Pool_1

"Here, your congressional elevatedness. Maybe it's the president." The receiver was held at full arms reach toward him so that he could lean his ear into it and not breach sterility. Teasing references to Bond, James Bond and M were being flipped his way. In a furrowed squint, nodding the phone away, "Wrong government. Put it on speaker. " He wasn't James Bond. He had no Miss Moneypenny and certainly no secrets. Yount was, nevertheless, still off on a train of Bond speak, instructing how his anesthesia machine was, in reality a Porsche equipped for underwater stealth, until that unmistakable voice clicked in over the wall speaker. Even the respirator hung in expectation, Yount's hand muffling the escape hiss. "Oh God!" as surety sucked from doctor Macaluso's eyes with the first syllable - Mar... It was unmistakable, Shannon, in a tone, way too familiar, drawing out his name, all sugary-like. -cus. Doom. "Oh this ain't good. This ain't... ohhhhhhh... ok... what?" Resignation was kicking the shit out of hope. Word was that there was a problem at "Neemah", that is NEMH, Northeast Mercy Hospital. Don't show N E Mercy is how docs at County teased their NEMH colleagues. Neemah had as good a reputation as County, NENH being the other trauma center serving the huge contiguous urban population, but more to the west. The two hospitals had two understandings. The first was that Neemah wouldn't poke fun at County's uninspiring name and County would not point out that they were more north and more east than Mercy. Even the Mercy staff couldn't bear that they were named as being