And "... as comfortable as possible while we wait for the ketamine to leave your system."
She began to recall things now. The place she was in was a bad place, a place she had been very curious about once but now wished she wasn't in.
She had vague memories of a struggle, of being grabbed by several strong men, of being jabbed with something sharp. After that, nothing.
The gray-haired man, who she now felt was a very bad man, was gone, and she closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was alone. Her head had cleared. She felt bruised all over, and she realized that she was tied down to a bed.
She lifted her head as much as she could, which was not very far because there was a belt around her chest.
But it was enough to see the cuffs and belts in which she was locked and fastened to a hospital gurney. They were polyurethane medical restraints, the kind that also came in leather and were used in mental hospitals for their most violent and dangerous patients. They were called "humane restraints," and she had used them herself back in her training days.
Her wrists were cuffed and locked and attached by a long chain to a waist belt that was also locked. The same for her ankles. Her arms were chafed and painful, indicating that she had struggled mightily.
The restraints were color-coded: red for the wrists, blue for the ankles. These were of more recent vintage than the leather ones she had used, but surely the lock hadn't changed. The key, she remembered, was small and flat with no teeth on it, straight on one side, tapered on the other to a wedge-shaped point.
She remembered that hospital restraints were actually quite easy to pick if you knew how, but she would need a paper clip or something like it, a straight and rigid piece of metal wire.
She craned her head to one side and examined the bulky anesthesia machine on one side of her bed, and, on the other side, the metal cart just a few tantalizing feet away.
It had eight drawers. On top of it were scattered medical supplies, bandages and forceps, scissors, and a sterile package of safety pins.
But there was no way to reach it.
She tried to shift her body to the left, toward the gleaming cart, hoping for slack in the restraints, but there was almost none. She shifted to the left, this time violently, a sudden hard jerk that did nothing; the only thing that moved at all was the bed itself, which had to be on wheels.
Wheels.
She was silent for a moment, listening for approaching footsteps. Then she lurched against the restraints again and felt the wheels give what she imagined was another inch or two.
Encouraged by the movement, tiny as it was, she lurched again. The wheels moved another minuscule distance.
But the cart still looked as distant and unreachable as the mirage of a lake to a thirsty man in a desert.
She rested a moment, her neck spasming in pain.
Then she summoned her strength again and, trying to ignore how far away the cart was, she jerked at the restraints and gained maybe an inch.
An inch, out of several feet, felt like a single step in the New York Marathon.
She heard footsteps in the hallway and voices that grew louder, and she froze, resting her strained neck while she waited, and the voices passed.
A lunge to the left and the gurney gave up another couple of inches.
She did not want to think about what she would do once she reached the cart; that was another challenge entirely. She would have to take this a step at a time.
An inch at a time.
Another inch or so. Another. The cart was not much more than a foot away. She jerked again and gained another inch and the silver-haired man entered the room.
Turgen Lenz, as he called himself. But now she knew the astonishing truth.
JurgenLenzwhowasnotJurgenLenz.
Chapter Forty-Two
At the end of Hochstrasse Ben found a sporting goods store that featured a wide variety of equipment for the tourist and sportsman. He rented a pair of cross-country skis and asked where he could rent a car.
No place for miles.
Parked at the side of the shop was a BMW motorcycle that looked old and decrepit but still functional. He struck a deal with the young man who managed the place, and owned the bike.
With the skis strapped to his back he set off across the ridge of the