on his back in the intensive care unit of the Beaumont Clinic in Boston, Petros was reliving that horrible day piece by piece: the sounds, the sights, even the smells. Horrible… fateful. For a brief time, images of the earthquake faded, yielding to the sounds and sensations of another disaster—this one right here in the hospital, and not long ago.
'Clear!'
Thea's voice. Had he arrested? Yes, he had arrested and he was dying… No, he must have been dead. He couldn't focus his thoughts well, but he remembered enough to know he had been resuscitated—just as he remembered the death of his family.
'One milligram of epinephrine IV, please, Tracy. Prepare to shock at three hundred…'
Thea …
The tremors were coming closer together. Pieces of the ceiling were beginning to fall.
'Petros, I slapped you because this is no time for hysteria. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, no crying! Now go find your mother and your sister and get them out from under this roof before I have to slap you again.'
' Papa, the floor! I can't stand up! Papa, help !…'
CHAPTER 8
Night—post-midnight morning, really—had always been Thea's favorite time in the hospital. During her residency she had often signed up for extra duty as the night float, relieving the other residents from 10 P.M. to 8 A.M. so they could get caught up on their paperwork and their sleep.
It was nearly 3 A.M. when she wandered through the glassed-in causeway that connected the venerable Clark Pavilion, where the reconstructed medical ICU was housed, to the third floor of the ultramodern Sperelakis Institute for Diagnostic Medicine. The situation with the founder of the institute was gratifyingly stable. After Niko removed a significant amount of bloody fluid from Petros's pericardial sac, he was electrically converted from ventricular fibrillation to a normal rhythm on the first try, and there he had remained, with his blood pressure gradually returning to effective levels.
Thea ambled past the closed and open doors of the Beaumont Clinic in-patients, taking in the night sounds of labored breathing, coughing, and restless shifting in bed. Regardless of the politics and the personality clashes and the empire building, this was a special place. She had done a month of study here during med school, following her father and his retinue of house officers and students from room to room, listening to him cajoling the young doctors to be their best, employing a wit and patience he seldom used at home.
Later, during her residency, she had come back for two more rotations.
Her thoughts this night kept drifting back to her brother Dimitri's computer-graphic depiction of Petros's accident. Could someone really have tried to kill the nearly seventy-year-old icon—a man who had done so much for so many over the years? Of course, she acknowledged, no matter how brilliant a physician was, there were bound to be disgruntled patients and their families. In addition, her experience with hospital politics exposed her to the passionate mesh of allies and enemies that characterized every medical staff, with each specialty protecting its turf, its OR time… and its income.
It was hard to believe that Selene and Niko refused to pay any attention to Dimitri's theory. If the physics behind it were correct, the depiction of the alleged accident was compelling. And knowing her brother's massive intellect, regardless of how eccentric he might be, it was difficult not to at least consider what he had to say.
From the third floor, Thea took the stairs up to traverse the fourth, then the fifth. Not surprisingly, every room was occupied. She was on the sixth floor when a sudden, mountainous wave of fatigue washed over her. No surprise. After spending time with Dimitri, she really should have stayed home. But she was still wired from the resuscitation and the clash with the twins, to say nothing of the long flight to Boston, the lack of any food in the house, and the spirit
'Clear!'
Thea's voice. Had he arrested? Yes, he had arrested and he was dying… No, he must have been dead. He couldn't focus his thoughts well, but he remembered enough to know he had been resuscitated—just as he remembered the death of his family.
'One milligram of epinephrine IV, please, Tracy. Prepare to shock at three hundred…'
Thea …
The tremors were coming closer together. Pieces of the ceiling were beginning to fall.
'Petros, I slapped you because this is no time for hysteria. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, no crying! Now go find your mother and your sister and get them out from under this roof before I have to slap you again.'
' Papa, the floor! I can't stand up! Papa, help !…'
CHAPTER 8
Night—post-midnight morning, really—had always been Thea's favorite time in the hospital. During her residency she had often signed up for extra duty as the night float, relieving the other residents from 10 P.M. to 8 A.M. so they could get caught up on their paperwork and their sleep.
It was nearly 3 A.M. when she wandered through the glassed-in causeway that connected the venerable Clark Pavilion, where the reconstructed medical ICU was housed, to the third floor of the ultramodern Sperelakis Institute for Diagnostic Medicine. The situation with the founder of the institute was gratifyingly stable. After Niko removed a significant amount of bloody fluid from Petros's pericardial sac, he was electrically converted from ventricular fibrillation to a normal rhythm on the first try, and there he had remained, with his blood pressure gradually returning to effective levels.
Thea ambled past the closed and open doors of the Beaumont Clinic in-patients, taking in the night sounds of labored breathing, coughing, and restless shifting in bed. Regardless of the politics and the personality clashes and the empire building, this was a special place. She had done a month of study here during med school, following her father and his retinue of house officers and students from room to room, listening to him cajoling the young doctors to be their best, employing a wit and patience he seldom used at home.
Later, during her residency, she had come back for two more rotations.
Her thoughts this night kept drifting back to her brother Dimitri's computer-graphic depiction of Petros's accident. Could someone really have tried to kill the nearly seventy-year-old icon—a man who had done so much for so many over the years? Of course, she acknowledged, no matter how brilliant a physician was, there were bound to be disgruntled patients and their families. In addition, her experience with hospital politics exposed her to the passionate mesh of allies and enemies that characterized every medical staff, with each specialty protecting its turf, its OR time… and its income.
It was hard to believe that Selene and Niko refused to pay any attention to Dimitri's theory. If the physics behind it were correct, the depiction of the alleged accident was compelling. And knowing her brother's massive intellect, regardless of how eccentric he might be, it was difficult not to at least consider what he had to say.
From the third floor, Thea took the stairs up to traverse the fourth, then the fifth. Not surprisingly, every room was occupied. She was on the sixth floor when a sudden, mountainous wave of fatigue washed over her. No surprise. After spending time with Dimitri, she really should have stayed home. But she was still wired from the resuscitation and the clash with the twins, to say nothing of the long flight to Boston, the lack of any food in the house, and the spirit
Similar Books
