She tied the bandages around his waist and helped him put his wet dress shirt back over his shoulders. She did not look up from her work as she spoke. “What is going on in Bayeux early on a Sunday morning that you absolutely cannot miss?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I was singing in the church choir?”
She shook her head without smiling. “No.”
“Okay. Then I will tell you.” And he told her. He told her with holes in his story jumbo jets could fly through about what had happened and what he had to do by eight a.m. He told her about the kidnapped girls and the father who died trying to protect them. He told her about the teams of foreign operatives after him, and as the blood loss and fatigue addled his brain, he told her again about the phone call from Claire and again about the little kids he just had to protect.
She reacted with horror when he talked of the killers and the killing, the mortal peril of two little girls for the sake of the reputation of some thuggish corporation. Yes, Justine worked for a doctor of veterinary medicine who occasionally kept some strange hours and dealt with some highly suspicious patients, and the doctor had told her enough about Fitzroy and the Network to where she knew to ask no further questions, but she never imagined in a million years that men were as brutal and as callous as those in the stranger’s story.
“So… what do you think?” asked Court.
“Why are you trusting me?”
“Desperation. I was dead on the riverbank forty-five minutes ago. Since that moment, you have become my only hope. If you double-cross me, I am no worse off than I was lying there.”
“What about the police?”
“Lloyd says he will kill the hostages if anyone but me shows up at the house. I know men like this. They will do exactly what they threaten to do. I have to go alone, with your help. I’ll leave you in Bayeux. My destination is a few kilometers north of the village. You can be on the morning’s first train back to Paris. You’ll be miles from any danger, I promise you.”
“What do I call you?” she asked.
“Jim.”
“Okay, Jim. We will go on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me give you a little pain medicine, just for the procedure. We’ll find something at zee clinic that we can give you once the transfusion brings your blood pressure back up. We will take my car. I will drive to Gare Saint-Lazare to get your car. Then we can go. There will be no traffic on zee road once we leave town. I will work on your injury as you drive.”
Court thought about it. Every fiber of his being was against taking any medication that would cloud his mind and dull his senses, leave him less than completely focused on the task at hand. He felt he could handle the pain.
No, he did not like Justine’s plan, but for some reason he did trust her. And as he looked at the cute, gangly girl standing over him, still pretty with her ponytailed hair messy from her bed and no makeup on her face and sweat forming above her lip from the work she was doing to keep some scary stranger alive, he conceded he was in absolutely no position to argue.
Justine helped Court back to his feet, and the two of them staggered together slowly out of the treatment room and down the hall towards the back of the clinic. Gentry winced with each step. Once his head bobbed low as if he would pass out.
Justine propped him against the wall in the courtyard while she fumbled with her keys.
“What the hell is this?” Gentry asked.
“It’s my car.”
“That’s a car?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s small.”
“When I bought it, I didn’t know I would be transporting patients in the passenger seat.”
“Fair enough. It’s fine. It sure as hell won’t draw much attention.”
They both smiled a little, but the smiles drifted away as she tried to help lower him into the seat. Court cried out in pain, a cry that culminated with shallow panting.
It took her nearly a minute to fire the little engine. By then Court was asleep. She’d dropped his seat to where he could lie almost flat. With considerable effort, she was able to get his legs up on the dashboard to help keep him from going into shock. As she turned north on Rue Monge, she saw helicopters in the air in the distance over the river.
Justine parked her car a few doors down from the clinic off the Rue des Ecoles. At half past three, there was not a soul around. Court stirred, looked around for a moment, and then asked her for a pen and a piece of paper. She dug through her purse a moment and then passed him an envelope and a pencil.
“There’s another med I need you to find. Should be with the pediatric drugs.”
“One of the twins needs medicine?”
“No. It’s for me.” He jotted something down and handed the envelope back to Justine. She looked at it.
“DextroStat? What does it do?”
“It will help. It’s very important. Find it.”
She shrugged, promised to look for it. Without another word to Court, she climbed out of her tiny Uno and went back to the trunk. Gentry did not, could not, turn around to see what she was doing. A few seconds later she walked to the glass door of the building and looked quickly in both directions. A tire iron in her right hand crashed through the glass, and she reached through the sharp shards to open the door from the inside. As Court watched, completely helpless, she disappeared into the dark clinic as a piercing alarm filled the street.
Even with the impending danger, Court fell asleep again in the car. He awoke with the jolt of the tiny two-door as it lurched forward. In the glow from the streetlamps flickering above them as they moved away from the alarm bells, he caught a glimpse of the young woman’s face: intensity and determination.
“What did you get?” he asked.
“Three units of O positive, two bags of dextrose, morphine, Vicodin, transfusion equipment, antiseptics, and a suture kit.”
“And?”
“And the medicine you asked about.”
“Well done.”
“Yes,” she said with a little smile. “That was fun.”
In the parking garage below the Gare Saint-Lazare, Justine and Court climbed into the big Mercedes. Gentry took the wheel and sat there, woozy and grimacing from agony. Justine began the transfusion of blood and a bag of nutrients as they sat together in the dark and empty garage. She hooked the bags on the dome light above them to keep the drip going and the supple black leather interior gave way to the French girl’s movements as she knelt over Court, poured antiseptic freely on his waist to let it soak into his bandages and his wounds.
Justine instructed Court to just lie there and relax, and she left the car. She disappeared from his view while he sat alone and tried to think about the task still at hand. He knew these delays meant he would not make it to the château before six in the morning. He would have virtually no time to lay up and get a feel for the territory. No, as it now stood, he’d only have time to drive up to the front door and begin his attack if he wanted to do so under cover of darkness. Shit. Court realized his chances for success were never good, but after the stabbing in Paris, they had now become incal culably small.
Just then Justine returned with a bag of pastries and two large servings of coffee. Court pulled one foam cup from her hand and swigged it until his mouth burned.
“Arrêt! Stop,” she demanded. “Sip it slowly.”
Court took a croissant and ripped into it with abandon. She tried to butter it for him while he ate, but he just took the little pat of butter from her hands and gobbled it down, too.
Justine lectured him. “Your mother would not be proud. Relax. You are getting the fluids and nutrition you need from the IV. Too much food with the morphine, and you will throw up. Drink the coffee slowly. Can you drive?”