Critical Condition

by Peter Clement

  After a few turns he flopped onto a mattress, its well-worn sheets gray from washing and stained by his lapses with the Lord's seed. An aroma that soap and water could no longer remove clung to the disheveled bedding, a tangy scent of ammonia that made him ashamed of his own weakness. Sometimes, on particularly damp days, it seemed to override the stink of pee and sauerkraut.

  Glancing at his watch, he rolled over and flicked on a small portable TV with a built-in VCR that stood on one of the few chairs he owned. Wanting to see if his attempts to kill Sullivan and Steele had made the local news yet, he turned the dial to the Good Day AW program.

  He waited through reports of Israelis and Arabs killing each other, a shampoo commercial, and an update on the mayor's progress with a union problem. Then:

  "... there are more revelations at New York City Hospital about the murder of a second physician, a radiologist, Dr. Matt Lockman, found last night in his home. According to anonymous sources, the body was severely mutilated. Police refused to speculate as to any connection between this killing and the shooting death of another NYCH physician the night before, neurologist Dr. Tony Hamlin. However, nurses who refused to be identified state that Hamlin and Lockman may have been involved in committing irregular practices on some of their patients. Even more intriguing are rumors of an attempt made on the life of one of these patients just before midnight last night, followed by the alleged attacker going after yet another person. This one was a hospital physician who was alone in medical records investigating the files of Hamlin and Lockman. Again, police would not confirm these allegations. But authorities are looking for this man in connection with these unusual events. Anyone with information of his whereabouts is asked to contact..."

  He stared in disbelief at the picture.

  At first he tried to convince himself that it hardly looked like him.

  But rage soon consumed any such false assurance. It must have been the Sullivan bitch who had described him.

  He'd have to hide, and there were things he must take with him.

  He turned to his prize possession, a computer, keyboard, and printer mounted on a melamine desk beside the window. The screen, adjacent to a view of the tawdry, glitzy wares for sale on the street below offered him a world that outshone everything down there, including the prostitutes. It stood like a beige shrine midst the gloomy interior and the grimy dark wood underfoot, serving as his intelligence center, his connection to his chosen family, his link to the others who'd dedicated their lives to stop the slaughter. It was also where he reconnoitered whatever he needed for their mutual cause.

  This morning he required sanctuary.

  Within minutes he'd contacted his network and alerted them to his plight. Though their's was an organization with no hierarchy, headquarters, or membership lists, all of which made them hard to find and defeat, fellow soldiers could mobilize on behalf of each other at a moment's notice. Someone would be at his door with transportation in less than an hour.

  He quickly found a screwdriver and, shoving aside the mattress, exposed the floorboards that he'd pried up creating a hiding spot he could easily access. After undoing the screws, he lifted a half dozen four-foot planks. His weapons stash lay inside.

  A buzz of flies along with a whiff of rot came from within a small bundled sheet placed back in the deeper shadows. When he lifted it up, the contents clanked together, and the insects whined angrily, to the point he could feel the vibration of their wings beneath the thin material. He also took out the M-4 carbine he'd used to shoot Hamlin. He'd bought it years ago in a hunting store north of Buffalo in Niagara county. Beside it was the most precious of all— a pair of Walther PPK handguns that had once belonged to a set of three. He'd escaped with them out a back window in a Rochester motel, his father having tossed them down to him while keeping the third to hold off the police. The pain of that day had hardened him the way scar tissue hardens skin, destroying all feeling for anything soft. But whenever he slid his palms around the grips of those guns, he felt as if the man who'd held them minutes before dying a soldier's death once more was taking him by the hand.Next came boxes of ammunition, his collection of hammers, and the signature pieces of his organization, pipes loaded with plastic explosives and nails. These were ready for detonation by timers or remotes, the latter kit-bashed from devices used to activate door locks on cars at distances up to a hundred and fifty feet. He picked up the vials of medication that he'd pilfered over the years, then stuffed them between pairs of socks in a small box so as to adequately buffer them against breakage during the move. Finally came the pamphlets they didn't dare print on their Web sites, training manuals for would-be recruits into the Legion of the Lord, including instructions on how to make and deploy bombs using dynamite, plastics, or ammonium nitrate.

  He'd take all this along, including the computer, to wherever his comrades would hide him. To finish his current job he'd have to move fast, launching his attacks one on top of the other. And he'd have to abandon the order he'd been told to follow. Sticking to it meant additional risks. He could no longer afford to wait around for the right circumstances to gel in sequence. Instead he'd have to pick off whoever gave him the opportunity first. With his likeness plastered all over TV and probably soon to appear in every city newspaper, it would only be a matter of time before he'd be spotted, and stopped.

  The more he thought, the more he feared that he'd ultimately fail in his mission. He tried to reassure himself his battle was not with the police or the secular forces massing against him. Live or die, his life would be in God's hands, and the war was against Satan.

  He changed into a jogging outfit with a hood, packed up the rest of his clothes, and popped a few acetaminophen into his mouth to kill the muscle aches that the night's activity had caused. Emptying the pockets of the cleaner's uniform he'd worn, he retrieved what he found in Medical Records. Staring at it, he began to think how it could be useful in salvaging what he'd bungled.

  Once more he turned to his keyboard, this time summoning up those in his network who could supply him with the other special items he'd need to complete his assignment. He asked for a machete, a loose-fitting jacket with the case for the blade of the machete stitched into the lining, a bicycle, a theatrical makeup kit with material for making beards, and a selection of wigs.

  He was ready. In training he'd gone seventy-two hours without sleep. With any luck, he'd have completed the Lord's work and be through the list within that amount of time now. But no matter how long it took, he wouldn't quit. No way.

  As he waited for his friends to arrive, he removed a faded photo from his wallet. Cracked and creased, it showed a blond man and a fair-haired boy standing in front of a tent pitched by a lake. Both were holding up fish on a line, displaying them to the person taking the picture. But while the youth who appeared to be about ten wore a wide grin, the man's features looked wooden, the lines of his smile chiseled into skin the color of wax, his eyes gouged-out hollows.

  Chapter 12

  The Same Morning,

  Wednesday, June 27, 9:35 a.m.

  Cardiac Care Unit, New York City Hospital

  Monitors surrounded him; catheters threaded through his arteries, veins, and viscous organs like weedy roots; his every heartbeat, breath, and change in pressure sent out streams of digital readings, fluorescent green squiggles, and eternal beepings.

  Francesca Downs swept into her patient's room and up to his bed, her white coat floating behind her. Norris followed.

  "Meet Mr. Ralph Coady," Downs said.

  "Hi." Norris held out his hand.

  Coady, propped upright on pillows, his plump skin a bluish shade of white, eyed the outstretched hand as if it might slap him. "How'd you get to stay so skinny," he moaned. "I wouldn't be in this mess if I could get thin like you."Norris smiled.

  "I got the damn heart attack because my girlfriend, Bunny, suggested we take up line dancing to help me lose weight."

  "Mr. Coady's recovering from my having dilated two of h
is major vessels last night," Downs elaborated.

  Coady's mouth turned down in disgust. "You Roto-Rootered me."

  "How's your breathing today?"

  "Rotten! Just like the rest of me."

  "Lean forward and take deep breaths," Downs said, hooking her stethoscope into her ears and plopping its head onto the base of the right side of his chest. Listening attentively, she marched the stethoscope toward the left like an attacking rook on a chessboard. "Most of the water's out, but there's still some in there," she finally pronounced.

  She freed the ear pieces, letting them cling around her slender neck, and sat down on the side of the bed. "You've had quite a bit of damage to the left ventricle, and are experiencing what we call heart failure, but the medication's getting rid of the fluid buildup."

  "You mean that's why I got to piss so damn much? It's those injections and pills you keep giving me?"

  Downs put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a warm smile. "Yep," she said. "They're meant to flush you out."

  Norris found himself staring at her, marveling at how beautiful she was, her skin still flushed with a soft glow from their lovemaking. What a life force she could be, her fierce confidence infusing hope even to those near death.

  "Well, that's a relief," said Coady, "I guess. For a while I was beginning to think either I had a touch of the clap or my prostate was acting up again. But will I always need shots and horse pills?"

  "Not shots, but oral meds, yeah. I won't know the full extent of the injury to the heart wall until we get an echocardiogram, but for sure it won't have the same strength as before."

  He gave a thin little grin. "You mean I get to give up line dancing?"

  "Not unless you want me to tell you to. Exercise, in moderation, is a good part of living well."

  "I prefer slow dancing. It's sexier."

  Downs gave him a string-of-pearls smile. "I do, too."

  He swallowed a few times, cleared his throat, and asked, "And what about sex?"

  "I think it's a little early to worry about that, Ralph. Normally we suggest a gradual return to regular sexual activity in about three months."

  He looked alarmed. "Three months? Jesus, Bunny and I hardly can go without it for three days."

  Downs giggled. "Lucky Bunny."

  He did some more swallowing, and cleared his throat again. "And will I be able to, you know, do it the same?"

  "Probably. Again, you're way ahead of yourself. We'll be doing tests to determine the workload your heart can take in the coming weeks."

  "Probably?" he repeated, as if he hadn't heard the rest of what she'd said."Relax, Ralph. Hey, these days, it's the lady on top. I'm sure you'll still enjoy yourself."

  More swallowing, more clearing of his throat. "What about flying."

  Downs grimaced. "Ouch! Well, there the news isn't so good. But I don't have to tell you the national aviation rules, do I?"

  He said nothing and ran his fingers through well-groomed but thinning salt-and-pepper hair.

  Norris, standing at the foot of the bed, saw a glistening in the man's eyes that wasn't there a few minutes before.

  "I can't change commercial airline regulations, Ralph," continued Downs, reaching out and giving his shoulder a squeeze. "What can I say?"

  "Doc, tell me there's hope. Some chance. Something you can do for me. The nurses said you do research in experimental surgery. Isn't there anything for me? I'll volunteer. I don't care what the risks are. Hell, I'm only forty-five, and flying's the one thing I have that's special. It's my life. It gives me my place in the world. It's what makes me matter. Goddamn it, I'm the one they call to teach the rookies. How the hell am I going to replace all that?"

  "I'm sure your family and Bunny will continue to love you even if you're not a flyer—"

  "What family? My first wife left me because I was away all the time, and I don't have kids. As for Bunny, she won't want to be around me if I'm grounded."

  "That's ridiculous. It's obvious she adores you—"

  "You make her live under the same roof as me if I'm grounded, and she'll be gone in six months."

  Downs said nothing.

  He's perfect, Norris thought— the right age, his way of life wrecked at the peak of his career, and, just as Francesca had predicted, desperate.

  "What about a heart transplant?" Coady said. "Give me a new one. I hear about them all the time."

  Downs shook her head, her lips drawn in a straight line. "You're still better off with the one you have. Transplants aren't magic, and we only use them on terminal cardiacs."

  "Well, I feel terminated. Doesn't that count?"

  "Afraid not."

  "But you must know what's new. Stuff over the horizon that hasn't been tried. If money's the problem, I can afford it. I'm well-off, and Bunny's got her own computer business. . . ." His voice trailed off, the glistening in his eyes swelling into tears, and his pale features crumpled like ruined tissue paper. Yet he didn't utter a sound, his shoulders shaking in silence, as if by sheer willpower he kept the sobs bottled up in his chest alongside his failing heart.

  Downs remained sitting, her hand sliding up and down his arm the way one might try and comfort a child who'd fallen.

  Yet some falls were from heights that couldn't be survived, thought Norris, shuddering at how he'd feel at being so suddenly and completely sidelined. When Downs looked up at him, he nodded, giving her his agreement that she should go ahead.

  "Ralph, I don't want to give you any false hopes, but neither do I want you to despair. Dr. Norris is a fellow researcher, and we have been working on something that's as close to a medical miracle as you or I will ever see in our lifetime."He mustn't have heard her at first, continuing to shudder convulsively with absolute quiet, his head between his hands. But when he did look up, his gaze darted from her to Norris, his expression suspended between a twist of agony and slack-jawed disbelief. "Pardon?"

  "But we must insist you keep what I'm about to tell you confidential," she went on without pause, "or there'll be no more discussions about it, period. Is that agreed?"

  "What is it?"

  "And we would tell you about this only in general terms. As you can understand, since this is our original work, we must keep it secret, so that no one can plagiarize what we're doing before we publish. You'd also have to agree that we can make your case public, announce it in a press conference and put it in the media, because the procedure we are about to do will make you an even bigger sensation than the first heart transplant case."

  "Yes, yes. But tell me what is it?"

  "Understand you will have to cover all expenses beyond what your insurance will pay for conventional treatment," Norris added, "including the lab costs. Dr. Downs and I will give you a breakdown, and we would require you to sign a nondisclosure contract subjecting you to heavy, and I stress heavy, financial penalty, should you reveal anything about our work or not comply with all steps of our protocol once we start."

  "Yes, yes, yes. Now explain the miracle."

  "Ralph, we can do better than that," said Downs. "Later today the nurses will begin sitting you up at the bedside for ten minutes at a time. If that goes well, I'm going to give you a special treat and whisk you in a wheelchair down to Dr. Norris's lab. By then we'll have the papers of our agreement drawn up, and on your signing them, we are going to let you peek in a microscope and see what you will not believe."

  So we're on our way, Norris thought, leaving the ward a half hour later after Francesca had shown him a few other possible candidates. A million Americans a year had heart attacks, a half million died of heart disease, and he and Francesca were going to show the world they could change all that. Coady was perfect. Whether the guy would ever fly again, who knew, but someone like him, with so much to lose and everything to gain, could offer hope to millions and create a demand for the technique no one could stop. Jesus, they were liable to get the fucking Nobel Prize. All this, plus he was back with Francesca. God! It was like a reprieve from the dead.
No sooner had he gotten to the elevator than the doors opened and a half dozen police officers brushed by him, fanning out to the various nursing stations, pads of paper and small tape recorders at the ready.

  ". . . you show them the composite. I'll interview anyone who even thinks they recognize the man . . ."

  ". . . who's got the list of staff who worked with Hamlin's patients . . ."

  ". . . I'll take the doctors . . ."

  The ride down stopped at a half dozen floors, each pause long enough to reveal small groups of NYPD blue midst the various pastels and blazing whites of orderlies, nurses, residents, and staff doctors. They were all huddled in circles looking at something.

  Intrigued, he stepped off at the next stop and approached the periphery of a dozen people surrounding a tiny blond woman on whom the dark uniform and heavy gun belt of a police officer seemed overly bulky, making her appear particularly vulnerable. Her voice became audible as he drew closer.

  ". . . so if any of you have seen this man, or think that you may have witnessed something suspicious that Doctors Hamlin or Lockman may have been doing to patients over the last few years . . ."

  It wasn't that he hadn't expected the authorities to come snooping. But to hear with his own ears how close they were to his secret, especially with such a massive police presence throughout the hospital, sucked the euphoria right out of him. A clammy fear crept right down to his marrow, and the shiny new life he'd imagined for himself became a taunt, a tease, a glimpse held out of what he would never have.

  His mind ran amok playing scenarios, every one of them hurtling down a dark road to his own destruction. The police would find the reason behind the murders, and that would certainly bring them to him. Would Adele Blaine and Paul Edwards keep their mouths shut then? Hardly. For all he knew, they could be turning him over to the cops right now. Those meetings they'd been having together lately! He could imagine them setting him up to take the fall over drinks and dinner. And what of Francesca? Once again his darkest thoughts about her emerged. Had she, too, conspired with them? Were the three of them engineering his downfall together? He gave a bitter laugh. After all, why should that prevent her from making use of his skills in the meantime to assure her success with Coady.