asked.
Josh inclined his head toward the upholstered chair in the corner of the room. “No. That chair reclines. I’m going to sit in it for the next several hours.” Madison didn’t realize it, but Josh knew that if anything went wrong, minutes—no, seconds—
would count. He looked at the crash cart in the corner. It contained everything needed to treat emergencies, including an anaphylactic reaction. Atop it was a wrapped set of sterile instruments for an emergency tracheotomy, an operation to open the obstructed airway of a patient. From its external appearance, the red-painted Craftsman rolling cabinet didn’t look particularly unique, but at this moment it was the most important piece of equipment in the United States. And Josh was the most important person.
***
As Ethan Grant prepared to leave for the day, he went through his usual routine, scanning the petri dishes one by one, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He knew that, like that of an airline pilot, his job here in the bacteriology lab of Prestonwood Hospital might be routine most of the time, but it had the occasional moment when he needed every ounce of skill and experience, because he was dealing with, quite literally, a life-or-death situation.
The round, flat glass dish he lifted from the incubator contained a gel-like substance on which scattered colonies of bacteria grew. This was the culture from a swab or specimen that would help him identify the organism and then define the antibiotic to which it was sensitive.
This particular set of plates wasn’t even twelve hours old. It would probably be tomorrow or the next day before Ethan could definitively name the species of bacteria growing on them and say with certainty what antibiotics would work best to treat the patient from which the specimen came. But despite the short time involved, these colonies were already growing more vigorously than usual. Ethan toyed with the idea of making a slide to see if the organisms on the petri dish were the same as what he and Dr. Pearson saw earlier that day.
Before he could act on his thought, the phone rang. Ethan replaced the petri dish in the incubator and reached for the phone. The call was from a physician who suspected his patient was suffering from septicemia—bacteria infecting the bloodstream. Could Ethan check the blood cultures drawn the previous day?
Ethan looked at each of the three specimens carefully. It was too early to call them negative, but he could see no growth. He replaced the bottles and returned to the phone. “Doctor, they look negative. There’s no growth in any of them.”
“You’re sure?”
Of course I’m sure. I’ve been doing this for . . . Never mind. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, keep an eye on them.”
Ethan’s routine was the same followed by most, if not all, laboratories in the U.S.: monitor specimens for five days. If there was any indication of growth, he’d do a slide and Gram stain it. He could explain this to the doctor, but there was no need. The man was worried about his patient. Ethan could understand that.
After he hung up, Ethan wondered if he should follow through with making and examining another slide from the culture taken from Josh’s patient. Then he looked at the clock. It was already almost six, nearly an hour past time for him to leave. He decided to put that on the back burner until morning. It probably wasn’t important, anyway.
Chapter 6
6
The next morning, Josh stood in the bathroom of his temporary hospital office and studied his reflection in the mirror. Finally, he shook his head and looked away. A night spent at the hospital watching a patient wasn’t unheard of for him, but it had been a while. He decided he hadn’t looked this haggard since pulling his last all-nighter as a senior medical student. Eyes red, a day’s growth of beard, his clothes wrinkled, and developing a definite scent that told him he needed to shower soon. Josh was a mess. That’s not the way an ex-president’s doctor is supposed to look.
Maybe later this morning he could visit the surgeon’s lounge and clean up, perhaps put on a clean scrub suit. But for now, Josh needed to get going.
He splashed water on his face, finger-combed his hair, and took a deep breath. Josh might hate the way he looked, but even more he hated the way he felt. He moved out of the bathroom, through his office, and into the hospital corridor. He’d grab a cup of coffee, check one more time on Madison, look in on Rachel, then make a quick trip home to shave, shower, and change.
A vibration in his pocket told Josh those plans might have to be put on hold. He pulled out his cell phone and saw the call was from a number inside the hospital.
“Dr. Pearson.”
“Doctor, this is Ethan Grant in the bacteriology lab. I’ve got something here I think you’ll want to see.”
“Can it wait?” Josh said. “I need to—”
“Sir, if it could wait, I wouldn’t have called,” Grant said.
Josh recognized the hint of peevishness in the technician’s tone. Grant had turned up something important, and now Josh was ignoring it. This man is trying to tell me something. I should listen to him.
“I’ll be right there,” Josh said. “Thanks for calling.”
There’d been no need to ask who the patient was. Since Josh only had one patient—well, two, if you counted Rachel—anyway, this could only have something to do with the cultures he’d sent to the lab yesterday. Despite telling Grant he’d be there shortly, Josh decided to make a quick stop at Madison’s room before he headed for the bacteriology lab. True, he’d only been out of Madison’s room for less than half an hour, but he felt as though he needed to keep a close eye on the man. If Josh let something happen— No, he didn’t want to think about that.
As Josh moved toward the elevator, part of him was curious about what the bacteriology technician had found. However, since it probably wasn’t good, the other part of him dreaded finding out.
***
Rachel slowly emerged from a troubled sleep and started to stretch, only to discover that she could move her left arm only a short distance. She opened her eyes and looked around. It took a minute for her to orient herself, then it all came back to her. She was in a hospital, and the reason her left arm was restrained was to keep her from inadvertently pulling the IV out of the vein in the back of that hand.
Rachel’s eyes traveled to her left, up the IV tubing to the plastic bag of fluid, then to the smaller bag hanging next to it on the other arm of the twin pole. It was empty, which meant she’d received the full dose of diphtheria antitoxin. Were the proteins, at this moment, circulating through her body doing battle with the toxins released by . . . what was the name of the bacterium? She’d learned it in nursing school, but it danced just outside her memory. Was inability to remember another side effect, either of the infection or the treatment?
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
Rachel was frustrated with having to look beyond the mask and face shield and depend on voice recognition to identify the speaker, but she hoped that wouldn’t last much longer. “I guess I’m all right, Dr. Neeves. Is everything looking okay?”
Rachel wished she could see the doctor’s expression. Instead, her answer came in the form of a shrug. “I’ll know more after I have a look at you,” Dr. Neeves said.
As
