Michael Palmer - Flashback

"That was close, " she said. Frank smiled. "Hand grenades and horseshoes, " he said giddily. "Pardon?"

"Oh, just a little phrase my father drummed into my head."

"Well, Frank, it would appear that you are to be-"

"Excuse me, but I wondered if the acting chairman could delay the celebration long enough to listen to one more point of view."

Like the gallery at a tennis match, every head in the room swung, in unison, toward the door. The Judge, a blanket over his lap, sat in a wheelchair just inside the room, pale but smiling grimly. Whitey Bourque raced around and shook his hand. "God, Judge, it's good to see you up like this. You all right? I mean, can you-"

"I can move em, Whitey. Not very much yet, but more every minute."

Somewhat painfully, he demonstrated by lifting his right foot several inches off its support. Frank, too stunned by the sudden intrusion even to react, glanced down at his watch. It was eight minutes till noon. At that moment, he realized his father was watching him. "Good to see you, Judge, " he managed hoarsely. The Judge nodded at him and then exchanged a prolonged look with Leigh Baron. "I'd like to address the board, if I might, " he said. "Of course, Judge, " Whitey Bourque replied. "Why don't you just let me wheel you up front."

"Judge, " Frank said, "the voting's over."

"Is it?"

"I'm afraid so, Judge, " Bourque said. "Ten to nine it was, in favor of Ultramed."

"Well, perhaps I can change a mind or two."

"That's not legal, sir, " one of the Ultramed lawyers said. "The vote's done."

Clayton Iverson fixed him with a glare that would have melted block iee.

"Don't you dare tell me what's legal and what's not, young man, " he rasped. "I was a lawyer and a judge while your mommy was still wiping your behind. Our contract with you people says that we have until noon today to repurchase this hospital by a majority vote of the board.

That's what it says. No more, no less. And unless something's wrong with my timepiece, here, I make it seven of."

Ashen, Frank watched as his father was wheeled up to the chairman's table. He was desperately sorting through disruptions he could instigate that might carry the meeting past the deadline. But before he could light on a specific action, the Judge was speaking. "I'll make this short, " he began. "I had promised many of you that I would do the legwork necessary to ensure that it was to the benefit of our community to finalize our temporary arrangement with the Ultramed people. Because of my accident, and for other reasons which I have. neither the time nor inclination to go into now, I decided to. withhold my conclusions about this business and let the chips fall where they may. Well, I have come back at this time to tell you that my reaction was unfair-to you, my friends and colleagues, and to the city of Sterling as well. "I have learned enough to appear before you now and tell you categorically that while we may have benefited in the short run from Ultramed's involvement with our hospital, it would be a grave mistake to turn Davis Regional over to them permanently. My housekeeper, Annie Doucette, almost died because of a policy-an Ultramed corporate policy-that rewards physicians for transferring patients out of the hospital as early as possible, and rewards them even more if that transfer is to an Ultramed-owned nursing home. Patients who helped build this hospital are being shunted off to Clarion County because they haven't got enough insurance. There's more-much more"-he glanced at Leigh Baron-"but because of the time, I'm going to ask you to trust me on that. Now, we have three minutes until noon. If it is agreeable with Whitey, here, I would like to call for another vote on this question."

"Any objections?

" Bourque asked. "Yes, " Frank said, standing. "I object."

"Well, I'm sorry, Frank, " Bourque countered, "but you're not a board member, 'n' we don't have time for any outside objections."

Frank hesitated, and then sank numbly to his seat. "Okay, then," Bourque said. "You all have a second ballot in your folders. I put one there knowin' that at least some of you were bound to screw up the first one."

A brief volley of laughter gave way to dense silence as the twenty board members marked their ballots, folded them, and passed them toward the front of the room. Leigh Baron, her back to Frank, sat staring stonily at the gallery of presidents. As the last of the ballots reached Whitey Bourque and was counted, the steeple bells of St. Anne's began tolling the noon hour. Sara Newton, the nurse anesthe ist, was a mousy young woman with braces that had yet to correct a striking overbite. She had been asleep in maternity, awaiting a delivery, and arrived at the doors to the operating suite only moments after Zack, breathless, bleary-eyed, and disheveled. "Where's the emergency? " she panted, tugging at a kink in her bra. "In the unit, " Zack said. His shoulder was throbbing from the dash through the hospital, and he had resorted to partially splinting it by jamming his thumb through a belt loop. "The unit? Well, then, let's get going. Say, are you okay? You look a little pale."

"I'm fine. A little stressed out is all."

"That's right. There was a notice sent around that you've been fired."

"I've been rehired. Sara, I need Jack Pearl.

It's a case he's familiar with. I'd like you to take over his case in O.R. 1 so he can leave."

The woman was astonished. "Dr. Iverson, I can't do that."

"Listen, Sara, " Zack said sharply, "I don't have time to argue. I know you're very good at your job, and if I thought you could do what I need, I wouldn't hesitate. But this is Pearl's affair. His and mine. And at least two lives are on the line. Now please."

"Wh-What can I do? " she asked, shaken. "Get a fresh set of scrubs on and be outside O. R. I as quickly as you can. I'll signal you when it's okay to come in."

"Jack will never agree to something like this."

"You leave Jack to me. Now, please, hurry."

Zack raced into the surgeon's locker room and painfully undressed. He threw his clothes into his locker and pulled on a scrub suit, a paper hair cover, mask, and shoe covers, and he hurried past the sinks in the prep room and into O. R. I. Greg Ormesby, the surgeon on the case, looked up and took several seconds to recognize who he was. "Iverson?" he asked somewhat coolly. "That is you under there, isn't it?"

At the mention of Zack's name, all activity in the room came to an instant halt. Jack Pearl, who was hunched over his instruments, looked up and paled. "Sorry to bust in like this, Greg, " Zack said with forced calm, "but I need to talk to Jack, here."

"I'm busy, " Pearl muttered. "Well, whatever it is will just have to wait," Ormesby said. "We'll be done in half an hour. Now, if you please, Iverson."

Zack bent over Pearl and laid his right hand at the base of the man's neck. "Jack, " he whispered, "it's Suzanne. She's in the ICU right now, and she's having a seizure just like Toby's. She's reliving her operation and she's screaming out your name. Yours and Jason's."

Even wearing a mask and hair cover, the frail anesthesiologist oked ill.

"That can't be, " Pearl whispered back. "I want you up there with me right now."

"You're crazy."

Zack slipped his fingers around the sides of Pearl's neck and applied just a bit of pressure. "She's the second case, Jack. The one you were holding out for."

"I'm not going anyplace. Now let go of me! You're hurting me!"

Zack looked up just as Sara Newton appeared outside the door. He. motioned her in with a snap of his head, and tightened his grip, digging his sinewy fingers into the nerves alongside Pearl's neck. "Iverson, what in the hell is going on here? " Ormesby demanded. "Are you crazy?

Somebody call security. Iverson, for crying out loud, there's a goddamn woman opened up on the table here. Can't you see that?"