The Last Surgeon

CHAPTER 38

“If there ever was a DVD recording of the Aleem Syed Mohammad operation, it’s gone now.”

Saul Mollender sounded bewildered, but also more energized than Nick had ever heard him.

It was nearly half past midnight, and the Mole had just returned the call Nick had left on his machine at seven, giving him details of Jillian’s meeting with the nursing school dean. Patient volume on the four-stop Baltimore loop had been unusually light, and Nick and Junie were already parked on the street by her house, nearly done cleaning up the RV.

“Does that make any sense?” Nick, now slouched in the driver’s seat, asked Mollender. “We’re talking about one of the most high-profile cases that Shelby Stone has ever had. Since they had the capability to do so, how could it not have been recorded?”

“I don’t have any record of the surgery in my database either.”

“That’s crazy.”

“But there’s more. When can we meet?”

“Now?”

“Of course now. Do you want to know what’s happened here or don’t you?”

Nick rubbed at the gritty fatigue stinging his eyes. The day had started early, and the ecstatic exhaustion from his time with Jillian had never gone away.

“You can’t tell me over the phone?” he asked.

“If I wanted to tell you over the phone, I would have told you over the phone,” the Mole said, suddenly sounding like his old testy self.

Junie, who had finished restocking, waved that she was done, and motioned Nick to lock up.

“Jillian won’t be off duty until one,” he said after Junie had left. “I want her to be there.”

“Does she have my plaque?”

“If she does, she’ll bring it.”

“I don’t want to meet in or near the hospital.”

Are you going weird on me? Nick came close to asking.

“Okay, we’ll meet wherever you want,” he said instead. “But remember, I have to drive in from Baltimore.”

“Should be fun without any traffic for a change. There’s an all-night coffee shop, Mike’s, on South Dakota near Eighteenth. One thirty?”

“Make it two,” Nick said.

Just as he hung up, Junie startled him with a knock on the passenger side door.

“This folder was on the kitchen table with a note from Reggie for you,” she said, passing it over.

“He’s an artiste on the Internet,” Nick replied, “so I asked him to do a little research for me. Thanks.”

“Next time, ask him to do some homework. Good job tonight.”

Junie winked at him and headed to her house. As the quiet closed in, Nick flipped through the articles Reggie had put together, then closed the folder and sat staring through the darkness at nothing in particular. Quickly, his thoughts homed in on Umberto-clear images of the man as he was at FOB Savannah, working in the base clinic during his off-hours, taking vital signs, straightening up the waiting room, smiling and joking with the patients. Always smiling. Always joking.

What in the hell had become of him? Why was Mollender suddenly acting so secretive? What was the connection between Belle and Dr. Nick Fury? Had she really crossed paths with Umberto, or did she hear the name from someone else?

Hopefully the answers to those questions would not remain elusive for much longer.

Finally, with a prolonged stretch and a deep sigh, Nick flipped open his cell phone and called Jillian.

“Hope you can stay awake a little longer,” he said. “We’ve been summoned by the Mole.”

IT SEEMED as if the owners of Mike’s L.A. Diner and Coffee Emporium had tried and failed any number of times to find an identity for the place. There was neon and more neon, framed black-and-white glossies of Bogie, Bacall, and Betty, and a grease-stained menu that was a cross between a railroad car diner’s and Starbucks’. There was also, at almost two in the morning, a decent-sized crowd that included college students from nearby Catholic University, street people, and a few affluent suburbanites, but did not, to this point at least, include Saul Mollender.

While waiting for the man, Nick ordered a black coffee and Jillian an iced tea, fries, and a grilled cheese sandwich. There was no overt discussion about their afternoon lovemaking. Both felt comfortable simply being together, holding hands underneath the table, and proposing Different theories that would fit the bizarre, truncated medical record of Umberto Vasquez, and the absence of any videorecording of the Aleem Syed Mohammad operation.

“Maybe they didn’t record it for security reasons,” Jillian suggested.

“Possibly. But I would think the CIA or whoever was in charge of questioning the dude would have wanted to show the world how enlightened and compassionate we were, even to one of the archenemies of our country.”

“Any idea why Mollender would have said he wanted to meet us out here?”

“I still don’t know him well enough to say. He sounded a little, I don’t know, disconnected on the phone. Sort of squirrelly-sensitive and tuned in one moment, brash and confrontational the next.”

“The keys to everything are the hospital records and the video of that operation, Nick.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the Mole found.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to wait long.”

She gestured behind Nick. Saul Mollender approached their table with his head down and his gaze shifting from side to side as if he were part of some clandestine operation. He skipped the formality of shaking hands and quickly sat himself down on the empty chair across from them.

“People have been talking,” Mollender said.

Nick thought the man seemed agitated and anxious.

“Talking? Who’s talking? What about?”

“About me,” Mollender said. “One of my two employees noticed I was doing some research for you. He spoke to the other of my employees and they both started asking questions.”

“About our investigation?” Jillian asked.

“Heck no,” Mollender snapped. “My team doesn’t gossip. That’s against my policy. But the two of them are wondering if I’ve turned over a new leaf and decided to become more helpful to people-God forbid, friendly even.”

Nick shook his head in disbelief.

“You made us come all the way out here at two in the morning just so you could protect your reputation of being a grouch?”

Mollender remained tight-lipped and serious.

“Do you know what would happen if word got out that people could just barge into my office and not only demand attention from me, but actually get it? By the way, do you have my plaque?”

Suppressing a smile, Jillian passed the framed calligraphy across, mentally adding the records room head to the list of the most eccentric people she knew.

“So you’re worried that maybe people might actually, I don’t know, use your services?” she asked.

“Funny, very funny. But yes. First of all, our services, such as they are, are dwindling with each record we make electronic. Ever hear of a position whose job it was to make itself obsolete? We’re literally working ourselves out of existence. The only way we three can stay employed is if no one knows we’re there.”

“Easy, Saul. Easy,” Jillian said gently. “You can only do what you can do.”

“I guess.”

“Now, can you tell us what you found out?”

Mollender motioned the waitress over and ordered a tall glass of skim milk, warmed on the stove, not in a microwave.

“And don’t try and trick me,” he said to the girl. “I can tell.” He turned back to Nick and Jillian. “What I found out is that Fred Johnson is even more of a jackass than I originally thought.”

“Fred Johnson?” Nick asked.

“Before I delve into him, can you tell me why somebody would have wanted to steal the DVD of that operation?”

“Did you say steal? I thought you just said it was gone.”

“And that’s the truth. If it ever existed, it’s gone now.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Nick said.

“I personally supervised setting up the video camera system in the ORs over six years ago. For that reason, let alone everything else I’ve done for my unit over the past twenty years, you’d think I’d be the one selected to run the electronic medical records department. But no. Smarmy Fred Johnson gets the position over me, just because he’s the CTO’s nephew or cousin or something.”

“That true?”

“That’s what I heard. The personnel lady told me I was lacking people skills, whatever those are, but I never believed her. Smarmy. I think the word was invented for Fred.”

“Do you have any proof that somebody stole the DVD of Mohammad’s operation?”

“We have three cameras in each of our twenty-four operating rooms on three separate floors-a direct overhead shot into the incision, one up from the foot of the table, and one that continuously pans the room, including the anesthesiologist’s station at the head of the table. Each camera is attached to a DVR machine by cables, like a supercharged TiVo.”

“Amazing,” Nick said, pleased to sense that the Mole had regained much of his equilibrium.

The waitress returned with the stove-warmed milk, and Mollender sampled it like a wine connoisseur before nodding his approval.

“Supervising the recording process,” he went on after a few sips, “is one of the few functions my little department still has, but I’ve heard rumors that it might not be for long. Damn Johnson. Anyhow, as things stand, the OR supervisor tells us which operations they want recorded, and we push the buttons-well, my assistant Annette does, anyway. She has a booth in the operating suite and works from there. At the end of each day, she burns the cases onto DVDs because we can’t store all that data indefinitely on the DVR machines.

“We also keep a registry of the discs, which is what the instructors use to look up operations they want to show their students. We catalog them not only by date and time, but also by IDC code and keywords. I checked after you called, Doctor. There is no entry anyplace for Aleem Syed Mohammad’s surgery.”

“Could somebody have taken the DVD and deleted the entry in your database as well?” Jillian asked.

“Anything is possible, I suppose. But why would somebody do that? Actually, I asked myself that very question any number of times. Tell me about this Mohammad fellow. What do you know about him?”

Nick produced the folder of articles Reggie had printed out during the evening.

“Mohammad was born and raised in Jordan,” Nick said. “He was in his late forties when he was captured in Karachi by U.S. and Pakistani Special Forces in a joint operation code-named Shining Star. There’s no telling how many deaths he was responsible for. He was a prime suspect in several major bombings, including the massacre at the United States Embassy in New Delhi.”

“What’s his affiliation?” Mollender asked. “Are we talking Al Qaeda?”

Nick shook his head.

“I haven’t had time to go through all this yet,” he said, “but I think not at first. Apparently at some point after the Iraq invasion, his organization, Islamic Jihad in Jordan, merged with the Al Qaeda terror network, making him one of the most powerful and wanted terrorists in the world.”

The Mole thought for a few beats. “Yes, I remember now. His capture was touted as a major victory in the war against terror.”

“Correct,” Nick said. “The controversy that erupted when word got out that Mohammad required surgery to remove a dangerous cardiac tumor, and that a team of doctors had been assembled for the operation, was intense.”

“I guess there were those who felt the famed Hippocratic Oath phrase ‘Do no harm’ applied to the doctors, but not to the patients,” Mollender said, chuckling at his own humor.

“There were threats made by extremist groups who wanted him saved, and others who wanted him not treated at all,” Nick added. “They promised retaliation against anyone who helped keep Mohammad alive, which they believed would have made it possible for us to torture him some more. That’s why the location where his surgery was scheduled to be performed was kept a closely guarded secret, right up until the day of the operation.”

“According to Nancy Lane at the nursing school,” Jillian said, “a lot of people felt justice had been served when Mohammad died on the operating table that day. Autopsy results indicated he suffered a massive brain aneurysm and subsequent cardiac arrest from chronic high blood pressure.”

“Tough way to go,” Mollender said.

“That’s why we need to see the tape of his operation. Maybe Belle’s death was some sort of retribution for his death, even though it’s hard to understand why they waited three years.”

“But why her?” Nick asked. “Saul, that operation is all we have at the moment. We need to know everything we can about it. I can’t believe you, of all people, don’t have a backup.”

Mollender snickered. “Hence my statement that Fred Johnson is a jackass.”

“What does he have to do with any of this?” Nick asked.

“Before Johnson took over, I would send the DVDs by mail to my friend Noreen Siliski, who runs a disaster recovery business in Sutton, Virginia. She would then copy the files to her servers and mail the DVDs back to me and, bingo, we’d have our backup. Noreen is a wonderful person. Very bright, very unique. We were once quite close. Now we’re just… good friends.”

“You don’t sound so pleased about that.”

“I’m not, really. But like you said, what can you do?”

“Sorry. Can you go on?”

“So when Fred Johnson takes over and sees this minuscule payment we’re giving Noreen each month, the guy decides to flex his muscles, make it a point to the hospital administrators that he’s looking after every nickel and dime. Meanwhile his EMR department is a million over budget. I was told to stop sending backups to Noreen.”

Jillian frowned. “I’m afraid to ask when Johnson made you stop using your friend for disaster recovery.”

“Four years ago. A year before Mohammad’s operation.”

“So that’s it, then. No video. Even if we were able to find out what personnel were in the OR that day, it won’t tell us anything about what happened during the operation.”

For the first time, Jillian noted a glint in the Mole’s eyes.

“Well, all might not be as bleak as it seems, my friend,” he said. “You see, if Mohammad’s surgery was ever recorded, then there is a copy of that video nobody knows about. That’s why I asked who would want to steal it and cover their tracks by deleting it from my database log, and the real reason why I wanted to meet here. If someone’s stolen the original DVDs, I didn’t want to meet anywhere near the place.”

“But you just told us there wasn’t any backup,” Nick said.

“I told you there wasn’t supposed to be any backup. Well, with Fred Johnson being so self-righteous about Noreen, and at the same time being so wrong, I guess I forgot to put in the paperwork to shut down our little disaster recovery operation.”

“You mean…”

“Yup. Fred Johnson assumed, as did everybody else, that we stopped sending DVDs to Noreen. But as with most things, the pompous jackass was wrong. Buried in that massive budget of his is one tiny line item that he wouldn’t find unless he went through the whole thing ten times with a fine-tooth comb. You see, I changed the name of Noreen’s company but I never canceled her contract with us.”

“Saul, let me buy you another milk,” Jillian said.