“Cap it is. I’ll tell the staff. I’m the chief resident down here. This is my fifth year counting a year of research. I don’t know if you’ve heard much about AGH, but this is a good place—the best in the South, we think. We’re going to take excellent care of your friend.”

“That’s terrific to hear. I sensed good things as soon as we got here. Cap’s very special to a lot of people in D.C., including me. I’d do anything for him.”

“From what I’ve heard, you were quite the miracle worker out in the woods.”

“Believe it or not, Cap did a lot of the work. He actually was the one who reduced the fracture by pulling on a rope and pushing against a tree with his good leg. I just splinted the pieces in place.”

“Impressive. Your friend sounds tough.”

“No one who knows him thinks otherwise. Hal, I don’t want to sound pushy, but I want him to have the best orthopedist in the hospital. Can you help me out there?”

Garvey checked his smartphone.

“Ortho is possibly the strongest department in this hospital. They have a rotation for handling referrals from us, but if a patient requests a specific surgeon, I can call and see if they’re available. Dr. Lichter would be scheduled to take this case. He’s more than competent. Trust me, Cap will be well cared for on every level—especially when word gets around that he reduced his own compound fracture. A little like that guy who cut off his own arm to free himself in that canyon in Utah. Listen, let me finish going over him, and I’ll put a call into Dr. Lichter. Why don’t you wait in the doctor’s lounge down that hall on the left. There’s a restroom with a shower in it where you can get cleaned up. And also some scrubs. I’ll come and get you when we’ve got a plan in place.”

They shook hands and headed in opposite directions, Garvey back into Cap’s room and Lou to the doctor’s lounge.

Before he reached the corridor, Lou heard a soft, somewhat distorted voice say, “I wouldn’t let Lichter do the surgery.”

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Great change is brought about not by desire, but by perseverance. Where once there lay an empty parcel of land, you see now a city, built brick by brick by the steady hands representative of determined wills.

—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, P. 6

Lou turned to locate the source of the voice and needed a moment to realize the speaker was below his eye level, a frail, tousled, bespectacled man, nearly lost behind the complex console of his motorized wheelchair. It didn’t take a diagnostic wizard to see that he had severe spastic cerebral palsy.

“I’m sorry,” Lou said. “What did you say?”