The technician reappeared, and Mac was put through the MRI scanner. In his case, the result was different. He had no sign of anything abnormal anywhere in his body.
“Doctor,” Flynn said, “as this is an emergency situation, I’m going to need you to perform the surgery as soon as possible. When can you schedule it?”
“I’d need to look at my calendar, but—”
“No, sir, I’m sorry, but you don’t need to do that. I’m requiring immediate surgery, I’m not asking for an appointment. I meant, how soon can you prep?”
Shelton thought about that. They were back at the computer, looking at Mac’s enviably clean scan. “I can prep immediately. I think we could be ready within the hour.”
Flynn felt a tide of relief flow through him. It was like being unexpectedly rescued from a certain death, he thought. If it was rescue.
“How long will the surgery take?”
“Given none of the complications you mentioned, no more than two or three hours.”
Two or three hours. He wondered if he would live through it or not. He wondered if the things would move away from the surgeon’s forceps. He wondered a lot of things.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
He followed Dr. John Shelton down the long white corridor and up an elevator to the surgical floor, his old friend with him. They came to heavy double doors marked SURGICAL SUITE. NO ADMITTANCE.
The doctor punched some numbers into a keypad. They went through the door and into the gleaming, unsure world of what Flynn feared would be a far more difficult surgery than Dr. Shelton expected.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DR. SHELTON had a large office with a window looking out on a wide swathe of sky.
“When did you last eat?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Do you take any medications?”
“No.”
“No aspirin, ibuprofen, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Liquids?”
“This morning. Glass of water.”
“Okay. I’m not expecting this to be a problematic surgery. We will do what’s called an awake brain surgery, and I’m going to ask you various questions during the process. We’re not actually entering the brain, but we are going to be right in the cognitive region, so I’ll want to be certain we’re not disturbing anything as we work.”
“I’ll need my colleague present in the operating room. And keep staff to a minimum. Do not describe the objects or ask any questions about them that your staff may—”
“Sir, I’m going to need to stop you right there. I’m going to need my staff’s full functionality.”
“Then they’re all going to have to sign security agreements. I’ll need them to know that and be comfortable with it.”
“I can assure you they’ll sign. I have a resident, four nurses, and my anesthesiologist, Dr. Kampmann. Just a moment.” He leaned into the intercom on his desk. “Julie, we’re going to be doing a full staff pre-op with this patient prior to surgery. Can you let everybody know?” He turned his attention to Mac. “You’ll need to prep and be in scrubs, and I’ll want you to remain in a specified area of the operating room, and not to speak. Are those conditions acceptable?”
“Fine by me,” Mac said. Flynn nodded.
They followed the doctor to the patient care unit, and Flynn removed his outer clothes, then placed his wallet, watch, cell phone, and keys in the locker provided. He gave Mac the key. “Don’t come in here and steal all my money.” When they were kids and Mac had been poor, he used to mug Flynn and Eddie practically every Friday night.
A nurse came in, a stocky black guy with a tight smile. These medical teams weren’t used to surgeries coming at them unexpectedly, outside of ER. A unit like this ran on a complex, tightly controlled routine. “Okay, we got to shave your head,” said the nurse. “This is the good part. You’re gonna like you bald, lemme tell you. You’ll never go back.”
Now wearing nothing but a blue hospital gown and his underwear, Flynn was taken to a small, single-chair barber’s station. The nurse said, “You get some of the women in here, it can be damn rough. But, you know, you want to get whatever’s in there out more than you want to keep your hair. What you got, anyway? I got you pegged for an injury. Am I right?”
“You’re right.”
“I know this stuff, I’ve been on the unit awhile.”
He rolled on surgical gloves, then lathered Flynn’s head with barber’s soap.
There was only a small mirror at the barber station, but Flynn could see himself in it, and as the CNA continued working, he saw a transformation from a man with short salt-and-pepper hair and hard eyes to a guy with no hair and even harder-looking eyes.
“There,” the nurse said, “now you’re ready to do some serious business. I want to wish you all the luck in the world.”
Back in Flynn’s patient cubicle, another nurse swabbed his head with iodine solution. Mac said, “You look scarier than hell.”
“Yeah, big orange heads tend to be pretty scary.”
“I meant, before she painted you. I’m telling you, the man who came across this room just now had death in his eye. It was damn impressive, I have to say.”
The anesthesiologist came in. “I’m Dr. Kampmann. I understand that you’re Errol Carroll?”
“Flynn.”
“Okay, Flynn, now what we’re going to use is a type of anesthetic that will deaden pain in your scalp and skull, but leave you fully conscious. There won’t be any tranquilizer solution, but I’ll be standing by with it, so if you feel too agitated or restless, just ask me, and I’ll instill some into your IV. And we’ll have general anesthesia ready as well. I assume that you’ve never had a craniotomy prior to this one?”
“I have not.”
“At first, there will be a sound from the electric saw, which some patients may find disturbing. These are going to be two three-centimeter exposures over the affected areas. Just enough for the endoscope. You’ll be able to see, hear, and respond to questions, but your head will be in a restraining mechanism, which can become uncomfortable. We don’t want you to move, so if you have any discomfort at all, even an itchy nose, let us know.”
“Will I be tied down?”
“Yes, you will.”
“I need to see my colleague alone for a moment.”
The doctor and the nurses withdrew, and Mac came in.
“I’m going to be restrained. If anything happens, anything you can’t explain, any movement in the room—you can see their movement, can’t you, at least somewhat?”
“I can see a flash off a windshield a mile away, but not those things, not like you.”
“What can you see?”
“Things they move past. If they make a curtain flutter, no matter how slightly, I’m gonna see that.”
“I think there’s a high probability that they’ll enter the operating room. They’ll try to disrupt the procedure.”
“Flynn, I’ve got to ask you, are you maybe broadcasting to them right now? Can they listen to you?”
“I assume so, but I’m not telling them anything they don’t already know.”
“I hope you aren’t.”
“Doctor, we’re done,” he said.
Dr. Kampmann had gone, but two nurses came and set up Flynn’s vital sign leads and IV, then wheeled him down another bright corridor and into the operating room.
A warm sense of calm enveloped him. Dr. Kampmann had told him there would be no tranquilizer in the IV, but obviously that was not the case.
“Flynn, can you hear me?” Dr. Kampmann asked, upon entering the OR.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel any nausea, any dizziness at all?”
“None.”
They moved him into a bed that was completely surrounded by equipment. This was his second hospital visit in three days, and also the second in his life.
What seemed like only a moment later, he was coming back to consciousness.
; “Can you hear me, Flynn?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Do you know who’s speaking?”
He looked toward the green-swathed face that was peering at him. “You sound like Dr. Kampmann.”
Kampmann looked past Flynn. “He’s back with us, John.”
“Hey, there, Flynn. We have both incisions opened, and I’m looking at the foreign object on the left.”
“Mac—Frank—are you here?”
“I’m here, Flynn. Back over here.” Flynn glimpsed a green-gloved hand raised above an array of monitors.
“Flynn, can you please begin counting backwards from a hundred?”
Flynn found that counting backwards was harder to do than he’d assumed. He had to think carefully, and he was making mistakes.
“The first object is out,” Dr. Shelton said. “It’s a silver disk. There are cilia attached to it. A manufactured object.”
Kampmann was looking at him. Flynn could see the questioning frown.
“Doctor, the objects need to be in sealed containers. This is very important.”
“Sealed, yes, we can do that.”
Flynn became aware of a distant, repetitive sound. “Is that a Klaxon?”
“Fire alarm,” Mac called. “That’s what it sounds like.”
Morris was making his move, no question in Flynn’s mind. “Can the doors be locked?”
“Nurse, see to it,” Shelton snapped. “Flynn, please resume your count.”
Voices rose outside. Soon, there came a smell of burning plastic. Then, over the intercom, “Doctor, can you close?”
“I need twenty minutes.”
“They’re asking us to evacuate the building. It’s on fire lockdown. It’s not a drill.”
“I can’t pull out—I have this patient’s head wide open.”
A nurse said in a shrill voice, “Smoke entering by the vents.”
“Isolate us,” Dr. Sheldon snapped. “Shut down oxygen.” Then, more quietly, “Oh, God.”
“We have fire in the ceiling, Doctor!”
“Closing up.”
“Is it out yet?”
“One is out, sir. One is still in situ. But I have to pull out.”
Flynn could not allow that. Whatever might happen, if Shelton stopped now, he doubted there would ever be another chance like this.
“Do not pull out, Doctor. This is a critical emergency.”
“You got that right.”
“Do not!”
There no reply. Was he still working? Flynn couldn’t tell.
Hammering came on the door. “Fire department, open up!”
“For God’s sake, tell them the patient’s brain is exposed!”
“Is the second one out?”
Shelton didn’t answer.
“Mac, help me here! Make him do this!”
A long stream of burning plastic came down from above. One of the nurses broke out a fire extinguisher and began attacking the flames as best she could.
Mac came pushing his way through the equipment. “Doc, you gotta do this. It’s a national emergency.”
“It’s one man.”
“The man is important, Doctor. I think you know enough to understand that.”
Screams rose outside. The room grew dim. Black smoke seethed along the ceiling, shot through with deep red flickers. Once again, fire from above. Revealing, too. Morris had not felt able to send a team into a crowded building. Worth remembering.
“Where are we?”
“I told you I am closing up, whoever you are.”
“No, Doctor,” Mac said, “I’m so sorry, but you are finishing.”
“Jesus Christ, put that down!”
“Mac, what’re you doing?”
“You do it, Doctor, or she’s gonna be wearing a second smile.”
The nurse Mac had grabbed was limp with shock. Mac’s knife gleamed at her throat.
Every particle of honor and decency in Flynn’s body rebelled at the idea of doing it this way, but he saw no other choice.
A group of burning ceiling tiles fell into the operating room. One of the nurses screamed, tearing at her burning scrubs. Somebody else threw the doors open. Flynn was aware of great, dark shapes moving in the murk of smoke. Firemen. Then he heard roaring and saw that they were training a mist nozzle on the ceiling, enough to drive back the flames for a few more seconds.
“Okay, it’s done. We’re done.”
“Let me see them. Both of them.”
“Here, you, let her go. I am so sorry, Sylvie!”
“Who are these people, Doctor? Because this is insane—what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Somebody get this patient out of here. He’s closed, he can be evacuated.”
“Give me the objects,” Flynn said.
Shelton thrust the two bottles into his hands. These things were very different from the one that had been pulled out of his leg. They were the size of tiny buttons, their upper surfaces gleaming. Hanging down from their lower surfaces were long streams of cilia, so tiny and numerous that they looked like tendrils of smoke.
As he was wheeled out amid scores of firemen, nurses, and other patients under evacuation, Flynn watched mesmerized as, again and again, the two objects threw themselves against the glass walls of the bottles they were imprisoned in. Finally, they pressed themselves up against the glass like two mean little eyes and remained there, as close to him as they could get.
Waves of dizziness kept sweeping over him. Both doctors stayed with him on the fire stairs as he was carried down on a narrow portable chair.
“Mac,” Flynn said, “I need you.”
They had reached the lobby.
“This man needs recovery time,” Shelton said to nobody in particular. “I need to get him into another surgery center.”
“Mac,” Flynn said, “you take these. I want you to go back to the parking structure and stay there. Go deep as you can. If it has a subbasement, use it.”
“You think that’ll stop the signal, because—”
“I have no idea.”
“Flynn, Morris is gonna come after me. You know it, and I know it.”
He had a point. “Tell you what, leave them in the car. Then—Doctor—where are we going?”
“Building Forty-two. You’ll be in recovery there for about four hours.”
“So put them in the car and come on foot to Building Forty-two. Get away from them, and stay away from them.”
They went out into a throbbing forest of fire equipment, dozens of vehicles choking every inch of space around the building. Their pumps roared like an angry ocean. Brass and red paint gleamed in the sun. Two companies had extended their ladders to the roof, and pulsing, sweating hoses ran up both of them, managed by firemen at the midpoint, who fed hose to men on the roof.
“My patient is immediate post-op!” Shelton shouted. “I need him moved right now.” He added to Flynn, “And I don’t want to see you again, ever. You let me know where to send your records, I’ll be glad to do that. But I do not want you anywhere near me or this medical center or any of its personnel ever again.”
As he was lifted into an ambulance, Flynn saw two bodies in bags, lying on a sidewalk streaming with soot-blackened water. More ambulances were lined up, and he could see personnel with burns and other injuries crowding toward them.
“This patient is a just-closed brain,” he heard a nurse say as the ambulance doors shut.
He was driven only a few hundred feet, and in minutes was in a second recovery room, this one jammed with patients, many of them wearing the same sort of turban that was probably on his head.
“Sir, we need to do a neuro check on you now. Can you tell me your name?”
This he had not expected. He couldn’t leave his real name. He wasn’t an official admission to the hospital. He did not remember which aliases he might have in his wallet. He’d just been through too much to do that with any hope of accuracy.
“Sir?”
He tried one of them
. “William Haffner.”
“Mr. Haffner, you don’t have a bracelet.”
“Fell off, I guess.”
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“Can you look at that clock and tell me the time?”
He looked up at the wall clock the nurse was indicating. “Four fifty-three.”
She started to ask him another question, but a page caused her to go hurrying off. A patient just evacuated from neurosurgery was having a heart attack, and chaos was erupting.
Flynn realized that he was done here. The next thing to happen would be that they would try to find him in the system, which was going to create a problem. Perhaps he should have anticipated that Morris would use this particular technique, but he hadn’t. He’d been thinking exclusively in terms of an entry being made.
He had to find Mac, get out of here, and get out of this hospital complex as fast as possible. But right now, that was a problem. He was wearing briefs, a hospital gown and a thick head bandage. If he tried to leave like this, he would certainly be stopped. His wallet and other personals were in a locker on the burning surgical floor. No chance of retrieval.
Like the other recovery room, this one had lockers, and many of them were full. He might be able to pop one of the simple combination locks quite easily, but how would he know what he’d find inside? Women’s clothes, clothes that didn’t fit, the ID of a person who looked nothing like him. He might have to pop a dozen of them, even all of them. The minute the nurses noticed him up off his gurney, they were going to come running.
From where he had been left, he could see the big double doors that led into the room. That wouldn’t be the right direction, not for what he needed to find.
As best he could, he turned. The door leading out in the other direction was narrower, not a public passageway.
When opportunity appeared, hesitation was always a mistake, so he pushed himself up off the gurney, waited for the dizziness to subside, and went through the door.
The staff room was about twenty feet long, with stacked lockers on both walls and a well-stocked break bar. The lockers were identified only with last names, and locked not with hospital-issue locks, but with whatever the nurses had brought in themselves. He looked from one locker to the next, trying to guess which one might conceal male clothing, and also might have an easy lock.
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