Suspects(40)
“I’m in New York, she’s outside Paris, at the chateau. Guy Thomas at the DGSE is going to get her taken to the right hospital and do a forensic search at the chateau.”
“He’s a good man, even if a little slow to react sometimes.”
“He had a protective tail on her and his guy is with her now. He’s a paramedic and works for the DGSE. He said it looks like some kind of overdose.”
“That’s about right. Tell them about the atropine and oximes, and keep me posted.”
“Thanks, Robert,” Mike said, distracted and worried about Theo.
Mike called back to her cellphone and Daniel answered. “What’s happening?” Mike asked him quickly.
“The ambulance just got here, they’re putting her in now. They’re going to take her to a hospital here to check her out and see if she can go to the city. She’s a little more confused and she says she’s dizzy. I’m going to lock up here and follow in the car.”
“Tell them it may be a nerve agent of some kind, and to use atropine to stop the action of the poison, and oximes are the only antidote. I hope to hell they know what they’re doing.”
“She was having a little trouble breathing and they gave her oxygen. I’ll run in and lock up now,” Daniel told him.
“Call me from the hospital when you know what’s going on.”
“Yes, sir.” He ran into the house then, forgetting about her suitcases upstairs. They could come back for them another time. He picked up her purse from the hall table, pulled the front door firmly shut by the big antique brass knob, and rushed out to the car. The DGSE agent was in the ambulance with Theo, and Daniel rushed to start the station wagon to follow them.
They took her to a local hospital ten miles away. It was small, clean, and efficient, and Daniel relayed all of Mike’s messages to them. The attending physician looked startled when Daniel suggested it might be a nerve agent, and what medications to administer. He looked it up on his computer and saw that her symptoms matched those of a possible nerve agent, and he administered the medications Robert had recommended. Within twenty minutes the symptoms had stopped, but the danger, if it was a nerve agent, was permanent nerve damage. They suspected that she’d had an infinitesimal dose, but enough to cause considerable disturbance. Any more would have had a much more severe reaction. A poison called Novichok was the most dangerous one, in which case she would be severely disabled or die. She needed bloodwork to determine if, in fact, she had been poisoned, and with what substance. The DGSE agent had taken over communicating with the doctor once they were in the hospital, and the doctor felt that she was well enough to be moved to the city, to a hospital where they could test her to find out what had been administered and how extensive the effects were.
They were getting ready to move her back to the ambulance when Daniel stumbled into the room and said he was feeling ill too. They examined him immediately and his symptoms were identical to hers. They waited another fifteen minutes and put him in the ambulance with her. The DGSE agent drove the car home for them, and they reached the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris forty-five minutes later, with the siren blaring, the lights flashing, and the DGSE agent driving right behind them.
Guy Thomas and one of his assistants were waiting for them there. He spoke briefly to Theo and reassured her that they would take good care of her. He got the keys to the chateau from her bodyguard and dispatched a forensics team within half an hour. Theo described where she had gone in the house and what she might have touched as best she could, and Daniel did the same. With the atropine, their symptoms had abated, and oximes had been administered as a precautionary antidote. Their bloodwork was on the way to the DGSE lab.
By midnight the first reports were back from the lab. They had been poisoned with a minute quantity of a new nerve agent that mimicked the much more dangerous Novichok nerve agent, and the weaker substance caused far less damage. Oximes were effective as an antidote, and Theo and Daniel were lucky it wasn’t worse.
The DGSE forensics team found traces of it on the brass doorknob of the chateau. It could be inhaled or ingested or absorbed through the skin. It was odorless and slow to deteriorate. It acted by blocking the messages from the nerves to the muscles, causing a collapse of bodily functions, and when given in large enough doses, it could cause lasting nerve damage, permanent disablement, or death. The substance would not wear off the surfaces where it was applied, so the DGSE anti-poison team had had to remove the brass doorknob where it had been applied and it would have to be replaced. It couldn’t be decontaminated.
Guy Thomas called Mike with all their findings at one a.m., which was seven p.m. in New York. Mike had been worried sick about Theo all day, but at least he knew she was in good hands.
“How is she?” he asked with deep concern in his voice.
“I think she and the bodyguard are feeling slightly better. Our friend at MI6 recommended the right substances to arrest the action of the poison and provide the antidote. The atropine stops the effects, and the oximes will counter it. Apparently confusion and dizziness set in very quickly. It’s a fast-acting poison, but the effect is far less severe than other nerve agents used in Russia. They’re both going to be okay. They’ll be kept in the hospital for a week of observation. They were lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“Why would de Vaumont do that, if he did?”