SAINT-JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL, SHORTRIDGE – A WEEK LATER

Freddy Falco was an average man of average height with an average face. No one ever suspected men like him of foul play. Besides, a name as ordinary as Freddy Falco suggested nothing remarkable. It wasn’t his real name, of course, but he had long since grown accustomed to it.

It was a warm but cloudy day in Shortridge. Falco’s black attire stood out amid the pastel summer clothes around him, yet he wore black trousers and satin shirts on every occasion.

He passed through the automatic revolving doors of Saint-Joseph’s Hospital. The entrance hall was nearly deserted — only the receptionist at her desk and a nurse assisting visitors at the self-service kiosk. Crowded spaces made operations easier and escape simpler, but sparse ones did not deter Falco. He adapted to any circumstance.

The previous day he had visited a workwear shop in Shortridge. The friendly saleswoman had taken an instant liking to the polite, slender man in black. He explained that he was a nurse starting at the hospital the following week. Since her shop was local, he asked if she could help. There had been a fifty-fifty chance she stocked Saint-Joseph’s uniforms, and Falco’s guess proved correct. Luck was on his side: the owner had a set in his size, no measurements or delays required.

He carried the freshly ironed hospital outfit, sealed in airtight plastic, inside his old-fashioned brown leather briefcase. To any observer he resembled a businessman arriving for an appointment or to visit a relative. He crossed the hall calmly and slipped behind the door to the men’s restroom in the corridor. In an empty corner cubicle, he changed into the uniform. From his briefcase he retrieved a small rectangular box and slid it into his coat pocket. He folded his own clothes neatly, placed them back in the briefcase, and wedged the case into the narrow gap between the cubicle partition and the concrete wall. Then he left the restroom and followed the signs to the lifts.

The ward was on the third floor. The place buzzed with activity — far livelier than the foyer below — which immediately put Falco at ease. Nurses hurried along the corridor, pushing trolleys laden with medicines and meals. No one paid particular attention to the new arrival with his pointed nose and neatly trimmed toothbrush moustache.

A sign above the entrance indicated that rooms 80 to 89 lay down the hallway. At the far end stood a policeman. Falco suspected he was guarding room 87 — the one he sought. As he considered how to deal with the guard, he spotted an abandoned empty stretcher near the lifts. He seized it quickly and wheeled it forward.

He knew the rooms flanking 87 — home to a special patient — had been cleared, yet staff could still enter them if needed, and the policeman could hardly prevent that.

“Excuse me, Officer?” Falco called as he approached.

“Could you open this door for me, please? The stretcher’s blocking the passage. I’d like to store it in here temporarily,” he said in his brightest, most cheerful tone.

The officer hesitated. A male nurse speaking Anglo-Saxon surprised him, though it was hardly unheard of these days. The stretcher did obstruct the corridor, and he had no desire to antagonise hospital staff. He unlocked room 85 and stepped inside as Falco clumsily manoeuvred the stretcher forward, effectively trapping him.

The room was empty, as expected, with space for another bed. Falco positioned the stretcher against the wall and asked the guard to assist in securing it properly. The policeman sighed but complied, bending slightly to inspect the mechanism.

“Where’s the pedal?” he asked, his Gallic accent thick.

“Right here,” Falco replied, circling behind him under the pretence of pointing it out. In one swift motion he wrapped an arm around the officer’s neck in a firm chokehold. The man struggled briefly before going limp. Falco hoisted the unconscious body onto the stretcher and secured him with his own handcuffs to the side rails. No one had seen or heard; Falco slipped out quietly, closing the door behind him.

He entered ward 87 next. The spacious double room held only one patient, asleep on a central stretcher. Falco locked the door — a precaution rendered unnecessary by the patient’s VIP status.

The VIP patient was professor and virologist Martin Von Rotten. The notorious healthcare guru whose draconian pandemic measures had made life unbearable for Gauls: strict distancing, bans on visiting dying relatives in care homes. Gauls despised him more than their own Minister of Public Health, who merely followed Von Rotten’s directives — orders that came ultimately from von der Lügen. Death threats had followed; Von Rotten now had personal protection, with only one doctor and one nurse permitted access.

Falco glanced at the wall schedule: the nurse had already visited and marked the time in black. She would not return for three hours unless summoned. He intended to ensure no summons came.

The stretcher had restraint straps. Falco approached quietly, fastening them loosely around Von Rotten’s wrists so as not to wake him. Then, with a single tug, he tightened them.

The virologist jolted awake. “What’s going on? Where’s Doctor Hoffmann?” he demanded in Gallic, disoriented.

“Careful, Professor Von Rotten, or you’ll tear your stitches,” Falco replied in Anglo-Saxon, pressing a gleaming scalpel — slid from his sleeve — against the man’s neck. “And if you make noise, I’ll have to hurt you.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” Von Rotten whispered, eyes bulging in terror.

“I’m neither friend nor foe, Professor — as long as you cooperate.”

“You won’t get away with this! My guard will return soon, and Doctor Hoffmann will check on me,” Von Rotten hissed, saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth.

“Your guard is… indisposed. And I know Hoffmann visits in the afternoons. We have time to talk uninterrupted.” Falco secured the ankle straps as he spoke.

“Now, Professor. Where is my translator?”

“What translator? I have no idea what you mean!”

“You’re lying. And I don’t have time for games.” Falco snatched a bandage roll from the overbed table and stuffed it into Von Rotten’s mouth. He opened the black box from his pocket, revealing two syringes.

“I knew you wouldn’t talk willingly. I can’t blame you — the scandal would be catastrophic if the public learned of your government’s conspiracy. Picture the outrage: an artificial virus engineered in Gomorian labs, unleashed worldwide so Gomorian pharmaceuticals could profit from their untested vaccines. And that wasn’t enough — Gomorian and Judean intelligence demanded a bioweapon variant. They called it the Equalizer.”

He paused, letting the words sink in.

“The Equalizer was tested on unsuspecting volunteers who lined up at vaccination centres. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? Except I’m an intelligence agent, and I know it’s real. Many injected with it died in agony; survivors were isolated under virologists like you.”

Von Rotten’s eyes were bloodshot, sweat streaming down his face. He knew an insider had betrayed them.

“These are two syringes,” Falco continued. “One holds the Equalizer; the other, a new antidote.” He drew one syringe close to Von Rotten’s arm. The professor thrashed violently, muffled moans escaping the gag as he tried to scream.

Falco held the arm steady and injected the contents into the vein.

Von Rotten’s muffled cries turned to sobs. Fever surged through him almost instantly; he lost control of his bladder, soaking the sheets. Falco removed the gag carefully.

“I can stop this,” he said softly, almost kindly, “but I need your help. So again: where is my translator?”

“Please… I can’t! You don’t know who they are, what they’ll do to me!” Von Rotten whimpered, tears rimming his red eyes.

“I know exactly who they are, Professor. Whatever they might do pales beside what awaits you without the antidote. Nausea first, then vomiting — everything from yesterday, then breakfast. When that’s gone, bile, hour after hour. Then blood. But why explain? You’ve witnessed it yourself, haven’t you?”

“I’ll tell you,” Von Rotten rasped, swallowing painfully, throat raw.

The translator was held in an abandoned building on the border with the Low Lands, twenty kilometres outside Vale near the nuclear plants — no formal address, untraceable by GPS.

Falco replaced the gag. “You deserve to suffer for what you’ve done, Professor. But my mission doesn’t include your death. The contrast agent[1] will pass after a few trips to the bathroom. Consider this a warning: stay out of my sight forever. No one meets me twice and lives.”

He tossed the box with the remaining syringe onto Von Rotten’s chest and left the room swiftly, the professor trembling on sweat- and urine-soaked sheets.

Falco retraced his path to the ground floor. Visitor numbers had increased in the entrance hall. The restroom cubicle remained empty; he changed back quickly, dumped the uniform in the bin by the sink, and walked out unperturbed through the main doors.

[1] A substance used to increase the contrast of structures or fluids within the body in medical imaging, like X-ray, CT, or MRI.