Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [55]
The alarm was from the governor’s life-support system.
As the doctors and police plunged into the private doorway, Worf plunged for the office entrance and yanked the door open.
The inner rooms were chaotic. Alarms all over the medical equipment squealed and flashed. Grant backed slowly out of the recovery room as the medical staff flooded in. All Worf saw was the back of Grant, his tensed shoulders, his clenched fists.
The governor’s legs twitched convulsively beneath the linen cover, and just as Worf entered the room the legs stiffened and went still. The swarming doctors, nurses, and technicians went into clinical emergency treatment, but as Worf slowly moved to stand beside Grant, a sense of desperation shivered across their actions.
The other Rogues pressed back from the action as the medical personnel swarmed over the bed. One doctor crawled up onto the bed and pounded the governor’s chest. “It was poison!” Grant belted out, gasping. “You’ve got to find out what she put in there!”
“What who put in where?” the doctor on the bed demanded.
“Mrs. Khanty!” Grant pointed desperately at a tube leading into the governor’s left arm. “She came in through that door over there and she put something into that tube! Then everything went crazy! She poisoned him! You’ve got to find out what she gave him!”
Stunned, the doctor plucked at the tube. More medics rushed to the bedside with intubation devices and syringes. As Grant stared at the doctors, Worf at Grant, and the Rogues at both of them, the doctors and technicians worked to decipher what had happened. They took a quick blood sample and slipped it into a portable analyzer. Sure enough, the doctor confirmed Grant: “He’s right. Neurotoxin. Get a neutralizer in here!”
“It’s too late,” another doctor said cryptically. He stood back, and all the others paused ever so slightly as, with a final twitch of one important knee, Governor Khanty slipped beyond reach.
Then they tried to keep working, but there was no more hope on their faces.
One of the medical technicians backed away from the bed with the same horrified expression as Grant’s. A nurse pushed him farther back, and checked a machine. Then she paused, sighed, and her shoulders went slack as the inevitable set in. She turned, and watched.
“Grant,” Worf pressed. He took Grant’s arm. “What happened?”
Breathing only in the most uneven huffs, Grant stared into the chamber at the event he had been unable to stop.
“She did it,” he choked, shivering. “Mrs. Khanty did it. She came in here. She didn’t see me … she didn’t know I was here.”
Ugulan, Goric, and three medics turned sharply and looked at Grant and Worf.
“The governor was alive,” Grant said. “He was stable. She came in … and now he’s dead. And I let her be in there with him.”
He looked at Worf, and suddenly it was as if the two were alone on an island.
“She did something to make him die,” Grant struggled. “And it’s my fault.”
All despotism is bad, but the worst is that which works with the machinery of freedom.
Junius
Chapter Eleven
“LIAR!” UGULAN SHOVED A FINGER at Grant’s chest. “You’re covering the fact that you murdered the governor!”
“Keep your dishonorable mouth shut, Ugulan!” Worf had managed to hold himself in check until he heard that. He crashed forward past Grant and landed the heel of his hand on Ugulan’s chin, driving the Rogue back a step. “I will brand your face with your own words!”
The Rogues couldn’t have stopped him, but when two of the medics got between him and Ugulan, Worf stopped his forward surge. What good would it do to peel Ugulan’s skin off?
“If I poisoned him,” Grant shouted at Ugulan, “why would I tell them what was wrong so they’d have a chance to save him?”
“Quiet, human!” Ugulan turned sharply to Goric and said, “Contact Paul Stefan.”
“Begin an investigation,” the doctor said, looking at his own staff. “Time of death is 12:41 a.m. Coastal Standard Time. Get a statement from Mrs. Khanty about her whereabouts in the last fifteen minutes.” He turned again to Grant. “I don’t want you to speak to anyone