Behind each bed stood an array of equipment and monitors that emitted a cacophony of random rhythmic chirps. Movable partitions separated the patients. These patients had practically no privacy, but that would hardly matter for Victor’s maneuver. Most everyone in the unit looked either unconscious or asleep. An empty, straight-back chair stood next to each bed. During shift changes, Victor knew, no visitors were allowed inside the ICU, they were asked to relocate to the waiting room until the nurses finished report. Lucky opportunity for him; the holiday staff deficit and the clerk’s obvious desire to dismiss him from her desk lent him freedom of movement. He needed to appear as if he belonged there so as to not attract the attention of the four staff still in the room: a cleaning lady, mopping in the far corner, three aides clustered around a young boy’s bed, one fussing with his catheter bag, the other two changing the sheets. But any minute the ICU would be teeming with personnel.
