Chapter 75

"How about we see if Jen is up for a day in the country?" Alex asked.

They had gotten home late the night before after visiting Doug.

"Sounds good," replied Jessica. "I'll give her a call before we go to see Harry."

It was a Friday, and Alex wanted to fill Harry in on his conversation with Doug. Harry seemed to work seven days a week, and would no doubt have his contacts updated by Monday.

Alex looked through the website logs and contacts while she called. In a few minutes she came over to watch.

"Anything interesting?"

"Not much. Someone was crawling all over it yesterday, looks like they were moving around a lot. Looking at some pages more than once."

He plugged an IP address into a tracing script.

"Lessee, Little Rock, AT&T. Pretty generic."

"About half the population?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah, pretty much. Could be anyone, at home or work. I'll keep an eye on it."

"Did they leave a contact?"

"No, nothing from that IP anyway."

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, let's do it."

Harry was on the phone when they arrived and Mary Ann showed them to the conference room.

"He should be with you shortly," she said. "He had a couple of urgent matters this morning. Can I get you anything?"

"We're good," Alex said. "We'll just grab a cup of coffee."

He poured two cups and they sat down at the conference table.

Before they finished their coffee Harry entered.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"We may have a way into the hospital's system," Alex replied. "Doug and I took a discreet look around. We might need to have Liz help by sneaking something in, but we hope to avoid it."

"Into their local network?"

"Yeah. Stick a USB stick into a workstation, about a five minute job. But only if we can't get in any other way."

"We don't want to alert them for sure," said Harry. "I'll see how Liz feels about the situation. These people are dangerous, and we don't want her endangered."

"Absolutely not," Alex said. "But I don't expect it to be necessary."

"I hope it won't be. How about your doctor in Florida?"

"I just took a quick look," Alex replied. "I'll need some help from an insider. It's mostly a lot of spreadsheets, heavy on the medical jargon. Liz may be able to help. Or your guy in Texas may know someone with the experience. I can bring it to our next meeting, let Liz take a look."

"Sounds good. Today's Friday, what about Wednesday?"

"We're flexible. Let us know and we'll be here."

"My guy in Texas is beginning to develop some leads," Harry said. "He's got someone that might be able to penetrate some of the other hospitals. Possibly even CHC, which could be big. The head of the snake. If your friend has any luck let me know, and I'll advise you on what my guy gets. They might want to get together and compare notes."

"Good idea. I should have some idea in the next couple of days."

"How are Liz and Kaylee doing?" asked Jessica.

"As well as can be expected," Harry replied. "They'd rather not be there, but they can put up with it. The operation is so sloppy, and there's so much staff turnover they've become dependent on Kaylee, and they lean on Liz in the pharmacy. Apparently the lead pharmacist has some problems, the chemical type."

"Not uncommon in the business," said Jessica. "It could work to our advantage in this case."

"What I was thinking. Liz says he was in over his head anyway, like most of the staff. If she hadn't showed up, who knows what the place would be like."

"Apparently he's in on it," Jessica said.

"Definitely. He doesn't seem all that bright, according to Liz, and being under the influence he's relatively easy to manage."

"Thas's good," said Jessica. "They seem to be in a position to possibly do some good, maybe prevent some bad things from happening."

"Possibly. At least there are a couple of competent people there. Liz has to fix mistakes he makes, and he doesn't notice, he's so out of it."

"They may be killing people even as we speak," Alex said. "Liz and Kaylee can only fix what they see. No telling what else there is, they don't see."

"We need to get something fast," Harry said. "This is probably going on other places as well. I'll give you a call Monday, set up the meeting."