For a county doctor, Tom Cisco was hardly garrulous, Dan Carter already knew that, but the visiting journalists’ frustration was mounting. Cisco wasn’t giving much away, so they pressed him further and further into the inconsequential, and Cisco reacted defensively, trying desperately to close it down and get back inside. But to the journalists, any personal tidbit about Isabel was better than nothing. Cisco detested even a flicker of publicity—it was why he’d moved here fifteen years ago. Each question answered on camera was another fingernail scraping away at his veneer of civility and as soon as decency permitted, he got himself back inside the sanctuary of his hospital, where he rushed into the men’s room to wash the sweat dripping off his face.
CISCO drew back the curtain around Isabel’s bed to check everything ahead of the expected invasion of visitors. As well as those who’d already arrived—her husband, a general no less, and her son and foster father—the hospital had been alerted to expect an influx of Secret Service and Administration personnel around lunchtime.
Dotted over the pale pink curtain around Isabel’s bed were representations of Vermont’s state bird, the grey-brown hermit thrush. For Tom Cisco, the chubby warbler’s haunting, flute-like song was one of the reasons he and his wife used to relish their mountain camping summers when they were younger.
Isabel hadn’t roused from the drugs yet, but observing the monitors, Cisco thankfully saw that she seemed to be progressing well. He reached over to her side-table for a tissue to wipe the stress off his brow but he accidentally nudged the chromium drip stand, causing it to rattle. He lunged to silence it.
Isabel’s eye creaked open. A low voice grated over her sandpaper throat, “Foster… dead…”
Cisco automatically broke into one of those patronising smiles doctors spend years perfecting along with their terrible handwriting. Confusion or even slight hallucinatory episodes were common in cases like hers so, for added reassurance, he placed his hand softly on her good arm. “No, Madam Speaker. President Foster’s fine. It was the Vice-President who died.”
She was struggling to speak, but her throat gagged and her eye glazed over.
67
ED’S LEFT HAND brushed over his head. Tom Cisco couldn’t avoid a spasm of repulsion at seeing Ed’s stump for a pinkie. It was an odd reaction for a surgeon, he knew that, and he checked himself. He watched Ed’s eyes fall on Isabel. “I know she doesn’t look great,” said the doctor, “but don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”
ED had planned an exceptional celebration for his dinner companions the previous evening. As always his organisation was impeccable, down to the last detail. Apart from Isabel’s accident.
After he listened to the message on his voicemail and left the table to speak to the agent who’d left it, and then to the hospital, Ed returned to his seat. He snuffed out his cigar in the dregs of his cognac, and explained why he had to cut the evening short. Everyone around the table started talking at once, until Ed raised his hand bringing immediate silence. “As I said, the surgeon’s optimistic.” After a contemplative silence, he stood and they all rose and manoeuvred into two lines, one down each side of the table, and stepped to At-ten-tion! before saluting him. After returning the gesture, he told them he had a surprise waiting for them at the airport and, without a further word, he turned and led them outside to the line of stretch limos which had already been packed with their bags. The drivers, not expecting their passengers quite so early, stubbed out their cigarettes and rushed back to their vehicles from under the mushroom heater on the other side of the driveway.
Niki held back to share Ed’s car and slid in beside him. “How is she really?”
“Like I said, it’ll mostly be trauma. When you cut through it all, the doc says the injuries were bad but largely cosmetic… hypothermic shock, too, but he’s confident they’ve got it beat…”
“So what’s your surprise?” Niki asked coldly, pulling the tight hem of her black dress down a little under her coat and letting the tips of her fingers rest against his leg where not even the driver could see.
“You’re all getting a vacation on me.”
“On you? Appealing…”
Ed ignored her comment but chose not to move her wandering hand away. “It’s a week on Butaka, starting now. All their wives and girlfriends are in on it, and they’re already there. I’ll get a jet to take me and Davey, and that fat freak George, over to see Isabel first thing in the morning. But Niki,” he said, arching his eyebrow, “don’t worry. You’ll find something to do on Butaka.”
“Or someone,” she winked.
THE next morning, Dr Cisco’s she’ll be fine still echoed in Ed’s ears. He glanced up at the TV, which had been on mute since he’d arrived at the hospital. According to the text scrolling along the bottom of the screen, the man being interviewed was Andy Goodman, the local park ranger who’d saved Isabel. “Can we turn that up, Doctor?”