Code White

by Scott Britz-Cunningham

  “No, quite sane, to be sure,” said Lee with an unflappable coolness that seemed calculated to goad her. “But insanity permeates the world we now live in. In a sane world, I grant you, doctors would not kill. But look at what we have. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the architect of 9/11, is a doctor and a skilled surgeon. It was two doctors, Khalid Ahmed and Bilal Abdulla, who rammed a Jeep packed with propane gas into the Glasgow airport in an attempted suicide bombing. The fact that you are a doctor does not count for much anymore. Nor does the fact that you are a young woman of great intelligence and promise. Such women blow themselves up every day in the Middle East.”

  Ali stood up. Her hands and knees were shaking. She felt nausea welling up inside her, the way it always did when pure visceral passion was on the verge of taking over. Fear, rage, pain, and humiliation—all were seething beneath the surface, and she had only meager reserves of strength to keep them at bay. The danger in that made her even more fearful. If she did not escape quickly from these men and their questions, her very struggle for control could bring on a violent sickness. It had happened before — before just such a tribunal as this. “I have nothing more to say to you,” she announced, mustering one last challenge. “If you have a specific accusation to make, make it. Arrest me, waterboard me—whatever you dare. Otherwise, leave me to my work.”

  Lee glared at her. His face appeared strained, and Ali sensed, a little too late, that he was a man who did not like to be challenged. But before he could respond, Harry Lewton reached out and touched him on the shoulder.

  “Do you mind if I try a different tack?” Harry said in a soothing tone, as though he, too, sensed Lee’s perturbation. “I think this line of questioning is getting counterproductive.”

  Lee eyed him distrustfully. “Be my guest,” he said with taut, pale lips.

  There was a creak of leather as Harry got up from his swivel chair and walked around the desk, sidling past Lee and Scopes as he did so. Drawing up one of the cheap metal-and-fiberglass chairs, he sat down facing Ali, not more than two or three feet from her.

  “Please,” he said, nodding toward Ali’s chair. That was all he said, but his face and tone of voice were gentle. After a brief hesitation, Ali sat back down. Their knees were so close that it made her uncomfortable, so she shifted her body away from him, settling nearly sideways. Gentle or not, there was something physically overpowering about him that she wasn’t used to in a man.

  Harry leaned forward and spoke softly, almost intimately. “Dr. O’Day, I get the feeling that this is like déjà vu for you. Have you ever been interrogated in a setting like this?”

  “Yes.” She was surprised by his question.

  “May I ask when that was?”

  “The Citizenship Review Board.”

  “And that had an unfavorable outcome, yes?”

  She nodded. Does he know this, or is he guessing?

  “I’m sorry. Dr. O’Day, let me make it perfectly clear that you yourself are not under suspicion. Nor is this a Muslim roundup. We have asked you to come down here because of specific information that we have. It has nothing to do with your religion. The information has to do with you.”

  “Me?” She gave him a startled look. She had of course suspected this, but his frankness in saying it took her aback.

  “Yes, you. More particularly, your relationship with your brother Rahman.”

  That name again. The slight relaxation she had begun to feel turned to anxiety once more. “Is my brother under suspicion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of a bomb?”

  “A bomb threat.”

  Ali shook her head vigorously. “Here? I don’t believe it. It would be without reason.”

  “We think he may have very definite reasons for it.”

  Rahman! Oh, damn you, Rahman! Ali felt the stirring of old rancor inside her. “I cannot believe that my brother would plant a bomb in a hospital,” she declared. “He may be many things, but he is a devout Muslim, and such a thing is expressly forbidden by his beliefs. A hospital has a protected status, as a place of beneficence that is dear to God. But even if he were so deranged so as to do this, why, of all hospitals, would he choose this one? In destroying it, he would kill me. My presence here ensures that this would be the one hospital he would not harm.”

  Lee shook a pen at her. “But you and your brother have had disagreements. He disapproves of your life, as you say. Perhaps it is his intention to punish you.”

  Ali bristled at hearing Lee’s reedy voice again. “That’s not even worthy of a reply.”

  Harry held up his hand like a traffic cop, cutting short the exchange. “Let me confide in you,” he said to Ali. Then, looking back at Lee and Avery, he raised his voice a notch. “Do you object to my telling her what we know? I think it would save time if we just came to the point.”

  Avery shrugged. “If she is involved, she already knows anything we can tell her.”

  Lee twirled his pen irritably. “Go ahead.”

  Harry leaned toward Ali again, so far forward that his forearm rested on his knee. “At this moment,” he said, “this medical center is on high alert. There has been a very serious bomb threat. Explosive material has been recovered, which has been traced to known associates of your brother. The evidence is compelling.”

  “What evidence?”

  “Let me show you.” Harry leaned toward the desk and picked up two sheets of paper from it, crossing his gaze with Lee as he did so to preempt any objection. “These are printouts of two messages we have received from the bomber,” he said, handing the pages to Ali.

  Ali read, and as she did so, her free hand rose involuntarily to cover her mouth. Until this moment, she had never thought of the bomb threat as something real. At Fletcher Memorial, drills and emergency codes were daily events, and staff rarely allowed them to disrupt clinical routine. But now, as she held these pages in her fingers, it was as though she were touching the bomb itself. A glimpse of its destructive power flashed through her mind. She saw the great steel-and-glass towers of the hospital reduced to ruins, stained with the blood of the dead and dying. She heard the cry of the innocent—a whirlwind rising up from a pyre of flames and smoke. She saw Jamie Winslow lying twisted in the rubble, his beautiful platinum hair charred black as soot.

  As if they were hot coals, she flung the pages back at Harry. “A Muslim did not write this,” she said abruptly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Written as it is, it is blasphemy. A Muslim would not praise both God and the Prophet in the same breath. Only God is worthy of praise. The correct formula would be ‘Praise be to God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and may the peace and blessings of God be upon His Prophet.’ Then you have the use of the word ‘martyr.’ A martyr is one who has died for the faith. No Muslim would refer to living persons as martyrs. This message is clearly a fraud, written by someone who is not and never has been a Muslim, and who wishes to deceive you as to his true identity and motives.”

  Lee tapped his lips pensively, with his fingertips pressed together. “I have considered that.”

  Ali glared at him. No you haven’t, you smug little know-it-all. You don’t understand our culture at all. But her answer was directed not to Lee, but to Harry. “If such a thing as the Al-Quds Martyrs’ Brigade exists, it did not issue this message.”

  Harry gave her a searching look. “I don’t know whether you’re right or not. But what is certain is that your brother is a person of material interest in this case. If he’s not involved, then I would be happy to see him clear himself. For all I know, he may have an ironclad alibi. But we do need to locate him and talk to him. This is a matter of great urgency. The lives of scores or even hundreds of people in this hospital may be at stake.”

  Ali still didn’t know what to make of Harry. He had dragged her before this tribunal and had lied to her to get her here. And yet he didn’t seem to be like Lee and the others. He spoke to her directly, knowingly. He seemed to care about the li
ves of the people who were threatened by this hideous bomb. And he treated her as though he knew that she cared about them, too.

  “I don’t know where he is,” she said, regretfully, not defiantly as before. “I told you, I haven’t had contact with him for several years.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might know?”

  “No.”

  “Is there anything else that you might be able to tell us? Anything that might shed some light on the situation?”

  “No.”

  Harry leaned forward even further and took her hand. It was the first time he had touched her, and it made her bristle. Yet at the same time, she felt a blush come over her. She was in desperate need of a lifeline, and his strong but gently pliant hand seemed charged with a self-possession that she lacked. “Look at me,” he said. “I want you to understand that I am not political, either. I don’t know the Brotherhood from the Ku Klux Klan. The one and only thing I care about is this medical center. The hospital—that’s my Jamie Winslow. And I will do whatever I have to do to keep it out of harm.”

  “If I could help you, I would. But I don’t know anything.”

  “May I give you my honest opinion?”

  She nodded warily. “Please do.”

  “I think that you do know something. I saw it in your eyes when you read those papers. Something—I don’t know how to describe it … a look of recognition, perhaps. Maybe even fear. I’m pretty good at reading people, and I’d be willing to bet my life on it. You know something. Maybe something you really do want to tell us, but don’t know how.”

  Ali jerked her hand away from his. What is this? Another trap? “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “That’s not my call. But whenever you do want to talk about it, I’m ready to listen.”

  Ali stared at him, trying to divine his intentions. Yes, there was something familiar about the e-mails—if only she could put her finger on what it was! It was like hearing a snatch of music and not being able to name the composer, although she had heard the piece a hundred times before. Harry had picked up on her suspicions, but how? Had she done something to betray herself? What else was he seeing this very moment? She was afraid to say anything, even to attempt a denial. Whatever she did or said would only make things worse. Of course, keeping silent looked bad, too. But silence was all she was capable of. Silence, and a vacuous stare.

  It was Lee who broke the impasse by clapping his hands together. “Enough of this,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “Dr. O’Day, do you wish to modify anything you have said to us?”

  “No.”

  He waved toward the door. “In that case, you’re free to go.”

  Hesitantly, as if suspecting a trick, Ali stood up. She glanced at Lee for a moment, then at Harry. There was expectation in his eyes, but he made no move to get up or to speak. Still feeling the heat of scrutiny, and not wanting to appear overly eager, Ali ceremoniously adjusted her white coat and proceeded toward the door. But then, reaching for the handle, she paused and looked at the fingers of her extended hand. They were trembling, ever so finely—something rare for her, who prided herself on her surgeon’s steadiness. She was certain that no one else could see it. And yet, a disturbing intimation came to her. She shot a glance at Harry. Was it my hand that gave me away? He touched me; could he feel this tremor?

  Their eyes barely grazed before Ali turned away. Yes, he knows. He knows even more than he will say. She felt a rush of anger. This prizefighter with the sage’s eyes had forced his way into her innermost thoughts, and she had not even offered a token resistance. It infuriated her how naturally it all had come about, how while she had struggled through the interrogation he had sat watching her with perfect calmness, as though he could have stepped in at any time and made an instant connection if he wanted to, and how when he wanted to, at last, he scarcely made any effort to do it. He simply took hold of her with that burly, tan hand of his, and the connection was made. She hated men like that, men of sheer physical power. Men who acted like they could command a woman. And this man, Harry, was the worst of the type. He was the worst because of those eyes of his—eyes that persuaded you that somehow, deep inside, he might really care.

  So abruptly did she flee his lingering stare, that the door whooshed behind her as she pulled it shut.

  * * *

  As soon as the door latch had clicked, Avery whistled. “That’s one cold-blooded tootsie you’ve got there.”

  Lee rested his chin on his hands. “Remarkable, yes,” he said. “Except for a couple of moments, her voice and facial expressions were perfectly controlled. Even when she did show some emotion, she never gave anything away. Very disciplined.”

  Avery clapped his hands on the desktop and slouched back into his chair. “We should have taken her downtown. The prospect of a night behind steel bars might’ve gotten her singing.”

  “I doubt that,” said Lee. “She’s a gutsy one.”

  Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. These guys had botched it. They had taken a very remarkable, classy woman who had no reason to stonewall them and then they had poked her and prodded her and shredded her self-respect until she had no choice but to act like a cornered animal. There was no need to abuse her like that. Five minutes of intelligent conversation would have told them everything they wanted to know. But instead they had made her hostile. Good luck getting anything out of her in the future.

  If Harry had had his way, he would have ordered all these bunglers out of his office and taken over the investigation himself. It was his medical center and his people who were at stake. Avery was a ham-fisted bully, and Lee was even worse. Lee liked to sit there like Yoda and pretend he could get into people’s heads and lay traps for them and little by little turn up the heat until he could force them to reveal the truth. Even when shit like that worked, it was the long way around. Harry didn’t crack that Colombian ring by giving anyone the third degree. He got a lot further just by sitting down with the right person over beer and nachos.

  “I don’t see her like you guys do at all,” said Harry. “Actually, I thought she looked pretty scared.”

  “Scared?” asked Lee. “Scared of what?”

  Harry resisted giving him the obvious answer, in four-letter words. “You came on a little hard.”

  “You did say you thought she was holding something back, didn’t you, Mr. Lewton?”

  “Well, the e-mails … Something cracked her cool, yes.”

  “Yes, I saw it, too. A tiny chink in her armor,” said Lee, tapping his chin with his fingertips, his hands folded like a monk in reflection. “She resisted frontal pressure very well. But when you showed her sympathy, you took her by surprise. What do you suppose was behind it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s guilty. Do you? Seriously?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘guilty.’ Only that she’s … interesting.”

  Scopes looked at Lee. “What do you want to do?”

  “Well, it’s clear that questioning her further won’t give us anything. We’ll learn a lot more just by watching her. Mr. Lewton, will we have any trouble keeping an eye on her with this high-tech system of yours—what did you call it, Cerberus?”

  Harry sighed. More of the long way around. “There are virtual gateways at several key locations in the hospital. They’re kind of like the drive-through E-Z passes on the tollways. Every time you walk through one of them, your ID badge registers on the system. It’ll give us a rough idea of where she is at any given moment. If you need finer detail than that, most of the corridors and public spaces are under video monitoring. You can switch between cameras, and orient them by keyboard controls. Like so.” He adjusted the controls, flipping between cameras until he caught an image of Ali, who looked like she was sleepwalking down the Pike. “There she is. See her?”

  “Good. We can watch her from here. Will we know if she tries to leave the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  Lee turned to Avery. “Give your men orders to arres
t her if she does.” Then, swiveling his chair toward Scopes, he tapped his index finger against the palm of his other hand, as if counting to himself. “Call the district office. Tell them to get hold of a federal judge. We’re going to need a couple of search warrants ASAP. Phone and e-mail records, premises of house and office.”

  “Let’s not rush to judgment here,” said Harry.

  “Relax,” said Lee haughtily. “If it were to come to that, she’d already be in shackles.”

  Harry was surprised to see how Avery and Scopes jumped into action when Lee gave the word. Scopes was a colleague, and Avery was the Incident Commander, the one who was supposed to be in charge. But both of them took orders from Lee like an office girl taking shorthand.

  There was a knock on the door and Harry got up to answer it. Through the glass of the door he could see Tom Beazle’s scraggly, freckled face. Tom was breathing hard, and was looking up, down, and in every direction like a frightened pigeon.

  “What is it, Tom?” asked Harry, letting him in.

  “Trouble. We got trouble. That TV crew? The ones filming that surgery? Well, they’re out by the bomb squad trailer, taking pictures of some of the techs. They’re onto it all by now.”

  Harry smiled. “It was just a matter of time. Don’t worry, Tom. I’ll go down and talk to ’em.”

  “Better hurry!”

  “Okay.” Harry turned to the men behind his desk. “I’ve got to go plug a leak. If you guys need anything in the meantime, ask for Judy in the control room.”

  Lee tapped his pencil on the desk. “Make sure you do plug it. If this gets on to the air prematurely, we could have a full-blown panic on our hands.”

  Now Lee was ordering him around, too. “Check!” said Harry, raising two fingers to his eyebrow as he sprinted out the door.

  11:38 A.M.

  In the alleyway between the main block of the medical center and the row of research buildings that had sprung up behind it, a thirty-foot-long white motor home was parked between a red fire truck and a row of blue-striped police cars. On any other day, the presence of the fire truck and police cars alone would have raised more than a passing curiosity, but today the motor home, with its eye-catching inscription “Chicago Police Department Bomb Squad,” commanded attention like a condor in a flock of sparrow-hawks. In particular, it had become a magnet for the film crew of America Today.