In his thirty years in politics, Pierce had never seen an issue attain such passion and true sex appeal in so short a time. He’d have to remember to thank Al Gore personally for whipping this thing up to a fever pitch. But it was more than that; sometimes you just needed perfect timing—and the planets really had aligned themselves big-time on this one.
Global warming was a godsend to his flagging career, the answer to his prayers. Truth be told, he didn’t even put much stock in the whole thing. Too many scientists with their high-tech interstitial glacier measurements, carbon footprints, what have you. You didn’t know who to trust. You could always find an egghead somewhere willing to pontificate about anything—coming down on either side of any issue. He didn’t care much for the damned tree-huggers either, with their righteous, holier-than-thou attitudes. The only tree he cared about getting hugged was the big woody between his legs. He chuckled out loud.
But polls he trusted, and they were very clear on this: people cared passionately about the environment. Pierce sighed. He missed the good ol’ days, when things were simpler and he had a better grasp of them. Sex sells and money talks—these were the basics he understood. Today, it was green all the way. Who’da thunk it?
Well, just because he had missed the fuckin’ tuna boat on this one didn’t mean he couldn’t capitalize on it. Adapt or perish. Survival of the fittest. That was cool, in vogue eco-jargon, wasn’t it? And it was so easy—like taking candy, or whatever they fed them nowadays, from a baby. Down with big oil; up with homegrown corn and ethanol production. Who could possibly be against mom, apple pie, baseball, and a Toyota Synergy drive?
A year and a half ago, at his campaign manager’s urging, he had fired up the Pierce Eco-tour, crisscrossing the commonwealth in his hybrid drive, ethanol-burning green bus. Placards with slogans like Pierce is Fierce for the Environment and Green Peace for Green Pierce adorned its sides. Simple, but highly effective. Build a green stadium and they will come!
And come they did. Voters flocked to him, donations poured in, and he became the darling of the media. Russ was a quick study and he easily assimilated the eco-lingo, the buzz words and catchphrases designed for news sound bites. Passion was also easy to fake—rather, to project. He simply translated his passion for re-election to Mother Earth and it was a done deal. Anyone listening to him speak on the environment would swear he recycled his very tears for the sake of water conservation for the beleaguered planet.
Bob Kingman, his senior staffer, interrupted his reflections. “Senator, CNN will take a statement in ten minutes.” Kingman adjusted his earpiece for a moment. “Wolf Blitzer is standing by.”
Russ Pierce smiled, stood up, and immediately doubled over as a sharp pain shot through his upper abdomen—or was it his chest? He put his hand on the chair to steady himself and had trouble catching his breath. What the hell was that? The room spun, his legs wobbled. Perspiration beaded up on his forehead and waves of nausea coursed through him.
“Senator, are you okay?” Kingman asked, voice heavy with concern as he grasped Pierce’s arm to support him. Perky was also quickly by his side, looking stricken.
“I don’t feel so good, Bob. Here, let me sit down.” Pierce collapsed back into his easy chair and labored to catch his breath. “Get me some Maalox,” he gasped. Several staffers scurried away.
After several minutes, the intense pain seemed to subside, and he could breathe more normally. “How much time to CNN?”
“Five minutes, sir. Maybe we should cancel—er, tell them you’re sick.”
“Are you crazy?” Pierce shot back. He massaged his chest and belly, hoping to erase some of the pain. “Just arrange it so I can do it sitting down. I’ll be fine.” A horrible thought scared the bejesus out of him. Could I be having a heart attack? If this was a damned heart attack, he’d be furious. Not now. Not when my time has finally come. Probably just the stomach flu or too much of that cheese fondue he had gorged on earlier.
Moments later the CNN camera crew descended upon him. They fluffed his hair, powdered his face, and stuck an earpiece in his ear. They told him Mr. Blitzer would be on in sixty seconds and trained the camera and bright lights on him. Pierce put on his best smile and tried to appear thoughtful as he waited for the reporter. There he was now. Pierce listened and then responded, “Why thank you, Wolf. That’s mighty nice of you.”
Before Wolf could get through his first question of the evening, pain slammed into Pierce’s upper abdomen again, taking his breath away and forcing him to gasp and grimace and clutch helplessly at his midsection on national TV. His vision swam in and out of focus and he watched Perky’s pretty face distort grotesquely. Soon his vision dimmed and he saw nothing but blackness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2:30 A.M.
Luke awoke with a start and looked at the dresser clock—2:30 a.m. A persistent thought, or perhaps a feeling, ricocheted around inside his skull. He sat up in bed, his mind shedding sleep like Colby shaking off water after a dip in the creek. He had been dreaming he was on his honeymoon on the Big Island of Hawaii. Except the dream included being buried alive in a lava flow from Kilauea. The frightening volcanic scene was fading quickly, but the sensation of intense heat radiating from the molten rock stuck with him. Something about the heat bothered him.
He struggled to wake up more and let his intuition guide him.
His mind kept getting drawn back to the malignant hyperthermia case. He replayed the part where he had started the patient’s IV and touched her arm. She hadn’t felt that hot. Her arm hadn’t felt blazing to his touch.
But the digital thermometer had read 105 degrees—he had seen it with his own eyes. And the blood gas pH came back 7.09. And to top it all off, she was dead—there was no denying that. So, what was he missing here? Something was still bugging him big-time. And why did it seem that Katz wanted to get rid of him?
Numbers don’t lie, do they?
Could he have been mistaken about her arm? He re-visualized starting her IV. He still couldn’t recall her arm being hot. A sudden flash of insight made him jump out of bed. Just how did Katz know all the dantrolene dosages so perfectly and the MH protocol so well? Numbers don’t lie, but people sure do. Luke started to put on his clothes.
Kim awakened and said in a voice thick with sleep, “What’s wrong?”
“I gotta go to the hospital.”
“Huh?”
“I have to go to the hospital.” Luke continued to struggle with his pants in the dimly lit room.
“That’s supposed to be my line, sweetie,” Kim said, more awake now. She propped herself up on her elbows. “Hey, you’re not on call.”
“I know, I know.”
“I didn’t hear any phone or beeper, anyway. Everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. There’s just something I gotta do. Go back to sleep. I won’t be long.” He stopped and manufactured a big smile. “I’ll have my cell if you need me. Love ya.” He bent down and kissed her, then made a quick exit.
Luke headed west down the empty, moonlit stretch of Route 39. Swatara Regional came into view in a few minutes.
Focused on completing his mission as quickly as possible, Luke entered the hospital through the back doors using his ID swipe card and headed to the second floor OR complex. He hoped there were no cases tonight—he didn’t feel like explaining his presence to anyone. He went into the empty locker room, pulled on a pair of scrubs, and headed into the OR. The door to the nurses’ lounge was shut, probably meaning they were asleep. Good. Luke put on a cap and mask and headed for OR #7.
He flipped on the lights and looked around. The place was cleaned up, all spic-and-span, with no traces of the tragic life or death struggle that had taken place less than eight hours previous. It was all ready to be used again in the morning for the next patient. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
He walked over to the sharps container and held his breath as he looked in. Had they dumped it in their cleaning frenz
y? Usually the containers lasted a week or so before they got full enough to discard… Bingo! The container was still half full of syringes, needles, IVs, ampules, and various other trash. Luke hesitated. Sticking your hand into one of these would be as dumb as sticking your hand into a snake pit.
Luke grabbed a towel from the anesthesia cart and spread it on the floor. He gingerly dumped some of the contents of the sharps container onto it, hoping to find what he was looking for. There, toward one side—he was pretty sure that was the IV needle he had used earlier to start Mimi’s second IV. The plastic cannula stayed in the patient, whereas the metal needle assembly was discarded into the sharps container. He was able to recognize his needle for two reasons—not many people used the older angio catheters like those he’d used at Penn, and even fewer 14-gauge IVs were started.
He picked up the needle and checked to see if its hub was full of blood—it was. Since it was a large-bore needle, the hub actually contained a cc or so of blood and some of it may not have clotted yet. Luke was counting on this; he needed several microliters of liquid blood.
He picked up the towel carefully and deposited the rest of the sharps back into the container and returned it to its place before hitting the lights and making his way to one of the open heart rooms. Here, they had one of the machines he was looking for: a rapid blood gas analyzer. He hoped he was not too late and that enough liquid blood remained in the hub to allow the machine to run.
The little machine hummed to life and went through its warm-up cycle. Luke put the probe in and watched as a small quantity of blood got sucked up the metal probe. Ten seconds later he had a reading: pH 7.05. “Wow,” he muttered. He knew the pCO2 and pO2 readings would be unreliable at this point, but the pH should remain fairly stable. He paused for a second to let the number sink in.
So, she really was acidotic. Katz had been right all along and was playing it by the book. In the confusion of the resuscitation, Luke must’ve been wrong about whether her skin was burning up or not. Now he felt really foolish and wanted to get the hell out of there. Maybe he just felt guilty about not being able to turn the lady around and couldn’t accept that someone had died in spite of his best efforts. He knew he was clutching at straws to blame something or someone else.
Luke changed back into street clothes and headed toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the light on in Katz’s office, midway between himself and the stairwell. Shit! He listened carefully and thought he could make out Katz’s voice talking on the phone. With any luck, he’s preoccupied, Luke thought. He walked swiftly and silently toward the exit, passing by the half-open door.
“Dr. Daulton,” Katz called out from the office.
Shit. Luke froze and said nothing.
“Is that you?”
Luke heard a phone being hung up and the squeak of Katz’s chair. Moments later, Dr. Katz was at the doorway.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” Katz asked, his tone more curious than anything, but he was positively staring.
“I, uh, left some stuff I needed in my locker,” Luke said, not making eye contact. “I was just leaving.” He checked his watch and turned and eyed the exit stairway.
“Oh…I see,” Katz said. “Well, as long as you’re here, come into my office. I want to have a word with you.” Katz stood there, motioning Luke to come in.
Great. Luke entered the office and sat in the same chair that he’d sat in when he got reamed out after that god-awful C-section. Probably another partnership lecture, he thought. Or, maybe he’d be told that sneaking around the hospital at night was strictly forbidden.
Katz sat down at his desk, eyed Luke, but said nothing.
Luke became uncomfortable with the silence. “Are you busy tonight?” Luke asked.
“Naw, the OR’s dead.” Katz searched his pockets, presumably for a cigarette, but came up empty. “Listen Luke,” he continued, “I just wanted to thank you for your help this evening. You didn’t have to stick around and get involved in that mess, but you did. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out better, but I wanted to let you know that your help didn’t go unnoticed.”
Luke wasn’t expecting a thank you, especially considering the lady had died. He looked up and met Katz’s eyes, trying to gauge his sincerity. Satisfied that he was telling the truth, Luke said, “Hey, no problem. I’m here to help people.” For the second time that night, Luke thought that maybe he had been wrong about Katz, maybe they had just gotten off on the wrong foot after that OB fiasco.
“Have you ever seen a case of malignant hyperthermia?” Katz asked.
“No,” Luke replied. “I did a report on it once as a resident.”
“What’d you think?”
“Well, it’s funny. I always thought the patient would seem hotter, especially with a 105 degree temp.”
“We did pack her in ice,” Katz said.
“Right,” Luke answered without much conviction.
Katz stood up, apparently signaling an end to the conversation. “Luke, I know it’s late. Why don’t you head home to that pretty wife of yours.”
“Yeah, good idea.” Luke rose. “I appreciate your words.”
Katz walked over to the door and held it open for Luke. “I have one more thing to say to you—a piece of advice, if you will.”
Luke paused to look at Katz, some of his initial wariness returning.
“Be careful of Rob Gentry. He’s not your friend.” Katz shook his head and a pained look crossed his face. “I don’t know what he said to you, but he said some pretty damning things to me about you, behind your back.”
Luke was stunned by this and didn’t know how to react. Could that really be true? Before he could respond, Katz continued.
“Did you know Gentry is cheating on his wife?”
“I’ve heard some rumors,” Luke said softly. He thought about adding that they had just broken up, but decided not to.
“You’d do best to steer clear of him.”
“Okay.” Luke glanced around the room, very uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. He noticed a picture on Katz’s desk he didn’t think he had ever seen before, next to the Italian vacation shots. It showed a handsome young boy kneeling with his arm draped around some type of retriever dog. He could’ve sworn that Katz didn’t have any children. Perhaps it was a nephew or something? Anxious to change the subject, he asked, “Who’s the cute kid on your desk?” He pointed to the picture.
“My son.”
“I didn’t know you had a child.” Luke smiled widely, suddenly hopeful that they might establish some type of connection. But the smile was short lived as he processed Katz’s somber tone. Luke looked closer at the picture. The colors were faded and one of the corners was a bit tattered.
“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Luke stammered. “I didn’t know.” Sorrow welled up in him for Katz.
“The Lord called him back home fifteen years ago.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TWO WEEKS LATER
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 7:30 A.M.
Rob jammed down the accelerator and his Porsche’s engine roared with anticipation. The car rocketed down Sand Beach Road, tires squealing around the curves. He downshifted aggressively through the turns, ignoring the engine’s high-pitched whine as he red lined the tach. The beautiful fall scenery whizzed by. Any other time, it would have been exhilarating, but to him the spectacular colors looked washed out and bland.
He cranked up the volume on his XM radio in an attempt to drown out his thoughts. As he flipped through the stations, he caught snippets of the news. Senator Pierce, who had collapsed last week on national TV when he won re-election, was to undergo gallbladder surgery. There was no heart involvement, so control of the Senate was safe. Who cares? he thought.
He settled on easy-listening XM 23, The Blend—something to calm his nerves. Without warning, one of the forbidden songs came on. He would’ve quickly changed stations, but he was shifting throu
gh another sharp turn and didn’t have a free hand. Besides, it was such a pretty song; he could probably handle a little of it. Before long, the whole song had played out and an ache that was becoming familiar throbbed in his chest.
Soon the ache became a pain that tore through his heart with a speed and ferocity that astonished him. Tears came to his eyes and blurred his vision, so that he almost drove off the road into a ditch. He slammed his foot onto the brake and pulled the car onto the shoulder, tires skidding noisily on the loose gravel. His heart pounded in his chest.
Catching his breath, Rob released his tight grip on the wheel and stared off into space, thinking again of the evening when he told her he couldn’t see her anymore. He absently turned down the volume of the cursed radio, eyes distant as he relived the memory—he couldn’t get that look of anguish that had twisted her pretty face out of his mind.
The past two weeks had crawled agonizingly by, each hour creeping languorously into the next as he waited for the awful hurt to subside. Except the pain hadn’t diminished—in fact, it had worsened. He had entered a shadow existence where the numbing darkness constantly reached out for him. He felt he had ripped Gwen’s heart out that night, and in the process destroyed his own. Would he ever find peace? He thought not—he didn’t believe he deserved it. He pulled out his cell phone and stared at it.
The ache he felt in her absence was real, as real as any physical hurt he had ever had. Worse, even, because it went through his whole being, making it hard to breathe, impossible to relax. He was incomplete, torn in half and bleeding, needful. Simple things brought it to the surface, ordinary things—songs, smells, familiar places, anything. He thought of her constantly. He didn’t believe he could go an hour without her intruding on his thoughts: What would she think of this? Or that? This would make her smile—one of her big ones. That would bring a tear to her eye.
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