Life Blood Part 42

"Oxygen steady." Her voice was small and uneasy. "EKG stable."

He immediately stripped away the sheet that had been covering the patient. Beneath it was an open-sided gown colored in brilliant stripes of red and blue. He pulled it back with absent precision, then turned to Marcelina.

"Shave her and scrub her."

With the woman now under sedation, Marcelina put on her own surgical garb: She pulled a blue plastic cap over her hair, then secured a white OR mask over her face. While she was finishing the preparations, he turned and walked to the far side of the room, where he abruptly seemed to disappear through the wall.

What . . . There must be a panel there, a camouflaged door.

He was gone for a moment, then reappeared carrying a long metal tube that looked to be emitting white vapor. He next opened yet another ersatz stone cabinet to reveal a microscope with a CRT screen above it.

He took out three gla.s.s ampules from the tube--frozen embryos, undoubtedly--and placed them in a container. When he switched on the microscope, its CRT screen showed him whatever he needed to know.

Interesting. In surgery, he was coldly efficient, no "human touch."

Here he was the "scientist" Alex G.o.ddard.

Next, Marcelina activated an ultrasound scanner and began running the wand over the woman's stomach. The screen above the table showed her uterus and her Fallopian tubes with flickering clarity.

He'd been readying the embryos, and now he walked over and carefully inserted a needle into the woman's abdomen--ouch--his eyes on the ultrasound scan, which indicated the precise location of the needle's tip.

I watched as the screen showed the needle on its way to its destination, a thin, hard line amidst the pulsing gray ma.s.s of her uterus. Seconds later all three embryos had been implanted with such flawless precision it was scary.

Did I want to undergo this deeply invasive procedure at the hands of Alex G.o.ddard? The very thought left a dull ache in my stomach.

While Marcelina bandaged her and began preparing her for return to wherever she'd been, he turned off the systems, then closed their "stone" cabinets.

I thought back to some of the "hallucinations" Sarah had poured out.

She'd mentioned the green mask, and she'd also relived some sinister event that seemed to her like disappearing down a long white tunnel.

Was that her own anesthesia? Did he perform an in vitro on her too?

I jumped as I heard the "b.u.mp, thump, b.u.mp" sound of the operating table being rolled out of the OR and back down the hall. For some reason I thought of the sound of fate knocking on the door, like death coming to take Don Giovanni. Did Alex G.o.ddard have plans to take me, only with drugs and medical sleight of hand? It wasn't going to happen.

I switched off the monitor and turned to stare at the computers. Why were they here in this "place of miracles"? What did they hold? Maybe that was where I should be. . . .

That was the moment when the heavy office door swung open and Marcelina appeared.

"Your room is ready now." Her English was heavily accented but sure.

"He sent me to show you. And I can wash any of your things if you like."

My room? Whoa! Since when had I checked in?

"Marcelina, we need to talk. What happened to Sarah the last time she was here? Was she operated on like that woman just now?"

I also planned to ask her about all the bizarre trappings surrounding the procedure. Why was the woman so sucked in by his phony Mardi Gras mysticism? Had Sarah fallen for it too?

"Sara was one of the special ones. You are surely blessed too. You resemble her a lot." She looked at me, affection in her dark eyes, then turned and headed out the door. "But come, let me take you up."

Of course I resembled her; she was my cousin. But so what? I didn't like the odd way she'd said it. And what about my question?

Watching her walk away, clearly nervous, I realized this was the moment I'd been dreading--when I had to make a decision about how far to play along with Alex G.o.ddard. Steve couldn't be reached, yet, but I still might be able to handle the situation on my own. The first thing to do was to get down to Sarah and talk some sense into her. Then I had to arrange for a way to get us both out.

So . . . probably the best way to accomplish that was to go along with my own medical charade for a few more hours, to give me time to scout the scene and come up with a plan. A room would be a base to operate from.

Still, I was feeling plenty of trepidation as we ascended the marble steps to the second floor, which had a long, carpeted hallway with doors along each side. Then, when we started down the hall, I caught the sound of a baby crying.

"What's this floor for?" I remembered Alex G.o.ddard had claimed it was to provide a postpartum bonding period, but I wanted to confirm that with my own eyes.

"This is the recovery ward and nursery. Here, let me show you." She paused and pushed open the door nearest us. I looked in to see a Mayan woman resting on a high hospital bed and wearing a white shift, with an ornate wicker cradle, wide and deep, next to her.

Marcelina smiled and said something to her that sounded like an apology for the intrusion. The room was lit only by candles, but I did make out how oddly the woman stared at me, as though she was seeing a spirit.

Why was that? Because I was a _gringa _here in the middle of the forest? But it seemed something more.

"The birth of a child is a sacred thing for us." Marcelina was discreetly closing the door again. "When a woman carries a child she will take walks to the _milpas_, to the river, to the orchards, just so her little one can be in its world. Then, after her baby is born, our tradition holds that she should be alone with it for a week and a day.

So their life's breath can become one."

I could sense her heart was deeply entwined with the people here at Baalum.

"Marcelina, how long have--?"

"Well, what do you think?" said a voice. I looked around to see Alex G.o.ddard coming up the stairs behind us. And my anger welled up again.

Everything about him was just too . . . manipulating.

He'd changed back to his black sweatshirt and jeans and was carrying a tray. The costume event was over. In an instant Marcelina slipped quietly around him and headed back down the stairs, almost like a rabbit startled by a fox. He smiled and moved past me.

"All those trappings just now, the fake green mask." I decided to challenge him head-on. Start forcing him to show his hand. "What's--?"

"Merely a little harmless theater." He looked back. "The forest Maya like to think they're being ministered to by a shaman." Then he indicated I should follow him. "By the way, in case you do get hungry, I brought you something you can have in your room if you like. Then you can make yourself at home and rest a bit."

Hold on. I was being given the illusion of freedom, but in reality I was nothing more than his prisoner.

"That room next to your office. The steel door. What's in--?"

"That's the heart of _Baalum_." Pride in his voice. "The real reason I'm here."

"You mean drug research?"

He nodded. "Did you know the Central American rain forest easily contains a hundred thousand plant species? Over half of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants, yet less than one percent of those here have been tested for pharmacological potential. Still, the old shamans and midwives all know of herbs they claim can cure everything from menstrual cramps to cancer." He smiled. "They also know which ones have powerful contraceptive properties, which is particularly helpful in my primary study, fertility and fetal viability. I take the specimens they bring and perform a rough screening in the lab to determine if they're actually pharmacologically active. If they do test positive, I then examine their effect on the blastocyst, the early form of embryonic cell formed just after fertilization, to see whether they affect cell division and viability and . . . the miscarriage rate here is very low, so some of these plants . . ." His voice trailed off as he pushed open the door of a suite at the end of the hall. It had a stone floor, a simple bed, and through the slatted windows the light of midday filtered through, along with the birdcalls of the rain forest. Any other time and place, I'd have felt like I was staying at a rustic nature retreat.

But this wasn't some other time and place. And what about Steve? Where was he? Maybe he was somewhere worse. Thinking about him, I was startled to hear myself say . . .

"Incidentally, I found out the man I've been trying to have a baby with didn't show up at his hotel in Belize last night. He was driving there from Guatemala City. I'm very worried. I keep hearing about how people get 'disappeared' in this country. He's--"

"Could his name be Steve Abrams?" G.o.ddard turned back, still holding the tray.

It was a moment that stopped my heart. For a second I wasn't even able to speak.

"How . . . did you know?" I finally managed to say. "I never mentioned--"

"That's the name they gave me. I received a call this morning from Guatemala City. From Colonel Ramos's office, in fact. As you might suppose, he's well aware you're here, and he said you were seen dining night before last at a downtown restaurant with a man by that name.

They think he's in the country because of you, and they're trying to locate him."