The Memory Collector Part 3

The flight attendants had taken Kanan's backpack to the first-cla.s.s galley. Jo poked through it, seeing a laptop, finding no drugs or alcohol. She did find Kanan's pa.s.sport and itinerary. She scanned them and handed both to Paterson.

"He didn't come from London. He came from South Africa and changed planes at Heathrow."

"Does that matter?" Paterson said.

"Maybe." Jo looked down the length of the plane. "Come on."

Paterson led her down the aisle. The crowd near the galley stepped aside. The second cop, Chad Weigel, was standing outside the door of the lav.

He raised his hand to knock but Jo said, "Hang on."

She turned to the flight attendants. "Did you unlock the door yourselves and try to get him out?"

"Twice," said a British flight attendant whose name tag read CHARLOTTE THORNE. "The first time, he braced himself against the door so we couldn't push it inward. He also told us to get the h.e.l.l back. The second time, he didn't say anything. It seemed he was slumped against the door."

"Unconscious?" Jo said, thinking, Drugs, drunk, sick?

The flight attendant shrugged. "He didn't respond."

Officer Paterson said, "What do you think?"

"Let's find out." Jo knocked on the door. "Mr. Kanan?"

She heard water running in the sink. She and Paterson exchanged a look.

The door opened. The man inside turned to step out, saw her, and stopped dead.

Ian Kanan was in his midthirties, five-ten, white. From the back, wearing a coat, he would have seemed unexceptional. Face-to-face with him, Jo saw the way his denim shirt ran tight across his shoulders. She saw the self-awareness that ran head to toe. She saw scratches, deep ones, on his left wrist. He was lean and whippy. His hair was short and rusty brown, the color of iron ore. His eyes were the palest blue she had ever seen. Almost colorless, and bright, like a seam of ancient ice. Jo felt as though she were staring into a creva.s.se.

"Excuse me," he said and stepped out the door.

He saw the people gathered in the aisle, all staring at him. His eyes went to Officer Paterson and to the gun holstered on Paterson's belt.

"What's going on?" he said.

"Mr. Kanan, are you all right?" Jo said.

He glanced out the windows. The gray sky churned and rain blew across the view. His eyes clicked to the aisle. The empty jet. The term escape plan ran through Jo's mind.

His eyes clicked back to her. "I wasn't feeling well."

A fully formed sentence, p.r.o.nounced clearly, in response to her question. That was promising. His gaze was acute, but Jo sensed something else behind it-tightly controlled confusion. Paterson's hand hovered near his weapon.

"I'm Dr. Beckett. Can you tell me why you don't want to get off the plane?"

"I'll get off the plane. Why wouldn't I?" he said.

Everybody stared at him.

"Is there a problem?" he said. His eyes said something else entirely. His eyes said, Big problem.

"I'd like to talk to you. Shall we do that in the terminal?" Jo said.

"Talk? Why?" Kanan said.

In her peripheral vision, Jo saw Officer Weigel shake his head. He said, "Because you blockaded yourself in the bathroom for an hour and-"

Jo put up a hand. Kanan's face was dead still. His pupils looked normal size, equal and reactive. She couldn't smell alcohol on him. He wasn't weaving, shaking, or slurring his words. And yet she sensed that something was very wrong. Again he glanced around the jet. He seemed unsettled by the fact that it was empty.

"You're the last off," she said. "The crew needs to shut down the plane. Let's talk in the terminal."

He looked her up and down, a slow glance. "Sure."

The police officers bracketed him up the aisle, Weigel ahead, Paterson behind. Following a few yards back, Jo saw how Kanan's hands hung loose at his sides. It seemed casual, but the way he held himself reminded her of a gunslinger. When they pa.s.sed the emergency exit row, he saw the partially opened door. He frowned at it, his head clocking around as he walked.

"Why's the exit open?" he said.

Jo could have sworn the temperature dropped ten degrees. Kanan kept walking. Ahead stood the two men who had tackled him. Kanan picked up his pace. Abruptly he reached into his back pocket.

Officer Paterson said, "Hey."

Kanan ignored him, and then it was too late. By the time he pulled out a cell phone, Paterson was on him.

Paterson was fast. Kanan was faster. He spun, grabbed Paterson's hand, smashed his elbow, and drove the cop to his knees.

Paterson cried out. The British flight attendant said, "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Up the aisle, Officer Weigel turned around.

For a fraction of a second Kanan's face was ferocious. He stared down at Paterson. Then confusion seemed to sweep over him again.

"What... ?"

Kanan gazed at Paterson with horror. Behind him, Officer Weigel unsnapped a holster and charged.

Jo put out her hands. "Wait-"

Weigel drew a Taser. "Doc, get back."

He fired. The darts. .h.i.t. Kanan jerked rigid.

Paterson broke free. Kanan stood motionless. And, so quick Jo barely sensed what was coming, Kanan's hands drew upward and turned in, as if he were cringing. They drew into b.a.l.l.s against his chest. His eyes blanked. His gaze rolled sideways, and then his head followed, slowly, turning to the left as though pulled in a circle by a weird magnet. Paterson stumbled to his feet and charged.

"Don't!" Jo shouted.

She was too late. Paterson tackled Kanan, who went down like a tree.

Jo ran toward them. "Officer, stop. No."

Paterson was wrestling Kanan. "Face down."

Kanan didn't respond. He continued rolling leftward, hands clenched to his chest, face pressed against the floor.

"Hands behind your back," Paterson said breathlessly.

Jo grabbed Paterson by the shoulders. "Stop. He's having a seizure."

"He's resisting." Paterson grunted, straining to pull Kanan's hands down.

"Officer, he's seizing," Jo said. "Get off. Move."

Kanan wasn't jerking or flailing or beating his head against the floor. He was simply gone, into a realm where bright lines flared at the corners of his vision and a panoply of color spun across the mind. He kept turning.

"Partial seizure," Jo said. "Get off him. Now."

* 4 *

Kanan lay in the aisle of the jet, turning as if on a rotisserie. Jo tried to pull Paterson away from him.

"Call the paramedics," she said.

Officer Weigel loomed over them, Taser in his hand. "He got a hundred thousand volts. He'll come out of it."

"The Taser may have triggered the seizure, but something else is wrong with him. Officer Paterson, let go."

Paterson relented. Jo knelt at Kanan's side, fear pouring down her back like cold water. She wasn't a trauma doc. She was a forensic psychiatrist. In her line of work the crisis cases never presented medical emergencies. Her crisis cases were already dead.

She shook it off, telling herself: Go through it step by step. First, ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. She checked that Kanan was breathing and had a pulse. Then she stripped off her sweater, rolled it up, and tucked it under his head. Heat was pouring off his skin.

"Paramedics and an ambulance. Call them," she said.

"You're not going to section him?" Paterson said.

"No. I'm getting him to an E.R."

Paterson got on the radio. Jo checked Kanan's face and head for fractures and lacerations. The only cuts she could see were the gouges on his forearm. She avoided touching them and began to wish she'd brought latex gloves. In the aisle she spied his cell phone. She picked it up. Looked at dialed calls-an area code 415 number, about forty-seven times.

Like an ebbing wave, the seizure subsided. Kanan stopped turning and lay limp on the floor. His eyes closed and opened again. Above Jo, Paterson's radio leaked static.

She put a hand on Kanan's shoulder. "Mr. Kanan? Ian?"

She heard the clink of handcuffs being removed from a utility belt.

"Don't," she said. "He has a head injury. Where are the paramedics?"

"On their way," Paterson said. "He a.s.saulted a police officer. He needs to be restrained."

"You're not going to arrest him."

"That's not your call. Sectioning him is. You going to do that?"

Kanan shifted. "What's... am-river's too..."

"Ian," Jo said.

"All wrong it's..." He looked at her as though seeing her through a distorted video link. "Slick it's too... falls-misty it's..." He blinked and grabbed Jo's arm. "Get you."

He began breathing rapidly. Jo took his pulse. One forty-eight.

"Is anybody here to meet you?" she said. He was wearing a wedding ring. "Is your wife picking you up?"

His gaze sparked, as though her voice had lit a fuse in his brain. His eyes rolled back to whites and his lips parted. Beneath Jo's hand his body tensed.

He convulsed. This time the seizure was grand mal.

The ambulance rolled north through the rain on 101, its siren shooing traffic out of its way. Kanan lay strapped to a gurney, unresponsive. Jo sat by his shoulder. The paramedic kept her balance as the vehicle took a curve. She called Kanan's name and flashed a penlight in his eyes.

Officer Paterson lurked by the back doors, baby face puckering with suspicion. His left hand ran back and forth over the handcuffs on his utility belt.

Jo shook her head at him. "You can't cuff a seizure patient."

"One hand to the stretcher."

"No. We need to be able to maneuver him. If he vomits we have to keep him from inhaling it, or he could die."

"He's a loose cannon. And he's going to be under arrest," Paterson said.

"If you think you can Mirandize him in this condition, you're the one who needs sectioning."

Kanan groaned. The paramedic said, "Ian, can you hear me?"

A gust of wind whistled over the ambulance and flung rain across the windows. Kanan's eyes woozed open.

Jo took his hand. "What's your name?"

He blinked as though trying to focus. "Ian Kanan."

His gaze cleared. His pupils were equal, reactive to light, and had a wolfish glow. Jo felt a p.r.i.c.kle along the back of her neck.

On the jetliner, Kanan had dropped Paterson to his knees with the speed of a train wreck. Despite her spirited defense of him, Jo didn't want Kanan to do worse to anybody in the ambulance.