Deadly Errors

by Allen Wyler

  Benson’s eyes spiked fear in Sergio’s heart. A moment later he shook this off. He was the one in control, not the Med-InDx investors. They needed him more than he needed them. “I am quite serious. Either pay me two million dollars now or the endorsement goes to Prophesy.”

  “Do not worry, amigo, you will be taken care of.”

  Smiling with the satisfaction that power brings, Sergio stepped from the car. The trunk lid popped. He retrieved his bag. But not before checking out the model number on the trunk hood. A 420 CLK.

  He would stop by the Mercedes dealership tomorrow.

  TYLER LOCKED THE door of his beat up, used Range Rover, pulled his leather bomber jacket over his head to shield the driving rain and splashed through shallow parking lot puddles toward the restaurant, a sports bar on Lake Union, not far from the Fred Hutchinson. He’d never been here before, but a colleague of Nancy’s had recommended it as being close to work and serving to-die-for fish and chips. He smiled. She remembered his tastes.

  He found her at a table for two by a large picture window overlooking slips filled with white powerboats with tinted windows and sleek sailboats with skeleton masts. She smiled as he approached, which he took as a hopeful sign. Her black hair was pulled straight back in a pony tail, her preference when working. Instead of contacts, plain wire rim glasses. No makeup over her flawless skin, an attribute she took great pains to shield from direct sunlight. The assistant professor look. A conscious effort to keep her Asian beauty disguised. He believed she felt people automatically devalued a beautiful woman’s intelligence by about 50 percent.

  “Hello, Tyler.” Her smile faded. “My god, what’s happened to you?”

  He stopped short of sitting down and glanced at his soaked Dockers. “I forgot to bring an umbrella.”

  “No, I mean your weight … your face … just look at you … you look like you just escaped from one of those awful Nazi concentration camps or something.”

  “Just working hard, I guess,” he lied. Unsure whether to kiss her or not, he decided to just sit down and took the other chair.

  “Have you had a physical lately? Is something wrong?”

  “You mean like terminal cancer?” he joked.

  “No, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m surprised you chose this place,” he said nodding toward the window at her back.

  “You mean the water?” She didn’t turn to look at or out the window.

  “Yes.” With her phobia of water so strong, coming here must have taken a goodly amount of resolve, he realized.

  “I know how much you love fish and chips. My roommate said this place has the best in Seattle.”

  Resisting the urge to touch her arm, he said, “I’ve missed you,” then blushed at his own frankness.

  “Well, I’ve missed you too.” She blushed too and dropped her eyes. “You’re one of the reasons I jumped at this Hutch opportunity.”

  His heart warmed at her confession and shyness. “You like it then, the job?”

  She beamed at him. “I love it. You should see the lab they gave me.”

  The waiter asked for their drink orders. She settled for water, explaining how she planned on returning to work after dinner. Tyler ordered a Red Hook beer, seeing how the restaurant didn’t serve his favorite from the San Francisco Anchor brewing company.

  When the waiter left she continued, “The whole thing just came together beautifully, kind of as if …”

  “As if it were predestined.”

  She blushed, “Yes,” and glanced away in embarrassment.

  Probably consulted a fortune teller before accepting the job, he thought.

  “I mean,” she continued, “when the offer came I had, like, maybe a week—ten days at the most—to decide. Then Carol, you remember her? She told me about this friend with this apartment on Capital Hill? Said she was looking for a roommate? So I called her. She’s the kind of person you’d like just talking with her over the phone. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “So you took the job. That’s great.”

  “No, you haven’t heard the best part.” She leaned back beaming as if about to lay down a royal flush. “She works at The Hutch too. I mean, we drive to work together most days.”

  He shook his head in dismay. Amazing, but typical. Somehow she always fell into things like this. Lucky. “That’s terrific. How’s John?” Her brother.

  Her smile widened. “Sumitomo, the Japanese con-glomerate?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “They hired him. He’s working in Los Angeles now. Loves it. I mean, talk about good fortune, he didn’t even have to look for it. They recruited him just before graduation.”

  “Your parents?”

  “Still in Hong Kong. I tried to get them to move over here, but they wanted to stay put. Said they didn’t think it was any safer in the United States, what with all the crime and terrorist threats. They’d rather face an infectious disease.”

  Tyler asked, “May I ask you something?”

  “Sure. What?”

  He felt his face redden. “Naw … forget it.” He decided certain questions were completely off base. He considered mentioning that he had not been dating, but figured this would only look like an oblique way of putting the question back on the table.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “It’s nice … being here with you. Like it hasn’t been all that long.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Tyler’s heart accelerated. He wanted to reach out and touch her cheek but didn’t want to rush anything for fear of putting her off.

  “How’s your job?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why?” Here we go, he thought.

  “I don’t know … you don’t look so good. Your weight … how much have you lost?”

  “I don’t know,” although he knew exactly. “Can we drop the subject?”

  “You’re not …” The words seemed to die on her lips.

  “What? Not using? You mean, you still believe I was?” He felt the old anger ignite.

  “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  Liar.

  “Don’t give me that look, Tyler. It’s important. You know that.”

  Tyler sucked a deep breath, blew it slowly out between pursed lips. “Look, let’s not get started. I was really looking forward to seeing you. I don’t want to get into an argument. Okay?”

  Their orders arrived: his fish and chips with a bottle of vinegar, her taco salad with an extra portion of salsa—just the way she always liked it.

  They ate for a moment in silence. She finally said, “I checked on you through a friend.”

  He set down the piece of fish he was ready to take a bite from. “You what?” not certain he’d heard correctly.

  “Don’t get angry with me, Tyler. I wanted to be certain you were doing okay before I took the chance of moving back up here.”

  He pushed the plate away. “I don’t believe this.”

  She reached across the table, grasped the back of his hand in hers. “Hear me out before you get that way.” She looked directly into his eyes. “I still love you. I didn’t want to take the chance of moving up here if you were still … still spiraling down hill.”

  “Spiraling downhill? Jesus, Nancy. After I got fired and no one wanted to hire me … what …” He let the question die. Old ground. All of it. Baggage, the Dr. Phils of the world call it. He thought about her last words, trying desperately to focus only on the best part of them. “You still love me?”

  “Yes, I do. I want to see if we can get it back together. But before we do that, I want to know that you’re back on your feet and completely. That means no drugs.”

  “Believe me, I am.”

  “Good. Then there’s a chance for us.” She glanced at his partially eaten meal. “Why don’t you finish it? I know how much you like fish and chips.”

  He picked up a now cold piece of fish and forced himself to nibble part of it.
/>
  DINNER ENDED. AN awkward lull hung over the table like dense San Francisco fog.

  Finally she announced, “Time to get back to the lab.”

  “When can I see you again.” How bizarre, he thought, asking your wife for a date.

  She looked away. “Let’s not rush this, Tyler. I’m still settling in and … ”

  “And?”

  “Just let’s not rush it. Okay?”

  9

  10:46 AM, NEXT DAY, NEUROSURGERY CLINIC

  “YOU CAN STAND in the shower now and let the water run over your head, just don’t shampoo.” As always, Tyler was explaining wound care to a post-op patient in for removing the staples holding the wound together after removal of a small benign brain tumor. She was sitting on the exam room table smelling of rubbing alcohol and cotton dressings as he removed the clips one by one. One exam table, one rolling stool, two chairs and a small desk on which to write notes. A small counter along the wall contained a small stainless steel sink with cabinets above and drawers below.

  “It has nothing to do with the chemicals in the shampoo—the wound’s healing beautifully—it’s that I don’t want you to stress the wound edges and pull them apart.” With a snip of the staple remover, he popped out the last one. A puncture site just behind the hairline began oozing blood. Tyler picked up a two-inch square cotton sponge and pressed it firmly over the spot. “Hold still a minute while I put a little pressure on this.”

  For a moment he admired his handiwork. When the redness vanished and the hair fully grew back in three months you would really have to search to find this scar. A definite advantage of private practice over academics: closing your own wounds instead of allowing a first year resident to do it. But he still missed teaching residents, probably always would. Would he ever make it back to an academic appointment? Maybe. If enough time passed. Memories dim. His past problems might be forgotten.

  “Ah, Doctor Mathews …”

  “Yes?” He glanced at her face. The crimson ascending her cheeks triggered a suspicion of what was coming.

  “Brad … my husband … wanted me to ask … when I could have sex again.”

  He smiled at her. “Any time you want, but only with Brad. I don’t want you getting too excited.”

  For a moment she looked blankly at him, mouth slightly agape. Then she giggled and gave his hand a playful slap. “Oh Doctor Mathews, bad puppy!”

  His beeper started chirping.

  He let up on the wound, made sure the bleeding had stopped, then checked the beeper readout. A number he didn’t recognize.

  “Be right back, Mrs. Gowers.” He opened the door and headed for his office down the hall.

  “DOCTOR MATHEWS. IT’S Jim Day. Sorry it took so long getting back to you, but I’ve been up to my ass in alligators and the swamp’s still rising. I checked the history on that medical record you asked about?”

  Tyler’s pulse accelerated. “Yeah? What’d you find?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not what you want to hear. Far as it shows, there’s been no alteration to that field, or any field on that medical record ever. What you see is what was put in there from the git go and that’s the end of it.”

  A paralyzing chill hit Tyler. Did this mean it was his mistake? “Are you sure?”

  “Hey Doc, there’s no way no how any field can be altered without that alteration being recorded. Don’t know how to say this any more clearly than I just did.”

  Dizzy, he dropped into his desk chair and sucked a deep breath. “Bear with me a second … I need to make certain I have the facts straight.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Any time any entry is made into any field in the medical record, the identity of the person making that entry is recorded. That’s correct isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  Tyler palm-wiped his mouth. “Okay then … who entered the radiation dose in Larry’s chart?”

  “Thought you might want to know that.” Tyler heard Day’s keyboard clicking away in the background. “Record shows that it was transmitted electronically from outside the center by Doctor Nick Barber, but that since he’s not privileged here, it was validated by you per your research protocol.”

  Precisely per protocol. But the overdose still could not be accounted for. “Hang in here with me a little longer. Okay?”

  “It’s your dime.”

  “Let me walk you through this one more time, then you tell me how come Larry Childs got an overdose. I checked with Barber. Their records show they ordered a ten gray dose. My independent records confirm a ten gray dose was ordered. But the chart says he got zapped with a 200 gray dose and his brain rotted out from too much radiation. Explain how the hell that can happen.”

  Day gave a sigh of exasperation. “You know damn well I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is that field hasn’t been changed since it was populated.”

  “What makes you so goddamned certain? If I hear you, you’re saying it wasn’t changed by the standard means … by another person with privileges, like a doctor. But I still don’t see why couldn’t it have been changed by someone without privileges, like a hacker.”

  “Because that’s flat out impossible. It just can’t happen.”

  “And I say that’s bullshit. You just told me that Barber ordered a dose and I confirmed it. Both our records show a ten gray dose. But he got a 200 gray dose. That means we—by that I mean you, me, and Maynard Medical Center—have a major problem on our hands.” Tyler flashed on his conversation with Michelle. He made a mental note to call her and go back over the story. Better yet, check with Doctor … what was her name?

  Day said, “If you know so much about computer security I suggest you tell me how that could happen and the field not show evidence of being tampered with.”

  “Thought we went over this before. If a hacker had access to the source code he’d know how the system security was written. If he knew that, it makes sense he could get in and out without leaving a footprint.”

  “Now that’s a huge stretch. Chances of that happening are worse than me hitting Mars with a brick.” Day paused, exhaled an audible breath. “Anything else you want to know? If not, I’m gonna sign this ticket out.”

  “You sign off on this and I’ll personally see that you’re named on the root cause analysis as obstructing an investigation into a patient death. Is that clear?”

  ARTHUR BENSON SAID, “Goddamned straight it’s a problem. It’s a big problem, Bucko. In fact, it’s more than a problem. It’s a potential catastrophe waiting to unfold on us. And don’t give me any of your it’s-only-hypothetical horseshit. I’m in no mood to hear it.” God, what I’d give to strangle that fucking little Jew geek.

  Benson realized the portable phone was pressing against his ear so tightly that a headache was radiating into his right eyeball. He let up on the pressure and stood. Pacing always helped at times like this, and the office was large enough he could do laps around the 18-chair conference table. His eye caught the oil portrait of Chester Maynard staring down at him. The old man’s piercing green eyes seem to follow him through the room.

  Bernie said, “Chill way down, dude. What are we talking about, a minor problem, right? Go and get your panties in a knot and you’ll elevate your cholesterol, have a stroke maybe. You don’t want that and I don’t want that.”

  That’s all he needed, more of the little fucker’s attitude.

  “Minor problem you say? Minor fucking problem? You think some NIH bureaucrat calling to ask about a research patient who died of brain rot is a minor fucking problem?” His heart pounded his ribs. Maybe Bernie had a point about needing to calm down. But not until the fucking geek understood the potential hazard they were facing.

  “Let me make this perfectly clear to you Mister Bill Gates wannabe. Your entire fucking company will be a one paragraph post mortem on page 14 of the Wall Street Journal if you don’t fix it.”

  When Bernie didn’t respond, he asked, “I thought you’d fixed it.”

  “N
o shit. I thought so too. But obviously that isn’t the case. What do you want me to do, fall on my pencil? Cut my throat?”

  “Wrong answer, Bernie.” Benson pictured Bernie in his chrome and black leather office, probably wearing suntan Dockers and a pale blue, button down oxford, open at the neck just like Bill Gates. Every book Gates had ever written was lined up on the credenza like a shrine. Even named his daughter Willamina. Jesus!

  “Let me ask you something, Bernie.”

  Bernie said, “Shoot,” seemingly unfazed.

  “If it’s such a minor problem, why hasn’t it been fixed yet?”

  “Gimme a break, Dude. You know I’ve been wickedly busy. What with the IPO and everything.”

  “Oh yeah, busy. Important things like schmoozing reporters at press conferences. Maybe you should be spending more time taking care of business rather than working on that klieg light tan of yours.”

  “Oh, a little sensitive are we? What are you saying? I should not be pushing our product? I should, like, hide it? I’m telling you we have the wickedly superior solution and that is what’s going to win in the end. Med-InDx rocks, man, but every piece of software ever written has a few bugs. They all do. And they all get ironed out sooner or later. At least the important ones do.”

  “You seem to be forgetting something, amigo. This is a hospital. We’re in the business of healing people, not killing them. According to you, this type of problem would never happen.”

  “Hey, dude, way I see it, you’re way over reacting. So one lousy patient gets a wicked case of brain rot. You think that condemns the whole product? Hell no. You trying to tell me everything that’s done at your fancy carriage trade medical center is perfect? That you’re the Martha Stewart of health care? That your staff doesn’t have their fair share of screw ups? Helllloo … Earth to Arthur … screw ups are what this little escapade is all about. Reducing them … and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Reduce them. Not eliminate. That, dude, is the big picture.”

  “Jesus, you really don’t get it, do you. The real big picture is that any of this leaks, you can stand back and see Prophesy trample you to death. The big picture is the longer that bug stays in there, the more risk we’re taking. Get it?”