Free Patient One by Leonard Goldberg Page B

water.”
    Warren was about to ask what to do if the bleeding didn’t stop, but David had already dashed out of the room. Warren sighed heavily to himself. He was out of his depth and knew it. The President was a GI bleeder with a coagulation defect! It was a rare, complex condition, and the President would need specialists in both hematology and gastroenterology to survive another major bleed. And even they might not be able to save him. The President suddenly gagged, and more stingy clots oozed from his nose. Warren could only hope it didn’t signal the start of another bleeding episode.
    David sped down the corridor, passing a cluster of Secret Service agents and two big, burly Russian security guards. All the doors were closed, but David could hear the occupants throwing up. The smell of vomit was everywhere.
    At the nurses’ station, David called over to the clerk. “Where’s Carolyn?”
    “In the treatment room.”
    David hurried on, deciding to order two units of fresh frozen plasma. That should hold the President for now, assuming the diagnosis of von Willebrand’s disease was correct. It was, he told himself. It had to be. There was no other explanation for that much bleeding in a simple case of food poisoning. Damn it! A coagulation defect! I should have thought of that early on, because I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen patients in the ER bleeding like hell from minor wounds because they had a coagulation deficiency that was either inherited or caused by blood-thinning drugs like Coumadin. And I almost missed the diagnosis in the President of the United States. Jesus Christ! Get your head out of your ass, and think!
    He entered the treatment room and found Carolyn rummaging through a drawer. She cursed under her breath.
    “What are you looking for?” David asked.
    “Pliers,” Carolyn replied. “Kate broke off the key in the narcotics cabinet. Those Secret Service agents must have removed all the tools.”
    “That can wait,” David said urgently. “We’ve got to clear this room except for the bare essentials.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re going to do the President’s endoscopy in here. They don’t trust any other place in the hospital.”
    “Those guys don’t take any chances, do they?”
    “Not when it comes to the President,” David said, and walked over to the phone on the wall. “Has the blood bank sent up those units yet?”
    Carolyn shook her head. “They’re having trouble finding a match for the President.”
    “Damn it!” David groused and rubbed at his forehead, as he tried to think through the predicament. No matched blood was available, and none would be any time soon. Plasma alone wouldn’t help the President’s worsening anemia. “We may have to use O negative blood in him.”
    “Is it that bad?” Carolyn asked.
    David nodded. “At the rate he’s going, the President could bleed out on us.”
    “Oh, Jesus,” Carolyn breathed in a whisper.
    David rapidly dialed the number of the blood bank and spoke to the technician in pressing tones. “I need that blood up here now! … I don’t care! … Get it up here!” David’s jaw tightened, a vein on his temple bulged. “Put the director of the blood bank on!”
    While he waited, David glanced over to Carolyn and said, “And to complicate matters, the President probably has a coagulation defect.”
    “This is getting worse by the minute.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    Carolyn watched David pace around the phone, pleased that he was there tonight rather than the other attending physician, Oliver Sims, who was brilliant but slow and hesitant. In contrast, David was sharp and quick and decisive, and at his best in emergency situations. Like now. She tried to pry her eyes away from him, but couldn’t. Her gaze kept coming back to his uneven good looks that she found so captivating. She wondered if Sol Simcha was right about David watching her. If David was really interested, he was doing a good job of hiding it.
    “I