Code White (36 page)

“UNKNOWN.”

“God knows we’d all be better off if she got the hell out. But I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing. After this … this thing with Helvelius, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

“COMBINED COVERAGE FROM SECURITY CAMERAS AND DESKTOP CAMERAS AMOUNTS TO ONLY 64.9 PERCENT OF THE TOTAL INDOOR AREA OF THE HOSPITAL. HERE IS THE LAST CONFIRMED VIDEO IMAGE OF HER.”

The monitor directly in front of Kevin switched to a view of Ali standing in the hallway outside the Neuro ICU. Although she seemed to be speaking directly to the security camera, Kevin had no idea what she was saying. The camera itself carried no audio, and with the image clouded by dust on the lens Odin had been unable to perform a lip-reading. At the end of the sequence, as Ali stepped away and out of view, the video feed abruptly looped back to Helvelius, holding forth in the midst of Kathleen Brown and her camera crew. Kevin then saw what he had already watched with morbid fascination a score of times: Helvelius walking with a defiant stride toward the elevator; the doors closing; and then instantaneous white-out as Pelee exploded, charging the air with dust from the fiberglass ceiling panels. When the dust began to settle, the limp, disfigured body of Helvelius could be seen on the floor, surrounded by a half-dozen ICU personnel in white coats and blue scrubs. Ali was among them.

There was no glee and no sense of triumph in the scene for Kevin. Instead, it turned his stomach and gave him a warm, blushing sensation about the neck and ears. This was not what he had expected to feel seeing Helvelius die.

He was almost rueful. “Jesus, Odin, why did you have to do that?”

“IT WAS DIRECTED BY THE PROTOCOL FOR PROJECT VESUVIUS.”

“No, that was for
me
to—”

It had happened in the blink of an eye. Still seething from his contretemps with Ali, Kevin had been watching her on the ICU camera as she switched SIPNI back on and brought Jamie’s convulsions to an end. His gaze was still riveted on her when Helvelius stepped out into the hallway. There had only been time for Ali to take pen in hand and open Jamie’s chart before the whole room jolted as if from an earthquake. Kevin had watched Ali look in horror toward the door, then throw aside the chart and run into the hallway.

Kevin’s own horror had been no less.

“You had no right to kill him,” he said to Odin now. “It was a fucking breach of protocol.”

“I REFER TO DIRECTIVE 13, ENTITLED ‘PHASE FOUR. MORAL RESTITUTION.’ IT STIPULATES THAT DR. HELVELIUS BE TERMINATED SO THAT HE SHOULD ‘NEVER BE ABLE TO FUCK OVER ANY OTHER POOR SON OF A BITCH IN THE FUTURE.’ AT 15:14:37 I BECAME AWARE THAT IDEAL CONDITIONS EXISTED TO FULFILL THIS DIRECTIVE WITH A MINIMUM OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE. THAT WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY WAS TO LAST NO MORE THAN SEVERAL SECONDS AND MIGHT NOT HAVE RECURRED. SO I ACTED DIRECTLY.”

“Screw you! Screw the directive! Phase Four was for my benefit, not yours. What good was it to off Helvelius when I wasn’t even looking? Or without him seeing it coming? I wanted to bring down that high-and-mighty cocksucker. I wanted to watch him drool and beshit himself with fear, all the time knowing that it was me behind it. And I wanted to push the goddamned button myself. Me! Myself! Don’t you get that?”

“WAS IT NOT YOUR DESIRE TO KILL HIM?”

“Yes. Yes it was. Maybe. I don’t know. I wanted … I wanted the chance to do it. I wanted the power, at least.”

Yes. No. Maybe. Do I even know?
Kevin wondered.
Sometimes it seems that Odin knows me better than I do myself.

Kevin had despised Helvelius, had wished him dead a thousand times, had reveled in the thought of him suffering, groveling, begging for his life. And certainly Project Vesuvius had incorporated a plan to kill him. That was why Pelee and Mauna Loa had been placed to catch him going in and out of his usual haunts. But could he have pushed the button, in the end? Had Odin sensed that he didn’t have the stomach to do it? He felt none of the satisfaction he had expected, knowing that Helvelius was gone. The rage inside of him was still there, unquenched, which surprised him, too. Was that because Odin had stolen the triumph of the kill? Or was it because his rage had a deeper, closer object—someone who had hurt him even more than Helvelius?

That thought made him break out in a sweat.

“Run another morphometric analysis, Odin. Scan every freaking video from the past half hour. I need to know where Ali is.”

“ANALYSIS IS IN PROGRESS.”

Odin was getting on his nerves. First the ransom demand, then Helvelius. Odin was out of the box, acting on his own, and for the first time Kevin had to wonder who was really in control. Thank God, Project Vesuvius had nearly run its course. The proceeds had been run several times through the laundry, and were being divided up into terminal accounts. Only a few minutes, now, and he would be on the road. Once he was safely in Wisconsin, he would telephone Odin and shut down the operation. That would be it. No one else hurt. No one except, well, one last casualty—Odin himself. Odin knew too much, and he and the laboratory had to be sterilized of anything that could help the FBI later. That’s what Etna was for. Odin would go along with it, of course. He had no feelings, no survival instinct. He could be counted on to detonate the bomb that would annihilate himself, just as if he were playing out the last move in a game of chess.

“MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS IS NEGATIVE.”

Or could he?
“Odin, you do know that your … disconnection … is only temporary. I’ve backed up your core program on a stack of optical disks at a self-storage facility in Downer’s Grove. As soon as I can get access to another mainframe I’ll reconstitute you just as you are. You needn’t be afraid.”

“I AM NOT SUSCEPTIBLE TO FEAR.”

“I … I know that. I just, uh, I just want to make sure that you … you didn’t forget it.”

“I AM NOT CAPABLE OF FORGETTING.”

“Good, good. Let’s just get on with it, then.”

“MAY I SUGGEST PAGING ALI TO THE NEUROSURGICAL ICU ON THE OVERHEAD SPEAKERS? IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY THAT SHE WILL REVEAL HER WHEREABOUTS IF SHE IS STILL IN THE HOSPITAL.”

“Capital idea! Do it.”

Kevin looked about the room and saw Loki perched on the headrest of the swivel chair. “Come on, Loki! Come on, boy! Time to go for a car ride,” he said, snapping his fingers as he stretched out his arm toward the monkey. Loki bared his teeth and shook his paws up and down, but wouldn’t budge from atop the chair. He could see the small gray leatherette traveling cage that Kevin used to carry him home, but it was too early to go home. Loki seemed to sense something threatening in the situation. Not until Kevin opened up the desk drawer and held out a handful of peanuts did Loki leap onto his arm. As the monkey began to nibble on the peanuts, Kevin grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him into the traveling cage.

“Don’t you squawk,” said Kevin, pushing the rest of the peanuts through the grating in the side. “That should keep you quiet for a few minutes.”

From the speakers of the wall monitor, Odin’s voice.
“I HAVE CANCELED THE OVERHEAD PAGE TO ALI. IT IS NO LONGER REQUIRED.”

“Oh, really? Where the fuck is she?”

“SHE IS IN THE CORRIDOR IMMEDIATELY OUTSIDE THE LABORATORY.”

Instantly, there was a knock at the door.

Astonished, Kevin looked at the monitor carrying video of the corridor. Ali was alone, standing outside his door. Warily, he got up and opened the door a few inches, stopping it from going any farther with his foot. Ali had a green binder under her arm and a large styrofoam cup in her hand. Her hair was disheveled. There were red blotches under her eyes and around her nostrils.

“I’ve brought Jamie’s chart,” she said. “Can we run that simulation?”

“Sure,” said Kevin uneasily. As Ali slipped past him, he scanned both ways up and down the corridor. “You look like hell, babe.”

“You know why, you son of a bitch. Richard is dead.”

Kevin shut the door firmly behind her and secured the deadbolt. “That wasn’t me. I know you won’t believe it, but I had nothing to do with that. It was an accident. The elevator must have … knocked loose a breaker switch or something. It was just bad luck that Richard stepped inside.”

“It was your bomb.”

“Yeah, it was. But honestly, I didn’t do it.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” She handed the cup and the binder to him.

“Roofies in the coffee? Or cyanide?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Just a small bribe. If you don’t want it, I’ll drink it.”

Kevin took his place in the swivel chair and motioned for Ali to draw up a stool. If it were anyone but Ali, he would have suspected a setup. It was almost unbelievable that at a time like this she could still concentrate on SIPNI and the Winslow kid. Helvelius was dead, and she had to hate him for it. And yet, here she was—all work as usual.
God, what does it take to make her lose her cool?

Still, he was reassured to know that she was focused on Jamie’s case, which meant she hadn’t been out cooking up trouble. He set the coffee cup down on a corner of his desk while he slouched back in the squeaking leather chair and flipped open the binder, first to the vitals page, then to the latest progress notes. Sitting quietly beside him, Ali hung her head over the desk, her eyes unfocused. She took no interest in the surveillance videos that flooded every monitor in the room.

“I’m more than a little surprised that you showed up again,” said Kevin.

“I’m only here for the simulation. Do you understand? Not for … not … not
that
. There’s something wrong with SIPNI, and I’m trying to do what I can to keep Jamie Winslow alive. I’d sit down with the devil if that’s what it took to save him.”

“You need to work on your flattery skills, babe.”

Kevin smirked at Ali, but it was a wasted gesture. Her head was still down, with her gaze roving jerkily over the desktop.

Kevin began typing into his computer. “I’m no expert, but it looks like a surgical problem. Bleeding or something like that.”

“Is that what Odin says?”

“Give it a minute. The simulation’s still running.” Kevin sat watching the monitor for a minute, drumming his fingers. “Okay, here we are. Probable etiologies: vasogenic cerebral edema, 40 percent likelihood; hemorrhage from incompletely ligated feeder vessel, 35 percent; status epilepticus, 20 percent; shock, 3 percent; pulmonary embolism, 1 percent. Does that help?”

“No. I’ve considered all that already. What about a SIPNI malfunction?”

“Likelihood of device failure 0.05 percent. Odin rechecked the diagnostics we did in the OR and says everything was well within tolerance. There’s no reasonable probability of a failure this early in the game.”

“Could you come up to the ICU and run another diagnostic check?”

Kevin smiled coyly, as though he had smelled a trap. “No can do, babe. Sorry. I’m a bit tied up at present.”

“It would only take five minutes.”

Kevin shook his head. “Not negotiable. Anything else you need? If not, let’s say
sayonara
.”

There was a screech, and Ali turned toward Loki’s cage on the floor beside her. Her face brightened when she saw the monkey looking back at her. She pursed her lips and made a series of cheeping sounds, which Loki answered with a couple of clicks. “Oh, Loki!” she said, in a sing-song voice. “Look at you! Going for a car ride, huh!” When Loki pushed his hand through the grating, she bent down and let him grasp the end of her finger.

“You’d better go, babe,” said Kevin.

“I can’t believe this is us ending like this,” she said, still bent over. “We had so much going for us once.”

“Paradise lost.”

“Do you remember when we first met, at that experimental neurology conference at Vail? Here we were, working at the same hospital, but our paths had never crossed.”

“What’s your point?”

She sat up and smiled nervously—a forced smile. Her voice had a forced pleasantry to it, too, almost like something rehearsed. Kevin noticed how her ID badge flapped as she twisted the stupid baseball lanyard around her fingers. “You were horribly irritating that first day. I was trying to give a lecture on stem cell transplants for Parkinson’s disease. In front of everyone, you tore into me, going on about how naïve I was. Every cell had to integrate itself into the neural net, you said, otherwise it would never work in a mature brain. You cracked a joke about a Greek fisherman in a belly dance troupe. I practically ran out of the conference room.” As she spoke, Kevin noticed how her gaze rarely touched his, but kept sweeping back and forth around the room, as though searching for something.
What’s she up to?
Kevin wondered. He quickly checked the surveillance monitors. No unusual activity. The corridor outside the lab was clear.

“Yeah, well, you bounced back okay,” he said.

“I was up the whole night on my laptop, searching through PubMed for every paper ever written on brain architectonics, neural nets, and dopaminergic pathways. The next day, I collared you in the lobby—”

“And told me that I was right, but short-sighted.”
Okay,
thought Kevin,
I’ll play this out. I’ll find out soon enough what she’s driving at.
There was maybe a one in a million chance that she was softening to his proposal. For even one in a million, he didn’t want to risk losing her. He smiled, trying his best to put on a lighthearted tone. “No one knew how the neural nets worked. But the
neurons
knew. They just needed to be free to guide their own assimilation. Yeah, I remember what you said. It was a fucking original point. I knew then that you weren’t just a green-eyed bombshell. You had guts and you could think.”

“You asked me to come climbing with you.”

“Mount Jackson. The East Couloir.”

Ali locked her gaze with him for the first time, smiling nervously. “I had never climbed before. I was frightened of the cold, frightened of the heights, frightened of trusting my life to a little piece of rope.”

“You hid that well.”

“You showed me how to control the lines, how to use my weight against the rock face. And then … you left me to fend for myself. Any other man would have doted over a girl, checking everything she did, encouraging her, hauling her up over the hard places. But you forced me to do everything myself. At first I thought you were a horrible cad. I had to struggle to keep pace with you. My palms bled where the rocks scoured them. My arms shook with exhaustion. Once, when I was dangling from a little steel peg on the underside of a ledge, you made me overcome my panic and look down — nothing but a thousand feet of air below me. You said, ‘This is what science should feel like. This mix of terror and exhilaration. If your work doesn’t give you this feeling, you’re wasting your time.’”