Side Effects

PROLOGUE

Mecklenburg, Germany August 1944.

Wirli Becker leaned against the coarse wood siding of the officers' club and squinted up at the late afternoon sun, a pale disk rendered nearly impotent by the dust from a hundred allied bombings of industrial targets surrounding the Ravensbriick concentration camp for women. He closed his eyes and for an instant thought he heard the drone of enemy planes somewhere to the south. "Not a moment too soon, Dr. Becker, " he muttered. "You will be leaving this hellhole not a moment too soon." He checked the chronometer his brother, Edwin, had sent him from "a grateful patient" in the Dachau camp. Nearly fifteen-thirty. After months of the most meticulous preparations there were now only hours to go. He felt an electric excitement. Across the dirt courtyard, clusters of prisoners, their shaved heads glistening, worked on bomb shelters, while their SS guards jockeyed for bits of shade beneath the overhangs of barracks. Becker recognized two of the women, a tall, awkward teenager named Eva and a feckless Russian who had encouraged him to call her Bunny. They were but two of the three dozen or so subjects whose examinations he was forced to omit in the interest of escape. For a minute, Becker battled the urge to call the two scarecrow women over and tell them that fate had denied them their parts in the magnificent work that scholars and generations to come would hail as the start of the Beckerian population control. Beckerian. The word, though he spoke it daily, still had a thrilling ring. Newtonian physics, Shakespearean drama, Malthusian philosophy, upon so very few had human history bestowed such honor. In time, Becker was certain, this immortality would be his. After all, he was still six weeks shy of his thirtieth birthday, yet already acknowledged for his brilliance in the field of reproductive physiology. Adjusting the collar on the gray-green SS uniform he was wearing for the last time, the tall, classically Nordic physician crossed the courtyard and headed toward the research buildings on the north edge of camp. The Ravensbriick medical staff, once numbering more than fifty, had dwindled to a dozen. Himmier, bending to the cry for physicians in military hospitals, had suspended the experiments in gas gangrene and bone grafting, as well as those on battlefield cauterization of wounds using coals and acid. The doctors responsible for those programs had been transferred. Only the sterilization units remained, three of them in all, each devoted to the problem of eliminating the ability to procreate without impairing the ability to perform slave labor. Becker strode past the empty laboratories-another sign of the inevitable-and turned onto "Griinestrasse, " the tarmac track on which the officials and research facilities of his Green Unit were located. To the east, he could see the camouflage-painted chimney tops of the crematorium. A gentle west wind was bearing the fetid smoke and ash away from the camp. Becker smiled thinly and nodded. The Mecklenburger Bucht, fifty kilometers of capricious Baltic Sea between Rostock and the Danish island fishing village of Gedser, would be calm.

One less variable to be concerned about. Becker was mentally working through the other incalculables when he glanced through the windows of his office. Dr. Franz Miiller, his back turned, was inspecting the volumes in Becker's library. Becker tensed. A visit from MWIER, the head of the Blue Unit and director of reproductive studies, was not unusual, but the man was considerate to a fault and almost always called ahead.

Was Miiller's visit on this of all days a coincidence? Becker paused by the doorway to his office and prepared for the cerebral swordplay at which the older man was such a master. He congratulated himself for holding back the documentation, however scant, of Blue Unit's deception.

Miiller's blade might be as quick as his own, but his own had poison on its tip. Miiller, he felt certain, was a sham. The Blue Unit work concerning the effect of ovarian irradiation on fertility looked promising on paper. However, Becker had good reason to believe that not one prisoner had actually been treated with radiation. The data were being falsified by Miiller and his cohort, Josef Rendl. Whether they had gone so far as to assist prisoners in escaping, Becker was unsure, but he suspected as much. His proof, though skimpy, would have been enough to discredit, if not destroy, both men. However, their destruction had never meant as much to him as their control. In an effort to gain some tiny advantage, Becker opened the outside door silently and tiptoed up the three stairs to his office door. Not a sound. Not even the creak of a floorboard. Becker opened the door quickly. Miiller was perched on the corner of his desk, looking directly at him. "Ah, Willi, my friend.

Please excuse the brazenness of my intrusion. I was just passing by and remembered your mentioning that Fruhopfs Reproductive Physiolog was among your holdings." First exchange to the master. "It is good to see you, Franz. My library and laboratory are always yours, as I have told you many times." A perfunctory handshake, and Becker moved to his seat behind the desk. "Did you find it?"

"Pardon?"

"The Fruhopf. Did you find it?"

"Oh. Yes. Yes, I have it right here."

"Fine. Keep it as long as you wish."

"Thank you."

Miiller made no move to leave. Instead, he lowered himself into the chair opposite Becker and began packing his pipe from a worn leather pouch. Not even the formality of a request to stay. Becker's wariness grew. Hidden by the desk, his long, manicured fingers undulated nervously. "Sweet? " he asked, sliding a dish of mints across the desktop. It was Miiller's show, and Miiller could make the initial move.

"Thank you, no." Miiller grinned and patted his belly. "You heard about Paris?"

Becker nodded. "No surprise. Except perhaps for the speed with which Patton did the JOB."

"I agree. The man is a devil."

Miiller ran his fingers through his thick, muddy blond hair. He was Becker's equal in height, perhaps an inch or so more, but he was built like a Kodiak bear. "And in the east the Russians come and come. We wipe out a division and two more take its place. I hear they are nearing the oil field at Ploesti."

"They are a barbarous people. For decades all they have done is rut about and multiply. What our armies cannot do to them, their own expanding population will eventually accomplish."

"Ah, yes, " Miiller said. "The theories of your sainted Thomas Malthus.

Keep our panzers in abeyance, and let our enemies procreate themselves into submission."

Becker felt his hackles rise. Cynicism was the finest honed of Miiller's strokes. An irritated, angry opponent left openings, made mistakes. Calm down, he urged himself Calm down and wait until the man declares himself. Could he know about the escape? The mere thought made the Green Unit leader queasy. "Now, Franz, " he said evenly, "you know how much I enjoy discussing philosophy with you, especially Malthusian philosophy, but right now we have a war to win, yes?"

Miiller's eyes narrowed. "Quatsch, " he said. "What?"

"I said Quatsch, Willi. Absolute nonsense. First of all, we are not I'A k going to win any war. You know that as well as I do. Secondly, I do not believe you care. One way or the other."

Becker stiffened. The bastard had found out. Somehow he had found out.

He shifted his right hand slightly on his knee and gauged the distance to the Walther revolver in his top left drawer. "How can you impugn me in this way?"

Miiller smiled and sank back in his chair. "You misunderstand me, Willi.

What I am saying is a compliment to you as a scientist and philosopher.

Surtout le travaille. Above all the work. Is that not how you feel? On second thought, I will have that sweet, if you please."

Becker slid the dish across. Here he was, bewildered, apprehensive, and totally off balance, and still with no idea of the reason for Millier's visit. Inwardly, and grudgingly, he smiled. The man was slick. A total bastard, but a slick one. "I believe in my research, if that is what you mean."

"Precisely."

"And your research, Franz, how does it go? " Time for a counterthrust.

"It goes and it stops and it goes again. You know how that is."

Sure, sure, but mostly it doesn't exist, Becker wanted to say. Instead, he nodded his agreement. "Willi, my friend, I fear the war will be over anytime now. Weeks, days, hours, no one seems to know. I have no notion of what will happen to us-to those in our laboratory-after that. Perhaps our research will be made public, perhaps not. I feel it is crucial for each unit, Blue, Green, and Brown, to know exactly the nature and status of the work being done by the others. That way, we can be as well prepared as possible for whatever the future brings." Becker's eyes widened. "I have decided to start with your Green Unit, " Miiller went on. "A meeting has been scheduled for twenty-one hundred hours this evening in the Blue Unit conference room. Please be prepared to present your research in detail at that time."

"What?"

"And Willi, I would like time to study your data before then. Please have them on my desk by nineteen hundred hours." Miiller's eyes were flint. Becker felt numb. His data, including the synthesis and biological properties of Estronate 250, were sealed in a dozen notebooks, hidden in the hull of a certain Rostock fishing boat. His mind raced. "My… my work is very fragmented, Franz. I… I shall need at least a day, perhaps two, to organize my data." This can't be happening, he thought. Nineteen hundred hours is too early. Even twenty-one hundred hours is too soon. "Let me show you what I have,"

Becker said, reaching toward the drawer with the Walther. At that instant, Dr. Josef Rendi stepped inside the office doorway. Rendi's aide, a behemoth whom Becker knew only as Stossel, remained just outside in the hall. They had been somewhere out there all the time. Becker felt sure of it. Rendl, a former pediatrician, was a short, doughy man with a pasty complexion and a high-pitched laugh, both of which Becker found disgusting. Becker's information had it that Rendl's mother was a Jew, a fact that had been carefully concealed. For a frozen second, two, Becker sized up the situation. Miiller was but two meters away, Rendl three, and the animal, Stossel, perhaps five. No real chance for three kills, even with surprise on his side, which, it seemed now, might not be the case. The battle would have to be verbal… at least for the moment.

Becker nodded at the newcomer. "Welcome, Josef. My, my. The entire Blue Unit brain trust. What a pleasant honor."

"Willi." Rendl smiled and returned the gesture. "Leutnant Stossel and I were just passing by and noticed the two of you in here. What do you think of the meetings? A good idea to present our work to one another, no?

" You smarmy son of a Jenv whore, Becker thought. "Yes. Yes. An excellent idea, " he said. "And you will honor us by presenting the Green Unit biochemical studies tonight? " Rendi, though an oberst, exactly the same rank as Willi, often spoke with Miiller's authority dusting his words. Becker, fighting to maintain composure, sucked in an extra measure of air. "Tonight would be acceptable." Both of the other men nodded. "But, " he added, "tomorrow evening would be much better."

Because, he smiled to himself, I intend to be a thousand kilometers away from here by then. "Oh? " Franz Miiller propped his chin on one hand.

"Yes. I have a few final chemical tests to run on Estronate Two-fifty, Some loose ends in the initial set of experiments." As Becker scrambled through the words, searching for some kind of purchase, an idea began to take hold. "There's an extraction with ether that I was unable to complete because my supply ran out. Late yesterday, several five gallon tins arrived. You signed for them yourself." Miiller nodded. Becker's words became more confident. "Well, if you would give me tonight to complete this phase of my work, I shall gladly present what I have tomorrow. You must remember that what I have is not much. Estronate Two-fifty is far more theory than fact. A promising set of notions, with only the roughest of preliminary work on humans."

Miiller pushed himself straighter in his chair and leveled his gaze across the desk. "Actually, Willi, I do not believe that what you say is true." The words, a sledgehammer, were delivered with silky calm. "Wh..

what are you talking about? " The question in Becker's mind was no longer whether Miiller knew anything, but how much. His trump card-Blue Unit's falsified data-would have to be played. The only issue now was timing. "What I am talking about is information that your work on Estronate Two-fifty is rather advanced."

"That's nonsense, " Becker shot back. "Further, that you are lacking only stability studies and the elimination of a troublesome side effect-some sort of bleeding tendency, is it? — before more extensive clinical testing can be done. Why, Willi, are you keeping this information from us? You have here, perhaps, the most awesome discovery-even the most awesome weapon-of our time, yet you claim to know nothing."

"Ridiculous."

"No, Willi. Not ridiculous. Information straight from a source in your laboratory. Now either we receive a full disclosure of the exact status of your work, or I shall see to it that Mengele or even Himmier receives the information we have."

"Your accusations are preposterous."

"We shall judge that after you have presented your work. Tonight, then? "

"No. Not tonight."

It was time. "My work is not ready for presentation." Becker paused theatrically, drumming his fingertips on the desktop and then stroking them bowlike across one another. "Is yours?"

"What?"

Becker sensed, more than saw, Miiller stiffen. "Your work. The Blue Unit radiation studies. You see, the two of you are not the only ones with-what was the word you used? — ah, yes, sources, that was it.

Sources."

Rendl and Miiller exchanged the fraction of a glance. The gesture was enough to dispel any doubt as to the validity of Becker's information.

"Willi, Willi, " Miiller said, shaking his head. "You try my patience. I shall give you until tomorrow night. Meanwhile, we shall organize our data and present them at the same time."

"Excellent, " Becker said, reveling in being on the offensive at last.

"And, please, do try to have some of your human subjects available for examination. It would lend so much to the understanding of your work."

This time, Miiller and Rendl shared a more pronounced look. "You don't really care, Willi, do you?" Miiller said suddenly. "I… I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Franz."

"You see only yourself. Your place in history. The here and now mean nothing to you. Germany, the Reich, the Jews, the Americans, the prisoners, your colleagues-all are the same to you. All are nothing., @ "You have your mistresses, and I have mine, " Becker said simply. "Is immortality so homely that I should throw her out of my bed? You are right, Franz. I do not concern myself with petty day-to-day issues. I have already reached planes of theory and research that few have ever even dreamed of. Should I worry about the price of eggs, or whether the Fiihrer's hemorrhoids are inflamed, or whether the prisoners here at Ravensbriick are pathetic inside the wire or without, on top of the dirt or beneath it?"

"Willi, Willi, Willi."

Miiller's voice and eyes held pity rather than reproach. Becker looked over at Rendl, and there, too, saw condescension, not ire. Don't you dare pity me, he wanted to scream. Revere me. The children of your children will prosper because of me. The lebensraum for which so many have fought and died will be attained not with bullets, but with my equations, my solution. Mine!

Miiller broke the silence. "We are all with the same laboratory. We all stand to lose much if we fall into disfavor-either now with the Reich or soon with the Allies. I expect a full disclosure of your work with Estronate Two-fifty, Dr. Becker."

Becker nodded his acquiescence and silently prayed that his portrayal of a beaten man would be convincing. Minutes later, the three men from the Blue Unit were gone. Becker closed his eyes and massaged the tightness at the base of his neck.

Then he poured three fingers of Polish vodka from a bottle Edwin had sent him, and drank it in a single draught. The encounter with Miiller and Rendl, triumphant though it had been, had left him drained. He fingered his chronometer. Was there time for a nap?

No, he decided. No sleeping until this filthy camp with its petty people and skeleton prisoners was a thing of the past. He walked briskly from his office to the low, frame, barracklike building that housed the Green Unit's biochemical research section.

With glances to either side, he backed through the rear door and locked it from the inside. The wooden shutters were closed and latched, creating a darkness inside that was tangible. The flashlight was by the door-where he had hung it that morning. Using the hooded beam, Becker counted the slate squares making up the top of his long central workbench. Reaching beneath the fifth one, he pulled. The cabinet supporting the slate slid out from the others. Beneath it, hidden from even a detailed search, was the circular mouth of a tunnel. "And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air…"

Alfi Runstedt sang the words as he dug, although he had no idea of their meaning. The song, he knew, was the American anthem, and this day, at least, that was all that mattered. As a child in Leipzig, he had spent hours beside his family's new Victrola memorizing selections from a thick album of anthems of the world. Even then, the American "Star Spangled Banner" had been his favorite. Now, he would have the chance to see the country itself and, even more wonderful, to become an American.

"Oh say does that star spangled ba-a-ner-er ye-et wa-ave… With one syllable, he rammed the spade into the sandy soil. With the next, he threw the dirt up to the side of the grave. The trench, three feet deep, was better than half done. Lying on the grass to Alfi's left, two meters from him, were the corpses of the peasant woman and her son, which would be laid inside as soon as the proper depth was reached. Alfi Runstedt paid them no mind. He was stripped to his ample waist. Dirt, mingling with sweat, was turning his arms and walrus torso into a quagmire. The thick, red hair on his chest was plastered into what looked like a fecal mat. His SS uniform pants were soaked and filthy. and the home of the brave. 0-oh say can you see…"

"Alfi, take a break if you need one. We cannot make any moves until dark. I told you that." From his perch atop a large boulder, Willi Becker gazed down into the narrow crypt. Alfi stopped his digging and dragged a muddy wrist across his muddy forehead. "It is nothing, Herr Oberst. Believe me, nothing. I would dig a thousand such holes in the ground for the honor you have done me and the reward you have promised.

Tell me, do you know if many American women are thin like Betty Grable?

One of the men in the barracks at Friedrichshafen had her picture by his cot."

"I don't know, Alfi." Becker laughed. "Soon, you shall be able to see for yourself. If we meet the boat in Denmark and if my cousin has made all the arrangements, we should be in North America with valid papers within a few weeks."

"Big ifs, yes?"

"Not so big. The biggest if anyplace is money, and hopefully we have enough of that. We'll need some luck, but our chances of making it out undetected seem rather good."

"And you do not think me a traitor or a coward for wanting to leave with you?"

"Am I?

"You are different, Herr Oberst. You have research to complete. important research. I am just a junior officer in an army that is losing a war."

"Ah, but you are also my aide. My invaluable aide. Was it not you who informed me of the old system of drainage pipes running beneath Ravensbriick?"

"Well, it was just my fortune to have worked with the sanitation department when I was younger and-"

"And was it not you who chose to keep that information our little secret and to help me with the connecting tunnel?"

"Well, I guess-"

"So don't say you are not deserving, Unteroffizier Runstedt. Don't ever say that."

"Thank you, Oberst. Thank you." And at that moment, Alfred Runstedt, the man who had overseen or assisted in the extermination of several thousand Ravensbriick prisoners, the man who had, not an hour before, calmly strangled to death a woman, her young son, her husband, and her father, wept with joy. Hollywood, New York, baseball, Chicago-now just words, they would soon be his life. Since the June invasion at Normandy, and even more frequently since the abortive July attempt to assassinate the Filhrer at Rastenburg, in eastern Prussia, he had been forced to endure the recurrent nightmare of his own capture and death. In one version of the dream, it was execution by hanging, in another, by firing squad. In still another, ghostly prisoners, totally naked, beat him to death with sticks. Soon, the nightmares would stop. The grave was nearly deep enough. The wooded grove which was serving as an impromptu cemetery accepted the evening more quickly than did the adjacent field and was nearly dark when Becker pushed himself off the rock. "So, just a few more spadefuls, is it?" he said. "I think so, " Alfi answered. He had donned a windbreaker against the chill of dusk. His uniform shirt, hanging on a branch, would be kept clean for a final display. "Cigar?"

"Thank you, Herr Oberst." Alfi paused to light the narrow cheroot, one of a seemingly endless supply possessed by Becker. "I think you are deep enough now, " Becker said after a half dozen more passes. "Let me give you a hand."

Alfi scrambled from the grave. One with the arms, and one with the legs, the two men unceremoniously tossed the bodies of the woman and the boy into the pit. Alfi replaced the dirt with the spade. Becker helped, using his foot. "Forgive me if I am out of line, Herr Oberst, " Alfi said as he shoveled, "but is there any possibility of notifying my sister at the munitions plant in Schwartzheide that, contrary to the reports she will receive, I am alive and well?"

Becker chuckled and shook his head. "Alfi, Alfi. I have explained to you the need for secrecy. Why do you think I waited until only a few hours ago to tell you of my escape plan? I, myself, have been measuring every word for weeks, afraid I might give it away. For now, and for the foreseeable future both of us must remain among the lamentable casualties of the war. Even my brother, Edwin, at the camp in Dachau will not know."

"I understand, " Alfi said, realizing that he did not-at least not totally. "By the morning, you and I shall be both free and dead." Becker stamped on the topsoil of the grave and began throwing handfuls of dusty sand and pine needles over the fresh dirt. The idea of using the bodies of the farmer and his son-in-law was sheer genius, Becker acknowledged.

Originally, he had planned to have the two farmers supply him with transportation to Rostock. Their lorry would now run just as well with him at the wheel. The other refinements in his original plan were dazzling. When all was said and done, Miiller and Rendi would be left to face the music with little or no suspicion that he was still alive."..

and the home of the brave." Becker joined the startled Runstedt in the final line. Both Runstedt and Becker groaned repeatedly with the effort of dragging first one body and then another through the sewage pipe to the false cabinet in the biochemical research building. Intermixed with the sounds of their effort were the scratching and scraping of countless rats, scurrying about in the pitch darkness. The young farmer was, in height and frame, a virtual twin of Becker's. The older man, like Runstedt, was heavy, but taller than Runstedt by several centimeters.

"Don't worry about the difference in your heights, Alfi, " Becker had reassured him. "By the time the explosion and fire are through with these bodies, no one will want to get any closer to them than it takes to remove our watches, rings, identification medallions, and wallets."

With Becker pushing from below, Runstedt hauled the corpses through the base of the cabinet and stretched them out on the wooden floor.

"Perfect, perfect, " Becker said, scrambling through the hole. "We are right on time."

"Oberst, " Alfi said, "I have one question, if I may."

"Of course."

"How will we keep the tunnel from being discovered after the fire and explosion?"

"Hah! An excellent point, " Becker exclaimed. "One, I might add, that I am not at all surprised to have you make. I have kept the steel plate you removed to make the opening in the pipe. It fits perfectly, and stays in place with several small hooks I have welded on. With ashes and debris piled on top, I doubt the pipe will ever be discovered."

"Brilliant. Herr Oberst, you are a truly brilliant man."

"Thank you, Unteroffizier. And now, we must check. Have you said anything to anyone which might suggest you are planning to leave tonight?"

"No, sir,"

"Good. And have you told the men in your barrack that you will be working late in the laboratory with me?"

"Yes, Oberst."

"Wonderful. We are ready to arrange the ether, to set the charge and the timer, and to exchange clothes with our friends here."

"Then it is off to hot dogs and Betty Grable, " Alfi said. "Hot dogs and Betty Grable," Becker echoed. "But first a toast to our success thus far. Amaretto?"

"Cheroots! Amaretto! My God, Oberst, how do you keep coming up with these things? " Alfi took the proffered glass, inhaled the wonderful almond scent, and then drained the liqueur in a gulp. The cyanide, its deadly aroma and taste masked, took just seconds to work. Becker was removing his uniform and jewelry as Runstedt, writhing and vomiting on the floor, breathe his last. With some effort, Becker dressed the young farmer in his own uniform, adding a ring, billfold, identification necklace, and, finally, Edwin's watch, an elegant piece which many in the camp associated with him. Next, he stepped back and, with the use of the hooded flashlight, surveyed the scene. Everything, everyone had to be perfectly placed. He undressed the farmer who was to have served as Alfi's double, tossed the clothes to one side, and then dumped the naked body down the tunnel. "Now, Alfi, my most loyal of servants, we must find a place for you." He shone the torch on the contorted, violet face by his feet. In minutes the arrangement was complete. The young farmer's body lay in the center of the laboratory, his face resting beside a laboratory timer and a five-gallon tin of ether. Several other tins were spaced throughout the dry, wooden building. Alfi's body lay near the door, as far from the explosive vapors as possible. It would be the validity of Runstedt's face which would assure acceptance of Becker's own demise. The simple elegance of the whole plan was as pleasing as a major research success, and Becker felt ballooned with pride as he made a final survey of the scene. He checked the small ignition charge and set the timer for ten minutes. Willi Becker was grinning as he dropped into the tunnel and pulled the workbench cabinet back in place. He sealed the drainage pipe opening, and without a glance at the farmer's body, crawled toward the exit beyond the camp's electrified fence. He was behind the wheel of the lorry, a quarter mile from the camp, when the peaceful night sky turned red-gold. Seconds later, he heard the muffled series of explosions. "Good-bye, Josef Rendl, " he said. "I shall enjoy reading in The New York Times of your trial and execution.

And as for you, Dr. Miiller, it is game and match between us, eh? A shame you shall never know who really won. Perhaps someday, if you survive, I will send you a postcard."

His wife and son were waiting for him in Rostock. As Becker bounced down the road, he began humming the "Star Spangled Banner. "

The morning was typical of December in Massachusetts. A brushed aluminum sky blended into three-day-old snow covering the cornfields along Route 127. Dulled by streaks of road salt, Jared Samuels's red MGTD roadster still sparkled like a flare against the landscape. From the passenger seat, Kate Bennett watched her husband negotiate the country road using only the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand. His dark brown eyes, though fixed on the road, were relaxed, and he seemed to be singing to himself. Kate laughed. "Hey, Doc, " Jared asked glancing over, "just what are you laughing at?"

"You."

"Well, that's a relief.For a moment there I thought you were laughing at me… Tell me what I was doing that was so funny, I might want to write it down."

"Not funny, " Kate said. "Just nice. It makes me happy to see you happy.

There's a peacefulness in you that I haven't seen since the campaign began."

"Then you should have turned on the bedroom light last night at, oh, eleven-thirty, was it?"

"You didn't just pass out after?"

"Nope. Five minutes of absolute Nirvana… then I passed out."

He flashed the smile that had always been reserved for her alone. "I love you, you know, " Kate said. Jared looked at her again. It had been a while since either of them had said the words outside the bedroom.

"Even though I'm not going to be the Honorable Congressman from the Sixth District?"

"Especially because you're not going to be the Honorable Congressman from the Sixth District." She checked the time. "Jared, it's only nine-thirty. Do you think we could stop at the lake for a bit? We haven't in such a long time. I brought a bag of bread just in case."

Jared slowed. "Only if you promise not to poach when goddamn Carlisle starts hitting to my backhand."

"Once. I stole a ball from you once in almost two years of playing together, and you never let me forget it."

"No poaching?"

Was he being serious? It bothered her that after almost five years of marriage she couldn't always tell. "No poaching, " she vowed finally, wary of making a response that would chip the mood of the morning.

Lately, it seemed, their upbeat moods were becoming less frequent and more fragile. "The ducks bless you, " Jared said in a tone which did nothing to resolve her uncertainty. The lake, more a large pond, was a mile off 127 in the general direction of the Oceanside Racquet Club. It was surrounded by dense thickets of pine and scrub oak, separated by the backyards of a dozen or so houses-upper-class dwellings in most communities, but only average in the North Shore village of Beverly Farms. At the far end of the ice cover, hockey sticks in hand, a trio of boys chased a puck up and down a makeshift rink, their bright mufflers and caps phosphorescing against the pearl-gray morning. Nearer the road, a spillway kept the surface from freezing. Bobbing on the half-moon it created were a score of ducks. Several more rested on the surrounding ice. The couple stood motionless by their car, transfixed by the scene.

"Currier and Ives, " Kate said wistfully. "Bonnie and Clyde," Jared responded in the same tone. "You're so romantic, Counselor."

Kate managed a two-second glare of reproach before she smiled. Jared's often black sense of humor was hit or miss-"kamikaze humor, " she had labeled it. "Come on, let's duck, " she called. Her runner's legs, objects of the fantasies of more than a few of her fellow physicians at Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, brought her easily down the snowy embankment, her auburn hair bouncing on the hood of her parka. As she approached the water, a huge gander, honking arrogantly, advanced to get his due. Kate eyed the bird and then threw a handful of bread over his head to a milling group of smaller mallards and wood ducks. A moment later, from atop the bank, Jared scaled an entire roll precisely at the feet of the gander, who snatched it up and swaggered away. Kate turned to him, hands on hips. "Are you trying to undermine my authority?"

"Always side with the overdog. That's my motto, " he said brightly. "I even voted for Mattingly in the Sixth Congressional race. I mean who would want to waste his vote on a sure loser like the other guy?"

"A two-point defeat when you started out twenty-two behind?

Some loser. Slide on down here, big boy, and I'll give you our traditional Sunday morning kiss."

"We have a traditional Sunday morning kiss?"

"Not yet."

Jared surveyed the embankment and then chose a safer, albeit much longer, route than Kate had taken. She stifled a smile. Never lift up your left foot until your fight one's firmly planted was a favorite saying of Jared's father, and here was the scion-the disciple-embracing the philosophy in its most literal sense. Someday, Jared, she thought, you are going to lift up both of your feet at the same time and discover you can fly. His kiss was firm and deep, his tongue caressing the roof of her mouth, the insides of her cheeks. Kate responded in kind, sliding both her hands to his buttocks and holding him tightly. "You kiss good, Doc, " he said. "I mean good."

"Do you think the ducks would mind if we started making dirty snow angels? " she whispered, warming his ear with her lips. "No, but I think the Carlisles would." Jared pulled free. "We've got to get going. I wonder why they keep inviting us to play with them when we haven't beaten them once in two years."

"They just love a challenge, I guess." Kate shrugged, tossed out the remaining bread, and followed him along the safe route to the road. "Did someone call this morning? " he asked over his shoulder. "Pardon?"

"While I was in the shower."

Jared turned to her as he reached the MG and leaned against the perfectly maintained canvas top. "I thought I heard the phone ring."

"Oh, you did." A nugget of tension materialized beneath her breastbone.

Jared hadn't missed hearing the phone after all. "It… it was nothing, really. Just Dr. Willoughby." Kate slid into the passenger seat. She had wanted to choose carefully the moment to discuss the pathology chief's call. "How is Yoda? " he asked, settling behind the wheel. "He's fine. I wish you wouldn't call him that, Jared. He's been very good to me, and it sounds so demeaning."

"It's not demeaning. Honestly." He turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. "Why, without Yoda, Luke Skywalker would never have survived the first Star Wars sequel. What else could I possibly call someone who's three feet tall, bald with bushy eyebrows, and lives in a swamp?

Anyway, what did he want?

" Kate felt the nugget expand, and fought the sensation. "He just needed to discuss some twists and turns in the politics at the hospital, " she said evenly. "I'll tell you about them later. How about we use the little time we have to plan some kind of strategic ambush for the Carlisles?"

"Don't poach. That's all the strategy we need, Now what was so important to ol' Yoda at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning?

" Although the words were spoken lightly, Kate noted that he had not yet put the car into gear. From the beginning of their relationship, he had been somehow threatened both by her career and by her unique friendship with her aging department head. It was nothing he had ever said, but the threat was there. She was certain of it. "Later? " She tried one last time. Jared switched off the ignition. The mood of the morning shattered like dropped crystal. Kate forced her eyes to make and maintain contact with his. "He said that tomorrow morning he was going to send letters to the medical school and to Norton Reese announcing his retirement in June or as soon as a successor can be chosen as chief of the department."

"A, nd… 9"

"And I think you know already what comes next." Deep inside her, Kate felt sparks of anger begin to replace the tension. This exchange, her news, her chance to become at thirty-five the youngest department chief, to say nothing of the only woman department chief, at Metrothey should have been embraced by the marriage with the same joy as Jared's election to Congress would have been. "Try me, " Jared said, gazing off across the lake. Kate sighed. "He wants my permission to submit my name to the faculty search committee as his personal recommendation."

"And you thanked him very much, but begged off because you and your husband agreed two years ago to start your family when the election was over, and you simply couldn't take on the responsibility and time demands of a department chairmanship-especially of a moneyless, understaffed, political football of a department like the one Yoda is scurrying away from now-right?", Wrong! " The snap in her voice was reflex. She cursed herself for losing control so easily, and took several seconds to calm down before continuing. "I told him I would think about it and talk it over with my husband and some of my friends at the hospital. I told him either to leave my name off his letter or wait a week before sending it."

"Have you thought what the job would take out of you? I mean Yoda's had two coronaries in the last few years, and he is certainly a lot more low key than you are."

"Dammit, Jared. Stop calling him that. And they weren't coronaries. Only angina."

"All right, angina."

"Do you suppose we could talk this over after we play? You're the one who was so worried about being late."

Jared glanced at his watch and then restarted the engine. He turned to her. There was composure in the lines of his face, but an intensity perhaps even a fear-in his eyes. It was the same look Kate had seen in them when, before the election, he spoke of losing as "not the end of the world."

"Sure, " he said. "Just answer me that one question. Do you really have a sense of what it would be like for you-for us-if you took over that department?"

"I… I know it wouldn't be easy. But that's not what you're really asking, is it?"

Jared shook his head and stared down at his clenched hands. Kate knew very well what he was asking. He was thirty-nine years old and an only child. His first marriage had ended in nightmarish fashion, with his wife running off to California with their baby daughter. Even Jared's father, senior partner of one of Boston's most prestigious law firms, with all the king's horses and all the king's men at his disposal, couldn't find them. Jared wanted children. For himself and for his father he wanted them. The agreement to wait until after the election was out of deference to the pressures of a political campaign and the newness of their marriage. Now neither was a factor. Oh, yes, she knew very well what he was asking. "The answer is, " she said finally, "that if I accepted the nomination and got the appointment I would need some time to do the job right. But that is the grossest kind of projection at this point. Norton Reese has hardly been my biggest supporter since I exposed the way he was using money budgeted for the forensic pathology unit to finance new cardiac surgery equipment. I think he would cut off an arm before he would have me as a department chief in a hospital he administrated."

"How much time? " Jared's voice was chilly. "Please, honey. I'm begging you. Let's do this when we can sit down in our own living room and discuss all the possibilities."

"How much?", I… I don't know. A year? Two?"

Jared snapped the stick shift into first gear, sending a spray of ice and snow into the air before the rear tires gained purchase. "To be continued, " he said, as much to himself as to her. "Fine, " she said.

Numbly, she sank back in her seat and stared unseeing out the window.

Her thoughts drifted for a time and then began to focus on a face. Kate closed her eyes and tried to will the thoughts, the face, away. In moments, though, she could see Art's eyes, glazed and bloodshot, see them as clearly as she had that afternoon a. dozen years before when he had raped her. She could smell the whiskey on his breath and feel the weight of his fullback's body on top of hers. Though bundled in a down parka and warm-up suit, she began to shiver. Jared turned onto the narrow access drive to the club. To Kate's right, the metallic surface of the Atlantic glinted through a leafless hardwood forest. She took no notice of it. Please Art, don't, her mind begged. You're hurting me.

Please let me up. All I did was take the test. I didn't say I was going to apply. "Look, there are the Carlisles up ahead of us. I guess we're not late after all."

Jared's voice broke through the nightmare. Dampened by a cold sweat, she pushed herself upright. The assault had taken place the day after the second anniversary of her previous marriage, and only an hour after her husband, a failure first in a pro football tryout, then in graduate school, and finally in business, had learned that she had taken the Medical College Admission Test, and worse, that she had scored in the top five percent. His need to control her, never pleasant, had turned ugly. By the evening of that day she had moved out. "Jared, " she pleaded quietly, "we'll talk. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, " he answered. "We'll talk."

The ball rainbowed off Jared's racquet with deceptive speed. A perfect topspin lob. From her spot by the net, Kate watched Jim and Patsy Carlisle skid to simultaneous stops and, amidst flailing arms, legs, and racquets, dash backward toward the baseline. The shot bounced six inches inside the line and then accelerated toward the screen, the Carlisles in frantic pursuit. "You fox," Kate whispered as Jared moved forward for the Uling shot they both knew would not be necessary. "That was absolutely beautiful."

"Just keep looking sort of bland. Like we don't even know we're about to beat them for the first time ever."

Across the net, Patsy Carlisle made a fruitless lunge that sent her tumbling into the indoor court's green nylon backdrop. Kate watched the minidrama of the woman, still seated on the court, glaring at her husband as he stalked away from her without even the offer of a hand up.

Husbands and wives mixed doubles, she thought, games within games within games. "Three match points, " she said. "Maybe we should squabble more often before we play." A took at Jared's eyes told her she should have let the matter lie. "Finish 'em with the ol' high hard one, " she urged as he walked back to the service line. Her enthusiasm, she knew, now sounded forced-an attempt at some kind of expiation. Jared nodded at her and winked. Kate crouched by the net. Eighteen feet in front of her, Jim Carlisle shifted the weight of his compact, perfectly conditioned body from one foot to another. A successful real estate developer, a yachtsman, and club champion several years running, he had never been one to take any kind of loss lightly. "You know, " he had said to her on the only attempt he had ever made to start an affair between them,

"there are those like you-know-who, who are content to tiptoe along in Daddy's footsteps, and those who just grab life by the throat and do it. I'm a doer."

The reference to Jared, even though prodded forth by far too many martinis, had left an aftertaste of anger that Kate knew would never totally disappear. When Carlisle sent the Samuels for Congress Committee a check for five hundred dollars, she had almost sent it back with a note telling him to go grab somebody's life by the throat. Instead, out of deference to her husband, she had invited the Carlisles over for dinner. Her hypocrisy, however honorable its purpose, continued to rankle her from time to time, especially when Carlisle, wearing his smugness like aftershave, was about to inflict yet another defeat on team Samuels/Bennett. At last she was beating the man. Not even a disagreement with her husband could dull the luster of the moment.

Through the mirror of Jim Carlisle's stages of readiness to return serve, Kate pictured Jared's movements behind her. Feet planted, Jared had settled in at the line. Hunching over, knees bent, Jared was tapping ball against racquet, gaining his rhythm. Just before Carlisle began the quick bouncing which would signal the toss, she heard Jared's voice.

"The ol' high hard one, " he said. Kate tensed, awaiting the familiar, sharp pok of Jared's serve and Carlisle's almost simultaneous move to return. Instead, she heard virtually nothing, and watched in horror as Carlisle, with the glee of a tomcat discovering a wounded sparrow, advanced to pounce on a woefully soft hit. The serve was deliberate-vintage Jared Samuels, his way of announcing that by no means had he forgotten their argument. "Jared, you bastard, " Kate screamed just as Carlisle exploded a shot straight at her chest from less than a dozen feet away. An instant after the ball left Carlisle's racquet, it was on Kate's, then ricocheting into a totally unguarded corner of the court. The shot was absolute reflex, absolute luck, but perfect all the same. "Match, " Kate said simply. She shook hands with each of their opponents, giving Jim's hand an extra pump. Then, without a backward glance, she walked off the court to the locker room. The Oceanside Racquet Club, three quarters of an acre of corrugated aluminum box, squatted gracelessly on a small rise above the Atlantic. "Facing Wimbledon, " was the way the club's overstuffed director liked to describe it. Keeping her hair dry and moving quickly enough to ensure that Jared would have to work to catch up with her, Kate showered and left the building. The rules of their game demanded a reaction of some sort for his behavior, and she had decided on taking the MG, perhaps stopping a mile or so down the road. As she crossed the half-filled parking lot, she began searching the pockets of her parka for her keys.

Almost immediately, she remembered seeing them on the kitchen table.

"Damn! " The feeling was so familiar. She had, in the past, slept through several exams, required police assistance to locate her car in an airport parking garage, and forgotten where she had put the engagement ring Art had given her. Although she had come to accept the trait as a usually harmless annoyance, there was a time when visions of clamps left in abdomens concerned her enough to influence her decision to go into pathology rather than clinical medicine. This day, she felt no compassion whatsoever toward her shortcoming. Testily, she strode past their car and down the road. The move was a bluff. Jared would know that as well as she. It was an eight-mile walk to their home, and the temperature was near freezing. Still, some show of indignation was called for. But not this, she realized quickly. At the moment she accepted the absurdity of her gesture and decided to turn back, she heard the distinctive rev of the MG behind her. There could be no retreat now. It was a game between them, but not a game. Their scenarios were often carefully staged, but they were life all the same, actions and reactions, spontaneous or not, that provided the dynamics unique to their relationship. There had been no such dynamics in her first marriage. Put simply, Arthur Everett decreed and his dutiful wife Kathryn acquiesced. For two destructive years it had been that way. Her childhood programming offered no alternatives, and she had been too frightened, too insecure, to question. Even now there were times, though gradually fewer and farther between, when dreams of the farmhouse and the children, the well-stocked, sunlit kitchen and the pipe smoke wafting out from the study, dominated her thoughts. They were, she knew, nothing more than the vestiges-the reincarnations-of that childhood programming. Unfortunately, much of Jared's programming was continually being reinforced, thanks largely to a father who remained convinced that God's plan for women was quite different from His plan for men. "You have a wonderful behind, do you know that? " Jared's voice startled her.

He was driving alongside her, studying her anatomy through a pair of binoculars. "Yes, I know that." She stiffened enough to be sure he could notice and walked on. Please don't get hurt, she thought. Put those silly binoculars down and watch where you're going. "And your face. Have I told you lately about your face?"

"No, but go ahead if you must."

"It is the blue ribbon, gold medal, face-of-the-decade face, that's what."

"You tried to get me killed in there." Kate slowed, but did not stop.

"It was childish."

"And… I'll "And it was dumb." gcand… "And it didn't work."

"Jared!"

"And I'm sorry. I really am. The devil made me do it, but I went and let 'im."

He opened the door. She stopped, hesitated the obligatory few seconds, and got in. The scenario was over, Through it, a dram of purulence had been drained from their marriage before it could fester. Energy no longer enmeshed in their anger would now be rechanneled, perhaps to a joint attack today on the pile of unsplit wood in the yard and later to a battle with the Times crossword puzzle. As likely as not, before the afternoon was through, they would make love. Eyes closed, Kate settled back in her seat, savoring what she had just heard. I'm sorry. He had actually said it. Apologizing has been bred out of Samuels men was yet another teaching from the philosophy of J. Winfield Samuels. Kate had suffered the pain of that one on more than one occasion. She thought about Jared's vehement reaction to the possibility of her taking over the chairmanship of her department. The morning, she had decided, had been a draw, Dad I. Wife I. "Now, Dr. Engleson, you may proceed with your report."

Tom Engleson's groan was not as inaudible as he would have liked. "Your patient is still bleeding, sir. That's my report." During his year and a half of residency on the Ashburton Service at Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, Engleson had had enough dealings with D. K. Bartholomew to know that he would be lucky to escape with anything less than a fifteen-minute conversation. Dr. Donald K. Bartholomew held the receiver in his left hand, adjusted the notepad in front of him, and straightened his posture. "And what is her blood count?"

"Twenty-five. Her crit is down to twenty-five from twenty-eight."

Engleson pictured the numbers being shakily reproduced in black felt tip. "She has had a total of five units transfused in the last twenty-four hours, two of whole blood, one of packed cells, and two of fresh frozen plasma." He closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable string of questions. For a few seconds there was silence. "How many fresh frozen did you say?"

"Two. The hematology people have been to see her again. Her blood is just not clotting normally." He had decided to keep the complicated explanation for Beverly Vitale's bleeding problem out of the conversation if at all possible. A single request from Bartholomew for specifics, and the phone call could drag on for another half hour. In fact, there was no good explanation even available. The hematologists knew what-two of the woman's key clotting factors were at critically low levels-but not why. It was a problem the surgeon should have at least identified before performing her D and C. "Have they further tests to run?"

"No, sir. Not today, anyhow." Getting D. K. Bartholomew to come into the hospital on a Sunday morning was like getting a cat to hop into the tub.

"They suggested loading her up with fresh clotting factors and perhaps doing another D and C. They're afraid she might bleed out otherwise."

"How long will it take to give her the factors?"

"We've already started, sir."

There was another pause, "Well, then, " Bartholomew said at last.

"I guess the patient and I have a date in the operating room."

"Would you like me to assist? " Engleson closed his eyes and prayed for an affirmative response. "For a D and C? No, thank you, Doctor. It is a one-man procedure, and I am one man. I shall be in by twelve o'clock.

Please put the OR team on notice."

"Fine, " Engleson said wearily. He had already scheduled Beverly Vitale for the operating room. He hung up and checked the wall clock over the door of the cluttered resident's office. Only eight minutes. "A record, " he announced sardonically to the empty room. "I may have just set a record."

Moments later, he called the operating suite. "Denise, it's Tom Engleson. You know the D and C I scheduled for Dr. Bartholomew?…

Vitale. That's right. Well, I was wondering if you could switch it to the observation OR. I want to watch… I know you're not supposed to use that room on a weekend. That's why I'm asking in such a groveling tone of voice… Bartholomew doesn't want anyone assisting him, but he can't keep me from watching through the overhead… I owe you one, Denise. Thanks."

Looking down from behind the thick glass observation window into the operating room, Tim Engleson exchanged worried looks with the scrub nurse assisting Dr. Donald K. Bartholomew. The dilatation of Beverly Vitale's cervix and subsequent curettage-scrapidg-of the idner surface of her uterus was not going well. She had gone to the emergency ward three days before because of vaginal bleeding that started with her period but would not let up. For several years, she had been receiving routine gynecologic care through the Omnicenter-the outpatient facility of the Ashburton Women's Health Service of Metropolitan Hospital. As her Omnicenter physician, D. K. Bartholomew had been called in immediately.

In his admission physical, Bartholomew had noted a number of bruises on the woman's arms and legs, but elected nevertheless to proceed with a D and C-commonly done for excessive bleeding. He did not order blood clotting studies until after his patient's bleeding worsened postoperatively. Now, with the woman loaded with fresh clotting factors, Bartholomew was repeating the curettage. Beverly Vitale, a thin, delicate young cellist with straight jet hair and fine, artist's hands lay supine on the operating table with her eyes taped shut and her head turned ninety degrees to one side. A polystyrene tube placed through her mouth into her trachea connected her with the anesthesia machine. Her legs, draped in sterile sheets, were held aloft by cloth stirrups hooked beneath each heel. Overhead, in the observation gallery Tom Engleson watched and waited. He was dressed in standard operating room whites, with hair and shoe covers, but no mask. As he watched the level of suctioned blood rise in the vacuum bottle on the wall, Engleson wondered if D. K. Batholomew was considering removing the woman's uterus altogether. He cursed himself for not throwing protocol to the winds and inviting himself into the OR. The prospect of the old surgeon moving ahead with a hysterectomy brought a ball of anger to the resident's throat. Much of his reaction, he knew, had to do with Beverly Vitale.

Though he had only spoken with her a few times, Engleson had begun fantasizing about her and had become determined to see her when she was released from the hospital. Now his thoughts added, if she was released from the hospital. He glanced again at the vacuum bottle and then at Bartholomew. There was a flicker of confusion and uncertainty in the man's eyes. "Her pressure is dropping a bit."

Engleson heard the anesthesiologist's voice crackle through a barely functional speaker on the wall behind him. "Young lady, get me the freshest unit of blood we have, and see if the blood bank can send us up ten units of platelets."

"Yes, sir, " the nurse said. "Dr. Bartholomew, blood loss so far is four hundred and fifty cc's."

Bartholomew did not respond immediately. He stood motionless, staring at the steady flow of crimson from Beverly Vitale's cervix.

"Let's try some pitocin. Maybe her uterus will clamp down, " he said finally. "Dr. Bartholomew, " the anesthesiologist said, an even tenseness in his voice, "you've already ordered pitocin. She's been getting it. Maximum doses."

Engleson strained to see the older surgeon's face. If he rushed into the OR and the man did not need assistance, a formal complaint was' sure to … Before he could complete the thought, the bellboy hanging from his waistband emitted the abrasive tone signaling a transmission. "Dr.

Engleson, call two eight three stat. Dr. Engleson, two eight three stat, please."

An anxious check of the scene below, and the resident rushed to the nearest phone. It was a rule of the Ashburton Service that all stat pages were to be answered within sixty seconds. Telephones had even been installed in the residents' bathrooms for such purposes. The call concerned a postop patient whose temperature had risen to 103, not a life-or-death situation. By the time Engleson had listened to the nurse's report, given orders for evaluating the patient's fever and returned to the observation window, Bartholomew had begun swabbing antiseptic over Beverly Vitale's lower abdomen. Engleson switched on the microphone by his right hand. "What's going on? " he asked. Below, no one reacted to his voice. "Can you hear me? " Again no response. Through the door to the scrub area, Engleson saw Carol Nixon, a surgical intern rotating through the Ashburton Service, beginning to scrub. Apparently Bartholomew had called her in to assist, perhaps when Engleson could not be found.

"Over my dead body, " Engleson said as he raced down the hall to the stairs. "No way do you open that woman up without my being there." In less than a minute, he had joined Nixon in the scrub room. "The nurses said Stone Hands was trying to find you, " the woman said. "I was just finishing up a case down the hall when Denise grabbed me. Do I have to stay?"

"You might want to learn from the master in there, " Engleson responded acidly, cleaning his fingernails with an orange stick. The intern smiled, nodded a thanks-but-no-thanks, and left him to finish his scrub.

"Order a peach and you get a pear, " was Bartholomew's comment on the change in assistants. He laughed merrily at his own humor and seemed not to notice the absence of response from around the room. With Engleson handling sponges and hemostats, Bartholomew used an electric scalpel to make an incision from just below Beverly Vitale's navel to her pubis.

The scalpel, buzzing and crackling like hot bacon grease, simultaneously sliced through the skin and cauterized bleeding vessels. Next, with the voltage turned up, he cut through a thin layer of saffron-colored fat to her peritoneum, the opaque membrane covering her abdominal cavity. A few snips with a Metzenbalim scissors, and the peritoneum parted, exposing her bowel, her bladder, and beneath those, her uterus. In a perfunctory manner, too perfunctory for Engleson's taste, the older surgeon explored the abdominal cavity with one hand. "Everything seems in order, " he announced to the room. "I think we can proceed with a hysterectomy."

"No! " Engleson said sharply. The room froze. "I mean, don't you think we should at least consider the possibility of ligating her hypogastric artery? " He wanted to add his feelings about rushing ahead with a hysterectomy in a thirty-year-old woman with no children, but held back.

Also unsaid, at least for the moment, was that the hypogastric ligation, while not always successful in stopping hemorrhaging, was certainly accepted practice in a case like this.

Bartholomew was still guided by the old school-the school that removed a uterus with the dispatch of a dermatologist removing a wart. D. K.

Bartholomew's pale blue eyes came up slowly and locked on Engleson's.

For five seconds, ten, an eerie silence held, impinged upon only by the wheeze of air into the vacuum apparatus. The tall resident held his ground, but he also held his breath. The outburst by the older surgeon now, and there would be a confrontation that could further jeopardize the life of Beverly Vitale. Then, moment by moment, Engleson saw the blaze in Bartholomew's eyes fade. "Thank you for the suggestion, doctor,

" the surgeon said distantly. "I think perhaps we should give it a try."

The relieved sighs from those in the room were muffled by their masks.

"You or me? " Engleson asked. "It… it's been a while since I did this procedure, " Bartholomew understated. "Don't worry, we'll do it together."

In minutes, the ligation was complete. Almost instantly, the bleeding from within the woman's uterus began to lessen. "While we're waiting to see if this works, " Engleson said, "would you mind if I got a better look at her tubes and ovaries?"

Bartholomew shrugged and shook his head. Engleson probed along the fallopian tubes, first to one ovary and then to the other. They did not feel at all right. Carefully, he withdrew the left ovary through the incision. It was half normal size, mottled gray, and quite firm. This time, it was his eyes that flashed. You said everything was in order.

Bartholomew sagged. There was a bewildered, vacant air about him, as if he had opened his eyes before a mirror and seen a painful truth. The woman's right ovary was identical to her left. "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this, " Engleson said. "Have you? " No, well, not exactly-, Pardon?"

"I said I hadn't either."

There was an uncertainty, a hesitation, in the older man's words.

He reached over and touched the ovary. "You sure? " Engleson prodded. "I … I may have felt one once. I'm trying to remember. Do you suggest a biopsy? " Engleson nodded. "A wedge section?"

Another nod. The man's confidence was obviously shaken. By the time the wedge biopsy was taken, the bleeding had slowed dramatically. As Engleson prepared to close the abdominal incision over the uterus he had just preserved, he sensed the irony of what was happening tighten in his gut. The uterus was saved, true. A fine piece of surgery. But if the pathology in Beverly Vitale's ovaries was as extensive as it appeared, the woman would never bear children anyhow. "Denise, " he said, "could you find out who's on for surgical path this month, both the resident and the staff person, okay?"

"Right away."

Engleson glanced at the peaceful face and tousled hair of the young cellist. Some women try for years to get pregnant, never knowing whether they can or not, he thought. At least you'll know. Glumly, he began to close. Twenty minutes later, the two surgeons shuffled into the doctor's locker room. "Dr. Bartholomew, have you been able to remember where you might have encountered ovarian pathology like this woman's?"

"Oh, yes, well, no. I… what I mean is I don't think I've ever seen anything like them."

"You look as if you want to say something more."

"I may have felt something like them once. That's all."

"When? On whom? " There was some excitement in Engleson's voice. D. K. Bartholomew, MD, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Diplomate of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, shook his head. "I… I'm afraid I don't remember, " he said. "What are you talking about?"

"It was surgery for something else. Maybe removal of a fibroid tumor.

The ovaries felt like this woman's did today, but there was no one around to consult, and I think I had another case or two left to do and …"

"So you just ignored them and closed?"

"I felt they were probably a normal variant."

"Yeah, sure. Did you mention them on your operative note?"

"I… I don't remember. It might have been years ago."

The wall telephone began ringing. "Dr. Bartholomew, " Engleson said, allowing the jangle to continue. "I don't think you should operate anymore." With that he turned and snatched up the receiver. "Dr.

Engleson, it's Denise. I called pathology."

"Yes?"

"I couldn't find out who the resident is on surgicals, but the staff person is Dr. Bennett."

C'Good."

"Excuse me?"

"I just said that's good. Thanks, Denise."

"Thank you for what you did in there, Doctor. You made my day."

Kate's back was arched over the pillows beneath her hips as Jared knelt between her legs and used her buttocks to pull himself farther inside her. Again and again he sent jets of pleasure and pain deep into her gut and up into her throat. Her climax grew like the sound of an oncoming train-first a tingle, a vibration, next a hum, then a roar. With Jared helping, her body came off the pillows until only her heels and the back of her head were touching the carpet. Her muscles tightened on him and seemed to draw him in even deeper. He dug his fingers into the small of her back and cried out in a soft, child's voice. Then he came, his erection pulsing in counterpoint to her own contractions. "I love you," he whispered. "Oh, Katey, I love you so much." Gently, he worked his arms around her waist, and guided her onto her side, trying to stay within her as long as possible. For half an hour they lay on the soft living room carpet, their lover's sweat drying in the warmth from the nearby wood stove. From the kitchen, the aroma of percolating coffee, forgotten for over an hour, worked its way into the sweetness of the birch fire. A cashmere blanket, one of the plethora of wedding gifts from Jared's father, lay beside them. Kate pulled it over her sleeping husband and then slipped carefully from underneath. For a time, she knelt there studying the face of the man who had, five years before, arranged to have himself and a dozen roses wheeled under a sheet into her autopsy suite in order to convince her to reconsider a rebuffed dinner invitation. Five years. Years filled with so much change-so much growth for both of them. She had been a nervous, overworked junior faculty member then, and he had been the hotshot young attorney assigned by Minton/Samuels to handle beleaguered Metropolitan Hospital. The memory of him in those days-so eager and intense brought a faint smile.

Kate reached out and touched the fine creases that had, overnight it seemed, materialized at the corners of her husband's eyes. "A year, Jared? " she asked silently. "Would a year make all that much difference? You understand your own needs so well. Can you understand mine?"

Almost instantly another, far more disturbing question arose in her thoughts. Did she, in fact, understand them herself?

Silently, she rose and walked to the picture window overlooking their wooded backyard. Superimposed on the smooth waves of drifted snow was the reflection of her naked body, kept thin and toned by constant dieting and almost obsessive exercise. On an impulse, she turned sideways and forced her abdomen out as far as it would go. Six months, she guessed, maybe seven. Not too bad looking for an old pregnant lady.

Fifteen minutes later, when the phone rang, Kate was ricocheting around the kitchen preparing brunch. The edge of her terry-cloth robe narrowly missed toppling a pan of sweet sausages as she leapt for the receiver, answering it before the first ring ended. Nevertheless, through the door to the living room, she saw Jared stir from the fetal tuck in which he had been sleeping and begin to stretch. "Hello, " she answered, mentally discarding the exotic plans she had made for awakening her husband. "Dr.

Bennett, it's Tom Engleson. I'm a senior resident on the Ashburton Service at Metro. Do you remember me?"

"Of course, Tom. You saw me at the Omnicenter once. Saved my life when Dr. Zimmermann was away."

"I did? " There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice. "What was the matter?"

"Well, actually, I just needed a refill of my birth control pills. But I remember you just the same. What can I do for you? " Her mental picture of Engleson was of a loose, gangly man, thirty or thirty-one, with angular features and a youthful face, slightly aged by a Teddy Roosevelt moustache. "Please forgive me for phoning you at home on Sunday."

"Nonsense."

"Thank you. The reason I'm calling is to get your advice on handling a surgical specimen. It's one you'll be seeing tomorrow, a wedge section of a patient's left ovary, taken during a hypogastric artery ligation for menorrhagia."

"How old a woman? " Reflexively, Kate took up a pen to begin scratching data on the back of an envelope. So doing, she noticed that Jared was now huddled by the wood stove with Roscoe, their four-year-old almost-terrier and the marriage's declared neutral love object. "Thirty,

" Engleson answered. "No deliveries, no pregnancies, and in fact, no ovaries."

"What?"

"Oh, they're there. But they're unlike any ovaries I've ever seen before. Dr. Bartholomew was with me-the woman is his patient-and he has never seen pathology like this either."

Kate pulled a high stool from beneath the counter and wrapped one foot around its leg. "Explain, " she said. "Well, whatever this is is uniform and symmetrical. We took a slice from the left ovary, but it could just as well have been the right. Shrunken, the consistency of… of a squash ball-sort of hard but rubbery. The surface is pockmarked, dimpled."

"What color? " Kate had written down almost every word. "Gray. Grayish brown, maybe."

"Interesting, " she said. "Does what I've described ring any bells?"

"No. At least not right off. However, there are a number of possibilities. Any idea as to why this woman was having menorrhagia?"

"Two reasons. One is a platelet count of just forty-five thousand, and the other is a fibrinogen level that is fifteen percent of normal."

"An autoimmune phenomenon? " Kate searched her thoughts for a single disease entity characterized by the two blood abnormalities.

An autoimmune phenomenon, the body making antibodies against certain of its own tissues, seemed likely. "So far, that's number one on the list,

" Engleson said. "The hematology people have started her on steroids."

"Was she on any medications?"

"Hey, Kate." It was Jared calling from the living room. "Do you smell something burning?"

"Nothing but vitamins, " Engleson answered. Kate did not respond.

Receiver tucked under her ear, she was at the oven, pulling out a tray of four blackened lumps that had once been shirred eggs-Jared's favorite. "Shit, " she said. "What? " Both Jared and Tom Engleson said the word simultaneously. "Oh, sorry. I wasn't talking to you." A miniature cumulonimbus cloud puffed from the oven. "Jared, it's all right, " she called out, this time covering the mouthpiece. "It's just … our meal. That's all."

"Dr. Bennett, if you'd rather I called back…"

"No, Tom, no. Listen, there's a histology technician on call. The lab tech on duty knows who it is. Have whoever it is come in and begin running the specimen through the Technichron. That way it will be ready for examination tomorrow rather than Tuesday. Better still, ask them to come into the lab and call me at home. I'll give the instructions myself. Okay?", Sure. Thanks."

"No problem, " she said, staring at the lumps. "I'll speak to you later."

"Shirred eggs? " Jared, wrapped in the cashmere blanket, leaned against the doorway. Roscoe peered at her from between his knees. Kate nodded sheepishly. "I sort of smelled the smoke, but my one track brain was focused on what this resident from the hospital was saying, and somehow, it dismissed the smoke as coming from the wood stove. I… I never was too great at doing more than one thing at once."

"Too bad you couldn't have chosen to let the resident burn to a crisp and save the eggs, " he said. "Next time."

"Good. Any possibilities for replacements"

"Howard Johnson's?"

"Thanks, but I'll take my chances with some coffee and whatever's in that frying pan. You sure that wasn't Yoda on the phone?"

"Jared…"

He held up his hands against her ire. "Just checking, just checking," he said. "Come on, Roscoe. Let's go set the table." Kate noted the absence of an apology, but decided that two in one day was too much to ask. More difficult to accept, however, was Jared's apparent lack of interest in what the call was about. It was as if by not talking about her career, her life outside of their marriage, he was somehow diminishing its importance. In public, he took special pride in her professionalism and her degree. Privately, he accepted it as long as it didn't burn his eggs. Almost against her will, she felt frustration begin to dilute the warmth and closeness generated by their lovemaking. She walked to where her clothes were piled in the living room and dressed, silently vowing to do whatever she could to avoid another blowup that day. Minutes later, the crunch of tires on their gravel driveway heralded a test of her resolve. Roscoe heard the arrival first and bounded from his place by the stove to the front door. Jared, now in denims and a flannel work shirt, followed. "Hey, Kate, it's Sandy, " he called out, opening the inside door. "Sandy? " Dick Sandler, Jared's roommate at Dartmouth, had been best man at their wedding. A TWA pilot, he lived on the South Shore and hadn't been in touch with them for several months. "Is Ellen with him?"

"No. He's alone." Jared opened the storm door. "Hey, flyboy, " he called in a thick Spanish accent, "welcome. I have just what you want, sefior, a seexteen-year-old American virgin. Only feefty pesetas." Sandler, a rugged Marlon Brando type, exchanged bear hugs with Jared and platonic kisses with Kate, and then scanned what there was of their brunch.

"What, no bloodies?"

Kate winced before images of the two men, emboldened by a few "bloodies, " exchanging off-color jokes she seldom thought were funny and singing "I Wanna Go Back to Dartmouth, to Dartmouth on the Hill." Invariably, she would end up having to decide whether to leave the house, try to shut them off, or join in. When Ellen Sandler was around, no such problem existed. A woman a few years older than Kate, and Sandy's wife since his graduation, Ellen was as charming, interesting, and full of life as anyone Kate had ever known. She was a hostess with poise and grace, the mother of three delightful girls, and even a modestly successful businesswoman, having developed an interior design consulting firm that she had run alone for several years from their home and more recently from a small studio cum office in town. Sandy, with his flamboyance, his stature as a 747 captain, and his versitile wit, was the magnet that drew many fascinating and accomplished people into the Sandlers' social circle. Ellen, Kate believed, was the glue that kept them there. "So, Sandy, " she said, dropping a celery stick into his drink and sliding it across the table, "what brings you north to Boston?

How are Ellen and the girls? " It was at that moment that she first appreciated the sadness in his eyes. "I… well actually, I was just driving around and decided to cruise up here. Sort of a whim. I… I needed to talk to Jared… and to you."

"You and Ellen? " Jared's sense of his friend told him immediately what to ask. "I… I'm leaving her. Moving out." Sandler stared uncomfortably into the center of his drink. At his words, Kate felt a dreadful sinking in her gut. Ellen had stated on many occasions and in many ways the uncompromising love she bore for the man. How long had they been married, now?

Eighteen years? Nineteen, maybe? "Holy shit, " Jared whispered, setting a hand on Sandler's forearm. "What's happened?"

"Nothing. I mean nothing dramatic. Somewhere along the way, we just lost one another."

"Sandy, people who have been married for almost twenty years don't just lose one another, " Kate said. "Now what has happened? " There was an irritability in her voice which surprised her. Jared's expression suggested that he, too, was startled by her tone. Sandler shrugged.

"Well, between running the house and entertaining and taking the girls to one lesson or another and scouts and committees at our club and that business of hers, Ellen simply ran out of energy for me. In some areas, meals and such, she still goes through the motions, but without much spark."

"How is Ellen handling all this? " Kate asked, checking Jared's face for a sign that she might be interloping with too many questions. The message she received was noncommittal. "She doesn't know yet."

"What?"

Her exclamation this time drew a be careful glare. "I just decided yesterday. But I've been thinking about it for weeks. Longer. I was hoping you two might have some suggestions as to how I should go about breaking the news to her."

"Have you been to a counsellor or a shrink or something? " Jared asked the question. "It's too late."

"What do you mean? You just said Ellen doesn't even know what you're planning to do." Jared sounded baffled. Across the table, Kate closed her eyes. She knew the explanation.

"There's someone else, " Sandler said self-consciously. "A flight attendant. I… we've been seeing one another for some time." For Kate the words were like needle stabs. Jared was pressing to get a commitment from her to alter her life along pathways Ellen Sandler could negotiate blindfolded. Yet here was Sandy, like Jared in so many ways, rejecting the woman for not devoting enough energy to him. The image of Ellen sitting there while he announced his intentions made her first queasy and then frightened. The fear, as happened more often than not, mutated into anger before it could be expressed. "Ellen doesn't deserve this," she said, backing away from the table. We just lost one another. Sandy, don't you think that's sort of a sleazy explanation for what's really going on? How old is this woman?"

"Twenty-six. But I don't see what her…"

"I know you don't see. You don't see a lot of things."

Jared stood up. "Now just one second, Kate."

"And you don't see a lot of things either, dammit." There were tears streaming down her face. "You two boys work out how you're gonna break the news to Ellen that she did everything she goddamn well could in life-more than both of you put together, probably-but that it just wasn't enough. She's fired. Dismissed. Not flashy enough. Not showy enough. Her services are no longer required. Excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom to get sick. Then I'm going to my hospital. People there are grateful and appreciative for the things I do well. I like that. It helps me to get up in the morning."

Fists clenched, she turned and raced from the room. Roscoe, who had settled himself under the table, padded to the center of the room and after a brief glance at the men, followed. Ginger Rittenhouse, a first-grade teacher, had just finished her run by the ice-covered Charles River when she began to die. Like the random victim of a crazed sniper, she did not hear the sound or see the muzzle flash of the weapon that killed her. In fact, the weapon was nothing more malevolent than the corner of her bureau drawer, the shot, an accidental bump less than twenty-four hours before to a spot just above her right eye. "That's one incredible lump! " her new roommate had exclaimed, forcing an icepack against the golfball-sized knot. The woman, a licensed practical nurse, had commented on the large bruise just below her right knee as well.

Ginger was too self-conscious to mention the other, similar bruises on her lower back, buttocks, and upper arm. Her death began with a tic-an annoying electric sensation deep behind her right eye. The wall of her right middle cerebral artery was stretching. Bruised by the shock from the bureau drawer, the vessel, narrow as a piece of twine, had developed a tiny defect along the inner lining. The platelets and fibrinogen necessary to patch the defect were present, but in insufficient amounts to do the job. Blood had begun to work its way between the layers of the vessel wall. Squinting against the pain, she sat on a bench and looked across the river at the General Electric building in Cambridge. The outline of the building seemed blurred. From the rent in her right middle cerebral artery, blood had begun to ooze, a microdrop at a time, into the space between her skull and brain. Nerve fibers, exquisitely sensitive, detected the intrusion and began screaming their message of warning. Ginger, mindless of the huge lump over her ear, placed her hands on either side of her head and tried to squeeze the pain into submission. Powered by the beating of her own heart, the bleeding increased. Her thoughts became disconnected snatches. The low skyline of Cambridge began to fade. Behind her, runners jogged by. A pair of lovers passed close enough to read the dial on her watch. Ginger, now paralyzed by pain that was far more than pain, was beyond calling for help.

Suddenly, a brilliant white light replaced the agony. The heat from the light bathe the inside of her eyes. Her random thoughts coalesced about woods and a stream. It was the Dingle, the secret hiding place of her childhood. She knew every tree, every rock. Home and safe at last, Ginger Rittenhouse surrendered to the light, and gently toppled forward onto the sooty snow.