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What if someone poisoned the illegal drug supply? Tom Curran's team finds the truth. |
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Prologue Sirens pierced the air as red lights bounce off the outer walls of the busy downtown Miami hospital. Paramedics rush a patient on an ambulance litter through the automatic doors of the emergency department, trying to simultaneously keep an eye on their traveling patient and watch where they are going. On the litter, a young, dark-haired unconscious woman in a shimmering gold “club dress,” fights for breath under a clear plastic oxygen mask. Foamy mucous ran from the corners of her mouth and gathered around the edges of the mask where it met her skin. One of her five-inch black stiletto heels managed to pierce through the sheet and mattress on the litter, her once oh-so-chic and sexy club dress slipped up on her hips revealing her complete lack of regard for most mother’s advice, “make sure you wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.” Wearing none at all was also a bad choice. Suddenly, the medics stop short; a traffic jam of patients on rolling litters stretches-out before them like train cars down a track. Hospital personnel seem to be treating each patient right where they are. “What’s going on!” shouted a short Latino medic. “We got an overdose here!” “They’re all overdoses,” replied a nurse glibly, squatting in blue surgical scrubs next to a nearby patient. She stood and walked toward the medic, removing purple surgical gloves as she went. “Been coming in all night; about twenty-five so far,” she added. “This one’s priority; coded twice already,” blurted the medic, his body language saying he’s ready to cut the line.” “No she’s not,” the nurse said as she lifted the unconscious woman’s eyelid with a thumb. “None of the ones that came in so far survived.” “None of them?” “Not one; most were dead before they got here.” “Were they all out clubbing like this one?” “No. From all over town, and the jail.” “What about other hospitals?” “It’s like this all the way to Palm Beach.” “What’s doing it?” “Looks like cocaine.” “Must be some powerful stuff.” What the nurse in the hospital in downtown Miami didn’t know, was that very scene was playing-out in hospitals and clinics in cities across the country. It started in Miami, then Tampa, Houston, El Paso, and Tucson, spreading north and west as if the extended southern tips of Florida and Texas were dry sponges dipped by some galactic giant in drugs, sucking them in. People used to say there was so much cocaine in the United States that it’s “drowning in it.” That metaphor now seemed to be coming true. “There she goes,” pronounced the medic. “Wheel her over there,” directed the nurse, pointing toward the waiting area already crammed with other people, both alive and dead, the odor of dirty bodies and bad breath hanging in the air. “The morgue is backed-up and that body’s in the way.” |
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