Presidential Donor

by Bill Clem

  Twenty-five minutes later, there was a soft tap on his door. When he opened it, a medical records clerk stood there with stack of manila folders in her hands.

  "Here are the records you asked for, Mr. Bradley."

  "Thank you," He took the files and placed them on his desk.

  "You need anything else?" the clerk asked.

  "No, that's all, thank you."

  Bradley stared at the eight-inch pile of folders. He shook his head as he left his office.

  God forgive me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Peter Schell sat down at his computer terminal and decided to back track. He had to find out how he'd screwed up Jack McDermott's file. Maybe he could still redeem himself. If he could come up with a legitimate reason, perhaps Bradley would go easy on him.

  He typed in the name: JACK McDERMOTT

  To his surprise, NO FILE FOUND came up. He typed it in a second time, checking the spelling against the name written on the three by five cards. Once again, though, NO FILE FOUND came up. Impossible. Probably a computer glitch. He decided he would call medical records, but first he needed to take a much-needed smoke break. The stresses of the morning were taking a toll on him, and he needed to relax for a few minutes.

  Schell got up and walked down the hall to the back exit where he could smoke without being noticed. Being a heart hospital, they took a dim view of someone who smoked.

  A light snow greeted him as he stepped out the door. He pulled his collar up close around his neck and lit up his cigarette. He took a long drag, blowing the smoke out forcefully, as if it took all his anxiety with it.

  He could little afford to lose his job. With a wife and two kids to support, it was all he could do to make ends meet now. If he were to get fired, it might mean returning to Yugoslavia. He felt a sudden chill. I'll never go back there.

  Suddenly, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something. The only thing Schell registered momentarily was the feel of a hand on his chin--then excruciating pain--and the crunching sound his head made as it was nearly twisted off.

  Then blackness...

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  On the third floor of Zurich Trauma, the nurse on duty poured some red medicine in a plastic cup and started down the hall. Two attendants in green scrubs pushed a stretcher up to the nurses' station and stopped. One of them, a powerfully built man with a crew cut, smiled at her. "We need Mr. McDermott in radiology," he said.

  "Do you need help getting him on the stretcher?"

  "No, I think we can handle it."

  She cocked her head. "You're new, I don't remember you."

  "You're right, today is my first day."

  "I thought so. Anyway, Mr. McDermott is in 316."

  "Thanks," crew cut said. He pushed the stretcher down the hall with the other attendant behind him.

  * * *

  Standing before his window, Jack had no doubt his afternoon plans were already cast in stone. He remembered Dr. Leah mentioning some kind of test.

  Something to check for any residual head injury, as he'd put it. Leah told him if it came back clear he could go home. Home my ass.

  The story awaiting him now became far more compelling than the one that he came here for. The President with a massive heart attack. He would stay here and cover the story, banged up head or not. He turned to see two attendants enter his room with a stretcher.

  "Okay, Mr. McDermott, you can climb on the stretcher now," one of the attendants said.

  Jack slid onto the stretcher, keenly aware of the pain pinching in his neck.

  He still had his IV, and the nurse had given him a shot of Demerol less than twenty minutes ago, but it hadn't taken effect yet. It didn't completely eliminate the pain, but it made it tolerable. He saw the nurse coming up the hall and craned his neck to give her a wave.

  Jack felt a slight buzzing sensation in his head. Sensory overload, he thought. For senses dull, just hours before. He was dreaming for all he knew, just dreaming he woke up. Subconscious wishful thinking from his accident-induced sleep.

  As the attendants pushed the gurney onto the elevator, and the doors closed, Jack felt a tingle in his legs. As the elevator descended, he moved a little to one side thinking his legs had fallen asleep. This Demerol seems different than before. His lower body suddenly felt like a lead blanket was placed on it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the attendant behind him pull something from the IV line. The elevator continued down, seconds passed.

  When the elevator finally stopped, Jack tried to speak, but his lips wouldn't move. It was as if his mouth hadn't gotten the command. Then it came to him in a sickening revelation.

  He was paralyzed!

  Panic engulfed him. He was aware of everything around him. He just couldn't move anything--not even an eyelid. Now he was certain something terrible was happening to him!

  He could hear the two attendants...

  "Stuff works fast doesn't it?"

  "Best shit there is," answered the other voice.

  "How long will it keep him out?"

  "What do I look like, a fucking chemist? I don't know. I just follow orders. Put the stuff in the IV, then bring him to the morgue--period. No specifics or drug pharmokinetics; I just know it's good shit, cause I've used it before."

  "Hey, sorry I asked."

  "I'm sorry, man, I'm just a little jumpy."

  Jack felt a jolt of terror go through him. What the fuck? Why are they doing this? He heard the crackle of a radio, then a voice.

  "This is Rye, we've secured subject. Ten-twenty in the morgue."

  The morgue? Jack thought. Why in the hell was he in the morgue? He was alive!

  At least he thought he was.

  At least for now!

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eva Smorzak smiled as she walked into her favorite place in the hospital--the morgue. Although trained as an anesthesiologist, she loved pathology, especially forensic pathology. As far as medicine went, it was tops. That is, if you could call it medicine at all. To her, it was beyond medicine. Since in the traditional sense, medicine deals with making people well, where forensic pathology tries to figure out how someone died. Not that Eva was the least bit morbid, it simply fascinated her. How you could take a piece of hip bone, found in a creek somewhere, and then tie it to a homicide, perpetrated two years earlier. Then figure out, the bone belonged to a woman whose husband had taken a chain saw to her. It boggled the mind.

  In the darkest reaches of her subconscious, Eva thought perhaps her fascination with death lie in her grandparent's slaughter in the holocaust. All those haunting images of emaciated corpses, thrown in a pile, like compost.

  Maybe she was morbid. Maybe it eased her pain.

  So here she was in Jonah Bailey's world again today. Had it not been for a certain professor of pathology at her med school, she might have become Jonah's official assistant. The professor told Eva six months into her internship; she didn't possess the tenacity for forensics. Her confidence shaken, she changed to anesthesia--all because of a male chauvinist jerk. She would like to do his anesthesia--free of charge--should the need ever arise.

  Jonah Bailey looked up from the autopsy table and smiled when Eva walked up.

  "Eva." His voice boomed of the tile walls loud enough to wake the corpse in front of him.

  She looked at the body on the table. The long Y-shaped incision extending from the neck to the pubic bone was already closed. Eva made a pouty face.

  "I'm too late."

  "Oh there's plenty more," Jonah said. "You have time?"

  "I don't have anything better to do. This isn't exactly romance-central around here."

  Jonah grinned. "You know, Eva, this guy here looks like your type."

  Eva burst out laughing. "Very funny! Now that you mention it, though, a corpse does sound better than nothing."

  "Sick sense of humor. I like that." Jonah said.

  They walked to the adjoining room where gurneys stood lined up side by side. Every g
urney held a body covered by a white sheet. Toe tags decorated discolored feet that peeked from under each one. Being the largest trauma center for hundreds of miles, they had no shortage of accident victims, and the unfortunate ones ended up here with Jonah. Eva looked at all the bodies and wondered how Jonah ever got caught up. She was glad she could help. The ever-present odor of death and formaldehyde lingered in the air, and Eva tried to ignore it. The work was so much more interesting than putting people to sleep.

  "So what do we have today?" she asked.

  "Interesting case, just brought in. Thirty-year-old white male. Found on the side of the road not far from here. No visible trauma, been dead less than twenty-four hours."

  "Whatta ya think?"

  Jonah furrowed his brow. I don't know yet. Let's take a closer look. Can you hand me that tray over there?"

  "Sure." As Eva walked down the row of gurneys, she brushed against the last one. The sheet covering it slipped off and exposed part of the body.

  "Oops."

  Jonah looked over as she started to put the sheet back in place.

  "Wait a minute, Eva." He walked around the gurney. "I know this guy, I'm sure of it."

  Eva pulled the sheet back and took a closer look.

  She gasp!

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "He's breathing," Eva said. "What the...?" She picked up an empty vial and a disconnected IV line next to his arm.

  "What is it?" Jonah asked.

  "Cystomecurium"

  "Cys... what?"

  "It's a new class of muscle relaxant. It paralyzes the muscles and induces a temporary coma."

  "Why would someone give--?" Jonah heard voices outside the door. He opened it an inch or two and peeked out. Two men in green hospital scrubs were talking. Jonah stood motionless as he listened to them.

  "Leave him in there for a few minutes, we'll come back."

  Jonah didn't have to hear another word. It didn't take too much imagination to figure out who they were talking about. Jonah couldn't remember the man's name, but he did know he'd met him earlier in the morning. He checked for a hospital identification bracelet, but there was none. Dave Leah was his doctor. Maybe he should give him a call? Jonah's legs were trembling. Not so much out of standing still, but from astonishment over what he was listening to.

  Feeling sick to his stomach, Jonah wondered what he should do. Those two guys are coming back in a few minutes. The last thing he needed was to confront them. Jonah didn't have time to run through all the questions in his mind. His common sense told him, get out of there--fast.

  "Eva, what about this Cystomecurium. What's its half life?"

  "The bottom line, Jonah, is we need to administer an antagonist drug in the next two hours, or the effects are permanent."

  Jonah heaved a sigh. "We need to leave here now! Those guys will be back in a few minutes."

  "Maybe we should call security."

  "No, we don't know how dangerous these guys are, although judging by what they've done so far, I think it's safe to assume they're not Boy Scouts."

  Eva pressed her lips together. "If we can get him to my place, I keep an emergency bag for on-call. I've got some Narcan we can give him. It should reverse the effects of the Cystomecurium."

  "How far away is your house?"

  "About ten miles."

  Jonah looked around as if one of the corpses were suddenly going to sit up and offer some suggestion. "How are we going to transport him without being seen?" he asked.

  "Isn't there an ambulance parked near the back door? The one you use to transport bodies."

  Jonah slapped his thigh. "Yes, the keys are in my office."

  He darted over and flipped on the light to his office. His gray metal desk was littered with paperwork to be processed--paperwork of the dead. Jars containing various body parts floated in formaldehyde and stood waiting for analysis.

  Spotting the keys hanging on a piece of pegboard, he snatched them off the hook, then flipped off the light switch.

  "Got em," he said, as he met Eva at the door. She was already pushing the gurney.

  Jonah peeked out the door. The hall was deserted. He sensed time was running out. "All right, let's go."

  Eva took the head of the gurney and pushed it through the door while Jonah held it open. As they started down the hall, there was no sign of the two men. Halfway up the hall, near the exit, Jonah froze. Over the sound of his pounding heart, he could hear footfalls behind him.

  "Jonah," a voice called out.

  Wheeling, he turned to see Simon Burns, a staff internist, heading in their direction.

  "Jonah, have you heard what's going on with the President?"

  "Yes," Jonah said.

  "Aren't you going to the meeting?"

  Jonah scowled. "Yes, Simon, in a bit. I've been to more meetings today, than in my whole career. Right now I'm going to get this body to the autopsy room."

  "Well," Burns said, "aren't you going the wrong way?"

  "Noo--I'm not. The main autopsy room is full, so I'm taking him to the auxiliary one on the second floor."

  "Oh. Well, see you at the meeting."

  Jonah exhaled silently. "Fine, as..."

  "What?" Eva asked.

  "Nothing," Jonah said, making an effort to hide his anger.

  Through the glass exit doors ahead, Jonah could see the back of the ambulance.

  There were approaching footfalls getting closer. With rising urgency, they pushed through the exit and onto the ambulance ramp. Just as the doors banged shut, Jonah saw two men in green scrubs, and a third in a black trench coat. He had a head like a bullet and he was shaking his finger at the other two.

  "There they are," Jonah said.

  Eva yanked the ambulance doors open. Jonah picked up on the gurney and with one mighty heave, pushed it and Eva, inside. It landed with a resounding thump, and Eva slammed the doors closed.

  * * *

  "Well he was here a minute ago," one of the men in green scrubs, explained to Denton Cogswell.

  "A minute ago?" a livid Cogswell asked. "Well you had better damn site find him--and fast. And where is Bahr?"

  "I don't kno--"

  "Never mind. Just get this place sealed off and check all the exits. We need to find this guy now!"

  * * *

  Jonah jammed the keys into the ignition and hoped it would start. After a sputter, it sprang to life, and he jerked the gearshift into drive. Jonah checked his rear view mirror and saw a thick cloud of blue exhaust. Behind the smoke, he saw two men throw their hands up as he drove away.

  "I'll need some directions, Eva. I have no idea where I'm going."

  "Yes, just go straight through town past the bridge, then make the first left. It's a straight run from there."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  By late afternoon, Brighton Heart Center's usual quiet ambiance was replaced with a carnival-like atmosphere. Reporters clamored about, stopping doctors, nurses, and anyone who might give them information about the President.

  The reporter from CNN who had interviewed Lloyd earlier, now risk being thrown out of the hospital as she tried to get the latest.

  Pete Mazur and two Secret Service agents escorted Gwen Lloyd and her daughter back into the hospital. As they entered the lobby, they were bombarded with questions. The younger Lloyd cowered close to her mother as she tried to block the flashes of dozens of cameras. Had it not been for the escorts, she would have been knocked over.

  Mazur noted that Gwen Lloyd, usually neat as a pin, apparently had had little time for coifing. In her modest attempt to fix her hair, she had lacquered it with enough hair spray to create a fire hazard. Something the reporters were no doubt taking note of as well.

  Questions were still being fired at them as the doors slid shut behind them.

  Mazur finally ran out of patience.

  "Get these people out of here!" he told a young Secret Service agent.

  Reporters attempted to ask more questions, even as they were being
pushed out the door. "Is it true the President needs a heart transplant?" a reporter from CBS asked.

  "No, it's not true," Mazur fired back. "The President is stable and we expect a full recovery," he lied as he ushered Gwen Lloyd and her daughter onto the elevator. After he was satisfied they were settled, he stormed to the conference room. Charlie Lathbury and the Press Secretary were busy preparing a statement when he burst in.

  Mazur glared. "Gentleman, do we have a leak?"

  "What kind of leak?" Lathbury asked.

  "I just had a reporter ask me if the President needed a transplant."

  Lathbury frowned. "They probably assumed he did because this is a transplant hospital."

  "Let's hope that's all it is. Make sure no one knows anything except what we tell them. Now where is the Vice... er, acting President? I need to speak to him."

  It was a well-known fact among the President's advisors that Mazur had a problem with Warren Ritter. He felt that Ritter caused far too many problems for Lloyd with his ultra conservative views. Ritter was popular, though, and that kept him in Lloyd's good graces. Luckily for Mazur, he took his orders from Lloyd--that is--until now. Since Ritter was acting President that made Mazur his National Security Advisor--a fact he had trouble swallowing.

  Well, at least Ritter was on board with the current plan.

  * * *

  Warren Ritter sat with his feet propped up on Bob Bradley's desk and thought what a fine opportunity this was. The thought of Thomas Lloyd's death didn't bother him at all. He recalled other Vice Presidents who had taken over for their assassinated boss. They never seemed the least bit upset, and those individuals died in a much worse way than Lloyd would. After all, this wasn't assassination he was suggesting. Maybe for McDermott or whatever his name was. For Lloyd, it was more of an unfortunate turn of events.

  Too bad.

  He reached across the desk for the phone when Cogswell walked in.

  "Well?" Ritter asked.

  "I've taken care of it," Cogswell said.

  "Who else knows?"

  "Just Bahr."

  Ritter arched his eyebrows. "Of course, Bahr, your loyal puppy dog."