Robin Cook - Foreign Body

Already tense as usual, when Veena had walked into Cal’s office that afternoon, he had magnified her anxiety by ordering her to close the door behind her and sit down on the couch. Fearful of another seduction scene, she’d done as she was asked, but he shocked her with something else entirely. He had told her that he’d learned that day the whole story about her father and how he was extorting her. Stunned and humiliated, Veena was also furious at her best friend, Samira Patel, because she knew instantly it had to have been she who’d revealed Veena’s darkest secret. Samira was a nurse who’d trained with Veena and who’d joined Nurses International along with her. She too wanted to emigrate to the United States, but for a more generic reason. Familiar with the freedoms of the West from images on the Internet, she despised what she considered the restrictions life in India placed on her. She was what she liked to describe as a free spirit.

After Cal had revealed what he knew, Veena had stood up with the idea of fleeing without even thinking of where she would go, but Cal had grabbed her arm and urged her to sit back down. To her surprise, in lieu of blaming her and condemning her as she had always feared, he’d convincingly sympathized with her, and had been angry that she thought she was somehow responsible for her father’s behavior. He’d then gone on to persuade her that he could help her if she’d help him. He’d guaranteed that her father would never again lay a hand on her, her sisters, or her mother. And if he did, he would disappear.

Convinced Cal was being deadly serious, Veena had asked what she was to do for him. Cal had then gone on to explain that the surgical-outcome data they were amassing was proving to be disappointing. The data was too good, and they had come to realize they needed to create some of their own bad data, and he’d told her how they envisioned doing it using succinylcholine. At first Veena had been shocked by the plan, especially since she had no idea why they needed this “bad data,” but the more Cal talked, saying that she would have to do it only once, and that she would be free from her father and able to emigrate without the guilt of putting her sisters and mother at risk, and the more she recognized she would never get such an offer again, she had impulsively decided to cooperate. And not only did she agree to cooperate, she wanted to do it immediately, that very night, lest she think too much about what she was actually doing.

With a renewed sense of determination to get the business over with and a clear idea of the sequence of events she needed to follow, Veena took a deep breath. She then straightened up from where she was leaning against the stairwell wall, opened her eyes, and checked again to be sure the corridor beyond was empty. With tension quickening the pulses in her temples, she started toward the Hernandez room at a brisk walk. No sooner had she taken several steps when one of the evening nurses emerged from the room directly opposite Hernandez’s, bringing Veena to a sudden halt. Luckily for Veena, the nurse was unaware of her presence. Concentrating on the medication tray in her hands, she headed farther down the corridor, away from the nurses’ station. As suddenly as she had appeared, she disappeared into another patient room.

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Veena checked in the direction of the nurses’ station. All was quiet. She hurried on, reaching Hernandez’s door in seconds. Pushing it open, she stepped in and returned the door to its near-shut position. Although the TV was on, the volume was low. The overhead lights were dimmed, causing the corners of the room to be lost in shadow. Veena had no trouble seeing Mrs. Hernandez. The woman was fast asleep, with the head of her bed elevated about forty-five degrees. The fluorescent-like light emanating from the TV dimly illuminated her facial features while leaving her orbits in deep shadow, giving her a ghastly appearance, as if she were already dead.

Thankful the woman was asleep, and wanting the anxiety-producing affair over with as soon as possible, Veena rushed to the bedside, pulling the syringe from her pocket. She was careful not to nudge the noisy, metal bed rails as she reached for the IV line. She was also careful not to pull on it for fear of attracting the patient’s attention and waking her. Holding the IV port in one hand, she used her teeth to remove the needle cover. Then, holding her breath, she inserted the needle. When she could see the needle tip within the lumen of the IV line, she prepared to slowly depress the plunger. Instead, she almost leaped out of her shoes. For no discernible reason, Mrs. Hernandez rolled her head in Veena’s direction and looked up into Veena’s face. A slight smile played across her lips.

“Thank you, dearie,” she said.

Veena felt her blood run cold. Knowing she had to act that instant or she’d never be able to do it, she forcibly depressed the plunger of the syringe, shooting the bolus of succinylcholine into the patient’s bloodstream. What had pushed her over the edge was sudden, inappropriate defensive anger that the woman had the insensitivity not only to wake up but to thank her, apparently thinking Veena was giving her medication to help her.

Although Veena hadn’t seriously thought about what she’d be forced to witness after injecting the paralyzing drug, she was horrified by what she did see. Contrary to a peaceful, cinema-like passing, which had been her general assumption and what Cal had intimated, it was anything but. Within seconds Mrs. Hernandez’s body reacted to the large dose of succinylcholine with rapid fasciculation of her musculature. It started with her facial muscles giving her waves of grotesque facial contortions. Adding to the unexpected horror was the intense fear that clouded her eyes. As her hand lifted in a vain attempt to reach out to Veena for help, it too started to jerk about uncontrollably. And then came a sudden ominous, purple darkness that spread over her face like the shadow that seeps across the face of the moon during a lunar eclipse. Unable to breathe yet fully conscious, Mrs. Hernandez was being rapidly suffocated and turning deeply cyanotic.

Horrified at what she had wrought and wanting nothing more than to flee, Veena was forced by her guilt to remain rooted to her spot and watch her patient’s death throes. Luckily for both it was soon over, and Mrs. Hernandez’s eyes gazed blankly out at eternity.

“What have I done?” Veena whispered. “Why did she have to wake up?”

At last breaking free from her psychologically induced paralysis, Veena turned and raced from the room. Without even thinking of the consequences, she ran headlong down the hall, only vaguely aware that the nurses’ station was still empty. During the day there was always at least a ward clerk, but not in the evening and not at night.

In the elevator Veena was only dimly aware that she was alone. She kept seeing Mrs. Hernandez’s face in all its twitching horror. There were people in the hospital lobby, even a few ambulating patients and their family members, but no one gave Veena a second look. She knew what she had to do, and that was to get away from the hospital as soon as she possibly could.

Outside, the doormen opened the glass doors for her when they saw her coming. They said good evening as she rushed out, but she didn’t respond. Originally, she had planned on leaving through the staff-and-delivery entrance, but now, in her mind, it didn’t matter. As far as she was concerned, whether people saw her or not did not make any difference.

Out in the street Veena hailed one of the yellow-and-green auto rickshaws, which were nothing more than three-wheeled covered scooters with bench backseats and open sides. Veena gave the bungalow’s address in the swank Chanakyapuri section of the city and climbed in. With a sudden jerk the driver took off as if he were joining a race, sounding his horn intermittently, despite the lack of need. Since the traffic had now lessened considerably, they made good time, especially when they reached the residential area of Chanakyapuri. Staring straight ahead during the journey, Veena tried not to think, yet she couldn’t get the violent contortions of Mrs. Hernandez’s face out of her mind’s eye.