“Doctor Lucietta, if you please?” Straus said, interrupting Jacob Curtis.
Doctor Brian Lucietta could only manage to say, “mysterious” after completing his exam.
“Very well, then,” said Straus. “Off to Ward C. I believe you’ll find that I’ve thought of everything. Almost everything, at least.”
As the group turned towards the office door, Straus paused, his hand on the doorknob. He turned to the group to say, “I will give a crisp $100 bill if anyone in this talented group sees or even hears another employee during our walk to Ward C. Anyone up to taking my bet?”
“You didn’t make it a bet, just an offer,” Stanley corrected.
“Indeed, you are correct, Doctor Mix. I guess my confidence may have cost me a chance at a wager. No bother. Let us be on our way.”
No one saw or heard anyone during the two minute walk to Ward C.
While Straus was giving a tour of the hub and the observation rooms, Michelle was instructed to bring the baby into the room designated as its room. Stanley took the opportunity to walk with Michelle.
“I am sorry about all this,” he said.
Michelle turned slowly towards Stanley, and brought her index finger up to her pursed lips.
“Shhh. Every room has microphones,” she whispered.
“What happens in these rooms?” Stanley asked as silently as he could.
Michelle shook her head and shrugged her shoulders so slightly to not raise suspicions if Straus was observing her through the two-way mirrors.
As she placed the baby in the crib, she turned towards Stanley, making sure that his six-foot plus, broad frame shielded her from the hub’s view.
“I don’t like this, and I get the sense you don’t either,” she mouthed.
“I dislike it more every second,” he mouthed back.
Michelle offered a smile as she moved back into potential view. “There. This will be a safe and secure place for him,” she said, not worrying about her voice being picked up by the room’s microphone while indicating to Stanley that there would be no more private conversation. “Shall we join Doctor Straus in the central room?”
“Of course,” replied Stanley.
After Straus concluded his tour of Ward C and had walked his guests back down to the loading docks, Stanley promised himself to find a way to talk with Michelle again. As Peter and he said their “thank you’s” and “goodbye’s,” he paused and held onto Michelle’s hand a bit longer than protocol would suggest a parting handshake should take.
“Nice meeting you, Michelle Pettingall,” he said.
“You too,” she offered back.
“Peter,” Straus’s voice halted the stare Stanley was enjoying into Michelle’s eyes, “give me two days to run our initial tests. Call me to arrange a conference call with the rest of your team back in Chicago.”
“Fair enough,” Peter said. “And, again, I can’t thank you enough.”
With that, the meeting was over and Peter and Stanley got into Stanley’s car, started the engine, and began their journey back to Chicago.
CHAPTER SIX
“But I don’t want to know what’s keeping him alive. Damn it, Peter, I thought I was clear when I said I wanted this whole thing to be done and over with,” Mark Rinaldo said as Peter Adams smugly stood in front of Mark’s desk.
“Mark, how is it possible that you can just pretend that everything that happened last week, didn’t? Aren’t you just a bit curious about what is keeping the child alive? Even the slightest bit of curious?”
“Peter, the more we discuss this, the greater the chances are of this whole damn thing being made public.”
“Mark,” Peter said as he sat down in the chair facing Mark’s desk, “learning more is precisely how we can keep things quiet. Hell, we don’t even know if the child will last another day. All I am suggesting is that you get on this call with Dr. Straus and his team, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll have figured something out that will make this whole thing better.”
Mark sighed and sat motionless and quiet for several seconds.
“What time is the call?” he asked.
“Five, eastern time.”
“Fine.”
“I’ve already invited Stanley,” Peter added.
“And his reaction?”
“Same as yours.”
“Okay. My office in two hours, then?”
“Two hours.”
The crackles sounding through the telephone line were loud enough to be annoying but not so loud that Mark, Peter, and Stanley couldn’t hear what was being said.
The voice of Straus sounded. “Doctors, I am glad you all decided to join us on this call. As we all have very busy schedules, I’ll forgo formal introductions and will summarize our findings thus far. Should you have any questions, which I am certain that you will, please feel free to ask. Either I or one of my team members will be happy to answer. Are you ready on your end?”
“Yes, all set here, William.”
“Excellent. Gentlemen, allow me to begin by thanking you for thinking of me. I fully understand the circumstances that brought this miraculous child to my care and also take your trust in me quite seriously. For that, I thank you.
“Doctors, each day we are faced with new and unique challenges in our fields. Some are quickly remedied and others, well, others turn from a challenge to a mystery. And so it is with our child.
“The first order of business should be to tell you his name. Alexander Black. A name both descriptive and common enough to dispel any curiosity should anyone ever hear any of us discussing the case.
“Now, to answer your most obvious question that I assume you all have been asking yourself a million times, no, Alexander has no heart and has only a half of a lung. His lung does function, however at a very diminished capacity and only when he falls asleep. Curiously, Alex has only slept twice for a total of eleven hours in the five days he’s been living here.