Point of Balance by J.G. Jurado

Suit nodded slowly, not convinced.
    â€œDoctor, I now have to ask you to do something uncomfortable.”
    I peered at him in surprise.
    â€œYou don’t often hear that from a Secret Service agent. Sounds more like my proctologist.”
    â€œI need you to lie down on the car floor, for security reasons. The way to the meeting place is classified, and you do not have clearance to know its location.”
    â€œI already know where the White House is, officer. It’s that big place on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
    â€œDoc, we ain’t going to the White House.”
    â€œI don’t care where we’re headed. You will not lay me on the floor like a goddamned mat.”
    The driver pulled the car over and Blue Suit moved from the backseat to the front. They did not repeat the order, they merely sat there and waited. To them, I wasn’t there.
    Although pride made my blood boil, I had little wiggle room to argue in. I had arranged to see Kate at four at St. Clement’s and could not be late. So I reluctantly hunkered down on the floor and the car started off again.
    I wondered whether it was very far to the secret location. And if so, what if I were late for my meeting with Kate? Would I dare call her again and put Julia at risk?
    I was getting more and more uneasy and decided to put such thoughts out of my mind as there was nothing I could do about it just then. I tried to think myself back to calmness by calling to mind the first time I had met my patient three weeks before, with no idea of the can of worms I was getting myself into . . .

11
    If only I had given the little man in the bow tie a more modest answer . . . That was another of the key turning points in my life, but I was too full of adrenaline at the time to notice. I had just come from a complicated operation to remove a lipoma the size of a golf ball and was relishing one of those moments swollen with godhead we neurosurgeons sometimes have and don’t talk about. You walk on sunshine along the corridors on your way to give the relatives the good news, an almighty being with the gift of life. Two things alone kept me going after Rachel’s death: love of Julia and that fleeting and awesome feeling of power. Now that it’s all over, I must confess with shame that I nurtured the latter more than the former. Another entry on my list of regrets.
    I had finished talking to the family and was about ready to take a slide when the little man in the bow tie knocked on my ­consulting-room door. He had wizened skin, tortoiseshell glasses astride a hook nose and an unmistakable professorial air.
    â€œDr. Evans, may I have a word? I don’t have an appointment.”
    He gave me a business card with a university logo , which I am not at liberty to disclose. I invited him to sit down and we had a little polite chitchat before he could bring himself to get down to brass tacks.
    â€œI would like you to take a quick look at this MRI scan, if you would be so kind,” he said, and opened an expensive leather briefcase to hand me a dog-eared envelope.
    I withdrew four large transparencies and put them on the viewbox. I frowned at the sight of the lumpy gray blotch in which I recognized the shape of my oldest and worst enemy.
    â€œFrontoparietal glioblastoma multiforme. A real son of a bitch, it would appear. What’s its growth rate?”
    â€œCheck the dates. The four were taken two days apart.”
    I carefully ordered them by the numbers under the name.
    â€œWho’s the patient?”
    â€œThe husband of a former student of mine. A brilliant and exceptional woman.”
    â€œAnd the physician?”
    â€œI would rather not say. You see, she needs a second opinion and was unable to come to speak to you.”
    I studied the scan for a good while. She needed a second opinion, all right. She wanted somebody to tell her it was all a mistake, that the cancer that was going to kill her husband was