Ryan beckoned the chief of the sec men. “Need to get going back to the ville.”
“Sure. Everyone aboard.”
They were on the move away from Graceland in a couple of minutes, though one of the engines proved stubborn in starting, giving Ryan, Krysty and the Armorer a few nervous seconds before they were off and rolling.
The three friends sat together near the tailgate, looking behind them as the wag lumbered eastward.
J.B. had been checking his wrist chron. “I make that past the twenty minutes maximum now, if that’s what she set it for. Depends where she hid it, but we should be seeing some sign in the next minute or so. When they go, those babies really go.”
ALREADY THREE OR FOUR miles ahead, down the highway toward the ville, Countess Katya was talking with a cold ferocity to Straub, who nodded with increasing enthusiasm, then began to giggle, a hideous, bubbling noise, like boiling molasses.
“Yes, I can,” he said. “Of course, most exalted one. Yes, of course.”
“There,” J.B. said, pointing behind them. The road had dipped, and a bunch of tattered palm trees were between them and Graceland. But they all saw the sudden flash of flame, rising fifty or sixty feet into the air, followed by a pillar of smoke, erupting much higher, until the southerly breeze started to tear its top apart.
They were more than a mile away, but all three of them felt the warm blast caress their faces from the explosion.
“That just one gren?” Krysty asked.
J.B. shook his head. “Don’t know. But Millie must’ve placed it near the heating. Oil or gas, whatever. Whole place has gone. Did what she wanted.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Appendicitis.”
“Sure?”
“Sure as can be. All the symptoms. Main thing is precisely where the pain’s located. I can’t think of anything else it could be.”
Ryan whistled softly between his teeth. “Bad one. Known of a few people buy the farm with that.”
Mildred was washing her hands. “But remember I’m not a general surgeon, Ryan. Freezing was my field, and I was real good at that. I did stuff like this when I was a student and then a junior resident. Long while ago. And I don’t just mean the hundred years passed since skydark.”
“So what can you do?” Krysty asked. All five friends were standing in the dimly lit corridor, outside the room where Doc had been sedated with a few drugs that were held in the ville’s pharmacy.
“Infected and inflamed appendix means two things. It’ll go down and get better, but maybe flare up again in a while. Days or weeks or months. Or never. Or it won’t go down at all. Burst. Peritonitis and death.”
They all stood silent. Since they’d gotten back to the fortified mansion they’d seen no sign of either the countess or of Straub. The sec men had been helpful, carrying Doc up to the room and showing Mildred the limited supplies of pharmaceuticals that were held in the ville.
Now it was decision time.
“How long wait?” Jak asked.
“Until it’s too late?” Mildred sniffed. “I’m sort of sure it’s bad news. Lot of pain. Fever. Intense, localized tenderness. If I’m going to try and operate to save the old buzzard, then I think I’ll have to start within the hour. No longer.”
“Someone should see the countess,” Krysty said. “Tell her what’s going on. Need her support. I can go.” She looked doubtfully at Ryan.
“Better be me.” He checked his chron. “Rest of you work with the sec men and get everything ready. See what tools and knives and stuff you can get, Mildred. Mebbe from the kitchens for the best blades. I’ll go see the countess.”
“HE WILL DIE if you don’t operate on him?”
“We believe so.”
“And the black woman is a real doctor?”
“Yeah. Just that we need your say-so to go ahead with it. Is that all right?”
“You come to me, Ryan, my dear man, with a request that only I can grant, which means life or death. Does this sound familiar to you and your friends?”
Ryan stood silent for a moment, seeing only too clearly what she meant. He decided in his mind that if she pushed it, then he would yield, agree to sleep with her if it meant the chance of saving Doc’s life.