Michael Palmer - Side Effects

"Thank you, " Kate said meekly. "That certainly helps clear up my confusion." Another glance at Tom, and she grasped at one final straw.

"Dr. Thompson, I was trying to find out the street address of your office, but there's no Ashburton Foundation listed in the DC directory."

"By design, Dr. Bennett, quite by design. You see, where there is grant money involved, there are bound to be, how should I say it, omewhat less than fully qualified applicants contacting us. We prefer o do our own preliminary research and then to encourage only appropriate institutions and agencies to apply. Our offices are at 238 K street, Northwest, on the seventh floor. Please feel free to visit any time you are in Washington. Perhaps your pathology department would be interested in applying for a capital equipment grant."

"Perhaps," Kate said distractedly. William Zimmermann had heard enough.

"Dr. Thompson, " he said, "I want to thank you for helping to clear up the confusion here, and also for the wonderful support your agency has given my Omnicenter."

"Our pleasure, sir, " Dr. James Thompson said. "Well? " Zimmermann asked after he had hung up. "Something's not right, " she said. "What?"

"He mentioned my pathology department. How did he know I was a pathologist?"

"I told him you were at the very start of the call."

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Bill-really, I'm not-but you referred to me as a physician, not a pathologist. You remember, Tom, don't you?"

A look at the uncertainty in Tom's eyes, and she began having doubts herself. "Well?"

"I… I'm not sure, " was all the resident could say. Kate stood to go.

"Bill, I may seem pigheaded to you, or even confused, but I tell you, something still doesn't feel right to me. I just have a sense that Dr.

Thompson knew exactly who I was and what I wanted before you ever called."

"You must admit, Kate, " Zimmermann said clinically, "that when one looks first at the business with the baseball player, then at the conflict over whether or not a chemist actually performed tests he swears he never ran, and now at what seem to be groundless concerns on your part regarding the Ashburton Foundation and my long-standing computer engineer, it becomes somewhat difficult to get overly enthusiastic about your hunches and senses and theories. Now, if you've nothing further, I must get back to work."

"No, " Kate said, smarting from the outburst by the usually cordial man.

"Nothing, really, except the promise that no matter how long it takes, I will find out who, or what, is responsible for Ellen's bleeding disorder. Thanks for coming, Tom. I'm sorry it worked out this way."

With a nod to both men, she left, fingers of self-doubt tightening their grip in her gut. She bundled her clinic coat against the wind and snow and pushed head down out of the Omnicenter and onto the street. What if she were wrong, totally wrong about Redding and Horner, about the Omnicenter and Ellen's bleeding, about Reese? Perhaps, despite the critical situation in Berenson 421, despite the nagging fears about her own body, she should back off and let things simmer down. Perhaps she should listen to the advice of her father-in-law and reorder her priorities away from Metropolitan Hospital. They were waiting for her in her office, Stan Willoughby, Liu Huang, and Rod Green, the flamboyant, black general surgeon who was, it was rumored, being groomed for a Harvard professorstlp. I "Kate, " Willoughby said. "I was just writing you a note." He held the paper up for her to see. Kate greeted the other two men and then turned back to Wiljj› loughby. He was tight. His stance and the strain in his smile said so. "Well? " she asked.

"Pardon?"

"The note, Stan. What would it have said?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. My mind is racing." He cleared his throat. "Kate, we need to talk with you."

"Well, sit down then, please." She felt her heart respond to her sudden apprehension. "A problem?"

Willoughby was totally ill at ease. "I… um… Kate, yesterday you did a frozen section of a needle biopsy on one of Dr. Green's patients."

"Yes, a breast. It was an intraductal adenocarcinoma. I reported the results to Dr. Green myself." Her pulse quickened another notch. "Was there, um… any question in your mind of the-"

"What Dr. Willoughby is trying to say, " Rod Green cut in, "is that I did a masectomy on a woman who, it appears, has benign breast disease."

The man's dark eyes flashed. "That's impossible." Kate looked first to Willoughby and then to Liu Huang for support, but saw only the tightlipped confirmation of the surgeon's allegation. "Liu?"

"I have examined specimen in great detail, " the little man said carefully. "Track of biopsy needle enters benign adenoma. No cancer there or in any part of breast."

"Are… are you sure? " She could barely speak. "Kate, " Willoughby said, "I reviewed the slides myself. There's no cancer."

"But, there was. I swear there was."

"There was no cancer in my patient, " Green said. "None." His fury at her was clearly under the most marginal control. "You have made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake."

Kate stared wide-eyed at the three men. It was a dream, a grotesque nightmare from which she would awake at any moment. Their stone faces blurred in and out of focus as her mind struggled to remember the cells.

There were three breast biopsies, no, two, there were two. Green's patient was the first. The pathology was a bit tricky, but it was nothing she would ever miss in even one case out of a thousand, unless..

.. She remembered the fatigue and the strain of the previous morning, the stress of Jared's being away, the crank phone calls, and the disappearance of Ian Toole. No, her thoughts screamed, she couldn't have made such a mistake. It wasn't as if they were saying she had missed something, although even that kind of error would have been hard to believe, they were claiming she had read a condition that wasn't there.

It was… impossible. There was just no other word. "Did you check the slides from yesterday? " she managed. "The frozens?"

Willoughby nodded grimly. "Benign adenoma. The exact same pathology as in the main specimen." He handed her a plastic box of slides. Green stood up, fists clenched. "I have heard enough. Dr. Bennett, thanks to you, a woman who came to me in trust has had her breast removed unnecessarily. When she sues, even though I will in all likelihood be one of the defendants, I shall also be her best witness."

He started to leave and then turned back to her. "You know, " he said,

"that letter you sent to the papers about Bobby Geary was a pretty rotten thing to do." He slammed the door hard enough to shake the vase of roses on the corner of her desk. Kate could barely hold the slide as she set it on the stage of her microscope. This time, the yellow-white light held no excitement, no adventure for her. She knew, even before she had completed focusing down, that the specimen was benign. It was that clear-cut. Her mistaking the pattern for a cancer would have been as likely as an Olympic diver springing off the wrong end of the board.

"Something's wrong, " she said, her eye still fixed on the cells. The words reverberated in her mind. Something's wrong. She had said that to Bill Zimmermann not half an hour ago. "Kate, " Willoughby said gently,

"I'm sorry."

Only after she looked up from the microscope did she realize she was crying. "Stan, I swear this is not the slide I read yesterday. It can't be." But even as she said the words, she admitted to herself that, as in the situation with Bobby Geary, her only defense was a protestation of innocence. "You've been under a great deal of stress lately, Kate. Do you suppose that-"

"No! " She forced herself to lower her voice. "I remember the biopsy I saw yesterday. It was cancer. I didn't make a mistake."