missions – of the Bulls and the Poets – he needs to take Alexandra Stern from Moscow to Tokyo, where the Rote Stier team will arrive a week after the Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit – that he, obviously, wouldn’t make it to. He needs to do it himself as to not involve other agents or cause suspicion – and he will figure out how to explain the situation to Stern. He was instructed to take Fisher along – and work it out himself how he would arrange the absence of the radio engineer at the paddock as the team prepares for the weekend.
Richard understood that Dario Fisher was assigned to him so he would learn everything faster … The decision to brief Fisher on the Poets mission was left to Richard’s discretion – as he was answerable for the consequences with his own head.
He asserted to the Circus that the injury was minor, that he’s moving around the hospital room freely and there’s no danger; he thanked the team director Christian and assured him that he would not make any comments to the press or anyone else; to the head mechanic, Phil, he texted that he’ll skip the weekend and won’t risk jeopardizing the team with a hole in his flank, even if he escapes the hospital room to see Singapore – not just through the panoramic window; to the other colleagues who asked about his health he replied that he was alive and would be working fit in no time. The explanation as to why Dario Fisher is staying at the hospital came quickly: the team leaves no one behind.
With effort, Richard managed to pull his jeans on, he had even more troubles putting on his shoes … He stood in front of the window and looked at the light-flecked city, at the futuristic jungle, but was seeing something else.
He won’t be able to call her … He spent such a long time hiding from himself the fact that he can’t – build anew, this albedo castle of white marble, for himself, for the two of them. At the beginning of the year he was full of enthusiasm, of hope, he was sure he’ll make it – that nothing can stop them from being together, no intelligence services, no pseudo-alchemists and pseudo-poets, no force – of order, chaos, evil, good.
Now doubts crept in – that he was no Poet, that everything’s coming back on the trodden tracks of him running in circles, like a well-groomed beast, fulfilling orders, jumping through fiery hoops … He’ll be killed – before he has time to do anything; he’ll be killed – and he’ll never even learn what it’s like to be the architect of one’s universe.
He feared that with each day of delay, with each day of separation, they were drifting apart from each other, and he was drifting away from himself. At times, it felt like the opposite – that they were connected like never before and that he could feel her through the distance, even without their calls – sparse, spontaneous, when he had the chance, when she did …
He often imagined that she was next to him and perfectly aware of everything, that he wasn’t alone.
Wasn’t alone. So odd – he only started thinking about loneliness when he suddenly realized how good it is to have a kindred soul. Alexandra wasn’t the only person whom Richard – to his own surprise – missed.
The phone came to life in his hand, the message and its sender could not have come at a better time.
‘You can take whatever you need for the construction of the castle with you. Whatever you don’t need, leave here.’ There it is, the sign from above – even if the sender was a man formally considered dead by MI6, and the coincidence in which Richard only had to think of him to get an instant message seemed incredible.
“Dario!” he called.
Fisher came instantly, as if he had been standing behind the door and waiting until he would be called for.
“We’re flying to Moscow in two hours, distract the staff so I can leave the hospital. I’ll meet you down at the entrance.”
Dario nodded and left the hospital room without a word.
He somewhat reminded Richard of himself – ready to do anything if it was ordered by one of the chiefs. He had to admit – in certain scenarios, it was impossible not to take advantage of that.
4. Good Doctor
Adam Bradshaw’s two-week vacation was ending, he was about to check in for his flight to Dubai – the stop-over on his way to Washington – with the total duration of the flight being around a day.
He didn’t feel energetic or refreshed, his skin was still aching and peeling from the Singapore sun, he was drinking a lot and laying next to the hotel pool. He wanted a change of scenery, and he got it, but now he needed to go back to Baltimore.
Adam had no idea what he was going to do next. The scandal after which he was forced out of his position as the chief physician of the rehabilitation department at Johns Hopkins Hospital divided his life into ‘before’ and ‘after,’ and ‘after’ was utter uncertainty. The fact that a few months ago his wife had left him seemed a smaller catastrophe – though only recently he thought that there could be nothing worse.
His medical license was revoked – and that means he won’t be accepted to any other hospital, he can’t even continue his private practice. The world is full of injustice, and yet Adam Bradshaw for some reason never thought about revenge or giving evil back to evil.
He was often told that there are very few altruists like him – because they are the first to die. No wonder they called him ‘good Dr. Bradshaw’ or simply the Good Doctor6.
He entered medical care not because he wanted to be a hero and save people – but because everyone in his family was a doctor, he never even considered an alternative: not a surgeon, not a paramedic, not a dentist – specifically a general practitioner, a multi-discipline specialist who cared for his patients over a long period.
When recovered patients and their happy relatives thanked him, he always replied that he was simply doing his job. When he detected a problem in time and referred a patient to the more specialized doctor, all the glory went to star surgeons, cardiologists, psychiatrists …
He never tried to take his father’s place – the former chief rehabilitation physician whose decades of leadership had maintained phenomenal order in the department with a team of physiotherapists, neurologists, psychologists – but naturally became his replacement. Adam’s father was three years dead, his mother was quick to follow. Adam hardly visited them in that time, his family life was falling apart at the seams, he and Eve kept fighting all the time, kept breaking up and coming back together, he went into debt to renovate the apartment, tried his best – but, for her, nothing was ever enough …
Even on the day of his mother’s funeral, she nagged him, complaining that she had married a general practitioner instead of some plastic surgeon from Mount Royal Terrace.
When it came to selling his family’s apartment, he refused.
The picture-perfect family life was a cardboard backdrop that Eve – there was a good chance that the reason was the compatibility of their names – wanted. She allowed herself tantrums that he chose to endure – to keep their crumbling, hole-ridden boat afloat, she always excused herself with good intentions and always put the blame on him.
Only when she left did he suddenly realize she was nothing but a manipulator that twisted the truth inside out, and her truth was never the truth … It was as if he had gone through abstinence syndrome, purified his body of her venom, so when she suddenly called him, bawling into the phone, obviously drunk and claimed to miss him, he, contrary to her expectations, didn’t fall for her trick.
He suddenly understood that if he takes her words in good faith now, all of it will happen again – the chidings, his self-loathing, her tantrums, and the revulsion of her infidelity.
She left him for his colleague, a cardiac surgeon, who ended