Natasha noticed Matt was very pale and she felt the pulse under his chin. It was racing. He was falling into shock and needed immediate treatment.
The taxi dropped them at the surgery fifteen minutes later. Natasha helped Matt out of the taxi trying not to be noticed by the taxi driver. He seemed more interested in counting the riyals that Natasha had passed over.
She pounded on the doctor’s door.
"Who is it?" asked Dr al-Din.
Natasha responded with the code phrase "Bullwinkle" and the sliding door slid open silently.
Chapter 89
Matt was quickly falling into shock. He had never even broken a bone before, so the gunshot sent his system into meltdown.
Dr. al-Din seemed to be most competent. He quickly did triage to determine any other life threatening injuries before returning to the gunshot. He had trouble getting a good pulse from Matt’s wrist, but quickly found a carotid pulse and felt seventeen beats in ten seconds. These were classic signs of shock.
The doctor pulled Matt over the end of the table so his head was lower, then he placed a pillow under Matt’s legs. This would increase blood flow to the brain. Next he inserted a drip to keep up fluids and gave Matt an antibiotic injection in case of infection.
After closer inspection, Matt was very lucky. The bullet had gone all the way through, ripping muscle, but missing bone.
Dr. al-Din then swabbed and probed the wound before stitching both entry and exit wounds. Matt would have a scar to talk about for years to come, but he would be ok physically. The doctor was not too sure about mentally. That was usually a fifty/fifty proposition after a gunshot wound.
"He will feel much better in the morning, but he cannot be moved right now" explained the doctor.
Natasha made a telephone call to the Russian Embassy and she was told to sit tight and wait for two heavily armed agents to arrive.
Natasha made a small cough and was visibly in pain.
"Let me take a look at you now" suggested the doctor.
He felt carefully around the sides of Natasha’s chest and determined that she had a couple of cracked ribs. Everything else checked out ok.
"There is not a lot I can do for your ribs. They will be very sore for a couple of weeks, but there should be no permanent damage.
"You are welcome to stay here tonight, but please be gone before my first patient is due at 9am in the morning" said the doctor, not wanting to ask any further questions. "Good luck" he said and padded back upstairs to his private residence.
Twenty minutes later there was a quiet knock on the door and Natasha admitted the Russian minders. Natasha grabbed some sleep on the couch while the guards stayed wide awake all night.
The next morning the guards carried Matt to their van and they were driven to the Russian embassy.
Initially Matt was setup in the small medical wing, but later in the day when his vital signs were back on track, he was moved to a small comfortable bedroom with its own self-contained bathroom.
When Matt opened his eyes at 7pm, Natasha was beside his bed.
"Welcome back to the land of the living."
"Am I ok?" asked Matt.
Natasha pressed her index finger to her lips so Matt realized that the room was bugged. Matt nodded.
"The gunshot wound in your shoulder has been stitched. The bullet went straight through without doing too much damage. You were in shock, but you will be fine in a day or two. But, I think you will be typing one handed for a while. How does the shoulder feel?"
"There is no pain, but I can feel it tingling and cold. I feel drugged."
"I know the doctor hit you with some pretty strong painkillers. There are some more in the bottle on the table beside your bed. Help yourself if you need them during the night."
"Matt, you really should get some sleep, you still look terrible."
"I have work to do" said Matt, but his eyelids fluttered and he fell back to sleep.
Chapter 90
Matt was feeling much better when he awoke the next day. He even got up to go to the bathroom.
He thought he would try and find something to eat, but he found the door to his room was securely locked.
He pounded on the door angrily until Natasha came to rescue him.
"Sorry Matt" said Natasha as she opened the door "visitors are not allowed unescorted in the embassy."
"That is ridiculous!" said Matt angrily.
"Relax. Tell me, would I be allowed to wander around CIA headquarters by myself?"
"I guess not" said Matt starting to cool down "I suppose I can live with that. I feel much better this morning, I need to get on my PC and check those transactions from The Caliph."
"Ok, your PC is under your bed. Do you want something to eat?"
"Can I get bacon and eggs?" asked Matt with a smile, "even better if you cook them!"
"I will see what I can find" replied Natasha with a smile.
Matt grabbed his PC and went through the audit file they had downloaded the previous day.
Numbers don’t lie.
Matt was having trouble typing only with his left hand. It was slow work, but he finally found the exact transaction that The Leopard had told Natasha about during his interrogation. It was a transfer of fifty million dollars to a Swiss bank account.
The only other large transaction was five million dollars to a company in North Korea. Both these entries had KP in the comments field. There was also one other transaction that had the KP comment. It was to a corporation called Interneta in Iran. This transfer was also for five million dollars, a hell of a lot.
Natasha arrived back with the breakfast. She held her finger to her lips to again remind Matt that the room was bugged.
Matt nodded, and whispered, "Bingo, I found the transfer for the nukes, as well as another transfer to a North Korean company. I am not sure why, but they both have a code in the comments field of KP. The really strange thing is that there are only three transfers with the KP tag. The payment for the nukes, the boat transfer in North Korea, and another payment to a company called Interneta in Iran."
"What is the Interneta thing?" asked Natasha.
"I can’t find anything at all on them. Internet is not a big deal in Iran. My guess is it is a dummy corporation."
"Ok, keep working on it. I need to do some emails, I will be back in half an hour," said Natasha "sorry but I really do have to lock the door."
"Ok no problem" said Matt.
Matt sent an instant message to Bill Simpson at Langley:
Matt: Sorry I missed my check-in. I was shot in the shoulder, am recuperating at Russian Embassy in Riyadh.
Bilclass="underline" I know what happened. I got a call from Oleg to explain. Are you ok?
Matt: I will be fine. I have been checking the records from the hotel. I found large financial transfers to both Russia and North Korea. There was another suspicious transaction to a company called Interneta in Tehran.
Fifteen minutes later Matt received a reply:
Simpson: Have a nice trip to Iran.
Chapter 91
The shipyard in North Korea had done a truly remarkable job on the transformation.
Surprise now looked like a completely different boat to the casual observer. The change in rigging from a two masted ketch to a single masted sloop was perhaps the most obvious change. But as this was such an important mission Kamal felt that he could not be too careful, and he wanted to avoid other craft if at all possible.