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SEA OF SHADOWS 183
released by Tuesday at the latest. No one even knew to look for him until
Wednesday. He was well and truly gone by then.”
“I thought so too,” Harrington said. “And apparently, so did everyone
else, since the American police reports don’t mention a follow-up with the
hospital that treated Hamid’s appendicitis.”
“You can’t blame anyone for that,” Keating said. “With a few
thousand leads to track down, that would have been at the bottom of my
priority list too.”
“Have another look at the transcript of the interview with the shift
supervisor at WizardClean,” Harrington said. “Mr. Hamid tried to ignore
the pain and complete his shift. The supervisor attributed Hamid’s
tenacity to cultural machismo, but he was wrong. Hamid expected to be
dead in a few hours from exposure to the T2 mycotoxin. And, after all,
what are a few hours of agony when one is about to sit at the right hand of
Allah?”
“All right,” Keating said. “Hamid tried to tough his way through. But
his body was obviously weaker than his spirit, because he collapsed. What
does that tell us that we didn’t know before?”
“Perhaps nothing,” Harrington said. “But how long did Hamid suffer
before he collapsed? How long did he manage to hide his pain before it
got the better of him?”
“I have no idea,” Keating said. “Does it matter?”
“It may. I believe that Mr. Hamid may have held out long enough for
his appendix to burst. And the recovery period for that is not two or three
days, but three weeks or more. If I’m right, Hamid is flat on his back in a
hospital bed somewhere. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to find out which
bed and which hospital.”
“I understand,” Keating said. “I’m on it.”