The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [99]
Janet glanced about. The police, always present in the emergency ward, were occupied with the gunshot and accident victims. She sensed she could move through the chaos unnoticed, but only if she moved quickly. Was there time to call Dahlia? She checked the hallway to Trauma Room 12. The area outside the room was deserted. There might not be another chance.
Adrenalin. Potassium. Insulin. Digitalis. Pancuronium. Janet ticked off the possibilities as she hurried to the nurses’ station. She wondered about Christine Beall. Had Vincent already accounted for her? No matter, she decided. The only problem she could do anything about at the moment was waiting for her in Trauma 12.
“Dr. Shelton, my name is Clifford. Can you lift up your bum so I can pull these pants off you?” The pudgy orderly was past thirty, but looked like he had yet to shave for the first time.
David grunted his reply but, with consummate effort, was actually able to do what the man/boy requested. Gradually, ripples of warmth washed over the deep chill inside him. As his awareness grew, so did the throbbing pain in his ankle and arm, along with lesser aches above his right ear and on the soles of his feet.
“You look like you’ve had quite a time of it,” Clifford said cheerfully, spreading David’s sodden pants over the back of a chair.
“The river … I … was in the river.” David’s voice was distant and flat. “Ben is dead …”
“Can you hold this under your tongue?” the orderly asked, shoving a thermometer into David’s mouth. “Who’s Ben?” David mumbled and struggled to reach the thermometer. “No, no, don’t touch that,” Clifford scolded. “Doctor will be in shortly to check you over. You just keep that under your tongue until I get back.”
Never take an oral temp on someone who’s freezing to death, idiot! The unspoken disapproval flashed in David’s eyes as the corpulent orderly left the room. Then his lips tightened in a half-smile. He was coming around. Bit by bit his random thoughts were connecting. Suddenly Ben’s face appeared in his mind, blood pouring from his mouth. Renewed terror took hold. Desperately, he pulled himself up, first on one elbow, then to an outstretched hand. “Christine,” he gasped, spitting the thermometer out. “I’ve got to get to her. As his head came upright, the walls began to turn, slowly at first, but with rapidly building speed.
David fought the spinning and the nausea, and forced himself to a sitting position. Sweat poured from his forehead and dripped down his sides. The floor blurred beneath him. As he leaned forward, the room began to dim, and he knew that he was falling. For an incredible moment he was weightless, floating in a sea of brilliant light. Then there was nothing.
Janet Poulos caught David by the shoulders as he toppled forward and eased him back onto the litter. His respirations were rapid and shallow, the pulse at his wrist thready. Briefly she thought about sitting him up again. The precipitous blood-pressure drop from such a maneuver might well remove the need for the syringe full of Adrenalin in her pocket. Too chancy, she decided, pulling his feet up on the litter. She made a final check of the corridor. There was a crisis of some sort several rooms away and the crash cart was being rushed in. Perfect, she thought, stepping back into the room and closing the door behind her. Everyone just stay where you are for a little while.
“Dr. Shelton, can you hear me?” she asked. “I’m going to put a tourniquet on your arm to draw some blood. It will only take a minute.”
David moaned and pulled his arm away as she looped the rubber tubing around it. “Now, now, David,” she said sweetly. “Just hold still. This isn’t going to hurt a bit.” She slapped