Chapter 43

I was the only one who knew Carmen on sight, so I was rushed to the middle of the cruise docks. The Judge had the driver drop me and leave to take him to the command post to direct the activity. It also got him conveniently far from the germ if it were to go airborne, but I doubt he was thinking of himself right then.

Carmen was going to stand out because she looked out of place everywhere. It wasn't like she could blend in anywhere. Her stench alone would give her away as the net closed in on her. I worked my way towards the terminal, because I fully expected she would plant the device in the bathrooms where people came and went constantly. With her body odor, she couldn't disappear in the ladies room any more than she could in a back alley.

I was given an ear piece and mic which clipped on my shirt just below my throat, and I spoke to the command post as I moved through the crowd. "We're looking for a mid-twenties, white female, that is roughly one-hundred and eighty pounds and stands a little over five-foot four. Her hair was black this afternoon, but could have been changed and even be purple, but her stench is awful, and people will automatically recoil if she is in the same vicinity.

"She will be in possession of a glass vial of germs and a simple miniature, muffin fan mechanism that delivers the mist throughout the restroom, but she will want to plant the device inside the toilet paper roll, and she has keys to all the major commercial toilet paper fixtures. She can go in a stall, close the door, and plant the germ without anyone seeing a thing.

"She's completely crazy. Don't take a chance on giving her any benefit of the doubt. If it's possible to get me to her, there is a chance I could talk her down, but it's only a chance. Carmen is somewhat fixated on me and might let me through her damaged psyche long enough to allow you to take her."

I approached the terminal restrooms and had a lady officer go with me. She chased everyone out and I broke open each toilet paper fixture but found no device. As we walked out, I spied a loose ceiling tile and hopped up on the vanity to check it out. As I lifted the tile, something heavy struck me in the face, hard.

As I fell back, my backup drew her weapon and shouted into her walkie-talkie that we had a violent encounter in the ladies restroom.

The force of the blow was sufficient to disorient me, and the only thing I was capable of doing was maintaining my balance and that was slipping away. The blood from the cut on my forehead was flowing very heavily, and I found staying on my feet was becoming less possible all the time. As I fought for balance, the doors flew open, and cops poured into the bathroom.

The first cop through dove straight up into the ceiling tiles and took on my attacker. There was too much blood in my eyes to see well enough to know if it was Carmen, or another of Othneal's charges. Whoever it was fought like a tiger against the officer.

When I tried to step down, I lost my footing and nearly lost consciousness at the same time, and I toppled to the floor. I heard a woman gasp and squeal and thought it sounded like Carmen, so I pretended to be hurt much worse than I was to see if she would forget about fighting to try and help me.

It worked.

Carmen dropped down out of the ceiling and tried to get to me to give me comfort, but the team piled on her like she was a half-back and this was the Super Bowl. I could hear her shouting for them to let her help me, but that wasn't about to happen.

Another officer helped me up when she saw I was struggling to rise, and together we approached Carmen. She was literally foaming at the mouth, as she fought like a trapped bear. When the cops had her pinned down, I had them rip her outer layers off and look for the device.

It wasn't on her.

"Carmen," I asked as gently as I could. "Where did you plant the poison? Where is it, Carmen?"

She looked at me as if she'd never seen me before, then seemed to return to planet Earth for a little while. "I hid it just like Othneal said. I hid it good." She was not in control of herself, and time was running out.

"Carmen, you hurt me. Do you see all this blood? I have to get to a hospital before I bleed to death. You need to tell them where you planted the poison so they can let me go to the hospital, or I'll die..."

She watched me sag as if I was very seriously injured, and with all the blood, it looked like I was. The injuries were having the right effect on Carmen, she kept looking at my bloody face and cringing, and I kept asking where to find the poison.

We were literally running out of time, and I knew I had to do something radical or we'd all be infected and die. "Carmen, you said you wanted to have sex with me. You promised we could do anything I wanted, then you hit me with a metal bar, and now you want to hurt me again. What's going on here? I thought we had something good?"

She stopped struggling when I talked about having sex. I could see her thinking it over, and coming to a conclusion. I only hoped it was the right one.

"I had to do what Othneal said. Othneal takes care of me. He told me I could have sex with you and Amy, but we didn't get to do it. I didn't want to hurt you. Joe I am so sorry. I can kiss your hurt and help fix it. Do you want me to kiss your hurts?"

"Carmen, I want you to tell me where you put the little fan. Then we can talk about sex, Ok?" She struggled with countermanding orders and finally cracked.

"I put it in the little men's room, on the far side, by the big windows, because I could see the sky when I came out and it made me feel good. Nobody even looked at me when I walked in. It was like I was invisible. I like the blue fans, Joe. They are pretty. I like the blue sky, and the fan reminds of the sky. Othneal never let me out to look at the sky, so I had to imagine it in my head. But I looked at the sky all the way down here, and it was blue, just like the little fan..."

She continued to talk, apparently having completely lost her mind. The stench was brutal, and as she descended further and further into mental illness, her features softened, and her speech regressed until she sounded like a six year old.

The officers had apparently located the device and secured it, according to the voices in my ear piece, and a squad of officers came in with medical people to remove Carmen. She was going away fast. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that she was catatonic before midnight. Her mind was almost completely gone.

Another group of medical people came in to tend to my injury, and when the lead paramedic gently removed the blood from my forehead, he told me I had a very bad cut, with bone showing through. No wonder it hurt so badly. They brought in a stretcher and convinced me to lie down while they treated me.

By the time The Judge showed up, I was heavily bandaged and feeling woozy from the loss of blood. That was to be expected, and as the medics moved me to the ambulance, The Judge walked along and said, "You have a knack for saving our operations. I can't ever thank you enough, but I suspect the President will want something to say about it, so stand by for a summons to sixteen-hundred.