He followed the administrator into the first room. This was not a full biological isolation tank; there were no air locks or steel doors. This was routine hospital care in a segregated setting. The room was tile floored and fluorescently lit. The first thing Eph saw was the discarded Kurt pod against the side wall. A Kurt pod is a disposable, plastic-boxed stretcher, like a transparent box coffin, with a pair of round glove ports on each long side, and fitted with removable exterior oxygen tanks. A jacket, shirt, and pants were piled next to it, cut away from the patient with surgical scissors, the Regis Air winged-crown logo visible on the overturned pilot's hat.
The hospital bed in the center of the room was tented with transparent plastic curtains, outside which stood monitoring equipment and an electronic IV drip tree laden with bags. The railed bed bore green sheets and large white pillows, and was set in the upright position.
Captain Doyle Redfern sat in the middle of the bed, his hands in his lap. He was bare-legged, clad only in a hospital johnny, and appeared alert. But for the IV pick in his hand and arm, and the drawn expression on his face-he looked as though he had dropped ten pounds since Eph had found him inside the cockpit-he looked for all the world like a patient awaiting a checkup.
He looked up hopefully as Eph approached. "Are you from the airline?" he asked.
Eph shook his head, dumbfounded. Last night, this man had gasped and tumbled to the floor inside the cockpit of Flight 753, eyes rolling back into his skull, seemingly near death.
The thin mattress creaked as the pilot shifted his weight. He winced as though from stiffness, and then asked, "What happened on the plane?"
Eph couldn't hide his disappointment. "That's what I came here hoping to ask you."
Eph stood facing the rock star Gabriel Bolivar, who sat perched on the edge of the bed like a black-haired gargoyle draped in a hospital johnny. Without the fright makeup, he was surprisingly handsome, in a stringy-haired, hard-living way.
"The mother of all hangovers," Bolivar said.
"Any other discomfort?" asked Eph.
"Plenty. Man." He ran his hand through his long, black hair. "Never fly commercial. That's the moral of this story."
"Mr. Bolivar, can you tell me, what is the last thing you remember about the landing?"
"What landing? I'm serious. I was hitting the vodka tonics pretty hard most of the flight-I'm sure I slept right through it." He looked up, squinting into the light. "How about some Demerol, huh? Maybe when the refreshment cart swings by?"
Eph saw the scars crisscrossing Bolivar's bare arms, and remembered that one of his signature concert moves was cutting himself onstage. "We're trying to match passengers with their possessions."
"That's easy. I had nothing. No luggage, just my phone. Charter plane broke down, I boarded this flight with about one minute to spare. Didn't my manager tell you?"
"I haven't spoken to him yet. I'm asking specifically about a large cabinet."
Bolivar stared at him. "This some kind of mental test?"
"In the cargo area. An old box, partially filled with soil."
"No idea what you're talking about."
"You weren't transporting it back from Germany? It seems like the kind of thing someone like you might collect."
Bolivar frowned. "It's an act, dude. A f**king show, a spectacle. Goth greasepaint and hard-core lyrics. Google me up-my father was a Methodist preacher and the only thing I collect is pu**y. Speaking of which, when the hell am I getting out of here?"
Eph said, "We have a few more tests to run. We want to give you a clean bill of health before we let you go."
"When do I get my phone back?"
"Soon," said Eph, making his way out.
The administrator was having trouble with three men outside the entrance to the isolation ward. Two of the men towered over Eph, and had to be Bolivar's bodyguards. The third was smaller and carried a briefcase, and smelled distinctly of lawyer.
Eph said, "Gentlemen, this is a restricted area."
The lawyer said, "I'm here to discharge my client Gabriel Bolivar."
"Mr. Bolivar is undergoing tests and will be released at the earliest possible convenience."
"And when will that be?"
Eph shrugged. "Two, maybe three days, if all goes well."
"Mr. Bolivar has petitioned for his release into the care of his personal physician. I have not only power of attorney, but I can function as his health care proxy if he is in any way disabled."
"No one gets in to see him but me," said Eph. To the administrator, he said, "Let's post a guard here immediately."
The attorney stepped up. "Listen, Doctor. I don't know much about quarantine law, but I'm pretty sure it takes an executive order from the president to hold someone in medical isolation. May I, in fact, see said order?"
Eph smiled. "Mr. Bolivar is now a patient of mine, as well as the survivor of a mass casualty. If you leave your number at the nurses' desk, I will do my best to keep you abreast of his recovery-with Mr. Bolivar's consent, of course."
"Look, Doc." The attorney put his hand on Eph's shoulder in a manner Eph did not like. "I can get quicker results than a court injunction simply by mobilizing my client's rabid fan base." He included the administrator in this threat. "You want a mob of Goth chicks and assorted freaks protesting outside this hospital, running wild through these halls, trying to get in to see him?"
Eph looked at the attorney's hand until the attorney removed it from his shoulder. He had two more survivors to see. "Look, I really don't have time for this. So let me just ask you some questions straight out. Does your client have any sexually transmitted diseases I should know about? Does he have any history of narcotics use? I'm only asking because, if I have to go look up his entire medical record, well, those things have a way of getting into the wrong hands. You wouldn't want his full medical history leaked out to the press-right?"
The attorney stared at him. "That is privileged information. Releasing it would be a felony violation."
"And a real potential embarrassment," said Eph, holding the attorney's eye another second for maximum impact. "I mean, imagine if somebody put your complete medical history out there on the Internet for everyone to see."
The attorney was speechless as Eph started away past the two bodyguards.
Joan Luss, law-firm partner, mother of two, Swarthmore grad, Bronxville resident, Junior League member, was sitting on a foam mattress in her isolation-ward hospital bed, still tied up in that ridiculous johnny, scribbling notes on the back of a mattress-pad wrapper. Scribbling and waiting and wiggling her bare toes. They wouldn't give her back her phone; she'd had to cajole and threaten just to get a lead pencil.