Free Godplayer by Robin Cook Page B

responded Dr. Ballantine. “Thomas, perhaps you’d be willing to chair an ad hoc committee to look into the advisability of such expansion.”
    Thomas thanked Dr. Ballantine, struggling to keep his sarcasm to a minimum. He said that with his current workload it was not possible to accept Ballantine’s offer immediately, but that he’d think about it. At the moment he had to worry about putting off patients who might die before they had OR time. Patients with a ninety-nine-percent chance of living long, productive lives if they did not find their OR time sacrificed to some sclerotic wino whom the teaching service wished to experiment on!
    On that note the meeting was adjourned.
    Struggling to keep his temper under control, Thomas went up to Ballantine. George had, of course, beat Thomas to the podium, but Thomas interrupted.
    “Could I speak to you for a moment?” asked Thomas.
    “Of course,” said Dr. Ballantine.
    “Alone,” said Thomas succinctly.
    “I was heading over to the ICU anyway,” said George amiably. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.” George gave Thomas a pat on the shoulder before leaving.
    To Thomas, Ballantine was the Hollywood image of the physician, with his soft white hair combed back from a deeply lined but tanned and handsome face. The only feature that somewhat marred the overall effect were the ears. By anyone’s standards they were large. Right now Thomas felt like grabbing and shaking them.
    “Now, Thomas,” said Dr. Ballantine quickly. “I don’t want you getting paranoid about all this. You have to understand that the university has been putting pressure on me to delegate more OR time to teaching, especially with the Time article, That kind of publicity is doing wonders for the endowment program. And as George pointed out, you have been controlling a disproportionate amount of hours. I’m sorry you had to learn about it like this, but ...”
    “But what?” asked Thomas.
    “You are in private practice,” said Dr. Ballantine. “Now if you’d agree to come full-time, I can guarantee a full professorship and ...”
    “My title as Assistant Clinical Professor is fine with me,” said Thomas. Suddenly he understood. The new schedule was another attempt at pressuring him into giving up his private practice.
    “Thomas, you do know that the chief of cardiac surgery who follows me will have to be full-time.”
    “So I’m to look at this cut in my OR time as a fait accompli,” said Thomas, ignoring Ballantine’s implications.
    “I’m afraid so, Thomas. Unless we get another OR, but, as you know, that takes time.”
    Abruptly Thomas turned to go.
    “You’ll think about coming aboard full-time, won’t you?” called Dr. Ballantine.
    “I’ll consider it,” said Thomas, knowing he was lying.
    Thomas left the teaching room and started down the stairs. At the first landing he stopped. Gripping the handrail and closing his eyes as tightly as possible, he let his body shake with sheer anger. It was only for a moment. Then he straightened up. He was back in control. After all, he was a rational individual, and he’d been up against bureaucratic nonsense long enough to deal with it. He’d suspected that Ballantine and George were up to something. Now he knew.
    But Thomas wondered if that were all. Maybe it was something more than the OR schedule change because he still had the anxious feeling something else was going on that he should know about.
    CHAPTER 3
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    CASSI ALWAYS EXPERIENCED a degree of apprehension when she dipped the test tape into her urine. There was always the chance that the color of the tape would change and indicate she was losing sugar. Not that a little sugar in her urine was all that big a deal, especially if it occurred only once in a while. It was more an emotional thing; if she was spilling sugar, then she was not in control. It was the psychological aspect that was disturbing.
    The light in the toilet was poor, forcing Cassi to unlatch the stall