Chapter 10

Alan sat in the chair Amita had vacated and gazed at Charlie for a few moments. Charlie had passed out from the pain, but was now breathing easily and deeply. Alan hoped he was just sleeping. Finally Alan looked up at Larry. "I have no idea what that was all about. Why was Don so anxious to leave?"

"Perhaps he wanted to get your suitcases out of the car?" Larry suggested, glancing at Agent Reid.

"Probably. He is very concerned about security. And after whatever went on between him and Dr. House, he probably needed to get out of here for a while."

Dr. Cameron entered the room, and looked with surprise at Alan. "Hi, I'm Dr. Cameron," she said as Alan stood to greet her. "Please, don't get up."

"I'm Charlie's father, Alan," he said as he sat back down.

"All the way from California, this quickly?" Cameron said, surprised.

"My older son was fortunate to book us on a flight right away. He's gone to wherever it is we're staying. Amita's showing him the way. He should be back shortly. He, ah, had a little disagreement with Dr. House."

Cameron laughed. "So he's the one! I heard about it through the grapevine. I wish I'd seen it."

"He's the one who what? We didn't follow them after he dragged Dr. House from the room."

"From what I heard, your son slammed House against the wall and read him the riot act."

Larry nodded, "That sounds like something Don would do. Given what Dr. House did to poor Charles..."

Cameron nodded, "I heard about that, too. He was testing for rebound tenderness. It's very painful. Your son has peritonitis, an infection of the peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity. When you press on the abdomen and release the pressure suddenly, the peritoneum rebounds, and the pain can be excruciating."

"But he did that – he hurt Charlie – to get him to admit he lied. Why would he do such a thing?" Alan asked, his voice trembling.

"I won't try to defend Dr. House's methods, but I will tell you he is the best in this country, probably in the world. Your son is lucky he was brought to us."

"Lucky," Alan said softly.

Cameron smiled. "He's also lucky to have such devoted friends and family, Mr. Eppes." She held up two syringes. "I'm here to start Charlie on a couple of new antibiotics. Dr. House isn't happy with the progress of the other two he's been on." She injected the antibiotics into the IV port. "This first one should help clear up the peritonitis. We're hoping the second one will attack the original infection."

"But you don't know for sure?" Alan asked.

"No, we don't. Because we haven't figured out exactly what's wrong with Charlie, we're taking a few educated guesses. It's important that we start treatment immediately and some of the tests we're running take days to produce an answer." She took Charlie's temperature. Alan could tell from her expression that it wasn't good. "We're going to have to start sponging Charlie off to try to get his temperature down. I'll send in a nurse."

Don pulled his rental car into the parking area behind the Peacock Inn. He smiled at Amita. "Charlie picked out a great place. We can walk back to the hospital from here." He unlocked the trunk and took out the two suitcases. Amita grabbed the carry ons along with Charlie's computer bag. Ms. Lindsay looked up from her desk as they entered. "Dr. Ramanujan! How is the conference going?"

"Not so great, Ms. Lindsay. This is Don Eppes, Charlie's brother. Charlie's in the hospital."

"Oh, dear! What happened?"

"We're not sure. He collapsed during his presentation. Dr. Fleinhardt is with him now, along with Charlie's dad. Don and Mr. Eppes will be staying in Charlie's room, if that's okay."

"Oh, that will be fine. I'm afraid we're booked for next week though."

"I hope we'll all be back in California by then," Don said.

Ms. Lindsay blushed, "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to sound ... well, if you do end up having to stay in Princeton, for whatever reason, I will help you find suitable accommodations. If I have a cancellation, you can stay. And please, let me know if there's anything I can do to help. You look beat, and I'll bet you haven't had a decent meal all day, either of you. Would you like me to have the kitchen fix something for you?"

Don glanced at Amita and said, "That would be wonderful. Don't have them go to a lot of trouble, okay? Sandwiches would be fine. And coffee. Lots of coffee."

Ms. Lindsay smiled, "Would you like me to make up the pull out bed in Dr. Eppes's room for you and your father?"

Don smiled, "Thank you, but I think we'll be staying at the hospital for the rest of tonight anyway."

"I'll just put some bedding in there, so you can make it up if you do decide to come back. Do you have Dr. Eppes' key?"

Amita rummaged in the computer bag and held up Charlie's room key.

"Wonderful. I'll give you a spare in case you and your father come in and out separately. And would you mind filling in a registration card?"

Don filled in the card, got the key, and let Amita lead him to Charlie's room. He unlocked the door, and put out a hand to hold Amita back. "Does it look like anybody's been in here?"

Amita looked around, trying to remember what it looked like when she has last seen it over eighteen hours ago. "It looks like the housekeeper was in here, so it's hard to say."

Don nodded and let her lead the way into the room. She opened the drawers and examined their contents. She checked his suitcase. "It looks like he left some papers here." She lifted out some folders. "These papers don't belong in this file. They're part of his cognitive emergence work. They go in this folder."

"How good is he about keeping his folders organized?" Don asked. "I mean, I've seen his office, and organization doesn't seem to be his strong suit."

Amita laughed. "Well, if it's in a folder, it's going to be in the right one. When he bothers to put stuff away, he puts it in the right place."

"Can you tell if anything is missing?"

"There's no way I'd know. I don't know what he brought."

"Okay. Well, I'm making this up as I go, but so far my plan is to call and check his cell phone records. I'm hoping we can figure out where he was last week. While I'm doing that, you'll break into his computer and see what work he's done between the time he left LA and today."

"Don, breaking into Charlie's computer is not going to be easy. His encryption, especially on his government work is the best."

"If anyone can do it, Amita, you can. You've worked with him. You've probably even helped him develop his security applications." He smiled as Amita shrugged noncommittally. "Don't tell me about it. Just find me something that will tell me where he was and where the anthrax came from."

"Okay, he's given me access to a lot of areas on his computer. And that stuff would be very hard for anyone else to hack. I'm hoping once I've gotten this far, the steps to the secret stuff won't be as hard. He's let me in the front door. Now I just have to crack the safe." She sat down on the sofa and took Charlie's computer out of his briefcase.

Don sat on the sofa, took out his cell phone and dialed. "Megan, I'm sorry to call you so late... I know... " he sighed, "He's not doing too well. They need to know where he was last week. He claims he was in Washington, but the doctors believe he was out of the country... Yeah... I need his cell phone records, and I don't know... Yeah, thanks." He looked at his watch. "You're still in the office? What's up?... Come on, you can tell me. I promise I won't rush back... Okay. Of course you can handle it... Okay, thanks." He hung up and turned to Amita. "She'll call me back. How's it going?"

"Don!" Amita said, shaking her head. "It's going to take me longer than that!"

"Anything I can do to help?" Don asked.

She shook her head. "Just hope they get here with the coffee soon."

"Can you give me a layman's explanation of what's involved? You know, 'computers for dummies?"

"You're no dummy, Don.. But the simple explanation is that Charlie's computer changes all the data to a code. To change it back, we need the key to the code, and that key is a very long sequence of numbers, letters and special characters."

"So it's not exactly like your four digit PIN number for your debit card."

Amita laughed. "Not exactly."

Don shook his head, "So how do you figure out what he used? It seems like it would be pretty much impossible to guess what sequence he'd use. I mean, it's not like Charlie would have to use something that I'd find easy to remember, like birthdays, old phone numbers, that kind of thing. He remembers numbers."

"Yes, he does," Amita said. "But remember he always says that that people who are trying to do things randomly will fail. Even Charlie can be predictable, especially to someone who knows him, who knows his work."

"Charlie? Predictable?" Don laughed.

There was a knock at the door. Don opened the door to see a young man holding a large tray. "Hi, Mr. Eppes? Ms. Lindsay asked me to bring this up to you."

"Thanks. Hey, that smells good," Don said, stepping back to let the young man into the room. He set the tray on the table. "I'm sorry it isn't much. Ms. Lindsay said to get you something fast. And she wanted me to let you know there's no charge. Okay, we've got a couple of roast beef sandwiches, a couple of turkey sandwiches. There's a couple of salads. I gave you an assortment of dressings, 'cause I didn't know what you like. And some fruit and cookies for dessert. And coffee. She said you wanted lots of coffee, so I brought two carafes."

"Wow," Don said, "that's amazing. Tell Ms. Lindsay we really appreciate this."

"Great, I will. And if you need anything else, the extension in the kitchen is 230. We'll be here a little while longer, getting ready for the morning crew. Don't hesitate to call us! This is a lot more fun than scouring the oven."

Don laughed. "I can appreciate that."

The young man took his leave, and Don and Amita took a much needed break.