by Allen Wyler
Yuen Studio, Seattle
Allen Wyler was an internationally renowned neurosurgeon until he became medical director of a startup medical technology company that he helped to take public. He now chairs an institutional review board of a major medical center in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to numerous scientific publications, he has written two prior thrillers, Deadly Errors and Dead Head, and served several years as a Vice President for the International Thriller Writers. Presently, he and his wife, Lily, split their time between Seattle and one of the San Juan Islands. For more information visit www.allenwyler.com
Also by Allen Wyler
DEAD HEAD
DEADLY ERRORS
*e-book
Forthcoming novels to be published by
Astor + Blue Editions, LLC
DEAD RINGER
DEAD WRONG
Forthcoming from Astor + Blue Editions:
DEAD RINGER—high-flying neurosurgeon Lucas McRae is tangled in a web of grisly murders run by a gang of body snatchers—ALLEN WYLER.
HONG KONG
A DARK, ILL-FORMED premonition punched Lucas McRae in the gut so hard it stole his breath. He froze, aware of something drastically wrong. Involving someone close to him.
Laura? Josh? Were they safe?
A second later it vanished, leaving only a lingering vague sense of foreboding.
He’d heard of stories like a mother suddenly awakened, knowing her son was just killed by an insurgent’s RPG half a world away. He rejected these tales as nothing more than folklore. Mental telepathy—or whatever you wanted to call it—was scientifically impossible. But, Jesus, this thing, this awful feeling in his gut . . .
“Dr. McRae, over here!”
Lucas looked toward the voice. To his right, over the roof of a taxi and beyond the hotel loading zone, Jimmy Wong waved from the rolled-down window of a red compact. A Toyota or Nissan, but a model that isn’t available in the States. Thankful for the distraction, Lucas trotted over to the car. But the free-floating, ill-defined dread returned, burrowing in his gut.
He slid into the passenger seat, his skin already sticky from the thick tropical humidity and sinus-clogging smog. Buckled in and shut the door.
Wong Yiw-Wah, or Jimmy to Westerners, extended a hand. “Welcome to Hong Kong.” The president of the Hong Kong Neurosurgical Society had a friendly, oval face of indeterminable age. Wong’s temples had turned to gray, like Lucas’s.
Lucas shook hands, said, “Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.”
Wong merged into morning rush hour traffic and accelerated. “Sorry our group cannot afford the Peninsula. Your hotel accommodations are adequate?” He spoke with a slight British accent. Lucas figured he’d probably been schooled in England.
“Yes, very nice. Thank you.”
The Harbor View International Hotel was an okay, no-frills, three-star place to sleep at night and shave in the morning. With spending the day at the meeting, a fancier place would be a waste of money. It could be quieter, though. A rattling elevator door across from his room woke him repeatedly throughout the night.
“And your flight over?”
“Perfect.” Which was one of those white lies you tell a host.
“Sorry I was unable to meet you at the airport, but the operating theater became frightfully backed up and my case dragged on and on. Certainly, I don’t have to tell you how those things go.” Wong glanced over his shoulder, preparing to change lanes. “The car picked you up without a problem, I am told. True?”
“It did. Thanks.”
Lucas had rolled in about eight last evening, dog tired and coated with a layer of stale sweat and eyelids that felt lined with sand. He didn’t bother with dinner, just showered and then poured a minibar scotch to use as an Ambien chaser before hitting the sheets. The combination worked like a sledgehammer to his brain, putting him out within minutes. Otherwise, with the change in time zones he would have been wide awake until just before time to get up again. Business trips. He hated the fatigue jet lag caused. Especially when you were expected to socialize at cocktail parties and dinners.
“Very good, then.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “I hope you are up to demonstrating your skills today. Your audience will be keen to see you work.”
Lucas nodded, but his mind returned to the god-awful premonition from moments ago. What was that all about? He tried to distract himself by watching the city’s buildings fly by as Jimmy Woo sped down West Kowloon Highway. Hong Kong: a vertical city of breath-stealing Western architecture built to ancient feng shui standards. But hard as he tried, he couldn’t shake it. Something bad had happened. What?
This wasn’t stage fright. Demonstrating tricky surgeries had become second nature to Lucas. And was a well-earned by-product of an international reputation. Years ago he experienced little shivers of anxiety at the start of a talk or a demonstration but not anymore. Besides, this feeling was entirely different. It had nothing to do with the immediate future. Rather, he knew—just knew—something bad happened within the past twenty-four hours.
Again, he tried to ignore it and concentrate on today’s tasks.
He had made a career choice years ago. Rather than being good at general neurosurgery, he became outstanding at a few extremely tricky surgeries. His expertise became a double-edged sword; he derived comfort from knowing his chances of screwing up were low because he had mastered the difficult techniques. The price, of course, was monotony from doing the same cases over and over. Not only that, but the subsequent notoriety forced him to become even more specialized. Initially, he took satisfaction in being referred problems no one else would touch. But he quickly learned the downside: fear. The high-risk cases were also the ones to very quickly and unexpectedly blow up in your face, leaving the malpractice lawyers licking their chops.
Today would be easy because he would be using a cadaver instead of a live person. So why did he feel like something terrible had happened?
Well, there was Laura. As it turned out, this trip couldn’t have come at a worse time in their failing marriage and the decision to talk to their separate attorneys. But this was not something he could have foreseen when invited to be the guest lecturer ten months ago. And truthfully, it was sort of nice to escape the tension for a few days.
The harder he tried to identify the cause of the foreboding, the more it danced away, like a familiar word on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it was just his imagination. He hoped so.
For a distraction, he asked Wong, “Your case yesterday, what was it?”
QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL, HONG KONG
AFTER THEY BOTH CHANGED into green scrubs, Wong led Lucas down the hall to the lounge of a classroom. A cozy room of blond wood paneling, industrial beige carpet, and two leather couches. Eleven scrub-clad surgeons were milling around, chatting animatedly, most of them holding white Styrofoam cups of steaming tea. The drab sameness of hospitals struck Lucas. This could be anyplace in the world—Cincinnati or Calcutta—and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Well, except for the Chinese characters on the plaques covering a trophy wall.
Wong introduced Lucas to each surgeon, one of whom—an older man with the face of a bulldog—he’d already met. The guy had accompanied Wong to Seattle to watch Lucas in action. Two weeks afterward Lucas received an invitation to be the society’s guest lecturer. Thankfully, Lucas remembered the man’s name before embarrassing himself. Strange how the mind worked. As a premed student he memorized the periodic table, but at parties he forgot a person’s name within seconds of being introduced.
For the next ten minutes Lucas made sure to spend a few moments chitchatting with each participant, all of whom had been trained with English as their second language. Then Wong ushered everyone into the classroom, a large utilitarian corner room smelling of overheated electronics and formaldehyde. The space had been laid out to optimize this type of demonstration and benefited from natural light from two walls of windows. At the front was a table on a six-inch riser. The remainder of the room
was filled with tables, each with two chairs on opposite sides. Suspended from the ceiling above each table were parabolic surgical lamps and two Sony HDTVs. Except for the televisions this could’ve been one of his old classrooms in med school.
Wong led Lucas to the demonstration table where a blue surgical towel covered a cantaloupe-sized mound on a stainless steel tray. This, Lucas assumed, was the cadaver head he’d be using. Three boom-mounted HD cameras were aimed at the tray, one on each side with the third directly overhead. Similar cameras were set to monitor four other tables. Wong explained that the cameras would record the demonstration while providing the audience different close-up views of the dissection. Wong then asked Lucas to sign a recording release.
Lucas dropped into the chair and inspected the tray of surgical instruments. Central supply apparently provided the ones he’d requested. Like all surgeons, he had preferences. And like all surgeons, this bordered on superstition. Especially when working under the microscope.
After verifying each camera was sharply focused and recording, Wong nodded for Lucas to begin.
Standing behind the table, Lucas addressed the group. “The first demonstration will be the anterior approach to the clivus.” A tricky way to reach the base of the brain by cutting through the back of the mouth. “I assume you’ve all read the articles I emailed Dr. Wong?”
They nodded in unison.
“Any questions before I start?”
They glanced at each other but no one spoke.
“As with any craniotomy, it’s extremely important to plan your incision correctly.” Lucas picked up a Sharpie in one hand and a corner of the towel with the other.
As he withdrew the towel, Lucas said, “We start the incision here,” and looked down at the head. He froze. For three long seconds he was unable to tear his gaze from the gray, bloodless skin. Then he spun away, spewing vomit on the wall and the floor.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
About the Author
Also by Allen Wyler