Code White

by Scott Britz-Cunningham

  “What’s the return address?” asked Avery.

  “Uh, rudi-at-bethshalom-dot-org.”

  “What’s that? Beth Shalom. It sounds like a synagogue.”

  “Give me a minute.” Harry typed the name into his Web browser. “Yes, it’s a synagogue in Evanston. There’s, uh, there’s a youth director on staff named Rudi Kern.”

  “A synagogue?” said Lee, shaking his head. “Not likely. It’s got to be a redirect. A fake address.”

  “Sons of bitches!” said Avery.

  Harry smiled. “Well, we know they have a sense of humor. Meteb and Mossalam? Who are they?”

  Lee tapped his forefinger against his upper lip. “Foot soldiers of the Al-Quds Martyrs’ Brigade, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Right now, they’re being held at Rikers Island, pending trial for the murder of a city councillor in New York.”

  “Gives us an idea who we’re dealing with, anyway,” said Avery. “Another bunch of those damned Middle Eastern fanatics.”

  “Possibly,” said Lee.

  Harry looked at the FBI agent curiously. “Not necessarily?”

  “As I pointed out in my lectures, if you were listening, one must always be cautious in interpreting these things. It’s best to avoid premature assumptions.”

  Avery scoffed. “Who else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Harry trained his gaze on Lee. “Can we meet these demands? Any chance these two will be released?”

  “Washington will decide that,” said Lee. “The money is actually easier to deal with, although our bomber has made it complicated by asking for all these different payers. That will take some coordination.”

  “Why don’t they just ask for a lump sum?” asked Harry.

  Lee shrugged. “I suspect it’s a way of flaunting their power. Bombers tend to be bitter, brooding types. Authority figures are a favorite target. Look at all these payers: government agencies, banks, unions—pillars of the establishment. This isn’t a ransom demand. It’s tribute. Submission.”

  Harry looked over the message on the screen once again. “Can we assume they mean business?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Avery shrugged. “I’ll notify the mayor and the governor’s office. They can help us move the money, if we have to.”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars doesn’t seem like a lot, does it?” said Harry, turning toward Lee. “The whole amount comes to, what, four hundred thousand? That’s about two hours’ worth of the operating revenue of this medical center.”

  “Well, these Al-Quds Martyrs are a pretty rinky-dink operation,” said Lee. “It could be that they’re scared by what they’re getting into. They may want to make a quick haul and be done with it.”

  “Sure they’re scared,” said Avery. “The fuckers don’t even have the balls to wire up their own bomb.”

  “Well, this is my hospital,” said Harry, “and I’m inclined to take them seriously. Let’s just assume that there is a fully functional bomb somewhere, and that it can do as much damage as they say it can. Protocol says we start a search for it.”

  “I think that’s wise,” said Lee.

  Avery nodded in agreement. “All right. Let’s go to OPCON Level Three. Do you know what that means, Mr. Lewton?”

  Harry was being challenged—challenged in his own goddamned office. He swung his chair around and looked Avery in the eye. “OPCON Three: a credible threat. Special resources deployed to the scene to watch, stand by, or assist as necessary in investigation. That would include bomb squad, fire department, SWAT, HAZMAT, and FBI or ATF in a case like this.”

  “That’s right,” said Avery, a little curtly. Turning to Lee, he became more cordial. “Would you like to take charge, Ray?”

  “No, I’m here just as an observer, for the moment.”

  Some observer, thought Harry. The FBI could take over anytime it wanted. Every cop knew that. If Lee offered to sit on the sidelines, it was because he liked to exercise authority discreetly and without the hassles of direct command. But Harry wasn’t fooled. There was no doubt about who was top dog in this pack.

  Avery seemed content with the charade. “Then I’ll act as Incident Commander,” he said. “Mr. Lewton, are you and your people up to conducting the search?”

  “You bet we are.”

  “Then let’s get on it.”

  “Wait a sec. I have an idea,” said Harry. He turned around and picked up a black digital clock from a bookshelf beside his desk. “It’s now, what, about a quarter of nine? Plane boards at six Eastern Standard Time?” After Harry had fiddled with some buttons, the clock showed “8:15” in red LED numbers about three inches high. “I’ve set it to time remaining mode,” said Harry, displaying the clockface to each of the three men in turn. “That’s what we have left, gentlemen. Eight hours, fifteen minutes. We neutralize the threat by then, or the shit hits the fan.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Harry, Avery, and Lee were standing in a green-tiled, concrete-floored room in the second sub-basement of the hospital. About thirty maintenance workers in khakis, jeans or blue gray overalls, some still wearing yellow hard hats, had been shepherded into this place by a dozen uniformed security officers. Harry recognized only a few of the maintenance workers. In fact, in the three months he had been at Fletcher Memorial he had barely gotten to know his own security staff. He was keenly aware that this would be the first time any of these people would see him take charge in a crisis.

  The room had been used for linen storage, but was now nearly cleared for renovations. The air was filled with the smells of mildew, bleach, and drying grout.

  “Listen up, people!” shouted Harry. “Come on, quiet down and listen!” The murmur of the crowd subsided as Harry held up his hands. “With me here are Special Agent Raymond Lee, from the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, and Captain Glenn Avery, from the Chicago Police Department’s Bomb Squad. We have a credible bomb threat to the Medical Center. I repeat, this is a credible threat. We’re going to conduct a search, and it needs to be done quietly and without starting a panic. We drilled for this a couple of months ago, remember?” He scanned the room, gathering nods here and there. He was glad now that he had made a point of testing the hospital’s emergency readiness protocols as soon as he had arrived. It had earned him the nickname “Captain Doomsday” among some of the staff, but at least he had something to fall back on now. “Okay? We’ll run it just like we did then.”

  A rapt silence now hung on Harry’s words. “Security staff will function as team leaders, each accompanied by four to six maintenance personnel who will physically conduct the search. Stay together in your groups. No one goes off on his own. On that back table are spools of white ribbon. Tie a white ribbon to your hospital ID tag. Do not—I repeat, do not—discuss any aspect of the search with anyone not wearing a white ribbon. Any inquiries get directed to this command center.

  “Team leaders have master keys that should get you almost everywhere. If a door needs to be forced, consult with the command center first. Use your flashlights! I don’t want anyone turning on any light switches. A switch could be rigged to detonate a bomb. Search with your eyes and ears only. Don’t move anything! Don’t touch anything!

  “We’ll start with the grounds and courtyards. That includes the liquid oxygen tanks, Dumpsters, and any vehicles parked on the service road behind the hospital. Get me license numbers of any vehicles you find. Pay special attention to trash cans and planters near the entrances. Next move indoors—lobbies, bathrooms, stairways, and elevators. Angelo, your team will check out the sandwich shop in the main lobby, and then the cafeteria and the doctors’ dining room. Get the managers to help guide you. Meanwhile, the rest of you will move to the second basement level, and work your way up, floor by floor. Do things in stages: a floor search, a waist-level search, an eye-level search, and then a ceiling search. Don’t forget to have a look above the ceiling tiles. When you clear a room, tape an X on the door wi
th masking tape. I’ll be making the rounds from time to time to check your progress, and I want to know what’s been cleared and what hasn’t. No one’s being graded on speed. A hasty search is worse than useless. Any questions?”

  Hesitant glances were traded among the crowd. One pot-bellied man in overalls and a plumber’s belt moved to the front. “What are we looking for exactly?”

  Harry spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “Anything out of the ordinary. An unfamiliar container. Equipment that’s been moved or stacked as if to hide something. Scraps of wire trimmings. Paint flakes on the floor. Most of you will be in your usual work areas, so you know how things should be.” Harry turned to Lee. “Anything to add?” he asked, knowing that he had covered all the bases pretty damn well. Even Lee would have to admit it.

  Lee stepped forward, with a stiff, military bearing. He spoke precisely, with a rhythm that could have been counted off on a metronome. But his voice did not carry well in the large room, and those in the back had to strain to hear him. “It’s best to proceed without preconceptions,” he said. “We’re dealing with an explosive that can be molded to any shape. It can be made to look like anything. Bombs of this type will usually be concealed, either in an inaccessible place, or inside of something ordinary and easily overlooked. Although we have reason to believe that a large and highly destructive bomb may be on the premises, there may be other, perhaps smaller, bombs, either planted as decoys or as booby-traps to protect the primary installation.”

  A tall young man from the HVAC division looked at Lee intently. “What do we do if we find something?”

  “Rule number one: don’t touch it,” said Lee. “Notify the command center—Mr. Lewton’s office—by telephone. That means a land line, no cell phones. Cell phones are often used to detonate bombs. Next, move everyone out of the area. Captain Avery will be the Incident Commander on site. He and the bomb squad will be standing by, and will take over if you do find anything.”

  From the back of the room, a raspy man’s voice called out. “What kind of twisted mind would plant a bomb in a hospital?”

  Lee lifted his chin, as though trying to pitch his voice toward the back. “We don’t know who’s done it at this point. Whoever it is, there’s a good chance they’re not far away, keeping an eye on all of us. So be watchful.”

  “And calm,” added Harry. “For God’s sake, stay calm—and very, very careful.”

  Judy Wolper, Harry’s cell phone bearer, was standing not far away. “What about these TV cameras?” she asked in a timid voice. “There’s reporters all over the place.”

  “Let that be my problem,” said Harry. “If they start to get nosy, don’t try to BS ’em. They can smell a cover-up a mile away, and you have no idea how bad they can bite you when they think you’re not telling the truth. Just say there’s an alert in progress, and send them to me. I’ll be preparing a statement later this morning, once we have a better idea of what’s going on.” Judy nodded, and Harry turned to the man at his side. “Captain Avery, anything you’d like to add?”

  Avery had been slouching against a canvas laundry cart, which wobbled slightly as he straightened up. “Just don’t try to be heroes,” he said, clearing his throat. “We have guys who get paid to be heroes. You do your part, and we’ll do ours. Okay?”

  A patronizing nod from Lee indicated that the FBI was satisfied with the briefing. Harry looked toward a stainless steel cart that was just then rattling through the door.

  “Okay, there are flashlights, tape, screwdrivers, wrenches, and extension mirrors for anybody who doesn’t have one. Take what you need and get a move on. Security staff have the area assignments.”

  As the teams began to form and stream out, Harry motioned to Judy Wolper and Tom Beazle, his two closest adjutants on the security staff. He had worked them unrelentingly since he had arrived at Fletcher Memorial—there was so much that had to be done to bring Cerberus on line—and he had begun to feel a little friction lately, particularly from Tom, who had recently gotten married. But they were both bright-eyed and poised for action.

  “Guys, I need you to do a few things for me,” he said, straining his voice to be heard above the din in the room. “First, I need you to go down to Telecommunications and shut down the hospital paging system. We have a hundred pagers going off every minute around here, and I don’t want to risk a stray signal setting off a bomb. Have Telecommunications send out a general e-mail saying that we have a technical problem and we’re working our tushies off trying to get it fixed. Then call the dispatch services and have all ambulances diverted to ERs at other hospitals. We need to keep our own ER beds free, in case we do have an … event.”

  Judy looked at him with a disbelieving squint. “You mean—”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. We can’t openly evacuate, but we can damned well do something to lower the head count inside these buildings. Visit each of the outpatient clinics, and have them discreetly cancel as many patient appointments as they can. You don’t have to tell them why. Just tell them it’s a hospital emergency. Then go down to shipping and receiving and call off any nonessential deliveries.”

  “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes … Yes, it’s serious.” Looking into her eyes, he realized that a single wrong word could turn her steadfastness into panic. He had to focus her on the job at hand, not the danger. “We can handle this, Judy,” he said, stooping a little to make direct eye contact. “We trained for it. We drilled it. Let’s just do our job and go home for dinner.”

  * * *

  Dr. Helvelius had said no more about the annoying Mr. White. After an hour of painstaking dissection, he had mobilized the AVM enough to have a glimpse of its underside, where the main feeder arteries were found. He first encountered a web of small arteries, most of them no thicker than a pin, which he sealed easily, one by one, with the bipolar cauterizer. Behind these were the really large arteries. Metallic clips had to be placed on these, in places where the artery wall was of normal thickness, and not ballooned out, because if the clip worked free at any time down the road, the result would be an instantaneously fatal hemorrhage. Last of all was the single draining vein that Dr. Helvelius had purposely left open, but which he now clipped and cut, like an umbilical cord, allowing him to lift out the AVM in a single piece.

  “Irrigation, please.” Ali flushed the cavity of raw brain tissue with a gentle stream of saline. By pressing a button on the irrigator, she was able to suction off the blood-tinged water, revealing the pinkish-white surface of living, thinking tissue underneath.

  “Could we focus that lamp a little?”

  A nurse reached up and adjusted the lamp using the plastic-shrouded handle in its center. Dr. Helvelius studied the cavity for any sign of oozing of blood. Once or twice he dabbed at it with the cauterizer, and Ali, without the need for prompting, followed each dab with another round of irrigation and suction.

  As she stood by patiently, Ali thought of the first time she had watched Helvelius operate. Back then, those eyebrows bristling over the rim of his eyeglasses had been black, not gray. His nine-fingered hands had been just as sure and unerring. The case was a schwannoma, a tough, stringy tumor that had wormed its way through the ear canal to the very base of the patient’s brain. Helvelius operated for six hours, standing in one spot the whole time, without taking a break to eat, or drink or answer nature’s call. Ali had wondered at his discipline. She had never known a man so completely the master of himself. He was nothing like those surgeons who grew tense in the operating room, who shouted at nurses and threw instruments. His spirit was gentle and light-hearted. With scalpel in hand, he became the scalpel. Helvelius himself ceased to exist.

  And from that very first day, Ali coveted his secret. She, too, yearned to cease to exist. She knew that neurosurgery was a man’s domain. Fewer than one in twenty in its ranks were women. To climb up the pyramid, she had to work twice as hard as any other surgical intern, sleep half as much, starve herself, e
ndure every indignity, and never, ever lose her temper or complain. Six years of residency, two years of fellowship, three years of research—all to become acolyte to this Sufi, this mystic healer, who knew how to lose himself in his art. The payoffs were rare. But there were days when, for a few shining moments, she felt as though she had received from his hands the gift of finding peace through detachment, and of escaping from the relentless self-doubt that haunted her.

  Eleven years together, and in all that time, she had never once thought of Helvelius as a lover. To her, he had been scarcely a physical being at all. Divorced, childless, he seemed content with his solitary life. Surgery was his only passion. But there came a day when she learned to see him in a different light. It was just after she had left Kevin. She was in surgery, holding a retractor, when suddenly, without warning, she found herself paralyzed by thoughts of loneliness and guilt. She didn’t cry out. She couldn’t make a sound or even let go of the retractor. She simply stood there, for minute after stock-stupid humiliating minute, with tears streaming down her face. The nurses and resident surgeons gaped in astonishment. She expected to be thrown out of the operating room. But Helvelius went on with the operation as though nothing had happened.

  That evening, he insisted on driving her home to the studio apartment she had taken in the seedy University Village neighborhood by the medical center. It was the first time he had ever been to the place where she lived—in fact, the first time they had ever been together anywhere outside the hospital or a conference hall. He had her lie down on her sofa while he made dinner. She remembered well what he made—chicken pan-fried in olive oil with capers, a small salad, a side dish of asparagus. It took him no more than twenty minutes to make it. They ate at a small table with folding wings.

  Over dinner, Helvelius sat without comment while Ali groped to explain her lapse in the OR and her troubles over Kevin. When her words dried up, he took her by the hand. “Don’t be embarrassed about today,” he said. “I, too, know what loneliness is.”