Honor Thyself (5 page)

Chapter 3

T
here were dozens of fire trucks outside the tunnel near the Louvre for hours. The CRS, the riot troops, had been called in, in full battle dress, with shields and helmets, carrying machine guns. The street had been closed off. Ambulances, the SAMU, and fleets of paramedics had arrived. The police were controlling onlookers and pedestrians, while the bomb squads looked for more bombs that had not exploded. And inside the tunnel there was a raging inferno, as cars continued to explode from the fire, and it was almost impossible to get people out. Bodies littered the tunnel floor, survivors moaned, and those who could walk, run, or crawl emerged, many with their hair and clothes on fire. It was a total nightmare, as news teams arrived for coverage of the scene, and to interview survivors. Most were in a state of shock. As yet, no known terrorist group had taken responsibility for it, but from everything people who'd been in the tunnel had described, it had clearly been a bomb, and more likely several.

It was after midnight when firemen and police told reporters they believed they had gotten all the survivors. There were still bodies trapped in vehicles, or among the wreckage and debris, but it would be several more hours before they could put out the fire, and extricate the bodies. Two firemen had died in the blaze, trying to rescue people, when yet more cars exploded, and several rescuers had been overcome by fumes and flames, as had paramedics who were trying to assist people, or tend to them where they were trapped. Women, children, men had died. It was a spectacle beyond belief, and many were brought out alive but unconscious. Victims were being sent to any of four hospitals, where additional medical personnel had been brought in to help them. Two burn centers were already overcrowded, and people burned less severely were being sent to a special unit on the outskirts of Paris. The rescue efforts had been extraordinary and impressively coordinated, as one of the newscasters said, but there was only so much they could do in the wake of an attack of that nature. It had presumably been done by terrorists, and the force of the bombs used had even taken out sections of the walls of the tunnel. It was hard to believe that anyone had survived, when one saw the fierce blackness of the smoke, and the fire still raging in the tunnel.

In the end, Carole had landed in a little alcove of the tunnel, which, by sheer luck, had protected her as the fire advanced. She had been one of the first to be found by the firefighters who went in. She had a gash on one cheek, a broken arm, burns on both arms and near the cut on her cheek, and a major head injury. When they brought her out on a gurney and turned her over to the SAMU, manned by doctors as well as paramedics, she was unconscious. They rapidly assessed her injuries, intubated her to keep her breathing, and sent her to La Pitié Salpêtrière hospital, where the worst cases were being taken. Her burns were far less severe than many of the others they'd seen. But the head injury was life threatening. She was in a deep coma. They checked her for some kind of identification, and found none. She had nothing in her pockets, not even money. But her pockets would have been emptied by the force of her flight through the air. And if she'd had a handbag, she'd lost it when she was blown out of whatever vehicle she was in. She was an unidentified victim, a Jane Doe in a terrorist attack in Paris. There was absolutely nothing on her to identify her, not even a key to her room at the Ritz. And her passport was on her desk at the hotel.

She left the scene in an ambulance, code blue, with another unconscious survivor who had come out of the tunnel naked, with third-degree burns across his entire body. Paramedics tended to them both, but it seemed unlikely that either patient would be alive when they got to La Pitié. The burn victim died in the ambulance. Carole was still alive, though barely, when they rushed her inside to the trauma unit. A team was standing by, waiting for the first casualties to arrive. The first two ambulances had already shown up with dead bodies.

The female doctor in charge of the trauma unit looked grim as she examined Carole. The cut on Carole's cheek was a nasty one, the burns on her arms were second degree, the one on her face seemed minor compared to the rest of her injuries. They called in an orthopedist to set her arm, but it had to wait until they assessed the damage to her head. CT scans had to be done immediately, and her heart stopped before they could even start them. The cardiac team worked on her frantically, and got her heart going again, and then her blood pressure dropped dramatically. There were eleven people working on her, as other victims were brought in, but for the moment Carole was one of the worst. A neurosurgeon came in to examine her, and they were finally able to get the CT scans done. He decided to wait to do surgery, she wasn't stable enough to survive it. They cleaned up her burns, her arm was set, she stopped breathing on her own, and they put her on a respirator. It was morning before things calmed down in the trauma unit, and the neurosurgeon evaluated her again. Their main concern was swelling to her brain, and it was difficult to assess how hard she had hit the wall or pavement in the tunnel, or how great the damage would be later on, if she survived. He still didn't want to operate, and the head of the trauma unit agreed with him. If surgery could be avoided, they preferred it, in order not to add to her trauma. Carole was holding on to her life by a thread.

“Is her family here?” the doctor asked, looking grim. He assumed they would want her to have last rites. Most of the families did.

“No family. We have no ID on her,” the head of the trauma unit explained, and he nodded. There were several unidentified patients at La Pitié that night. Sooner or later, families or friends would look for them, and their identities would be known. It was irrelevant at this point. They were getting the best possible care the city could provide, no matter who they were. They were bodies that had been shattered by a bomb. He had already seen three children die that night, within moments of being brought in, all three burned beyond recognition. The terrorists had done a dastardly thing. The surgeon said he'd be back to check on Carole in an hour. She was in the
réanimation
section of the trauma unit in the meantime, getting the attention of a full team, which was trying desperately to keep her alive and her vital signs stable. She was literally hovering between life and death. The only thing that seemed to have saved her was the alcove she'd been blown into, which had provided an air pocket for her, and a shield against the fire. Otherwise, like so many others, she would have been burned alive.

The neurosurgeon went to get some sleep at noon, on a gurney in a closet. They were treating forty-two patients from the bombing in the tunnel. In all, police at the scene had reported ninety-eight people injured, and they had counted seventy-one bodies so far, and there were still more inside. It had been a long, ugly night.

The doctor was surprised to find Carole still alive when he came back four hours later. Her condition was the same, the respirator was still breathing for her, but another CT scan showed that the swelling to her brain had not worsened, which was a major plus. The worst of her injury seemed to be located in the brain stem. She had sustained a Diffuse Axonal Injury, with minor tears from severe shaking of her brain. And there was no way to assess yet what the long-term effect of it would be. Her cerebrum had also been impacted, which could ultimately compromise her muscles and memory.

The gash on her cheek had been stitched up, and as the neurosurgeon looked at her, he commented to the doctor checking her that she was a good-looking woman. He knew he'd never seen her before, but there was something familiar about her face. He guessed her to be about forty or forty-five years old at most. He was surprised that no one had come looking for her. It was still early. If she lived alone, it could take days for anyone to realize that she was missing. But people didn't stay unidentified forever.

The following day was Saturday, and the trauma unit teams continued to work around the clock. They were able to shift some patients to other units of the hospital, and several were moved by ambulance to special burn centers. Carole remained listed among their most severely injured patients, along with others like her in other hospitals in Paris.

On Sunday her condition grew worse, as she developed a fever, which was to be expected. Her body was in shock, and she was still fighting for her life.

The fever lasted until Tuesday, and then finally subsided. The swelling of her brain improved slightly, as they continued to watch her closely. But she was no nearer to consciousness than she had been when she came in. Her head and arms were bandaged, and her left arm was in a cast. Her cut cheek was healing, although it was going to leave a scar. Their worst concern for her continued to be her brain. They were keeping her sedated, due to the respirator, but even without sedation, she was still in a deep coma. There was no way to assess how great the damage would be to her brain long term, or if she would even live. She wasn't out of the woods yet by any means. Far from it.

On Wednesday and Thursday nothing changed, and she continued to cling to life by a thin thread. On Friday, a full week after she came in, the new CT scans they took looked slightly better, which was encouraging. The head of the trauma unit commented then that she was the only Jane Doe who had not been identified yet. No one had come to claim her, which seemed strange. Everyone else, whether dead or alive, had been identified by then.

On the same day, the day maid who cleaned her room made a comment to the head housekeeper at the Ritz. She said that the woman in Carole's suite hadn't slept there all week. Her handbag and passport were there, and her clothes, but the bed had never been used. She had obviously checked in, and then vanished. The housekeeper didn't find it unusual, since guests sometimes did strange things, like rent a room or a suite, to have a clandestine affair, and only appeared sporadically, rarely, or not at all, if things didn't work out as planned. The only thing that seemed odd to her was that the guest's handbag was there, and her passport was on the desk. Clearly, nothing had been touched since she checked in. Just as a formality, she reported it to the front desk. They made note of the fact, but she had booked the room for two weeks, and they had a credit card to guarantee it. Past her reservation date, they would have been concerned. They were well aware of who she was, and perhaps she never intended to use the room, but just keep it available for some unexplained purpose. Movie stars did strange things. She might have been staying somewhere else. There was no reason to link her to the terrorist attack in the tunnel. But they made a note on her account at the front desk (client has not used room since checked in). That information was, of course, not to be shared with the press, or anyone for that matter. They knew better than that. And her disappearance, if it was that, might well have to do with her love life, and a need for discretion, which was sacred to them. Like all fine hotels, they kept many secrets, and their clients were grateful for it.

It was the following Monday when Jason Waterman called Stevie. He was Carole's first husband, and the father of her children. They were on good terms, but didn't speak often. He told Stevie he had tried for a week to reach Carole on her cell phone, and had gotten no response to the messages he left her. And he had had no better luck when he tried her at the house over the weekend.

“She's away,” Stevie explained. She had met him several times, and he was always pleasant to her. She knew Carole had maintained a good relationship with him, because of their children. They had been divorced for eighteen years, although Stevie didn't know the details. It was one of the few things Carole didn't discuss with her. She just knew they had gotten divorced while Carole was making a movie in Paris eighteen years before, and she had stayed in Paris for two years after, with the kids.

“She has her cell phone with her, and it doesn't work when she's abroad. She left almost two weeks ago. I should be hearing from her soon.” Stevie hadn't heard from her either since the morning she'd arrived in Paris, ten days before, but Carole had warned her that she would be out of touch. Stevie assumed she was either floating around, or writing, and didn't want to be disturbed. Stevie wouldn't dream of bothering her, and waited for Carole to contact her when she was ready.

“Do you know where she is?” He sounded concerned.

“Not really. She started out in Paris, but she was going to do some traveling on her own.” He wondered if she had a new romance, but didn't want to ask. It sounded like that to him. “Is anything wrong?” Stevie suddenly wondered about the kids. Carole would want to know immediately if anything had happened to either of them.

“No, it's not important. I'm trying to make plans for Christmas. I know they're planning to spend Thanksgiving with her, but I wasn't sure what her Christmas plans were. I talked to Anthony and Chloe, and they weren't sure either. Someone offered me a house in St. Bart's over New Year's, and I didn't want to screw up her plans with them.” Particularly now, with Sean gone, the holidays with her children meant more to her than ever. And Jason had always been nice about it. Stevie knew he'd remarried briefly, and had two other kids, who now lived in Hong Kong with their mother and were in their teens. Carole had mentioned that he didn't see them often, only a couple of times a year. He was far closer to his children by Carole, and to her.

“I'll tell her to call you as soon as I hear from her. It shouldn't be long now. I expect to hear from her any day.”

“I hope she wasn't in Paris when that bomb went off in the tunnel. What a mess that was.” It had been all over the news in the States too, and an extremist fundamentalist group had finally claimed responsibility for it, which had caused an outcry in the Arab world too, who in no way wanted to be linked to the perpetrators of the attack.

“It looked pretty awful. I saw it on the news. I worried about it at first, but it was the day she got there. I'm sure she was cozily tucked into the hotel after the flight, and nowhere near it.” Long distance travel usually wore her out, and she often stayed in her room and slept the day she arrived.