Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon

“Did she say anything about being stalked? About the attacker reappearing in her life?”

“A rapist never disappears from your life. For as long as you live, you’re always his property.” Sarah paused. And added, bitterly: “Maybe he just came to claim what was his.”

It was not virgins the Vikings sacrificed, but harlots.

In the year of our lord 922, the Arab diplomat ibn Fadlan witnessed just such a sacrifice among the people he called the Rus. He described them as tall and blond, men of perfect physique who traveled from Sweden, down the Russian rivers, to the southern markets of Kazaria and the Caliphate, where they traded amber and furs for the silk and silver of Byzantium. It was on that trade route, in a place called Bulgar, at the bend of the Volga, that a dead Viking man of great importance was prepared for his final journey to Valhalla.

Ibn Fadlan witnessed the funeral.

The dead man’s boat was hauled ashore and placed on posts of birch wood. A pavilion was built on the deck, and in this pavilion was a couch covered in Greek brocade. The corpse, which had been buried ten days, was then disinterred.

To ibn Fadlan’s surprise, the blackened flesh did not smell.

The newly dug-up corpse was then adorned in fine clothes: trousers and stockings, boots and a tunic, and a caftan of brocade with gold buttons. They placed him on the mattress inside the pavilion, and propped him up with cushions in a sitting position. Around him they placed bread and meat and onions, intoxicating drink, and sweet-smelling plants. They slew a dog and two horses, a rooster and a hen, and all these, too, they placed inside the pavilion, to serve his needs in Valhalla.

Last, they brought a slave girl.

For the ten days that the dead man had lain buried in the ground, the girl had been given over to whoredom. Dazed with drink, she was brought from tent to tent to service every man in the encampment. She lay with legs spread beneath a succession of sweating, grunting men, her well-used body a communal vessel into which the seed of all the tribesmen was spilled. In this way was she defiled, her flesh corrupted, her body made ready for sacrifice.

On the tenth day, she was brought to the ship, accompanied by an old woman whom they called the Angel of Death. The girl removed her bracelets and finger rings. She drank deeply to intoxicate herself. Then she was brought into the pavilion, where the dead man sat.

There, upon the brocade-draped mattress, she was defiled yet again. Six times, by six men, her body passed among them like shared meat. And when it was done, when the men were sated, the girl was stretched out at the side of her dead master. Two men held her feet, two men held her hands, and the Angel of Death looped a cord around the girl’s neck. While the men pulled the cord taut, the Angel raised her broad-bladed dagger and plunged it into the girl’s chest.

Again and again the blade came down, spilling blood the way a grunting man spills seed, the dagger reenacting the ravishment that came before, sharp metal piercing soft flesh.

A brutal rutting that delivered, with its final thrust, the rapture of death.

“She required massive transfusions of blood and fresh frozen plasma,” said Catherine. “Her pressure’s stabilized, but she’s still unconscious and on a ventilator. You’ll just have to be patient, Detective. And hope she wakes up.”

Catherine and Detective Darren Crowe stood outside Nina Peyton’s SICU cubicle and watched three lines trace across the cardiac monitor. Crowe had been waiting by the O.R. door when the patient was wheeled out, had stuck right beside her in the Recovery Room and later during the transfer to SICU. His role was more than merely protective; he was eager to take the patient’s statement, and for the last few hours he had made a nuisance of himself, demanding frequent progress reports and hovering outside the cubicle.

Now, once again, he repeated the question he’d been asking all morning: “Is she going to live?”

“All I can tell you is that her vital signs are stable.”

“When can I talk to her?”

Catherine gave a tired sigh. “You don’t seem to understand how critical she was. She lost more than a third of her blood volume before she even got here. Her brain may have been deprived of crucial circulation. When and if she does regain consciousness, there’s a chance she won’t remember anything.”

Crowe looked through the glass partition. “Then she’s useless to us.”

Catherine stared at him with mounting dislike. Not once had he expressed concern for Nina Peyton, except as a witness, as someone he could use. Not once, all morning, had he referred to her by name. He’d called her the victim or the witness . What he saw, looking into the cubicle, wasn’t a woman at all but simply a means to an end.

“When will she be moved from ICU?” he asked.

“It’s too early to ask that question.”

“Could she be transferred to a private room? If we keep the door closed, limit the personnel, then no one has to know she can’t talk.”

Catherine knew exactly where this was going. “I won’t have my patient used as bait. She needs to stay here for round-the-clock observation. You see those lines on the monitor? That’s the EKG, the central venous pressure, and the arterial pressure. I need to stay on top of every change in her status. This unit is the only place to do it.”

“How many women could we save if we stop him now? Have you thought about that? Of all people, Dr. Cordell, you know what these women have gone through.”

She went rigid with anger. He had struck a blow at her most vulnerable spot. What Andrew Capra had done to her was so personal, so intimate, that she could not speak of the loss, even with her own father. Detective Crowe had ripped open that wound.

“She may be the only way to catch him,” said Crowe.

“This is the best you can come up with? Use a comatose woman as bait? Endanger other patients in this hospital by inviting a killer to show up here?”

“What makes you think he isn’t already here?” Crowe said, and he walked away.

Already here. Catherine could not help but glance around the unit. She saw nurses bustling between patients. A group of resident surgeons gathered near the bank of monitors. A phlebotomist carrying her tray of blood tubes and syringes. How many people walked in and out of this hospital every day? How many of them did she truly know as people? No one. That much Andrew Capra had taught her: that she could never really know what lurked in a person’s heart.

The ward clerk said, “Dr. Cordell, telephone call.”

Catherine crossed to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone.

It was Moore. “I hear you pulled her through.”

“Yes, she’s still alive,” Catherine answered bluntly. “And no, she’s not talking yet.”

A pause. “I take it this is a bad time to call.”

She sank into a chair. “I’m sorry. I just spoke to Detective Crowe, and I am not in a good mood.”

“He seems to have that effect on women.”

They both laughed, tired laughs that melted any hostility between them.

“How are you holding up, Catherine?”

“We had some hairy moments, but I think I’ve got her stablilized.”

“No, I mean you . Are you okay?”

It was more than just a polite inquiry; she heard real concern in his voice, and she did not know what to say. She knew only that it felt good to be cared about. That his words had brought a flush to her cheeks.

“You won’t go home, right?” he said. “Until your locks are changed.”