TWENTY -FIVE
Dr. Callie Hines was staring at her office wall when the beeper went off.
She had just finished patching up a sixteen-year-old Asian kid with an abdominal knife wound—unusual in Callie's experience, which featured gunshot wounds at the rate of one a day. But this was the rhythm of an emergency room surgeon: crazy energy, stasis, then a beeper. She snatched it out of her pocket.
It was a nine hundred call; whoever they were bringing in was at risk of dying. Rising from her chair, Callie walked briskly to the elevator, a lean black woman with a model's figure, a smooth lineless face, and cool seen-it-all eyes. She had just reached the emergency room area when her cell phone rang.
This was the paramedic team. There had been a mass shooting at SFO; glancing at her watch, Callie envisioned Highway 101 at rush hour. In the background, she could hear the piercing whine of sirens. 'Who's the patient?' Callie asked.
'A six-year-old girl.' The woman's voice was taut. 'It's a Room One case.'
Inwardly, Callie winced. Gunshot wounds for teens were common, but not a child this small; Operating Room One was reserved for patients at death's door. 'What kind of wound?' she asked.
'Abdominal. Her blood pressure's low—we intubated her, applied pressure to the wound, and started an IV.'
'Is she conscious?'
'Yes.' A slight pause. 'This one's a VIP.'
The remark was unusual—the ER was not a status-conscious place. 'A VIP six-year-old?' Callie asked.
'It's Lara Kilcannon's niece. Her mother and one sister died at the scene.'
Callie prided herself on nervelessness; now she drew a breath, calling on her reserves of calm. 'I'll be waiting,' she said.
• • •
'Mr. President.'
Turning, Kerry saw a shadow walking quickly through the sea grass, backlit by the waxing moon above the sand dunes. 'Mr. President,' Peter Lake repeated, more softly now.
Something had happened, Kerry thought; perhaps they had found Al Anwar. He felt Lara's hand clasp his.
* * *
Peter knelt. In the darkness, Lara tensed: though he had called out to Kerry, Peter was looking at her.
'I have bad news.' Peter's face was bleak, his voice hesitant and strained. 'There's been a shooting at SFO. Your mother and Joan are dead.'
'No . . .' For an instant Lara could not see; Kerry's grip tightened, as if to pull her back from some abyss.
'What about Mary?' she asked. 'And Marie?'
Her voice sounded calm, as though someone else had posed the question. 'Mary's all right,' Peter answered, then glanced at Kerry. 'But Marie was wounded. They're taking her to SF General.'
Kerry pulled Lara close. Resistant, she twisted her face toward Peter. 'Was it John?'
'Yes.'
Lara felt her stomach knot, heard the thickness in Kerry's voice. 'Get me the hospital,' he demanded.
* * *
Callie Hines stood near the slick whiteboard, watching a resident enter the name of new patients in Magic Marker. In the last few minutes, she had seen a parade worthy of a Brueghel painting: two prisoners in manacles; a homeless black man with pneumonia; a twenty-year-old Hispanic woman with AIDS, overdosed on heroin; a bipolar white man, HIV positive, who had slashed his wrists; a cocaine addict pregnant with her fourth child, her left arm amputated.
This intake, though heavy, was lighter than in winter—with the chilly rains, the homeless would seek refuge in the waiting room or, in desperation, attempt to hide in the tunnels beneath the hospital. This was no place, Callie thought once more, for those who would close their eyes to pathology and poverty, hopelessness passed down from one generation to the next.
The ambulance bay burst open.
On the gurney lay a small dark-haired girl with tubes in her nose
and throat. She was conscious: her eyes were wide with shock—not simply to her body, Callie thought, but to her spirit, her sense of what the world was.
Callie rushed with her to the trauma room.
* * *
Mary Costello could not think or feel. Her only focus was Marie.
Two cops in a squad car sped her to the hospital. At the door of the emergency ward one of them punched numbered buttons on a panel; the door swung open, and a plump black woman took her to a sterile room with a telephone and pastoral pictures on otherwise bare walls. Mary felt claustrophobic.
'I need to see her,' Mary said.
The social worker took her hand. 'She's already in the trauma room. The prognosis isn't good. They'll have to operate as soon as possible . . .'
'I
The woman appraised her. 'Will you be okay?' she asked.
'Not if I stay here.'
The woman nodded. 'All right,' she said, and led Mary to the trauma room.
* * *
Marie lay on a gurney. She was surrounded by men and women in purple scrubs or white jackets, all wearing masks and leaded aprons; two cylindrical lamps and an X-ray machine extended toward her from the ceiling; a screen monitored her heartbeat. A blonde woman doctor directed the activity; to the side, a handsome, somewhat imperious black woman watched with folded arms.
Marie's bloody clothes were in a paper bag beside the gurney. An anesthesiologist stood at her head, administering oxygen. Marie moaned softly. 'I'll get the morphine,' someone said.
Stunned, Mary tried to absorb this. A young doctor in glasses turned to her. 'You the aunt?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'Do you know who her doctor is, or whether she's taking any medication?'
Helpless, Mary shook her head.
'What about allergies?'
'I don't know.'
He turned away. Beneath the calm, Mary felt the pulse of urgency. 'How much blood out?' the blonde doctor asked.
'About two in the tube, and two on the sheets. Maybe four hundred cc's—half the blood in her body.'
A beeper went off. 'Her pressure's dropping,' someone said.
Marie's moaning ceased. An X ray appeared on the screen; to Mary, the white stain at its center looked like a
