Mercy 6 (12 page)

Mendenhall knew Cabral was dead. She knew from the waking dream. This realization was what that two-second dream was about.

But it was hard to get her body to work. She had no grip. She needed to focus just to turn her wrist, to see her watch. She had slept for three hours, a stunning amount for her in the ER.

Dread sharpened her logic. If she stepped out there to do her job, to take charge, chances were high that ID would quarantine her, connecting her with Cabral, Meeks. If she left the ER along the periphery of the bay, took the elevator somewhere quiet—like Physical Therapy—only Mullich would find her. She would have to go into hiding. The only way she could survive that emotionally would be to stay involved in these cases. That involvement would reveal her.

Thorpe was the unknown factor. How accurate was her

assessment of him? Was he power or science, more paper than blood? How strongly did she believe her claims about him, the ones she had voiced to Claiborne and Mullich, that he was paper? That he needed her science, their science, their blood work?

Undecided, she slid through the curtain opposite the commotion.

She knew all of the bay's blind spots, every crease. Pao Pao spotted her immediately but said nothing. Mendenhall raised a staying hand. The nurse stood along the inner circle surrounding Cabral.

Again, that series of Busby Berkeley dancers swayed this way and that, people afraid but wanting to see. There were more ID people than Mendenhall had expected, purple and done up as surgeons, none of them where they were supposed to be. Only Pao Pao was positioned correctly, ready for orders. Dmir stood in the second circle, hesitating.

Cabral had not even been transferred to a gurney. Someone had spun his bed into the bay. The brakes were still set on one of the wheels, and so his bed angled in throwaway position, his body uncovered. His hands were clasped beneath his chin as he curled on his side, a child saying bedtime prayers. His eyes were open. She could tell from across the bay. The curtains and rods of his stall lay collapsed, ruined by panic.

Mendenhall spied the nurse who must have found him. She was slouched in the third layer, peeking around Dmir. At least have the courage to run, thought Mendenhall; at least have the decency.

Mendenhall shifted into another crease, maintaining the same distance. Pao Pao checked her.

Mendenhall sensed her about to move in. None of the purples from ID advanced. Once a man had been thrown into the bay, a drunk who had fallen asleep hitchhiking in the middle of a night highway, had gotten caught beneath a speeding semi and been filed down by the friction of the asphalt, the half of him that remained still somehow alive, the one arm pumping, the one eye looking in wonder. No one had moved to him. Mendenhall had to break from a patient to go to him, to get to his last breath, such as it was. Never bring your fury with you, her mentor had advised.

She measured the distance to Cabral. She took a breath, the filling kind right before a run, getting oxygen to the muscles, relaxing nerves into readiness. She donned gloves, the snap turning heads. She stepped out of hiding and cut through the circles. She took the opportunity to hard-shoulder someone from ID as she passed, digging her forearm into the purple garb.

Pao Pao waited until Mendenhall had driven through the final circle, then moved with her. The nurse pulled up her mask, offered a fresh one to Mendenhall. Mendenhall let her tie it as she bent toward Cabral.

She pressed her fingers to Cabral's carotid, knowing there'd be nothing. “Temp,” she ordered.

Pao Pao slipped a disposable thermometer into Cabral's mouth. It rattled on his teeth, the nurse's jab kind and relentless.

Mendenhall called time of death and pointed to three ID people.

“You, you, and you, get him on a gurney and get him to Path. Warn them.”

As they moved, Mendenhall crouched closer to Cabral, rested a hand on his shoulder. She looked at his face. His expression was in a dream, a knowing dream. From behind, she heard Dmir clearing his throat, popping forward.

“I—”

“You,” she said turning to Dmir, catching him directly with the first shot of her glance. “Take it to Thorpe.”

She had very little hope of keeping Cabral with Claiborne. But maybe for a few minutes she could get him there, in that right place for him, in that decent and distilled air. What he deserved.

If it was airborne, they were all as safe as was possible; Cabral had stopped breathing long ago. If it was fluids, there was no added risk. No one was touching him. But she knew that it was neither of these. She could put her tongue to Cabral's tongue. She could drink his blood. That was how strongly Mendenhall knew what she knew at this moment. She brushed the young man's thinning hair across his temple and around his ear, then stood back. She eyed his whole form and tried to gauge where the pattern of occlusion would be, where it had slanted through muscle and capillary, roiled through nerves.

She took two steps back and gave herself to ID, to whatever would take her. She bowed her head and shook her arms, elbows loose, run finished. Dream over.

Nothing and no one took her. She made one more backstep, anticipated a hand on her shoulder. There was nothing, and she swayed. The ID people were following her orders, though Dmir now stood in charge. He was on his cell, not looking her way.

If Cabral was to make it down to Path, it would only be for a quick pass. She had very little time. And Thorpe could still send her to Q. She had messed up with Meeks and in an even bigger way, it seemed, with Cabral. Her position was extremely weak. Thorpe might have liked it that way; better having her loose rather than sealed.

She looked for the nurse who had found Cabral. She scanned the creases in the bay, the first blind spots nearest the station. She moved to cut off the nurse in the path toward the elevators. How smart could she be? How frightened?

Mendenhall would have liked nothing better than to have her sequestered and taken to Q, pushed behind glass and strapped to a bed. She could picture the nurse finding Cabral, her silent scream within the curtains, the panic that had made her shove the bed through the stall, one brake still locked, the bed spiraling away from her, twisting her wrists. Abandoning him to another's scream.

She closed her eyes and inhaled. The nurse stopped when Mendenhall appeared, took one sidestep. Mendenhall eyed her name tag, raised her hands.

“Nurse Amihan. Get us some coffee. My desk. One minute.”

Amihan got there faster. The cups shook in her hands. Mendenhall stood at the opening to her cubicle and motioned for her to set down the coffees.

“Have a seat.” She offered the only chair in the cubicle.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Her accent was heavy, even with this simple phrase.

“Everyone's shaking right now. Just sit. Just don't spill anything.”

Amihan sat and looked at her lap, her hands twisting there. She was young. Her hair was black and straight, a shine to it.

“Were you in Manila? Before here?”

She nodded, still looking down.

“Did you know Cabral there?”

She shook her head.

“Try to speak.”

“No, Doctor. He was here before me.”

“But you knew him.”

She nodded.

Mendenhall tapped her lips.

“Yes, Doctor. A little.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Tell you what?”

“Just something. Was he funny? Did he tell jokes? Did he smile?

Was he quick?”

“Yes. He made little jokes. Little faces. He was quick. He made little—jokes—with his hands.”

Mendenhall squinted. “Jokes with his hands?”

“Like this.” Amihan fashioned her hand into a beak and made talking motions.

“Hand puppets.”

“Yes. Those. But on the wall.”

Mendenhall smiled. “Shadow puppets.”

“Yes. He talked for them but without moving his lips.”

“Good.” She checked her watch. “Now, just one more thing.

Then I'll leave you alone. How was his posture?”

“Posture?”

“His shoulders?” asked Mendenhall. “Did he keep them straight?

When he moved quick?”

“Yes, Doctor. He made them straight. Always straight. Tried to look tall, maybe.”

Mendenhall hurried from the cubicle, left the nurse without word or wave. It was the only torture she had time for, the only one she could imagine.

Silva was waiting for her in the Pathology hall. The tech's mask hung loose about her throat. She stood before the closed door.

There was an invitation to her stance, an angling toward the handle, exposing it. She lifted her chin—too high.

“How furious is he?”

“You are not to be let in.”

Mendenhall neared Silva, was careful to relax her expression.

“He must be curious.”

Silva looked perplexed.

“Why not just lock the door? Why not just listen to me push the buzzer, bang on it?” Mendenhall raised her chin, level with Silva's brow. “Why have
you
out here?”

“To avoid unnecessary contact with Cabral.”

“But right
here
,” said Mendenhall. “He told you to stay right here, no?”

Silva nodded once, then twice.

“Then he's curious.” Mendenhall wanted to be more graceful, to ease her way through the exchange. Silva—her intelligence, its devotion—soothed her. But she felt a press from above, ID buzzing about the ER, coming down to take Cabral.

“Ask him to let me in if I can guess the occlusion, its location and position.”

“I have orders not to do that.”

“Then go in and tell him. Just walk in and say, ‘Renal membrane to gluteal. Through the pelvis. No major vessels.”

Silva flinched, a pretty inhale, gathering.

“Come on, Silva. Just do that. He'll be disappointed if you don't.

If there's no try.”

Silva applied her mask, opened the door, which wasn't locked, and went in. Mendenhall could only hear the sound of Silva's voice, not the words. She could hear the effort, pulses of forced volume.

Then silence, nothing from Claiborne.

Silva came back out, mask still covering her nose and mouth.

There was hope in this; she was going right back inside. “Which side and which direction?”

Mendenhall recalled Cabral's position on the bed. He had rested on his right side. So left, he had been favoring his left, whether he knew it or not. The direction? Up or down? At about seven twenty, when the others had fallen, had he been standing or sitting or lying down or crouching to make shadow puppets on the bay wall?

“Left side. From renal membrane—but not the kidney, not even grazing the kidney—down through pelvis.” Almost confident of the location, she was guessing the direction, going with her initial claim, which had not been thought out. She guessed that Claiborne was testing her doubt. Mendenhall was all doubt, every word weighted with it.

“Okay, come in.” Silva drew mask and gloves from her lab coat and handed them to Mendenhall.

When Mendenhall entered the lab, Claiborne was extracting marrow from Cabral's left pelvis. Cabral was naked and positioned symmetrically on the steel bed, arms open, legs open. She knew not to speak and took the seat arranged for her, a stool with wheels locked. She was careful with her posture, mimicking Silva's straightness as best she could, the level shoulders.

Claiborne continued the extraction as he spoke, mask pumping.

“Six dead, four at once, maybe one later, one more definitely later.

What does that indicate?”

Mendenhall did not hesitate. “Infection.”

Claiborne nodded for Silva to approach the body. The tech began entering readings on her tablet. The readings appeared on an overhead screen beneath a figure of a digital scan revealing the tornadic occlusion through Cabral's left pelvis.

This was what Mendenhall needed most, to see Cabral in this light, caressed by this air, saved from the humiliation in the ER. She saw his first name on the overhead screen. Albert. Albert Cabral.

Claiborne was scowling as he worked, his dark brow furrowed into his mask, eyes aglare. But maybe that was from the extraction, the precision and force required to needle into the pelvis. From her stool Mendenhall examined the overhead screen. The occlusion appeared in the marrow but not the bone.

“What are you thinking, Doctor?”

Mendenhall started. She should have been ready with her phrasing. Maybe this was what she wanted also, what she needed in getting here with Cabral, Claiborne, and Silva. Focus, a hard external counter to her doubt.

“I'm thinking it . . . the infection . . . burst in all six at the same time—about the same time.”

Silva stopped entering data, looked at Mendenhall. Claiborne kept working.

“Meeks collapsed against warm metal, affecting temp and rigor.

Maybe,” Claiborne said. “But Cabral here? He survived. Why? No major organs?”

“No,” replied Mendenhall. “He didn't survive.”

Now Silva dropped her arms and looked at Claiborne, perhaps awaiting orders to escort Mendenhall out.

“Explain.”

“Neurogenic shock. He was walking dead.”

Claiborne wagged his head as he focused on the final draw of the extraction. He treated Cabral as living, feeling, removing the needle with a graceful push-pull, push-pull.

“You've never seen it,” Mendenhall told him. “Only in charts, written. Neurogenic shock.
I've
seen it. Many times. I should have seen it in Cabral.”

“You're stretching again.” Claiborne sealed the extraction in the syringe, carefully snapped the needle into a disposal bag, and handed the sample to Silva. “You're fighting.”

“I did see it in Cabral. I just didn't register it. I should've registered it. If I'd known him . . .”

“Stop.” Claiborne gazed upward. “We're out of time. You need to leave here before ID shows up. They catch you here, you're done.