The Blue Nowhere

Phate would make it into custody alive.
    Tony Mott jogged through the door, not the least winded from his sprint to the room, unlike Bob Shelton, who staggered into the doorway, leaning against the jamb, gasping for breath. Bishop said, “Phate might’ve done something with Jennie’s medicine. They’re checking on it now.”
    “Jesus,” Shelton muttered. For once Bishop was glad that Tony Mott was at the front lines and that he carried that big chrome-plated Colt on his hip. His opinion now was that you couldn’t have too many allies, or too much firepower, when you were up against perps like Phate and Shawn.
    Sanchez kept her comforting grip on Jennie’s hand, whispering nonsense, telling her how good she looked and how terrible the food here would probably be and, man oh man, wasn’t that orderly up the hall a hunk. Bishop thought what a lucky woman Sanchez’s daughter was to have a mother like this—who would surely be stationed just like this, right beside her during labor when the girl finally brought her own lazy baby into the world.
    Mott had had the foresight to bring photocopies of Holloway’s Massachusetts booking picture. He’d handed these to some guards downstairs, he explained, and they were distributing them to hospital personnel. So far, though, no one had seen the killer.
    The young cop added to Bishop, “Patricia Nolan and Miller’re in the hospital’s computer department, trying to figure out how bad the hack was.”
    Bishop nodded and then said to Shelton and Mott, “I want you to—”
    Suddenly the vital signs monitor on the wall began to buzz with a loud sound. The diagram showing Jennie’s heart rate was jumping frantically up and down.
    Then a message popped up on the screen in glowing red type.
    WARNING: Fibrillation
    Jennie gasped and tilted her head up, staring at the monitor. She screamed.
    “Jesus!” Bishop cried and grabbed the call button. He began pushingit frantically. Bob Shelton ran into the hallway and started shouting, “We need help here! Here! Now!”
    Then the lines on the screen suddenly went flat. The warning tone changed to a piercing squeal and a new message burned on to the monitor.
    WARNING: Cardiac Arrest
    “Honey,” Jennie sobbed. Bishop gripped her hard, feeling utterly helpless. Sweat poured from her face and she shivered but she remained conscious. Linda Sanchez ran to the door and cried, “Get a goddamn doctor in here now!”
    A moment later Dr. Williston ran into the room. He glanced at the monitor and then at his patient and reached up, shut off the machine.
    “Do something!” Bishop cried.
    Williston listened to her chest then took her blood pressure. Then he stepped back and announced, “She’s fine.”
    “Fine?” Mott asked.
    Sanchez looked as if she was about to grab the doctor by the jacket and drag him back to his patient. “Check her again!”
    “There’s nothing wrong with her,” he told the policewoman.
    “But the monitor . . .” Bishop stammered.
    “Malfunction,” the doctor explained. “Something happened in the main computer system. Every monitor on this floor’s been doing the same thing.”
    Jennie closed her eyes and pressed her head back in the pillow. Bishop held her tightly.
    “And that injection?” the doctor continued. “I tracked it down. Somehow central pharmaceutical got an order for you to receive a vitamin shot. That’s all it was.”
    “A vitamin?”
    Bishop, trembling with relief, fought down the tears.
    The doctor said, “It won’t hurt you or the fetus in any way.” He shook his head. “It was strange—the order went out under my name and whoever did it got my passcode to authorize it. I keep that in a private file in my computer. I can’t imagine how anybody got it.”
    “Can’t imagine,” Tony Mott said with a sardonic glance at Bishop.
    A man in his fifties with a military bearing walked into the room. He wore a conservative suit. He introduced himself as Les Allen. He was head of security at the hospital. Hellman, the guard in the room, nodded to Allen, who didn’t respond. He asked Bishop, “What’s going on here, Detective?”
    Bishop told him about what had happened with his wife and the monitors.
    Allen said, “So he got into our main computer. . . . I’ll bring that up with the security committee today. But at the moment what should we do? You think this guy’s here someplace?”
    “Oh, yeah, he’s here.” Bishop waved at the dark monitor above Jennie’s