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Authors: Scott Britz-Cunningham
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tiny, but blood flowed through them at high pressure. One nick, and you’ll be staring into a well of blood. Helvelius worked slowly, scraping with a fine probe to separate the purple coils of the AVM from the scar tissue that separated the tumor from the brain. His hands moved smoothly and steadily. He enjoyed these fine, controlled movements, like a scribe laboring over an illuminated manuscript.
Suddenly, the tranquil Gregorian chant was interrupted by the squawk of the overhead speakers. Since the introduction of a wireless paging system, the overhead speakers were rarely used anymore, except for fire drills and the occasional lost patient. Startled by the sound, Dr. Helvelius froze in mid-motion, but the point of his probe did not shift a millimeter. When the interruption was over, he went back to teasing the purplish vessels away from the pinkish-white edge of the brain.
“For Christ’s sake, why do those speakers need to be so loud?” he said. “Can’t we turn them d-down somehow?”
“You say that every time,” said Esther, the scrub nurse. “You know there’s no volume switch, Doctor.”
“Well, I’ll buy dinner at Spiaggia for anyone who puts a bullet through the damned thing.”
Just then, as if to taunt him, the speaker erupted again, seemingly louder than before. “Mr. White, please report to Security. Mr. White, please report to Security.”
“Geez, anybody know where this White character is? I’ll bet he’s out grabbing a smoke in the c-courtyard.”
“It’s a code, Doctor,” said Esther. “There is no Mr. White.”
“A code?”
“A security code. Code White.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kevin O’Day sniggering over his keyboard.
“Right. I should know what that is, shouldn’t I?” Every year, the hospital credentialing commission sent its spies out to randomly quiz staff about security procedures, which even department chairs were expected to memorize. Bureaucratic nonsense! Fire, flood, whatever—his response would be the same: to go on operating. What would they expect him to do? Leave a patient with his head cut open so he could run off and spray a fire extinguisher? Of course not. But this announcement was the real thing, not a drill. Not knowing what it meant annoyed him. “Code White. It’s one of those baby things. Stolen baby. Runaway baby. Baby copping a smoke in the courtyard.”
“No, it’s not a baby,” said Esther. Her eyes flared anxiously above her surgical mask.
“What is it, then?”
At that moment a tiny spray of blood showed that the paper-thin wall of one of the vessels had been breached.
“Bovie, please,” said Helvelius.
Esther slapped a white cauterizer into his hand. He lifted the blood vessel with the probe in his left hand, and gently touched the blunt metal tip of the Bovie to the source of the spray. The current came on, and with it a tiny puff of smoke and steam, and a whiff of cooked tissue, not unlike the smell of frying bacon. The bleeding stopped.
At a nod from Helvelius, Ali rinsed the operating field with saline and then suctioned it clean. Helvelius watched for a moment, to make sure that there was no more bleeding, and then handed the cauterizer back to Esther. He switched the probe back into his right hand and prepared to go on with the dissection.
He took a deep breath, clearing his body of tension. “All right. If Code White isn’t a baby, what is it?” he asked in his former bantering tone.
It was Ali who answered. “It’s a bomb,” she said. Her voice was solemn, muted—almost a whisper. “A bomb in the hospital.”
As if on cue, the CD box was playing the “Dies irae,” the Latin hymn for the dead:
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.
Apart from that, there was utter silence in Operating Room Three.
8:24 A.M.
Harry Lewton was standing in the Pike with Captain Glenn Avery of the police bomb squad. Like the dozen or so hospital security guards and
Suddenly, the tranquil Gregorian chant was interrupted by the squawk of the overhead speakers. Since the introduction of a wireless paging system, the overhead speakers were rarely used anymore, except for fire drills and the occasional lost patient. Startled by the sound, Dr. Helvelius froze in mid-motion, but the point of his probe did not shift a millimeter. When the interruption was over, he went back to teasing the purplish vessels away from the pinkish-white edge of the brain.
“For Christ’s sake, why do those speakers need to be so loud?” he said. “Can’t we turn them d-down somehow?”
“You say that every time,” said Esther, the scrub nurse. “You know there’s no volume switch, Doctor.”
“Well, I’ll buy dinner at Spiaggia for anyone who puts a bullet through the damned thing.”
Just then, as if to taunt him, the speaker erupted again, seemingly louder than before. “Mr. White, please report to Security. Mr. White, please report to Security.”
“Geez, anybody know where this White character is? I’ll bet he’s out grabbing a smoke in the c-courtyard.”
“It’s a code, Doctor,” said Esther. “There is no Mr. White.”
“A code?”
“A security code. Code White.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kevin O’Day sniggering over his keyboard.
“Right. I should know what that is, shouldn’t I?” Every year, the hospital credentialing commission sent its spies out to randomly quiz staff about security procedures, which even department chairs were expected to memorize. Bureaucratic nonsense! Fire, flood, whatever—his response would be the same: to go on operating. What would they expect him to do? Leave a patient with his head cut open so he could run off and spray a fire extinguisher? Of course not. But this announcement was the real thing, not a drill. Not knowing what it meant annoyed him. “Code White. It’s one of those baby things. Stolen baby. Runaway baby. Baby copping a smoke in the courtyard.”
“No, it’s not a baby,” said Esther. Her eyes flared anxiously above her surgical mask.
“What is it, then?”
At that moment a tiny spray of blood showed that the paper-thin wall of one of the vessels had been breached.
“Bovie, please,” said Helvelius.
Esther slapped a white cauterizer into his hand. He lifted the blood vessel with the probe in his left hand, and gently touched the blunt metal tip of the Bovie to the source of the spray. The current came on, and with it a tiny puff of smoke and steam, and a whiff of cooked tissue, not unlike the smell of frying bacon. The bleeding stopped.
At a nod from Helvelius, Ali rinsed the operating field with saline and then suctioned it clean. Helvelius watched for a moment, to make sure that there was no more bleeding, and then handed the cauterizer back to Esther. He switched the probe back into his right hand and prepared to go on with the dissection.
He took a deep breath, clearing his body of tension. “All right. If Code White isn’t a baby, what is it?” he asked in his former bantering tone.
It was Ali who answered. “It’s a bomb,” she said. Her voice was solemn, muted—almost a whisper. “A bomb in the hospital.”
As if on cue, the CD box was playing the “Dies irae,” the Latin hymn for the dead:
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.
Apart from that, there was utter silence in Operating Room Three.
8:24 A.M.
Harry Lewton was standing in the Pike with Captain Glenn Avery of the police bomb squad. Like the dozen or so hospital security guards and
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