Harvest

'Then why is she the only doctor named in the lawsuit?' said Parr.

'I'm the only one?' Abby looked at the attorney. 'What about neurosurgery? The emergency room? No one else was named?'

'Just you, Doctor,' said Susan. 'And your employer. Bayside.' Abby sat back, stunned. 'I don't believe this…'

'Neither do I,' said Wettig. 'This isn't the way it's done and we all know it. Damn lawyers usually take the shotgun approach, name every MD who came within a mile of the patient. There's something wrong here. Something else is going on.'

'It's Victor Voss,' said Abby softly.

'Voss?' Wetfig gave a dismissive wave. 'He has no stake in this case.'

'He's out to ruin me. That's his stake.' She looked around the table. 'Why do you think I'm the only doctor named? Somehow Voss has gotten to JoeTerrio. Convinced him I did something wrong. If I could just talk to Joe-'

'Absolutely not,' said Susan. 'It would be a sign of desperation.

A tipoff to the plaintiff that you know you're in trouble.'

'I am in trouble!'

'No. Not yet. If there's really no malpractice here, it will all blow over sooner or later. Once the panel rules in your favour, chances are, the other side will drop the suit.'

'XXrhat if they insist on going to trial anyway?'

'It would make no sense. The legal expenses alone would-' 'Don't you see, Voss must be footing the bill? He doesn't care about winning or losing! He could pay an army of lawyers, just to keep me running scared. Joe Terrio may be only the first lawsuit. Victor Voss could track down every patient I've ever cared for. Convince every single one of them to file suit against me.'

'And we're her employer. Which means they'll file suit against Bayside as well,' said Parr. He looked ill. Almost as ill as Abby felt.

'There's got to be a way to defuse this,' said Susan. 'Some way to approach MrVoss and cool down the situation.'

No one said anything. But Abby, looking at Parr's face, could read the thought going through his head: The fastest way to cool this down is to fire you.

She waited for the blow to fall, expected it to fall. It didn't. Parr and Susan merely exchanged glances.

Then Susan said, 'We're still early in the game. We have months to manoeuvre. Months to plan a response. In the meantime…' She looked at Abby. 'You'll be assigned counsel by Vanguard Mutual. I suggest you meet with their attorney as soon as possible.You may also consider hiring your own private counsel.'

'Do you think I need to?'

'Yes.'

Abby swallowed. 'I don't know how I'm going to afford to hire an attorney…'

'In your particular situation, Dr. DiMatteo,' said Susan, 'you can't afford not to.'

For Abby, being on call that night was a blessing in disguise. A flurry of calls and pages kept her on the run all evening, attending to everything from a pneumothorax in the medical ICU to a post-op fever in the surgical ward. There was little time for her to brood over Joe Terrio's lawsuit. But every so often, when there was a lull in the phone calls, she would find herself hovering dangerously close to tears. Of all the grieving spouses she'd comforted and counselled, Joe Terrio was the last one she'd expected to sue her. What did I do wrong? she wondered. Could I have been more compassionate? More caring?

Damn it, Joe, what else did you want from me?

Whatever it was, she knew she could not have given more of herself. She'd done the very best job she could have done. And for all her anguish over Karen Terrio, she was being rewarded with a slap in the face.

She was angry now, at the attorneys, at Victor Voss, even at Joe. She felt sorry for Joe Terrio, but she also felt betrayed by him. By the very man whose suffering she had so acutely felt.

At ten o'clock she was finally free to retreat to the on-call room. Too upset to read her journals, too demoralized to talk to anyone, even Mark, she lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Her legs felt paralysed, her whole body lifeless. How the hell do I get through this night, she wondered, when I can't even bring myself to move from this bed?

But move she did when, at ten-thirty, the phone rang. She sat up and reached for the receiver. 'Dr. DiMatteo.'

'This is the OR. Drs Archer and Hodell need you up here.'

'Now?'

'ASAE They've got a case brewing.'

'I'll be there.' Abby hung up. Sighing, she ran both her hands through her hair. Any other time, any other evening, she'd already be on her feet and faring to scrub. Tonight she could barely stand the thought of facing Mark and Archer across an operating table. Damn it, you're a surgeon, DiMatteo. So act like one.t It was self disgust that finally propelled her to her feet and out of the call room.

She found Mark and Archer upstairs in the surgeons' lounge. They were standing by the microwave, their voices lowered in quiet conversation. She knew, just by the way their heads jerked up as she entered, that their conversation was meant to be private. But the instant they saw her, both of them smiled.

'There you are,' said Archer. 'All quiet in the trenches?'

'For the moment,' said Abby. 'I hear you two have a case coming up.'

'Transplant,' said Mark. 'The team's coming in now. Trouble is, we can't get hold of Mohandas. A fifth-year resident's going to be standing in for him, but we may need you to assist as well. Feel up to scrubbing in?'

'On a heart transplant?' The quick shot of adrenalin was exactly what Abby needed to shake off her depression. She gave Mark an emphatic nod. 'I'd be thrilled.'

'There's only one small problem,' said Archer. 'The patient is NinaVoss.'

Abby stared at him. 'They found her a heart so soon?'

'We got lucky. The heart's coming in from Burlington. Victor Voss would probably have a stroke if he knew we were using you. But we're calling the shots right now. And we may need another pair of hands in that OR. On such short notice, you're the obvious choice.'

'Are you still up for it?' asked Mark.

Abby didn't even hesitate. 'Absolutely,' she said.

'OK,' said Archer. 'Looks like we got our assistant.' He nodded to Mark. 'Meet you both in OR 3. Twenty minutes.'

At 11.30 p.m., they got the call from the thoracic surgeon at Wilcox Memorial Hospital in Burlington, Vermont. The donor harvest was completed; the organ appeared to be in excellent shape and was being rushed to the airport. Preserved at four degrees centigrade, its beating temporarily paralysed by a concentrated potassium flush, the heart could be kept viable for only four to five hours. Without blood flow to the coronary arteries, every minute that passed — ischemic time — could result in the death of a few more myocardial cells. The longer the ischemic time, the less likely the heart would function in NinaVoss's chest.

The flight, by emergency charter, was expected to take a maximum of an hour and a half.

By midnight, the Bayside Hospital transplant team was assembled and dressed in surgical greens. Along with Bill Archer, Mark, and anaesthesiologist Frank Zwick, there was a small army of support staff: nurses, a perfusion technician, cardiologist Aaron Levi, and bby.

Nina Voss was wheeled to OR 3.

At one-thirty, the call came in from Logan International: the plane had landed safely.

That was the cue for the surgeons to head to the scrub area. As Abby washed her hands at the sink, she could look through the window into OR 3, where the rest of the transplant team was already busy with preparations. The nurses were laying out instrument trays and tearing open packets of sterile drapes. The perfusionist was re-calibrating the cabinet-like bypass machine. A fifth-year resident, already scrubbed in, stood by waiting to prep the surgical site.

On the operating table, at the centre of a tangle of EKG wires and IV lines, lay Nina Voss. She seemed oblivious to the activity around her. Dr. Zwick stood at Nina's head, murmuring to her gently as he injected a bolus of pentobarb into her IV line. Her eyelids flickered shut. Zwick placed the mask over her mouth and nose. With the