The door opened and Gann walked in. ‘How is he?’ he asked, towering over Mani.
‘They might’ve gone too far with this one. How many times have I warned those idiots?’ Mani said, pulling open Durrani’s shirt. He plugged the two earpieces of his stethoscope into his ears and moved the other end from one place to another around the Afghan’s chest while listening to the man’s erratic breathing. ‘God knows how many of his bronchial sacs are ruptured.’ Mani felt along the sides of Durrani’s ribcage. ‘I think he’s dislocated several ribs.’
‘Is he gonna live?’ Gann asked, not particularly interested from any humane point of view. He collected knowledge of the human body’s endurance to violence like a stunt-car racer took an interest in car wrecks.
‘He’ll live. Question is how comfortably. Unless he’s suffered brain damage in which case it won’t matter, I suppose.’
‘I heard the tech say they took him equal to almost halfway to the surface. His lungs must’ve been tryin’ to push outta his backside.’ Gann grinned at his description.
‘Charming,’ Mani said dryly as he wheeled a scanner over to the table and positioned it above Durrani’s throat. ‘Would you move aside, please?’ he said to Gann who was blocking the doctor’s view of a monitor on a nearby counter.
Gann obliged just enough, craning to look down at Durrani. ‘He’s gotta bit of red froth comin’ out the side of his mouth.’
‘Thank you. Now, please, give me room.’ Mani slowly moved the scanner down Durrani’s torso, his eyes glued to the monitor that showed the Afghan’s chest cavity in a variety of colours indicating bone, air spaces, flesh and fluids. ‘This man cannot go back into that chamber - ever. He won’t survive another massive decompression.’
‘They’ve got other methods,’ Gann said matter-of-factly.
Mani glanced sideways at Gann who was now concentrating on the monitor. He had known the man since arriving at the prison a year and a half ago to relieve the original doctor and had never ceased to be amazed at the depths of human depravity Gann was capable of reaching. Mani had never come across such an animal before. He more or less understood the need for such types in a high-security guard system of this nature and accepted it was a small community and that contact was unavoidable. But he wished he did not have to communicate face to face with him and his kind quite so much as he did. Preferably he wouldn’t have had anything at all to do with them. What irritated Mani most was how Gann treated him as some kind of colleague or, worse, accomplice. Mani accepted that he was a part of the Styx corruption but he never saw himself as anywhere near Gann’s sordid level.
‘You can speak their language, can’t you?’ Gann asked.
‘A little. I’m not fluent.’
‘When he comes around I want you to ask him some questions.’
‘Fine. Come back next week sometime.’
Gann looked at the side of Mani’s head as he suppressed an urge to punch it. He regarded the doctor as a subordinate and was not used to being talked to by him in that way. He wondered if it was perhaps time to remind the man of his position in the prison hierarchy. ‘I wanna know what Charon was doing with him in the galley,’ he said.
Mani sensed the irritation in Gann’s voice and realised his last comment had not gone down very well. ‘Sure. I’ll ask him . . . Anything else?’
Gann sensed the new patronising tone. ‘Maybe I’ll just wait until he comes around.’
Mani was always careful not to upset Gann, having experienced his venom on his first day on the job. Styx’s original doctor had also been an Asian - a coincidence, although that fellow was a Sikh. He had arrived wearing his turban, which did not go down very well among the guards, particularly with Gann. It was too similar to the traditional black headdress of the Taliban and as far as Gann was concerned the doctor had to be more or less the same as them. Mani never met the man and did not know how he had come to be employed as the prison doctor but when he’d refused to remove his turban he’d had to go.
When Gann found out that Mani was Hindu he confronted him right away, telling him he didn’t trust anyone who was religious, especially on this job, and a religious Asian was off the chart. Gann didn’t think there was any difference between Hinduism and Islam and therefore Mani was considered to be doubly untrustworthy. It took a long and patient conversation to persuade Gann that Hinduism was not a religion but a way of life, a philosophy. It was far older than Christianity, which in turn was hundreds of years older than Islam. Mani did not worship a god or single out any prophet and he had no set rituals or performances - like praying on a mat, for instance.
Gann only began to accept Mani when the Indian assured him that he had no time for Muslims. Hinduism, he explained, did not get in the way of making money even by dubious means as long as there was a sound philosophy behind it. Mani pitched himself as simply a healer. The philosophy was flawed but not sufficiently so to keep Mani from turning up to work. Besides, there was also the small matter of him being unable to practise his profession anywhere else in America.
Mani had been struck off the medical register after a patient he was treating had died. He was running a detoxification clinic at the time and was accused of serious malpractice after giving a heroin addict an experimental cocktail of opiate antagonists that led to a fatal seizure.
Mani might have avoided the subsequent litigation had it not come to light that he also happened to be a director of a company that was concentrating on commercialising an ultra-rapid detoxification treatment that had not been officially approved. In addition, he recruited heroin addicts as guinea pigs for experiments without informing them of the extreme risks. Mani was lucky not to have been incarcerated when it also transpired that the dead patient was not his first failure. No others had died but many were found to be suffering from a variety of debilitating physical and mental conditions. Fortunately for him the evidence that his treatment had been directly responsible was inconclusive. But the court case cost Mani every penny he had and, unable to practise, he found himself in a desperate situation.
Mani was an Indian immigrant who had moved to America with his parents when he was five years old and, much as he loathed the thought, he considered moving back to Calcutta where he’d been born to continue making a living the only way he knew how. He sold his car, the last remaining possession of value he had, in order to buy the air ticket. But two days before he was due to leave America he was approached by a man who said he represented the Felix Corporation in Houston and that they had a job they would like him to consider.
When Mani started to explain he was no longer able to practise the man said he knew everything about Mani’s past and that the Indian had all the right qualifications for the job. By that he meant Mani was not only a doctor but was also corrupt. And there was no need to be concerned about the legalities since the job was not on the American mainland.When Mani learned the whereabouts of his new practice he brought up the obvious point that the prison was still in sovereign waters. It was explained to him that certain legal technicalities allowed him to work offshore as a medical-supplies officer as long as he didn’t call himself a doctor.
As a medical-supplies officer Mani was permitted to give demonstrations to the guards of how to use the most basic of equipment, which he was required to do whenever there was an illness or injury. It was one of the reasons why Gann felt free to come and go as he pleased - not that the man needed a reason. Gann enjoyed watching Mani ply his trade, the more serious the medical problem the better.