The Second Opinion, page 17
The recommendation stung, but Thea knew that sooner or later, a rehab or nursing home was where he was headed—provided he survived.
The day, spent reviewing some of her father’s patients, and scheduling some for office visits, had been an exhausting one. She was buoyed by thoughts of Dan Cotton. He was special. Handsome, yes. Funny, yes. Devoted to his son, most certainly. But special was the overriding word she could think of.
The deep sadness that stayed with him, and would likely remain with him to some degree or another for the rest of his life, had her feeling desperate to ease his pain. By the time he had finished his version of the poignant and horrifying story, she knew that she was falling in love with him. Their unforgettable lovemaking had only sealed the deal.
When Thea arrived at the largely deserted main lobby of the Beaumont, Julian Fang was waiting on one of the benches. He was as unimposing in his manner as he was in his dress, this time a pair of dark slacks, a white long- sleeved dress shirt, and a neatly knotted dark blue tie. He was no more than five seven, and almost painfully thin. But there was an aura about him, a serenity, that made Thea and many others feel more at peace in his presence regardless of their problems at the moment.
For more than two years of her residency, Thea spent her free weekends and much of her spare evening time studying under Fang. By the time she passed her boards in internal medicine, she was seriously considering switching permanently to Eastern medicine. Ultimately, though, bowing to her father’s insistence, she elected to stay an internist. The next time the two of them clashed over a life choice issue, Thea would follow her heart and sign up with Doctors Without Borders, but she never lost her fascination with acupuncture or her contact with Master Fang, as he had always been known.
“Master Fang, thank you so much for coming,” Thea said, taking the man’s aging hand in hers.
“Thea, it is a plea sure to see you again,” he replied in a dense accent, but grammatically perfect English.
“You’ll enjoy meeting this woman. She is a very unique person.”
“The most generous donation she has made to our school suggests that, although it was totally unnecessary.”
“I’ve told her some of the diagnoses I have seen you make during your examinations of patients, and she wanted to express her gratitude that you would come and see her. Believe me, what ever she gave the school, she can afford.”
Thea nodded to the security guard as they passed. To her right, the master also smiled and nodded. His silver hair was cut to the nubs, and he was clearly making an effort to keep his posture rigidly erect. Thea had heard the rumor that Fang had ten children, but she had never confirmed it by asking.
“So,” he said as they moved along the broad corridor toward the Sperelakis Institute, “you said this Ms. Long has cancer.”
“Of the pancreas, yes. I have recently seen her MRI for the first time. It seems quite advanced.”
“But she is on treatment?”
“She is part of a protocol where she is receiving a new experimental drug. I believe the drug has been quite effective in some patients, lethal in others.”
“But you do not wish me to treat her?”
Thea flashed back on the vehemence with which Lydia Thibideau swore to have Hayley removed from the study if she learned that any treatment was done on her. Then she flashed on a number of cases she had observed in which Fang the Master had cured the seemingly incurable.
“We’ll see,” she said.
Hayley had gotten dressed up for her visitor with a fresh set of pajamas beneath a white terry cloth robe. Her room had gradually made the transition from a library to a business office, although the collection of books that had initially attracted Thea to her was, if anything, even larger and more varied. Hayley, on her cell phone, motioned that she would only be a minute.
“Go ahead and tell her she’s done a wonderful job for us,” she was saying. “She can take as much time as she needs to have her baby and get settled in as a first-time mommy. If it’s six months, it’s six months. Full salary for the first three; half for the next three provided she does some work at home. Gotta go. Ciao, Tommy.”
Thea knew that one of her possible weaknesses as a physician, resulting from her Asperger’s, was a detachment—an analytical, clinical approach to patients—that some had viewed as a lack of empathy. At this moment, though, there was no flatness in her feelings, no lack of emotion. At this moment, as happened each time she entered Hay-ley Long’s room, she experienced an ache in her heart at the notion that such a woman should be as sick as she was. No, not sick, Thea heard her mind say, dying.
Introductions were made and gratitude from both sides expressed. Then the legend in acupuncture and the legend in business sat down together to talk.
“Dr. Thea has asked me to evaluate the state of your cancer,” Fang said. “This I will be happy to do. If you know anything about how we acupuncturists diagnose, please tell me.”
“Assume I know nothing,” Hayley replied.
“Very well. If you have trouble understanding me through my accent, please ask me to speak more slowly.”
“Thank you.”
Hayley’s glance at Thea said that she was already impressed. Years ago, Master Fang had given the introductory lecture on acupuncture to Thea’s small class. She wondered now how many had heard that fascinating talk over the years . . . no, over the de cades. Tonight, she felt certain, would be an abbreviated version.
“There is a force flowing through our bodies,” Fang began, “a life force that we call Qi, spelled Q-I, but pronounced chee. When Qi is hindered or imbalanced or blocked, disease states result, whether mental, physical, or emotional. When we use our needles, they are to unblock or redirect the flow of one’s Qi. Like Western medicine, one of the tools we use to formulate a treatment plan is a physical examination. One of the most important aspects of our physical examination is the tongue. Another is an evaluation of the pulses at the wrist.”
“Like the one right here?” Hayley asked, pointing to the correct spot.
“Precisely,” Fang replied, “but instead of one pulse, we take measure of twelve—three superficial and three deep on each wrist. Each pulse has a different significance, and we use descriptions for them such as slow, sunken, choppy, floating, and slippery depending on how they feel to us.”
“Are you going to treat me to night?”
Fang looked at Thea, who shook her head.
“You and I will have to decide that later or tomorrow, Hayley,” she said. “For now, our friend is only here to give us some idea of how you are progressing relative to your condition and treatment.”
“In that case, Professor Fang, I’m ready.”
Fang went to wash his hands.
“You okay?” Thea whispered.
“He’s very cute.”
“I know.”
“Are things going well with your friend Dan?”
“He’s been away all day, but pretty well, yes.”
Hayley smiled conspiratorially.
“That’s wonderful to hear. You deserve it.”
“He’s very . . . special.”
“I can tell. Well, Sean Flowers is now in town doing a little reconnoitering. If you’re still up for it, he’ll be ready to get you into Dr. Thibideau’s office tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be ready,” she replied intensely.
“Remind me to stay on your good side.”
“So,” Fang said, returning to Hayley, and motioning her to the bed, “let us see what we shall see.”
The examination took longer than Thea had expected based on seeing Fang work in the past. In fact, she realized, the master went over Hayley once, and then again, checking her eyes, her tongue, her abdomen, and at length the twelve pulses at her wrists. When he finished, he hesitated, and then asked Thea if she would like his conclusions given to her alone or to the two of them together.
Thea silently polled Hayley, who had returned to her chair.
“We’re in this together,” Thea said. “You look concerned. I’m sorry to see that.”
“Cancer of the pancreas, you said, yes?”
“That’s right, yes. A five- centimeter central mass in the head of the pancreas, with spread to the liver.”
“And also to some abdominal lymph nodes,” Hayley added.
Fang rubbed his brow, then his chin.
“Well,” he said, “the news I have for you is good. Quite good, in fact.”
“That’s wonderful,” Hayley said. “The treatment is shrinking the cancer?”
“It is doing better than that,” Fang replied. “From all I can tell, your cancer is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Just that. My examination reveals no cancer whatsoever in your body—no disease or illness of any kind, in fact. Your Qi is quite powerful and healthy.”
There was no way any cancer treatment could have cured Hayley of so much cancer in such a short time.
Thea stared over at the master in utter disbelief.
“Are you sure?” was all she could think of to say.
CHAPTER 28
“Doc, over here!”
The man’s gravelly whisper, from the shadows to her right, nearly stopped Thea’s heart.
“Sean?”
Still she couldn’t see him.
“Here, to your right, by the corner of the building.”
Thea took a few seconds to allow her vision to adjust and then moved toward him. She was dressed in black, as was he, and as instructed, wore a black watch cap pulled low and a pair of black cloth gloves. She guessed him at thirty, but it was only an estimate because his narrow face was covered in black greasepaint. In seconds, he had covered hers as well. His touch wasn’t very gentle.
Thea had been well prepared for the industrial spy by Hayley, who made it clear that, as much as it grated against her morality, anyone with a serious interest in manufacturing, technology, and industry who didn’t take pains to keep current with what their competition was up to wasn’t in the competition for long. Thea was embarrassed at how easily she embraced the notion, but she also knew that much of her attitude sprang from her admiration of the woman who gave the orders.
“Black face paint, black clothes,” she said. “This is serious.”
In fact, Hayley had already told her, based on the reports Flowers had relayed to her, that it was going to be.
“Sean has been all over the hospital campus, and through as much of the Cannon Building as he dared,” Hayley had told her. “He’s studied blueprints, heating-duct diagrams, maps of the tunnel system, and even the sewers. Earlier today, he actually chanced going into Dr. Thibideau’s office, allegedly to find out how to make an appointment. There are security problems everywhere, but he thinks he has figured out a way to get you in.”
“Terrific. I’m ready. Hayley, I’m very excited with what Master Fang found in his examination of you, but I’m also very confused and bewildered.”
“He’s for real, though, right? He seemed so sure of himself, but I’d hate to get my hopes up on this one.”
“What can I say? Just as he speaks a different language and comes from a society with different customs, he practices diagnosis and healing in a way that is foreign and unfamiliar to most Westerners.”
“But you’ve seen enough to trust him.”
“I’ve seen enough to believe in what he does, but I was brought up around a brilliant Western physician and I studied physiology and anatomy and the scientific method as taught by more Western physicians. There was no discussion of Qi in our classes. No acupuncture points. No deep wrist pulses.”
“This ain’t easy, sister. Qi is no easy concept for a poor little ol’ farm girl like me.”
“I know. But I will tell you that most of the time, we Western doctors carefully avoid any head-on collisions with the power of the mind-body connection because we have all seen enough to respect it. Patients recovering nicely from an illness tell us they are going to die, and then later that night they do. Autopsy negative. People who have no right to survive their illness spend days on end in prayer with their loved ones, and suddenly they’re better. We’ve all experienced such things.”
“If you were me?”
“I would keep doing what you’re doing. We’ve got some tests that will validate what Master Fang found. We’ll get them run as quickly as possible.”
“Perfect.”
“If I found myself seriously ill, I would try to take advantage of both Eastern and Western treatments. Western, so-called allopathic, doctors often get quite pompous about how far we’ve come and how much we know about the mechanism of disease, but I promise you there is much more we don’t understand than what we do. I am going to go through with what ever your Sean Flowers has planned because I need to know about Jack Kalishar. I need to know why my father connects the man with what happened to him. At the same time, I intend to learn about your cancer as well and about as many other of Dr. Thibideau’s experimental patients as I possibly can.”
“And you know there may be trouble along the way.”
“I know.”
“I have told Sean to take care of you at all costs, but that’s the most I can do.”
“I understand.”
“There’s one more thing. Sean tells me that this whole business could be much easier if you would involve your friend, the security guard.”
“No, Hayley.” Thea was firm. “I would call the whole thing off before I’d involve him. I’m certain about that. He’s had some really tough things happen to him. I don’t want to add to it by having him lose his job because of me. Flowers and I are going to find a way into that office ourselves, or we’re simply not going to do it.”
“Well said. I’m with you a hundred percent.”
“Great.”
“In that case, I only have one other question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“You have any fear of heights?”
CHAPTER 29
The night was largely overcast, and above the clouds was a new moon. Thea and Sean Flowers were pressed against the ancient Veteran’s Memorial Building on the southeast corner of the massive Beaumont Clinic campus. Veteran’s was essentially a dormitory housing students, house staff , and visiting faculty members. Thea herself had stayed there for a time during her specialty rotations through the clinic.
Flowers, whom Thea decided was older than her initial impression, was a man of few words, who carried a cat-like edginess, constantly scanning the area around them. It was after eleven, and the walkways crisscrossing between buildings were largely deserted. Thea felt keyed up and more than a little apprehensive. She had been reluctant to ask Hayley what she had meant by asking if she was afraid of heights. If her friend had wanted her to know, Thea reasoned, she certainly would have said something.
Thea’s response to the question, which was, “a little, I guess,” was not completely accurate. As a child, she’d had a major meltdown on a chairlift, and for whatever the cause, she had gotten sick on her first ride on a Ferris wheel. She had never again been on either one. More recently, when she looked down from a balcony railing, she inevitably got a queasy feeling, but she had assumed that more or less everybody did.
“Here,” Flowers said, handing her a black canvas military backpack, identical to the one he was wearing. “Adjust the straps if you need to. Is it too heavy?”
In fact, the knapsack did have a fair amount of heft.
“I work in the African jungle,” she said. “It may not look it, but I’m pretty strong . . . and tough.”
“That’s good to hear. You might need both.”
Thea looked at the man and tried to gauge how serious he was, but the only visible cue, the whites of his eyes, gave her nothing.
“What’s in here?” she asked.
“Not much. Some rope, a decent-sized pocketknife, a notebook, a couple of pens, a two-way radio set to the same frequency as mine, the sort of camera you might need if you don’t want to stay in the lab to read, a pair of top- of-the- line night vision goggles, pocket flash-light, larger flashlight. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to turn the lights on up there.”
Up there.
The words fanned her curiosity.
“Sean,” she said, “when Hayley told me you had found a way into the office, she asked me if I was afraid of heights. What’s that all about?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“The truth is, I didn’t ask. I guess I had decided I would be going through with this no matter what.”
“Well, the office you want is on the fifth floor of the Cannon Building.”
“I know. I’ve been there.”
“Well, then, you might know that after five o’clock, the elevators don’t stop on that floor without a key card. One way around that would be to freeze the elevator on the fourth floor, go up through the emergency hatch, and take a pry bar to the door on the fifth. But I wasn’t sure you could handle all that, plus there’s more security around the door into the office.”
“So what did you decide?”
“I decided we’re going up the outside of the building and through the window.”
“Through the window? I was up there. They don’t open.”
“That did present a problem,” Flowers said. “So I turned my attention to the outside.”
“It’s sheer glass.”
For the first time, Thea detected a faint smile.
“Sheer glass is always a challenge.” Flowers checked the time. “Let’s roll. Stay against the building, and don’t cross a walk until I say it’s okay. You know what an aerial bucket is? It’s also called a boom truck bucket.”
“The kind they use for pruning trees?”
“Or electrical work. Exactly.”
“I know what they look like.”
“Well, in just a couple of minutes you’re going to feel what one is like to ride on. Think you can handle that?”
