We asked them what kind of a sub, the captain thought, meaning whether it was a nuke or not.  What if they thought we were asking if it was a missile sub?  That makes sense, doesn't it?  Yeah.  A missile sub right off our coast, and all this activity in the North Atlantic.  Christmas season.  Dear God!  If they were going to do it, they'd do it right now, wouldn't they?  He walked down the hall.  A nurse came out of the room with a blood sample to be taken down to the lab.  This was being done hourly, and it left Petchkin alone with the patient for a few minutes.

Tait walked around the corner and saw Petchkin through the window, sitting in a chair at the corner of the bed and watching his countryman, who was still unconscious.  He had on green scrubs.  Made to put on in a hurry, these were reversible, with a pocket on both sides so a surgeon didn't have to waste a second to see if they were inside out.  As Tait watched, Petchkin reached for something through the low collar.

"Oh, God!"  Tait raced around the corner and shot through the swinging door.  Petchkin's look of surprise changed to amazement as the doctor batted a cigarette and lighter from his hand, then to outrage as he was lifted from his chair and flung towards the door.  Tait was the smaller of the two, but his sudden burst of energy was sufficient to eject the man from the room.  "Security!" Tait screamed.

"What is the meaning of this?" Petchkin demanded.  Tait was holding him in a bearhug.  Immediately he heard feet racing down the hall from the lobby.

"What is it, sir?"  A breathless marine lance corporal with a .45 Colt in his right hand skidded to a halt on the tile floor.

"This man just tried to kill my patient!"

"What!"  Petchkin's face was crimson.

"Corporal, your post is now at that door.  If this man tries to get into that room, you will stop him any way you have to.  Understood?"

"Aye aye, sir!" the corporal looked at the Russian.  "Sir, would you please step away from the door?"

"What is the meaning of this outrage!"

"Sir, you will step away from the door, right now."  The marine holstered his pistol.

"What is going on here?"  It was Ivanov, who had sense enough to ask this question in a quiet voice from ten feet away.

"Doctor, do you want your sailor to survive or not?" Tait asked, trying to calm himself.

"What—of course we wish him to survive.  How can you ask this?"

"Then why did Comrade Petchkin just try to kill him?"

"I did not do such a thing!" Petchkin shouted.

"What did he do, exactly?" Ivanov asked.