Dark Heart (DARC Ops Book 3) (11 page)

For some reason, that made him smile.

T
he five years
have been kind to her. Very kind. It was something he probably couldn’t say about himself. In those five years, he’d been through all manner of physical punishments, from shrapnel to trench foot. Not to mention what the sun exposure did to his pale skin—a ginger’s curse. Smoke and flames. Insects. It wasn’t something he’d normally think about, but seeing Fiona in scrubs brought back the memories. Looking into the soft light of her eyes was like peering into a time portal. A time before five years of lessons and punishments and some mild victories. But mostly of aging poorly. The battlefield wasn’t the place to stay youthful, both physically and mentally. He’d imagine a hospital environment was similar in that respect. But damn, she did look good.

He wondered, immediately, like some dumb animal, if she’d already found a mate. Maybe some rich doctor. A guy who wouldn’t have to fly around the world to earn a decent paycheck, doing some rush job deep in the bush or sweltering in the mirage of a scorching desert.

“Quit staring at me,” Fiona told him with a nervous laugh as they stood in the elevator.

But it was hard not to.

“Just making up for some lost time.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Five years, huh?”

Jasper nodded. “You married?”

She waved her hand at him, her ringless finger in particular.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Jasper, careful not to lean much weight on his hand as he swayed back into the hand rail. “A lot of nurses I know take their rings off at work.”

“Maybe they’re trying to send you a message.”

“No,” he said. “I’m pretty clear about stuff like that. They know I keep it professional at work.” He finally looked away, feeling a little sheepish about the topic. He definitely lived by a different philosophy back when he was training with Fiona. Their relationship had been partly the reason for adopting that philosophy.

He waited for her to say something snarky about it, or at least
something
. But she just kept smiling at him instead.

They got off the elevator on the ICU floor, where she showed him the room and the machinery that were supposedly the cause of an untimely death.

The bed, of course, had been emptied and stripped. All traces of the poor patient were missing, as was the paperwork.

“Can you get me any records or anything?” asked Jasper. “His charts?”

Fiona starting looking around the room, checking the empty file folders.

“If not, I can probably wait and then look them up on the system. But I’d rather do this off the record.”

She agreed to go check for them and snuck out of the room.

Jasper turned back to the scene of the crime. The room almost reeked of death. Recent death. Misery. He looked at all the instruments and wires and different life support apparatus hanging in various locations around the bed like a cluster of angels. Only now they’d all been switched off, cold and dark and useless, the unattached and half-disabled tubes and wires hanging pointlessly.

In the far corner of the room were a few black garbage bags surrounded by plants and flowers of various life stages. Soon they’d all be as dead as their recipient, and life would continue, as it would for Jasper and everyone else in the hospital, all those busy people walking by the doorway, bodies rushing by so full of life. It was the great circle, an idea that he tried not to dwell on too often. But it was an idea, nonetheless, that provided some solace when he needed it. It was something he’d turn to upon some tragedy or another, such as his losing a patient. He felt almost like that here, in this man’s room, without ever seeing or knowing him. But maybe he wouldn’t have died in vain.

If this was the result of a cyber attack, then maybe he could learn something from it. Hopefully he would learn it before the prince arrived. But that seemed so secondary now. People—civilians—were getting caught in the mix.

That is, if it had been deliberate.

He might not know, or ever know. But the charts and the readouts on the computers would provide the first clues either way. He looked around at each of the different machines, each of them keeping some facet of the man’s body alive. He would have to download the readouts for each of them. It was looking like it was going to be another very long night.

He began wondering how late Fiona’s shift ran. When she got off . . .

“I couldn’t find the charts for you,” said Fiona, slipping into the room with a huff. “Sorry. They moved on already.”

“No problem. Thanks anyway,” Jasper said as he climbed out from behind a dialysis machine. “I’ll have to look it up tonight.”

“Do you want his name and number?”

Jasper typed the patient’s name and ID number, and then said, “I’ll need your number, too.”

“My ID number?”

“No. Phone.”

“For official business?” She was grinning. Cute little dimples formed at the sides of her mouth.

“Of course.” He cleared his throat and looked away, at the empty bed, reminding himself not to get too cute in this room. It was no place for picking up women. Not even nurses.

“So, uh . . .” Fiona looked slightly uncomfortable also, perhaps also wanting to change the subject. “So, he passed away when the respirator stopped working. There was something wrong with the alarms, too. It stopped passing air but the alarms never signaled.”

Jasper thought that it was at least some form of consolation that the patient wasn’t conscious while he suffocated.

“It didn’t show up anywhere,” said Fiona. “So, no one had any idea what was happening.”

“I thought you said the family blamed the doctor for doing something?”

“He just tried to restart the machine, but it was already too late.”

Jasper imagined the grim sequence of events. The family just sitting there with him as he died, not even knowing he was suffocating. Some poor nurse just casually checking on him and finding him dead, and then probably panicking and calling the doctor. They weren’t trained to deal with cyber attacks.

“That’s all he did?” asked Jasper. “He just restarted it and got the alerts going?”

Fiona nodded sadly. “They thought he killed him.”

“Jesus Christ.”

He pictured it in his mind. The malfunctioning alerts meant that no one would hear a flatline sound. And thus, when the doctor restarted everything, they finally heard it kick on.

“I’m sure it will be investigated to death,” said Fiona.

“Yeah. I’ll have to try to beat them to it.” He walked over to the ventilator. “Maybe I should talk to the coroner, too.”

“I don’t really have any contacts there.”

“It’s okay, I’ll figure something out.”

“I try to keep my patients out of the basement.” She grinned at him.

“Me too.” He studied her face again, remembering the good old days, a celebration for Jasper completing his rotation training. The drunken hilarity, the loosened inhibitions. He still didn’t consider it a mistake. Though he worried that she might not think the same thing. “So how have you been doing? How’s life been treating you?”

She smiled weakly. “Uh, good. I’m good. Working, you know . . . How about you?” She appeared a little reluctant to play catch-up in an intensive care room. Jasper gave her a similarly halfhearted answer and then let her get on with her day. He probably took up too much of her time already.

“But let’s catch up,” she said. “After I’m done.”

The problem was that Jasper didn’t know when he’d be done, if ever. He looked back at all the machines he’d have to run diagnostics on, feeling increasingly swamped with work. So that was it, then. Time to get to work.

He said goodbye to Fiona and then opened his laptop on a table. While the machine booted up, he ran an ethernet cable from it to the back of the ventilator. It fit into the machine with a little plastic snapping sound. He returned to the laptop to begin downloading whatever information he could from the faulty medical device. As he looked around the room for what to scrutinize next, he noticed the white shape of a medical coat in the doorway. A tallish, older man. A doctor.

“What the hell is this?” the doctor asked gruffly.

“IT,” said Jasper, sounding as bored as he could.

“What?”

“I’m just running some diagnostics on the machine here. I understand there was a problem with it today. Were you here for that?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the IT guy,” Jasper said again, head down, still working.

“Do I need to call security?”

“No. Are you the doctor that was having trouble with this machine? It would be helpful if we could go over some things . . .” Jasper stopped talking when he noticed that the doctor was again looking out of the room down the hall. He seemed to be motioning to somebody. Maybe security. “Sir?” said Jasper.

“Who is this guy?” the doctor asked someone outside of the room.

“What guy?” It was the sound of Fiona’s voice, and her footsteps, the sounds approaching the room.

“This guy in here saying he’s
IT
.” The doctor stepped aside for Fiona to enter the room before following her in. “Does this guy look familiar to you?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Fiona,” he said, standing inside the room but still blocking the doorway. “I just saw you in here talking to him. What the hell’s going on?”

“He said he was from IT and he just had a few questions for me, about the . . .”

“About the what?”

“The respirator,” she said.

The doctor turned to Jasper. His face flashed with anger. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Rick.” Jasper was back to hovering over his laptop. “The new guy.” He watched the progress of the data transfer come to completion.

“You’re new? What kind of permission do you have to be in here, Rick?”

Jasper moved to detach the ethernet cable, “Well, I don’t need
yours
.”

“Buddy, I’m two seconds away from calling security on your ass.”

“How about I just call my supervisor?” He stopped working for a moment to give a look at the doctor. “How about we all just relax, and I can call my supervisor and then we’ll—”

“I don’t care about your supervisor.”

“Ever heard of a man named Clarence Mitchell?”

The doctor frowned. “That’s your supervisor?”

Jasper nodded as he packed up his gear. He’d have to have a discussion with Clarence one way or another. There was no way he could get any work done in this type of environment. And he’d also like to ask about this asshole doctor.

“Alright, then,” the doctor said. “So get him on the phone. Right now.”

Jasper just kept packing up, stuffing the laptop and the cable into his bag.

“Well, go ahead. I presume you have his personal cell number, right?”

Jasper, without a word, pulled out his phone. He started thumbing through his contacts.

“Dr. Wahl,” said Fiona. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I have to work to do . . .”

The doctor grumbled something to her, and then Jasper heard her footsteps walking away from the room. As the phone began to ring, he took another glance at the doctor. “You sure know how to bother people when they’re trying to work.”

“And turn on the speaker so I can hear it.”

Jasper chuckled, and then complied. The room filled with the warm ringing sound until a man’s voice came on with a “Hello?”

“Is this Clarence Mitchell?” Jasper asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Rick. You know, your friend Rick.”

“My friend Rick, sure. What can I help you with?”

“Well, I’m standing here with a very nice gentleman who seems a little confused about what I’m doing here. I don’t know if he’s a doctor or what he is, but I just don’t want him to make a fool out of himself.” Jasper had his eyes trained on the doctor as he spoke, each word seeming to infuriate him more than the last. But it wasn’t just anger. He started to look scared.

“Who?” asked Clarence. “What are you talking about?”

Jasper asked the doctor for his name, but Clarence jumped in. “Put him on the line.”

Jasper held the phone out to the doctor. “Who is this?” Clarence’s voice squawked loudly from the speaker.

“Well, go ahead,” said Jasper. “Talk to him. I thought you wanted—”

The voice interrupted again with an angry barrage of, “What the hell is going on here?!”

“He’s afraid to say his name,” said Jasper, walking toward the doctor, trying to get close enough to read his name tag.

“I’m
not
afraid to say—”

“His name is Dr. Wahl,” said Jasper.

Dr. Wahl looked like something had been stolen from him, like a boy in the sandbox losing his toy truck. “What the fuck is this?” he barked at Jasper. “The fuck you think you’re doing?”

“Dr. Wahl?” called the voice on the phone, sounding as unimpressed as ever. “Did I hear that right?”

“Sir, the . . . The gentleman was . . .” Dr. Wahl sputtered to a stop.

“The gentleman was what?” asked Clarence.

“He was working,” said Jasper. “The gentleman was working.”

“I . . . I wasn’t sure who he was,” said Dr. Wahl.

“Clarence,” said Jasper. “I think we’ll have to meet today and discuss this. I can’t have this happen every time I’m trying to get some work done.”

“You were supposed to have an ID badge, Rick” said Clarence.

“Yes, I was.”

There was long sigh on the other end of the call. “We’ll have to get you an ID badge. Especially for tomorrow.”

Dr. Wahl stormed off.

S
he knocked on the door
. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Oh, no, Dear, no,” said Marva, lifting her back up and resting on her elbows. “Please come in.”

After the craziness of her morning, with the mourning family in the ICU, and then Jasper, and his encounter with Dr. Wahl, Fiona was more than happy to slow things down with a nice relaxing visit with Marva. Not only would it be a nice break from the craziness so far, it would provide both women with a little bright spot in another otherwise dreary hospital day. Or so she hoped.

“I’ve got some good news for you,” said Fiona, flipping through the woman’s charts.

“What’s that? No more insulin injections?”

“No. That wouldn’t be good news,” said Fiona. “That would result in you being sick.”

“Some days I’d
rather
be sick.”

“No it’s better news than that.” Fiona held up a little cardboard box. “Can you guess what this is?”

“Oh, heavens,” Marva said, cocking her head in delight. “You brought me a box of chocolates.”

Fiona laughed as she opened the box. “No. It’s your fancy new insulin pump.”

Marva’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh! That thing?”

“Yep. You were approved for a trial.”

“The thing where I won’t have to get so many needles?”

Fiona was a little uncomfortable with how little Marva actually knew about it, how little she understood her illness—despite the constant education sessions—and how willing she was to try anything that would take away the needles. It seemed that she thought that’s what diabetes was, that it just meant she’d get stuck with needles constantly.

“Oh, yes, that thing. My thing.”

“It’s called an insulin pump,” Fiona explained for the hundredth time. “With continuous glucose monitoring.”

“Thank you so much, Fiona. I’ve been thinking about this thing, this pump, all week. I had dreams about it. I can’t tell you how much I hate getting pricked by that thing, and then getting all those needles.”

“Well, you’ll still get pricked,” said Fiona, un-boxing the small device. It smelled like new plastic and freshly sterilized packing materials. “But it will only be once or twice a day.” She broke and tore through a plastic bag that held everything together. It was packed well. There were little bits of tape that needed removing, and then more plastic. When she finished, she glanced back at Marva, expecting to see that big smile of hers.

But her face had twisted up into a slight grimace.

“Marva?”

She was crying.

“What’s wrong?”

Marva shook her head, sniffling.

“Tell me. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just so happy,” she said, her voice cracking.

Fiona frowned. “You don’t look so happy.”

“No, I am, I am.” She sniffled. “Thank you, Jesus.”

There was a part of Fiona—the increasingly bitchy part of her—which wanted to inform Marva that Jesus had nothing to do with it. That he played no role in her going through a bunch of bureaucratic red tape and bullshit just to get her name placed on a list.

“I really am happy,” said Marva. “I am.”

Somewhere in there, beyond the flushed and teary face and the glistening red eyes, was, perhaps, some amount of happiness. But it seemed to Fiona more of relief, or rather, the release of emotions that comes only after the passing of some primal fear-invoking event. It looked as if Marva had just been freed from her hostage taker, and finally, after the brave face, collapsing and melting into a puddle of emotion. The nightmare was over. The needles, for the most part, could go away.

“Do you want to start using this today? Or do you want me to—?”

“Yes!” she cried, sitting up. “Yes.” She started wiping the tears off her face. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I’m just getting . . .”

“Excited,” Fiona finished for her.

“Yes, excited.” She chuckled quietly. “I was going to say
old
, but yes. Could we begin today?”

Fiona gave her the crash course on how the device works and how to use it. But there really wasn’t much
using
to be done by Marva. The very point of the device was that it would do everything automatically. A live analysis of her blood sugar levels. Painless injections of glucose when needed. Everything done without her even having to watch a screen or push a button. And, knowing Marva, she probably wouldn’t even know what was happening or when it ever did.

One thing she definitely noticed was the initial pinch of the needle, thankfully the last Fiona had to give her that day. It had to be done, Fiona placing the device on Marva’s bare midsection and then pressing a button that made her flinch at the pain. But that was it. She was good to go for two, maybe three days before they’d have to replenish the pump and redo the infusion site.

“That hurt a little,” said Marva. “But it’ll be well worth it, I’m sure. No more for a while, right?”

“That’s right,” said Fiona as she helped Marva with her blankets. “Do you need anything else before I have to go?”

“Oh, no, Dear, you’ve already done so much for little old me. When I get out of here, and when I’m healthy enough, I’m gonna have to reward you with one of my legendary key lime pies, let me tell you.”

“Marva, you know what we said about those sweets.”

“No, no, it’s for
you,
Dear. I’m all done with that.” She smiled. “I promise I am.”

“I just want you to be happy and healthy. Okay, Marva? That’s all the reward I need.”

“Okay,” she said, settling back down into her bed, head on pillow. “Okay, I’ll try, Dear.”

* * *

D
r. Wahl was been waiting
for her in the hallway. His usual sour expression had deteriorated into a nasty scowl. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

He gestured with his head. “Come with me.”

As she followed him down the hall and then into an unoccupied room, she couldn’t help feel the growing sensation that she needed some help. Outside help. The union. Someone.

Jasper would help, certainly. She liked the way he had handled the jackass Dr. Wahl. She doubted if she could be as strong and persuasive.

“Fiona,” he said while staring out one of the hospital’s seventh-floor windows. “Would you mind telling me who that man really was?”

She had to make a decision on the spot, not whether or not she should lie, but to which degree of lying. She certainly couldn’t tell him they’d hooked up before in the past like two horny teenagers. But did she admit they were friends at all—which, actually, was untrue. She hadn’t heard a peep from Jasper in five years.

“I don’t know who he is,” she finally said. And it was the truth. Aside from knowing that he’d been a Green Beret in the Army, she hadn’t known a single thing of substance about him. Had he turned into an ax murderer? Possible. Had he moved on from Fiona and gotten married to a stunning blonde? Very possible.

Did he maybe still have feelings for her too, after all these years?

“So he’s just the IT guy, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said. “As far as I know.”

“What do you mean, as far as you know?”

She tried staring at him as hard as she could. Be brave. Be firm. “I don’t know what to say, Doctor. I don’t know him any more than what I’ve told you.”

The doctor sighed and then started walking over to her. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being pushy.”

She actually hadn’t noticed. He was always like this. “It’s fine.”

“I’m just . . . I’ve been extra cautious lately. We’ve had a lot of technical problems, as you know. And that’s half the reason why we’ve been so hard on you. We’re just trying to assess what’s going on. Whether or not, you know, there’s someone . . . you know . . . someone from the inside . . .”

“So you thought I was sabotaging things?”

“Maybe not you. But,
someone
might be. That’s the problem. We don’t know a damn thing.” He walked past her and approached the doorway.

“Well, you can add me to the list of people who don’t have a clue,” Fiona said, watching him shut the door. After a loud thud, they were finally away from the noise of the busy hospital. Finally alone. It made her shudder.

“There’s something else,” said Dr. Wahl. “There’s also been rumors of . . . undercover evaluators. Have you heard this?”

“I heard some things about that. But you know, I’m just trying to stay focused.”

“I think I just caught one of the evaluators,” he said, nodding his head. There was almost a look of satisfaction on his face, like he’d accomplished some great task.

“Oh?”

“How do you feel about that? About the hospital sending in undercover spies like that?”

She shrugged, tried to mumble something.

“Because that’s what they are,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Spies.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Fuckin’ spies.” He started walking away with his head down and shaking side to side. “Can you believe it?”

She didn’t know what to believe.

“So, Fiona, come on. How do you feel about that? Huh? It’s dirty, isn’t it? A dirty trick?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“So what do you think they’re watching for?” she asked. “These spies.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. The hospital’s losing money. Big time. And not only that, they’re losing funding. So there’s a storm brewing.”

Parts of what he said resonated with her. She had noticed a certain dark cloud that has seeped through the hallways, a heaviness that had settled upon the hospital in the past several months. There was a lot less smiling. A lot more griping. More worries.

“As a nurse, I’m sure you’ve picked up on that.”

She nodded.

“So on top of the money problems, they have a union problem.”

“Oh?” Fiona didn’t quite understand. Weren’t they supposed to have union problems?

“And I’ll be honest, Fiona, that’s why you’re still here.”

“What do you mean?” She hated having to play along for information. The way he strung her along with—

“They’d love to fire you.”

Fiona’s heart sank. It was one thing to suspect it, but being told this by one of the attending physicians was a rather tough pill to swallow.

“But don’t worry, they’d love to fire a lot of people.” He said this in a cheerful tone as if it was some solace for her. “They’d rather fire them, you know, before laying them off. Cut hours, cut people. How else are they going to recoup their losses?”

Fiona swallowed hard. “I had no idea . . .”

“Well, that’s just how it goes. They have to be able to pay the shareholders. So they’ve bussed in these spies to build strong cases for firing people. Nice, huh?”

“Yeah.” Fiona moved slowly toward the door. “Well, thanks.”

He laughed. “Thanks?”

She opened the door.

“Watch your back out there.”