Without remorse - Tom Clancy [58]
I'm alive.
Why does that surprise me?
He could hear the sound of people moving around, muted conversations, distant chimes. The sound of rushing air was explained by air-conditioning vents, one of which had to be nearby, since he could feel the moving chill on the skin of his back. Something told him that he ought to move, that being still made him vulnerable, but even after he managed a command to his limbs to do something, nothing happened. That's when the pain announced its presence. Like the ripple on a pond from the fall of an insect, it started somewhere on his shoulder and expanded. It took a moment to classify. The nearest approximation was a bad sunburn, because everything from the left side of his neck on down to his left elbow felt scorched. He knew he was forgetting something, probably something important.
Where the fuck am I?
Kelly thought he felt the distant vibration of - what? Ship's engines? No, that wasn't right somehow, and after a few more seconds he realized it was the faraway sound of a city bus pulling away from a stop. Not a ship. A city. Why am I in a city?
A shadow crossed his face. He opened his eyes to see the bottom half of a figure dressed all over in light-green cotton. The hands held a clipboard of some sort. Kelly couldn't even focus his eyes well enough to tell if the figure was male or female before it went away, and it didn't occur to him to say anything before he drifted back to sleep.
'The shoulder wound was extensive but superficial,' Rosen told the neurosurgical resident, thirty feet away.
'Bloody enough. Four units', she noted. 'Shotgun wounds are like that. There was only one real threat to the spine. Took me a little while to figure how to remove it without endangering anything.'
'Two hundred thirty-seven pellets, but' - she held the X ray up to the light— 'looks like you got them all. This fellow just got a nice collection of freckles, though.'
'Took long enough,' Sam said tiredly, knowing that he ought to have let someone else handle it, but he'd volunteered, after all.
'You know this patient, don't you?' Sandy O'Toole said, arriving from the recovery room.
'Yeah.'
'He's coming out, but it'll be a while.' She handed over the chart which showed his current vitals. 'Looking good, doctor.'
Professor Rosen nodded and explained further to the resident, 'Great physical shape. The firemen did a nice job holding up his BP. He did almost bleed out, but the wounds looked worse than they really were. Sandy?'
She turned back. 'Yes, doctor?'
'This one is a friend of mine. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to take -'
'A special interest?'
'You're our best, Sandy.'
'Anything I need to know?' she asked, appreciating the compliment.
'He's a good man. Sandy.' Sam said it in a way that carried real meaning. 'Sarah likes him, too.'
'Then he must be all right.' She headed back into recovery, wondering if the professor was playing matchmaker again.
'What do I tell the police?'
'Four hours, minimum. I want to be there.' Rosen looked over at the coffeepot and decided against it. Any more and his stomach might rupture from all the acid.
'So who is he?'
'I don't know all that much, but I ran into trouble on the Bay in my boat and he helped me out. We ended up staying at his place for the weekend.' Sam didn't go any further. He didn't really know that much, but he had inferred a lot, and that scared him very much indeed. He'd done his part. While he hadn't saved Kelly's life - luck and the firemen had probably done that - he had performed an exceedingly skillful procedure, though he had also annoyed the resident, Dr Ann Pretlow, by not allowing her to do much of anything except watch. 'I need a little sleep. I don't have much scheduled for today. Can you do the follow-up on Mrs Baker?'
'Certainly.'
'Have someone wake me up in three hours,' Rosen said on the way to his office, where a nice comfortable couch awaited.
'Nice tan,' Billy