brazen violations
Jonathan Macpherson
Copyright © 2016 by Jonathan Macpherson.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Special Thanks to Dr. Kirk Kee for his medical expertise regarding the surgical procedures depicted in this book.
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Prologue
“Move, damn it!” Detective Betts yelled at the station wagon ahead of him as it cruised along like the driver was taking in the sights of suburbia. There was a little shaving cream smeared on the top of his collar and on the underside of his jaw, and his shirt was untucked. His jacket and holstered gun sat on the passenger seat. He had left home in a hurry.
He hit a button and blue police lights flashed from the dashboard, accompanied by a loud burst of siren. The station wagon pulled to the roadside and Betts put his foot down, charging ahead, his hands clamped on the wheel.
Without braking, he turned into a narrow alley, sweat dripping from his forehead, rippling down over wrinkle lines and into his eyes, forcing him to blink.
He noticed the black sedan in the rear-view mirror, gaining on him. He accelerated but it continued to close in, two car lengths behind him now, its occupants hidden by tinted windows.
The one-way alley was tight, lined on both sides by garages and the back fences of houses. It curved into a blind turn and he took it at speed, then immediately hit the brakes, seeing the van parked in front of him. The black sedan stopped behind him and he recognized he was being ambushed. He whipped out the handgun, hyper-alert now, but at the same time calm in a way that only comes with training and experience.
Eyes darting from the mirrors to the van in front, he tried the door, but it wouldn’t open more than a few inches, hemmed in by a back fence. He reached for the passenger door but flinched as the business end of a crowbar burst through the window, shattering the glass and barely missing his face. It recoiled and Betts looked up to see two ski-masked guys leaning over the fence, one of them tossing a canister onto the floor, passenger side, gas pouring out of it. Betts thrust his gun up and took aim but the masked men ducked out of sight. He fired a couple of shots into the fence then grabbed the canister and tossed it out the window. But it was too late, the car was already filled with the stuff. With a hand over his mouth, he turned and fired through the back window at the car behind him, his bullets bouncing off the bullet-proof windshield of the sedan. Betts held his aim, waiting for someone to get out of the vehicle. Then his vision began to blur. He shook his head, then felt himself sliding down the seat as he lost consciousness. He fired some more, emptying the gun as he slid onto his back on the passenger seat. A blurry, ski-masked head leaned through the window, hovering above Betts, inspecting him, just before he blacked out.
***
The darkness was heavy and all around him, smothering him entirely so he couldn’t move a finger or a toe, couldn’t open his eyes. There was no sound except for his breathing, labored and deep.
Then he felt something. A slight stinging, so faint it seemed far above him. But it was definitely a stinging and he noticed that it was accompanied by a high-pitched noise, like a dental drill. The stinging and the noise intensified, building as he returned to consciousness.
Detective Betts lay on his back squinting his bloodshot eyes. Three blurred figures were leaning over him, fixated on his chest where one of them was holding something, doing something. It was painful. He soon realized they were performing surgery. His first thought was that he must have been shot and brought to a hospital. Then he noticed the thrash metal music screaming on a stereo nearby, and the air thick with cigar smoke, bitter in his nose and mouth. This was no hospital.
As his vision improved he noticed one of the figures was a broadly shouldered, middle-aged woman with a face that was once attractive, but now bore jagged scars from a violent past. She puffed on the cigar as a younger man, heavy and stinking of cologne, used a handkerchief to wipe the pouring sweat off the surgeon’s face. With wild, unkempt grey hair and gritted teeth, the surgeon carved into Betts’ chest with a whirring electronic tool, holding it like a dagger.
Betts felt a sobering surge of adrenalin and his left arm sprung out, clutching the surgeon’s hand. With his right, he went for the throat, grabbed it, squeezing as hard as he could. The surgeon struggled, trying to pull free. Betts leant closer to get a better grip, but the younger guy shoved a rag over his face. He thrashed about like a fish on a hook, unable to get the thing off his face. The chloroform, sweet and strong, sent him straight back to unconsciousness.
Chapter 1
Mitch Walker sat in the dark, dingy waiting room, discreetly glancing at the young man sitting opposite who was picking at a festering sore on his arm. Mitch was not far away enough to avoid the stench of the guy’s filth and body odor. A few seats down, a grungy woman was curled up in a chair, moaning quietly as she rocked back and forth.
In good health and wearing clean, casual clothes and trimmed stubble, Mitch looked and felt out of place. He had heard that the de-registered doctor who operated this illegal enterprise, known only as ‘Doc’, provided cheap medical services and narcotics. Mitch was after drugs, and if this quack couldn’t hook him up, he was going to have to take drastic action.
The door at the end of the room opened and a middle-aged nurse appeared.
“Next,” she said. Mitch got up and followed her into an empty waiting room. “Won’t be too long,” she said. She had a warm, friendly face, despite the thick, black mole on the underside of her chin. She disappeared through another door, and Mitch took a deep breath.
Finally the Doctor’s door opened slightly and Mitch could see him standing just inside the door, giving some final advice to a patient before showing him out. Doc walked out in his scruffy, fading suit that seemed to match his unkempt grey hair and dull leather shoes.
“Alright who’s next?” he asked. Mitch got up and walked in, the smell of alcohol hitting him immediately. Doc took a biscuit tin and held it out in front of Mitch. “Your watch, wallet and phone, please.”
“What for?”
“Security procedure. They can be used as recording devices, but they don’t work through the tin,” he said.
Mitch deposited his watch, wallet and phone in the tin as requested and Doc put the lid on. Mitch noticed the shelves behind Doc were filled with boxes of various medicines. Probably stolen, he thought.
“What can I do for you?”
“I heard you provide cheap meds.”
“What are you after?”
Mitch handed him the prescription and the doctor read over it.
“Rituxan,” Doc mumbled with a surprised frown. He looked at patient’s name on the prescription: Peter Walker. The prescription was written by a pediatric oncologist. “Who’s Peter? Your son?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, it doesn’t. I can’t get this stuff.”
“Do you know any place that stocks it, like a supplier?”
 
; “Why? So you can rob them?”
Mitch didn’t answer.
“You’ll get yourself killed doing that.”
“Maybe.”
“Open your shirt,” Doc said.
“What for?”
“If you want to continue this conversation I need to know you’re not wearing a wire.”
Mitch unbuttoned his shirt and Doc checked around his torso, then ripped his jeans open and checked below his waist line. No sign of a wire.
“Your shoes,” Doc said, and Mitch took them off. After a quick inspection, Doc was satisfied Mitch was not wearing a bugging device.
“Maybe I can help, if you want it badly enough.”
Mitch looked at him as he buttoned up. He couldn’t have wanted it more.
Three days later Mitch was in another waiting room. In Indonesia.
Chapter 2
There was a blonde woman waiting with him, reading a magazine. He assumed she was there for the same procedure. The fluorescent light flickered as he peeled his sweaty arms off the sticky, faux-leather couch. Tropical vines were growing inside through the louvered windows, stretching out along the walls. It had been years since this place had been a legitimate business.
Doc had assured him there would be no risk of infection, but with the sight of the mildew-covered ceiling and walls and the smell of sewerage wafting in from outside, Mitch wasn’t so sure.
Soon as I get back to Los Angeles, I’ll get medical attention from a real doctor, he thought. Just as soon as I collect my payment.
A plump, kindly looking Indonesian woman in a nurse’s uniform and a pair of flip flops entered the waiting room and beckoned him. He got up and followed her into the surgery.
His stomach tightened when he saw the rusty, steel-framed chair in the middle of the room. It was loaded with various clasps, straps, bolts and screws, obviously designed to withstand violent resistance and keep its occupant perfectly still.
Nearby, Doc stood over an unconscious woman who lay on an operating table, her breasts exposed. One breast was firm and round, clearly augmented with an implant, the nipple semi-circled with stitches. Doc used an electrosurgical knife, powered by a small generator, to cut a semicircle around the underside of her other nipple. The heat from the instrument burnt through the flesh with ease and simultaneously coagulated the blood so there was no bleeding.
The nurse sat Mitch on a stool, switched on an electric hair clipper and went to work on him. As the clumps of hair fell from his head, he kept his eyes on the other patient. Doc put down the tool and took what looked like a silicon implant from the trolley. It was filled with a golden brown substance.
Heroin, Mitch thought.It really is golden brown.
Doc lifted the half attached nipple and stuffed the implant inside her breast, then stitched up the wound like he was patching up an old pair of jeans.
The nurse turned off the clippers, smiled at Mitch, then stepped over beside Doc.
Mitch ran a hand over the stubble on his near-bald head, watching as Doc smeared antiseptic on the woman’s wounds.
“Be with you soon,” he said.
Take your time, Mitch thought, wondering if it was not too late to back out. No, I’ve got to see it through.
Doc groped the breasts, squeezing and shaping until he was satisfied with the appearance. Then he took a hard plastic satchel from the trolley, cracked it between his thumb and forefinger and placed it under the woman’s nose. She started to come around. The nurse took a trigger-spray watering bottle and squirted her face while Doc shook her shoulders. “Wakey, shakey. Come on, up you get. You got to make a move.”
She was groggy and the nurse squirted her some more. She groaned and tried to roll onto her side so Doc slapped her in the face.
“Come on, lady. You got a plane to catch.”
She sat up and the nurse handed her a bra and a blouse and helped her dress.
“That’s it. On your feet,” Doc said.
Looking drunk and disoriented, she checked out her newly enlarged breasts, comparing them and seeming to notice the difference in size.
“Not bad, huh? Don’t get too attached to them,” Doc said as he washed his hands in a nearby sink. The nurse escorted the stumbling woman out of the room and Doc walked over to Mitch, gesturing for him to get into the chair. Mitch sucked in a breath and eased in, his pulse pounding around his ears.
Doc poured two shooters of whiskey and handed one to Mitch. They downed the shots, Doc smacking his lips.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Doc said, and strapped Mitch’s wrists to the arms of the chair. His ankles were next. Mitch closed his eyes and thought about his nephew.
You’re saving his life. This is the right thing to do.
The nurse returned and helped to strap his shoulders tight against the back of the chair. Doc lowered a steel brace around his head and fastened a leather strap around his jaw. Then, one at a time, six rubber blocks were locked into position around various points of his head and face, making it impossible for him to turn, even slightly. The top of his head was exposed.
Doc pumped a foot pedal, raising the chair so Mitch’s head was at a comfortable working height. He repositioned the lamps for optimum light, took a magic marker and drew a line around the top of Mitch’s scalp.
“So, you’re a doctor, right? A real doctor?” Mitch asked.
“Yep. Got my degree. What, did you think I was a quack?”
“No, but…most doctors don’t sell drugs, that’s all,” Mitch said.
“True, that’s true. I happen to think that is totally unethical. Going to a doctor should be a complete medical experience. You shouldn’t have to go to a drug store afterwards, that’s exploitation. It contravenes the Hippocratic Oath.”
“Drug stores don’t sell narcotics,” Mitch said.
“Don’t get me started on narcotics. Half of those drugs were legal not so long ago. Just because the government deems them illegal, doesn’t mean they should be. Booze used to be illegal, was that right?”
“No.”
“There you go. Okay, we’re ready to go, now,” Doc said.
Mitch, locked into position, saw Doc’s hand reach over beneath the trolley and take the longest syringe Mitch had ever seen. He braced for the pain and his eyes widened as he felt the sting of the first injection. His back and neck muscles tensed up, his hands gripping the steel arms of the chair.
Christ, he thought, this is just the anesthetic!
He took a deep breath.
“You’ll be numb soon, won’t feel a thing, I promise,” Doc said, as he circled around Mitch, injecting him at various intervals around the marker line. The promised numbness finally arrived and his muscles loosened slightly. Then he watched Doc pick up the surgical knife. Mitch swallowed hard as it was lifted towards his eyes, then over the top of his head, out of sight.
“This is definitely safe, right?” Mitch asked.
“Routine procedure. Nothing to worry about,” Doc said.
He felt his scalp moving ever so slightly, but thankfully felt no pain. The electronic knife hummed, sending vibrations throughout his head as small puffs of smoke drifted off his scalp, dissipating.
Doc worked his way around the magic marker line, managing to keep close to it. Once he had completed the oval shape he lifted the back of the scalp, pulling it with one had while he cut it away from the skull membrane with the electrosurgical knife. Doc slowly peeled the scalp from the back of the head towards the front. The nurse took over, grabbing the scalp and allowing him to concentrate on the cutting.
“It’s very thick,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s pretty fleshy. Has to be, to protect the brain,” Doc replied.
“It’s like peeling the skin off of a big mango,” she said, and Doc chuckled, appreciating the analogy.
When Mitch saw his scalp being placed on the trolley, the raw, fleshy underside facing upwards, the color drained from his face.
“Now you know what it’s like to b
e scalped! Lucky for you I’m not using a hatchet,” Doc said.
“You didn’t say anything about removing my scalp!”
“It’s the only way to do it. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sew it straight back on, you’ll never know,” Doc said.
“That’s not what I agreed to!”
“It’ll be fine in a couple of weeks, back to normal. And your nephew will be well on the way to recovery.”
A feeling of utter powerlessness swept over Mitch. The top of his head was sitting on a trolley and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Here he was, literally in the hands of a quack doctor. If he protested too much, perhaps Doc would decide he was too much trouble and give him some extra anesthetic, put him to sleep like a dog. He thought it was best to remain as calm as he could and trust Doc, or at least pretend to, and hope that his scalp would be okay and that Doc would come through with the Rituxan. If Doc didn’t live up to his end of the deal, Mitch would deal with it when the time came. But for now the best option, it seemed, was to roll with it.
Doc reached for something on a lower shelf of the trolley. He pulled up a curved, streamlined metal plate that was designed to fit neatly on top of a human skull.
He pushed a tiny button on the side of the plate and it clicked open, revealing a cavity that held a plastic satchel of golden brown powder. “Here is the merchandise; ninety grams. It’s all we can fit into this model, but we’re working on a bigger one.”
“It’s enough for a death sentence,” Mitch said. He had done some research before getting on the plane and was well aware of Indonesia’s policy on drug trafficking.
“True. But this is lead: impervious to X-Rays. Not even Superman could see through this,” he said. “And you got a perfectly valid explanation for having this thing on top of your skull: you’ve just had a medical procedure after a car accident. You’ll have a medical certificate to verify that. Totally legit. Nobody will question that, and nobody is going to find the stuff. Believe me.”