handed it to him and turned on her heels.
Exiting the storeroom, she snatched a clipboard hanging on the wall and entered the hospital’s main corridor.
The clinic was larger than she expected, with more than fifty beds. That would help protect her anonymity, but would make it harder to find the woman from the boat. She walked toward the entrance of the building, holding the clipboard to her nose whenever an employee appeared. Near the front desk, a pair of swinging doors plastered with red stripes marked the emergency room. She opened one of the doors and peered inside.
It was empty except for an orderly cleaning up a treatment table. Moving back down the main corridor, she found another door marked CUARTO DE RECUPERACIÓN. Entering the room, she encountered a leather-faced nurse.
“¿Está de servicio?” the nurse asked.
Unsure of her Spanish, the woman simply nodded, then scanned the recovery room. It held a half-dozen beds, each shielded by hanging drapes. Just two were occupied. The nearest held an old man surrounded by family members. At the far corner, behind a half-closed curtain, lay Elise.
The woman brushed past the nurse, strode to Elise’s bedside, and pretended to study her medical monitors. The American aid worker’s arm was heavily bandaged, and she appeared sedated.
The woman glanced over her shoulder. The duty nurse had taken a seat by the door and was typing on a computer. She pulled the curtains around Elise’s bed, turned down the volume on a beeping heart monitor, and stepped to the head of the bed. Beneath her smock, she felt the grip of a handgun, but felt no need to use it. In Elise’s unconscious state, she could be smothered quietly and without protest.
The woman reached for Elise’s pillow, heard the curtains draw back. She wheeled to face two flushed and breathless men, one tall, the other short.
“Is she all right, Doctor?” Pitt asked.
The woman eyed Pitt’s damp clothes, recognizing the duo from the boat. “Sí. Surgery was a success,” she said in a gruff voice. “The young woman, she needs rest. No molestar.” She raised her clipboard and tried to shoo the men away.
But Giordino had already plopped into a chair beside the bed. “We’re not going anywhere until she’s well enough to walk out of here.”
Pitt nodded. “Her life may be in danger. Can you call for security protection?”
Time was short. She saw the determination in both men’s faces and realized she couldn’t coerce them away. She gave a frustrated glance at Elise and nodded.
“Yes, I will take care of it.” She turned away quickly and strode out of the room.
“Something funny about her,” Pitt said.
“What’s that?”
“The page on the clipboard looked like a stockroom inventory sheet.”
“Maybe somebody’s been pilfering her supply of white stockings.”
The two men were eyeing Elise’s first stirrings when a bearded doctor entered a moment later with a nurse at his side.
“¿Cómo está nuestro paciente?” he asked.
“She’s well, according to the other doctor,” Giordino said.
“What other doctor?” the man asked in English.
Pitt described the woman, the doctor shrugged.
Pitt and Giordino looked at each other, then motioned toward Elise.
“Her life is in danger from an outside threat,” Pitt said. “Please call security and post a guard with her.”
He bolted for the door with Giordino right behind. Pitt motioned toward the clinic entrance. “You try the front, I’ll check the back.”
He sprinted down the corridor, peering into each side room for the woman in the green smock. He reached the storeroom at the back of the clinic, ducked inside, and saw an open door to the parking lot. Outside, a car’s engine revved.
He stepped into a cloud of dust as the black Jeep roared out of the lot.
Giordino ran up to him a minute later. “Got away?” he asked between heavy breaths.
Pitt motioned down the road. “A black Jeep.”
“I think I saw it by the waterfront.”
“Guess she decided to leave her bomb-throwing friend behind,” Pitt said.
“They were certainly serious about putting Elise and the aid team out of business. I wonder why?”
“Maybe the water specimens. Did they survive the glassworks ordeal?”
Giordino smiled. “You dare doubt Al the Magnificent?”
He pulled open his windbreaker, revealing the four test tubes Elise had given him, intact in his shirt pocket.
Pitt grinned. “Better than pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”
They waited at the hospital another hour until a NUMA helicopter arrived, summoned by Pitt from a research vessel working off the coast. A now conscious Elise was whisked aboard for a short ride to Comalapa International Airport near San Salvador,