plucked them. There should be a law against masochism, he thought. Women can have their own rules; Porter wouldn’t understand anyway.
“Arnott, right?” Porter said, relieved when he heard his natural voice. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand while his nose drew in the sterile smell of Lysol. His brain was working again.
“You have something that belongs to us.”
Porter pulled his fingers away from his eyes and looked at the man behind Arnott. Brown suit with a matching mustache. Slightly balding. “To both of you?”
“Are you calling it KM-3?” said Arnott. “You know we will get it in time. Question is how much you intend on hurting yourself before it happens.”
Porter looked at the IV. He couldn’t leave the bed, though his first thought was to run. But to where? The window?
The man in brown tapped Arnott. “You sure he’s all there upstairs? Nurse says he’s been out of it.”
Arnott never took his eyes off Porter’s. “Oh, you can see the life inside his head. The churning. He’s with us.”
Porter’s heart began to speed. He could tell his lungs were back to normal. How long had he been in the hospital?
“You have to make a choice, Porter,” said Arnott standing tall and immobile like an obelisk, his lips looking cold. “Put the most important things first. You wanna raise a family, John? What about finally finding a wife. Keep the end in mind. You’ll do what’s right then. Where’s the codex.”
“So you can burn it with the rest of the library?” Porter said. “Cover Ulman’s find and hope it goes unnoticed for another hundred years?”
Arnott kept his mouth a simple slit as he stared at Porter like a judge over a criminal found guilty.
“Let me take care of this guy, Peter,” said the man with the mustache.
Porter kept his lips closed.
“Your choice, Porter. We can ruin your life forever, you know that?”
A tear slipped from Porter’s closed eyes. He pictured Pontius Pilate standing in his judgment hall, listening to the accusations made against the man called Christ. He saw Jesus there, tall but unspeaking. He heard the voice of Pilate as he marveled at the silence: “Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?”
Porter said nothing. He knew it could kill him. But he also knew Clusser would be back. Stan had a gun, if that meant anything. And if Porter was wanted by the government now, Clusser would be obliged to protect him. So would the guard outside.
He looked around for a buzzer to call for the nurse in the case he needed her. But what could she do?
Arnott turned to the man behind him. “All right,” he said, leaving the room.
The man with the mustache said to the officer beyond the door. “Would you come in for a minute. I don’t want any problems with this guy.”
“Yes, Detective Mercer.”
Porter’s heart sunk through the bed. His limbs went limp.
The detective returned with the policeman in a dark blue uniform behind him.
“John Porter,” said the balding detective.
“Yes,” he said with dread.
“I’m placing you officially under arrest for possession of stolen materials and artifacts from a foreign country. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak with an attorney and to have the attorney present during questioning. If you so desire and cannot afford one-”
“I understand my rights,” said Porter, having heard it a million times on TV while growing up. “I just have one question. How much did it cost to corrupt a cop?”
The detective tightened his face. “If you so desire and cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you…”