Dr. Pryor was there too, and Judd Francis, the primary physician on the case. I knew him socially, and he’d treated a couple of my patients with head injuries, his specialty. “What’s up, Judd?” I asked him. “Your mysterious patient arriving?”
“Hello, Sam. Yeah, he’s here. I’ll probably be calling on you to check his vital signs. I’ll be examining his head injury to see how it’s healing.”
“I’ve got some free time now if you want to get started.”
He nodded. “Let’s do it. The faster we give him a clean bill the sooner he’ll be out of here, along with his keepers.” He nodded toward the FBI agents.
“Any idea who he is?”
He shook his head. “He’s just a patient. I don’t ask questions. Come in with me while we take off the bandages. Then you’ll know as much as I do.”
Special Agent Barnovich and his team were careful to search everyone entering the patient’s room and to check all food, water, and medication. It seemed they feared someone might try to kill him. After we’d passed inspection, I stood by the bed while the patient had his head bandages carefully removed by Dr. Francis. One of the FBI men was at the door, his back to us. The face that came into view was that of a ruggedly handsome man in his fifties with his head shaved for treatment of wounds. The man opened his eyes and Judd Francis asked, “Do you understand English?”
“Some,” the man answered, shifting slightly in his bed. “Where am I?”
“You’re in America, in a place called Northmont. They brought you here for a medical checkup before you move on.”
“I see,” he muttered and closed his eyes. I wondered if he’d been drugged.
“I’m Dr. Francis and this is Dr. Hawthorne. We’ll be examining you for the next few days. My nurse, Marcia O’Toole, will be looking after you, too. What can you tell me about these head wounds, Mr. Fuchs?” It was the first time he’d used the patient’s supposed name.
“Fuchs?” the man repeated with a half chuckle. “Is that the name they gave me?”
“Yes.”
“It is as good as any, I suppose. The head wounds came about three months ago when my car was strafed by an enemy plane.”
“I see. They seem to have healed well.”
“I still have frequent headaches.”
“How frequent?”
“A few times a week.”
“That’s probably normal, but we’ll X-ray you. I’m the head man around here.” It was a line he loved to use. “Dr. Hawthorne will handle the rest of your body.”
The jokes were lost on Fuchs, who remained silent. It was a good time for me to escape. “I’ll be in to see you later,” I promised the patient.
On the way out I stopped to see Marcia O’Toole, the nurse who’d been assigned to him. She was an attractive young woman in her mid twenties who’d lost an older brother to the war in North Africa. I didn’t know her well, but we’d chatted a few times. “I understand you’ll be helping with our new patient,” I said.
“That’s what I hear. I’ve already got that G-man Barnovich breathing down my neck.”
“Don’t mind him. He’s just doing his job.”
She laughed. “He’s doing more than his job. He asked me for a date.”
That night at home Annabel quizzed me about Fuchs. “Who is he?” she wanted to know. “A German prisoner?”
“Perhaps. He spoke his few words of English with a German accent. They must think he has important information if the FBI is guarding him so carefully.”
“You said Judd Francis is the attending physician?”
I nodded. “Because of the head injury, which is pretty well healed now. Judd did a thorough examination of his head and neck. At first I was only going to be on call if they needed me, but somehow I’ve gotten the job of giving him a complete physical.”
My wife smiled. “The FBI checked you out and decided you were trustworthy.”
“That may be the answer. I’ll be examining him in the morning and maybe I’ll learn something.”
I stopped at my office the following morning to tell April I’d be in the hospital examining Mr. Fuchs for the next few hours. When I entered his room Marcia O’Toole was washing him and brushing his teeth. “He’s still weak but he’s coming along, aren’t you, Mr. Fuchs?”
“Ah... yes,” he managed between brushings, still a bit dazed from his medication.
“The sun’s out today. Maybe later I can wheel you outside for a bit,” Nurse O’Toole said, flipping her brown hair as she spoke, almost as if she was flirting with him. But I’d seen her do the same thing with doctors and other patients.
When she’d finished the clean-up I took over, checking his pulse and temperature and blood pressure, asking him all the routine questions about his health. He told me his age was fifty-two, that he’d be fifty-three the following month. We talked a bit, and though he admitted to being German he said nothing about the circumstances that had brought him here under FBI guard. Once he asked me, “What day is this?”
“Thursday, October nineteenth,” I replied.
“Is that all? It seems it should be so much later.” The more he spoke the easier it was for me to understand his accent.
“You seem in pretty good shape. I think we’ll be able to send you on your way soon.”
“To where?”
“That’s not for me to say.”
The following day, when we were alone, he engaged me in further conversation. “How long will I be here?” he asked after I’d checked his temperature and the usual vital signs.
“Perhaps only another day. Dr. Pryor, the hospital administrator, is anxious to get things back to normal.”
“I am disrupting your routine?”
“Not you, but the FBI certainly is.”
“For that I regret.”
“You’re an important person. They must guard you well.”
“I am not important,” he said quietly. “I am dead.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, we were interrupted by Barnovich, the FBI man. “You about done in there, Doc? I have to speak with Mr. Fuchs.”
“Just finishing up,” I said, and retreated from the room.
Dr. Pryor visited my office after lunch to see how things were going. “Have you completed your examinations, Sam?”
“All but the blood tests. I’ll have those results in the morning.”
“Good! Judd Francis has cleared him as far as the head wounds are concerned.”
“Where will he be going next?”
Pryor lowered his voice. “The rumor is that he’ll be taken to Shangri-La to meet with the President.”
“Where?”
“It’s a secret camp somewhere in the Maryland hills where FDR goes to get away from Washington.”
“He’s that important a person?”
“Apparently.”
“I’ll have the blood results in the morning,” I assured him.
Saturday morning was my last opportunity to speak with the patient, and I took advantage of it. Barnovich was on duty at the door, but he seemed more interested in flirting with Nurse O’Toole than in paying attention to what we were talking about.
“Tell me what happened to you,” I urged my patient. “You’ll probably be gone by the end of the day and we’ll never see each other again. The rumor is that you’re on your way to meet our President.”
Fuchs gazed at me sadly. “You are a good doctor. You treat me well. What is today? Saturday? I will tell you what happened. They came to my house a week ago today, men whom I thought to be my friends. After the unsuccessful plot to kill the Fuhrer in July, many of us were suspect. Because of my wounds they left me alone for a time, but then last week they came. I was never part of the plot, but I did know about it in advance. That was enough to condemn me. I was given a choice — a tiny cyanide capsule that would kill me in three seconds, or a trial for treason that would ruin my family. The cyanide was my only true choice. I went off with them in a car to the place where I would swallow the capsule. All left me except one man who had been my friend. I held the tiny capsule in my hand.”