George was stretched out on the floor, his arm extended way out, reaching under the couch. His phone rang again and he was exasperated — Paul was being a real pain. He stood up and glanced out of the window and saw movement. As he walked toward the front of the room, he saw the police cruiser pull up right in front of Mariel’s walkway out to the street.
“Oh, shit,” he said, and raced back toward the kitchen door, moving as if his life depended on it, running down the yard and out into the wooded area behind Spallek’s house. Despite the undergrowth and young trees, he tore along, making good progress. After a couple of minutes, he stopped and looked back the way he had come. He called Paul.
When George didn’t answer his last call and two uniformed police officers got out of the car and walked up toward Mariel’s front door, Paul pulled away from the curb very slowly. He looked back, and the Malibu that had been parked behind him followed at a distance. Paul expected sirens to blare and to be pulled over, but it didn’t happen. He now thought the Malibu was an unmarked police car. He was holding the phone in his hand when it went off.
“George!”
“I’m out back in the woods. What’s going on?” George was out of breath.
“The cops went in the house and I’m being followed by that car that showed up. But they can’t be cops, because they’d have stopped me.”
“Just drive toward home. They must be Nano security.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Who else could it be? Look, I need to keep walking.” George terminated the call. He pushed through the undergrowth for another ten minutes before reaching a minor road. He followed the sun and after twenty minutes of walking in the shadows came to a junction. He called Paul again, who answered, using his hands-free device.
“I’m at a road,” said George. “No one’s coming for me, it doesn’t look like.”
“Thank God!”
“Are you still being followed?”
“I don’t know, George. I don’t see that car. This is making me feel totally sick. And I’m supposed to be at work in an hour.”
“You go,” said George. “I can get my coordinates from the phone. I’ll call a cab and see you later.”
“You’re very calm about all this,” said Paul.
“I think we learned a lot just now. Someone is following us, right? It has to be Nano. If Pia wasn’t right about there being a conspiracy going on there, why would they bother?”
“So you have a plan for what we should do next?”
“No. But we need help.”
“Obviously. But who’s going to help us?”
“I don’t know, Paul, I really don’t.”
CHAPTER 55
Pia felt as if she were swimming in molasses. Without another sedative injection, it had taken her an age to fall asleep, but once she did, she fell hard. It was obvious to her that she still had some of the drug on board. As she slowly awoke, Pia wondered how much time she had lost. She hadn’t seen Berman since he had left her in the underground cell after making his big speech about nanotechnology. It was impossible to keep track of time. She had been denied the usual diurnal cycle; the light in the room was always on. When was it that she saw Berman? Yesterday? Last week? It might have been last year, for all she knew. Pia’s head was throbbing and her vision was blurry. She felt terrible, but she had to try to focus on what was happening to her.
However much time had passed, Pia hadn’t had much of an opportunity to think about her situation because of the drugs she’d been given, but now, as she passed through her mind whatever details she could recall, she came to an understanding. Berman had told her too much for her release to be a viable proposition. Her position was extremely precarious. She’d have to submit to Berman or face the consequences.
It took only seconds for Pia to look around her room. An IV ran to a bag that hung on a plastic drip stand for hydration. There was nothing else she could use as a weapon, even if she could reach it, as she was still loosely restrained.
As Pia tried to clear her head a little, a slot in the door that she hadn’t noticed opened, and then closed quickly. The lock on the door was activated and the doctor came back in. Pia sat up, ready to fight him again.
“I come to look at your arm. They want you healthy.” The man avoided making eye contact with Pia.
“So you do speak English. They want me healthy for what? What do they plan to do with me? And who are ‘they’? If you are a doctor, you have an obligation to help me.”
The door swung open and a powerful-looking guard came in, closed the door, and silently faced forward, an intimidating presence.
“Where is Berman, the American…?”
“You cannot talk, miss.”
The doctor took hold of Pia’s bad arm. In addition to her muddy brain, her arm was hurting. Pia knew enough about bone fractures to understand that ideally she should have been holding her arm in the sling to maintain the proper alignment for it to heal. But she had been spending most of her time prone, and she may even have been lying on the arm, she didn’t know. However much she hated the doctor, she let him manipulate her arm gently. She didn’t want a nonunion, meaning the shaft of the humerus would not reconnect to itself, or a misalignment if they connected but did not line up properly. Both situations would require operations to rectify.
“How does this feel?”
“It feels okay. I mean, there is some tenderness but it’s not overwhelming.”
“You know this could be a problem if you do not look after it.”
“I’m being held prisoner somewhere shackled to a bed. It’s not like I have a lot of say in the matter. You’re too much, telling me it is my responsibility.”
“If it doesn’t heal, your arm may be bad forever.”
“Like that is the worst of my problems.” Pia realized she was not in the best of shape, and she wondered if that was the reason Berman hadn’t forced himself on her. “I’m rather vulnerable on a lot of fronts,” she added.
The man said nothing.
“Maybe being infirm has its advantages. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been taken advantage of by the wealthy American.” No sooner had the comment escaped her lips, than a dreadful thought crossed her mind.
“Unless he has. He hasn’t, has he?” Pia thought not, but when she was awake she couldn’t remember much, and when she was out of it, she wouldn’t know, as heavily as she’d been sedated. But she’d feel something, and Berman would have bragged about it. Wouldn’t he?
“You know what kind of man you are working for, don’t you?” she said to the doctor.
The doctor did not respond, but scribbled some notes in a small book, pocketed it, and left the room. A moment later he came back with a bowl and a bottle of water. He had a manila folder tucked under his arm.
“This is soup. You should eat. And water. The American boss man wants you to read this.”
The man left the soup on the floor, where Pia could reach it, and left. The folder contained a document about ten pages long. It was stamped CONFIDENTIAL in red and had a serial number printed like a watermark on each page. Pia skimmed through before tossing the document on the floor in the corner of the room. It was a business prospectus for potential investors outlining plans for Nano’s expansion through the year 2020. He’s trying to impress me, she thought. And a prospectus is supposed to prove that he’s a legitimate businessman. Do legitimate businessmen do this? she asked herself holding up a shackled arm. Pia’s head hurt too much for her to read what she was sure was Berman’s self-aggrandizing BS.