The bizarre note brought a heavy dose of reality. Over the days she and Josh had been apart, memories of the way things had been between them over their first eighteen months together had begun bidding for space in her head. Now, she realized, Josh Wyler was no longer someone she could count on for anything. Worse, he might actually have become someone to fear.
With time to fill, Abby had started taking an aerobics class and had even begun jogging. As a result, the hike up to Ives's place was getting easier. She made it this morning without even breathing hard.
As she suspected, the germ causing Ives's chronic leg infection had been identified as a slow-growing fungus called aspergillus. The treatment was amphotericin B, a potent intravenous antibiotic. To accommodate the hermit's adamant refusal to return to Patience Regional Hospital for any reason, Abby had reluctantly inserted a short, indwelling catheter in a vein in his forearm. On the days when she could not get up to see him, he administered the medication himself. And she had to admit that in spite of her doubts about the treatment approach, day by day the deep-seated infection was improving.
"Ives, don't shoot, it's me!" she shouted as she reached the clearing.
He looked up at her from his workbench.
"No shooting today, Doc. Just polishing my bow."
"It's so beautiful."
The hermit admired his handiwork.
"It's getting there," he said. "Another year, maybe."
"Then what?"
"Then I'll make another one, I guess."
Abby motioned toward the straw-dummy target.
"So, tell me--blindfolded or not?"
She had asked the question before several times and still had not gotten a straight answer.
"If I can see," Ives said this time, "what does a rag tied across my eyes mean?"
The lacerations on his face were healing nicely, and the bruising was all but gone.
"You've got great healing powers," Abby said.
Ives reached down beside his bench and held up a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti.
"It's all in the diet."
"Ives, tell me something," she said as she re-dressed his leg. "How long have you been up here?"
"I don't really know. Nine, maybe ten years."
"I have a question about Colstar."
"Try me."
"I saw a slide of the plant taken about eight years ago. It was shot from a distance, and the quality really isn't that good, but on the face of the cliff it looks as if there are three long slits in the rock."
"But they're not there now." Ives finished the thought for her.
"Exactly."
"They were windows of some sort, eighteen inches, maybe two feet across, and five or six feet high. Almost looked like the ports in medieval castles that were used to shoot arrows through without getting shot yourself."
"What happened to them?"
Ives shrugged.
"One day they were just gone--filled in, I guess."
"Can we see where they were from here?"
"We can try, but I think they did a pretty thorough job of sealing them up."
Ives retrieved his burlap sack and an army blanket and led her to his observation point. She hadn't been out there since the first day she had climbed up to the camp with Josh. Looking out across the valley now, she wondered where he was, what he was doing, and whether or not he had kept the appointment with Garrett Owen. She had called the neurologist and gotten him to move it up two weeks.
The sun was beginning its ascent, and the Colstar cliff glowed amber in the light. Ives spread out the blanket and lay prone next to Abby.
"I can never get over how huge the place is," she said.
"It's a fortress all right."
Ives focused his field glasses and passed them over. Having been inside the plant, Abby found it easy to get oriented. First she scanned down to the roof of the hospital, and then the adjacent professional building. Next came the narrow field of wildflowers, and then the high barbed-wire-topped fence that essentially separated the valley from the plant. Beyond the fence was a broad, undulating rocky meadow, and then the almost-sheer cliff. Abby located the filter house Kelly Franklin had told her about. Next she panned across the face of the cliff. Nothing.
"Exactly where were those slits?" she asked.
Ives checked through the glasses and then handed them back.
"Look at the name Colstar on the side of the building. Believe it or not, those letters are each eight feet high. Now go to the S and head straight down the rock. I think that should be about it."
The resolution of the binoculars was magnificent. Abby studied the cliff carefully from top to bottom. Then again.
"Hey, Ives," she said excitedly, "I think I can see where they were. If you stare hard enough, you can tell that the shapes are still there, only it looks like they were sealed with cement or painted wood."
Ives examined the wall himself.
"Some sort of plywood with small stones glued on, I'd guess," he said.
"What's behind them? That's the question."
And why doesn't the health and safety officer know the answer? That was an even bigger question.
Ives set the binoculars aside.
"Well, doesn't that just beat all," he said. "Here I've been lookin' at the place all these years, top to bottom, side to side, and you come along and show me something I've never noticed." He grinned over at her. "So am I blindfolded, or not?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The headache began, as all the others had, with the strange chemical taste at the back of his tongue. His anger had been building, even between the attacks, but now he felt as if a fuse had been lit somewhere deep inside him, and he was powerless to stop the explosion. He didn't deserve this. All his life he had tried to do what was right. He didn't deserve to be going insane. Three years in the Corps. Two rows of ribbons. He should have stayed in a few more years. Hell, he should have stayed in forever. If he had known what lay in store for him, he would have. First the failure with the diner, the goddamn bankers who wouldn't wait, then job after job. Then two jobs at once just to stay even, three when he could find the work. And now he had been let go at the plant. And for what? For taking too many sick days. But who in the hell could work thirty feet up on a ladder with cannons exploding in his head?
He felt the throbbing begin behind his eyes--the horrible, pulsating pain. The taste in his mouth grew sharper, more unpleasant. This one was going to be a bitch. He took a drink of water, then spit it out. There was no sense swallowing it. Before long he would be throwing up anyway.
He raced into his bedroom and tore the dry cleaner's plastic off his dress uniform. The Marines might not approve of his wearing it for this, but what the hell. They had spent all those years teaching him to kill. Now he would find out how much he'd learned.
His hands were shaking so badly, he could barely fasten the buttons on his jacket. But even after nearly fifteen years, it still fit damn well. It had been wrong to blow up at his boss for suggesting that he was faking the headaches, and wronger still to have sucker punched him. But he was only underlining what everybody already knew--the man was an asshole. Mr. Country Club Snob.
The throbbing became an electric drill, boring holes into his brain. He sank to the floor, squeezing his temples, then stumbled to his feet and out of the house. Straightening his dress uniform hat, he lurched to the car.
The country club, he thought. That was it. That was the fucking problem. All the country clubs set up all over the country to remind folks like him they were poor, worthless failures, not good enough now, not good enough ever. But, hey, don't forget that the good folks at the country club had let him in the elegant clubhouse once for three whole weeks ... until he had finished painting it!
He gunned the engine of his Chrysler, a beast with 170,000 miles on the odometer and its second rebuilt engine under the hood. His vision was blurred, his brain on fire. What a rotten existence--what had he ever done to deserve this? Nothing. Absolute
ly nothing. He sped off in a shower of gravel, then screeched to a stop, opened the door, and heaved up the contents of his stomach. That was the end, he vowed, coughing and sputtering. He had thrown up for the last time. They could step all over him, they could take away his job for no good reason, but they couldn't break him. He was a goddamn Marine, for chrissake, and if Marines knew nothing else, they knew how to fight back.
The beautiful people had the money and the power and the Jags and the houses and the diamonds and the country clubs. He had a twelve-year-old tank of a car and the spirit of a Marine. No contest!
Fifty-five ... sixty ... sixty-five ...
The Chrysler began to shudder. He gripped the wheel tightly and pressed his foot to the floor. The headache was as horrible as ever, but this time, at least, he didn't care. The country-club people had done this to him. Now it was his turn.
Seventy ... seventy-five ...
The cross streets flew by. The trees and telephone poles were blurs. The car was shaking mercilessly. An acrid smoke began billowing in around him. He was off the seat now, his right leg rigid, his foot jammed on the accelerator. Mission: enemy destruction. Target in sight, sir.
"From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli ..."
He barreled off the road, across a stretch of grass, and up a small hill. The fence, shielded in green vinyl windbreaker, was just ahead. No problem, sir.
Eighty ... eighty-five ...
"We will fight our country's battles in the air, on land, and sea...."
At last the pain in his head was gone. At last the hideous taste had left his mouth. At last he had stopped taking the punishment lying down.
The screeching of the engine ... the crunch of metal on metal ... the screams ... more screams ... the crash ... the pain ... the blackness ...
Mission accomplished, sir....
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STANDON, CARL,
--TOXIC METAL SCREEN INCL. CADMIUM, NICKEL--NONE DETECTED.
ANDERSON, JAYE,
--TOXIC METAL SCREEN INCL. CADMIUM, NICKEL--NONE DETECTED.
MCELROY, THOS.,
--TOXIC METAL SCREEN INCL. CADMIUM, NICKEL--NONE DETECTED.
--ORGANOPHOSPHATES--TRACE FOUND; LEVELS PENDING.
Seated at her desk in the on-call room, Abby studied the results from the first three NIWWs on whom she had ordered cadmium levels. All were negative. One of the three, a farmer named Thomas McElroy, had come to see her. His complaints were a lack of energy and a chronic cough that had not responded to two courses of antibiotics. His physician was George Oleander. Abby had ordered the cadmium level, then, on a hunch, she ordered a test for organophosphates as well. Organophosphate was a neurotoxin, commonly used in gaseous form as a chemical weapon during World War II. But it was also a component in many fertilizers. Apparently, Thomas McElroy had somehow gotten exposed to it.
Trace positive. She had no clear idea what, if anything, that meant. The tongue-in-cheek law taught to medical students was never to order a test unless you were ready to have it come back abnormal. The corollary to that law was that the best response to any abnormal blood test was to repeat it.
Abby decided that a better approach would be to set the whole matter in George Oleander's lap. If, in fact, Thomas McElroy's symptoms were due to organophosphate poisoning, the first definitive diagnosis for one of her NIWWs had been found. And it would not be cadmium. She peeked out to be sure that the ER was still quiet. Sundays often started peacefully, with families in church or beginning their days slowly. But with none of the medical offices open, and minimal coverage for each practice, the afternoons and evenings were predictably busy. At the moment things were very quiet. She was heading back to the phone when the wall-mounted intercom sounded.
"Dr. Dolan," the receptionist said, "Dr. Oleander's on line two."
"This is one efficient hospital," Abby muttered, punching the line open. "George, hi. I was just about to call you."
"To explain yourself, I hope."
"What?"
"I just got copies of some laboratory tests you sent off on two of my patients, Carl Standon and Tom McElroy."
"Yes."
"Abby, what on earth are you doing ordering cadmium levels on these people? And how many more patients have you ordered them on?"
"Just one other. I don't understand what the problem is."
"Well, it's time you did. Just what were your indications for ordering these studies?"
"The symptoms were different for each patient. I've been reading a lot about cadmium toxicity and--"
"I am telling you here and now that I don't want extraneous tests ordered on my patients without consulting me. And I can tell you also that most of the other doctors on the staff here feel exactly the way I do."
Abby felt her self-control begin to unravel. She glanced about the small office and wondered if what Lew had told her about bugs and cameras could possibly be true.
"I don't feel they were extraneous," she said stonily. "I also ordered an organophosphate level on Mr. McElroy, and that was positive."
"McElroy's a farmer. Every summer he uses that damn stuff, and every summer he gets exposed, and every summer I treat him if his levels are high enough to warrant it. It's not that test I'm upset about, and you know it. If you've set about trying to cause trouble for Colstar and this town, you may find yourself looking for a job."
"Don't threaten me, George. And please don't speak to me in that tone of voice. I did what I felt was best for those patients."
"You did what you did because a certain other emergency-room doctor has been putting pressure on you."
"That's not true."
"Now, just listen to me. I thought when we spoke in my office last week that we had an understanding about what it means to work in this town."
You had an understanding, Abby thought.
"We're here to do what's best for this community," Oleander went on. "And trying to undermine the company that keeps us all afloat is not being a team player. Besides, I promise you, Colstar is not responsible for any illnesses. I would have thought you were convinced of that by now."
So, she thought, the Lyle Quinn dot was connected to the George Oleander dot. But, of course, Quinn had already gone out of his way to tell her he was on the board of trustees at the hospital.
"George," she said, "I'm doing the best I can to be a good doctor to the people of this town. If that's not being a team player, I'm sorry."
"Abby, the bottom line is this: I don't want any more cadmium levels being sent off on my patients without speaking to me first. What happens when these people get their bills or insurance statements, and they learn that a doctor on the hospital staff thinks they've been poisoned by Colstar?"
"Might have been. I--"
"Please, Abby. I mean it. Back off."
"Whatever you say, George. They're your patients."
"Good. Now, I'm on backup for medicine today."
"I know."
"Well, I'm calling from the car on my way to my wife's cousin's. I'll be twenty minutes away from the hospital. Twenty-five at the most. My service has the number. Treat anything that's not life-and-death. Write holding orders on anyone you want to admit. This is an anniversary party. I'm going to try to stick it out here until five or six. Thank you."
He hung up without waiting for a reply.
"Mr. Team Player," Abby muttered.
She washed her face to cool down. Josh or no Josh, if life at PRH was going to be like this, she would take her chances somewhere else. It was hard to believe that two months ago she had been sitting with friends at a cafe by the water in Sausalito, talking about what sort of wedding she and Josh might have.
She was drying off when the charge nurse, Mary Wilder, pounded on her door and opened it a crack.
"Abby, come quickly," she called out. "We've got big trouble."
Abby grabbed her clinic coat from the chair and raced out.
"There's been a bad accident at Patience Country Club," Mary
said, clearly anxious, but doing a decent job of remaining composed. "Some guy crashed his car through a fence onto a tennis court. He hit three women and then hit a pole or something. Apparently the injuries are bad. One ambulance is already on the way in, two more are on the scene. That's it for the town's ambulances. Tom Webb, the paramedic, will be calling back in just a moment."
Abby felt her heart respond to a jet of adrenaline. Instinctively, she checked her clinic coat pockets for her instruments and the two thick loose-leaf handbooks she had put together over the years crammed with treatment protocols, medication interactions, and other pearls of experience. Multiple trauma on a Sunday morning with a reduced crew and limited backup. Her fears about leaving the shelter of St. John's for a remote ER were about to become reality.
They hurried across to the communications area where the radio and telephones were clustered, along with a telemetry EKG unit.
"Do you want me to start the disaster drill?" Mary asked.
The drill, which each shift practiced once a year, was a telephone pyramid that would mobilize almost the entire hospital staff--medical, nursing, technical, and administration--within ten or fifteen minutes. Over a hundred people. Disruption, confusion, expense. The protocol was an on-off switch. Go or no go. There was no such thing as partial disaster drill. Abby knew the choice was the first of dozens, maybe hundreds, of critical decisions she would have to make over the minutes ahead.
"Not until we have a little more information," she said. "Find out who's in-house and get them down here, please. Also, get whatever nursing help you need for--how many did you say?"
"I think four."
"For four patients. Notify X ray and lab and have them call in their backups now."
Mary used the phone on the counter to begin making calls. At that moment the radio crackled on.
"This is Fire Rescue Three, paramedic Tom Webb reporting."
Behind the man's voice Abby could hear the wail of the siren.
Critical Judgment (1996) Page 13