The Red Room

36

Dr. Osman’s offices are on the hospital’s cardiology floor, beyond a waiting area and receptionist desk. Grace might as well try passing through the Topkapi’s Sublime Porte during Ottoman times. She’s not going to be able to steal the pacemakers. She faces having to accomplish the next best thing: get someone to give them to her.

Her Chinese heritage affords her many benefits in the West, among them the fact that Western men appreciate Asian women. Or the fact that the West secretly considers all Asians academically smarter and less physically able. Grace can use these stereotypes to her advantage. Because it worked so well in the mail room, she presents her UN business card to the receptionist, a matronly Turkish woman with an enormous chest, a double chin and pigmented green contact lenses that make her look like a Martian.

Grace tries English. The woman isn’t ignorant, but she’s far from fluent. Together they stitch together some Turkish and English, which works in Grace’s favor because she doesn’t want to present her needs in technical speak.

There has been a shipment from BioLectrics that may have been sourced in China, Grace informs the woman. The parts are possibly counterfeit and unsafe. She needs a sample from the following shipment. She presents the FedEx tracking information.

A nurse is called out, arriving ten minutes later. Grace repeats her story. The woman is younger and unfortunately her English is good.

“The UN’s interest?” the nurse inquires.

“Is regulatory,” Grace says. “You need not concern yourself. I’ve traveled a great distance, and have farther to go. Istanbul is not the only location that received a shipment, as you might imagine.”

“World Health I could understand.”

“You need not concern yourself.”

“These are expensive parts.”

“Inspection purposes only. The parts will be returned within the week. If they sustain damage in the process of inspection, they will be replaced at no cost to the hospital.”

The nurse is acutely suspicious, but there’s so much downside for the hospital should the parts prove counterfeit that she relents.

“We… the truth is… there is no order to our supplies.”

“In the case of the pacemakers,” Grace says, vamping, “protocol calls for FILO.” First-in-last-out. “If you are so disorganized, you can, at the very least, look at the expiration dates on the pacemakers themselves. Correct?”

“I suppose. Yes.”

“I would appreciate a single sample from the batch with the latest expiration date. You can first check and copy the invoice for me. I must leave with at least one sample of each of the items shipped.”

“It will take a few minutes,” the nurse says unpleasantly. She leaves.

Grace checks her watch.