There, beside the Mnemonic Alternatives logo on the flap, the patient’s name glowered up at him. Harbaugh, John T., Master Sergeant, USIF. Gillespie winced. He knew what Harbaugh wanted, and it was something neither Gillespie nor anyone else on the planet could give the man. Still, Gillespie told himself, maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe he just had a cold. A nice fat upper respiratory infection. Chicken soup and Rx-level antihistamines. He could work with that. One thing he couldn’t do was let Harbaugh stew in an examining room all day. Gillespie pulled back his shoulders, put on a cheerful mask and opened the door. The room, like others in the gleaming new hospital, was furnished like a den or a living room. While it did have the obligatory examining table, the emphasis lay on the plush patient’s chair and the faux mahogany doctor’s desk and the overly cheerful plants that hadn’t yet been overwatered. Outlined against the light of a long, sealed window, a cushioned high-back chair shaded a tall, muscular man.
