They took her to the scrub room and waited there, in the hall. ANOTHER PLASTIC SURGEON, named Tremaine Cooper, was scrubbing when she got there. She joined him, and he asked, "Got any ideas about the fit?"
"Can't tell, but Rick's stayed right on the nominal cut line, as close as I can tell. If he's a little outside it, we're okay. I just hope that he didn't get inside."
A maxio-facial surgeon at the hospital had prepared caps made from a composite material to fit inside the defects in the twins' skulls. Weather and Cooper would fit the caps into the defects, before stretching the expanded scalps over the holes.
Weather added, as they finished scrubbing, "I'll tell you what, Trey. They're gonna want one thing from us, and that won't be neatness. They're gonna want to get the last expanders out, the caps in, and the scalps stitched up, fast as we can do it. They want to get those kids out of here and into the ICU."
"Fast as we can," Tremaine agreed.
"So if you get done before me," Weather said, "don't hesitate to come over and help me out."
"I'll do that," he said.
Weather was faster than Cooper. By making the offer, she diplomatically cleared the way to help him finish, if that were needed.
Inside the OR, they waited while Hanson finished taking out the last bit of the ring of bone. He was sweating profusely, but five or six minutes after they stepped inside, he said, "That's it."
Not unlike drywall repair, Weather thought. Then: Well, yes, it is unlike drywall repair.
Maret: "Okay, everybody, we're doing good, now. Let's move the kids. First thing, check all the lines. We don't want to yank anything out, from clumsiness."
The checks were quick, but not perfunctory. The monitoring, anesthesia, and saline lines going into the children were now separate, but there were a lot of them, and included no-longer-functioning joint lines. The team traced them out, moved a few around, and then Maret said, "Let's make the move. Let's make the move."
Weather was standing in a sterile isolation area, where the non-sterile circulating nurses were not allowed, and had an end-on view of the tables. Hanson, Maret, and one of the anesthesiologists gripped the form-fitting foam cushion on which the twins lay, and carefully, slowly, pulled them apart.
As the cushions moved, the twins slowly, for the first time in their lives, drew apart, an inch at a time, then more quickly, until six feet separated them.
Maret turned to Weather and Cooper: "Quickly, now. Quickly." WEATHER HAD SARA, Cooper had Ellen. She first took out the two expanders, silicone balloons filled with saline solution-a bloody process because the scalp had to be lifted away from the skull. Once the balloons were out, she worked around the edges of the loosened skin, where it was still attached to Sara's skull.
"Ah, shit," Cooper said. She glanced sideways and saw Cooper with blood spattered on his operating glasses. In cutting the scalp away from the skull, he'd cut through a tiny artery, which squirted blood up into his face and glasses. He cauterized it, and the smell of burning blood drifted through the room.
When she thought she was ready, with a little to spare, Weather said, "Cap," and a neurosurgeon moved in with a composite piece marked with tiny orientation grooves. He got it the right way around and placed it in the defect, and Weather saw it almost click into place. The cap would be held down by two tiny stainless-steel screws, and, finally, by the scalp, as it grew back.
The surgeon said, "You do good work, Rick," and, "Drill, please."
Weather stepped back from the table, holding her hands against her stomach to keep from bumping anything non-sterile, and glanced up at the watchers. Only a glance, and then she kept her head resolutely down, for she'd seen, in the glance, the skinhead. Virgil and Lucas had described him, and there was no doubt about it.
"First screw is in," the neurosurgeon said, and behind him, Cooper, working on Ellen, said, "Cap," and a moment later, another neurosurgeon said, "Just like the cap on a Ball jar."
Weather kept her eyes down, thinking. A surgical pen, last used by Hanson, was sitting on an equipment tray. She reached out, picked it up, stepped behind the neurosurgeon, and wrote on the sleeve of her operating gown, "DO NOT LOOK UP. Go in the hallway and tell my husband that the skinhead is in the observation area. DO NOT HURRY."
She said to one of the circulating nurses, whom she'd known for a while, and who knew who Lucas was, "Kristy, could you get me one of the large gauze pads, please?"
The nurse stepped over to a supply cabinet, picked up a pad, slit the packaging without touching the sterile gauze, and brought it over to Weather. Weather held out the arm with the writing on it, still concealed behind the neurosurgeon's back, slowly pulled the gauze pad out of the packaging.
Kristy looked down at the writing on Weather's sleeve, and she almost looked up, but didn't. Her eyes came to Weather's, and she gave a tiny nod. No dummy.
Weather took the gauze pad and moved up beside the neurosurgeon, to watch him place the final screw.
"Second screw is in… as my girlfriend said to me last night," the neurosurgeon said. The women in the room booed him, and he said, cheerfully, "Just trying to speak truth to power."
Weather moved back up and stretched the loosened scalp over the cap.
Maret asked, "Is there enough?"
Weather said, "Of course. I'm even better at topology than Rick," and Hanson, the bone-cutter, who had been sweating the fit on the caps, made a rude noise. Out of the corner of her eye, Weather saw Kristy push out of the OR and into the scrub room.
Weather thought, He might have a hand grenade. Oh my God, don't let him have a hand grenade, then put it out of her mind and began suturing the scalp.
Maret asked, "Hearts?"
"Ellen is looking shaky. She's been worse," a cardiologist said.
"Sara's good," said another.
Weather was tying as she went along the suture line, adjusting the skin as she went. Some of the edges were drying, and since she had a bit extra, she snipped it off and sutured the more viable scalp.
She did a knot, couldn't help herself, and glanced up again:
No Lucas, no Virgil, no skinhead. He'd gone.
19
CAPPY SCOUTED the halls from the back of the hospital down toward the operating rooms. He'd spent enough time cruising the various wards that he knew most of the ins and outs of the place, but still got lost from time to time.
The storage closet was the center of his explorations. If he hadn't been there to kill somebody, he might have thought about moving in. Nobody ever came to the closet, and he rarely saw anybody in the adjacent hallways. There were plenty of toilets and showers around. Hell, maybe he could have gotten a job. He'd spent quite a bit of time pushing patients around the hallways, was beginning to understand their ways.
But, he was there to kill somebody.
He didn't mention it to Barakat, but he'd put two grenades in his jacket pocket on this last day, along with the Judge in his belt.
Made him feel weird; like a suicide bomber.
On the other hand, he'd had a vision, the last time he'd been in his bed. The vision was simple enough: he'd been running through the halls of the hospital, trying to find a way to get out. He was being chased. He dropped a grenade and turned a corner, and the chasers were stopped. That was alclass="underline" a long, long chase, with dropped grenades blowing behind him, keeping the chasers away.
Only trouble was, he always seemed to be running out of grenades, the chasers never quit, and the hallways were endless. IN THE CLOSET, he changed into the uniform, picked up a piece of two-by-four that he'd found in the kitchen, and headed out, nodding at nurses here and there, the grenades in his leg pockets like medical instruments, or maybe a tool, bouncing against his thigh, the Judge stuck in his waistband, under the long untucked uniform shirt. He walked around the observation room in a big circle, looking down the hallways at the door. He saw people coming and going, but never saw the cowboy. Satisfied that he was okay, at least for the moment, he left the two-by-four tucked behind the stairs in the stairwell going down to the operating floor.