as the Neurology Surgery Center, but Evan's surgery had possibly been months before, and he was now probably somewhere among these fifteen thousand beds, recovering or in rehab.
How did Nolan propose to find Evan without asking directions, and without calling attention to himself? And then, once found, how did he propose to kill him, especially if-as seemed likely if overflow gurneys here in Neurology were any indication-he was in a room with other patients?
Of course, he could eliminate them all. Collateral damage was inevitably part of the equation in any military strike. But this wasn't Iraq, where he could simply disappear without a trace. Here, potential witnesses would have to inform him of Evan's location. Staff members or nurses might be mandated to accompany him if he visited any of the patients.
Beyond that, and perhaps most significantly, Nolan had to consider that Lieutenant Evan Scholler wasn't some raghead nobody shop owner in Baghdad. If he were the victim of a murder here at Walter Reed, every aspect of Evan's life would come under the microscope, including the incident in Masbah, the scrutiny for which Nolan had thus far managed to evade. The authorities would find a reason to talk to Tara, and that would eventually, inevitably, lead back to him.
Bottom line: it was mission impossible.
'Excuse me.' A young woman in a pressed khaki uniform smiled up at him. 'You look a little lost. Can I help direct you somewhere?'
Nolan's face relaxed into a smile. 'I'm afraid I'm having some trouble finding a friend of mine, one of your patients.'
'You're not the first person that's happened to,' she said. 'I've got a directory over at the reception desk that is marginally up to date, if you'd like to come follow me.'
He started walking next to her. 'Only marginally up to date?'
Rueful, she nodded. 'I know, but we're so slammed lately, sometimes it takes the computer a while to catch up.'
'That darned computer,' Nolan said.
'I know. But we're trying. The good news is if he's not where the computer says he is, at least there they'll probably know where he went.'
'That would be good news.'
'You're being sarcastic,' she said, 'and I don't really blame you. But believe me, good news around here is scarce enough. You take it where you can get it.' They arrived at the reception desk. 'Now, your friend,' she said. 'What's his name?'
'Smith,' Nolan said. 'First initial
Evan Scholler stared out at the falling snow.
He had either been asleep or didn't remember when it happened, but somebody had tacked up some Christmas decorations on the wall. There was a tree and those animals that flew and pulled Santa's sled-he couldn't remember what they were called, but he was sure the name would come to him someday. Then there was Frosty the Snowman-he remembered Frosty and even the song about him, sung by that guy with the big nose. They'd also hung up by the door one of those round things made out of evergreen branches and ornaments.
It was making him crazy. He knew what objects were. He just often couldn't remember what they were called.
What he did recognize as a real memory was that he was in his third room since he'd arrived at Walter Reed. His first stop for about ten days had been the Intensive Care Unit, where he'd mostly been unconscious, and about which he had little recollection except that while he was there, he was unwilling to believe that he wasn't still in Baghdad. It didn't seem possible that he could have gone from squatting next to his Humvee in Masbah directly to the ICU here.
Of course, that wasn't what had happened. His speech and language therapist, Stephan Ray, had made his physical and mental journey a kind of a recognition game that he'd memorized as part of his therapy. His first stop after Masbah had been to a combat support hospital in Balad, which was where they took out a piece of his skull. The operation, which gave his brain room to swell, was called a craniectomy-remembering that word had been one of Evan's first major successes in therapy. When he'd gotten it right, repeating it back to Stephan the day after he'd learned it, Stephan had punched his fist in the air and predicted that he was going to recover.
What the doctors did next, still in Balad, was pretty cool. They'd taken the piece of his skull that they'd cut out and put it into a kind of a pouch they cut into his abdomen. He could still feel it in there, a little bigger than the size of a silver dollar-they were going to put it back where it belonged in his head in the next month or so, when his brain had healed sufficiently.
From Balad, they'd evidently flown him to Landstuhl in Germany, where after a quick evaluation they decided to get him here to Walter Reed.
His second room here was in Ward 58, the Neuroscience Unit. His mom and dad told him that for his first days there, the doctors more or less left him alone while the Army decided if he was eligible for benefits. He didn't understand that-eventually they had worked it out-but nevertheless he had nothing but good memories of the ward because this is where he had met Stephan. Though Evan hadn't had a clear sense of where he was or what had happened to him, in fact his therapist was there to explain things and pull him through some of the tougher, disorienting times.
Basically, what they did in those first days was play games, do flash cards and puzzles and simple math exercises. Neither Stephan nor his doctors seemed to understand exactly why, but Evan's progress was surprisingly rapid, far better than that of most of the other soldiers who were in here for head wounds. After only about a week in the ward, they moved him again to the room he currently occupied, on the fourth floor above the Pediatric ICU.
There were nineteen J. Smiths at Walter Reed, but only one with traumatic brain injury similar to Evan's. The nice nurse/receptionist at Neurological Surgery checked her monitor at the desk and told Nolan that his friend was listed as being in Ward 58, the post-op Neuroscience Unit, but that if he was still under observation there-it was only one step removed from the ICU-she didn't think he would be allowed to see visitors.
'That can't be right,' Nolan said. 'I know his mom and dad have already been in to see him.' He gave her a warm smile. 'Why do I sense computer issues again?'
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I told you it might take a little patience.'
He kept smiling, relaxed. 'Patience is my middle name. Is there someplace they send brain injury patients when they're starting to get a little better, after this Ward Fifty-eight?'
She screwed her lips in frustration. 'I don't really know. But wait.' Picking up the telephone, she leaned down to read something from the computer monitor, then punched in some numbers. 'Hi. This is Iris Simms at Neurosurgery reception. I've got a guest here to visit one of your patients, Jarrod Smith, and the computer's still got him in your unit, and the guest doesn't think he could still be there. In which case, where would he be?'
She covered the phone and conveyed the message to Nolan. 'There's a lot of overflow, but they're saying maybe you could check the upper floors of the Pediatric ICU building, but wait…'
She raised a finger, went back to listening. 'He is? Oh, I see. But I understand his parents were able to see him.' She waited for the reply. 'Okay, thank you. I'll let him know.'
Hanging up, shaking her head in continued frustration, she came back to Nolan. 'I'm afraid Jarrod is still in Ward Fifty-eight, but they say he's still pretty incoherent. And they don't allow nonfamily guests in that unit. I'm sorry.'
'Nothing to be sorry about,' Nolan said. 'You gave it a good try. I'll call first before I come next time. Thanks for all your help.'
'No problem,' she said, 'anytime.'
