Deadly Errors (24 page)

Approaching the basement door they slid on thin latex gloves before the taller of the two pulled from his pocket a cheap metal ring holding two keys. In the dim moonlight he selected one key and slipped it into the lock. The door clicked open, automatically triggering a hall light. They quickly stepped inside and quietly shut the door and stood still, listening for sounds of someone in the basement storage area. Quiet. Satisfied, they moved forward.

To their left, a fire door opened into a stairwell. They entered and climbed steadily to the fifth floor. Although both men pumped iron and jogged at least two hours a day, they stopped on the landing to slow their breathing and make one final check. The same key that opened the outside door opened this one. Door cracked, they listened for hallway sounds. The target’s unit was one door down the hall to the right. Having gone through the same drill yesterday while the owner was at work they slipped adroitly inside the unit within seconds of leaving the stairwell.

With the target’s front door now closed behind them the short entranceway into the living room was completely dark. They deftly removed penlights from their packs and waited for their eyes to accommodate. The penlight bulbs had been changed to red, reducing the risk of light reflecting off windows or, worse, being seen by the target. They remained in place for two minutes, their eyes adapting to the darkness before flicking on the lights. The soft hum of air conditioning became the only sound. The apartment carried the smell of fried cube steak, probably from earlier this evening.

They crept forward.

The telephone rang.

From the direction of the bedroom came a sleep laden, “Hello,” followed by a gruff, “Wrong number.”

The lead man hand signaled retreat. Both men sank back into the dark entrance alcove.

Next came the padding of bare feet. A moment later the sound of water hitting water, then a toilet flush. Another few seconds and the condo interior again became silent.

They settled down to wait.

W
lTH SOFT SNORING now coming from the bedroom, both men moved forward. A right hand turn followed immediately by a left turn took them inside Sergio Vericelli’s bedroom. Enough moonlight filtered between the curtain edges to work deftly without penlights.

Their next moves had been well choreographed. The heavier of the two intruders, at 210 pounds, quickly stepped to the right side of the bed while his partner moved to the left. In one fluid move, the heavier dropped down on Sergio, cupping a pillow over his face to mask any shouts yet allowing him air to breath since signs of suffocation could easily be discovered by a good medical examiner. The other intruder held Sergio’s left arm extended, palm up.

Vericelli’s violent struggle was no match against stronger, heavier men. Even in the faint light, the man holding Sergio’s arm saw one vessel stand out like a sewer pipe. His free hand withdrew a syringe from the fanny pack. With his teeth he removed the plastic guard. Carefully, making sure not to bruise the skin—for this would surely draw a medical examiner’s eye to the puncture wound—he slid the needle into the distended vein.

Seconds later Sergio’s movements stopped.

The heavier intruder pushed off Sergio and felt for a carotid pulse. Feeling none, he put his ear to Sergio’s chest. A moment later he nodded to his partner.

In a well-practiced routine, each man removed any sign of a struggle. They smoothed the sheets, fluffed the pillow, and arranged the victim to appear to have died peacefully during sleep.

Five minutes later they retraced their path to the front door, opened it and checked the hallway. Moments later, they were strolling across the freshly cut lawn away from the basement door, latex gloves stuffed deep in their front pocket to be burnt later.

The outside temperature remained a muggy 78 degrees.

T
YLER ENTERED THE large cafeteria at one of those “down” times when the breakfast crowd vanishes and coffee breakers have yet to start trickling in, leaving only a few odd-hour employees—mostly mid-level administrators—planted sparsely at tables. At the far end of the room, the diagonal corner from the entrance, the latte stand was doing a steady business. He recognized Jim Day as the second person in a two-person line. He passed a shadowy wall alcove with a continually-moving conveyer belt to bus dirty dishes and brown plastic trays into a cloistered area wafting the smell of dirty dishwater over to the nearby booths, making it a mystery to Tyler why anybody would eat near there.

Jim Day said, “Make it a Grande latte with two shots of vanilla.”

Tyler waited for the moon-tanned, anorexic barista to acknowledge Day’s order before tapping him on the shoulder. “Been looking for you. One of your colleagues said I could probably find you down here.”

Day turned. He seemed surprised then disappointed. “Oh man, you again.”

“What can I get for you?” Already tamping espresso into the stainless steel steam filter, the barista craned his neck and shot Tyler an expectantly bored expression. Tyler wondered if the guy was experiencing carpal tunnel symptoms yet from palm-banging the steam filters into the espresso machines. So far, he’d treated two Starbuck’s employees for the problem.

“I’m here to see him,” with a nod toward Day. Then to Day, “Need to ask you a favor.”

“It figures. I didn’t think you were here to ask me out for dinner. Can it wait until I get my drink?”

Tyler decided to push. “I want in to see Bernie Levy and I want you to set it up.”

Day laughed, shaking his head as if to say don’t be ridiculous. “No one gets in to see Levy unless they’re Bill Gates.” Then he seemed to think about what he just said. “That is, not without a very—and I mean very—good reason.”

“Someone’s screwing with his system. That’s good enough.”

Another laugh. “What? You still on a tear about your mysterious hacker? The one who comes and goes without a trace?” He leaned over toward Tyler’s ear, whispered, “With all due respect, Doctor Mathews, take my advice: get a life. There’s no hacker fucking with you or the network.” Day straightened up and glanced expectantly at the latte stand.

Something in Day’s eyes told Tyler he knew about the drugs in the locker incident.

“Is that right? Is that what you’re going to tell some nosey reporter two days from now when another Maynard patient dies and word’s been leaked you were warned there was a bug in the system and you did zip about it?” He let the point simmer a beat before continuing. “Since Med-InDx is a start up, I assume a goodly amount of your compensation—at least your retirement compensation—is in stock options. What if somehow, through some nasty little twist of fate, the
New York Times
or
Wall Street Journal
gets wind of this bug between now and the stock’s IPO? What do you think those options would be worth if that happens?”

“Here you go.” The barista held out Day’s latte.

Frowning, Day tossed four dollars on the counter then snatched the drink from the man’s hand. Without waiting for change, Day marched toward an empty booth. Tyler followed.

Seated, Day lowered his voice. “Is that what you plan to do? Go to the press with some funky ginned up story that could potentially ruin a good company? Just because
you
may have screwed up and overdosed a patient? You think that’s fair?”

Tyler met Day’s eyes. “You think it was fair for Larry Childs?”

Day set the coffee on the table and pushed it aside. He leaned toward Tyler. In a harsh whisper, “We’ve been over this. What does it take for me to make the point? Listen to me one more time: there’s not a lick of evidence that medical record’s been tampered with. That’s a fact.”

“So
you
say.”

Day’s face tightened into a scowl. He glanced around the area, turned back to Tyler. “You suggesting I’m covering up something?”

“Did I say that?” Tyler mimicked Day surveying the room, then looked back at him. “Consider it from my viewpoint. If I was you and I was sitting on a pile of options, I’d do everything possible to protect them. Last thing you’d want is to have a security breach become public knowledge. Especially right now with the IPO looming.”

For ten long seconds Day glared at Tyler as if ready to pounce. Then he gave a bitter, dismissive laugh and slumped against the molded plastic seat back. He shook his head in resignation. “And a personal chat with Bernie Levy is going to resolve it for you? Then you’ll lighten up on this?”

Tyler nodded. “At least I’ll know I’ve done everything possible to fix the problem.”

“You know, don’t you, that Levy personally coded the system’s database engine?”

“Why should I know something like that?”

“He did, and he’s still working on it. And considers it his baby too. A good deal of the other system components—like the accounting package—were bought from software coders who got buried when the dot-com bubble burst a few years back … we cobbled it together kinda as a plug and play system.”

“I’m not interested in Med-InDx company folklore. What I want to know is if you’ll set something up?”

Day pulled a cellphone from his breast pocket. “Yeah sure, I’m his personal fucking secretary.” He pushed in some numbers. “I can’t promise anything.”

Tyler decided to push the issue. “Tell him if he doesn’t see me today, I’m going to the
Seattle Times
tomorrow.”

S
O FAR MED-INDX fell short of Tyler’s expectations. For some crazy reason, he’d fantasized glossy, high-tech furniture and minimalist German interior design. Then again, he reminded himself, this was a venture capital funded startup, not some fat cat NASDAQ corporation like Microsoft or Prophesy. He found the primary corporate office located on the third floor of a tired, twenty-story, black glass office building off Fourth Avenue in the low-rise transitional neighborhood sandwiched between the central business district and residential Queen Anne Hill. There was no way of telling how much additional space the company occupied because the elevator opened directly across the hall from the Med-InDx front door and Tyler didn’t take the time to snoop around. The waiting area decor was heavily into a second hand office furniture motif. Instead of a svelte, smartly tailored female receptionist, a middle-aged, pot-bellied male Tommy Hilfiger enthusiast was positioned at a desk guarding the reception area. He glanced up at Tyler. “May I help you?”

“I’m Doctor Mathews. I have an appointment to see Mr. Levy.”

The man typed something into the computer, shook his head, typed again, seemed to find something agreeable, and said, “Have a seat. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

Tyler dropped into an uncomfortable chair and wondered yet again what might be accomplished in this interview. Surely Levy knew about the flaw. The question was, what was he doing about it? Did he realize it had caused at least one patient death? Probably not, or they would’ve fixed the problem by now.
No company would knowingly push a defective product. Would they? Naw.

“Bernie will see you now.”

Tyler followed the receptionist along a hallway flanked by glassed-in offices to the right and a sea of cubicles to the left. The small offices appeared chaotic, most desks layered with computer printouts and one or two oversized plasma screen monitors. One wall in each office displayed a large white board filled with multicolor hieroglyphics and/or hasty sketches. Work areas teamed with casually clad men and women looking to be in their mid twenties, radiating enough high intensity intellectual energy to power a nuclear submarine. Just walking past them invigorated Tyler.

“Just go on in. Bernie will be with you soon as he finishes.”

Tyler stepped into the office. The door closed behind him. A man in his early thirties slouched behind the desk, lips pursed, brow furrowed, fingers furiously clicking a keyboard. Tyler stood waiting.

Levy’s office appeared no different from the other employees except for being a bit more spacious and containing a larger desk and a small round conference table with five matching chairs. Two cables from two 21” LCD monitors ran to the computer through the desk kick-panel via a splintered hole that looked like it’d been enlarged by a methamphetamine junkie with a wood file. On the wall to the left hung a poster-sized framed picture of Bill Gates, below which an engraved plaque stated: HE DID. SO CAN YOU.

The cut of Levy’s brown hair, the sleeves-rolled-up-open-at-the-neck blue button-down oxford, the weak double chin and, style of eye glasses gave Tyler the impression of a Bill Gates clone.

Levy finally glanced up, muttered, “Be with you in a minute.”

A minute turned into two, making Tyler wonder if this was some sort of ploy.

Another minute passed. Levy tapped a key, said, “There!” and turned to Tyler. “Doctor Mathews, I presume.” He smiled a set of obviously whitened teeth.

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you?” Levy tilted back his chair, swiveling side to side.

“I assume you talked with Jim Day earlier today?”

“Yes.” Eyes fixed on Tyler, Levy continued swiveling.

“Then you should know I’m here because there’s a problem with your EMR.”

Levy sucked a tooth for a beat before saying, “Dude, from what Jim tells me you
believe
there’s a security problem … maybe some unknown hole a cracker found and exploited. But Jim also says there is no evidence to support any such hypothesis. Unless, of course, you’re holding back information Jim isn’t privy to.”

Tyler glanced at the two chairs in front of Levy’s desk, then back at his host, then folded himself into the one directly in front of the desk. “Did Jim tell you what happened to my patient Larry Childs? How he died from a radiation overdose?”

“Yes.” Levy’s tone questioned its relevance to the meeting.

“You don’t seem too upset about it.”

Levy seemed genuinely puzzled. “Why should I be? Our company can’t be held responsible for your mistakes.”

Tyler shook his head. “Therein lies the rub. It wasn’t my mistake.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to think they’re right when, in fact they’re wrong. From what I’ve been told, the record speaks for itself. There isn’t a shred of evidence it was altered. And as I’m sure you understand, an electronic medical record unequivocally documents any change to any record field. It just didn’t happen.”