Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) (36 page)

“Why’s it so quiet?” he loudly whispered.

A few laughed before Paula answered in her normal voice, “So Mike can hear his pumps.”

“I think we’re okay if you guys need some music,” Mike chimed in from the other side of the room.

“Okay, Dr. Dayo?”

“Huh?”

“Music?”

“Oh . . . sure. What we got today?”

“Lemme look.” She walked to the small desk and thumbed through the stack of CDs that migrated around the various operating rooms.

“Ummm . . . Aerosmith, Dave Mathews, Lady Gaga? Don’t even go there . . . Nora Jones?”

“We played that last time,” Raina answered as she shot a bulb of saline across Jennifer’s gloves.

“Where’s my Alex Cuba CD?” Dayo asked.

A collective series of groans was his answer.

“C’mon guys, humor me.”

Paula skipped to the bottom of the stack, and as expected, found the disc there. Sliding it in the player she soon had the room filled with the smooth voice of the Latin singer. It wasn’t that they disliked the music, it was the fact that the lyrics were in Spanish and Dayo was the only one who understood some of them. He had once tried to convince them that one of the songs was about a meatball sandwich and the singer’s debate on whether or not to eat it. His ruse had been defeated by a phone app.

Dayo hummed along with the music while his mind returned to the debate still in his head. If only he could discuss it with the team, but there was no way to do that. His hands returned to the heart and took on a mind of their own, cutting away the posterior wall of the left atrium. Working around Jake’s fingers, he severed the last section. The heart fell free yet stayed in place due to Jake’s steady hand. Dayo passed the scalpel off to Raina’s waiting hand before reaching back into the chest and cradling the heart in both hands. Pulling it free, he treated it like a newborn baby. It was wet and slippery, and it would be bad form to drop it. They all eyeballed the oversized purple mass of diseased tissue with disgust before the surgeon dropped it in a waiting pan.

Jake gratefully flexed his hand and stripped off his first glove so he could shake it without flinging blood about. After he had restored some blood flow, he took the pan and walked it into the next room. There he placed it on the table in front of a waiting pathologist as if he were a waiter delivering a rare steak. The pathologist completed the picture by putting down his book, picking up a scalpel, and carving into the organ. Jake just shook his head and returned to the operating room.

All of this had been witnessed with fascination by Joe from his front row seat next to Mike, and his mouth now hung open behind his surgical mask. The loud gurgle of the suction running dry brought his attention back to the table, and he was surprised to find three sets of eyes on him.

“Think you can roll that heart over here for me?” Dr. Dayo asked.

“Uh . . . sure.”

Dayo clasped his hands over his gown in front of him in the classic sterile posture and sat down in a chair provided by Paula. He wiggled slightly to loosen up his lower back as the heart was rolled up in front of him by their newest team member. Paula gloved up before opening the cover and exposing the heart. Dayo leaned in to examine it without the interference of the fogged glass one last time. It looked pink and healthy and perfect, far different from the one they had extracted only moments ago. He prayed for a defect, something that would make his decision for him, but nothing presented itself.

“That was one ugly heart,” Raina voiced while she made ready at her station.

“You can say that again,” Paula agreed.

“I’d say it suited him,” Dr. Dryer added from behind the drape.

There were murmurs of consent from around the room. Dayo kept his eyes on the heart in the tray, but listened intently.

“You can say that again, too,” Jennifer quickly agreed.

It was all that the surgeon needed to hear.

Transplant docs accused of organ trafficking
2/14/2008—The Associated Press
 
 

—TWENTY-EIGHT—

M
anuel listened intently to the approaching cart as it thumped its way over the decking toward them. His gaze however never wavered from the woman and young boy sitting across from him. Nor did the silenced pistol in his hand. The woman’s own gaze was a mixture of both fear and defiance, and it marred her otherwise beautiful features. The boy’s face showed nothing but fear with perhaps a touch of confusion. At least that’s what his eyes said as the lower half of his face was hidden by his mother’s hand.

Without looking away, Manuel put a finger to his own lips and punctuated it with a wave of the pistol before switching hands and licking his fingers. He reached over his head and unscrewed the light bulb until his corner of the cabin fell dark. He settled back into the shadow to wait.

•      •      •

Dr. Dayo had removed the heart from the POPS machine much as his partner had in the room down the hall. He now turned it over in the tray of cold saline, examining it further from every angle. He would now basically reverse what he had already done in order to implant it in Oscar’s chest.

The human heart had only a few connection points for blood-flow. Two for blood returning from the body, one for deoxygenated blood traveling to the lungs, four for oxygenated blood returning from the lungs, and one to pump that blood out to the body. Instead of severing each connection individually, the surgeon had removed the heart by cutting away the rear wall of the left atrium that held the four connections of Oscar’s old heart. Making the necessary connections for the blood flowing into the heart would then be a simple matter of sewing the rear wall of the donor heart to the remaining walls of the old heart. After that, it was just a matter of sewing the two remaining great vessels to their new partners.

Dayo examined the work of the unknown surgeon who had explanted the heart. It was . . . satisfactory, he decided. The aortic cut was a little crooked, but there was enough of it left that he could deal with that. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice in the matter. His fingers probed the valves and he shone his light inside to examine them as best he could. Not finding any faults, he pulled the heart dripping from the tray, dried it with a sterile towel, and set it beside the chest cavity.

•      •      •

Dr. Fong was also pulling the heart free of its ice bath. He had examined it very carefully as its movement on the POPS machine had bothered him. While he had found nothing wrong on his examination, his instincts were still telling him something wasn’t quite right. Nevertheless, he had no choice but to proceed. He patted the heart dry and placed it next to Tessa’s chest cavity on its anterior side. Receiving a scalpel from Tony, he carefully trimmed a large wedge of fat away before starting on the wall of the left atria. Tony and Stephanie watched in amazement as he cut a virtually identical window to the one he’d made on Tessa’s original heart. Dr. Fong worked steadily and without a word as he maneuvered the heart into the teenager’s chest. The two puzzle pieces lined up perfectly.

“Every time you do that, it amazes me. How do you get it to fit perfectly like that the first time?”

“Pigs,” the surgeon replied.

“Pigs?”

“Yeah, I cheated during my residency.”

“I don’t get it.”

Dr. Fong accepted some 3-0 prolene suture from Tony and began sewing the rear walls together before explaining.

“In med school we used pig hearts to practice on, but there were never enough to go around, so I took a trip out to the country one weekend and drove around until I found a pig farm. I cut a deal with the owner, and every weekend I had a fresh supply all my own. My roommate and I would sit out on the front porch, drink beer, and carve on hearts all weekend. You do something enough times you can’t help but get good at it. It was no different than what the trauma guys do, really.”

“The trauma guys? Do I want to hear this?”

Dr. Fong smiled before going on, but he never stopped suturing.

“The trauma guys ate a lot of steaks. I knew one guy who put away at least four or five a week. He would buy a big one, slice and gash it up with whatever he could think of, and then sew it up. When he was done, it went on the grill.”

“Really?”

“Sure, perfectly good steak shouldn’t go to waste. I always did wonder how much suture he ingested while we were there, though.”

Tony shook his head while he pictured it. They watched the surgeon sew for a while before Tony broke the silence.

“I wonder what your garbage man thought?”

The thought actually made the surgeon pause for a moment.

“Good question.”

•      •      •

Jimmy nodded to some neighboring boaters as he pushed the cart down the dock. Most of them were recreational boaters, and now that the sun was going down and the darkness was rapidly advancing, it was time to tie up the boat and head for the bar. Some of them had stopped to take in the sunset over the Gulf, and normally he would have joined them. But tonight the sunset was a welcome distraction, and he utilized it to pass people unobserved while they were otherwise occupied. The fewer people that saw them leave the better. There was no doubt in his mind that several of them would soon be asked a number of questions, questions concerning Jimmy and his location.

He looked ahead toward the boat and was glad to see that Jessica had kept herself and Cody below deck. One light was visible in the main cabin, and that was all. His plan was to keep it that way until they were well away from shore and any prying eyes. He wouldn’t allow himself to relax until they were.

Parking the cart parallel to the boat, he set the brake before reaching across the gap and disconnecting the sanction line. Loosening one mooring line and tightening another, he brought the forty-two feet of boat tight against the dock. Fortunately, the tide was cooperating and the deck of the boat was almost even with the dock. The hardest part now would be stepping over the rim of the center cockpit and negotiating the five steep steps down into the main cabin with his arms full.

With the sun now down, the marina’s solar lights were coming on. They still weren’t enough to illuminate the steps, but he was glad Jess was being cautious. She must be keeping Cody quiet as well, something of a miracle itself.

He grabbed two cases of water off the cart and managed to make it over the cockpit rim without falling. Once around the 36-inch steering wheel, he decided it was safer to back down the steps with the bulky load. He carefully felt his way from step to step before reaching the wood floor and turning around.

His gaze immediately fell on Jessica sitting in the corner across the cabin with Cody on her lap. Her infectious smile was gone, and in its place was a look of immen’se self control that was barely holding back her terror. She said nothing, but her eyes pleaded with him.

“Hello, Jimmy.”

Jimmy followed the voice to the dark corner opposite Jessica. The light bulb flickered on as it was screwed in to reveal Manuel sitting calmly in the chair under it. He was soaked in sweat and looked exhausted, but Jimmy set that aside when he saw the gun in his hand.

It was aimed right at them.

“Put the water down.”

Jimmy hesitated.

“Now . . . please.”

Jimmy heard the tone in his voice and the water slowly found its way to the floor. He used the movement to gather his legs under him in preparation for launching himself across the small room. Manuel watched him closely and shook his head before wagging the gun for Jimmy’s attention. Jimmy changed his mind when he saw that the hammer was back. It meant that the trigger would require very little pressure to fire the gun. The barrel was pointed directly at Jessica and Cody, and the round had enough power to pass through them both. He couldn’t risk it. Reading the situation quickly, he understood why he wasn’t shot already. Manuel didn’t wish to do it now, as the noise would attract too much attention here in the crowded marina. It was better for Jimmy to wait and hope for a better opportunity.

Manuel waited until Jimmy was standing again before waving the gun in the direction of the table. Jimmy saw a set of nylon handcuffs waiting for him. No doubt Jessica and Cody were already wearing theirs. He picked them up and slipped them over his wrist before pulling them tight with his teeth.

“So this is how it is?”

Manuel shrugged. “I’m afraid so.”

“Rico?”

Manuel nodded. “You know how he is, and you pissed him off anyway. He’s never liked you. What the hell did you think he would do?”

“So he sent you?” Jimmy deadpanned.

“He didn’t offer it as a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not with him. Sit.”

Jimmy backed up until his knees touched the curved bench of the navigation station. A small desk at the bottom of the stairs, it held the usual GPS, VHS radio, and radar in a small console. The surface was just enough to spread out a paper chart. Under the table were two objects secured with Velcro holders. One of them was a flare gun.

The other wasn’t.

Human Organs for Sale?
November 06, 2008—FoxNews.com