Taken (25 page)

“Sorry, no. There are about a 150 centers nationwide, and a fair number of them are in the northeast. Says here there are about 2,300 heart transplants a year. That’s a lot of surgeons, a lot of hospitals.”

“Any obvious military connections?”

“Not that I can find. If there are any military facilities for cardiac transplants in the area, they’re not popping up.”

Weary but agitated, I plop into a seat, tent my hands over my tired eyes. “Let’s think about this. I want to get my son a new heart, where do I go? Remember, the nurses told Sherona that Jesse Cutter wasn’t a candidate for a transplant. If he was, none of this would be happening. The man in the mask—Cutter—he’s trying an end run, outside the usual channels. Outside the system somehow. He can’t just show up at an E.R. and demand surgery, right?”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Therefore he must have a place that’s willing to handle an illegal procedure. Or if not exactly illegal, then outside the rules. Does that make sense?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” says Connie.

“See what Google comes up with when you put in ‘transplant surgery’ and ‘lawsuit.’”

Connie keys it in, clicks on the button. “Ten thousand hits,” she says, sounding frustrated.

“Try searching results with ‘New York’ and ‘controversial.’ Cutter has to find a way in. Maybe he researched it on the Internet, just like us. We’re looking for something edgy. A flaw he can exploit.”

“Down to five hundred,” Connie announces.

“Search results with ‘unethical,’” I suggest. “See if we can find a back-alley transplant surgeon.”

Sherona grimaces. “This ain’t an abortion, honey. Can’t do it in a back alley or a storefront.”

“Fine,” I say, unable to mask my irritation. “The high-end version. A hospital that cuts corners, breaks the rules, whatever.”

“Hmm,” says Connie, her prominent, elegant nose almost touching the screen. “This is interesting. Didn’t pop up with the other transplant centers for some reason.”

“Hospital? Medical school?”

“Nope. Better. A private clinic with a clientele of celebrities and the superwealthy.”

The hair tingles on the back of my neck. A private clinic for the wealthy. Which means the place is all about money. And the man in the mask didn’t just take my son, he took all of our money, too.

“Go on,” I urge her.

Connie’s grinning—obviously she’s found something. “According to the
New York Times,
they’ve been sued for ignoring the federal guidelines for organ donation, specifically the waiting list for liver transplants. Seems they obtained a liver for a famous rock musician who ruined his own liver shooting drugs. Quote—‘one-stop organ shopping, with an all-star transplant team ready to deliver, provided the price is right.’”

“What about heart transplants?”

“It’s not the thrust of this particular article, but there is a reference to a heart-lung transplant for a Saudi prince. Once again, the prince wasn’t on the approved list, but the clinic got around that somehow. Reporter says it’s not like there are federal regulators hanging around the operating rooms. Quote—‘It’s basically an honor system. The major medical centers follow the guidelines, but private clinics can make their own rules.’”

“Where is this place?”

“Scarsdale,” she says, grinning like a kid who knows that teacher is about to award a big fat gold star. “That’s what they call themselves. The Scarsdale Transplant Clinic. And it’s right off 287.”

D
r. Stanley J. Munk paces the loading dock, puffing on an unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarette. Another personal vice unknown to his wife. The occasional stench of smoke on his clothing he always blames on others—patients, partners, one of the surgical nurses, whoever. Fact is, he only smokes while under stress. Stress, in his life, is not defined as surgery. He loves to cut, loves being in control of an anesthetized life. Stress he reserves for financial, professional or marital difficulties. He’s not sure where this particular situation fits into the scheme of things, but if it goes wrong it could encompass all three areas.

One thing he’s surmised, the man who calls himself Paul Defield is not only dangerous, he’s quite possibly becoming psychotic. Over the last few hours Munk, awakened at three in the morning, has received half a dozen cell-phone calls from the man, and he sounds not only aggressive but increasingly disorganized. Not at all the icy control freak who claimed to be a special agent for the FBI masquerading as a cop. A claim Munk now doubts. But if not a government agent, what is he? How did he get access to electronic and computer surveillance so sophisticated that Munk, something of techie himself, has never even heard of it?

Whatever his sources or methods, the man managed to crawl inside Stanley Munk’s skin, shared his secret life for a time. That alone makes him hideously dangerous. As for the proposed surgery, Munk remains confident that if things blow up legally he can successfully argue that he cooperated under duress. Which happens to be true. Other than whatever medical records Defield may or may not provide, he has no actual knowledge of the prospective patient or the prospective donor. It’s not as if he’s personally gone out on the black market to illegally obtain an organ, which if discovered would likely cause the revocation of his license to practice medicine and therefore endanger the partnership. From the beginning, Munk and his partners have been exquisitely careful about that particular distinction. Patients or the families or associates of patients have always obtained the necessary organs, at whatever the going rate. Thus providing plausible deniability, and legal cover, if not ethical purity.

Munk glances at his Rolex. Almost six in the morning. The days are so long this time of year that the sun has been up for more than an hour. Looks like a beautiful day on the way. Clear blue skies, perfect temperatures. A day to play hooky if ever there was one. Savoring his images, his trophies from the last junket.

Best not to think about that now.

His role in the transplant surgery will require something less than six hours, barring complications. Assuming that all goes well, and he’s able to remove Mr. Defield from his life, Munk has decided that he will reward himself with a spur-of-the-moment trip to Bangkok, or possibly Manila.

Definitely Manila. He’s due for a change, for something new. He can feel the anticipation building like a small, refreshing wave. In his mind, Dr. Munk is entering a certain room, wondering what, exactly, he will find beyond the beaded curtains, when the ambulance backs into the loading dock.

New Jersey plates, he notices. Is that where Defield hails from, some sweaty little suburb in the Garbage State?

The EMT gets out, advances to the dock. Light behind putting him in silhouette.

“Morning, Doctor.”

In the warmth of a summer morning, Munk shivers. He recognizes the voice.

“Everything groovy?” the man who calls himself Defield wants to know as he comes up the steps. “Team assembled, ready to go?”

“No problem,” says Munk. Chill is over and now he’s sweating. “Strictly routine.”

“What did you tell them? Son of a rock star?”

Munk shrugs, attempting to embody a casualness he does not feel. “State Department connection,” he says. “Child of an important diplomat.”

“The ambassador’s boy. I like that. Very classy.”

“Rock-star connection, somebody might tip off the press.”

In the blink of an eye, Defield is on him, rushing him backward until they both slam into the painted cinder-block wall at the rear of the loading dock.

“Are you playing me?” Defield hisses, pressing a gun into the soft flesh of Munk’s neck. “Tip off the press? What the fuck are you thinking?”

Physical fear of the gun makes Munk’s throat constrict, but he manages to say, “No press, that’s the point.”

“Who’d tip them off?”

“Nobody. Happened once with a nurse, she, um, leaked the story to a tabloid. Johnny Beemer gets a new liver. We fired her.”

“Johnny Beemer?” The gun is slowly lowered. Defield’s eyes are so bright they might be illuminated by inner lasers. “Oh yeah, I read about that. The punk rocker with the smack habit. What first put me on to you guys, as a matter of fact. Your high ethical standards.”

Munk wonders if the man is on something, or if the madness in his blood comes naturally. At the same time admonishing himself to keep his own mouth shut, no chitchat about the many celebrity connections to the clinic. No telling what will set Defield off or how he’ll react.

“Who have you told?” Defield wants to know.

“About you? Nobody.”

“About the transplant.”

“Just my partners. They had to know we’d be cutting this morning.”

“Cutting? That’s what you call it?”

“Surgery. We’ll be in surgery. There are six people on the team, you know that.”

“To fix the ambassador’s son.”

“Exactly,” says Munk. “What I told them. All they need to know. Strictly routine.”

Suddenly the man who calls himself Defield changes. Like watching a cloud-shadow rapidly pass over a landscape. He visibly relaxes, and the lack of tension alters his expression. “Okay, good,” he says with a tight smile, and a kind of dreamy look in his eyes. “Time to meet my sons, Dr. Munk. Time to meet my beautiful boys.”

“Sons?” Munk asks, confused. “Boys?”

Defield opens the rear door of the vehicle, revealing two slender, unconscious bodies strapped to a pair of matching gurneys. One fitted with a respirator, the other breathing on his own.

“My God,” says Munk. “Identical twins.”

Suddenly, it all makes sense. And he knows why Defield is so confident of a tissue match. A glance tells him that the twins are not Defield’s progeny, not his children by birth, but there’s no doubt about the man’s paternal connection. Munk doubts the man’s sanity, but not his bond as a father, which informs and explains everything he has done so far. All that he has risked, and all he is about to sacrifice.

“Welcome to my tragedy,” says Defield. “I’ve had to choose. Who lives, who dies. You know what that means? Do you? Can you imagine?”

The surgeon shakes his head.

“Means I go to hell,” the man who calls himself Defield says quite affably. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

As Munk helps unload the first gurney, he can’t help thinking that when the man smiles, he looks like a grinning skull.

R
ush hour starts early on the 287, and by the time we get to the Scarsdale exit it’s almost six-thirty. Fortunately Mr. Yap has been left at home, or else he’d be going nuts, because I’ve been playing backseat driver and Connie’s been pushing the Beetle for all its worth. Weaving in and out of traffic, using the breakdown lane, scooting through traffic lights with a blaring horn at my urging.

Should I be concerned about risking lives other than my own? Yes, but I’m not that good a person. All I can think about is Tommy, and what might be happening to him. What might already have happened. How every fiber of me wants to be with him right now, this instant, but I can’t. All because every truck in the world has decided to converge on this particular highway, at this godforsaken hour of the morning.

“What do we do when we get there?” Sherona wants to know. “You got a plan?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Rush in the place and shout the medical equivalent of ‘stop the presses,’ I guess. If we even have the right place.”

“I feel good about it,” says Connie, trying to keep my spirits up as she hunches over the wheel like a NASCAR driver. “The ambulance was on 287, the clinic is just off 287, where else could he be going?”

“Could be heading to the Sawmill,” I fret. “From there he could go anywhere.”

“We’ll get there, check it out,” Connie promises. “One more light, and then we turn left on Fennimore, then the second right.”

After what seems an eternity—I’m debating whether to get out and run—at last we’re on a boulevard that isn’t clotted with commuters. Professional offices and plazas, all beautifully landscaped.

“It’s here somewhere,” Connie says as I crane my neck, searching.

Sherona spots the sign before I do, and Connie screeches into the tree-shaded parking lot of the Scarsdale Transplant Clinic, an ultramodern ground-level concrete structure with darkly tinted windows, the whole structure painted in shades of pastel that fail to make it welcoming. In the center of the wide swath of perfectly manicured lawn, a heliport pad with a shiny gold MedEvac helicopter strapped down with what look like silver bungee cords.

At this hour there are only a few vehicles in the lot—a matched pair of Mercedes coupes and a Lexus sedan—taking up the slots assigned to staff. The place is utterly quiet, no sign of life. Except for the telltale doctor cars, it doesn’t even look open for business.

“What now?” Connie asks, sounding much less confident than she did while fighting us through traffic.

“Sherona, how about you try the front desk,” I suggest. “Use your powers of persuasion. Tell ’em what we know, see if it does any good. Connie and I will circle around the back, see if we can find a back way in.”

“‘Powers of persuasion,’” says the big woman as she eases her weight out of the tiny Beetle. “I like that.”

She struts away like a drill sergeant looking for troops to rally.

Around the back we find a hospital loading dock with an ambulance in the slot.

My heart slams and my mouth goes dry.

“Jersey plates,” says Connie, sounding thoroughly discouraged.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” I tell her. “Plates can be swapped. You notice the doors?”

“What about them?”

“See where it says Beacon Medical Transport? Those are magnetic signs.”

I vault out of the car, approach the ambulance. It’s a big, boxy vehicle with orange-and-white stripes that look very familiar. A quick inspection reveals that the magnetic stick-on signs cover the logo for Hale Medical Response.

We’ve found it. Against all odds, we managed to track the monster to this very place.

My heart lifts. At the same time my anxiety level spikes so high it feels like my head is about to explode. And my knees, well, they seem to have dissolved, leaving me with legs like limp spaghetti.

This is it. Somewhere inside this building, my son is waiting. Alive or dead, I’m going to find him in the next few minutes.

“Where are you going?” Connie wants to know, hurrying to catch up.

“He’s here,” I say.

“We should call,” Connie suggests. “Alert the cops.”

My hands shake as I hand her the cell phone.

The loading doors, I soon discover, are bolted from the inside. Pounding with my fists produces nothing but a dull thump. Running around the corner of the building, I’m confronted by mirror-tinted plate-glass windows that extend from the roofline to the ground. Crazy with fear, I search the ground for a rock. Wanting to smash the hateful glass. Finding nothing but grass and imbedded paving stones.

What would Shane do?

“Connie! Your keys!”

Without a word, Connie hands me the keys to the Beetle.

“Stand back,” I tell her, and run to the car.

The engine starts instantly, but the little car has a standard transmission, and the first time the clutch is popped the engine stalls. Grinding the starter, begging it to go. The engine chugs to life and I ease it into first gear and run up over the curb, onto the pristine lawn. Gathering speed across the lawn, I’m in third gear by the time the building looms. Somewhere in my peripheral vision, Connie is raising her arms, her mouth as round as that Munch painting of
The Scream,
either cheering me on or shouting for me to stop, or maybe both.

What I’m thinking, as the little car crashes through the plate glass, is that my friend Connie will be mad at me, and then the rear wheels catch and I’m thrown hard into the steering wheel.

Then nothing, blackness.

When I come to, bells inside the building are ringing like a giant alarm clock. The windshield has been reduced to diamonds that litter the dash. I can feel them in my hair, particles of shattered glass, and my face is hot and wet. The front air bags have deployed, pinning me to the back of the seat, which is now in the rear of the vehicle. Can’t move. Can barely breathe, a great pressure on my chest and lungs.

And then Connie is there, frantically reaching through the broken side window and trying to pull the air bags away from me.

“The door is jammed,” she informs me in a strangely calm voice. “You’ll have to scrunch through the window.”

Somehow she gets her hands under my arms, pulling and guiding me, and I’m popping out through the shattered window and both of us fall to the floor with a great
woof!
of expelled air.

“You’re bleeding,” she says, panting as she touches my forehead.

“Sorry,” I say. “Your poor car.”

“Can you stand up? Anything broken?”

My ribs hurt like hell, but a wobbly version of my legs seem to be functioning. Looking around, my vision is blurred but I can make out that we’re in some sort of conference room. Smashed chairs and tables, a lectern gone vertical, a torn projection screen hanging like a sparkly white rag. And the alarms making the insistent all-hands-to-battle-stations
ring…ring…ring
as if somewhere a nuclear-reactor engine is about to melt down.

Then, bursting into the room, a young security guard who can scarcely believe what he’s seeing.

“My God, what happened?”

With Connie holding my arm to steady me, I’m crunching through the glass fragments, heading for the guard.

“The police are on the way,” he tells us. “What happened? Did the accelerator stick?”

He thinks it was an accident, and I see no reason to disabuse him of the notion, particularly since he’s got a holster on his belt and, presumably, a gun.

“My son,” I tell him. “Surgery.”

Since he still seems befuddled by the shock of having his building invaded by a Volkswagen Beetle and a couple of suburban females, I hurry past him, out into a brightly lit hallway with slick, shiny floors. Behind me I hear Connie talking urgently to the guard and I’m thinking,
Isn’t that nice, she’s taking care of business, good old Connie.

Floating into the hallway. Somewhere from the back of my mind, or maybe the inner ear, comes a single, high-pitched musical note. A dreamy violin with only one thing to say. Very odd, but sort of pleasant.

“Tommy,” I want to say, but my mouth doesn’t seem to be functioning for the moment.

From somewhere in the building, a flat popping noise. Somebody lighting firecrackers? Don’t they know it’s not yet the Fourth of July? Or is it? Have I missed the Fourth?

Trying to recall what day it is, exactly, when a man in green surgical scrubs hurries toward me, gowned and masked. There may be spatters of blood across his chest, I can’t be sure. My vision is still off, as if some internal part of me remains tilted inside the wreckage of the car.

“Are you a doctor?” I demand, trying to keep him in focus. Good, mouth working again.

He shakes his head, eyes on the ruined room behind me. “Nurse,” he mutters, and keeps on going.

Probably thinks they’re being invaded by an outraged patient, a transplant failure gone postal.

Then I’m jogging along the hallway, having trouble keeping upright. Something wrong with my sense of balance. The alarm bells have ceased, and in the distance I hear the
whoop-whoop
of a siren. Strangely, it sounds like it’s going away, but all of my senses are distorted, and for all I know the siren is actually inside the building.

That’s when I notice how hard it is to breathe. Something wrong inside? Can’t tell. Maybe the air is too thin. Very rarefied brand of air they have here in Scarsdale. Lurching around a corner, it feels like I’m attempting to manipulate a very difficult marionette, one whose limbs do not correspond to the strings.

Ignore it. Find Tommy.

“Tom-eee-eee-eee…”

Is the echo in the hallway or inside my head?

The wall steps out and slams me.
Whoa. Keep it vertical, girl. Miles to go before you sleep. Somewhere in these tilting funhouse hallways your boy is waiting. You can almost see him sitting up in his hospital bed, a big grin on his beautiful face, saying, “Hey, Mom, what’s the haps?”

Did Tommy say that? Did I hear him? Must be close. Just a little farther on down the road.

Somewhere nearby, or a million miles away, a pair of doors beckon. The double doors to an operating room. On
E.R
. the O.R.’s always have double doors. Try saying that three times quick. Unless I’m seeing double, which is entirely within the realm of possibility. Or triple, is there such a thing as triple doors? Glass walls, lightly tinted, make me feel like I’m floating outside a space station, looking in. Carts of surgical equipment lurking in the tinted shadows behind the glass. Some of the shadows moving—no, those are people, not shadows. What are they doing? Why are they hiding behind the glass?

In the center of the glass-walled room, a pool of light. And there, stepping into the light, another figure wrapped into a green surgical gown, weird magnifying glasses that make him look really dorky, and in his gloved hands, a glint of light.

“Scalpel, please.”

No, no, no.

Must get through the doors. Must grab the hands of the man in the silly green gown, make him stop whatever it is he’s intent on doing.

Yell at him, Kate. Make yourself heard.

“Gahhh!” and then I slam through the doors and spin into the glass-walled operating room and the spin part gets out of control and the floor comes up and kicks me in the butt.

Looking up into lights so bright they make my head hurt. Can’t breathe. I try to say something but all I can do is gurgle like a baby, isn’t that odd? Isn’t that strange?

Then some icky green rubberized fingers are inserting themselves into my mouth and I’m no longer even trying to breathe—too much trouble—and a small, insistent voice in the dimmest part of my brain is telling me to stop struggling because I’m already dead, dead, dead.