“Graham!” she shouted. It startled him. “Please come with us. Come help your mom.”
“We should clean this,” he said.
Jolaine felt a tug in her chest. The kid was losing it. Maybe she owed him a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but they didn’t have the time, and the doctor wasn’t slowing down.
“Later,” she said. “I really need you to come with us. Please.”
Wilkerson pulled on a giant picture on the wall that swung open to reveal a hidden panel, which in turn led to an elevator door. “There’s only one way down,” he said as they stepped into the elevator. “You’re coming or you’re staying, but I’m not waiting for either one of you.”
“Graham!”
That seemed to break his spell. He looked up.
“Now. Please.”
He started walking again.
Wilkerson reached past Jolaine to pull the door closed without them, and she pushed back. She didn’t get why he needed to be such an asshole, but she’d kill him before she left Graham alone.
Five seconds later, Graham joined them, and Jolaine pulled the door closed herself. Wilkerson pushed the bottom of two buttons, and the car jerked. It wasn’t till they were moving that Jolaine noticed the size of the elevator car. Like the house itself, it was bigger than she was expecting. Big enough to accommodate a stretcher.
The elevator jerked to a stop, and Wilkerson nodded to the doorknob near Jolaine’s hip. “Open it, please,” he said.
The door opened onto a doctor’s office — a surgical suite, really, complete with tile walls and floors, lights suspended from the ceiling, and an operating table.
“Wow,” she said. An understatement.
“I have a very limited yet lucrative practice,” Wilkerson said. “Uncle Sam likes to take care of his own.” He led Sarah to the table, turned her, and then hoisted her faceup onto the stainless-steel surface.
She winced and yelled at the jostling. Jolaine thought it good news that she could respond to stimuli.
“Be careful!” Graham said. “You’re hurting her.” He rushed to the table to be near her head. “You’re going to be okay, Mom.”
Wilkerson pivoted to a nearby sink and turned on the water by nudging the knee-operated valve. “We’re going to need you to say your good-byes and move away,” he said. “I need to evaluate the wound.”
“Are you working alone?” Jolaine asked.
“For the next few minutes, yes. I have a team on the way.” He nodded to a pair of blunt-tipped scissors on the counter next to the sink. “Cut her shirt off for me, will you?”
Now Jolaine saw why he didn’t want a kid around. To care for wounds, they needed to be exposed, and no boy needed to see his mother’s naked torso. More than that, no child needed to see a parent’s bullet wounds.
“Can you please stand over there?” Jolaine said to Graham as she returned with the scissors. “I need to take your mom’s shirt off.”
“No,” he said. “I want to stay with her.”
Sarah turned her head to face her son and smiled. “I’ll be okay, sweetie,” she said. “They just need to work on me a little. You don’t want to see that. Besides, they’ll be giving me something soon to help me sleep.”
Graham’s face turned red. “Are you going to die?”
“No, I’m going to be fine,” she said. “The doctor is going to take good care of me.”
“I don’t like him,” Graham said.
She smiled again. “Some doctors are just like that. It’s late and he’s tired.” She ran a bloody hand through his hair, streaking it. “I love you.”
Tears tracked his cheeks now. “I love you, too,” he croaked.
Sarah lowered her hand. “Go on now,” she said.
Graham looked up at Jolaine, who put a hand on his shoulder and pressed just a little in the direction of the plastic chair in the corner. He seemed smaller than he was before. Younger.
Jolaine jumped when Sarah’s hand clamped her wrist. The grip was stronger than she’d expected.
“Bring him back,” she said. “Never mind. Graham!” she shouted. “Come on back, baby.”
He all but leaped back to his mother’s side. “I’m here, Mom,” he said. “Right here.”
Sarah pulled a bloody piece of paper from her pocket — the very piece of paper, Jolaine realized in a flash of panic, that Gregory had given Bernard when he spilled into the front door.
“Take this,” Sarah said to her son.
Jolaine reached out to intercept. “No,” she said.
Graham shoved her. “Get out of my way,” he said.
Jolaine didn’t know what the paper was, but she knew that people had died for it, and that her most pressing job was to keep Graham from dying, too. “Really, Sarah?” she said. “He’s your son.”
Sarah made no indication that she’d heard. “Take this,” she said to Graham.
“What is it?” He seemed to sense the danger, too.
“Please,” Sarah said. “It’s important.”
“I’ll take it,” Jolaine said.
Graham and Sarah replied in unison, “No!”
Wilkerson stepped up to the table. “I told you to get her clothes off.”
“Leave us alone for a moment, Doctor,” Sarah said, grunting through a spasm of pain.
“You’re going to die if we don’t get that wound stabilized.”
“It’s my life to lose,” Sarah snapped. “Two minutes.” Without waiting for an answer, she rocked her head to readdress Graham, and she thrust the note closer. “Do you remember the protocol?”
Graham froze. Terror invaded his face. He said, “Um.”
“You do, don’t you?” Sarah said.
Jolaine asked, “What are you talking about? What protocol?”
Sarah stayed focused on her son. “You remember, don’t you, Graham? You always remember.”
Graham nodded.
“Sarah, I must insist,” Jolaine said. “Whatever this protocol is, whatever the content of the note, if it endangers—”
“Shut up, Jolaine,” Sarah snapped. “Take this, Graham.” She thrust the note into his hand. “Look at it. Look at it carefully.”
“I don’t want—”
“For crying out loud,” Wilkerson said. “Look at the damn thing. The quicker you do, the better chance I have of saving her life.”
Graham took the note and opened it. When Jolaine tried to peek, he angled away so she couldn’t see. The glimpse she did catch revealed a long string of numbers and letters. As far as she could tell, it wasn’t an equation, and it spelled nothing.
As Graham studied the paper, trying to make sense out of it, she realized that Sarah had snared her son in a trap.
When Graham looked up from the paper, Sarah smiled. “You memorized it, didn’t you?” She laughed and triggered another spasm. “You can’t help it.”
Jolaine knew it was true. Graham’s version of photographic memory placed him in the one percentile of the one percentile. To read was to remember forever. He had no control over it.
“Give me the paper back now,” Sarah said.
After looking at it one more time, Graham handed it back. Sarah stuffed it into her mouth and swallowed. “Execute the protocol,” Sarah said. To Jolaine, she added, “Remember your mission, too.”
“What is this, Sarah?” Jolaine demanded. “Why is all this happening? You owe me that much.”
“The protocol,” Sarah said again. “Graham knows the code and the protocol. Repeat it only in person, son. That’s very important. In person, not over the phone.”
“But the protocol is a phone call,” Graham said. “That’s all it ever was.”
“You’ll have to meet. The man on the other end will know what to do. Just follow his directions.”
Jolaine stepped in again. “Sarah, he is not meeting anyone unless I know what he’s walking into. Is this code, as you call it, the reason why people are dying?”