Soul Harvest:
The World Takes Sides
Book 4 of the Left Behind Series
Buck slipped back into Chloe's room, desperate to let her know he was there and she was safe.
He could hardly bear to look at her black and purple face with the eye so swollen. He gently took her hand and leaned close. “Chloe, I'm here, and I won't let anything happen to you. But I need your help. Squeeze my hand. Blink. Let me know you're with me.”
No response. Buck lay his cheek on her pillow, his lips inches from her ear. “Oh, God,” he prayed, “why couldn't you have let this happen to me? Why her? Help me get her out of here, God, please!”
Her hand felt like a feather, and she seemed fragile as a newborn. What a contrast to the strong woman he had loved and come to know. She was not only fearless, but she was also smart. How he wished she was up to being his ally in this.
Chloe's breathing accelerated, and Buck opened his eyes as a tear slid past her ear. He looked her in the face. She blinked furiously, and he wondered if she was trying to communicate. “I'm here,” he said over and over. “Chloe, it's Buck.”
The GC guard had been gone too long. Buck prayed he was out there waiting with the marker but too intimidated to knock. Otherwise, who knew whom he might bring with him and what might squash any chance Buck had to protect Chloe.
He spoke quickly. “Sweetheart, I don't know if you can hear me, but try to concentrate. I'm switching your name with the woman's in the other bed. Her name is Ashton. And I'm pretending to be your doctor. OK? Can you grasp that?”
Buck waited, hoping. Finally, a flicker.
“I got you those,” she whispered.
“What? Chloe, what? It's me, Buck. You got me what?”
She licked her lips and swallowed. “I got you those, and you broke them.”
He concluded she was delirious. This was gibberish. He shook his head and smiled at her. “Stick with me, kid, and we'll pull something off.”
“Doctor Buck,” she rasped, attempting a lopsided smile.
“Yes! Chloe! You know me.”
She squinted and blinked slowly now as if staying awake was an effort. “You should take better care of gifts.”
“I don't know what you're saying, sweetness, and I'm not sure you do either. But whatever I did, I'm sorry.”
For the first time, she turned to face him. “You broke your glasses, Doctor Buck.”
Buck reflexively touched the frames on his head. “Yes! Chloe, listen to me. I'm trying to protect you. I switched the names on the door. You're—”
“Ashton,” she managed.
“Yes! And your first initial is A. What's a good A name?”
“Annie,” she said. “I'm Annie Ashton.”
“Perfect. And who am I?”
She pressed her lips together and started to form a B, then changed. “My doctor,” she said.
Buck turned to go see if Craig, the guard, had brought the marker. “Doctor,” Chloe called out. “Wristbands.”
She was thinking! How could he forget that someone could easily check their hospital ID bracelets?
He yanked hers apart, careful not to dislodge the IV. He slipped behind A. Ashton's curtain. She still appeared sound asleep. He carefully removed her bracelet, noticing she did not appear even to be breathing. He put his ear close to her nose but heard and felt nothing. He could find no pulse. He switched the wristbands.
Buck knew this only bought him time. It wouldn't be long before someone discovered that this postmenopausal dead woman was not a pregnant twenty-two-year-old. But for the time being, she was Mother Doe.
When Buck emerged, the guards were talking to an older doctor. Craig, black marker in hand, was saying, “... we weren't sure what to do.”
The doctor, tall, bespectacled, and gray, carried three charts. He scowled at Buck.
Buck sneaked a peek at the name sewn on his breast pocket. “Dr. Lloyd!” he exulted, thrusting out his hand.
The doctor reluctantly shook it, “Do I—?”
“Why, I haven't seen you since that, uh, that—”
“The symposium?”
“Right! The one at, um—”
“Bemidji?”
“Yeah, you were brilliant.”
The doctor looked flustered, as if trying to remember Buck, yet the praise had not been lost on him. “Well, j_”
“And one of your kids was up to something. What was it?”
“Oh, I may have mentioned my son, who just got his internship.”
“Right! How's he doing anyway?”
“Wonderfully. We're very proud of him. Now, Doctor—”
Buck interrupted. “I'll bet you are. Listen,” he said, pulling Ken Ritz's pill bottles from his pocket, “I wonder if you could advise me. ...”
“I'll certainly try.”
“Thank you, Doctor Lloyd.” He held up the tranquilizer bottle. “I prescribed this to a patient with a severe head wound, and he inadvertently exceeded the dosage. What's the best antidote?”
Dr. Lloyd studied the bottle. “It's not that serious. He'll be very sleepy for a few hours, but it'll wear off. Head trauma, you say?”
“Yes, that's why I'd rather he not sleep.”
“Of course. You'll most safely counteract this with an injection of Benzedrine.”
“Not being on staff here,” Buck said, “I can't get anything from the pharmacy. ...”
Dr. Lloyd scribbled him a prescription. “If you'll excuse me, Doctor—?”
“Cameron,” Buck said before thinking.
“Of course, Dr. Cameron. Great to see you again.”
“You too, Dr. Lloyd, and thanks.”
Buck accepted the marker from the chagrined Craig and changed the strips on the door from B and A to A and B. “I'll be back soon, Craig,” he said, slapping the marker into the guard's palm.
Buck hurried off, pretending to know where he was going but scanning directories and following signs as he went. Dr. Lloyd's prescription was like gold at the pharmacy, and he was soon on his way back to the lobby for Ken Ritz. On the way he appropriated a wheelchair.
He found Ken leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, snoring. Grateful for his training taking his turn giving his mother insulin injections, Buck deftly opened the package, raised Ken's sleeve without toppling him, swabbed the area, and pulled the cap off the hypodermic needle with his teeth. As he drove the point into Ken's biceps, the cap popped from his mouth and rattled to the floor. Someone muttered, “Shouldn't he be wearing gloves?”
Buck found the cap, replaced it, and put everything in his pocket. Facing Ken, he thrust his wrists into the big man's armpits and pulled him from the chair. He turned him 45 degrees and lowered him into the wheelchair, having forgotten to set the brake. When Ken hit the chair, it began rolling backwards, and Buck had no leverage to remove his hands. Straddling Ritz's long legs, his face in Ken's chest, Buck stumbled across the waiting room as onlookers dived out of the way. As the chair picked up speed, Buck's only option was to drag his feet. He wound up sprawled across the lanky pilot, who roused briefly and called out, “Charlie Bravo Alpha to base!”
Buck extracted himself, lowered the footrests, and lifted Ritz's knees to set his feet in place. Then they were off to find a gurney. His hope was that Ritz would respond quickly enough to the Benzedrine to be able to help him take Miss Ashton's body, with Mother Doe's wristband, to the morgue. If he could temporarily convince the Global Community delegation that their potential hostage had expired, he could buy time.
As Buck wheeled him toward the elevators, Ken's arms kept flopping out of the chair and acting as brakes on the wheels. Buck would grab them and tuck them back in, only to find himself veering into traffic. Buck finally secured Ken's arms by the time they backed onto an elevator, but Ritz chose that moment to let his chin drop to his chest, exposing his scalp wound to everyone aboard.
When Ritz seemed to begin coming out of his fog, Buck was able to get him out of the chair and onto a gurney he had absconded with. The sudden rise, however, had made Ken dizzy. He flopped onto his back, and his head wound brushed the sheet. “OK!” he hollered like a drunk. “All right!”
He rolled to his side, and Buck covered him to the neck, then wheeled him next to the wall, where he waited for him to fully awaken. Twice, as lots of traffic walked by, Ken spontaneously sat up, looked around, and lay back down.
When he finally came to and was able to sit and then stand without dizziness, he was still disoriented. “Man, that was some good sleep. I could use more of that.”
Buck explained that he wanted to find Ken a smock and have him play an orderly, helping Dr. Cameron. Buck went over it several times until Ken convinced him he was awake and understood. “Wait right here,” Buck said.
Near a surgical unit he saw a doctor hang a smock on a hook before heading the other way. It looked clean, so Buck took it back to Ken. But Ken was gone.
Buck found him at the elevator. “What are you doing?”
“I've gotta get my bag,” Ken said. “We left it outside.”
“It's under a chair in the waiting room. We'll get it later. Now put this on.” The sleeves were four inches short. Ken looked like the last renter in a costume shop.
Pushing the gurney, they hurried to 335 as fast as Ken could go. The woman guard said, “Doctor, we just got a call from our superiors that a delegation is on its way from the airport, and—”
“I'm sorry, ma'am,” Buck said, “but the patient you're guarding has died.”
“Died?” she said. “Well, it certainly wasn't our fault. We—”
“No one is saying it's your fault. Now I need to take the body to the morgue. You can tell your delegation or whomever where to find her.”
“Then we don't need to stay here, do we?” “Of course not. Thanks for your service.” As Buck and Ken entered the room, Craig caught sight of Ritz's head. “Man, are you an orderly or a patient?” Ken whirled around. “Are you discriminating against the handicapped?”
“No, sir, I'm sorry. It's just—” “Everybody needs a job!” Ken said. Chloe tried to smile when she saw Ken, whom she had met at Palwaukee after Buck and Tsion's flight from Egypt. Buck looked pointedly at Ritz. “Meet Annie Ashton,” he said. “I'm her doctor.”
“Dr. Buck,” Chloe said quietly. “He broke his glasses.” Ritz smiled. “Sounds like we're on the same medication.”
Buck pulled the sheet over the dead woman's head, rolled her bed out, and replaced it with the gurney. He wheeled the bed to the door and asked Ken to stay with Chloe, “just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case those GC guys show up.”
“I get to play doctor?”
“In a manner of speaking. If we can convince them the woman they want is in the morgue, we might have time to hide Chloe.”
“You don't want to strap her to the top of our rental car?”
Buck pushed the bed down the corridor to the elevators. Getting off were four people, three of them men, dressed in dark business suits. Tags on their jackets identified them as Global Community operatives. One said, “What are we looking for again?”
Another said, “335.”
Buck averted his face, not knowing whether his picture had been circulated. As soon as he rolled the bed onto the elevator, a doctor hit the emergency stop button. A half dozen people were in the car with Buck and the body. “I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” the doctor said. “Just a moment, please.”
He whispered in Buck's ear, “You're not a resident here, are you?”
“No.”
“There are strict rules about transporting corpses on other than the service elevators.”
“I didn't know.”
The doctor turned to the others. “I'm sorry, but you're going to need to take another elevator.”
“Gladly,” somebody said.
The doctor turned the elevator back on, and everyone else got off. He hit the button for the subbasement. “First time in this hospital?” “Yes.” “Left and all the way to the end.”
At the morgue, Buck thought about leaving the body outside the door and hoping it would be misidentified temporarily as Mother Doe. But he was seen by a man behind the desk who said, “You're not supposed to bring beds in here. We can't be responsible for that. You'll have to take it back with you.”
“I'm on a tight schedule.”
“That's your problem. We're not answering for a room bed being down here.”
Two orderlies lifted the body to a gurney, and the man said, “Papers?”
“I'm sorry?”
“Papers! Death certificate. Doctor's sign-off.”
Buck said, “Wristband says Mother Doe. I was told to bring her down here. That's all I know.”
“Who's her doctor?”
“I have no idea.”
“What room?”
“335.”
“We'll look it up. Now get this bed out of here.”
Buck hurried back to the elevator, praying the ruse had worked and that the GC contingent was on its way to the morgue to make sure about Mother Doe. He did not cross paths with them, however, on the way back.
He was almost at room 335 when they emerged. He looked the other way and kept walking.
One said, “Where's Charles, anyway?” The woman said, “We should have waited. He was parking the car. How's he supposed to find us now?” “He can't be far. When he gets here, we'll get to the bottom of this.”
When they were out of sight, Buck pushed the bed back into 335. “It's just me,” he said as he passed Chloe's curtain. He found Chloe even paler and now trembling. Ken sat next to the bed, hands resting lightly atop his head.
“Are you cold, hon?” Buck asked. Chloe shook her head. Her discoloration had spread. The ugly streaks caused by bleeding under the skin nearly reached her temple.
“She's a little shook, that's all,” Rite said. “Me too, though I deserve an Oscar.”
“Doctor Airplane,” Chloe said, and Ritz laughed. “That's what she said. That's all they could get out of her, except her name.”
“Annie Ashton,” she whispered. “Screwed up those guys' heads something awful. They come in complaining, especially the woman, about having no guards assigned like they asked. 'We didn't ask,' Ken said, mimicking her voice. 'It was a directive.'” Chloe nodded.
Ken continued. “They shuffle past, snagging the end of our drape, talking about how she's in bed B, all proud of themselves because they can read an adhesive strip on the door. I call out, 'Two visitors at a time, please, and I'd appreciate you keeping it down. I have a toxic patient here.' I meant infectious, but it means the same, doesn't it?
“Course they saw right away there was just an empty gurney over there. One of the guys pokes his head in here and I raise way up on my tiptoes, doctor-like, and say, 'If you don't want typhoid fever, you'd better pull your face outtalk here.'”
“Typhoid fever?”
“It sounded good to me. And it did the trick.”
“That scared them off?”
“Well, almost. He shut the curtain and said from behind it, 'Doctor, may we speak to you in private, please?' I said, 'I can't leave my patient. And I'd have to scrub before I talk to anybody. I'm immune, but I can carry the disease.'”
Buck raised his eyebrows. “They bought this?”
Chloe shook her head, appearing amused.
Ken said, “Hey, I was good. They asked who my patient was. I could have told them Annie Ashton, but I thought it was more realistic if I acted insulted by the question. I said, 'Her name's not as important as her prognosis. Anyway, her name's on the door.' I heard them tsk-tsking and one said, 'Is she conscious?' I said, 'If you're not a doctor, it's none of your business.' The woman said something about their having a doctor who hadn't caught up to them yet, and I said, 'You can ask me whatever you need to know.'
“One of them says, 'We know what it says on the door, but we were told Mother Doe was in that bed.' I said, 'I'm not going to stand here and argue. My patient is not Mother Doe.'
“One of the guys says, 'You mind if we ask her what her name is?' I say, 'As a matter of fact, I do mind. She needs to concentrate on getting better.' The guy says, 'Ma'am, if you can hear me, tell me your name.'
“I nod to Chloe so she'll tell 'em, but I'm stomping toward the curtain like I'm mad. She hesitates, not sure what I'm up to, but finally she says, acting real weak like, 'Annie Ashton.'”
Chloe raised her hand. “Not acting,” she said. “Why'd they name me Mother Doe?”
“You don't know?” Buck said, reaching for her hand.
She shook her head.
“Let me finish my story,” Ritz said. “I think they're coming back. I whipped that curtain open and stared them down. I don't guess they expected me to be so big. I said, 'There! Satisfied? Now you've upset her and me too.' The woman says, 'Excuse us, Doctor, ah—' and Chloe says, 'Doctor Airplane.' I had to bite my tongue. I said, 'The medication's getting to her,' which ft was. I said, 'I'm Doctor Lalaine, but we'd better not snake hands, all things considered.'
“The rest of 'em are all crowded around the door, and the woman peeks through the curtain and says, 'Do you have any idea what happened to Mother Doe?' I tell her, 'One patient from this room was taken to the morgue.'
“She says, 'Oh, really?' in a tone that tells me she doesn't believe that one bit. She says, 'What caused this young lady's injuries? Typhoid?' Real sarcastic. I wasn't ready for that one, and while I'm trying to think up a smart, doctory answer, she says, Tm going to have our physician examine her.'
“I tell her, 'I don't know how they do it where you're from, but in this hospital only the attending physician or the patient can ask for a second opinion.' Well, even though she's a good foot shorter than me, she somehow looks down her nose at me. She says, 'We are from the Global Community, here under orders from His Excellency himself. So be prepared to give ground.'
“I say, 'Who the heck is His Excellency?' She says, 'Where have you been, under a rock?' Well, I couldn't tell her that was just about right and that because I had OD'd on tranqs I wasn't too sure where I was now, so I said, 'Servin' mankind, trying to save lives, ma'am.' She huffed out, and a couple minutes later, you walked in. You're up-to-date.”
“And they're bringing in a doctor,” Buck said. “Terrific. We'd better hide her someplace and see if we can get her lost in the system.”
“Answer me,” Chloe whispered.
“What?”
“Buck, am I pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Is the baby OK?”
“So far.”
“How 'bout me?”
“You're pretty banged up, but you're not in danger.”
“Your typhoid fever is almost gone,” Ritz said.
Chloe frowned. “Dr. Airplane,” she scolded. “Buck, I have to get better fast. What do these people want?”
“It's a long story. Basically, they want to trade you for either Tsion or Hattie or both.”
“No,” she said, her voice stronger.
“Don't worry,” Buck said. “But we'd better get going. We're not going to fool a real doctor for long, despite Joe Thespian here.”
“That's Dr. Airplane to you,” Ken said.
Buck heard people at the door. He dropped to the floor and crawled under two curtains, squatting in the area already crowded with both bed and gurney.
“Dr. Lalaine,” one of the men said, “this is our physician from Kenosha. We would appreciate it if you would let him examine this patient.”
“I don't understand,” Ritz said.
“Of course you don't,” the doctor said, “but I helped treat an unidentified patient yesterday who matched this description. That's why I was invited.”
Buck shut his eyes. The voice sounded familiar. If it was the last doctor he had talked to in Kenosha, the one who'd taken pictures of Chloe, all hope was gone. Even if Buck surprised them and came out swinging, there was no way he could get Chloe out of that place.
Ritz said, “I've already told these people who this patient is.”
“And we've already proven your story false, Doctor,” the woman said. “We asked for Mother Doe in the morgue. It didn't take long to determine that that was the real Ms. Ashton.”
Buck heard an envelope being opened, something being pulled out. “Look at these pictures,” the woman said. “She may not be a dead ringer, but she's close. I think that's her.”
“There's one way to be sure,” the doctor said. “My patient had three small scars on her left knee from arthroscopic surgery when she was a teenager, and also an appendectomy scar.”
Buck was reeling. Neither was true of Chloe. What was going on?
Buck heard the rustle of blanket, sheet, and gown. “You know, this doesn't really surprise me,” the doctor said. “I thought the face was a little too round and the bruising more extensive on this girl.”
“Well,” the woman said, “even if this isn't who we're looking for, it isn't Annie Ashton, and she certainly doesn't have typhoid fever.”
“Nobody in this hospital has typhoid fever,” Ken said. “I say that to keep people's noses out of my patients' business.”
“I want this man brought up on charges,” the woman said. “Why wouldn't he know the name of his own patient?”
“There are too many patients right now,” Ken said. “Anyway, I was told this was Annie Ashton. That's what it says on the door.”
“I'll talk to the chief of staff here about Dr. Lalaine,” the doctor said. “I suggest the rest of you check admissions again for Mother Doe.”
“Doctor?” Chloe said in a tiny voice. “You have something on your forehead.”
“I do?” he said.
“I don't see anything,” the woman said. “This girl is doped up.”
“No, I'm not,” Chloe said. “You do have something there, doctor.”
“Well,” he said, pleasantly but dismissively, “you're probably going to have something on your forehead too, once you recover.”
“Let's get going,” one of the men said.
“I'll find you after I've talked to the chief of staff,” the doctor said.
The others left. As soon as the door shut, the doctor said, “I know who she is. Who are you?”
“I'm Dr. —”
“We both know you're no doctor.”
“Yes he is,” Chloe slurred. “He's Dr. Airplane.”
Buck emerged from behind the curtain. “Dr. Charles, meet my pilot, Ken Ritz. Have you ever been an answer to prayer before?”
“It wasn't easy getting assigned to this,” Floyd Charles said. “But I thought I might come in handy.”
“I don't know how I can ever thank you,” Buck said.
“Stay in touch,” the doctor said. “I may need you someday. I suggest we transfer your wife out of here. They'll come look more closely when they don't find Mother Doe.”
“Can you arrange transportation to the airport and everything we'll need to take care of her?” Buck asked.
“Sure. As soon as I get Dr. Airplane's medical license suspended.”
Ken whipped off his smock. “I've had enough of doctorin' anyway,” he said. “I'm going back to sky jockeying.”
“Will I be able to take care of her at home?” Buck asked.
“She'll be in a lot of pain for a long time and may never feel like she used to, but there's nothing life-threatening here. The baby's fine too, as far as we know.”
“I didn't know until today,” Chloe said. “I suspected, but I didn't know.”
“You almost gave me away with that forehead remark,” Dr. Charles said.
“Yeah,” Ken said. “What was that all about?”
“I'll tell you both on the plane,” Buck said.
Early Thursday morning in New Babylon, Nicolae Carpathia and Leon Fortunato met with Rayford. “We have communicated your itinerary to the dignitaries,” Carpathia said. “They have arranged for appropriate accommodations for the Supreme Commander, but you and your first officer should make your own arrangements.”
Rayford nodded. This meeting, as with so many, was unnecessary.
“Now on a personal note,” Carpathia added, “while I understand your position, it has been decided not to dredge the wreckage of the Pan-Con flight from the Tigris. I am sorry, but it has been confirmed your wife was on board. We should consider that her final resting place, along with the other passengers.”
Rayford believed in his gut Carpathia was lying. Amanda was alive, and she was certainly no traitor to the cause of Christ. He and Mac had scuba gear coming, and while he had no idea where Amanda was, he would start by proving she was not on board that submerged 747.
Two hours before flight time Friday, Mac told Rayford he had replaced the fixed-wing aircraft in the cargo hold. “We're already takin' the chopper,” he said. “That little two-engine job is redundant. I replaced it with the Challenger 3.”
“Where'd you find that?” The Challenger was about the size of a Learjet but nearly twice as fast. It had been developed during the last six months.
“I thought we lost everything but the chopper, the fixed-wing, and the Condor. But beyond the rise in the ' middle of the airstrip, I found the Challenger. I had to install a new antennae and a new tail rudder system, but she's good as new.”
“I wish I knew how to fly it,” Rayford said. “Maybe I could see my family while Fortunato's laying over in Texas.”
“They found your daughter?”
“Just got the word. She's banged up, but she's fine. And I'm going to be a grandpa.”
“That's great, Ray!” Mac said, patting Rayford on the shoulder. “I'll teach you the Challenger. You'll know how to drive it in no time.”
“I've got to finish packing and get an E-mail to Buck,” Rayford said.
“You're not sending or receiving through the system here, are you?”
“No. I got a coded E-mail from Buck informing me when my private phone would be ringing. I made sure I was outside at that time.”
“We've got to talk to Hassid about how secure the Internet is in here. You and he and I have all been on the Net, keeping track of your friend Tsion. I'm worried that the brass can tell who's been on. Carpathia's got to be furious about Tsion. We could all be in trouble.”
“David told me that if we stay with the bulletin boards, we're not traceable.”
“He'd like to be going with us, you know,” Mac said.
“David? I know. But we need him right where he is.”