Coma

Susan waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Slowly the objects in the room took form. There was a central table supporting several large objects from which emanated a low-pitched continuous noise. Counter tops ran around the room. In the left counter top there was a large sink. Immediately to her right she could see the form of a gas sterilizer.

As quietly as possible, Susan opened the cabinet beneath the sink, and with her hands she ascertained that there would be enough room to squeeze in if necessary. She then returned to the hall door and ran her fingers along its edge until she found the knob and depressed the lock.

Then she paused and listened to make sure there had been no change in the pattern of noises from the OR. Susan looked at the objects on the central table, but the light was too poor to distinguish them.

Susan trod lightly to the OR door and raised herself on tiptoe. She saw two surgeons, gowned and gloved in the usual fashion, bending over a patient. But she could see no anesthesiologist. There was no operating table. The patient was still strung up in a frame. But he was maintained on his right side; an incision gaped across his loins. The surgeons were closing, and Susan could hear their conversation with relative ease.

“I wonder where that heart’s going from that previous case?”

“San Fran,” said the second surgeon, running down a knot, pulling it tight. “I think it’s only bringing seventy-five thousand dollars. It was a poor match, only two out of four, but it was a rush order.”

“Can’t win ’em all,” said the first surgeon, “but this kidney is a four-tissue match, and I understand it’s going for almost two hundred thousand. Besides, they might want the other one in a few days.”

“Well, we don’t let it go until we find a market for the heart,” added the other, tying another rapid knot.

“The real problem is finding a tissue match for Dallas. The offer is a million dollars for a four-match. The kid’s father is in oil.”

The second surgeon whistled. “Any luck so far?”

“We found a three-tissue match scheduled for a T&A at the Memorial next Friday and ...”

Susan’s mind was desperately trying to find some alternate explanation for what she thought she was hearing, but before she could, the door from the reception hall jiggled as someone tried to open it. Susan’s first impulse was to run into the other empty OR. Instead, she raced back to the sink, as she heard someone enter the lighted operating room. She squeezed herself into the cabinet under the counter, wincing at the sound of several jars that tipped over when she pulled her feet in after her. It was tight quarters; she struggled to get her arms in. She was unable to close the door completely by the time the door to the OR

opened and the room lights went on. Susan held her breath.

With her head twisted sideways, and the cabinet door slightly ajar, she could see two Plexiglas structures sitting on the table. They resembled fish tanks. Then she understood the pumping noise she had heard when she entered the room. It came from two self-contained machines, battery-driven, which perfused the two Plexiglas tanks. The first contained a human heart, suspended in a fluid. It was quivering, but not beating. The other contained a human kidney, also suspended in a fluid.

Suddenly the whole nightmare was clear to Susan. Now she had a motive, a horrible motive for making patients comatose. The Jefferson Institute was a clearinghouse for black-market human organs!

Susan had little time to think. A man walked past the sink, his trousers brushing against the half-closed cabinet door. He unlocked the door to the hall, then he went over to the table. Audibly straining, he lifted the tank which contained the heart and carried it away, leaving the light on and the door ajar.

Susan’s mind raced back over all the details of her investigation: the T-valve on the oxygen line, D’Ambrosio’s face, the image of Nancy Greenly, and the heart in the Plexiglas container. She remembered the conversation in the morgue below, and she realized that the heart must have been Berman’s. She began to feel a sense of urgency, a sense of pervading panic. The concept of this lurid affair was too overwhelming.

She had to get away and, for the first time, she realized how difficult that was going to be. This was no ordinary hospital. At least some of the people running it were criminals. She had to get out and get to someone who could comprehend what was going on. Stark. She had to get to Stark.

He would be able to appreciate the whole business and was powerful enough to do something about it.

Carefully Susan moved her left hand out of the cabinet onto the floor, pushing open the door as she did so. She listened. There were no noises except for the quiet whir of the pump perfusing the kidney on the table.