Code 15 (43 page)

“The paramedics who were called to the scene of the accident told me your sons were stable. If you don’t mind me asking, how did they die?”

“One had a brain injury and the other had a massively collapsed lung.”

“A collapsed lung?” Morgan asked. “So, killing my father by injecting air into his chest to create the same injury was some kind of sick poetic justice?”

Ignoring her question, he asked, “What’s it going to be?”

“I’m not jumping,” she told him again.

“A bullet to the head it is, then,” he said with a relaxed shrug.

Unable to reach his case, Will stretched his upper body further into the backseat.

With her eyes glued on the flight instruments, Morgan quickly pulled her seatbelt as tight as she could. She then yanked the controls hard to the left. The high-powered aircraft responded instantly, snapping over into an inverted position. The force of gravity sent Will hurtling out of his seat. Even above the engine’s deafening whine, Morgan could hear the thud of his head and neck slamming against the plane’s ceiling.

Will’s initial cry of pain faded into a series of disoriented moans. After a few seconds, Morgan rolled the plane back to its normal flight path. As she’d guessed, he was conscious but dazed. Holding his head with both hands, he rocked back and forth. His eyes looked as if he were a fighter on the verge of being counted out.

Fearing he would quickly come around, Morgan slapped and punched Will’s head wildly with her right hand while her left struggled to keep control of the airplane. With each blow she summoned every particle of strength she could. After less than a minute, Morgan became exhausted. Her fist throbbed with pain and she could feel blood dripping between her knuckles.

Grunting and heaving one exhausted breath after another, she let her hand fall to her side. She looked over at Will. He was still in a daze. She stole a few seconds to check her flight instruments. When she turned to look at him again, he had opened his eyes and was looking directly at her. The rage in his face sent a renewed wave of terror flashing through her.

To her surprise he didn’t lunge in her direction. Instead, he struggled to push himself forward. Morgan’s momentary confusion ended when she saw him stretch his arms for the controls. Fearing he’d get control of the plane, Morgan sent the Cirrus into a series of snap rolls. She was well accustomed to aerobatic maneuvers, and even in the presence of her pregnancy, she suffered no motion sickness with its usual inca pacitation. With Will banging around the cabin like a wasp in a glass jar, she prayed he wouldn’t be as fortunate.

The cabin was suddenly filled with the reverberating sound of metal. Before Morgan felt the spiral of cold air fill the cabin, she knew exactly what had happened. Will’s door was no longer secure. Hearing nothing from him and hoping he was unconscious, Morgan decided to resume level flight. The maneuver only took a few seconds. Will was now upright in his chair with his head cocked to the right. He was breathing heavily. He had somehow managed to grab hold of one side of his seat belt. When she saw him reach for the other half, she again rolled the plane ninety degrees to the right. The new attitude sent Will crashing into his door. The force of his shoulders sprung the already tenuous lock and sent the door swinging open into the night.

With his weight and gravity working against him, Will’s upper body slipped farther into the door frame. The only thing separating him from an uncontrolled freefall into the ocean was his death grip on his chair. Morgan’s eyes flashed back and forth between Will and her flight instruments. To her astonishment, he pulled one of his hands from the seat, holding it out in front of himself, motionless. And then, out of complete stillness, his hand shot out at her. Finding her right forearm, his fingers slashed through her skin. The force of his grasp tightened, his fingernails plunging deeper into the soft tissues as if they were searching for bone. She struggled to free herself, but his grip was far too powerful.

Morgan knew the only thing saving her was to keep her right wingtip pointing toward the ocean and Will pinned in the doorframe. Her eyes flashed over at him long enough to see his face wild with rage. The thunderous blasts of air continued to fill the cabin. Morgan could see him struggling to pull himself back into the cabin. When those attempts failed, he managed to roll on his back. From that position, he began kicking madly at Morgan’s right shoulder and chest. Dodging from side to side in her seat, she tried desperately to avoid his frantic blows.

Finally, she felt Will’s grip on her arm weaken. Perhaps it was from exhaustion, but the reason made little difference to her. She amassed whatever strength was left to her and ripped her arm away. Once free from his grasp, she reached down to the left of her seat and pulled up a small fire extinguisher.

Will was clinging with both hands to fight the force of gravity wrenching him out of the plane. Without a shred of hesitation, Morgan wheeled the extinguisher across her lap and then slammed it into the back of his right hand. His guttural scream echoed above the howling wind. His bloodied fingers flattened out, quivered for a few seconds, and then slipped from the chair. With his grip now weakened, his right shoulder slipped outside the cabin.

For the first time she saw frenzy and desperation in his eyes. The only thing keeping him in the airplane was his opposite hand clutching the metal frame of his seat. His eyes locked on her, he made no pleas to save himself. Wrapping her fingers more firmly around the fire extinguisher, she elevated it over her shoulder. It would have been an easy enough matter to strike Will’s other hand, but she couldn’t.

Paralyzed with indecision, Morgan remained locked in a silent, icy stare with him. After a few more seconds passed, she realized he was successfully using his injured hand to pull himself back into his seat. She watched his heaving chest and could see the sweat pouring from his brow.

He stopped for a moment. Struggling to catch his breath, he screamed, “I’ll kill you.”

Filling her lungs to capacity, all she could think about was Will’s sadistic murder of her father.

“You sick son of a bitch,” she screamed, launching the fire extinguisher directly at his face.

The canister rotated a half turn before thumping him directly where Morgan had intended. His head snapped backward, tearing his grip loose. Morgan spun her head away and closed her eyes. His final scream was a piercing one that faded into the black abyss. When she looked back, she saw nothing except the open door.

Morgan didn’t have time to consider what she had just lived through. Thinking for even an instant she was out of harm’s way would probably prove to be a fatal error in judgment. She was now in a predicament that many a pilots considered a true nightmare. She was flying at a hundred twenty miles an hour with an open door. Her first move was to return the Cirrus to a normal flight configuration and begin a slow turn back to the west. Once she was on a course heading back to Florida, she picked up the radio, contacted flight control, and declared an emergency.

Following her emergency flight procedures to the letter, Morgan made a picture-perfect approach and touched down at the Hollywood-Fort Lauderdale airport thirty minutes later. Watching the emergency vehicles approach, she reached down, rubbed her abdomen, and began crying.

TWO WEEKS LATER

 

 

Ben and Morgan left her apartment and rode the elevator down to the lobby.

Ben had called ahead and had the doorman bring his car around to the front. After helping Morgan in, he got in on his side and started the engine.

“I heard from the medical board late yesterday afternoon,” she said.

“You didn’t say anything.”

“We were having such a good time last night, I didn’t want to talk about anything remotely related to the hospital.”

“I assume the news was good.”

“Their e-mail wasn’t definite, but it seems like they’ve decided to drop the investigation.”

“That’s great news,” Ben said, pulling out onto A1A.

With no enthusiasm in her voice, she said, “Unlike Bob Allenby and the hospital board, they probably won’t feel compelled to apologize.”

“Bob may surprise you. He’s a little preoccupied right now. By the way, have you heard anything about his son?”

Morgan smiled. “He’s actually doing better than anybody expected. He’s already in rehab. Bob said his doctors expect a complete recovery.” She paused for a few seconds. Her face became somber. “That’s more than I can say for Will Johnson.”

“You mean the man who ran him over? C’mon, Morgan. We’ve talked about this. You have to quit beating yourself up about what happened. You’re lucky to be alive, for God’s sake. Will Johnson was criminally insane. He murdered your father in cold blood and would have done the same to you. How can you feel any remorse for this guy?”

“He was sick, Ben.”

“So what? The circumstances didn’t exactly lend themselves to having him committed for long-term inpatient psychiatric treatment.” Ben shook his head. “It’s not as if you had some other option.”

“I’m just saying that maybe with some help and medication he could have—”

Ben downshifted as he eased back down below the speed limit. “You need to let this go . . . at least for this morning. The only thing that really matters is that your baby’s fine and that your professional life is back to normal.”

She smiled. “What’s the big surprise? Where are we going?

“I thought we could go down to South Beach. The Delano has a great brunch.”

She whistled softly. “Very classy.”

“It’s an all-you-can-eat deal. It should be perfect for you.” Morgan laughed. Ben cleared his throat in a way that betrayed he had something else on his mind.

“Ask me,” she said.

“What do you say to taking a few days off?”

She grinned. “What did you have in mind?”

“I figured we could take the new jet down to St. Kitts. I’ve been looking for a reason to stretch her legs. There’s a great Four Seasons down there.”

“You’re spoiling me,” she told him as she leaned over and put her arm around his shoulders. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a little thing for me.”

Ben slowed to a stop at a red light and looked over at Morgan. “Actually, it’s a big thing.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“My father once told me that he fell in love with my mother before they ever met. I didn’t understand what he meant until I met you.”

Ben’s confession left Morgan speechless. Had it not been for the deafening blast of the SUV’s horn from behind them, their kiss would have stopped traffic for a long time.

Gary Birken, M.D.
, is the author of the medical thrillers
Error in Judgement
,
Final Diagnosis
,
Plague
,
Embolus
, and
Code 15
. He presently lives in Hollywood, Florida, where he serves as the surgeon in chief of the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Please visit his website at
http://garybirken.com
.