Critical Condition

by Peter Clement

  He knew that voice, he managed to think before the blade descended. He stared down, unable to believe what he saw until a searing pain roared into his brain and brought his reluctant eyes to focus on the oval void at the end of his forearm. Its opening overflowed with dark red and sent streamers of brilliant crimson arching through the air. He began to scream. Scarlet patterns sprayed across the walls and ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man raise the weapon again and sweep it toward the side of his neck. He tried to lean away from the flashing edge, but an explosion of white went off inside his skull and a dizzying blow struck him somewhere under his jaw. It didn't feel like a cut, he thought, relief flooding in. The man must have smacked him with the flat of the blade. And he wasn't yelling anymore. He opened his mouth to beg for his life. Even though he could feel his lips moving, no sound came. That was strange, he told himself as the white light quickly subsided toward black. For an instant he could see the room again— except he was lying on the floor looking up at a body with no head.

  Chapter 16

  That Same Evening,

  Wednesday, June 27, 9:45 p.m.

  No matter how often the nurses turned her, she hurt where she lay. By marshaling the minuscule movements she was able to make with her arms and lower limbs she could shift the pressure slightly, but it did little to reduce her pain. A captive to her body and other people's schedules, she wanted to scream. She would have, too, except by the time she raised her hand to her throat, took a breath, and covered the opening, her howl of outrage had been robbed of its spontaneity. What was the point then?

  Frustration and anger. Anguish and rage. They kept her adrenaline pumping. And adrenaline kept her up. In Blaine's presence she had felt supremely optimistic. Without her, Kathleen felt deflated.

  And Richard only made everything worse. He was pushing her to a place she didn't want to go with all his blather about living together. Playing happy family, she thought scornfully. It would be playing all right, because Kathleen the mom couldn't feed herself, go to the bathroom alone, or even talk properly. Kathleen the lover couldn't even— what? Maybe couldn't even feel? Her eyes welled with tears that she fought back. Her emotions were on a roller-coaster ride, but the dips kept taking her closer and closer to an abyss, deep, perhaps bottomless, and black. Hopelessness and helplessness lived there. Better to be angry than feel such despair.

  She
  Then she heard the whoosh of the main door opening and his unmistakable step as he strode up to the cubicle. Richard identified himself to the policewoman stationed outside, the curtains opened, and he walked in, his face sagging with fatigue. "I think I know what Hamlin did to you," he told her straight off. He took her hand and pulled up a chair. As tired as he looked, his dark eyes sparkled with excitement. "It's stem cells."

  "What?"

  "He used stem cells on you."

  She was incredulous. "Stem cells?"

  "He injected them into your brain. An infusion of stem cells. And that's why you're making such rapid progress."

  She scarcely noticed his assertion of progress that usually riled her so much. "Stem cells? As . . . from embryos?"

  "It's what this whole business is about. Only it wasn't just Hamlin and Lockman. Paul Edwards, our chief of gynecology, has probably been supplying the embryonic tissue these cells came from, and Francesca Downs, one of the cardiac surgeons, has been using them on patients as well, but she's been entirely successful as far as I can see."

  "Slow down . . . and start at the beginning."

  He leaned close to her, his voice low. "After going through only fifty of her files I already see a pattern. Any patients of hers who suffered heart failure after their heart attacks received a repeat angiogram about three months post-op, the same procedure you had the night of your admission— except the catheter passes into the coronary arteries and they inject dye to see if there are any blockages— common stuff when it comes to cardiac cases. But usually cardiologists only do them if the person shows symptoms of a recurrent obstruction, such as increasing symptoms of angina, or chest pains. From the clinical notes, I gather that many of the people she cathed had no pain at all, or what pain they had remained unchanged and stable."

  "So?"

  "She's been performing unnecessary procedures, and probably for free. No HMO would pay her for 'just taking a look.' Yet when her patients came back after another three months, in more than half the cases their echocardiograms showed a marked improvement in the contractile strength of the affected myocardium."

  "Say what?"

  "They had no more heart failure! The second cath could be where she slips in stem cells, and they repaired the injured heart wall."

  "They can do that?"

  "It sure looks like it."

  "And let me guess . . . Lockman was the radiologist."

  "You got it."

  "So that's what . . . they infused . . . into my brain."

  "I'm certain of it."

  "But why the delay . . . for the cardiac patients? . . . Hamlin did me . . . right away."

  "I don't know. I flipped through as many of her charts as I could trying to find the answer to that one, but no luck. What I did turn up was another player in their game."

  "Who?"

  "A cell researcher named Jimmy Norris. The man's an outsider and a bit of a roue, but in the world of microbiology, he's on the cutting edge in the field of tissue cultures. Who better to hook up with for messing around with stem cells? It's common knowledge around here that he and Downs have been lovers on and off, so it makes for a particularly cozy relationship. What I saw tonight was that his name kept showing up in the charts of patients whom Downs operated on in the last year. He visited nearly all of them. Not in any official capacity. There were no requests for formal consults with any of these people and no explanations as to why he'd have a clinical reason to be interested in them. But I found a couple of notes made by ward clerks that he'd dropped by a patient's room. And two or three nurses reported patients saying that they would be seeing Dr. Norris in his lab about six weeks after discharge for some 'testing' Dr. Downs wanted done. In the records for patients from the previous year there was no documentation of any visits with Norris at all."

  "What do you . . . make of it?"

  "I've no idea yet, but whatever it is, I'll bet it has to do with his supplying her with the cells she's been using."

  "Why not charge ... all three . . . Edwards, Norris, Downs. . . . Accuse them of. . . performing experimental treatments . . . without official approval ... or patient consent?"

  "I can't. Just because her charts are consistent with the idea, doesn't mean it's proof. Francesca Downs could simply say she hasn't a clue what I'm talking about, and since when is excellence a crime. After all, she'd be on safe ground. There's no records of suspicious DOAs arriving in ER on her list. It's not likely her patients will complain even if we asked them. They're all doing great. So if she and her buddies keep their mouths shut, nobody can touch them except maybe the killer. Obviously the Legion of the Lord crowd aren't hot on anyone doing stem cell work."

  Head reeling from all she'd heard, still she was able to seize on what
he'd overlooked. "Not if Francesca Downs . . . this guy Norris . . . and the others you mentioned . . . are the ones . . . controlling him."

  "What?"

  "Why would ... a fanatic on a rampage . . . against stem cell use . . . try and kill me ... in a way . . . that would have . . . covered up the whole scam. ... Or why would . . . that same nut ... be trying to eliminate you . . . who's on the trail ... of those using stem cells. . . . It's Downs . . . and her buddies . . . who'd have reason ... to want us dead . . . before I talked ... or you found them out . . . not a publicity-craving . . . terrorist. . . . Well . . . tell them for me . . . 'You're too late . . . assholes.' "

  She fell silent then, nursing her fury at Hamlin's arrogance, barely listening as Richard pondered aloud what they should do next. Yet the power of what the neurosurgeon had been trying to do filled her with wonder, and in a bizarre way, hope. When Richard finished speaking, he all at once slid his arms around her, kissing her on the mouth for the first time in weeks. It felt sweet, magnificent even, taking her completely by surprise. To her astonishment, she welcomed it, too stunned to do otherwise, and she began to feel what she thought was dead forever. Desire. She wanted him, wanted to move against him, feel his hands touch her as they had before. It terrified her. A thousand questions raced through her head along with a flood of irrational hopes, until, pushing him away, she forced herself to shut everything out— the emotions, the tumult of thoughts— and return to reality. "Please Richard . . . I've got to sleep now. . . . this is all a pretty big shock."

  "Don't worry, Kathleen. For the present, whatever cells you received are probably helping you. If Hamlin's other cases are any example, there's an excellent chance you'll have as good a recovery as they did."

  It wasn't lost on her how he skated around the DOAs. Maybe it was the sum of all her frustrations, but she wasn't about to let him get away with it. In fact, she damn well wasn't going to let him get away with everything that had eaten away at her since the stroke first hit.

  "What good progress?" she demanded. "You call . . . what you see here . . . good progress? Would you be willing ... to live this way? More to the point ... if you were like me . . . would you let . . . anyone else near you? And what'll be your reaction . . . waiting for the hammer to fall . . . Watching for me ... to end up . . . DOA? Will you run? "His color drained. "Kathleen, I swear, I won't desert you—"

  "I swear... I won't desert you," she mimicked. "Gimme a break Richard. . . . Who knows what . . . you're going to feel . . . about me . . . years from now? So why should I . . . count on anything?"

  "Kathleen, don't."

  "Why not? This is the reality . . . chum."

  He looked poleaxed.

  She watched him swallow a couple of times, and knew she'd really gut-punched him.

  Finally he said, "But we've got time to find out why his patients died. Maybe do something about it. What's the matter with hoping for that?"

  "Open your eyes, Richard. . . . I'm what's the matter. ... I couldn't handle . . . your fear . . . your hanging around . . . like a death watch." She hadn't meant to lash out, yet something propelled her.

  "But—""Please! Let me sleep."

  His face sagged in the half light, his features reduced to shadowy grooves and gently lit folds.

  She wanted to reach up and smooth them away except she hadn't the strength to raise her arm that far. Might never be able to. Before he could utter another word she added, "Go be with the . . . children, Richard. . . . They need you tonight. . . . The police took them ... to a hotel. Do . . . that for me. . . . And McKnight said . . . he'd drive you. . . . You're to call him. . . . But don't let him . . . question you too long . . . about all this. . . . Chet and Lisa are . . . the priority."

  Confused, he studied her. "Of course," he said, and kissed her gently on the side of her face.

  She made no attempt to respond. It had to be this way, she told herself. She couldn't harbor false dreams. They would end up tearing her apart.

  He'd screwed up again.

  He hadn't noticed the name on the door as he'd entered after Edwards. But on the way out he had.

  Dr. Francesca Downs was the one person his orders had insisted he spare. He'd no idea why, but the instructions were clear. Don't harm her; leave her offices untouched; avoid implicating her.

  And now he'd beheaded one of their targets in her office.

  Christ! He'd have to move the corpse and clean up the mess.

  He glanced at his watch.

  It would take most of the night, but he had time. Good thing he'd been an orderly so he knew how to clean up bodily fluids, especially blood. And from his years of working here he had an idea where he could hide a body so it wouldn't be found until at least early next week.

  He got to work. Thursday Morning, June 28

  The ringing woke Norris, as usual asleep in a chair in front of the television.

  ". . . Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you no stinkin' badges," a big man who wore a sombrero and a cartridge belt across his chest was saying to a grizzled Humphrey Bogart.

  Ignoring the movie, he fumbled the receiver to his ear.

  "Jimmy, get down to my office."

  Downs's voice sounded frightened, even over the phone. He glanced at the clock on top of the TV. It read 7:10. "Why? What's the matter?"

  "Just get here."

  It took him less than fifteen minutes to reach the hospital, driving across town through only half-jammed streets, shielding his eyes from a blazing sun rising over Queens on the other side of the East River.

  He entered the department. Initially, he saw nothing out of order. Some of his staff was already at work in their labs, but as he approached Downs's office he noticed the broken pane in her door and a large sheet of white paper pasted over it. Immediately he thought of all the secret data they kept in her computer and locked away in the cabinets.

  When he got closer, his feet crunched on small particles of glass. Someone must have hastily cleaned up the breakage, but hadn't had time to get the gritty pieces.

  "Who is it?" Downs demanded before he had a chance to knock, her voice tremulous.

  "It's me."

  He heard the lock click and the door opened a crack, enough for him to see a pair of brown eyes surrounded by a pasty shade of white as Downs peeked out at him. "Quickly, come inside."

  A heavy aroma of rubbing alcohol bit into his nostrils as soon as he entered, and he saw a row of filing cabinet drawers partially opened, their locks bent out of shape. His fears about a break-in were confirmed. What struck him most was the strain in Downs's face. Her lips and cheeks were so tense they appeared to be in rictus. "Don't tell me someone's taken all our records."

  "No, I don't think so. Whoever it was only opened a few drawers, and I can't find anything missing. Besides, our stuff's so well encrypted I doubt anyone could crack it."

  "There's a way to crack anything," he said, her naive reassurance to the contrary fanning his alarm. Rushing over to one of the drawers and pulling it open, he added, "We've got to make sure nothing's gone. Why would anybody break into your office if they didn't want our research reports? I'll bet it was Edwards or Blaine intending to grab our work and cash in on it." He saw only files of papers and pulled out another drawer.

  "Trust me, the CDs are safe. Something else happened here, Jimmy. Something much worse. You smell all that isopropyl alcohol?"

  He stopped his search. "Yeah. It hit me as I came in. You been sterilizing your office?"

  "Someone has, but not completely. I swear there's a spray of blood on the underside of my desk. There's also spots of it on the walls, in corners, between cracks in the tiles— everywhere. Jimmy, I think there's been a bloodbath in here."

  "A bloodbath," he said, astonished.

  "See for yourself, damn it!" She pointed toward her desk.

  The rawness in her voice grated. He knelt down to inspect the two gray pedestals that served as legs for the cumbersome piece
of furniture. He could see streak marks where they had been washed, but sure enough, along the overhang of the desktop itself was a spatter of dark maroon spots. And at his knees he saw a similar discoloration along the seams between the black-and-white squares of linoleum. He got up and went over to the glass doors in one of the bookcases. He found the same reddish grunge filling the grooves in the hinges beside more faint streaks of a recent washing. On the other two cabinets he discovered similar marks and material.

  "You're sure it's blood?" he asked, finding it hard to swallow.

  "Yeah. I put a scraping under a microscope."

  "Human?"

  "Sure looks like it. I'm not about to submit it to a hematologist and get a DNA analysis."

  "What do you think happened?"

  "I don't know. But I'll bet you the maniac who killed Hamlin and Lockman is behind it."

  "You think he went after you and got someone else, by mistake?"

  "Maybe. Or lured one of his other targets down here, then cleaned it up, leaving enough traces so the police would think I did it."

  "Oh?"

  "Sure. It makes sense, Edwards or Blaine. One of them's trying to set me up as the mastermind controlling this psycho."

  "And you think the blood belongs to the other one?"

  "Yes."

  "Jesus." He shuddered. "So Where's the body?"

  "Goddamn it, will you can the questions. I haven't all the answers. For all I know our murderer could have rolled it out of here on a stretcher, loaded it into the trunk of a car, and thrown it into the East River. Do your own figuring for a change and stop acting like a passive wienie."

  There were nurses and residents all over the hospital who'd been scorched by her acid tongue. It was part of hospital lore, resented but endured because of her exceptional skills as a surgeon. Until now he'd escaped its heat. His dread that she'd dump him in a heartbeat if it came to saving her own skin resurfaced full force. "But we'll know which of the two it is if one of them doesn't show up for work today, won't we?" she added, her pale lips pulling into a taut line.