shoulder. He was hopping around in a circle, trying to wiggle on a sneaker.
As Pendleton wrestled the sneaker onto his foot, he lost hold of his phone, which dropped to the hardwood floor with a sharp crack.
“If you’re recruiting me for your church, I’m going to be really pissed!” he snapped, bending down to retrieve the phone. “Jerry? Jerry, you still there? Shit, that’s just great.”
“We’re sorry to bother you.”
The man hesitated, taking in a deep breath.
“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault I’m a klutz. I’m running late and the guy on the phone was telling me where I needed to have been twenty minutes ago. Sorry if I raised my voice at you guys. Phone still seems to be working, though, so I’ll call him back. Just hang on, or else leave if you’re going to try and cost me money.”
His composure regained, Pendleton placed his call and learned what he needed to about the emergency case waiting for him at Shelby Stone. The perfusionist was a trim, balding man in his early thirties, and struck Nick as an athlete.
“Roger Pendleton?” Jillian asked.
“Yeah. That’s me. Look, I’m really in a hurry, guys. There’s a transplant going down. So if you’re selling something, especially God, just assume I’ve got one already, okay?”
Nick stepped forward.
“Roger, I’m Dr. Nick Garrity, a surgeon working with the Helping Hands medical van. This is my friend, Jillian Coates. She’s a psych nurse at Shelby Stone.”
Pendleton seemed to soften at that.
“Okay, what’s up? Not often a tech like me gets paid a house call. Not ever, actually.”
“I know you’re in a hurry, but we need to talk. It could be a matter of life or death.”
“Yeah? Alas, so is the operation if I don’t make it in to the hospital. I’m on backup and the guy on duty is tied up, and word is a heart’s come in.”
“When we say matter of life or death, we mean yours,” Nick said. “We really need to talk. Can you get anyone else to go in for you?”
Pendleton studied Nick’s face and his expression darkened.
“No, I can’t get anyone to go in,” he said. “How many backups do you think we have? Okay, okay. I’m sorry to sound snippy. I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, but I can give you two minutes.”
Standing just inside the open doorway, Nick relayed what they knew of the identity switch in the OR three years ago, and the fact that over recent months, six of the ten people who were there for the disaster had died suddenly. Then he handed over a copy of the DVD recording the events.
When Nick finished, Pendleton stared down at the disc, a deep furrow across his brow.
“So you’re saying that I’m on somebody’s kill list?”
“There’s nothing else to believe, Roger,” Jillian said.
“Well, I stopped in and met Mohammad the evening before the case. I try and do that with all my patients. His photo had been all over the papers. I promise you that was him in his room that night, and him on the table the next day, and him who went berserk and flew into my equipment, and him who died.”
“Six out of nine medical personnel are dead, including my sister, Belle,” Jillian said patiently. “We believe the man responsible for the OR death, if not all of them, was number ten-one of the two who wheeled the patient in. We are absolutely certain that the victim in the operating room that day wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
Pendleton checked his watch.
“Look, I don’t know whether you two know what you’re talking about or not, but I do know I’ve got to finish getting dressed and get to the hospital.”
“You sure you don’t have just a few minutes to watch that video?” Nick asked. “It will convince you.”
“I don’t need to watch anything to remember that day. That sort of thing you don’t forget. All I can tell you, and I probably shouldn’t even be doing that, is that after it was over, I was called into my boss’s office. There were a couple suits waiting there to speak with me. They told me what had just happened was a matter of national security and that I was to tell nobody about anything I had seen. They made me sign a paper stating just that, and warned that if I spoke about the case, I could lose my job or even face prison time. They gave me a name to refer any reporters to, but I have no idea where that is. Otherwise, I’d refer you to them. Look, just give me your card and I’ll get you the name. But I gotta leave.”
Jillian shot Nick a concerned look. “That would explain why Belle never told me much about the operation.”
“Look, I appreciate the warning,” Pendleton said, “but I have to get to the hospital right away. I’m not sure I can even talk with you about this case without risking my job and God only knows what else. Why don’t you tell me quickly what you think I’m supposed to do now, and I’ll think it over?”
“Just please give us your cell number and pick up if you see it’s me or Jillian calling. Also, stay very aware of your surroundings and remain extra vigilant. We’re trying to contact a detective we know in D.C.”
“I appreciate the visit. I’ll pick up if you call.”
“We tried to reach you a bunch of times on the way over here, but you didn’t answer. You had us a little worried.”
“Long night last night. I was sleeping with the ringer off. That’s why the hospital called me on my cell.”
Nick and Pendleton quickly exchanged numbers.
“Call me if anything comes up,” Nick said. “Otherwise, I’ll call you as soon as we have more information to share.”
“Sure,” Pendleton replied, his tone still tinged with disbelief, “do that. One last thing.”
“Yes?”
“Why has it taken three years for all this horrible stuff to start happening?”
Jillian and Nick exchanged looks and shrugged.
“We don’t know” was all they could say.
ROGER PENDLETON hated rushing into a case-especially a transplant. Experience had taught him that mistakes happened when protocols were shortcut or skipped altogether for the sake of expedience. Often, there wasn’t enough time to review the patient’s medical record properly. Certainly today, time was a luxury that a twenty- year-old kid, his heart failing rapidly, could not aff ord.
Instead of contemplating the shocking revelations about the Aleem Syed Mohammad operation from three years ago, Pendleton was thinking about his cardiopulmonary bypass setup. This operation would mark only the sixth time he had used the new machine that featured a centrifugal pump, an advance over the roller pump he had used for so long.
Not many knew the stress involved with being a perfusionist. Keeping blood out of the surgical field was one part of the job. In addition, he was the patient’s lifeline, controlling oxygenation and balancing any number of fluids. For all his world-be-damned, carefree attitude, Pendleton was almost maniacal about maintaining his equipment.
He trotted up the carpeted staircase to his bedroom to grab the gym bag he would need for his ritual post-op workout.
He wondered if his surprise visitors could be anything but kooks. Doubtful, he decided. When they could explain the three-year gap from the operation to the killings, assuming they were killings, he might take them more seriously.
He was on his way back down the stairs when they rang the bell again. Pendleton really didn’t have any more patience for them, even if they had thought of something more persuasive.
“Listen, we’ll have to talk later,” he was saying as he swung open the front door. “Right now I really have to-”
A tall, uniformed man from his gas company smiled politely, said his name, and held out his ID.
“Oh jeez!” Pendleton said, holding his hand over his hammering heart and laughing at himself. “You startled me. I thought you were the people who just left here.”
“Sorry about that,” the man said, his eyes shadowed by the bill of his cap. “I actually think I saw them go. I startle lots of folks when I have to make a house call.”
