When Paul reached the ER desk his timing was opportune. Arriving at that very second was a gaggle of suited hospital administration functionaries that included the hospital president, Carl Noakes. Along with this group were several uniformed hospital security people. Adding to the confusion were several uniformed Boulder policemen who also arrived at the same time, including the officer who’d gone out with the EMTs to get the stricken runner.
“Ah, Dr. Caldwell,” said Mr. Noakes, slightly out of breath. “Perhaps you can explain what is going on here.”
Paul groaned inwardly — Mr. Noakes, the hospital president, was a figurehead as far as Caldwell was concerned, and not the man you wanted to see in a situation like this. He was a bottom-line bureaucrat.
“We have a problem here where a non-English-speaking patient who presumably had had a cardiac arrest is being signed out against my orders.”
At that critical point the two disparate groups met head-on. Noakes held up his hand for everyone to stop. Then he cleared his throat. “I think we have a misunderstanding here. What is the patient’s name, Dr. Caldwell?”
“We don’t have his name,” said Paul.
“Yao Hong-Xiau,” the runner shouted out, and a Chinese suit yelled at him.
“We should clear this area and move into one of the unoccupied exam rooms,” Noakes suggested. He gestured with his hand after being shown where to go by the ER charge nurse. Everyone complied. Many of the ER patients waiting to be seen watched with utter fascination. It looked to them like some sort of a movie involving international intrigue was being filmed with police and armed security people eyeing each other.
“There is no misunderstanding,” Mariel said calmly once everyone had regrouped in relative privacy. “This man is a representative of the Chinese government and a guest of the United States government, and he has expressed his wish to come back to our facility forthwith. These two gentlemen with me are Chinese nationals with diplomatic status who are visiting Nano.” Mariel pointed out the two men in suits, and they both nodded in acknowledgment.
“How about we wait for our translator who will be here very soon?” Paul suggested.
Mariel regarded Paul with a supercilious expression. “We’re not waiting. We would like to get this man into our infirmary.”
As if to underline her point, the patient apparently asked to sit down, and the two men supporting him pulled over a chair from a desk.
“What about hospital charges for the visit?” questioned Noakes.
Paul groaned inwardly. It was typical of Noakes to be consumed by economics at a time like this. ER charges were certainly secondary to the ethics of prematurely removing a potentially vulnerable patient from an ER under armed guard.
“I’m glad you reminded me,” said Mariel, forcing a smile. “I am fully authorized to take care of any charges.”
She pulled a stack of bills out of a bag she was carrying, and Pia could see they were hundred-dollar bills. Mariel made sure Noakes could see, too, and reeled off a stack. There had to be several thousand dollars in her outstretched hand, and more where they came from.
“This should take care of it,” she said.
“This is very unorthodox, we don’t usually accept cash without an invoice…” Noakes said, eyeing the money.
“For your inconvenience,” said Mariel, and separated a few more bills from her stash and added them to her offer. When Noakes seemed paralyzed, she reached out and forcibly placed the money in his hand. “That should more than cover it, And we are truly sorry for any inconvenience.”
“Mr. Noakes…” began Paul, unhappy with the proffered resolution, but Noakes had stepped aside and the runner’s group quickly made their way out of the room and then out of the ER.
Pia followed, hoping to talk to Mariel. She had a hundred questions, so she trotted alongside Mariel, who was striding quickly toward the second of two black vans idling in the parking lot. The uniformed drivers with dark glasses had the vans conveniently positioned to make a fast exit. The patient was helped into the lead vehicle with the Chinese suits.
“Mariel, what’s going on?”
“Pia.” Mariel stopped and fixed her with a cold stare. “There’s a lot more to Nano than just our little area. The world is full of people who’d love to get their hands on what we’re doing throughout the company. Nanotechnology is one of the most important fields of research, which we are leading, but we’re vulnerable. We have to protect ourselves.”
“With men with guns? And what does that have to do with this man? He was out for a jog, for God’s sake. He collapsed. And you come with armed guards? And then you say he’s a representative from the Chinese government? And Nano has an infirmary? And…”
“Pia, I thank you for calling me. But now you have to trust me, and stop asking questions! We have to leave. Are you coming? We need to get this man back to the facility a-sap.”
Pia was still dressed in the borrowed lab coat, and, more important, she realized she’d set down her phone somewhere in the ER. “My phone…” she said, looking over her shoulder, momentarily torn about what she should do.
“We can’t wait for you. If you want to stay, you’ll have to make your own way back. But come back immediately, Pia, we have a lot of work to do.”
Pia nodded and turned to walk back to the ER. Mariel spoke up once more. “And, Pia,” she called out. Pia faced Mariel and squinted against the low sun behind her.
“Just forget about all this, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, Mariel hauled herself up into the front seat of the black van and slammed the door behind her. Pia stood there and watched the two trucks drive away.
CHAPTER 14
Pia walked back to the ER, her head full of questions. Most of them centered on Mariel Spallek. Mariel wasn’t an overly friendly person, which was something that Pia usually appreciated, as she thought it was more honest. She was authoritarian, to be sure, but was knowledgeable and a good supervisor, both constructive and demanding. She could also be passive-aggressive, which she’d been that morning, but Pia didn’t care, she wasn’t looking for a social interaction. Pia had gotten to the point of knowing what to expect from Mariel, at least up until having called her for help in regard to the downed Chinese runner.
But Pia could never have imagined that Mariel would show up with four armed guards and proceed to sign out a patient without a diagnosis or even a hint of an explanation for the man’s apparent cardiac arrest!
Pia reentered the ER in somewhat of a daze. She saw the place was getting back to normal. There were still a few clusters of people standing around, talking about what had happened. The cop who had shown up with the ambulance to pick up the runner was still there, but he was deep in conversation with several of the hospital security people. Pia couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been when the Nano contingent had first shown up and stormed into the ER. A few of the administrator types were still there, but not the hospital president. Apparently, with the acceptance of Mariel’s money, he felt the situation had been resolved; the patient had been seen and the bill paid.
On a side table in the room where the runner had been taken, Pia found her cell phone. She figured she’d take a cab back to Nano — in her cell phone case she kept a twenty-dollar bill for emergencies.
As she retreated toward the ER’s front desk where she intended to inquire about getting a taxi, Pia recognized she was more shaken up than she initially had admitted to herself. The sight of guns disturbed her. It was a common enough occurrence to see armed guards with weapons, even assault rifles these days, especially at an airport, but the memory of seeing Will McKinley getting shot in the head at point-blank range was still fresh, and she herself was kidnapped by men with guns. She’d seen firsthand what a bullet could do to flesh and bone.