Debbie beamed. “Actually, it sounds wonderful. Okay, I’ll do it.”
Clayton gave her a wink and a light swat on the butt with his file folder as he walked off. He was pleased, even if he’d had to agree to a Saturday-night dinner. Well, maybe he could get out of it. He checked his watch. He headed over to the hospital’s parking garage. The valet raced off to retrieve his red Ferrari, which they always parked near the checkout desk. An hour earlier he had gotten a call that asked him to come to an emergency meeting with Thorn and Langley over in Century City. He loved moving among the business elites. If he had to get his shoes muddy once in a while for the privilege, so be it. The mud made him indispensable.
Clayton, Thorn, and Langley were gathered around a small table in Thorn’s expansive corner office. The massive windows in the room looked south and west, offering a stunning view of Santa Monica Bay and the Pacific Ocean, not that Thorn noticed it anymore.
Their discussion was about what they were now officially calling “the glitch.” Langley brought the others up to date on all the latest aspects, including specific details on the position taken by CMS and the Independent Payment Advisory Board. While Langley spoke he kept puffing on an e-cigarette, which irritated the hell out of Thorn. He was convinced that whatever Langley was blowing around the room was going to get trapped there and he’d be smelling it later. When things were not going smoothly, which they clearly weren’t, Thorn was less tolerant of people’s foibles.
“As I have said, my major fear is word getting out,” the tech genius was saying. “The media—”
“Will blow it all out of proportion,” Thorn finished. “We are all on the same page in this regard. No disagreement whatsoever.”
“Then why not disable it?” Clayton asked. “Is that still a possibility?”
“We tried once when it first appeared,” Langley said, “before CMS was in the picture. But getting rid of it is not as easy as it sounds. The basic program learns almost too quickly. To totally get rid of it would require rewriting huge sections of the code, a time-consuming endeavor, to say the very least.”
“What’s the current situation in the trenches?” Thorn asked impatiently, looking at Clayton. By “trenches” he meant the people dealing directly with patients: doctors and nurses and the like.
“As far as I can tell there is no suspicion at the facilities where the events originated,” Clayton said. “Santa Monica and Harbor, no problem whatsoever. It has also been okay at the L.A. University Medical Center, except for some mild concern about a resident radiologist under my supervision, as I have informed Langley.”
Langley nodded.
“But other than that, nothing,” Clayton continued. “Also, I’m happy to report no problems coming from the medical examiner’s office, either, which I have been monitoring. There’s not been a blip on the the radar screen. No one has requested an autopsy on a deceased iDoc beta participant. The beauty of it is that everyone expects these people to die, given their medical histories. Of course it helps that the medical examiner’s resources are stretched as thin as they are, so their forensic examiners are encouraged to sign off on terminal cases with few questions asked.”
“Back up a minute. Who is this radiologist?” Thorn asked.
“His name is George Wilson,” Clayton said. “It’s an unfortunate convergence of events. He was engaged to one victim, friend to another, and did radiological studies on three others, one of whom he had a bit of a bond with. She died this morning. At this point he’s only aware that three of the five are iDoc users, including the one today. But still, even three… I mean, what are the odds?”
“Odds aren’t worth shit when it comes to reality,” Thorn retorted. “We can’t make even one mistake. Our whole game plan could be undermined.” He paused and looked directly at the others to be sure they were taking this in. “And our careers.” He turned to Langley. “These clustered episodes show that the algorithm will have to be tweaked. If iDoc identifies a termination case in the future, before it takes action, have it spit out the name and case number. Then have it look at the proximity of other terminations and factor in the relationships of the health care professionals who are involved. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr — you can use those sites and others to find the connections. Once we have them, we’ll develop protocols for the number of connections and how frequent they are to be acceptable within a set period of time. Are you following me?”
“Yes, I am.” Langley smiled. “I know exactly what you’re looking for and I will have my team deliver.”
Clayton felt a little dizzy after Thorn’s impassioned monologue. He didn’t understand a word.
“Good,” Thorn said, clapping his hands together. “Now, moving on to the situation at hand… what do we do, if anything, about this resident radiologist?”
“Well,” Clayton said, “I don’t think we should do anything yet. But I have arranged to keep him on a short leash and monitor him closely. I’ve engaged an attractive and effective fifth column, if you will, who has already informed me that although he is impressed with iDoc, he’s not buying the generally accepted theory that his neighbor was suicidal, which in his mind is iDoc case number two. I’m afraid he might be compelled to look into the case a bit more. What we don’t want to do is anything that arouses his suspicions that iDoc has anything to do with the deaths. Unfortunately something did happen that made him more suspicious, and that’s that he saw me down in the morgue when I went and tried to retrieve that reservoir for Mr. Langley.” Clayton leveled an accusatory gaze on the techie.
“We were hoping for a material confirmation of what actually happened,” Langley said in his defense. “Obtaining the reservoir would have been helpful to ascertain that the insulin was the determining factor in the death.”
“I can’t believe that! You already knew,” Clayton shot back. He was angry that his going down to the morgue had put him and the program at potential risk at a time when he hadn’t been made fully aware of the situation and its seriousness.
“Enough!” Thorn interrupted. “We’re all on the same page. I want to know more about this George Wilson fellow.”
“Actually, you’ve met him,” Clayton said.
“How? Where, for Christ’s sake?”
“At the investor presentation at the Century Plaza Hotel. He’s a friend of Paula Stonebrenner’s. I saw her introduce you to him.”
Thorn was shocked. “Seriously? Jesus, it’s a small world sometimes. Okay, continue.”
Clayton gave them some background on George, including his having been involved to a degree in exposing a conspiracy at Columbia Medical School while he was a student there. On hearing this, Thorn’s face darkened. Clayton also described George as one of his best residents, conscientious to a fault, a hard worker and bright.
“How are you going to monitor him?” Thorn asked.
“As I’ve said, I’ve arranged for a friend to keep George under surveillance over the next few days, which I feel are critical. If he calms down, then we’re good. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I imagine you can best handle it at that point.”
Thorn nodded, deciding if push came to shove to turn the situation over to his security department as a code-red emergency. The security department’s entire hierarchy was composed of former mercenaries. He was confident they could handle doing whatever was necessary.
“You know, it’s a good thing this is happening,” Langley said, interrupting.