Code White

by Scott Britz-Cunningham

  Brower turned to the nurse, who had wheeled up a tall red crash cart. “Ginnie, we need a thousand milligrams of Dilantin in a ten-cc syringe.” Ginnie filled a syringe from a vial in the cart, discarded the needle, and popped the syringe into a receptacle in the infusion pump. “Set the rate to half a cc per minute,” said Brower.

  Ali and Brower watched intently as the Dilantin started coursing into Jamie’s bloodstream.

  “Does he have a history of seizures?” asked Brower.

  “No. Never,” said Ali.

  “Was it the tap that did this?”

  “I’ve never seen it happen before.”

  “Then I think you have a problem.”

  Of course I have a problem. Ali barely restrained herself from lashing out. Fortunately, the convulsions began to subside. “Keep the Dilantin and Ativan going,” she said coolly. “And let’s start Solumedrol, 250 milligrams in an IV infusion over one hour—just for insurance. We haven’t ruled out brain swelling.”

  With Jamie stabilized, Ali took up a chair behind the nurses’ station and called the hospital operator to have Dr. Helvelius paged. She heard his name read out on the overhead pager three times. As she waited for his call-back, she tried to clarify how she would present the situation to him. He used to tell her that any good doctor could summarize the most complex case in thirty seconds or less. But how long it took to distill all of the physical findings and lab reports into those thirty seconds!

  She was not thinking at her best now. Her interrogation at the hands of the FBI had left her shaken. The bomb was giving her confused, impulsive thoughts. She shuddered every time she felt the rumble of a cart or a gurney rolling by. She wracked her brains for a way to get Jamie transferred out of Fletcher Memorial, even though no other hospital in the world had the expertise to deal with a SIPNI implant. She worried, too, that an explosion might harm the fetus she carried—the fetus she had planned to terminate the very next day!

  Could she really do that? She had put off the procedure again and again, and still wasn’t sure if she could get up the nerve. She had already begun to feel that warm, centered feeling that she remembered from her first pregnancy, and she had to fight very, very hard to keep from letting her mind run to the kind of daydreams she had had then—dreams of holding her baby, listening to him coo, rocking him to sleep in those precious midnight hours when she could be totally alone with him, guessing what would be the first word he would ever speak. These thoughts were a torture for her. Fate had cheated her once of these dreams, and she could not bear to let herself be cheated in that way ever again.

  Her first pregnancy had actually begun with great promise. Both she and Kevin were on cloud nine, and it seemed like a healing omen for them both after a difficult time in their marriage. After the first ultrasound, she had named the child Ramsey, after the Arabic Ramzi, meaning “symbol.” There was no warning of anything wrong. Tests showed a somewhat low-lying placenta, but its position did not seem dangerous. Ramsey appeared well-developed, and in her eighteenth week Ali was astonished with joy when, standing in the OR in the middle of a craniotomy procedure, she felt his first quickening kick. Then one night, in her thirty-eighth week—almost exactly a year ago—she was at a dinner party at the University chancellor’s house in Winnetka, when she felt an excruciating cramp and looked down to find a pool of blood at her feet. She screamed just before passing out. When she awoke, she was in the hospital. There had been an abruption, a premature tearing-away of the placenta. Ramsey was born alive by C-section, but had suffered a stroke from the loss of blood. He survived in the ICU for two weeks. During that time, she and Kevin worked frantically to adapt SIPNI to repair Ramsey’s damaged brain, but all was futile. SIPNI was then still only a crude prototype.

  After Ramsey died, Ali found herself unable to cry or to express grief in a normal way. Instead, she withdrew into herself. When she and Kevin drove to Waugoshance Point to scatter Ramsey’s ashes on Lake Michigan, Ali scarcely spoke the whole trip. On returning, she sought solace by re-immersing herself in her work. Kevin, whose heartbreak was there for all to see, resented what he called her coldness, and taunted her with increasing cruelty, trying to goad her into an emotional response. Little did he know that she was already in an emotional agony so severe that she was on the verge of killing herself.

  She vowed never to go through a hell like that again. Even though it meant betraying her principles —her dedication to life and to the protection of the weak and helpless—she couldn’t bear to face those memories that were already beginning to rise up out of the grave. Her risk of another complication was high, the obstetrician had told her. She felt defective, cursed in her womb. Better to abort this new pregnancy and be done with it, than to live once again through the nightmare of watching her child die.

  But then there was Jamie. Although she had never thought about it before, Jamie was a kind of substitute for Ramsey, giving her a second chance to use SIPNI to beat back tragedy. In the weeks before the operation, Ali had often wondered what would become of Jamie if SIPNI actually worked. He couldn’t stay at the Grossman School, of course, since he would no longer be blind. Would his mother take him back? In unguarded moments, Ali had toyed with the idea of taking him home herself. She would imagine cooking his favorite macaroni and cheese, or struggling to keep up with him on the PlayStation, or watching his first Little League game. She kept thoughts like those a secret, since a lack of objectivity on her part might have endangered Jamie’s chances for getting into the SIPNI project. Now, it seemed selfish and irresponsible to have even thought about such things. Jamie needed a doctor, not a mother. His condition was deteriorating, and if Ali didn’t figure out the reason quickly, he could suffer permanent brain damage, or even die.

  Still no answer from Helvelius. Ali had him paged again. One of his residents finally called back and told her he was in surgery, covering an emergency spinal cord trauma case. It would take another hour at least.

  She tapped her hand irritably on the counter. “Oh, Richard! Richard! What in God’s name should I do?”

  * * *

  Raymond Lee was in high spirits when Harry returned to his office, and it annoyed Harry intensely. “How did it go with our morning-show princess?” said Lee with an unprecedented smile.

  “She’s a peach,” said Harry. “Promised to stay off the air for a little while. But just for insurance, I dropped by Dr. Gosling’s office. The president of the TV network is a personal friend of his, as is the governor of Illinois. We set up a three-way conference call, and got New York to agree to hold the story until at least 6:30 P.M. Eastern. That’s airtime for the nightly news program.”

  “Five-thirty here,” said Lee.

  “Any luck with the money transfers?” asked Harry.

  Lee patted a stack of papers. “Northwest City Bank gave us a little trouble, until the mayor guaranteed to cover their losses from a city slush fund until the hospital’s insurance carrier kicks in. All the other payers are standing by. Fifteen minutes ago, the destination account numbers came through by e-mail. There are twenty different accounts, two for each payer. It’s going to slow us down on tracing the money, but not for long.”

  Avery looked at his wristwatch. “Eleven fifty-eight. Almost showtime.”

  Scopes was holding the telephone. “I have the mayor’s chief of staff on line. Everyone’s standing by for the transfer.”

  While Scopes listened for developments on the phone, the others sat in silence.

  “Okay, I’m getting a report,” said Scopes, placing his hand over the mouthpiece. “The first wave of transfers is complete.”

  “Good,” said Lee. “Now we wait another five minutes. Stay on the line, Terry.” Scopes nodded. Lee turned to Harry. “By the way, there’s something in the last e-mail that you need to see.”

  Lee showed Harry a hard-copy printout. Below a long column of bank routing numbers and account numbers, there was a short paragraph of text:

  ALL OUTPATIENT CLINICS MUST
REMAIN OPEN FOR NORMAL BUSINESS. NO FURTHER APPOINTMENT CANCELLATIONS WILL BE PERMITTED. AMBULANCE DIVERSIONS MUST CEASE IMMEDIATELY. ANY ATTEMPT TO EVACUATE OR TO LOWER THE PATIENT CENSUS WILL HAVE IMMEDIATE AND SEVERE CONSEQUENCES. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER WARNINGS.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “You’re busted,” said Lee with a half-smile. “You’ve been cutting down the number of hostages, and they don’t like it.”

  Harry could feel the blood damming up in the veins of his face and neck. “Fucking psychos! Who are they to tell us—” It was more than just the hostages. He had lost his last chance to get his own mother out of harm’s way. Now the only way to protect her was to take the offense. Hunt down the sons of bitches behind this bomb and make them rue the day they had ever heard of Fletcher Hospital. God, if only I had left her in that nursing home!

  Harry shook the printout, half-crumpled in his hand. “How do they even know what the fuck we’re doing?”

  Avery shrugged. “If they’re listening in on emergency band radio—which is not uncommon for criminals of this sort—they could overhear the ambulance dispatchers.”

  “And the outpatient appointments?”

  “Beats me,” said Avery. “They could have made appointments themselves, just to see if they would get called.”

  “That seems awfully convoluted,” said Harry.

  “Yes, very,” said Lee. “More likely someone here in this hospital is observing our operations.”

  “You guys have been watching the surveillance videos while I’ve been out,” said Harry. “Have you noticed anyone suspicious? Someone who looks like he could be casing the place?”

  Lee shook his head. “No. Not so far. But actually, I was thinking a little closer to home than that.”

  “Closer to home? What do you mean?”

  “How well do you know your own people, Mr. Lewton?”

  “Security? Well, they, uh … they all went through a strict screening process when they were hired.”

  “But you didn’t screen them, did you? You’re the newcomer, right? You’ve been here for, what, a few months?”

  “Three months.”

  “And do you know who’s having trouble keeping up with the mortgage? Who’s getting divorced? Who has a gambling habit? Kids in college? Mother who’s got to have a kidney transplant? In short, do you know who might have a sudden and overwhelming need for money?”

  “No.”

  “Then I think we need to start playing our cards very close to the vest.”

  Harry was rankled by Lee’s aspersions. It was true he didn’t know much about the personal lives of his staff, but he had worked with them for three solid and often stressful months, and he had gotten to know their characters pretty well. Harry couldn’t imagine a single one of his people being involved in something like a bomb plot—not for any amount of money. He thought Lee was overreacting, but it would just have redoubled his suspicions if Harry got in the way.

  “Round number two,” Scopes called out, holding the telephone to his ear. “Getting set right now.”

  Once again, the room fell silent as the seconds ticked away.

  At last Scopes gave a thumbs-up. “Mayor’s office says the transfers are complete. Just like clockwork.”

  “That was painless!” said Lee. “That should take the heat off for a few hours.”

  “What’s the story on those two prisoners in New York?” asked Harry.

  “Meteb and Mossalam? Washington’s still deciding. We’ve made plane reservations and notified Rikers Island to expect a transport van around 4:00 P.M. Eastern. But people in the know at the Bureau are urging us to resolve the situation here as quickly as possible. That’s code for ‘Ain’t fucking likely.’”

  Harry looked at Lee skeptically. How could there be any doubt about it? The lives of two thousand people are at stake. “Maybe you want to work that end a little harder.”

  “Don’t you have calls to make, Mr. Lewton? I think you’d better get dispatch to stop diverting the ambulances.”

  “Sure.” Harry turned to pick up the phone but Scopes was still on it. As before, Scopes was saying little, simply waiting for some news from the other end. “You still talking to the mayor’s office?” Harry asked.

  “No. First deputy superintendent of police.”

  Harry looked at Lee. “What’s that about?”

  “A lead. Something else turned up while you were out battling wits with Miss America. It may just be the key to this case.” Lee looked past Harry toward Scopes and raised his voice a notch. “What is he saying, Terry? Anything yet?”

  “They’ve got six squad cars in position, with men covering the front and the back. The SWAT team’s just gone in.”

  Lee turned back to Harry. “We decided to wait until this moment—just as the ransom payments went through. We figured he’d almost certainly be at home watching the money come in. His guard’s down. He feels like he’s on top of the world. No better time to nab him.”

  “Who? Nab who?”

  “The guy who—”

  “Whoooeah!” Scopes slapped the desktop. “Way to go, guys!” he shouted into the phone. Turning to Lee, “They got him, Ray! It’s him! Definitely him, they say.”

  Harry was mystified. “Who? Got who?”

  Lee grinned so broadly that he showed his upper teeth. “Right here in Chicago. Over on the Northwest Side—”

  “Who, goddamn it!”

  “The brother,” said Avery.

  “The brother?”

  Lee waved his hand with a flourish. “Rahman Abdul-Shakoor Al-Sharawi.”

  There was a click as Scopes hung up the phone. “He’s on his way. E.T.A. twenty minutes.”

  12:31 P.M.

  Outside the largely deserted ambulance entrance at the rear of the medical center, Harry, Judy Wolper, Lee, Scopes, and Avery stood waiting for the arrival of Rahman Al-Sharawi. Judy said little and was uncharacteristically tense. At Harry’s request, she had armed herself with a Glock 17, a big gun for such a small woman, but one that was dependable and easy to use even if you didn’t stay in practice.

  Across the alleyway, a man in a hospital gown with an IV pole at his side sat smoking on a concrete bench. From time to time he would tap the ashes of his cigarette between his outspread knees. Harry himself felt the lack of a cigarette acutely. He had quit smoking when he came to Fletcher Memorial, but standing around with his hands in his pockets brought old cravings back.

  “What I’d like to know is how you found this guy so fast,” he said to the two FBI agents.

  “His sister led us right to him,” said Scopes. “Not intentionally, of course. It was her phone records. She had called him at least three times this past year from her home phone. So we just traced the number—you’d be surprised how quickly we can get cooperation in a high-profile terrorism case—and there he was.”

  “Then I guess she lied to us. She said she hadn’t had any contact with him.”

  “Big surprise, huh?” said Scopes.

  Harry pursed his lips, as though inhaling from a phantom cigarette. “I knew she was holding something back, but I didn’t think that was it.”

  Avery chuckled. “They caught him sitting in an apartment in Albany Park, watching CNN and eating a bowl of lentils.”

  Harry turned to Lee. “What’s the game plan?”

  “We’ll see,” said Lee.

  Scopes sniggered. “You’d be surprised how helpful a guy can be once he knows he’s gonna be blown up by his own bomb.”

  Before the motorcade itself was visible, Harry saw the flashing blue and red lights reflected from the white stone of the Children’s Hospital across the alley. Then they pulled up, three squad cars running without sirens. Two uniformed officers got out of the front seats of each of the cars. Rahman was in the backseat of the middle car. Harry strained to get a look at him as the cops pulled him out. Harry had seen scumbags of all persuasions in the past, but he had never yet looked into the eyes of someone so low that he t
hought he could prove his manhood by blowing up a few sixty-year-old ladies on ventilators. He was struck by how ordinary this guy looked—not at all like one of those wild, bearded Talibans with the long skirts over their trousers. He was of middle height, lean, clean-shaven, with short black hair that was starting to thin on top. He wore jeans and a red and black soccer jersey. Some terror mastermind! Harry walked past a hundred guys like him every day of his life.

  In handcuffs and leg irons, surrounded by blue uniforms, Rahman was slowly conducted to the entrance. His sly, sideways glance gravitated toward the bearlike, uniformed figure of Avery. He seemed surprised when the little Asian man in the dark suit spoke first.

  “Mr. Al-Sharawi, I am Special Agent Raymond Lee, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You are being transferred to my custody, to be held as a material witness in the investigation of a bomb threat against this hospital. If you are subsequently charged with a criminal offense, any statements you make can and will be held against you in a court of law.”

  Rahman said nothing, but looked up at the sky.

  “Do you understand English, Mr. Al-Sharawi? Do you require a translator?”

  Again there was no answer.

  “Okay, bring him in. Mr. Lewton, see if the hospital has an Arabic translator available.”

  “I already have one standing by.” Harry was a little rankled by Lee’s peremptory tone.

  Rahman quit his sky-gazing and looked at Lee with contempt. “One needs no translator to speak to the devil,” he said. His voice was soft and whispery, with a trace of a British accent.

  “Oh, we’re not the devil,” said Lee with a thin-lipped smile.

  Scopes couldn’t resist a chuckle. “But we can fix you up with an appointment in hell,” he added.