Extreme Measures

by Michael Palmer

  Using the FILE-RITE password, Dave quickly worked his way into the main menu of the recordroom computerized data system. As Eric had suspected, White Memorial had gone into electronic data in the most comprehensive way. The menu of available functions and maneuvers was exhaustive.

  Subarsky retrieved from his desk a manual describing in detail the hospital's computer capabilities and codes.

  "Here," he said, handing the manual over, "you do the brain work; I'll do the grunt work."

  Eric studied the screen, and then the book. "Type RETRIEVE," he said.

  With Eric issuing the commands, they moved like mice in a maze from one menu to the next, into dead-end alleys and then back out again. Their goal, the reward waiting at the far side of the maze, was a list-a compilation of those patients seen in the emergency room on February 25, the first date noted beside the initials PT 'twenty minutes passed.

  "We could always just call the record room and ask them what we're doing wrong," Subarsky said.

  "Not unless we absolutely have to. I don't know for sure if Caduceus is behind this, but if they are, there's no telling who's with them. And if someone from the record room just happens to be, and we alert them, we've lost everything."

  "Pardon me for saying so, laddie, but you're startin' to sound just a wee bit paranoid."

  Eric held up his bandaged wrists.

  "Make that a whole bunch paranoid," he said.

  "Please, Dave, just bear with me a little longer."

  "It's your dime," Subarsky said, polishin off a custard-filled doughnut in three bites. "It's a good thing vm spent all those late nights together locking horns over the laser, 'cause I can always fall back on those one or two times when you were actually right."

  "Try SYNTHESIZE again," Eric offered.

  "We're-just gonna end up the same place as last time."

  "No, I don't think so, Dave. The command's coming aftey- the date this time. Just try it."

  Subarsky typed in the word and then hit the return key.

  ALPHABETIZED OR SEQUENTIAL? the screen asked.

  "We've got it," Eric cried. "We're in!" He hunched over the biochemist's broad shoulders. "Tell the beast to alphabetize our list."

  Seconds after the command was typed in, a list appeared, headed by the date 25 February, and set in computer-perfect alphabetical order.

  The name Trainor, Phillip was on the screen with his birthdate s ll al and hospital number. Was he Scott Enders?

  They scanned 27 February, the day of the actual resuscitation, but could not find a Phflhp Trainor.

  "Don't worry," Eric said. "He probably was entered as John Doe."

  He wrote the name Phillip Trainor next to the initials PT and then had Dave call up an image of Trainor's E.R. sheet.

  "Near drowning, hypothermia, contusions…

  David, this was Laura's brother. I just know it was. He was here two days before I pronounced him dead. Can you print that sheet?"

  "Given half an hour, maybe."

  "Never mind," Eric said excitedly. "I'll take notes.

  We're onto something, Dave. Just watch."

  Eric noted down all the information he could, and then began searching for the other initials on Devine's list. In minutes, the pattern began to come clear. Over the past two-plus years, certain patients were seen in the White Memorial emergency room for problems varying from colds to broken bones. Within forty-eight hours those same patients were brought back to the hospital essentially dead on arrival.

  Every one of them was signed out as acute heart failure secondary to myocardial infarction, and every one of them was transferred to the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home pending examination by the medical examiner. And in every case, that medical examiner was Thaddeus Bushnell.

  "Why didn't someone ever pick up on this?" Eric asked. "Sooner or later, a nurse or doctor-" He stopped in mid-sentence and began flipping rapidly through his notes.

  "What is it, pal?" Subarsky asked.

  "What it is, David," Eric said grimly, — "is the answer to my question.

  Look, look here. Except for the last three cases, Craig Worrell and Norma CuBinet were involved with every one. That's MbrreU as in W and Cullinet as in C.-the abbreviations in Donald Devine's record book. The reason MbrreH wasn't part of the last three cases is that he got arrested and then disappeared."

  "I'm impressed," Subarsky said. "I really am. But we still don't have the answer to the sixty-four-dollar question. Why?

  What would anybody want with a bunch of corpses?"

  "That's the point. They weren't corpses. They looked dead enough to get pronounced dead with no one raising an eyebrow, but- Dave, don't you see?

  That's the tie-in! That's the goddam tie-in with everything!"

  "What?"

  Eric paced across the room and back.

  "Can I take over there for a second?" he asked.

  "The E.K.G department records are totally computerized. We call up tracings all the time."

  "Help yourself," Subarsky said, pushing himself up. "Listen, I've got a little experiment going on in the lab next door that I need to rerun with some new reagents. Give a holler if you need me. Otherwise, I'll be back in ten or fifteen minutes. By then, I expect you to have all the answers for me."

  "David, keep all this between us, okay?"

  "That goes without saying, my friend. Congratulations on unearthing all this."

  "Nice choice of words, Subarsky," Eric said, summoning up an E.K.G.

  "Real nice."

  Subarsky lumbered off as the first tracing appeared on the screen.

  It was the E.K.G taken during the resuscitation of patient RE-a forty-eight-year-old woman Erie now felt certain was named Pamela Fitzgerald. The pattern was one Eric knew all too well: broad, slow complexes at the rate of six to eight per minute. Checks of two other cases showed the same.

  Eric set the keyboard aside. On a sheet of paper he wrote the questions: How?

  Who?

  Why?

  Beside the first, he wrote: E.R. or inpatients with no next of kin.

  Tetrodotoxin administered by C. Resuscitation attempted by W or by unsuspecting resident. transfer to G. of H. for further treatment in basement by?.

  Possible antidote given. Death certificates presigned by T Bushnell.

  Mortuary records forged. transportation of drugged? subject to Utah by D.

  Devine.

  Beside the second: Crai Worrell. Norma Cullinet. Donald Devine.

  Sara 9 'kagarden? Joe Silier? Best Bet: Haien Darden.

  Death's-head priest. Anna Delacroix.

  And finally, by the third, he could write only a large question mark.

  Sickened and frightened by what he was, — , discovering, Eric wandered out into the corridor. Through the high plate-glass windows, he could see the ambulance parking area far below and the entrance to the emergency room. Everywhere, it seemed, business was as usual.

  Patients and nurses, uniformed EMTS, and white-coated physicians bustled in and out of the buildings, proud or relieved to be associated with the hospital considered by many to be the world's best And no place was there even a hint of the terror their august institution had spawned.

  Eric felt unsettled and anxious about what lay ahead-about the possibility of making a mistake that would alert the wrong people too soon. Timing was everything-timing and an airtight case. His credibility, for the moment, was all but destroyed in everyone's eyes except, he hoped, Dave Subarsky's. If Caduceus realized how far he had come, there was no telling what countermeasures they would take.

  Already they had seen to the removal of Loretta Leone's body and tissue samples. That move in itself spoke of resourcefulness and power, just as surely as the deaths of Thaddeus Bushnell and Donald Devine spoke of the lack of moral boundaries. The worst thing he could do would be to tip his hand too soon. Records could be removed as easily as had Leone's specimens.

  "Pe-People could be bought off or silenced altogether.

  Incriminati
ng evidence could be planted. And of course, he and Laura could simply disappear.

  "Give up?"

  Dave Subarsky moved in beside Eric and stared down at the E.R. lot.

  "Hardly. I'm just deciding where to head next."

  "And?"

  "The nurse I kept mentioning, Norma Cullinet?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "She's a patient on the neurosurgical service. She fell and fractured her skull."

  "So?"

  "So, I don't know what shape she's in, but I think I'm going to try and talk with her."

  "Neurosurgery, huh? Well, I hope she's better off than most of the neurosurgical patients I've seen. Most of those you couldn't communicate with at all unless you had an English-Vegetable dictionary."

  "Not.true and not funny," Eric said.

  "Sorry. You know me-nothing's sacred."

  "I know. Sorry for snapping. It's just that this stuff is so damn ugly, I can't handle any sicko humor right now, even yours."

  "I understand," Subarsky said. "Sometimes my mouth just has a mind of its own. Well, listen, pal, I've got a slew of errands to run in town.

  Let me shut off my terminal and I'll walk you down."

  The two of them were headed down the stairway toward the tunnels when Eric looked back at Subarsky.

  "I appreciate your help this morning, David," he said. "Now I want you as far away from all this as possible, okay?"

  "Sure."

  "I mean it. I don't want to be the cause of anyone's getting hurt, especially a friend."

  "Okay, but you know I'm here if you need me."

  Eric hesitated, and then stopped and handed over the Xerox ledger sheets and his notes.

  "David, if anything happens to me, I hope you'll try to break this thing open," he said.

  "Nothing's gonna happen, but if it does, you can count on me doing just that."

  "Thanks," Eric said. "Thanks for everything."

  Once in the basement, the two men shook hands and headed in opposite directions.

  Five floors above, in Dave Subarsky's office, the telephone was ringing.

  It rang more than a dozen times before it stopped.

  "Dammit, Eric, where are you? Where the hell are you?"

  Laura Enders listened as the phone in the office where Eric was supposed to be continued to ring.

  Finally she set the receiver down and finished dressing. Her hands were shaking and she could barely focus on what she was doing.

  Five minutes, she decided. She would try once more in five minutes.,Then she had to do something.

  It was only boredom, really, that had led her to check in with the desk at the Carlisle. Now she wondered if the force at work was something much stronger than that. The message, which she had copied down verbatim after three repetitions by the Iranian desk clerk, had come in during the early morning.

  Your brother SCOtt is with me. To find out where to get him and where to bring reward, call 236-4356 every hour on the hour until you reach me. Rocky.

  It was nearing nine o'clock. Laura struggled to keep her hopes in check. More likely than not, the call was a hoax-or worse, a trap.

  Under no circumstances would she give anyone the number at Bernard's apartment; nor would she go anywhere alone. At two minutes before the hour, she tried Dave Subarsky's office once more. Once more there was no answer. She watched the seconds march off on her watch until another minute had passed, and then dialed. A man answered on the first ring.

  "This is Rocky," he said.

  "Rocky, this is Laura Enders."

  She held the receiver with both hands to keep it steady.

  "I got yer brother at my place. You still offerin' a reward?"

  Laura's immediate sense was of an older man with not much education. In the background she could hear traffic noises.

  "Yes, Rocky," she said. "if you really have him, I'll pay."

  "How much?"

  "First tell me, is he all right'?", "He's not so good, no."

  "What's the matter?"

  "How should I know? I ain't no doctor. Now, how much are we talkin'here?"

  His voice had the deliberation and thickness of a drinker's.

  "Five hundred dollars," Laura heard herself say.

  ..Six.ll "Okay, okay, six. But I no deal until you tell me something.

  My brother has a tattoo on his left hip.

  Describe it."

  "If I have to go back and check, it'll cost you another fifty."

  "That's fine. I'll call this number in five minutes."

  "Better make it ten," Rocky said.

  He hung up without waiting for a reply.

  During the minutes that followed, Laura remained by the phone, moving only twice to try the number at the hospital. At nine-fifteen she called once again.

  "Mom, Dad, Laurie, three flowers," Rocky said immediately.

  Laura felt the muscles in her body go lax. She struggled to keep from dropping the phone.

  "Where are you?" she demanded.

  "Do we got a deal?"

  "Yes, we have a deal. Now where are you?"

  "Six-fifty?"

  "Yes, yes. Now please, just tell me where to go."

  "East Boston. There's a big vacant lot that starts on Bow Street.

  You'D see a couple a rusty barrels in one corner. Be there in an hour with the money, and come alone."

  "I'll have to have a driver."

  "Just keep him the hell away from me. Once I get the money, I'll tell you where you can find yer brother.

  Don't fool with me neither, lady. I ain't no dummy."

  "I won't. I promise."

  It could still be a trap. Laura tried desperately to think through the possibilities of how the man could have learned of Scott's tattoo.

  Finally, she knew there was no choice but to go and see. She opened the Yellow Pages to TAxis, then just as quickly she stopped and put the book aside. There was a better, safer way.

  After writing a lengthy note explaining to En'c everything that was happening, she picked up the phone and dialed 911.

  "My name is Laura Enders," she said. "I must speak with Captain Wheeler, Captain Lester Wheeler.

  It's an emergency."

  The neurosurgical service occupied the eighth and ninth floors of the Fox Building, the newest-and in Eric's opinion the most appealing-of White Memorial's twelve buildings. The broad, well-lit corridors, pastel decor, and airy rooms seemed as perfect a setting for recovery as a hospital could offer. Eric had done two rotations on neurosurgery, and knew the floors well. Norma Cullinet's room, 814 according to patient information, was quite far from the nurses' station-down a separate corridor, in fact. The location suggested that she was quite stable, at least as post-op neurosurgical patients were measured. Still wary of his uncertain status in the hospital, Eric stopped by the laundry in the subbasement, signed out a knee-length clinic coat, and made his way up the staircase he remembered as opening almost across the hall from 814. As he climbed, he tried to sort out what he had come to know of the woman over the five years of their professional association.

  She had always impressed him as being conscientious enough, but now that he thought about it, there had always been a hard edge to her, a distance that kept many of the nurses and residents from calling her by her first name.

  Still, a hard edge was one thing, murder quite another. And the evidence Eric had amassed left little doubt in his mind that Norma Cullinet had administered a powerful metabolic poison to nearly a hundred unsuspecting patients, and then had calmly waited for them to be brought back to White Memorial clinically dead. Hard edge or not, it was difficult to imagine her doing the things he suspected. But then again, it was difficult to imagine anyone in the healing arts doing them.

  As Eric neared the eighth floor, a plan began to take shape. If, in fact, Caduceus was behind the pseudo-deaths, and if in fact Norma was one of them, it was reasonable to assume that she knew he had been approached to join their cabal. If he could now convince her that over
the days since her accident, he had undergone a change of heart and signed on, there was every reason to believe she might slip up., What he wanted most from her was confirmation of his theories about Caduceus and its makeup, and some kind of affirmation that one of the search committee members was the powerful central figure in the secret society.

  And of course, what he also wanted desperately to learn were the reasons why-why a group so totally empowered by society would callously destroy the lives entrusted to them.

  Once on the eighth-floor landing, Eric paused to catch his breath and compose himself. If, as was possible, Norma Cullinet was unwilling or unable to provide the information he needed, so be it. There would be other ways. The important thing was, he was finally on the offensive.

  He opened the heavy door a crack and peered out.

  Except for an aide engrossed in her linen cart, the corridor was deserted. A final deep breath, and he crossed the hall. There was a sign in red on Norma's door: NO VISITORS. PLEASE CHECK AT NURSES'

  STATION. Eric hesitated a beat, and then slipped inside and closed the door behind him. The room was in near darkness, the only light leaking through a small gap in the drapes. Norma Cullinet, her head swathed in bandages, lay on her back, asleep.

  Eric cleared his throat loudly and then took two steps toward the bed.

  "Norma?" he said softly. "Norma, it's Eric Najarian."

  In that instant, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness he noted the unnatural tilt of her head and the wide, static opening of her mouth.

  "Oh, Jesus!" — he cried, racing to the bedside.

  "Norma! Norma, wake up!" He simultaneously pulled the light and nurse's call cords as he checked her neck for a pulse. "Oh, damn!" he heard himself murmur.

  He — checked her airway with his finger, shoved her pillow down between her shoulders to throw her head back, and gave her chest a quick thump.

  Then he gave her two mouth-to-mouth breaths.

  "Help! Code Nineth — nine in Eight-fourteen!" he screamed as he began cardiac compressions. "Code Ninety-nine in Eight-fourteen."

  He did a cycle of compressions and another pair of breaths, and then reached for the phone with one hand as he continued closed-chest compressions with the other. The operator answered on the fifth ring.

  "This is Dr. Najarian," he rasped. "Code Ni-netyrune, Fox Building, room Eight-fourteen..Call it!"