The sky turned black and an ominous, dark funnel appeared on the horizon. The wind blew fiercely as the twister wound its way toward them. Adrenalin surged, and Geoff reacted instinctively. He threw their lunch into the basket and swept Jessica up into his arms all in one motion, then ran for the safety of the Penguin House at the north end of the zoo’s esplanade.
As he neared the fountain at the center of the walkway, a wave of panic spread over him: Jessica was gone. He dropped the basket. No Jessica. How could it be? A moment ago she had been securely tucked under his right arm.
He looked around frantically. The zoo was deserted.
Geoff broke out in a cold sweat. She was missing. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled her name at the top of his lungs, but gusty wind drowned out the sound of his voice. Geoff spied a phone by the lamppost.
The police, damn it, call the police!
A sweet, little voice echoed downwind. “Dr. Davis, Dr. Davis. Where are you”?
Geoff’s attention focused in the direction from which the voice seemed to come. He looked toward the Penguin House. No one. He looked all around. Deserted. “Jessica, I can’t see where you are. Call me again.”
“I’m in here. With the penguins,” she cried. “There’s a man in here, too.”
Geoff’s nerves were raw. He began to sweat profusely. A man. His dread worsened. Was she being molested? He ran towards the Penguin House. “I’m coming, Jessica. Hold on.”
A figure suddenly appeared in the doorway. A large man wearing a Parks Department uniform, a bomb strapped to his body, stood clutching Jessica in his arms.
Geoff stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at Jessica. She was smiling peacefully.
“It’s okay, Dr. Davis. This nice man found me.”
Geoff’s gaze shifted to the kidnapper’s face. It was a peculiar face, not like any he had ever seen. At first Geoff did not realize what was so strange about the man, then it suddenly became evident. His skull was as transparent as glass. Contained within, Geoff could see the psychedelic convolutions of the man’s brain, its vivid colors radiating through his transparent skull. His brain was like a living PET scan, the outer shell emitting a royal blue, the deeper zones emerald green and chartreuse, all mapping out the man’s endorphin receptors. At least his pattern appeared normal, Geoff thought with some relief. In his fascination, Geoff momentarily forgot about Jessica.
Then Geoff saw something, and a state of total fear overwhelmed him. Deep at the base of the man’s temporal lobes, an area of searing vermilion the shape of a horseshoe pulsated brilliantly, like the core of an uncontrolled nuclear reactor about to go into meltdown. The man’s limbic area was saturated with endorphins. He was schizophrenic. There’d be no reasoning with him. Geoff looked at Jessica, who continued to smile, as if to reassure him everything would turn out all right.
Trying not to make any sudden moves, Geoff approached.
“Don’t come any closer, Doc, or we both go sky high.” The man’s left hand grabbed the detonator strapped to his waist.
Doc. The accent. The way he said Doc.
“Just relax and be cool about it. That’s my patient you’ve got there. Why don’t you just put her down, let her go.” In a flash, the man’s face transformed and assumed definition. “Doc, you fucked up my brain once. You’re not gonna have a chance to do it again!”
Geoff was confused. His gaze was again drawn to the man’s brain. The red hot horseshoe area was pulsating at a crescendo, its crimson glow spreading to adjacent areas of the brain like creeping molten lava.
Movement over to the right of the doorway. Another person. A cop was sidling toward the man and Jessica, gun drawn. Dumbrowski.
“Hold it right there, pal!” he commanded, his gun aimed at the man’s pulsating brain.
The man turned abruptly, yanking Jessica as he did so. “You were too late last time, cop. You’re too late this time, too!”
A feeling of helplessness engulfed Geoff. His gaze darted frantically from Dumbrowski to the man holding Jessica, back to the cop. “Take me instead of the little girl,” Geoff said. He continued advancing toward them.
“It’s over, Doc. You put that horseshoe in my brain, and now you pay the price!”
“What are you talking about?”
“My brain, man. You poisoned my brain!” the man yelled hysterically, his entire brain now a bright orange-red like a pulsating sun about to explode. His right thumb reached the detonator button.
“No!” Geoff screamed.
A white-hot firestorm erupted around him.
Geoff sat up in bed, his body sopping with sweat, his heart pounding.
“Geoff, are you okay?” Stefan sat down on the edge of the sofa bed. “You must have been having a nightmare.”
Geoff wiped the sweat off his brow and searched the blackness of the room. “How could I have forgotten that face? That voice?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The man who went nuts at the zoo.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if you’re losing it now,” said Stefan. He rubbed his eyes.
“He was the first head injury patient in our PET scan/endorphin study a couple of months ago.”
“Must have had a lot of brain damage.”
“Obviously more than I thought at the time.” Geoff reached over, turned on the light on the end table, grabbed a pad and a pencil.
Stefan squinted his eyes at the offending light.
Geoff scribbled down a single word: Romero.
Chapter 9
“You look like hell, Geoff,” Cathy Johannsen said. They sat at the ICU nursing station. Geoff had recounted the bizarre events of the night before.
“Could I make up a story like that?”
“You have a pretty active imagination, but I have to believe you were there. Your name was all over the papers. ‘Dr. McDreamy of the A-train saves the day.’ You’re the hero of Washington Heights.”
“How’s Karen doing?”
“She’s doing great. She handled herself like a pro. Mark, well, he’s smart but a bit green. No new admissions, by the way, and they were able to get little Jessica off the ventilator.”
“So soon?” Images from his dream flashed in his mind. Jessica clutched tightly in Romero’s arms, the white-hot firestorm engulfing them all.
Karen Choy approached the nursing station. “I guess you heard the good news,” she said with a broad smile.
“Don’t get me wrong, Karen, I think it’s great, but didn’t you take her off the ventilator a little prematurely?”
Karen shifted her weight, massaged the back of her neck, as if she was surprised by his question. “Well, it wasn’t my idea entirely. Howard suggested we do it.”
Geoff was upset. “Kapinsky? He should know better than that. Where is he now?”
“Over there, by Jessica’s bed,” Cathy said. She rolled her eyes, pointed to the far corner of the room. “He’s doing his clown routine.”
Geoff left the nursing station, Karen behind him, and walked towards Jessica’s bed. Kapinsky was standing at the bedside blowing up balloons and twisting them into the shapes of animals. He playfully set each one on Jessica’s table after he made the corresponding animal’s sounds.
Geoff watched the scene in amazement. His anger abated and his instinctual dislike for Kapinsky melted away, however briefly, as he observed the tender interaction. It was hard to believe this was the same abrasive tight-assed geek he had come to loathe over the years.
“And do you know what this one is, sweetie?” asked Kapinsky in his best kindergarten voice. “I’ll give you one hint. Hee-haw, hee-haw.”
Jessica’s eyes were open, like slits. She cracked half a smile, made a feeble attempt to mouth the word donkey.
“Great!�
� Kapinsky replied. “Now I have one last animal friend for you to meet.”
“Looks like you’ve found a cure for endorphin-coma, Kapinsky,” Geoff said as he and Karen approached the bedside.
Kapinsky smiled and continued about his business of creating a balloon giraffe. “Now, Dr. Geoff, let’s not frighten our patient. She’s never seen you before.”
Geoff’s initial reaction was to get pissed off at Kapinsky’s tone, be he realized immediately Kapinsky was right. “Would you like to introduce us?”
Geoff approached Jessica cautiously, noting the frightened look in her eyes. She was a different child from the grotesque, bloodied little girl he had seen the other day. The endotracheal tube had been removed, and one of the nurses had made braids and tied them together over the shaved area on the top of her head. She was no longer a faceless victim.
“Jessie, this is my friend, Dr. Geoff. He’s your friend, too, so don’t be afraid of him.” Kapinsky placed his arm around Geoff, who had softened enough to tolerate the contact.
Jessica nodded slowly, and her frightened expression relaxed. She attempted to mouth words—obviously using every bit of her strength to do so—words Geoff picked up on right away. “Daddy. Where’s my daddy?”
Geoff turned to Karen with concern. “Have you spoken with the family?”
“Her dad and grandmother spent most of the night here,” Karen said. “They went home to rest about an hour ago. Her mother died a few years ago.”
Geoff grasped Jessica’s hand firmly with his own. “Daddy went home to nap, Jessica. He’ll be back soon.”
He turned to Kapinsky. “I think it’s time to let her rest.”
Jessica nodded slowly as her eyes closed.
The team, lead by Geoff, walked toward the nursing station. “Looks great, doesn’t she?” Kapinsky said with a smug smile.
“Sure does. Tell me how you weaned her off the ventilator so quickly, Karen.”
Karen rubbed the back of her neck and took a breath. “Her vitals had remained stable for almost thirty-six hours and her intracranial pressure had dropped to normal levels. When she became arousable and her pupils were normal and fully reactive to light, we had respiratory therapy evaluate her pulmonary functions. Her pO2/CO2 levels were normal. After checking her chest x-ray and seeing her lung had re-expanded, and after repeating the PET scan, we—Howard and I—thought it was safe to try to wean her off the ventilator.”
“I understand your desire to help her recover as quickly as possible, Karen, but I hope you realize how potentially dangerous what you did was. She could have died. Surely you, Kapinsky, should have known better.”
Karen looked down, avoiding eye contact with Geoff.
“It was done under very controlled conditions, Geoff. I would never have taken the risk with this little girl otherwise,” Kapinsky said.
“Did you check her PET scan first?”
“I haven’t seen the most recent one. I think the hard copy is still in Neuroimaging,” Kapinsky said.
Geoff looked him squarely in the eye, saw insecurity behind the defiant stare. “Just be more cautious and follow standard protocol next time. I don’t want any unnecessary morbidity on our team.”
“Sure, chief,” Kapinsky said.
Geoff looked over his shoulder at the empty bed next door, bed seventeen. A newly vacant bed in the NSICU meant one of three things: the patient was in neuroimaging, on the ward, or in the morgue. Geoff felt a twinge of concern. “Where’s the hang glider?”
“Transferred to the neuro ward around five this morning. He came out of drug-induced coma during the night, and the staffing in the NSICU was a little short. The bed control supervisor asked if it was okay to move him a few hours early,” Kapinsky said. “I mean, I knew we planned on sending him down to the ward today anyway, right?” Kapinsky seemed to sense Geoff’s annoyance.
“Who’s the chief resident, here, Kapinsky? The bed control supervisor is supposed to clear requests like that with me, not with the senior resident.” Geoff glared at Kapinsky.
“Well, she was going to, but I was here, so I told her not to bother calling you. I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”
“You thought wrong. Next time, bother me.” Goddamned Kapinsky. This year might be even longer than Geoff had imagined.
“Whatever you say, chief.”
Something seemed different this morning to Geoff. He wasn’t quite sure what. Maybe it was that the NSICU was quieter than usual at early morning rounds. Phones rang, nurses and medical students chatted, techs came and went, respirators hissed. Smithers. That was it. “Where’s Smithers?”
Geoff looked around the room for the cop he and Karen had admitted from the ER yesterday. The three possibilities flashed through his mind again.
“Neuroimaging,” Kapinsky said. “You wanted him to have a PET scan as soon as he was stable, right?”
“He just had major surgery yesterday and came this close to crumping.” Geoff gestured with his fingers. He felt really uneasy about this one. “He didn’t seem stable enough last night to stand the hour it would take in neuroimaging.” He gave Karen a questioning look. “Who went with him?”
“Brian Phelps and a medical student,” Karen said.
“Great. A first year resident and a med student. I hate July,” Geoff muttered.
“What?” asked Karen.
“Forget it. It’s not your fault.” Geoff looked at Kapinsky. “Did you okay this?”
“Well, yes. I mean he was stable enough to be transferred with a portable respirator—”
“Stable enough?” I don’t like you taking risks with our patients, Kapinsky.” Geoff locked stares with Kapinsky. “You had better get your act together real fast, or this is going to be a long year. For both of us.”
Kapinsky bit his upper lip, squinted, looked down. “Sorry. I was just trying to be helpful, chief.”
Geoff tensed his jaw, nodded. He turned to Karen. “I’ve got some test results to check on the computer. It shouldn’t take me long. Skip the rest of rounds and head down to neuroimaging, check on Smithers. I’ll meet you down there in five minutes.”
“Sure,” Karen said. She grabbed her clipboard off the bedside table and left.
“Kapinsky, I’ll be in the lounge. Don’t extubate or discharge anyone in the next five minutes, okay?”
“Don’t worry, chief.”
“I do,” Geoff said. He turned and headed to the front of the NSICU, entered the house staff lounge, and sat at a vacant terminal. He had been curious all morning to find whatever records he could on Romero, search for any hint of mental illness, schizophrenia specifically. He didn’t remember much about him. The face, the name, his accent. The way he said ‘doc,’ just like in the dream. His thoughts flashed back to the disturbing nightmare, and a pulsating horseshoe appeared brightly in his mind’s eye. Geoff wanted to pull Romero’s scan, if for no other reason than to satisfy his curiosity and put the strange dream to rest.
Geoff signed on to the Traumanet system and entered Neurad, the neuroimaging database. Reviewing patient records and test results required a second level security clearance, PET scan data, third level. Geoff viewed this as a tremendous inconvenience. PETronics Corporation insisted it was essential to preserve patient confidentiality.
WELCOME TO THE NEURAD SYSTEM, DR. DAVIS. YOUR ACCESS IS CLEARED. PLEASE ENTER THE PATIENT’S NAME AND BIRTHDATE OR HOSPITAL NUMBER.
Geoff entered the patients name: Romero, Jesus.
He waited for the digitalized image to appear on the screen. The cursor pulsed for what seemed like minutes before delivering the response.
NO SCAN OR FILE WITH NAME: ROMERO, JESUS. PLEASE TRY ALTERNATE SPELLING OR ENTER HOSPITAL NUMBER.
Geoff re-entered the name using different spellings. All resulted in the sa
me response. He switched to the patient record system, tried to pull up Romero’s medical chart and got the same message. There was no record of a Jesus Romero having been to the New York Trauma Center. Geoff rested his hand on his chin, stared blankly at the screen, tapped his finger on the desk. He knew the man had been a patient at the NYTC. Now it was as if he had never existed. Must be a computer error. Geoff made a mental note to see if there was a hard copy of the scan filed in neuroimaging, a chart in medical records. They couldn’t have vanished into thin air.
Chapter 10
Having maneuvered through the maze of limited access elevators and corridors leading to the labyrinthine sub-basement of the PETronics Research Center, Geoff paused at the entrance to PET Scanning. Over the main doorway a large sign, its illuminated red block letters pulsating brightly, issued a stern warning. “Scan In Progress. Do Not Enter.”
“Who designed this medical center, anyway?” a voice reverberated through the hallway.
Geoff startled, turned around. “Karen? I thought you’d be inside with the patient by now.”
“So did I.” Karen shifted her stance, smiled in seeming embarrassment. “I kind of got lost. You’d think that with all of the head trauma that comes through this place, PET scanning would be right next to the ER, not in the outer reaches of Siberia.”
“It all comes down to money,” Geoff said. “And control.”
Karen wrinkled her brow. “What do you mean?”
“The reality of healthcare in the new economy, Dr. Choy. Private-public partnerships, that’s what I mean. It wasn’t a government grant or some grateful benefactor that built this research wing, Karen. PETronics Corporation bankrolled it. They designed it. They control it.”
“A medical equipment company owns this place?”
“That’s right,” Geoff said.
“So we sold out? Is that the answer?”
The Endorphin Conspiracy Page 7