Trauma

CHAPTER 54

David’s temporary ID was good for the month, and he had no trouble getting inside the VA. He wore his easy-on, easy-off disguise — surgical scrubs and canvas sneakers — and just like that, he was one of the crew.

By now, he guessed, Carrie was parked in the back lot, watching the rear of the building. David flashed on his meeting with Carrie just hours ago at Java du Jour. While it had only been a day since he’d last seen her, his visit marred by that uncomfortable confrontation with Adam, David felt as if it had been weeks. He took in every detail of her, and even though she was grim-faced and tense, David felt exhilarated to be with her again.

They ordered cappuccinos and discussed the plan; just like the last time, their drinks went cold. Carrie might have lost access to the OR, but she still could read the surgical schedule. From that, she got the name of Navarro’s first DBS patient: Garrett McGhee.

It was David who came up with the stakeout approach. It made sense to Carrie, because she did not know what happened to the patients after they left the neuro recovery floor. Were they even moved to a different unit?

“I think they get transferred,” Carrie had said. “Dr. Finley showed me Abington’s patient information from the med ICU.”

David was not convinced. “But that was after you went there looking for him,” he said.

“So?”

“Maybe he never even made it there,” David said.

“Come to think of it, the nurse in the med ICU couldn’t trace him when I showed up, but I thought that was some problem with the record system. Should we set up surveillance cameras in McGhee’s hospital room?”

David shook his head. “Might be easy to detect. I think we should figure out what happens — if anything happens — see it for ourselves, and then we’ll improvise how to get the proof we need.”

Carrie clutched her arms tightly, as though staving off a sudden chill.

“These are killers, David,” Carrie said. “I feel sick I’m so scared. I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

“I’m just as scared as you are,” David said. “And I’ll back out, but only if you want to.”

It was obvious from Carrie’s face that it was not an option.

“I’ve never wanted to be more wrong about something in my entire life,” Carrie said.

“Stats don’t lie,” David said. “Based on what you found, we have a seventy-five percent chance of proving that you’re right.”

David wandered the halls of the VA, trying to look like he belonged. He made frequent visits to the cafeteria and the restroom to pass the time until the next shift change. Throughout it all, he remained in constant communication with Carrie using Motorola two-way radios, which he had bought at Walmart for sixty bucks.

Now, thirty minutes before showtime, David had Carrie on his mind as much as the mission. He snuck into an unoccupied quiet room and put the push-to-talk to his mouth.

“Ground control to Major Tom. Can you hear me, Major Tom?”

There was a crackle and he heard Carrie’s voice say, “Not funny.”

“It was a little funny,” David said.

“What’s going on? Where are you?”

“Shift change is happening soon. I’m getting ready to move into position. I just wanted to hear your voice before I headed out.”

“Be careful, David,” Carrie said. “I don’t know what is going to happen.”

“Careful is my middle name,” David said.

“I thought you told me it was Charles.”

David’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s some steel-trap memory you’ve got there.”

He imagined Carrie’s smile and it filled him with joy.

“Just be careful,” she repeated. “Radio me when you’re in position.”

At fifteen minutes before the hour, David headed for the neuro recovery floor. According to Carrie’s intel, the unit was already half full with non-DBS surgical patients, but Garrett McGhee was not scheduled to arrive for several more hours. At that moment, Navarro was still doing the job Carrie had done, and Dr. Finley was in the OR with him, guiding his every step.

The double doors to the unit were closed and locked when David arrived, but he did not want to be buzzed inside. Instead, he used his smartphone to look occupied as he waited for the next shift to show up. There would be a little commotion at that point, during which David could more easily slip inside undetected.

At five minutes until three o’clock the new crew emerged from the elevator in a clump, chatting noisily amongst each other. The unit doors buzzed open, and David fell into step right behind them. He walked purposefully down the hall. He was practiced at looking official in places where he did not belong, and from the corner of his eyes it did not appear anybody paid particularly close attention to him.

He was quick to locate the room with McGhee’s name written on a whiteboard — the kind of reservation nobody wanted to have. Inside the cubicle space David found an adjustable hospital bed, along with a bunch of medical equipment he could not identify. The glass enclosure left David exposed, but at least there were no direct sight lines to the nurses’ station.

As a precaution, David closed the flimsy curtain for privacy and slipped inside the freestanding wardrobe closet that was pushed up against the wall opposite the bed. He closed the doors and plunged into darkness. A thin crack between the closet doors offered some light, but not much.

He had hardly any space to move about, and David already dreaded the many hours he would spend inside waiting for Garrett McGhee’s arrival. After five minutes or so, David’s legs began to throb, so he removed the two-way from his pants pocket, twisted his body so his back pressed against one of the side walls, and sank to the closet floor. To fit better, David wrapped his arms around his knees, which were nearly in his mouth, but at least he could hold this position for a while, meditate if he had to. He put the two-way to his mouth and called Carrie.

“I’m in a closet on the neuro recovery floor,” he said. He had the volume low for when Carrie answered back.

“Okay, I’m outside watching the back entrance. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

“Roger. Over and out. Or whatever you’re supposed to say.”

There was a brief period of silence during which David wished he had one more chance to hear Carrie’s voice. A second later the radio crackled back to life.

“Thank you, David. I mean it. Thank you for everything.”

“Roger, over and out,” David said.

And that was enough for him.

Tedium.

The walls of David’s hideout were made of thin particleboard, so he passed the time by listening to the nurses’ chatter, or counting the beeps on whichever machine happened to be loudest. The antiseptic hospital smell, that sickly clean odor, was starting to get to him, making the hours even more unpleasant to endure. Adding to his discomfort, David’s body heat had turned the cramped quarters oppressively stuffy, and the slat between the doors offered a limited supply of fresh air. He had checked in with Carrie about a dozen times, but now he had to go dark since McGhee could arrive at any minute.

David’s phone battery had run down, but he guessed it was close to 7:00 P.M., going by the last time he spoke with Carrie. Four hours jammed like a pretzel inside a closet; this was becoming a habit for him, it seemed. He felt achy all over, and the throbbing pain in his knees had gone from uncomfortable to deeply unpleasant. He could stretch his arms above his head, and that lessened the soreness somewhat. He wondered when — if — McGhee would finally show up.

The minutes passed slowly and without mercy until maybe another hour had ticked off the clock. What if there were complications? What if McGhee died during surgery? Maybe Navarro was as incompetent as he was devious. At some point during the long stretch of time with nothing happening, David felt pressure building in his bladder.

“Oh, great,” he muttered.

I can hold it, was his first thought.

McGhee better get here soon, was the next thing to cross his mind.

A minute passed, then another, and all David could think about was peeing. When the pressure finally got too intense, David pushed open the closet door and clambered out like the Tin Man before he got oiled. The curtain kept David mostly out of sight while he used a portable urinal to relieve himself. The overwhelming feeling of relief extended to his arms and legs, and David absolutely despised the thought of jamming himself back into the wardrobe. But then he heard the squeaky wheels of a stretcher in motion.

David scrambled into the closet and got the doors closed a few seconds before the stretcher came rolling into the room. The portable toilet was a tight fit under his legs, but he could not leave it half full of his urine for the nurses to find. There was a lot of commotion and dialogue as the patient, who David presumed was McGhee, was transferred from the stretcher to the bed. Two nurses took their time getting McGhee’s vitals and hooking up his IV.

Now began the waiting game, and with each passing minute, each agonizing hour, David grew more weary. If nothing happened — and statistically that was a 25 percent possibility — he would find a way to sneak out of McGhee’s room and get back to Carrie. Mission aborted for the night. His thoughts were dulled from inactivity and waiting.

The nurses came and went. They chatted playfully amongst themselves, but it was obvious they had tremendous competence in their craft, and deep caring for the patients. David was not interested in evaluating their skills as nursing professionals. He was waiting for the complication.

It must have been eleven, because another shift change arrived. He heard them talking, discussing medications, treatment, and such. A doctor poked her head in and did some exam on McGhee, but it was brief.

Thirty minutes after the eleven o’clock shift change took place — it had to be thirty — David heard someone enter the room. That was odd, because the new duty nurse had been in to see McGhee not long ago. The muscles in the back of David’s neck tightened to the point he thought they might snap, but he turned his head anyway to get a look out the crack in the closet door. He could see a shape, the outline of a man with dark skin, lurking over McGhee’s bed.

“How are we feeling tonight, Garrett?” the male nurse asked while glancing at a clipboard.

David watched the nurse extract something from the pocket of his uniform and had to squint to make out the syringe in the nurse’s hand. The nurse inserted the syringe into the IV. Nothing happened for several minutes, until the nurse said, “Open your eyes, Garrett. The drug I gave you should make you less groggy … good … that’s real good. Can you hear my voice?”

McGhee groaned, and then said in a mumbling voice, with almost exaggerated torpidity, “Yeah, yeah, stop saying it. Stop it.”

“Oh, good,” the nurse said. “I’m going to give you a little something else.”

“A little something else … little something else … little something…” McGhee spoke as though in a daze, but he pronounced the words clearly so they were easy to understand.

David thought immediately of the auditory illusion, palinacousis, Carrie had so accurately described. It sounded as though McGhee was acting out her very description. Still peering through that crack in the closet, David watched the nurse inject something else into McGhee’s IV, and a minute later he took out a smartphone and made a call.

“Rear entrance twenty minutes,” the nurse said. “Keep the van running. It’ll be quick.”

David felt elated. At last they had proof Carrie was right. Something truly sinister was going on here, even if he had no idea what exactly caused the auditory illusion, or where this nurse was taking McGhee, or what would happen to him once he got there, or why they were doing it. Carrie was watching the rear entrance right now, and she needed to know trouble was headed her way.