Trauma (30 page)

He was awake for this procedure, kept comfortable with just the right amount of propofol. That way, Dr. Finley could monitor the patient's motor status directly and also use the electrode recording techniques that signaled their specific placement. They were a team now, Dr. Alistair Finley and Dr. Carrie Bryant. They were able to carry out the extended, time-consuming procedure with little back-and-forth dialogue, as if they were reading each other's thoughts, despite the fact that they had worked together on only a handful of cases.

Evan Navarro's presence was as innocuous as the familiar sounds of the operating room machinery. Maybe the choice of music helped Carrie block out the unpleasant distraction. Gerald Wright was also a jazz fan, and he had requested Bill Evans's
Portrait in Jazz
for his big day in the OR. The melodies reminded Carrie of her life at BCH, and friends like Valerie, with whom she was no longer in touch. Even in the Facebook era, friendships forged at work faded quickly once that bond was broken. But now she had a new community, a new team she counted on and who counted on her.

“Are you doing all right, Carrie?”

Carrie's focus had been so total that Dr. Finley repeated himself.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Why?”

“You're about to go off your line by about three micrometers. Do you need a rest?”

“I'm sorry,” Carrie said. “Maybe just a minute and some water.”

Navarro's black eyes seemed to be smiling.

Carrie was not 100 percent, and Dr. Finley seemed to know it. A thin film of grit blanketed her eyes, left behind from a bad night's sleep plagued by nightmares of men chasing her in the dark. Adam had crashed on the couch watching TV, and Carrie woke him by accident getting ready for work.

Yesterday's fight was in the past. He had smiled warmly at her and wished her a good day without having read the long note of apology Carrie had left on the kitchen table. Seeing Navarro's wicked look made Carrie more willing to believe her brother. Could Evan Navarro have been in her bedroom? Could Goodwin have put him up to it? And if so, why? Carrie had a gut feeling that bugging Goodwin's office would get her some answers.

After a short break, Carrie resumed her work. Dr. Finley recorded the electrical discharge patterns as Carrie sank the electrodes on the sweet spot. Navarro did not stay for the entire show. Evidently, he had made his point and was off to other things. Soon enough he, or one of his residents, would be looking in on Gerald Wright, and Carrie would probably never see this patient again. Even if everything that had been happening lately had a logical explanation, Carrie doubted she could continue to work under such rigid constraints.

In total, it took seven hours to drill the holes and close up the skull, and in that time Carrie developed knots in her shoulders the size of walnuts.

“You seemed a little off today,” Dr. Finley said back in the scrub room. “You sure everything is okay?”

“Navarro had me a bit rattled,” Carrie replied.

“Well, leave that to me. I'm going to speak with Sandra right now. That won't happen again, I assure you.”

Carrie went to the locker room to take a shower and get changed. After that, she stopped by the hospital cafeteria for her second coffee of the day. Next, it was on to the front desk where Carrie would arrange a temporary ID for David Hoffman. They had settled on the ruse that he was a medical student coming to the VA tonight to help with some research. To keep their activities as covert as possible, David asked Carrie to use an alias, and she picked “Michael Stephen,” which were the first two names that had popped into her head.

She texted David her chosen moniker and headed to an on-call room to grab a few hours of shut-eye on the narrow, industrial bed before Mission Possible commenced.

Carrie's cell phone buzzed in her lab coat pocket, which she assumed was David responding. She checked the number, but did not recognize the caller.

“Hello, Dr. Carrie Bryant speaking.”

“Dr. Bryant, I'm Dr. Abbey Smerling from Seacoast Memorial Hospital in Maine.”

Carrie's entire body came alive. “Yes, Dr. Smerling. What can I do for you?”

“You placed a call regarding a patient, Dr. Sam Rockwell, and asked to be notified if there were any developments.”

Carrie braced for the news to come. A potential link to the mystery of what might have happened to Abington and Fasciani had probably just died.

“Yes, that's correct,” Carrie said.

“Well, I have some good news to share.”

This was what Carrie had hoped for. It was common practice for doctors to share patient information with other doctors irrespective of the new privacy laws. Some habits were harder to break than others.

Dr. Smerling said, “The brain swelling had begun to recede, so we lightened up the coma to see if he could come back.”

“And?”

“And we got something,” Dr. Smerling said. “A lot more than we expected.”

 

CHAPTER 40

At precisely seven o'clock that evening, David arrived at the VA ready to get to work. As far as he knew, Carrie was already on the road, headed back to Maine. She had called with the exciting news about Sam Rockwell and suggested they reschedule tonight's activities, but David saw no need. He could get the job done as long as Carrie did her part to help.

At the front desk David almost forgot to use the alias “Michael Stephen,” but remembered at the last possible second, before the conversation with the receptionist turned decidedly awkward. Carrie had assured him nobody would ask for ID, and she was right. Even so, for backup, David had printed a bogus one using a template procured off the Internet, and had it laminated for authenticity. It proved an unnecessary precaution, but David seldom left anything to chance.

“Here you go, dear,” the kind-faced receptionist said as she handed David his temporary badge.

One obstacle cleared,
thought David.

He headed to the third floor, following a rudimentary map drawn from Carrie's brief description of the hospital layout. Walking these institutionalized halls, David felt suffocated at the thought of having to work in such an antiseptic environment. Journalistic stringers were free spirits, and David relished the uncertainty of his chosen profession. He was all about new possibilities, and shied away from anything that could anchor him—a permanent job, a mortgage, a car, material possessions, and yes, even love. He often wondered if the issues between him and Emma were a product of mismatched pheromones or his wandering spirit. Guarded as he was, something told David one kiss from Carrie Bryant might be enough to tame his wanderlust permanently.

Carrie's office was third to the last down a long hallway lined with ordinary wooden doors without any markings on them. She had left the door unlocked, as she said she would, and David went inside.

His first impression was that Carrie essentially worked in a closet. His prison cell in Syria had been only slightly bigger. She had enough room for a chair and a metal desk, which Carrie wisely kept uncluttered. A small, square window offered a narrow view of a gritty construction effort under way. All in all, David found it a depressing place. He much preferred the dangers of the field.

Carrie had left a pair of scrubs on the door hook, and they fit David fine. He turned the lock on the doorknob before he closed the door, and checked the hallway to make sure nobody was coming. Carrie had rightly said most everyone would be gone by now, and the halls were museum-quiet.

From the pocket of his pants David retrieved a leather case that contained a tension wrench and set of picks. He tested his picking chops on Carrie's door. It was open in less than a minute. Having worked in dangerous locales over the years, David had acquired a unique set of unsavory skills. In addition to picking locks, forging documents, and planting bugs, David was competent with a gun and could also hot-wire some cars.

Returning to the main hallway, David passed a few people on his way to Goodwin's office, but nobody gave him a second glance. The modest disguise more than sufficed.

Following Carrie's directions, David took a right turn at the first hallway branch, and stopped at a door with a mounted placard that read:
DR. SANDRA L. GOODWIN, CHIEF OF NEUROSURGERY, M.D.

David put his ear to the door and gave a listen. Not a sound. He gave the knob a gentle turn. Locked.
Good.
David had the door open in less time than it had taken him to manipulate the pins on Carrie's lock. He entered quickly, closed and locked the door behind him, and flicked on the light.

The office within was larger than Carrie's by a good amount, with nicer furniture, and a bigger window, too, but the intuitional stamp was just the same. David fished the Sonit-21 mini voice recorder from his pocket. The device had cost five hundred dollars, a fortune for David at the time, but the investment had paid back ten-fold in the information covertly obtained. The voice-activated rectangular device was a bit larger than a Bic lighter, weighed just eight grams, and could record for 120 hours on a single charge.

David searched the office for the best place to hide the recorder. The Sonit's black case blended well with the dirt of one of Goodwin's ailing plants. After he turned on the voice activation mode, David covered the recorder with a thin layer of soil to better conceal it, and took a seat in Goodwin's chair.

“Testing one, two, three,” David said in a normal speaking voice. “Testing. Testing.”

He retrieved the device, cleared away the dirt, and pressed the playback button. His voice echoed loud and clear. David returned the recorder to the pot and flicked enough dirt to make it disappear.

He got halfway to the door when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. He moved behind the desk, feeling sweat bead up on his brow. The doorknob to Goodwin's office turned from the outside.

David looked around for anyplace to hide. The ceiling tiles could be removed, but the chance of him climbing up there before the door came open was slim to none. Keys rattled. Color drained from his face. David had to act quickly, rationally. The only place he could think to hide was under the desk.

He moved the chair back a foot to squeeze his body into the small crawl space underneath the desk. The desk's metal front would partly shield him from anybody walking in, but half a foot of space between the legs and the metal sides left him horribly exposed. All somebody had to do was look down, and they'd see David huddled in a little ball on the floor.

To get his body off the ground, David pressed his back against one side of the desk and put his feet up against the other side. Next, he engaged his core, arched his hips, and raised his body off the floor. The strain on his stomach muscles was instant and intense. It took all of a few seconds for the spasms to begin, his midsection shaking like an earthquake.

David swallowed a breath and concentrated on relaxing. He heard the key go into the lock and a slight noise as the doorknob engaged. David worried his bottom might be sagging a bit, and he lifted it up higher. The burn intensified. He heard two sets of footsteps enter, and then a man's voice.

“I just need to grab a file for Sandra and then we'll be out of here.”

A female voice said, “Maybe we should stay a while longer.”

David's heart pounded in his ears. Every muscle in his core was fully engaged, and his joints ached from the oppressive strain. The crawl space under the desk was unpleasantly cramped, but David elevated his hips some more without making a sound. Closing his eyes, he breathed through his nose and began to count in his head.

One … two … three …

“Got it,” the man said.

“I got it, too, Evan,” the woman said.

David heard a groan of pleasure escape Evan's lips. This had to be Evan Navarro, Goodwin's minion Carrie had told him about.

“Residents are not supposed to fraternize with their boss,” Evan said in a breathy voice.

“Is squeezing and rubbing the same as fraternizing?” asked the woman.

David snapped his eyes closed and fought against the growing fatigue. Sweat poured out of his body and began to drip on the floor. Evan groaned again and David heard the sounds of sloppy kissing. David's mind began to quit on him.

Just give it up … drop to the floor …

He felt his grip slipping, and the desperate urge to let go intensified. His violent body shakes persisted and threatened to dislodge him.

Sixteen … seventeen … eighteen …

“Maybe we should skip dinner tonight,” Evan said.

“I know what I want for dessert,” the woman cooed.

The kissing resumed while tears of pain streaked down David's cheeks. Both legs burned equally, and it felt like sharp needles were being jammed into his stomach. He kept his eyes closed tight and kept counting.

Thirty-five … thirty-six … thirty-seven …

David feared he might black out. He had to let go. There was no way to hold on. His body was screaming as the agony turned exquisite.

The kissing sounds abruptly stopped.

“Let's take this to a more comfortable location,” Evan suggested.

Please … please …

A consuming blackness came over him. David's back was slipping. His legs were giving out on him. His whole body was drenched in sweat. The traction simply was not there. He slid down an inch.

“Maybe we should do it here?” the woman suggested.

A beat. David slid some more. His legs had turned to Jell-O.

“If you want to do it in an office, let's use mine,” Evan said. “I'll have visions of Sandra in my head, and that's just not a turn-on.”

David dropped another inch. His back began to sag, and if somebody glanced at the floor they would have no trouble seeing him. His lower back and hips were clearly visible.

“Let's just go to your place,” the woman said. “A bed would be far more comfortable than a desk.”