Under the Knife(90)

“It looked like she had punctate hemorrhages around her TM and vestibulocochlear nerve, tracking medially toward her brain. On the left. Very subtle.”

“So? What did the radiologist think?”

“That it was nothing.”

“Well, there you go.”

“But the left ear is the one she was hearing the voice in.”

“Oh, come on, Spencer.” Raj no longer hid his exasperation. “Maybe she stuck something in her ear. You know, like a pencil, or wire coat hanger. I once saw a schizophrenic in med school who pulled out one of his molars with a pair of pliers because he thought there was a radio transmitter in it, and—”

“No. This was different, Raj. I know foreign-body head trauma, and this was not it. This was something else. Something much more subtle.”

“Subtle enough for you to have imagined it?”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying, Spencer? That something really is inside her head? Making her do and say weird things?”

Spencer chewed that over. Yes. I guess that is exactly what I’m saying. And to prove it he needed Raj’s help: something Raj would not be falling all over himself to offer. No, a straight-up plea wouldn’t work. But maybe a more devious approach—an appeal to his friend’s scientific curiosity, and intense pride in his work—might.

“No. What I’m saying is that she might have a neurological diagnosis that hasn’t yet been identified. A diagnosis that could explain her behavior.”

“Oh!” In an instant, Raj’s attitude transformed from confrontational to curious. “Ohhhhh. And you’re thinking we could make the diagnosis if we run her MRI through our software filters.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh.” Raj sounded thoughtful. “Now that’s an idea. All kinds of potential problems on the differential diagnosis. Infection. Nascent AVM. Subtle neoplastic lesion. White matter disease.” He added, with a hint of justifiable conceit, “Any of which I bet we could detect with our software.”

“Exactly.”

“And you said you placed our extra EEG electrode on her?”

“Yes. Hopefully she’ll leave it on for a while—”

“—so that maybe we can correlate her brain wave data with the MRI.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh. Well … with that storm coming in, lots of people are leaving early. I’ve already sent my grad students home and shut down the lab for the rest of the day … I suppose I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Spencer smiled to himself. “How fast could you have me some results?”

In his mind’s eye, Spencer imagined Raj’s big, shit-eating grin as he said, “How fast can you get me her MRI?”





SEBASTIAN


A few hours later, Sebastian and Finney were driving north on I-5 under a sullen grey sky. Though he hadn’t heard back yet from Blade, the rest of his preparations were almost complete. Sebastian gave a report as he maneuvered through the thickening traffic.

“The ER attending consulted neurosurgery, after the second seizure,” he said. After you screamed in her head, he didn’t add. “Name’s Dr. Spencer Cameron. Neurosurgeon at Turner. Thirty-nine years old. Undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Washington. Trained in neurosurgery at UC San Diego, and stayed on as a professor. Apparently, a popular, well-liked guy. I saw him in OR 10 this morning, watching the surgery.”

“Does this Dr.… Spencer—”

“Cameron. Dr. Cameron.”

“—have any direct connections with Dr. Wu?”

“None. At least, none I’m aware of.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Can’t you be sure?”

“No, I can’t. Especially now that she’s gone dark and we’re not receiving any signals from her device.” He still had no idea what the source of the ongoing interference was but was well past worrying since it couldn’t be helped; and, besides, it shouldn’t affect his plans. “They haven’t had any formal professional or personal interactions that I know of.”

“Fine. Anything else?”

“The ER did a head MRI, as expected,” Sebastian said. “The usual nonspecific, minor findings around the tympanic membrane. Nothing to raise the suspicions of the radiologist. Or, I’m sure, the good Dr. Cameron.”

“Fine.”

They drove on in silence, exiting the freeway and heading north along winding, hilly roads. Sebastian tried not to dwell on the fact that he was supposed to be going in the other goddamn direction; that by now he should have been halfway down the goddamn coast of Baja, high-fiving himself over the completion of the longest, most complex job he’d ever pulled off. Breaking out the fucking champagne. Counting the number of zeros to the left of the decimal point in his overseas account, and preparing to transfer a hefty chunk of it to his sister.

But, no, here he was: babysitting Finney, sitting next to him in Sebastian’s nondescript Volkswagen, driving him home to Rancho Santa Fe, fifteen miles northeast of Turner, a community of rolling hills and isolated, enormous estates. One of the richest fucking zip codes in the U.S. Perfect for a guy like Finney.

He clenched his teeth.