Duby's Doctor (22 page)

He ducked his head and blushed like a
schoolboy caught with stolen candy. “I was bored, and Nurse Erskine
gave me a book she had in her purse. It is called
The Pirate’s
Flaming Heart
.”

“Oh, dear me! One of those!”

“
Oui
,
madame
. It is indeed ‘one
of those.’” He grinned at her. “It is ... educational ... in a
way.”

“No doubt!” Mandy said. She reached for the
shopping bag she had set on the floor earlier. “Well, I brought you
something for the boredom. I hope you still like to draw?”

She withdrew from the shopping bag a large
artist’s pad for sketching and a set of colored pencils.

His eyes went wide, his jaw dropped, and he
grasped the gifts eagerly when she placed them on his lap.
“
Merci, Madame
Stone!
Merci beaucoup
!”

“I’m glad you like them,” she said. “They’ll
help you pass the time. How long do you expect to be in the
hospital?”

“I do not know,” he said, sweeping the palm
of his hand gently across the surface of the art pad. “It depends
on
Michel
– Doctor Oberon. She does not come to see me, and
I want to wait until she comes. She is my doctor. I want her to fix
me. No one else.”

“Mmm,” said Mandy, sitting back in her chair.
“I think you better tell me all about
Michel
. Everything.
Francis has told me next to nothing. Tell me all about your lady
doctor.”

He looked down at his sketchpad, but his
sight was directed into the past. He began describing the day he
had drawn a dead chicken on Mitchell Oberon’s white lab coat.
Without editing, and deleting nothing, he told Mandy Stone
everything he could remember.

By the time he concluded his narrative, by
describing his unsuccessful recent attempts to reach Mitchell, he
was exhausted and limp against his pillows. And, though he did not
remember his distant past, he was feeling more alone in the world
than he had felt since he had slept on the streets as a runaway
boy.

Mandy rose from her chair and stepped to a
side table, where she poured a glass of water from an insulated
carafe waiting there. She lifted Jean’s hand from the bed and
placed the water glass into it. He wrapped his fingers around it
and lifted the cool water to his lips.

Mandy produced a clean handkerchief from her
purse and wiped away the perspiration that had coated Jean’s face
and neck. When he had sipped some water, she accepted the glass
from him and set it on the side table.

Then she returned to her chair, gently took
his hand in hers, and sat in silence for a moment.

Although his eyes were closed now, Mandy knew
he was not asleep, because his hand grasped hers as if she were a
lifeline and he a drowning man.

“You don’t remember,” she said soothingly,
“but Duby was truly just like a son to me. To my heart, he was my
only child, and I was – am – devoted to him as only a mother can
be. You don’t know me yet, but believe me when I tell you that my
mother’s heart is just as devoted to Jean as it was to Duby. Yes,
you are very different from one another, I can see now that that’s
true. But, you are also very much alike, and everything I loved in
him, I still see in you, and even more. Is it okay if I tell you
that? Do you think you’ll be able to accept me as a friend, and
maybe someday even more than a friend?”

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. His
eyes were red-rimmed, hers were wet with tears. He swallowed and
forced soft words through a throat constricted by emotion. “Do not
be my friend,
madame
,
s’il vous plait
.”

Her chin quivered and her eyes rounded in
surprise. But, in the next second, she relaxed when he continued
speaking.

“Could you allow me to take Duby’s place—and
be part of your family?” he rasped. Unshed tears pooled in his
eyes, and he blinked them away.

Mandy allowed her tears to roll freely down
her chubby cheeks until her wide smile diverted the droplets away
from her chin. “As far as I’m concerned, that happened when I
walked into this room, dear one.”

He gripped her one hand more strongly, and
she patted their joined hands with the second of hers.

“
Merci,
Madame
Stone,” he
said. “
Merci beaucoup
.”

“I prefer to be called Mandy,” she said, “but
I would like it even more if, someday, you called me
Maman
.”

He smiled. Then, his brow crinkled as he
confronted a new thought. “I do not have to call Agent Frank Stone
‘Papa,’
do I?”

“Definitely not, my sweet. You don’t have to
speak to Francis at all, if you don’t want to. I’ll send him away
when you and I visit, if you like.”

“
Merci, ... Maman
,” he said, and his
smile returned.

“
D’accord
,” she said, rising from
the chair. “I’m going to get you another drink of water, and then
I’m going to give you one piece of good, motherly advice before I
go away and let you rest. Then, I will be here tomorrow, before and
after your surgery.”

While Mandy Stone was on a mission to give
aid and comfort to Jean in his hospital room that morning, Mitchell
Oberon was on a mission of her own: to give grief and trouble to
Frank Stone at his office.

Stone was still at home, finishing his
leisurely breakfast, unaware of his impending doom, when Doctor
Oberon marched into the office of Agent Stone’s superior officer at
the Department of Homeland Security’s Miami office.

Doctor Oberon knew how to appear formidable,
and she had dressed for battle in her most expensive, best-fitting
business suit – a pencil skirt and matching jacket over a
dignified, yet stunningly feminine, silk blouse. Her helmet was her
perfect chignon, her combat boots were her leg-enhancing pumps with
three-inch heels. She carried a tasteful leather briefcase, tinted
lavender. She wore more makeup than was typical of her, but then,
it was not easy to cover the bruises of kidnapping and violent
rescue plus the dark eye-circles from an all-night emergency
project.

After she had intimidated her way into the
captain’s office – mostly with intense fearless stares and an
obstinate refusal to accept “no” for an answer – Mitchell was
ushered into the superior officer’s inner sanctum and introduced to
Captain Boone. He motioned for her to take a chair across the desk
from him.

Before her full weight rested on the chair,
she was pulling a packet of papers from her briefcase. She placed
them in front of her on the desk and laid a hand on top of the
stack.

“Thank you for seeing me without an
appointment, Captain,” she snapped briskly, sounding like a
five-star general.

“I have to say, Doctor, that you have
impressed me. Not many people even know where we are, let alone
find their way inside and all the way to my office.”

“Yes, well, an intelligent, well-educated
person with a computer and sufficient motivation can accomplish
almost anything,” she said. “I have a report for you on your agent,
Frank Stone, which I believe will alarm you and prompt you to take
immediate action.”

“Really,” the captain said. He leaned back in
his chair as if settling in to hear a story. “Am I correct in
assuming that you have documentation to back up this ‘report’?”

Mitchell patted the stack of papers resting
beneath her palm on the desk. “I have names, dates, places, and as
many verbatim conversations as I could remember. I have had to
paraphrase here and there, of course, inasmuch as the events span
several months. Whatever proof is not within these documents is
easily obtainable based on the information provided herein.”

“Very well,” said Boone. “May I record our
conversation?”

“Oh, I insist on it!”

“Outstanding,” he said, and he reached across
the corner of his desk to punch a button on his electronic phone
console. A red light began flashing atop the console. The captain
leaned slightly toward the console and spoke clearly, giving the
names of parties present, the date, place, and time of the
interview. Then he nodded to Mitchell. “Proceed, Doctor.”

Mitchell began with the night in the
emergency room when Frank Stone bullied his way in and, within
minutes, demanded she falsify medical records. The captain’s eyes
widened and his jaw dropped when Mitchell explained that Special
Agent Yves Dubreau had not been killed while on annual leave in
Canada, was, in fact, still living – with a different identity, and
that she had been blackmailed by Frank Stone into hiding the
not-dead agent in her own home.

She told of Stone’s visit to her home with
his gun and photographs of Kyle Averell and Averell’s cohorts. She
even produced the photographs from her briefcase, and the captain
stood quickly and bent over the desk to study them carefully.

Mitchell waited for him to resume his seat,
and then she recounted how Frank Stone had intentionally lured
Averell’s “representatives” to Jean’s booth at the Coconut Grove
Arts Festival — a tactic that had resulted in her own kidnapping
and in further injuries to former-agent Dubreau.

She gave an hour-by-hour account of her
imprisonment at Averell’s mansion and a minute-by-minute report of
the rescue operation planned by Frank Stone – in which former-agent
Dubreau had nearly lost his life.

She finished with her being given a ride home
in a squad car and then sitting up all night preparing the packet
of documents she had brought with her this morning.

When she stopped and sat back in her chair,
hands folded in her lap, the captain stared at her in silence for
long moments.

In a subdued voice, he said, “What, ahm, what
is the condition of Agent Dubreau at this time?”

“I have not examined him professionally,” the
doctor replied, “but I did call the hospital this morning, and he
has been admitted in fair condition, is being scheduled for
surgery, and is expected to survive. However, due to the previous
head injury and severe damage to his left leg – now compounded by
the bullet wound last weekend and additional knee damage last night
– it is safe to say that Agent Dubreau is permanently disabled and
should be discharged from active duty – or whatever it is called,
in your line of work.”

“We’re not the military, Doctor, but that’s
close enough. I get your drift.” He pulled the packet of papers
across the desk and rotated the pages so that he could peruse them
easily. For a few minutes, he paged through the documents,
sometimes stopping to re-read a passage or make notes in the
margin.

Mitchell waited patiently, spine straight and
chin high, her eyes spearing the captain without mercy.

Finally, Captain Boone closed the packet and
looked at her. “Can I get you a cup of coffee, Doctor?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “I haven’t slept
in quite some time, as you can imagine, and the caffeine would
certainly help.”

He reached out and punched a button on the
phone console; the red Recording light went out. The captain rose
to leave the office, saying, “You must be exhausted. We won’t keep
you here much longer. I’ll be right back. Just try to relax.”

“Thank you,” Mitchell murmured.

The captain stepped out of his office and
shut the door. The closed portal did not prevent Mitchell from
hearing him shouting across the cubicles outside:
“Where is
Stone! Get me Stone, and get him in here yesterday! Agee! Agee,
where are you?”

“Here, sir,” a distant voice answered.

“Coffee for Doctor Oberon! Make it
fresh, make it good, and make it now!”

“Yes, sir,” the voice snapped
efficiently.

Mitchell allowed herself a tiny smile of
triumph. Stone would soon get what was coming to him. And, Agent
Dubreau was about to be resurrected and rewarded for his years of
service. She had no idea what would become of a certain lady
doctor, but two out of three wasn’t bad.

She didn’t know exactly how long the captain
remained outside his office, or what he did while he was out there.
Mitchell Oberon closed her eyes, let her chin drop onto her chest,
and fell asleep in her chair.

The captain was advised the instant Frank
Stone’s car rolled onto DHS property. So, when Stone opened the
door to enter the department where his desk was located, he was
surprised to find tomb-like silence and every face turned toward
him. The men and women comprising the office staff sat stiffly
watching, no one typing, no one faxing, no one phoning, no one
smiling. Only one person was standing. Captain Boone. Also, not
smiling.

Frank marveled at the strange reception, but
he strode toward his desk with scarcely a hitch in his rhythm.

“Stone!” the captain barked. “My office!” The
captain turned and walked briskly into his office without giving
Stone a second look. He knew Stone would be right behind him. All
recent evidence to the contrary, Stone was no idiot.

The two men entered the private office in
silence. Stone was aware of another person’s presence, but he could
not see the visitor clearly until after he had taken a seat in a
second visitor’s chair, and the captain stepped to the other side
of the third person’s chair.

Frank Stone was a trained agent. He nearly
managed to hide his shock at seeing Mitchell Oberon, dressed to the
nines, asleep in his captain’s private office.

The captain whispered, “Doctor Oberon,” and
gently touched Mitchell’s shoulder. When she woke and looked up at
him, he gestured toward the other man. “Agent Stone has joined
us.”

“Good morning, Doctor,” said Stone politely,
but not cordially. He deliberately kept all inflection out of his
voice, betraying nothing of his feelings or thoughts in this tense
situation.