Michael Palmer - The Last Surgeon

“Just please give us your cell number and pick up if you see it’s me or Jillian calling. Also, stay very aware of your surroundings and remain extra vigilant. We’re trying to contact a detective we know in D.C.”

“I appreciate the visit. I’ll pick up if you call.”

“We tried to reach you a bunch of times on the way over here, but you didn’t answer. You had us a little worried.”

“Long night last night. I was sleeping with the ringer off. That’s why the hospital called me on my cell.”

Nick and Pendleton quickly exchanged numbers.

“Call me if anything comes up,” Nick said. “Otherwise, I’ll call you as soon as we have more information to share.”

“Sure,” Pendleton replied, his tone still tinged with disbelief, “do that. One last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Why has it taken three years for all this horrible stuff to start happening?”

Jillian and Nick exchanged looks and shrugged.

“We don’t know” was all they could say.

ROGER PENDLETON hated rushing into a case-especially a transplant. Experience had taught him that mistakes happened when protocols were shortcut or skipped altogether for the sake of expedience. Often, there wasn’t enough time to review the patient’s medical record properly. Certainly today, time was a luxury that a twenty-year-old kid, his heart failing rapidly, could not aff ord.

Instead of contemplating the shocking revelations about the Aleem Syed Mohammad operation from three years ago, Pendleton was thinking about his cardiopulmonary bypass setup. This operation would mark only the sixth time he had used the new machine that featured a centrifugal pump, an advance over the roller pump he had used for so long.

Not many knew the stress involved with being a perfusionist. Keeping blood out of the surgical field was one part of the job. In addition, he was the patient’s lifeline, controlling oxygenation and balancing any number of fluids. For all his world-be-damned, carefree attitude, Pendleton was almost maniacal about maintaining his equipment.

He trotted up the carpeted staircase to his bedroom to grab the gym bag he would need for his ritual post-op workout.

He wondered if his surprise visitors could be anything but kooks. Doubtful, he decided. When they could explain the three-year gap from the operation to the killings, assuming they were killings, he might take them more seriously.

He was on his way back down the stairs when they rang the bell again. Pendleton really didn’t have any more patience for them, even if they had thought of something more persuasive.

“Listen, we’ll have to talk later,” he was saying as he swung open the front door. “Right now I really have to-”

A tall, uniformed man from his gas company smiled politely, said his name, and held out his ID.

“Oh jeez!” Pendleton said, holding his hand over his hammering heart and laughing at himself. “You startled me. I thought you were the people who just left here.”

“Sorry about that,” the man said, his eyes shadowed by the bill of his cap. “I actually think I saw them go. I startle lots of folks when I have to make a house call.”

“Well, I was a little jumpy. The people who just left were telling me I had to be careful.”

The man chuckled. “Actually, that’s why I’m here,” he said. “It’s about your gas leak.”

Pendleton sniff ed the air. “I think you have the wrong place. I don’t have a gas leak.”

“No, not yet you don’t.”

That was when Roger Pendleton looked down and saw that the man was holding a gun.

Jillian suggested they use the time before Nick’s EMDR therapy session to grab a drink and something to eat and plan their next steps. They settled on Kilkenny’s Irish Pub in the Adams Morgan section of D.C., arriving there just after noon. The cozy tavern, paneled in dark barn siding, was crowded with businesspeople enjoying a Guinness with their lunch, along with those Nick pegged as regulars, some of whom sat at the bar watching an international soccer match on TV, while others were engaged in an animated game of darts. The jukebox was off and traditional Irish music, piped through an impressive sound system, provided a pleasant background.

Relaxed.

Simple.

Life.

They sat down beside each other at the end of the bar, where two of the dozen worn and scratched wooden stools were empty. Passing on the lunch menu offered by the bartender, Nick ordered a Glenlivet neat and Jillian an Amstel Light in the bottle. Their lives at that moment were as far removed from those of the folks in the homey pub as the Earth was from Mars.

Nick took a sip of the single malt scotch whisky from a reasonably clean tumbler, letting it linger in his mouth until the taste demanded that he swallow. Then he stared numbly ahead at the liquor bottles, housed inside cubbies built into the wall behind the bar. Jillian touched his hand and he turned slowly to meet her gaze.

“A bar snack for your thoughts,” she said, smiling as she nudged over a black plastic dish filled with pretzels.

Nick took one, but offered only a thin smile in return.

“What do you think these people would say if they knew the depravity of what we’re confronting?” he asked finally.

“If they believed us, and that’s a big if, they’d probably say something like, ‘As long as it doesn’t affect me directly, and I can go on tossing my darts and drinking my stout, do whatever it is you need to do.’ ”

“We’ve come so far from when we first met, Jill, and yet I feel so incredibly helpless. You know, Pendleton thought we were crazy.”

“I know. He seems like a good guy, though.”

“Yup. Maybe we’ll hear from Reese before something happens to him.”

“Do you want to try the Mole again? Maybe he’s come up with something on the resident or medical student.”

“Nah, he said he was going to stick around with Noreen at her place and keep looking. He’ll call if he comes up with anything.”

“I know what you mean about feeling helpless. What did Junie say when you told her?”

“She was stunned, naturally. I don’t think it’s hit her yet that Umberto is dead and that somebody killed him in such a horrid, self-serving way.”

“Has it hit you ?”

The question pulled Nick’s head down until his eyes met the gritty floor. He looked up long enough to take a hard swallow of his drink, which he downed in a single gulp. Then he closed his eyes tightly, clenching his fists against the burn of the alcohol spilling down his throat, and against the evil.

“None of this is your fault,” Jillian said softly.

“Believe it or not, I’ve come to grips with that. What I’m angry at now is my own rage. I was put together to care for people, regardless of who they were or what they might have done in their lives. Now I want to kill someone. Maybe anyone. I really do.”

“Which would you take at this moment, your rage or the total lack of feeling you’ve had for so long? It’s all changing for you, Nick.”

“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m going to tell you something that scares the bejesus out of me.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I think you may be the most amazing man I’ve ever met. Somebody I’m really capable of falling for. Someone I think I would have fallen for in a heartbeat before… before what happened to you in Afghanistan. But I want the next time I fall in love with a man to be the last. I don’t need you to have arrived at the person-at the doctor-you’re capable of being. I just need to know you’re committed to making the journey. You can’t go on hiding your emptiness behind your charm. A doctor loses a patient. Do they quit being a doctor?”