Michael Palmer - The Last Surgeon

Nick shook his head in disbelief.

“You made us come all the way out here at two in the morning just so you could protect your reputation of being a grouch?”

Mollender remained tight-lipped and serious.

“Do you know what would happen if word got out that people could just barge into my office and not only demand attention from me, but actually get it? By the way, do you have my plaque?”

Suppressing a smile, Jillian passed the framed calligraphy across, mentally adding the records room head to the list of the most eccentric people she knew.

“So you’re worried that maybe people might actually, I don’t know, use your services?” she asked.

“Funny, very funny. But yes. First of all, our services, such as they are, are dwindling with each record we make electronic. Ever hear of a position whose job it was to make itself obsolete? We’re literally working ourselves out of existence. The only way we three can stay employed is if no one knows we’re there.”

“Easy, Saul. Easy,” Jillian said gently. “You can only do what you can do.”

“I guess.”

“Now, can you tell us what you found out?”

Mollender motioned the waitress over and ordered a tall glass of skim milk, warmed on the stove, not in a microwave.

“And don’t try and trick me,” he said to the girl. “I can tell.” He turned back to Nick and Jillian. “What I found out is that Fred Johnson is even more of a jackass than I originally thought.”

“Fred Johnson?” Nick asked.

“Before I delve into him, can you tell me why somebody would have wanted to steal the DVD of that operation?”

“Did you say steal? I thought you just said it was gone.”

“And that’s the truth. If it ever existed, it’s gone now.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Nick said.

“I personally supervised setting up the video camera system in the ORs over six years ago. For that reason, let alone everything else I’ve done for my unit over the past twenty years, you’d think I’d be the one selected to run the electronic medical records department. But no. Smarmy Fred Johnson gets the position over me, just because he’s the CTO’s nephew or cousin or something.”

“That true?”

“That’s what I heard. The personnel lady told me I was lacking people skills, whatever those are, but I never believed her. Smarmy. I think the word was invented for Fred.”

“Do you have any proof that somebody stole the DVD of Mohammad’s operation?”

“We have three cameras in each of our twenty-four operating rooms on three separate floors-a direct overhead shot into the incision, one up from the foot of the table, and one that continuously pans the room, including the anesthesiologist’s station at the head of the table. Each camera is attached to a DVR machine by cables, like a supercharged TiVo.”

“Amazing,” Nick said, pleased to sense that the Mole had regained much of his equilibrium.

The waitress returned with the stove-warmed milk, and Mollender sampled it like a wine connoisseur before nodding his approval.

“Supervising the recording process,” he went on after a few sips, “is one of the few functions my little department still has, but I’ve heard rumors that it might not be for long. Damn Johnson. Anyhow, as things stand, the OR supervisor tells us which operations they want recorded, and we push the buttons-well, my assistant Annette does, anyway. She has a booth in the operating suite and works from there. At the end of each day, she burns the cases onto DVDs because we can’t store all that data indefinitely on the DVR machines.

“We also keep a registry of the discs, which is what the instructors use to look up operations they want to show their students. We catalog them not only by date and time, but also by IDC code and keywords. I checked after you called, Doctor. There is no entry anyplace for Aleem Syed Mohammad’s surgery.”

“Could somebody have taken the DVD and deleted the entry in your database as well?” Jillian asked.

“Anything is possible, I suppose. But why would somebody do that? Actually, I asked myself that very question any number of times. Tell me about this Mohammad fellow. What do you know about him?”

Nick produced the folder of articles Reggie had printed out during the evening.

“Mohammad was born and raised in Jordan,” Nick said. “He was in his late forties when he was captured in Karachi by U.S. and Pakistani Special Forces in a joint operation code-named Shining Star. There’s no telling how many deaths he was responsible for. He was a prime suspect in several major bombings, including the massacre at the United States Embassy in New Delhi.”

“What’s his affiliation?” Mollender asked. “Are we talking Al Qaeda?”

Nick shook his head.

“I haven’t had time to go through all this yet,” he said, “but I think not at first. Apparently at some point after the Iraq invasion, his organization, Islamic Jihad in Jordan, merged with the Al Qaeda terror network, making him one of the most powerful and wanted terrorists in the world.”

The Mole thought for a few beats. “Yes, I remember now. His capture was touted as a major victory in the war against terror.”

“Correct,” Nick said. “The controversy that erupted when word got out that Mohammad required surgery to remove a dangerous cardiac tumor, and that a team of doctors had been assembled for the operation, was intense.”

“I guess there were those who felt the famed Hippocratic Oath phrase ‘Do no harm’ applied to the doctors, but not to the patients,” Mollender said, chuckling at his own humor.

“There were threats made by extremist groups who wanted him saved, and others who wanted him not treated at all,” Nick added. “They promised retaliation against anyone who helped keep Mohammad alive, which they believed would have made it possible for us to torture him some more. That’s why the location where his surgery was scheduled to be performed was kept a closely guarded secret, right up until the day of the operation.”

“According to Nancy Lane at the nursing school,” Jillian said, “a lot of people felt justice had been served when Mohammad died on the operating table that day. Autopsy results indicated he suffered a massive brain aneurysm and subsequent cardiac arrest from chronic high blood pressure.”

“Tough way to go,” Mollender said.

“That’s why we need to see the tape of his operation. Maybe Belle’s death was some sort of retribution for his death, even though it’s hard to understand why they waited three years.”

“But why her?” Nick asked. “Saul, that operation is all we have at the moment. We need to know everything we can about it. I can’t believe you, of all people, don’t have a backup.”

Mollender snickered. “Hence my statement that Fred Johnson is a jackass.”

“What does he have to do with any of this?” Nick asked.

“Before Johnson took over, I would send the DVDs by mail to my friend Noreen Siliski, who runs a disaster recovery business in Sutton, Virginia. She would then copy the files to her servers and mail the DVDs back to me and, bingo, we’d have our backup. Noreen is a wonderful person. Very bright, very unique. We were once quite close. Now we’re just… good friends.”

“You don’t sound so pleased about that.”

“I’m not, really. But like you said, what can you do?”

“Sorry. Can you go on?”

“So when Fred Johnson takes over and sees this minuscule payment we’re giving Noreen each month, the guy decides to flex his muscles, make it a point to the hospital administrators that he’s looking after every nickel and dime. Meanwhile his EMR department is a million over budget. I was told to stop sending backups to Noreen.”