Even though it had been many years since Danilo had set foot in the church, he knew the hostage was a man of God.
The executioner grabbed his victim by the hair, pulled him up and stared into his eyes. “Where is your God now?” he sneered.
* * *
Danilo’s arms grew so heavy that he dropped the machete. Sharp, shooting pain gripped his chest.
My God, what have I done? That man has a family. Had a family.
Tears streamed down his face. Why did he stand there and do nothing?
* * *
It all happened so quickly. They stretched the man over the stone and cut between the ribs. The man screamed and fought for his life, but the executioners pinned him down. Standing too close, Danilo was sprayed with blood from the cut arteries. He saw the spongy pink lung bulge out of the wound.
As the dying man gasped for breath, he caught Danilo’s eyes. Danilo froze in awe. It was nothing he expected.
No hate, no fear…how could that be?
Instead, Danilo saw compassion that made his head swirl in confusion. But there was no misunderstanding the man’s last words: “Forgive them, Father.”
One of the killers shouted, and Danilo looked up. He saw the taller Asian holding the heart of the victim. Without emotion, the man threw the heart to Danilo who caught it by instinct.
“Put it in your pack,” the Asian ordered.
Without thinking, Danilo did as he was told.
* * *
Danilo staggered on.
This nightmare has to stop!
Yes, I think that is the Jeep up ahead.
Even so, he could go no farther. Every last bit of strength was gone, and he found himself on his knees again.
I’ll walk home and leave all this behind me.
Then he did something for the first time in his life. He prayed out loud.
“Oh, God, save me.”
He tried to cry out again and again to the Heavenly Father, but it was too late.
The man standing over him had slit his throat.
Chapter 1
* * *
Dr. Hart
The coolness of the windowpane against his forehead soothed his aching brain. Dr. Nicklaus Hart stood alone on the fourth floor of the hospital, one of the few dark and quiet corners of the medical complex. As he stretched his aching hands across the glass, he caught the scent of his scrubs and winced. They smelled of a hard day laboring in the Operating Room. He sighed deeply, and his breath fogged the window.
Lights from the softball field next to the hospital gave a translucent glow through the fogged glass and evening mist. He heard the players better than he saw them. His breath, the mist, and large oaks swayed by the wind made the field lights dance like flames from a campfire.
Suddenly, a bat cracking a ball into right field pierced the rumble of the game, and laughter and cheering burst from the crowd. Nick wiped the window with the edge of his hand and saw the runner round the bases for another score as the team’s bench erupted in celebration. He knew everyone on the hospital team—nurses and techs of one kind or another and one doctor, a dermatologist who worked nine-to-four, four days a week.
Lucky son-of-a-gun. But who wants to look at nasty skin all day?
He made ten times more than any one of the players, except for the dermatologist. His heart longed for the fun and fellowship they enjoyed, and he wondered what it would be like to put in your shift and then leave.
Freedom. He bounced his head against the pane.
He noticed his Rolex tied to the cord of his scrub pants and remembered he hadn’t eaten dinner. It was already quarter past eight. He’d barely seen the light of day in the last three weeks, and his call shift that evening made for a long forty-eight hours. He bounced his head gently against the glass again, trying to remember why he’d gone into medicine, especially into a surgical field.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was in for. After all, he’d watched his surgeon father struggle through the rigors of medicine. He was reluctant to go there, but his angst was overcome by his desire to please his father by following in his footsteps to become a fourth-generation physician. How could he have imagined doing anything different? Secretly, he had always wanted to be a forest ranger.
The final nail in his decision to pursue medicine came when his best friend, John, set his sights on medical school. Always competitive, Nick could never let John one-up him.
Nick heard another round of laughter from the group below as the game appeared to wind down.
He’d followed his destiny, life had been good, and here he was. But then there was the ever deepening whisper of his heart—a call that told him that there was something more—something more meaningful in life. He closed his eyes and remembered the last time he’d heard that call. He was standing at the base of the towering Mission Mountains in Montana.
He looked at the softball field again and saw the players high-five and hug. A wave of loneliness swept over him.
Nick saw his tired reflection in the window and rubbed his eyes. His sleep cycles were askew and he was sleep deprived. He’d been grateful to one of his nurse buddies for slipping him some weed. It had worked like a charm, and he’d been reinvigorated by a restful night’s sleep. But he knew such dependence was a dangerous, slippery slope.
Is this what depression feels like?
His stomach growled, and his tired brain asked his aching feet to find something to eat when a vaguely familiar perfume filled his nostrils and a pair of warm hands encircled his waist. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up straight.
“I hoped I would find you up here,” a young woman’s voice murmured. “I looked for you down in Emergency and the OR, and when you weren’t there, I thought I’d find you here.”
Nick tried to turn, but the woman tightened her grip.
“Oh, no you don’t. You have to guess first,” she said and pressed her body into his.
He looked at her hands.
White. That narrows it down a bit.
He thought for a moment and made up names. “Shakala? Henrietta? Brunhilda?”
“Funny.” She head-butted his back.
The woman loosened her grip enough to let Nick turn to face her. She pursed her lips and pressed her chest into his stomach. Her bleach-blond hair was highlighted with a band of pink that matched the color of her scrubs and her streak of naughtiness.
“Hey, Melody. You need something?” he teased. She was one of the nurses from the orthopedic ward.
“So glad you asked, Dr. Hart.” She stopped, mid-sentence. “Wow, your eyes are blue.” She pulled him close and tucked her face into his chest. She held him for a moment and then playfully pushed him away. “Phew. I need to get you out of these scrubs. You stink.”
He sighed. “You know I’m on call?”
She pretended not to hear. “When I saw you on the ward earlier, I couldn’t get you off my mind,” she said, rubbing against him.
“Shouldn’t you be down playing softball?”
“That silly ol’ game,” she drawled. “I’d rather play hard ball.” She laughed at her own joke. “Anyway, it seems like a month since we’ve been together.”
Nick’s head spun. He knew what she wanted, but he was tired and hungry. He longed for intimacy and love, but the closest he seemed to get was a quickie in the call room. He also knew sex was the best anti-stress drug around, and despite himself, he felt his brain succumbing to its allure.
Melody untucked Nick’s scrub shirt from his pants and ran her fingers over his toned stomach. “Let’s me and you step into the call room, and I’ll help you relax.”
The spell was cast. Nick looked up and down the empty hallway, pulled her into his call room, and slammed the door. Warning sirens rang in his head, but they were soon deafened by pounding desire. Only heroin was slightly more addicting.
Melody shed her scrubs, revealing skimpy lingerie. She held Nick at arm’s length, then jerked him to her and ripped off his scr
ub top, mussing up his thick blond hair. Admiring her prize, she sighed, “Lordy, you’re gorgeous!”
He was about to return the compliment when his beeper went off. He looked at the message, and then at her. His shoulders drooped.
“Noooo,” she whined.
“I’m sorry, gotta get downstairs.” He pulled on his shirt and reached for the door.
Melody watched him pull himself together, rolled her eyes, and shook her head, “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Sorry,” was all Nick thought to say as he took one last glance at her and left the room.
Geez, what am I doing?
A sense of relief washed over him as he shook his head and headed to the Emergency Department.
CHAPTER 2
* * *
The MED
“Dr. Hart…Earth to Dr. Hart.”
Elizabeth Jackson, one of Nick’s favorite operating room techs, called to him and patiently held out the screwdriver he needed to insert a screw into the bone of the ankle exposed on the operating table.
As if awaking from a dream, Nick looked up and back. Elizabeth popped the screwdriver into his hand which accepted it by instinct. He shook his head to clear the fog of physical and emotional exhaustion. He glanced up at the clock—2:02 a.m.—and felt even more tired. He listened to the hypnotic, rhythmic beeps of the anesthesia monitors in his operating room and was comforted. He saw the OR nurse quietly sifting through a mountain of paperwork in the corner and the anesthesiologist adjusting a dial on his machine.
Dr. Hart filled his lungs with the cold air of the operating room hoping to jumpstart his brain. He was relieved to be away from the chaos of the trauma room and the emergency department.
“Thanks, Lizzy.”
Nick was one of the few that got away with calling her by her nickname.
Her dark, graceful eyes smiled back across her surgical mask.
Because of her seniority, Lizzy rarely took night call, but he was thankful to have her by his side tonight. He would never ask her how old she was, and it was hard to judge her age with her beautiful brown complexion, but she had worked in this same OR for over forty years. She had trained more Residents than most of the Attendings. Some of the young doctors fresh out of medical school starting their five years of orthopedic residency training came with an attitude. If that was never adjusted, they became insufferable staff Attendings once they became board certified.
When a junior Resident was confused during a procedure, Lizzy—if she liked them—silently handed over the proper instrument to keep them on track. She enjoyed watching the arrogant get flustered. All the Residents tried to stay on her good side, and she liked it that way. Nick was one of her favorites.
“Dr. Hart, I remember when you first arrived at the MED eight years ago,” she teased. “Lordy me, how you made the nurses swoon. I never seen such a sight when you strolled in with your full head of hair and swagger, you was this hot new surgeon from Montana with tight blue jeans and cowboy boots. I thought I was going to have to resuscitate a few of the nurses.”
“Oh, Lizzy.” He tightened the screw into the bone. “Was I really that handsome?”
“Oh yeah, ruggedly handsome, I’d say.” She cackled and fanned her face. “Just glad we got them rough edges knocked off you.”
“Ouch.” He glanced at her. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Without saying a word, she handed him a bulb syringe full of saline to moisten the wound.
He thought of the first time they met. Ms. Elizabeth Jackson had been the scrub tech on his first surgery, a difficult pelvic fracture. Without introducing himself, he prepared for the case, rapidly listing all the instruments and fixation devices he needed. Finally, she stopped him and with no disrespect in her voice put a hand on his arm, looked him straight in the eyes, and said, “Cowboy, this ain’t my first rodeo.” Nick had looked at her with alarm and then broke into a belly laugh. They had been friends ever since.
“Lizzy, you could fix this ankle better than I can. Why don’t you finish this up so I can take a nap?” He smiled through his mask, knowing it would be illegal for her to complete the surgery and knowing she’d never let him get away with it.
“Oh, Dr. Hart,” she half-sighed and for the umpteenth time she said, “What you need is a good woman to take care of you. In fact, if I was a few years younger and had six less kids, I’d make you a fine wife.”
“I bet you would. I just don’t know I could keep such a fine woman like you happy.”
Lizzy playfully bumped him with her shoulder and handed him another screw.
Nick understood her advice and felt her concern. “I’m looking, I’m looking,” he said, but they both knew he was lying.
It was good to stay in life’s comfort zone. His own biological clock was ticking, but fixing a bone was way easier than resolving his personal life. He wished he wasn’t so exhausted all the time. He looked back at the wall clock and stretched his back.
Two-o-five. Time moved slowly, and this was just the beginning of the night at the MED.
The MED—Regional Medical Center at Memphis—was the trauma and burn center for six states as well as a world-renowned teaching institution. It was also the only hospital in those six states where the sick and injured got care without the consideration of insurance or ability to pay; it was the place of last resort for tens of thousands each year.
Chronically underfunded, the neon sign outside the main entrance once read “REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER”. Over the years, all the letters except MED had burnt out, and the administrators had left it that way. Even the inside of the hospital was falling apart. Most nights the ER looked like a war zone.
One of the Residents should have fixed this patient’s ankle, but they were all swamped in the ER, so Nick had volunteered to give the resident staff a hand. He was known as one of the few attending staff who cared about the Residents and the hectic demands put upon them.
The Orthopedic Department was staffed by the forty-some surgeons from the Memphis Clinic. Many were uninterested in the Residents or the patients at the MED. Trauma call was challenging. Most of the work was charity care, which meant that in addition to long hours and low pay, staff had a greater chance of getting sued and risked higher exposure to AIDS and hepatitis.
Nick understood that the community doctors looked at the MED as the dumping ground of humanity. It was easier, cleaner, and, of course, much more profitable to stay within the confines of their multi-million dollar clinics with paying patients.
On nights like tonight, that view of doctoring sounded better to him, but he felt a real calling to both the patients and the Residents. It was his parents who had instilled in him the importance of service to those who lived without. Also, he thrived on the camaraderie of the Residents.
As far as the patients were concerned, Nick felt it was important to treat everyone as if they were a member of his family. He certainly wouldn’t want a Second-year Resident fixing his mother’s broken hip all by himself. The Chief Residents, in their fifth year of training, were good, but even they got in over their heads from time to time.
“Okay, let’s get a picture,” he announced, motioning to the x-ray technician to bring the fluoroscopy unit in before he placed the last screw through the plate that held the fracture in place.
The ankle was both broken and dislocated. When the young patient, for whatever reason, ran from the cops, his ankle rolled over a curb, snapped out of joint and forced the bone through the skin. In the ER, the foot laid at a right angle to the leg. Not a pretty sight.
He studied the x-ray image revealing his handiwork and nodded approval. “Not too bad, if I must say so myself—”
“And I must say so myself,” Lizzy finished.
They chuckled.
“Let me close this thing up,” he said and addressed the heavy Filipino nurse who was filling out paperwork. “Betty, can you call down to the guys and see what’s happening in the ER and what’s next on the plat
e?”
Lizzy handed him some suture without needing to be asked. “You have given this young man a good leg to stand on when he appears before the judge.”
He appreciated her judgment and hoped that now he’d be able to get some sleep, a hope that was quickly dashed.
“The boys need you in Trauma 2,” Betty announced. “A sixteen-year-old with one to the chest and one through the hip and femoral artery.”
The one she was referring to was probably a high-powered rifle bullet. The gun of choice these days was an M-15 assault rifle.
A person did not want to end up a patient in Trauma 2. At this time of night, it had a near fifty-percent mortality rate. Many of the older and faith-filled nurses prayed daily over that room and anointed the door with oil. They claimed it kept the spirit of death at bay. It was a constant and herculean-sized battle. Nick thought they were wasting their time and was mostly annoyed when a few of them told him they prayed for him as well.
The MED was the MASH unit of the Memphis battleground. People in Memphis settled most arguments with guns. Nick even wore combat boots. Some of the Residents preferred knee-high rubber boots to keep their socks from getting soaked through with blood.
Nick heard the more religious nurses state that violence was a spiritual stronghold over the city. They said their churches knew to pray, but the foul spirit had not yet been broken.
He tried to reduce the tension as he quickly sewed up the wound. “Lizzy, did you hear about the guy we took care of last week?”
She said nothing and let him ramble.
“This guy came in who had been shot in both legs with a shotgun,” he continued. “I asked him, ‘Wesley, who shot you in the legs?’ ‘My uncle, my uncle,’ ” Nick imitated the man’s voice writhing in pain. “ ‘He kept telling me he would.’ So I asked him, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘My uncle kept telling me if I didn’t get my ‘filthy’ feet off his coffee table, he would shoot them off. I didn’t believe that slime ball would actually do it.’ ”
MAYA HOPE, a medical thriller - The Dr. Nicklaus Hart series 1 Page 2
