Chuck Logan - Absolute Zero

“Others?” he whispered, almost inaudible.

That’s when Amy saw Broker edging through the door. She backed away from the bed, signaling to Nancy, hooking two fingers, squeezing her thumb in a squirting gesture. Nancy injected the Demerol into Sommer’s IV, then discarded the used syringe in the Sharpes Box.

“Sorry, Mr. Broker, if observers are a hindrance, they will be removed,” Amy announced as she put her palms on Broker’s chest and backed him out into the hall. Then her stern expression relaxed into a smile. “Let him rest a few more minutes.” Her hands lingered a beat longer than necessary and then she poked the logo on Broker’s garish yellow sweatshirt with a straight finger. “Oh my,” she said. A crawly drawing of a plump wood tick with a grinning cartoon-bug face bannered the shirt, with the caption:

Natural Wood Ticklers.

Sexual Aids amp; Muskie Lures.

Camp’s Bait Shop

Hayward, Wisconsin.

“If I didn’t have a sense of humor, that might offend me,” she said, maintaining direct eye contact.

Broker, never good at small talk-and wondering how she knew his name-asked, “Do I know you?”

Her face went from warmly inviting to snappy attention as her eyes shifted past Broker. “Dr. Falken.”

Allen, gray with fatigue, shambled up and gestured with an upturned palm. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s out of the woods,” Amy said with a straight face. “Vitals are normal. He roused, raised his head, squeezed my finger, swallowed, and told me I was pretty.”

“Are you treating for pain?”

“Nancy gave him twenty-five milligrams of Demerol. I’m going to get him something cool for his throat.”

Amy breezed past and Broker watched her model the possibilities of baggy blue trousers as she walked down the hall. “She’s pleased with herself,” he said.

“Yes, nice, ah, glutes. Nordic skiing, diagonal stride, would be my guess,” Allen yawned. He blinked and continued in a more serious voice, “She was extra careful extubating him and bringing him out of anesthesia. He has a tricky throat to work in. She’s as good as or better than anyone I’ve worked with in Level One, so she’s earned some strutting rights.” As an afterthought, he said, “She’s wasted on this place.”

Then he patted Broker on the shoulder and drifted back down the hall and sat heavily on a folding chair. At the other end of the corridor Amy Skoda stopped to chat with Iker. They both looked up at Broker at the same time, and Amy batted her eyelashes, then lowered her gaze, walked away from Iker, and turned out of sight down the hall.

Then Broker nodded out on his feet and came back when he started to lose his balance. Dead-tired, he saw some movement. Iker and Shari started toward the dispatch room across from the ER cubbyhole and the yells started.

“Heads up, gang! We got another one!”

“What now?”

“No problem, relax, a broken arm, lacerations,” called Brecht. “A drunk tried to drive a snowmobile through a birch tree. Thing is, that Tahoe they’re using as an ambulance got stuck on the street, so we’re going to have to manhandle the stretcher in.”

Broker went to the garage, slipped back into his wet boots, and went to the street in front of the hospital, where deputy Sam had mired the Tahoe in a drift. Amid much yelling, they hauled another man lashed to a Stokes stretcher into the garage. Lumps of frozen blood the size of jelly beans stuck to the new patient’s face and he smelled of alcohol and gasoline. A bloody pressure bandage was wrapped on his head.

Tracking snow, they stomped in through the garage and transferred the guy to a treatment table in the vacant emergency cubbyhole. Milt had been moved deeper into the building.

“This one’s mine,” Brecht said and he commenced the call for tests and service. Amy appeared at Broker’s side, handed him a Dixie cup full of chipped ice, and said, “Hold this a sec.” Up close, in addition to the gray eyes, she had long lashes. And she smelled good. Neither medicinal nor cosmetic.

But clean. And just so. . there .

Broker kicked off his snowy boots and put his dry slippers back on as Amy joined the ER doc and bantered for a moment. Then she broke away and returned down the hall. “No big deal, a broken leg,” she said, taking back her Dixie cup.

Whoa!

Broker came up sharp on the balls of his feet, his eyes darted. Heard something. .

“You all right?” Amy asked.

Broker held up his hand. Stop. Listen . He stared at the skinny nurse with the black ponytail, who had been watching Sommer and had been out into the snow briefly to help with the new arrival. She was now hurrying up the hall toward the recovery room.

Broker, who could hear his daughter cough across a crowded auditorium, detected it through the medical chatter. Cued by his hard eyes, Amy and the other nurse caught it one beat later. Allen, sitting zombielike in the corridor, lurched up in his chair, raised his head, and turned.

The once rhythmic beep-beep-beep of Sommer’s monitor was improvising in a minor key.

Booop. . booop. . booop. .

“Oh fuck!” The color drained from Amy’s face and the Dixie cup went flying and ice chips skittered over the waxed linoleum floor as she sprinted down the hall.

Booop. . Booop. . Booop.

“Shit! Call a code. He’s arrested in here!” Amy yelled as she ran through the door into the recovery room. Broker was right behind her and he saw Sommer lying rigid with his eyes shut, his lips and cheeks turning the blue-gray color of the glacier water, and from then on it only got worse.

“Christ, he’s in V fib! What the fuck happened?” Allen rushed into the room and his dazed eyes swept the monitor and then fixed on Sommer’s face.

“I don’t know. He came out clean in the OR. He was fighting the tube. Vitals were fine, train of four. Now. . he bradied on me,” Amy shouted back as she moved behind Sommer, clamped his face in both her hands.

“What the. .?” blurted Dr. Brecht, coming through the door.

“He’s in bradycardia. Bag him, start CPR,” Allen said, crossing his hands over Sommer’s sternum. Immediately Brecht reached for the defibrillator that sat on the cluttered crash cart.

With one eye on the monitor screen where a low, bumpy line traced the failing heartbeat, Amy thrust Sommer’s jaw up, opened his mouth, and swept a finger in his throat. He hadn’t swallowed his tongue. “ABC’s, ABC’s,” she chanted under her breath. “Oxygen.” She grabbed the oxygen mask as Brecht checked the defibrillator cords and unwound the paddles. Amy yanked the mask over Sommer’s face and pumped the balloon bellows.

Allen pistoned down in a CPR rhythm and burned a question at Amy. “How long?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Amy said between clenched teeth.

“More than four minutes?”

“I don’t know, goddammit.”

Brecht lowered the paddles and went to the cardiac monitor. “Jesus,” he said.

“What?” Allen asked.

Brecht poked a button on the monitor. An alarm began to wail and the Ely doctor erupted. “The fucking alarm was turned off!”

“No. That’s not true. .” Nancy protested.

“Nancy, shut up,” Amy said. And Broker, standing back against the wall out of the way, winced at the reflex of damage-control in her voice.

“Christ, Amy,” Nancy stammered, “I just went out to help with the accident case, I looked in before I went outside,” she protested. “His vitals were normal, he was talking. The monitor was set and he was fine.”

“Well, he’s not fine,” Allen muttered as he pumped down. “He’s in arrest. I want to see your charting. I want to know how much sedation he had on board.”