Covert M.D. Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he’d been nearly panic-stricken to see the tiny, furtive figure of a woman heading for the departing van. In an instant he’d been back in the Tehruvian jungle, seeing Maria wave from a rebel army transport.
    And that was before he’d realized the shadow in the laundry room belonged to Nadia French.
    “Why were you there, anyway? We weren’t supposed to start work until later that morning.” She pursed her lips and blew across the top of her coffee. Sipped. Swallowed.
    Rathe looked away. He had to keep this professional. Mentor and student. Senior and junior. The way it should have been from the very first day he’d noticed his best friend’s daughter watching him from the beachfront stairs.
    “I was looking around,” he replied, not mentioning the gut feeling that had drawn him down to the subbasement. He tapped the paper that now lay on the table between them. “Unless you have a compelling reason why you followed those two, I think we should move on.” Rather, she should move on and leave the subbasement to him.
    “You’re going to disregard what I saw in the van?” Her fingers tightened enough to dent the cardboard cup.
    “No.” Rathe shook his head. “Not disregard. File and continue.” He held up a finger. “Rule one—Don’t fall in love with your own theory. When that happens, you’ll overlook clues that don’t fit.”
    He waited for the argument, but she surprised him by nodding. She sipped, then gestured to encompass the hospital. “It’s like making a diagnosis. Don’t pick a disease until you’ve gathered all the facts.”
    “Right. Only, think of the entire hospital, or maybe the Transplant Department, as the patient. As a doctor, you’re already used to that sort of investigation. This is simply on a grander scale.” A more dangerous one, though he was determined not to let her experience that firsthand. In the wee hours of the morning, when he’d tried to catnap in the basement break room, he’d decided on that course, with one addition: he was going to do his damnedest to convince her that HFH in general—and investigations in particular—wasn’t for her.
    It was what Tony would’ve wanted him to do.
    “So our symptoms are as follows,” she began, ticking the points off on her fingers. “First, there’s an increase in transplant deaths. Second, supply shortages are reported to Transplant Director Talbot and Assistant Director Hart.”
    Rathe thought she might have lingered on the second man’s name and he scowled. That was another thing about working with women. They couldn’t keep their minds on business.
    She blew on her coffee again, and Rathe forced himself to glance around the near-empty café. They weren’t being overheard. And he was a hypocrite, watching her make love to a cardboard cup while he preached to himself about women and their inability to focus on the job.
    He gritted his teeth and gestured for her to continue.
    “They’re missing antirejection drugs. Suture kits. That sort of thing.” Another finger joined the first two. “And third, I saw two men leave Transplant with a full laundry cart, even though the linens hadn’t been changed out. They loaded the cart into a van rigged with life support and then…” She glared at him. “Thanks to you, I don’t know what happened to the hamper from there.”
    Annoyed, Rathe fired back, “Thanks to me, you didn’t break your neck trying some damn fool stunt in an attempt to—” He stopped himself. “Never mind. We’ve already covered that and you promised not to go down there again without me.” He fixed her with a look. “Right?”
    “Sure. Whatever.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m scheduled to observe a rare-type kidney transplant in a little less than an hour. If we’re done here, I’m going upto my office to read over the rest of the material Talbot left for me.”
    Done? They hadn’t even started yet, but Rathe didn’t argue the point. It was probably a good thing their