A crisis had arisen in the intensive care unit.
All the patients had developed complications. None could be discharged, and all elective cardiac surgery in the hospital had come to a halt.
Every day at rounds the chief resident Barney Kaufman went from bed to bed to see if anyone was ready to be transferred, but no one was. And each day, they stopped last by a patient Barney had labeled Frank Gork.
A shower of emboli from a calcified heart valve had been loosed during surgery and Frank Gork, formally Frank Segelman, had been left brain-dead. He’d been on the unit for over a month. The fact that he was still alive, in the sense that his heart was beating and his kidneys were making urine, was a tribute to the nursing staff.
One afternoon Kaufman looked down at Frank. “Mr. Gork, we all love you, but would you consider checking out of this hotel? I know it’s not the food that’s keeping you here.”
Everyone snickered but the man who had continued to stare into Frank’s empty face. Later that night, the man had gone into the busy intensive care unit and walked up to Frank Gork with a syringe full of potassium chloride. Within seconds Frank’s regular cardiac rhythm degenerated with T waves peaking, and then flattening out. It had been the man himself who called the code, but the team only made a halfhearted attempt at resuscitation.
After the fact everyone was pleased, from the nursing staff to the attending surgeon. The man almost had to restrain himself from taking credit for the event. It had been so simple, clean, definite, and practical.
The man had to admit that killing Robert Seibert had not been like that.
There wasn’t the same sense of euphoria of doing what had to be done and knowing that he was one of the few with the courage to do it. Yet Robert Seibert had had to die. It was his own fault, dredging up all the so-called SSD series.
Returning from the bathroom, the man quickly searched the room for any papers relating to Robert’s research. Finding none, he moved to the door and opened it a crack.
One of the night nurses was coming down the hall with a small metal tray. For a terrifying moment the man thought she might be coming to see Robert. But she turned into another room, leaving the corridor free.
His heart pounding, the man slipped into the hall. It would be a disaster to be seen on the floor. When he was a resident, he had reason to be in the corridors or patients’ rooms or even the intensive care unit at all hours of the night. Now it was different. He had to be more careful.
When he reached the safety of the stairwell, panic overtook him. He plunged down three floors without pausing for breath and kept up this frantic descent until he’d passed the twelfth floor. Only then did he begin to slow down. At the landing on five, he stopped, flattening his back against the bare concrete wall, his chest heaving from his exertion. He knew he had to collect himself Taking a deep breath, the man eased open the stairwell door. Within a few moments he felt safe, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. He kept thinking about the SSD data, realizing that Robert probably had a source in his office, very likely a floppy disc. With a sigh the man decided he’d better visit pathology right away, before Robert’s death was known. Then the only problem would be Cassi. He wondered exactly how much Robert had told her.
CHAPTER 11
* * *
CASSANDRA WOKE UP with a start, looking into the smiling face of a lab technician who was calling “Dr. Cassidy” for the third time.
“You do sleep soundly,” she said, seeing Cassi’s eyes finally open.
Cassi shook her head, wondering why she felt drugged. Then she remembered getting the second sleeping pill.
“I’ve got to draw some blood,” apologized the technician. “You’ve got a fasting blood sugar ordered.”
“Okay,” said Cassi equably. She let the technologist have her left arm, remembering that for the next couple of days she would not be administering her own insulin.