Then, from the corner of his eye, Lyle caught movement. He half turned; he didn’t want to look away from Don. He could see a dark shape. Jerry.
Lyle put up his hand. Stop.
“Are you okay?”
“Go back inside,” Lyle said to Jerry.
“What’s happening? Is he alive?”
Lyle didn’t answer. Cautiously, he touched the man’s neck. If there was a pulse, he couldn’t feel it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Dr. Martin, is he alive?”
Lyle nodded. It was as much for himself as Jerry. Yes, he suspected, Don was alive.
And a host.
Jerry felt the gun in his pocket. It felt like a caged animal. He twitched. Who was Dr. Martin to put his hand up in Jerry’s face? Who was he to suddenly be playing number two to Captain Hall?
There was something else bugging him. He let himself ask the question: What was an infectious disease specialist doing on a flight that hit the ground in the middle of some kind of outbreak?
Wasn’t that a whole lot of coincidence?
Jerry’s father had worked two jobs while his mother drank herself into a near coma. The only reason she didn’t get to that point is because she fell down the stairs in a drunken mess and wound up in a wheelchair. Then Jerry got two jobs to help his dad. Jerry could see drunks a mile away. He also hated men who didn’t step up and do what was necessary. Dr. Martin looked like both, a drunk and a man who didn’t step up.
He felt the gun and turned back to the plane.
Then he looked back again and saw something that allowed him to give Dr. Martin a little bit of respect. Dr. Martin was crouched over the man, peeling back his eyelids, looking into his eyes with the light of his phone.
Pupil fixed in the middle position. Lyle aimed the light into the man’s right eye. No movement, no light reflex. That argued for brain death. But brain death didn’t lead to spontaneous movement, either. Without thinking much about it, Lyle reached to the man’s cheek and pinched his skin between thumb and forefinger.
Nothing.
Harder.
The face muscles tightened. Just a touch. Enough. Lyle focused on the right maxillary and pinched again, even harder. A clench.
Not dead.
Not brain-dead.
Lyle tightened his own jaw in thought. Tight muscles. He moved suddenly. He ran his hand over the man’s arm, the right triceps and biceps and the muscles around the rotator cuff. Taut, tensed. No, not dead. Not rigor.
Absently, Lyle gave another thumbs-up to the plane, his way of saying: Leave me alone. He brushed sweat from his forehead onto his forearm. He stared at the man’s mouth and considered the next, unavoidable move. Full lips, rosy with cold and pulled at the corners. Beneath the nose, that droplet of mucus had doubled into two drops, one settled into a small pool on the groove of the philtrum. Lyle held the phone with his left hand, creating a spotlight on the mouth. With his right, he reached for the lips, pausing only a millisecond before parting them with forefinger and thumb. He dove in.
He felt inside the cheeks, not for anything in particular, anything out of the ordinary. He picked up the warmth and the tightness inside the jaw. He kept a keen awareness of the teeth, ready to instantly withdraw should the man reflexively open wide enough to bite down hard.
“Sorry, Don,” he said. “This next part is harder on me than you.”
He opened the mouth sufficient enough to get his forefinger toward the back of the throat and lingered at the tonsillar arch. Ideally, he’d watch the pharynx to see if it elevated in a gag response, and to what extent. He’d just have to surmise. He rubbed the arch. Don, the baggage handler, spasmed. Cough. Spasm. Lyle pushed himself not to withdraw. He didn’t want to cause a stir with Eleanor and the others in the cockpit, if they could even see him. Don calmed down again.
Lyle leaned down again and swirled his finger near the back of the throat, careful to avoid another gag. Likely only so many times he could do that and not get vomited on. As he swirled, he found what he was looking for. Mucus. Lots of it. Pooling near the edges of the throat. He tried to stir it away from the throat’s entrance to keep Don from drowning. Lyle sat on his haunches.
Mucus meant the production of white blood cells. It meant the body was mounting an immune response. To what? No light reflex, tight muscles, no pupil reflex. Odd. What did it add up to?
Lyle didn’t want to take his own eyes off the man. He felt he needed to. He shone his phone light on his right hand. He put his right thumb into the thumbs-up sign. Showing Eleanor in the cockpit. Showing Jerry.
Nothing, Lyle thought, could be further from the truth.
From the corner of his eye, Lyle saw the movement again. It was to the right, in the direction of a plane hangar, unless it was used for industrial tools, like airplane steps and tractors and snowplows. Regardless, this time Lyle was sure. Movement.
He flashed another thumbs-up.
He leaned down over the body. He pushed on the belly, feeling the organs, feeling for inflammation. If it was there, it was subtle. The palpating didn’t seem to bother the felled baggage handler. For a second time, Lyle put his hand on the artery coursing through the man’s neck. This time, he erred on the side of believing what he suspected, a low pulse. Don was very much alive.
Lyle quickly considered, then dismissed, the idea of having Jerry bring the man inside the plane for further observation. First principle: Do no harm. Not to the people inside the plane.
Lyle considered lifting Don and carrying him to the hangar to keep him warm. That would only attract more attention from the cockpit. Mostly, Lyle just wanted to follow his muse. Or maybe he was dressing up what he wanted in fancy thoughts. He just wanted to get away, farther away. This was the principle that had replaced “do no harm.” Don’t be bothered. Not by a world that doesn’t give a shit.
He started walking toward the hangar.
Then paused. The eyes. Jesus, why hadn’t he realized it?
He practically sprinted back to Don.
“One more thing, patient zero,” Lyle said. He knelt by Don’s head. He focused the light on his phone on the man’s eyes. He pried open an eyelid and studied the pupil again. Lyle swallowed hard.
“Jesus,” he said.
He put the eyelid back in place. He stared at the hangar. Light from somewhere deep inside left a ghost impression in the doorway, a faint outline. Lyle started walking. Might as well; how long could it be before he was collapsed like Don?
He glanced at the torpid man’s phone. On the screen, some comically strange YouTube video showed on the screen. It no longer played, but an image of a cat on skis was stuck there. Lyle looked back at Don. Peeled the eyelid back again. What’s going on in there, Don?
Sixteen
He caught Jerry’s approach from the corner of his eye. The first officer had his gun drawn. “Dr. Martin!”
Lyle kept walking. Most of his focus fell on the foot of pavement in front of him. Insidious black ice. Lyle’s right toe caught such a patch and he carefully slid to the right.
“Dr. Martin.” Jerry gained ground. Now he hit an icy patch and slipped. “Fuck!”
Lyle turned to see Jerry doing a comical man split. Lyle couldn’t make out Jerry’s face. That’s how dark it was, even with his phone creating the slightest ambient light. Jerry’s flashlight was tucked in his jacket pocket, still on, causing a little circle of light around the fabric.