Better in the Dark (11 page)

He hesitated, then took her arms as they started down the hall. “I’ve been talking to Justin and I’ve got some figures out of him. You were right. He admits that much.”

“Justin?” Her fine, straight brows drew together once more. “You’ve seen Justin?” Why had they not been fired?

“Yes, I’ve seen him.” He guided her into an empty sunroom, pushing the door closed behind them and locking it. “It’s much worse than you guessed, and that was bad enough. There have been roughly eleven hundred fatalities in the last two months at this hospital alone. County General is running higher, Inner City a bit lower.”

She was badly shocked. “Eleven hundred.” She sat slowly, blindly. “Eleven hundred. I thought it wasn’t much above five hundred. In just two months?”

“Natalie, it’s getting started. That damned crew of idiots has really made a mare’s nest this time.” He did not wait for her to speak. “We’ve got to make some changes, and quickly. There’s too big a risk, no matter what Peter Justin’s Tolerable Losses allow. All the computers have to be reprogramed to recognize ‘extinct’ diseases. That’s where a lot of the trouble is coming from, the diagnosis end. The computers don’t recognize diphtheria and smallpox and common cancer because they were wiped out years ago, so they come up as unknown virus and our hands are tied. Damn it, some of these patients are in the wards, and God only knows how many others on the wards are vulnerable. We’ve got to get doctors who are willing to take on the fight. We need help. We need a lot of help.” His eyes were bleak as he thought of what they were up against.

“Yes,” she nodded, breathing more quickly. “We’ll need help. Now.”

“Is there anyone else on floor eleven with you?”

She thought briefly, ignoring the tap on the door. “Dave Lillijanthal. He’d be willing, I think, if he understood. Gil, my old paramedic, might if he were still here. He was transferred, I don’t know where. Sometimes I think he caught something...” She pushed the thought away. “I think maybe we can get Stan Kooznetz up on eight; he’s already working with contagious diseases. He’d be a lot of help. Even though he’s young he’s a good doctor. So is Lisa Skye. She’s in the stroke unit on nine. She hasn’t got a lot of stamina, though. Carol Mendosa. She’s on eleven, too. She’s tough and she doesn’t let go.”

Harry heard these names and felt better. “I can get Patman and Divanello in pediatrics here on six. If we work hard we might be ready when this thing really strikes. It’s about to break wide open.”

She sat up suddenly. “What about us? We might not be immune ourselves.”

Harry whistled softly. “Good lady. I hadn’t thought of that. But you’re right. Of course. We’ll have to reinoculate. It won’t be good if we all start coming down with bugs. I wish we could get someone out of the labs to take care of that angle.”

“We have to get a pathologist. We’ll need someone to identify any mutant or unknown strain that really does crop up,” she said, the task becoming more overwhelming each time she thought about it.

“Mutant strains. I hope we won’t get them. There’s no way we can fight a new variety, not now.”

“But there’s a chance we’ll have to.” She slid further into the chair. “We’ll have to have a lab somewhere.”

“And if not, we’ll take our chances along with everyone else.”

“
More
than everyone else,” she said. “We’ll be working closer to the diseases. We’ll have greater exposure.” She looked at him, thinking that if there was enough time, if they were far enough ahead of the real outbreak, they might—just might—scrape through. Please don’t let the diseases mutate, she thought. If there was a mutation, then they would lose their fight. But it was a possibility she knew she had to face. “How long do you think it will be before new diseases appear? It might be a good idea to do some random tests as the patients come in, just in case.”

He narrowed his eyes at the window. “If we can get the administration to put a quarantine into effect, and have the City Patrol enforce it, we might be able to keep the disease in pockets. And we can start up a regular house-call system. Otherwise, there isn’t enough bed space for what we’ll be handling.”

“Oh God, beds.”

“One more factor for Justin’s charts,” Harry said. “We’ll have to have a meeting with the administration as soon as our plans are fixed. They’ve got to make a move soon, and we’ll have to convince them. And the government can go screw itself.”

Suddenly Natalie turned to him, her body tense and her face anxious. “But, Harry, what if the administration won’t help us? What if they kick us out?”

“They can’t afford to do that. But they might not accept our plan,” he conceded.

“Harry, they could turn us out.”

He said, “Of course not. They need us too much. They wouldn’t dare.” How much he wished he could believe that.

There was no one at the nurses’ station as Natalie filed her midshift report. She felt tired and there was a dull ache in her middle. She had told herself she could not afford an ulcer, and did her best to shut out the gnawing sensation. How much she wanted to forget, to go back to a time when there were no dead children and no trouble. She rubbed her eyes, forcing her attention to the report.

“Natalie?” said the soft voice behind her.

She turned and the little color she had drained from her face. “Mark,” she said.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, showing her a spectacular smile. “You’re in with Harry Smith, aren’t you? That takes real guts. I understand you are all in trouble with the administration.”

“Not so far, not that I know of,” she said cautiously, not trusting him. She put down her report and waited.

“It’s going to happen,” he told her. “You’re interfering, and we can’t afford that. Still, you’re quite a girl, aren’t you? You know this is a government trial project, and you’re willing to buck it. I admire that.” He came a few steps closer, but she moved away.

“What’s this all about? Are you trying to intimidate me?”

“You’re going to get fired, Natalie. I thought I should warn you. We had a meeting up on sixteen tonight and Wexford handed down his sentence. You’ll be fired, and you will not be rehired in any hospital in this state. That’s the decision.”

She leaned against the wall. So it was happening. “Stupid, stupid bastards,” she said.

“Not so stupid as you think,” Mark said, keeping his distance. “You’re a smart girl, Natalie. You know what this means: you’re blacklisted. And you don’t really want that, do you? You’re not that kind of doctor, Natalie. You’re not willing to give up your practice for this kind of principle. I know you. Medicine is the most important thing in your life.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“You’re not going to let this happen to you,” he persisted, a confident smile in his eyes. “And you know that the only way you can stay on here is to go along with the policy and do your best for the few victims we see.”

She turned on him. “Few? Eleven hundred is a few? That’s how many are dead, Mark, if you care. What kind of figures does it take to make you realize what’s happening?” She felt herself shaking and willed it to stop. “You’re crazy. You’re all really crazy.”

For a moment Mark said nothing, then, “You want to survive this thing? Well,
do
you?”

“Of course I do,” she spat.

He smiled with hooded eyes. “There’s only one way to be sure, and that’s if I take care of your vaccinations. I’ll check them out first. Then you’ll know you’re safe, and you’ll be able to treat every patient without fear. Let me tell them upstairs that you’re giving up this holy war of yours, that you’ve seen reason, and you won’t have anything to worry about. You’ll be safe.”

She told herself that she was not hearing him correctly. “You said the system was fair, no one knows who gets what. And you call this fair? Do you? How many other people have you helped this way? How fair is it really, Mark? Tell me.”

Mark’s fists clumped at his sides. “Okay, Natalie, I’ve tried to be reasonable. But you aren’t willing to go along with me. You’re a ruddy fool. But I warn you, stay out of it, get away from Harry Smith, or as of tomorrow you are out. And there’s no coming back.”

She took the full force of his threat and did not falter. “You aren’t even human,” she flung at him. “Fire me, if that’ll make you feel better. I don’t want to deal with you again.”

“This is your last chance.”

“Liar,” she said.

He lifted up his hand to strike. She faced him. “Go ahead.”

He spun on his heel and was gone.

Half an hour later, when her tears were spent and she was herself again, she called Harry. “We have to work fast. We have to be ready now.”

“Why?” he asked, alarmed. So she told him about Mark.

It was afternoon when they met again, outside the emergency room on the first floor. Harry had deep lines in his face and the subtle gray wash of fatigue colored him.

“You look awful,” Natalie said.

“I might say the same of you,” he rejoined caustically. Then he relented. “Sorry. I’ve been up about thirty-four hours now, and it shows. What have you got?”

“I talked with some people. Carol Mendosa is with us. Lisa Skye wants to but isn’t sure she can. Dave Lillijanthal will do everything possible, including storming the higher-ups, if necessary. He has some pull with the administration, and he’ll use it if we give him the word.” She pulled some notes from her pocket. “Stan Kooznetz is a yes with reservations. He thinks we’re overreacting. I couldn’t get near the labs, so there’s no help for a pathologist. We’ll have to find someone later I guess...”

“Don’t worry about it now. I talked to Patman,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the stretcher being pulled from an ambulance. Burns were Latham’s specialty. He turned back to Natalie. “He can’t do it. He’s got that bad ulcer, and knows he couldn’t take the strain. He’d be a liability. But he’ll scrounge for us, if we need stuff. He’s good at that.”

“And Divanello? Is she willing?”

“She is,” Harry said. “She’s over forty, and she’s got a little heart trouble. She’ll make sure she’s got the stuff to take care of it, so we won’t have to deal with it. She’s determined to make sure we wipe out this problem. She’s seen a lot of kids die recently, too.”

“Why didn’t she do anything?” Natalie asked, surprised that Amanda Divanella would let such illnesses go by unnoticed.

“Because she went to Justin and he told her that the labs were checking out new viruses. He said he wanted to see her reports on everything that bothered her because that would help him get his material organized for a full report.”

“Oh. great.” Natalie leaned on the wall and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I wonder how many others got that treatment? It never gets easy, does it?” she asked. “What a run-around.”

“Maybe there’s more of us than we thought. But I want to find out who they are: we can use their help.”

The paging system broke out stridently calling for Dr. Hangstrom and Dr. Lescu. Natalie felt the apprehension she always did when psychiatric reinforcements were called in. “I wish Radick Lescu were with us. I have the feeling we could use him.”

“You mean to keep the kinks out of the system?” He smiled, but he knew she was right. Already he felt the strain telling on him. It would get worse.

She sensed his thoughts. “We’re all going to be under a lot of stress.”

“We’ll make it,” he said with a confidence he had no faith in. “We have to.”

She nodded. There was trouble close to them, closing in. “I only hope we get the chance,” she said. There was a wistful note in her voice which Harry tried to ignore.

The notice had been up for over an hour when Harry saw it at noon the next day:

The following doctors are relieved of service in this hospital. Dismissal for cause. Those named below are requested to leave these premises before midnight, this date 4-13-91.

Alexes Castor, floor 8-infectious diseases

Amanda Divanello, floor 15-obstetrics/pediatric surgery

Kirsten Grant, floor 9-orthopedics Dominic Hertzog, floor 13-radiology

Stanley Kooznetz, floor 6-general medicine

Natalie Lebbreau, floor 11-general medicine

Radick Lescu, floor 4-psychiatry

David Hans Lillijanthal, floor 14-anesthesiology

Edward Eugene Lincoln, floor 1-emergency room

Carol Mendosa, floor 11-general medicine

Roger Nicholas, floor 5-intensive care

Maria Pantopolos, floor 10-exotic diseases

Eric Patman, floor 7-immunology

Lisa Skye, floor 12-surgery

Emile Harrison Smith, floor 6-general medicine

James Varnay, floor 1-emergency room

Howard T. Webbster, floor 2-outpatient service

Under the authorization stamp were the scrawled signatures of Peter Justin and Miles Wexford. The administration had made a clean sweep of the dissident doctors. They were out.

“What kind of nonsense is this?” Harry demanded, slapping a torn copy of the dismissal notice on Jim Braemoore’s desk. His face was flushed as he spoke, and there was taut anger in his voice.

“Don’t blame me,” the other said, making a dismissal with his large, soft hands. “Told you what would happen if you kept on, Harry. Didn’t want it to happen, myself, but there wasn’t a lot I could do when you insisted on this course. Ruined yourself, m’boy. Thought for a while there you might see sense, but obviously not. Pity.”

“What are you talking about: sense? I want to see Wexford!” Harry picked up the notice and stormed toward the door.

“He doesn’t want to see you, Harry. Not that this is what he wanted, either. He tried to smooth things over, make allowances for you, for all of you, but you’re beyond that now.” Jim smiled sympathetically. “Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing myself, years ago. I admire your stand, Harry. Good to know there’re doctors like you and the others left. It’s going to be hard to get along without you. But there’s no choice, is there? You’re a rare breed. Thought you’d vanished. But we can’t afford you, you see. You can’t stay on.”