Jane Cook personified efficiency, and communicated control to the transplant surgeon. Secretly, she was irritated. She was working over her weekend and wouldn’t get home to her family for a nice, cozy Sunday lunch. An extra day away on the firm, do you mind! No one would say “boo” to a consultant. Birthday or not, if you’re on call, you’re on call. Jane had images of a glass of fine wine in a smart country pub with the family all there, cell phone switched off thoughtlessly. But she smiled at the world, and congratulated herself that everyone on her team was a top dog.

Azziz read the thought staining her brow like a cloud blotting the moon. “Well, I think we might excuse Dr. Stafford on high days and holidays, don’t you? These trials only wrong-foot mortals, Jane—never you. Never do you lose the thread.”

She was completely soothed by Azziz’s charm and confidence in her. Never mind indeed, James Lovell was a first-class doctor, and was already at hand. All she had to do was tell the patient about the change. She didn’t think that would be a problem. Mr. Azziz was probably not all that happy, she realized, but he’d live with it. He liked to have the people he knew and trusted around him, and he liked to be a little dependent on Alexander Stafford. The Sphinx, he called him. “May not always say much, but he sees absolutely everything and knows more than he will tell you,” he had once confided to Jane about him, although he knew she would have been more comfortable with the said doctor if he had been more obviously exuberant—and more easily understood. She was prone to mistake his slight reserve for unexpressed criticism of others, which Amel knew was unjustified. “He’s a calm and rational young man, but never in the least judgmental of other people’s ideas and foibles. I like him.”

Anyway, thought Jane, right now they’d have to do without their all-knowing “Sphinx”; he was either in somebody’s airspace or had gone incommunicado for his birthday. There was nothing more she could do for the next twelve hours, so she would get some food and a little rest. She was on standby, “just in case,” and couldn’t go yet.

“Don’t worry, Jane. I’ll tell the patient myself.” It would disappoint her, though—just how much, perhaps he alone knew.

He made a short detour en route to the operating room. “Lucy, you look especially lovely today. Now you are in my hands, and Allah’s, for the next few hours.”