Runaway Heart

THIRTY

"Whatta you think you're doing with that thing?" Dr. Shiller asked, looking at the ten-pound weight that Herman was cradling against his chest like a lead blankie.

Herman was back in the cardio unit at Cedars wearing one of their fashion-ugly, balloon-decorated backless nightgowns. Susan was standing next to his bed. Jack was out of sight behind the open door.

Shiller glowered. He'd definitely had enough of the Strockmires. He took the lead weight off Herman's chest. 'This is for a weight machine."

"Doctor, I'm ready for the procedure now," Herman said.

Doctor Shiller looked down at him as if he were deciding whether to hit him with the weight in his right hand or the metal clipboard in his left. "The nurse said your heart was fine when she took your vitals. She saw the sutures above your groin, so it looks as if you've already had the procedure. This is a busy hospital, Mr. Strockmire. Believe it or not, there are people in this cardio unit who are in actual medical danger."

Herman looked at Susan. "You tell him. He won't listen to me."

"Okay, Doctor, you're right, we think an operation was performed," she admitted. "Dad was kidnapped yesterday, and he was taken to…" she stopped. "He went out to…"

She couldn't say Area 51. He'd throw them out.

"Yes?" Shiller was seconds away from calling security.

Herman took over. "Somebody did an operation on me. They may have implanted a radio transmitter inside me. A bug. Now they're following us, tracking me via satellite."

"You people are wonderful," Shiller said, shaking his head. "From outer space is it? Nice twist."

"Okay, you don't believe me? Take an X ray."

"I'm not wasting any more time on you." Shiller started to leave, but Susan jumped up and blocked his exit.

"Doctor, listen, please! My father has been involved in a very treacherous lawsuit. I told you about it before, remember?"

Nothing from Shiller. No reaction at all.

"Yesterday Dad came into possession of some very sensitive material that in the wrong hands could embarrass some very high-ranking Pentagon officials, maybe even the President. Because they wanted the material returned, my father was drugged and kidnapped. But Dad didn't have it on him. He'd given it to an expert to decode. They knew Dad would lead them to the material, so they planted a bug inside him to follow him until they got their hands on it. After the operation they let him go. Now they've got the material back. But they're still chasing us, because they want to kill us. The lead weight was to mask the bug and keep it from transmitting…" She stopped because Shiller's look had shifted from anger to one of psychiatric concern.

"If you will just open the incision and put a scope up there you'll find the transmitter, then you'll know we're telling the truth," she finished softly.

"Please leave the hospital immediately," he finally said. "Otherwise, I'll call security and have you removed."

Jack had been sitting quietly, unobserved in a folding chair behind the heavy door. As Susan explained her ridiculous story, he was trying to decide just how much deeper into this gunnysack he was prepared to go for no money-and then as soon as he asked that question, he knew he was in all the way. He also knew he was in love with Susan Strockmire.

"Hey, Doc," Jack whispered from behind the door.

"What?" Shiller spun around, surprised to find him there. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Wirta, with the Wirta Eye Clinic."

"An eye doctor?"

He nodded. "A private eye institute. I've been consulting on this case, and I'll have to insist that you do exactly as the lady just instructed."

"Oh, really?" Shiller was giving him an angry little smile that barely turned the corners of his mouth up. "Well, Doctor, unless you're a cardiologist or have some pretty good juice with the Physicians Review Board at this hospital, it's not going to happen."

Jack pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Shiller. "Dr. Smith and Dr. Wesson are also consulting. You don't want to argue with these guys unless you're wearing Kevlar."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm dead serious-excuse the pun-and unless you want to decorate that wall you're standing next to, you better get this man into pre-op."

"I'm not gonna perform surgery at gunpoint."

"Yeah? Why not?" Jack asked.

"Well… well, just because…"

Jack brought the S amp;W up chest high. " 'Just because' only works in third grade. I'll need something a little more substantial."

"I… I don't have an operating theater. I don't have an anesthesiologist."

"They got all that stuff in the ER. Do it down there."

"You know all about it, huh? You know what it takes to do one of these?"

"It's an outpatient procedure. How tough can it be?"

"This is outrageous."

Jack thought that was a bit of an overstatement. It wasn't outrageous, at least not compared to the North Hollywood Bank Shootout. Next to that, this was only highly unusual.

The procedure took about forty minutes.

On Jack's instructions, Shiller only gave Herman a local anesthetic, because Jack wanted to leave with him immediately after surgery.

A probe and chip camera were fed into Herman's upper thigh, then threaded up through the vein to his heart. After a few minutes of searching, Shiller said, "There's where they fixed the arrhythmia. See on the scope… the little burn mark?"

Jack couldn't see it; the video screen looked like a plate of spaghetti to him, so he took Shiller's word.

Another minute or two of searching and they found the bug.

"I got something," Dr. Shiller said through his surgical mask.

After carefully unhooking one small suture, he grasped the tiny computer chip with the microscopic pincers on the surgical probe and withdrew it. They all watched on the TV monitor as it made a fascinating journey from Herman's sternal region, down the subscapular vein, through the thoracoepigastric vein, to the umbilical region, then into the great saphenous vein and out.

Shiller dropped the tiny chip on a metal tray. The bug was about one-quarter of the size of an aspirin tablet. Jack had never seen a satellite transmitter that small.

"What is it?" Shiller asked.

"Transmitter," Jack said, then reached over and smacked it with his gun butt, turning it to powder.

"You mean all that stuff was true?" Shiller seemed amazed.

But Jack was a student of human nature, and he could still read anger and defiance in the doctor's eyes. Shiller was just the type of guy who would try to get Jack to put the gun down and then either jump him or call security.

"How long until he can be moved?" Jack asked.

"That's up to him. Depends on how he feels."

"Herm?"

"I'm a little woozy, but I can make it."

"Okay, then we'll get you a wheelchair and leave." He opened the OR door and looked out at Susan, who couldn't bear to watch and was waiting in the hall. "Get a chair."

"How's Dad?"

"He's fine. We got it out," Jack said.

A few minutes later she rolled the wheelchair into the OR. Jack instructed Shiller to lift Herman off the table and settle him into the wheelchair. All five of them trooped out of the hospital. Susan led the way, carrying Herman's clothes. Jack brought up the rear, strolling casually behind the doctor with his S amp;W in his sport coat pocket, feeling like a character in a Scorsese movie.

Zimmy, Carolyn, and her muscle-bound boyfriend had picked up a car for them at Rent-a-Wreck and left the keys on the top of the right front tire. Then they all decided to get lost, promising not to return to their homes.

Jack retrieved the keys and loaded Herman into the backseat of an old Chrysler Imperial. Then Dr. Shiller, Susan, and Jack stood awkwardly next to the passenger door and searched for a way to say good-bye.

"I'm sorry it had to happen this way, but thank you, Doctor," Susan said earnestly. Jack thought Dr. Shiller thawed about two degrees, but he didn't choose to say anything, so Jack got behind the wheel. Susan sat beside him, and with Herman sprawled in the back, they pulled away from Cedars-Sinai Hospital, fairly confident that nothing was beeping or flashing on a screen anywhere. No satellite tracks or Octopus tails, just three frightened people on the run in a beat-up car that barely ran.