Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [88]
“It was probably his damned pills,” King said.
“What pills?” Geneviève locked her elbows and moved herself directly above Drummond, so that she could use the weight of her body, rather than her muscles, to perform the compressions, minimizing fatigue.
“Some kind of Alzheimer meds. Could that have anything to do with this?”
She nodded. “Do you have them?”
The sergeant whisked his hands over Drummond’s pockets without finding the bottle. “I’ll be right back.” He tore out of the infirmary.
Geneviève compressed Drummond’s chest wall by about three inches, or enough to break a rib, the desired amount. Compressions any weaker were ineffective. The point of squeezing the rib cage, after all, was to pump the heart.
She had repeated the process fifteen times, at a rate of approximately one hundred compressions per minute, when Drummond decided that it was time to end the cardiac arrest act he’d initiated by swallowing eight of his ten remaining pills. The experimental drug’s beta-blocker components—atenolol and metoprolol—had weakened his pulse to the point that it was undetectable, at least by harried marine guards and a medic in an under-equipped infirmary. He’d augmented the effect with a ploy as old as predators and prey, holding his breath.
He may have done the job too well, he thought, as he tried to get up from the examination table: A chill crept over his body, leaving him cold, clammy, and feeling weighted down, as if he were at the bottom of a deep sea. His extremities stung and the pressure neared skull-crushing. Everything around him blurred. The hiss of the overhead lamps, Geneviève’s breathing, and the rustling of her lab coat had the effect of trains blowing past. And both vomit and diarrhea burned within him.
Had he miscalculated the dosage?
Highly likely. His faculty for making calculations lately had been like an old television set that gets reception only at certain angles. Still, getting reception at all had been fortuitous. His son was locked in a detention room. And any moment might bring the return of the Cavalry agent who had tried to kill them—what was his name?
Steve?
Stanley?
Sandy?
Like the beach.
Saint Lucia’s beaches were as white as sugar.
Until he’d seen them for himself, he’d thought “sugar sand” was just the hyperbolical concoction of an advertising copywriter.
Drummond felt his thinking careening off the rails.
What matters, he told himself, is that Steve or Stanley or whoever will return, almost certainly with backup from the misguided Cavalry. And the marine guards here would prove no more potent than scarecrows in defense.
The world seemed to revert to its normal pace.
Drummond exhaled, with a cough, for effect.
Geneviève jumped, pleasantly surprised.
He tried to raise himself on his elbows and fell flat.
“Easy,” she said.
“I accidentally swallowed some …” he said just above a whisper before letting his voice trail off.
She leaned closer to hear. “Yes?”
He shot up his left arm, encircling her neck, clamping the crook of his elbow at her trachea.
She tried to cry out.
With his left hand he grasped his right bicep, placing his right hand behind her head, then brought his elbows together, applying as much pressure as he could generate to both sides of her neck, restricting the blood flow to her brain.
Unconscious, she sagged against him. He slid off the examination table, keeping a grip on her so that she wouldn’t fall. His knees buckled, but by force of will he remained standing.
He hoisted her onto the table. She would regain consciousness in seconds. The marines who had brought him here would return sooner.
There was simply no time for infirmity.
He took the white blanket from the foot of the examination table and cast it over her. The marines would mistake her for him, at least for a few seconds.
He crouched behind the crash cart, the portable trolley with the dimensions of a floor safe. It contained all equipment and medication required for cardiopulmonary emergencies, and he would need one of the meds momentarily. In the shorter term, the cart