The Society by Karen Guyler (feel good fiction books .txt) 📗

Heavy steps, beyond her injury, took her back to Kathy’s ward. The hospital director moved fast. A flurry of activity just a few minutes later pushed her outside the curtain, yanked closed around Kathy’s bed.

Eva waited at the mercy of her guilt. And overlaying every breath, every thought, two syllables, Lily. Until a level of urgency, of snapped instructions and the running in of a nurse with a crash cart brought Eva slamming back into her present and Kathy Oblov’s struggle for life. Eva didn’t need any medical knowledge to understand she was losing.

There was an inevitability about it, the hurried but calm workings of the team, one step then another to keep their patient with them. A desperate last-ditch attempt until Eva heard the pronouncement.

“I’m calling it. Time of death, 11:52. Thank you, everyone.”

“Can you tell me how Aleksandr Oblov is, Kathy’s husband?” Eva caught a doctor rushing out of the cubicle.

“Are you family?”

Eva dropped her voice. “I’m a consultant working with MI6.”

The doctor tightened her ponytail, checked her watch. “So I understand from the hospital director.”

“We believe both Mr and Mrs Oblov have been targeted.”

“I can take you to him.” She logged in at a mobile PC station. “Can you tell me what you find out about the poison?” She held out her swipe card so Eva could read Dr Asha Chakrabarti. Her photo showed her long black hair down, her beaming smile a long way from the tired frown she now wore. “It’s my field, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Like what? Please, we need to catch the people responsible. Kathy isn’t the first to die. Anything you can tell me could make the difference to us stopping it happening to anyone else.”

She nodded, took a second to compose her thoughts. “Mrs Oblov was stable but poorly before we administered hydroxocobalamin, it’s effective in treating cyanide poisoning, and the smell from her pores led us to believe that’s what it was. But from the way she went downhill, I believe the antidote triggered her body’s collapse.”

41

Dr Chakrabarti tapped at the door to a private room and went straight in. Eva followed. Aleksandr Oblov lay in the bed, a mirror image to his wife, minus the broken leg. A large man on the other side of the room cut off his phone call and rose from his seat, tense, his hand reaching towards his suit jacket. Dr Chakrabarti held her badge out for his inspection, used to his overprotectiveness already. Eva recognised him from the CCTV footage as Oblov’s bodyguard.

“I’m a friend.” Eva said when he turned his gaze on her. “I’ve just been with Kathy.”

“I don’t know you.”

“I’m a new friend.” Eva dredged up the rusty words, hoping he was as Russian as his boss.

“From Russia?”

She shook her head. “I’m really sorry to say that Kathy died.”

He nodded, more a digesting of what the new order would be going forward than anything else.

Dr Chakrabarti gestured at the bed, “I just need to check something.”

She bent over Oblov and sniffed the skin of his face, his breath, his neck. “Is it the same?” She asked.

Eva copied her. “It’s not as strong. He could have had less, or been dosed after his wife, but, yes, it’s the same.”

Dr Chakrabarti considered for a moment. “It’s very hard to just not treat him but, having seen what just happened, I’m not going to, at least not right now.”

“You must treat him.” The bodyguard straightened up in full-on intimidation mode.

“He hasn’t been poisoned,” Eva floundered, what was the Russian word for primed? “He’s been given something that makes it seem as if he has, but the antidote will kill him. It’s what killed Kathy.”

“How do you know this?”

“It killed a friend of mine.”

“I’m going to advise Mr Oblov’s medical doctor of the—I don’t even know what this is. We need to figure out if we need to try to flush it out or let nature take its course.” The doctor murmured to herself, rationalising. “A nurse will be in to take bloods.” Back to normal practice, her voice was firmer. She looked at the bodyguard. “Are you staying with the patient?” He nodded. “I’m going to update his notes, but don’t let anyone give him anything until they clear it with me.” She held her pass out for him to read her name again until he nodded and she left.

“I’m not wired, not armed. You can check.” Eva held her arms out to her side. Treat this as though he were an airport official rather than a man who could put her through the wall.

His hands patted her down, no lingering, just searching out weapons, a quick sweep with the little finger sides of his palms between her breasts, down her midriff. Not his first rodeo. He stepped back from her. “Who wanted your friend dead?”

Eva shook her head, the burden becoming heavier each time she thought about it. “Not my friend, me.” Then a sideways hunch, the only connection in this was her but through her, Charles. “Does the name Charles Buchanan mean anything to you?”

“Why?”

“He’s my husband, he’s being targeted by the same people.”

“Who?”

“They call themselves The Society.”

The bodyguard was silent, utterly unreadable. Eva had run out of ideas, another warning to not let the doctors give Oblov the antidote was all she could do.

As she reached the door, the bodyguard stopped her. “A man I didn’t know came to see Mr Oblov recently. There was difficult talk about money and a debt. The man talked about Charles being involved, it could have been your husband. Mr Oblov agreed to help.” He looked at his boss, back at Eva. “If The Society is involved, I need reinforcements.”

“You know of them?”

He nodded. “They will try to get you again.”

“I know, they blew my house up.”

“Yet you stand still.”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m still standing.” Running towards the bullets. “Do you know how to get in touch with them?” He considered for a while. “My daughter could get