Dark Heart (DARC Ops Book 3) (13 page)

“It means we’ve got a shit-ton of work to do between now and tomorrow,” Jackson interrupted. “And even then, your hospital won’t be fully secured. Especially not for Prince Saif.”

“So, then what?” asked Clarence. “We’re gonna wing it and hope nothing bad happens?”

“No,” said Jackson. “We’re not going to wing it.”

“Clarence,” said Jasper. “It just means that we’ll have to work our asses off.”

Clarence nodded solemnly. “We’ve got to make this work . . .”

“Okay, so back to your security plan,” said Matthias as he looked over to Eric.

“What about it?” Eric asked. He appeared to not want to talk about the security plan, or anything else for that matter.

“Do you have a committee you report to?”

“Excuse me?”

“About cybersecurity issues,” said Matthias said with a sigh. “Is there a committee that you notify cybersecurity incidents to?”

“Hmm . . .” Eric seemed to be stuck on that one, staring off for too long at the far corner of the room.

Matthias went ahead, asking, “And do you have qualified people on the committee who understand these issues?”

Eric looked at Clarence. And when Clarence noticed, he reacted like someone just tossed cold water onto his face. “Who?
Me
?” he barked at Eric. “You think
I’m
qualified?”

“Okay, then,” said Matthias. “Let’s move on.” He pointed to the projector screen and then advanced the slide. “If you’ll have a look at our slide here, you’ll see our risk analysis findings.”

“Eric,” said Clarence in a low grumble, “you have to tell me what all of this shit means, because they’re not explaining a damn thing to me. And because this is what I pay you for. If you can’t keep the hospital secure, then you can at least play interpreter.”

“Yes, sir,” said Eric, avoiding any and all eye contact with Clarence.

Matthias ran through a slew of vulnerabilities, pausing at the end of each to allow Eric to translate for Clarence. From access management, weak passwords, and unreplaced default settings to old systems that weren’t properly patched or maintained with the current security updates.

“Your email systems are particularly horrendous. You’re letting in emails from domains that have only been up for hours. Why?”

Clarence turned to his assistant. “Yeah. Why?”

“And no more letting your staff use hospital computers to surf the internet.”

“Yes!” said Clarence. “I’ve been saying that for
years
.”

“If they want to surf the web, they can use their smartphone for that.”

“But only on their breaks,” Clarence insisted.

“Right,” said Matthias. “On their breaks and through your guest wireless network.”

Jasper smiled as he watched the DARC Ops team first tear holes into the hospital’s cybersecurity, and then slowly, and mercifully, build them back up again. They went over all the easy changes first, the things that could be implemented within a matter of hours. It was stuff that would secure them from the average attack, but still not from anyone sophisticated enough to take down a Saudi prince. There was still much more work to be done, and much of it fell into Jasper’s lap.

“Before we end the meeting,” said Jasper, “I need to straighten up some things about my role.”

“What kind of things?” asked Jackson.

“Well, I think we need to embellish my injuries. I need something a little more serious than a sore shoulder.”

Jackson looked at Clarence and asked, “What can we do?”

“What do you mean what can we do? We can do anything. What kind of injury do you want, Jasper?”

“I was thinking broken arm. A full cast.”

Clarence looked at him for a moment in silence. And then he burst out laughing. “Finally,” he said through his laughter. “Finally something that I can take care of. Something attainable. Yeah, we’ll get you a friggin’ cast.”

“No cast,” said Jackson. “Too restrictive.”

“No cast?” said Clarence, sounding disappointed.

“How about a hip replacement?” asked Jackson. “It’ll be a lot easier.”

“So just something on the records?” said Jasper. “Should we have DARC Ops hack in and create—?”

Clarence moved on to a second round of laughter. “I can do that, too. Am I allowed to do
that
at least?”

When his hysteria finally dried up and he was wiping his tears, his face finally returned to that familiar look of deer-in-the-headlights dread. “But everything else . . . I have to take this back to the board members. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

“
Y
ou’re going
to hate me for this.”

Fiona had had enough. She closed her book with a dull thud and then looked up at Wendy, who had been hovering over her for the last five minutes.

“This really sucks,” said Wendy, her face twisted with disappointment. “But hopefully it’ll be the end of it.”

“What are you talking about, Wendy?”

“That urine test . . .”

“What about it?” She studied Wendy’s face for any hint. “I thought I passed?”

“You did,” said Wendy as she slowly sat next to her. She made a sound like it was painful for her knees to bend. “God, this really bugs me.”

“What is it?” Fiona tried not to yell, but it came out a little louder than she’d hoped.

“They’re saying the results were tampered with.”

“
What?
By whom?”

Wendy shrugged.

“They think
I
did it?”

“
No
,” said Wendy. “No, of course not.”

“Then who did? And why? Why would someone—?”

“Maybe tamper isn’t the right word. I think they said corrupted.”

The whole thing felt unreal to Fiona. A joke, perhaps. But the way Wendy was looking at her . . . Fuck it. Joke or not, Fiona was resolved to not participate in anymore bullshit. She was done peeing into cups.

“I’m not going to do it,” said Fiona, feeling more emboldened by the minute. “I’m done with that.”

“They’re going to ask you to—”

“I said I’m done,” Fiona interrupted her.

“You’re done what? With this job?”

“No,” she said a little quieter. “With the tests.”

“Well, it might be one and the same.”

More threats. More bullshit. With this type of treatment, Fiona began wondering if she’d been the unwitting accessory to some crime, if she’d seen or done something that she needed to be silenced for. It was a type of intimidation, she had no doubt about that. Character assassination.

She finally gathered her courage, and asked Wendy in as sincere a manner as possible, “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” said Wendy. “It was just a mistake on their end.”

“But what did I do to deserve all this shit?”

Wendy sighed, her hand running through her hair. “Fiona, girl, I love you, but you need to stop with the pity party. You’re not the only nurse being scrutinized here.”

She searched Wendy’s face for any information. Her glossy, mournful eyes, and the dark circles under them. Was
Wendy
being examined too?

“Let’s just put our heads down and get to work, and just get this over with.”

“What do you mean?” asked Fiona. “Are they testing you too?”

Wendy looked away and said, “No.”

Fiona kept watching for anything else.

“But it certainly feels like it,” Wendy said. “It’s a toxic environment. And I don’t think any of the girls trust me anymore.” She shook her head. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

Maybe they were on the same side. Wendy certainly looked wounded in some deep, profound way, like she had witnessed firsthand the rotten underbelly of hospital politics. And she was probably tired of having the same discussion with dozens of nurses, all of them firing back similarly.

“I have to get back,” said Fiona. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Are you?”

Fiona agreed and tried to force a smile.

“Well,” said Wendy. “So long as you’re okay, I guess it’s good timing that you do a shadow.”

That was another added irritation for Fiona, the month being randomly spotted with situational training for nursing students. She had already had several of these shadow her through various tasks. As if she wasn’t already tired of having preying eyes on her.

Wendy patted Fiona’s shoulder. “It’s just coming in from all angles, huh?”

“No, no,” said Fiona. “It’s okay.”

But it really wasn’t.

“I haven’t gotten to the bad news yet,” said Wendy, cringing slightly. “It’s for a bed bath.Perineal, too, if the patient wants it.”

“Wonderful,” said Fiona, doing nothing to hide her despair.

S
he met
her shadow in the hallway.

“Hi, Chelsea, my name is Fiona.” She was speaking loudly and with emphatic pronunciation. “Have you ever done a bed bath before?”

The girl looked like a teenager.

“No?” said Fiona.

A nervous teenager. “Um,” she said, her hands wringing tightly. “Well, I did in training.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Fiona. “With a training doll?”

She nodded.

“Okay, great. Then this should be a great way to learn what it’s
really
like, then.”

Fiona wasn’t sure what kind of patient they’d be bathing today, aside from the fact that it was a male. She almost hoped it would be some old, disgustingly perverted man. Someone who could make it memorable for the young student. Fiona really wanted to make an impact today. She wanted to expose this rookie to what the job was really like. She might skip all the stuff about bureaucratic fascism, the constant surveillance, the drug tests. She wouldn’t mention the perhaps psychotic Dr. Wahl. But in lieu of all that, the newbie could at least see what a ninety-year-old man's uncircumcised penis looked like.

And to not only see it, but to handle it. To bathe, rinse, and dry the little noodly member. And on top of that, and perhaps the most challenging part, to do so with a gentle modesty, to view and then handle his manhood with a clinical professionalism—no matter the age, or size, or extent of the inappropriate erection.

That was the great mystery behind every male bed bath. Not if, but when would the patient’s member recognize that it had an audience? The why was understood, certainly, as a female nurse. Especially for younger patients. But most younger patients were healthy enough to wash themselves “down there.” Everyone had that option, and most of them took it. There were, of course, some young men who Fiona could unequivocally describe as perverts. While most men, despite the erection, seemed very uncomfortable during the process, there was still that small percentage who thought it was their time to start making moves or to expect a “happy ending.”

There were times in the past where she’d come close to administering a few healthy slaps to the face, lest groping hands continue their groping. The talking, though, sometimes through the confusion of dementia patients, just had to be suffered through.

Would all that unpleasantness, the slapping and the suffering, be another trick of the trade she would have to teach the young intern today?

“It’s a man,” Fiona quietly warned her student as they approached the room. She looked at her closely, waiting for any kind of reaction. But her face was emotionless. Perhaps scared frozen. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah,” said the student, breathing through her mouth.

“It’ll be a little different than what you’re used to, with the training doll.”

“Yeah,” she said again, but this time with a girlish icky face. “Yeah, I kinda figured.”

So who would it be? Who was the lucky gentleman today? Fiona was still hoping for something adventurous. A 600-pounder, perhaps. Someone with enough surface area, both exposed and hidden in folds, to make the job memorable for the student.

They entered the patient’s room and Fiona turned up her nurse voice. “Good morning Mr.—”

Her words got choked off by the sight of him.

Jasper.

His expression went from surprise to pleasure.

Fiona was sure that her expression looked a little different.

“Hi,” he said, casually rolling over in bed to face them.

Fiona looked back at her student, who seemed a little taken aback by Fiona’s surprise. “Go ahead, come in.” She waved in the student, who entered the room with a little embarrassed smile for Jasper.

Fiona did as best as she could with an introduction, and then explained to her patient why she had stopped by. Was he busy? Would he like a bed bath now? Did he have to use the bathroom first?

While going through the usual formalities, she checked his paperwork, and was surprised to see his health had drastically deteriorated overnight. He’d moved rooms. Not only that, but he also seemed to have squeezed in an emergency hip replacement.

Fiona looked up at him from the clipboard with a quizzical look. “How are we feeling today?”

Jasper grinned. “We’re pretty good.”

She had emphasized “we” for the amount of personalities he’d taken on since his arrival at the hospital. Each of them having something different on their charts. Jasper pretended not to notice.

“Ready for a bath, I think,” he said.

Fiona rolled her eyes at him. Of course he was going to play along with this, like a spoiled brat, most likely. She expected him to drag it out and enjoy every minute of the torture.

But maybe she could torture him back . . .

“Okay, Chelsea, step over here and we’ll get started. First with the hand sanitizer.” Fiona rubbed the cool anti-bacterial gel on her hands and then glanced over to Jasper. “Next, we’ll have to put on some gloves.”

Jasper looked disappointed about the gloves.

“We wear gloves every time,” said Fiona. “Especially with the . . . the private region. That’s for
our
safety as much as theirs, because, while I’m sure this nice young gentleman is in perfect health, you never can tell.”

“Never can tell what?” asked Jasper.

“Do you want us to wash you down there?” Fiona asked in an almost Mom-sounding timbre. She wanted to scare him off. “Or would you rather take care of that on your own today?” And then she looked over to Chelsea, saying, “You always want to ask first. Sometimes the patient might want to do it themselves and in private.”

“No, I’m fine,” said Jasper, smiling devilishly.

“You’re fine?” said Fiona. “You don’t need us to help you there?”

“I
do
need help,” he said. “I need. Very much.”

Fiona continued on as professionally as she could, desperately trying to forget that she’d ever known him, that she’d ever touched him in a more intimate and fun way than a Tuesday morning bed bath. She shook off a few dirty thoughts and memories, and instead refocused on her task, on her student. She began describing the steps to Chelsea as she performed each of them, gathering the tools and prepping them. Two bowls filled with warm water. A soap dispenser. Two large towels and two small wash cloths. One large bathing towel. Another medium-sized towel, which she had Jasper lie on top of.

As she worked, Fiona had several times caught Chelsea staring at Jasper with this incredibly dopey expression. She’d look at his face as if he was the cutest boy in school, staring just long enough for eye contact, after which she would turn away, looking embarrassed and a little red-faced.

“The first thing we do is pull the privacy curtains around the bed,” said Fiona. “Can you help us with that, Chelsea?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Chelsea spun into action.

“I really appreciate it, by the way,” said Jasper.

Fiona glared at Jasper’s silly grin while Chelsea cordoned off his bed with the thin white curtains, the sound of scraping metal filling the room. Jasper just looked happy, like he was having a great time.

“Okay, and now we’ll cover the patient,” said Fiona, covering Jasper with the bathing towel. “This is the biggest towel, and it goes over everything.”

The two girls unfolded the towel over Jasper and spread it out to all four corners of the bed.

“Thank you, Chelsea.” Fiona cleared her throat. “Okay, so now . . . Now is when he can undress underneath.”

Jasper, without a word, had already begun to undress, starting with his pants, lifting his hips off the bed to slide them down. And then he began working on his shirt, taking some time with his sore wrist, all while his grin had eased into a sense of relaxation. Before long he was lying there, fully nude under a single towel, eyes closed as if he were enjoying a day at the spa. Or an after-hours massage parlor in Bangkok.

Chelsea, meanwhile, had been looking to Fiona rather nervously. “So, where do you . . . ? What do you do first?” Her mouth sounded dry.

Fiona added some body soap to a washcloth and said, as calmly as she could, “We’ll start with his chest.” Her own mouth had gone a little dry, as well.

Meanwhile, Jasper, still with his eyes closed, took a deep breath, his chest rising and almost quivering before falling back down again. He was already enjoying this far too much. The anticipation. Fiona had begun feeling something as well.

“So,” said Chelsea. “You just, uh . . .”

“Yes, Chelsea, you just slide the washcloth under the towel. And start rubbing.” Fiona was making slow circles with the soapy cloth, circling over Jasper’s firm pec, the cloth dragging slightly on the smattering of hair there. He breathed deeply again. “And make sure you always ask if it feels okay.”

“Okay,” said Chelsea, watching intently from the opposite side of the bed.

“Does it feel okay?”

“Yes,” said Jasper. “Thank you.”

Her hand was scrubbing lower, across his stomach in several strokes back and forth, his ab muscles flexed tightly as she worked her way lower, just low enough, and then back up his sides.

“You use the wash cloth in segments,” said Fiona. “In corners. You want to end off this corner with his armpits.” She started scrubbing under Jasper’s arms and his expression went a little silly, like he was holding in a sneeze.

Fiona finished scrubbing and pulled her hand out from under the towel. “Next, you take a wet towel to rinse.” She returned underneath the towel, warm water gushing out of her fist as she squeezed the towel over his chest. She could almost hear him groan in pleasure. “Is the water warm enough?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You always want to keep a constant dialogue,” Fiona instructed her student.

She kept working under the towel, scrubbing his arms, then rinsing. Every now and then she’d have to say something to Chelsea to keep her attention, after which Chelsea would just usually nod her head or say “Uh-huh,” before going back to her standard mouth breathing.

It was sad, in way. Not because of how desperately horny this poor girl seemed. But because this was like a dream. This, a guy like Jasper, never happened. His sexiness. The magnetism. It was setting the bar pretty high for future bed bathers.