While she was briefing the guards, a car pulled up to the gate. The doctor Dan had located was in his early fifties with watery and bloodshot eyes, white and thin like a distance runner or a junkie. He never gave his name and never asked any of us for ours, and he brought two bags with him, and I searched them both before letting him into the house. Aside from medical tools he had a small pharmacy in one of the bags. The other held a variety of braces and equipment for making casts.
Alena had come to watch Natalie's briefing, and when I came in with the doctor, she moved to the guest room on the ground floor for his exam. I put Dan on the door and followed them in, watching while the doctor asked Alena to lie on the bed. She removed her pants and lay back, and the doctor pulled the gauze from her shin and began poking and prodding from her foot to about midway up her thigh. He asked her a few questions about range of motion and sensation. A couple of times his fingers dug into her skin, and she winced, but never made any sound.
After twenty minutes he was ready to diagnose, and it wasn't good.
"Without an X ray I can't be sure. You've shattered the two bones that run from your knee to your foot, and while the splinters have been removed, the bones aren't knitting. I don't know who the butcher was who practiced his needlepoint on your leg, darling, but if I were you I'd ask for my money back. Not even counting the tib-fib clusterfuck in there, the muscle damage is tremendous. That you've got any sensation in your left foot at all is surprising as hell, and that you're not screaming in constant agony is truly amazing. I've seen members of the New York Jets crying like babies with injuries less severe than this."
"Is there anything you can do?" I asked, not liking his mirth.
"Surgery, but that's not my arena. You want someone to get in there and clean the thing up, maybe replace the bone with a rod. That's all speculative, though. Like I said, I'd need to see an X ray to be sure what is going on in there."
"If I have surgery will I get my leg back?" Alena asked.
"Probably not. There's nerve damage as well as muscle trauma. With extensive physical therapy you could put some weight on the leg, but it will never be able to hold you again. You're looking at needing a crutch or a cane for the rest of your life, toots."
"You've got a great bedside manner, doc," I said.
He turned to me, wiping at his eyes. "Hey, chew me, smartass. I'm here because the ugly Russian outside gave me two grand to drive up to Mahwah, and he promised me another three when I left. This lady's lower leg has been mangled, and from what I can see that's because she got it shot up. So it looks to me like you're illegals or criminals or something I don't even want to know about. You get her to a surgeon, they can maybe do something for her. Otherwise, the leg stays useless."
Alena propped herself up on her elbows and muttered something in Russian.
"What can you do, doctor?" I asked.
"I can put a brace on the knee to help immobilize the lower leg, that should help with some of the pain. And I can hook her up with some Percodan or another pain reliever of her choice."
"I'll take the brace," she said. "You can keep the drugs. You'll probably get more use out of them."
"No argument there." He dug into the bag that held the braces, selected one and eyeballed Alena's knee. Then he discarded it and pulled another one out, this one longer, and began strapping it to her leg. She swore once as he was tightening the straps, and when he was done she had a combination of metal and rubber running from her ankle to above her knee.
"She's going to need some help getting her pants back on," the doctor told me, closing his bags. "You kids have fun, now. Where's Ugly with my dough?"
I led him from the room and told Dan to see him the rest of the way out. Dan nodded and glanced back at where Alena was sitting up on the bed and asked her something in Russian. She responded tartly. Dan nodded again, rested his big hand on the doctor's shoulder, and left.
When Alena was up, she put tentative weight on her left foot, and it didn't look like much at all, but just that action made her suck a sharp breath and brought water into her eyes. I handed her one of her crutches, then held the door for her while she limped out of the room and back to the stairs.
"Time me," she said, and started up.
It took her fifty-six seconds. Instead of being pleased, she scowled all the way back into her room, where she settled into a chair and stared out the window.
"I should go with you."
"No, you really shouldn't," I said. "Aside from the injury, it would just leave you more exposed."
She nodded grudgingly. "When you get the money at the bank, leave yourself at least fifty thousand to travel on. Withdraw ten thousand in Swiss francs before you leave."
"I will."
"The rest you can exchange in England."
"I will."
"The cache near Kent, that one should be safe, although the papers there will be useless to you. The one in Geneva is good, too. I don't have anything in Austria."
"It's all right, Alena, I'll be fine."
She didn't speak for a couple minutes, and I saw her hands turn to fists, balling tighter and tighter until the blood had run from her fingers, turning them the color of white chalk. "I hate this. I hate my leg. I hate this brace. I hate this house. I hate this view, that doctor."
"If this works you won't be here much longer."
"You are certain Moore will help you? Even after what happened to Ainsley-Hunter?"
"Moore owes me."
She gave me a serious appraisal. "If you find Oxford's banker, you will have to be savage, Atticus. You will have to hurt him. Not permanently, perhaps, but enough so that he will fear you."
"I thought I'd leave a clue of some sort," I said. "One of the false names, something Oxford could work with."
She looked appalled at the suggestion. "No, no, no. When you have the banker, when you are finished, you must threaten his life, you must say something like, 'if you talk, the only part of your body they will ever find is your tongue,' something like that. You must say it like you mean it."
"What if he believes me?"
"It doesn't matter. You will be the devil he doesn't know. Oxford is the devil he does. And I assure you, he is more afraid of Oxford, has feared him more completely and for longer than he will fear you. Their entire relationship is founded on two things: fear and greed. So far, greed has held the higher ground. You must play on the fear, and by threatening his life, he will not even consider that you are manipulating him. He will believe that he is being brave, that Oxford will reward him for his courage and loyalty."
"You think it's a he?"
"Almost positive," Alena said. "Most of them are."
"I should be back in a week."
"I shall be here," she said sourly.
Early in the afternoon, Dan drove me into Manhattan in the Kompressor and waited while I handled the money at the Credit Suisse branch off Madison Avenue. I presented myself as Paul Lieberg with the papers to prove it, and the woman behind the desk went from pleasant to solicitous when she ran my name through the computer. Of the two hundred thousand Alena had transferred, I put a hundred thousand in a cashier's check made out to a name Dan had given me in the car, another fifty in a check made out to Jessica Bethier. I took the remaining fifty thousand in cash. As instructed, I withdrew ten of it in Swiss francs, then another ten in pounds.