Cook,Robin - Mortal Fear.txt

by Mortal Fear (lit)

  which only made their low IQs that much more disturbing.

  The front door was closed and locked, so Jason rang the buzzer and

  waited.

  The door was opened by an overweight security guard in a. soiled blue

  uniform.

  "Can I help you?" he said, making it clear he had no wish to.

  "I'm a doctor," Jason said. He tried to push by the security man, who

  stepped back to bar his way.

  "Sorry-no visitors after six, doctor."

  "I'm hardly a visitor," Jason said. He pulled out his wallet and

  produced his GHP identity card.

  The guard didn't even look at the ID. "No visitors after six," he

  repeated, adding, "and no exceptions."

  "But I ..." Jason began. He stopped in midsentence. From the man's

  expression, he knew discussion was futile.

  "Call in the morning, sir," the guard said, slamming the door.

  Jason walked back down the front steps and gazed up at the five-story

  building. It was brick, with granite window casings. He wasn't about to

  give up. Assuming the guard was watching, Jason went back to his car and

  drove out the driveway. About a hundred yards down the road, he pulled

  over to the side. He got out, and with some difficulty made -his way

  through the Arboretum back to the school.

  He circled the building, staying in the shadows.

  There were fire escapes on all sides but the front. They went right up

  to the roof. Unfortunately, as at Carol's building, none was at ground

  level, and Jason couldn't find anything to stand on to reach the first

  rung.

  On the right side of the building, he spotted a flight of stairs that

  went down to a locked door. Feeling with his hands in the dark, he

  discovered the door had a central glass pane. He went back up the stairs

  and felt around the ground until he found a vock the size of a

  softball.

  Holding his breath, Jason went back to the door and smashed the glass.

  In the quiet evening, the clatter seemed loud enough to wake the dead.

  Jason fled to the nearby trees and hid, watching the building. When no

  one appeared after fifteen minutes, he ventured out and returned to the

  door.

  Gingerly, he reached in and undid the latch. No alarm sounded.

  For the next half hour Jason stumbled around a large basement he guessed

  was a storage~area. He found a stepladder and debated taking it outside

  to use to reach a fire escape, but gave up that idea and continued

  feeling about blindly for a light. His hands finally touched a switch

  and he flicked it on.

  He was in a maintenance room filled with lawnmowers, shovels, and other

  equipment. Next to the light switch was a door. Slowly, Jason eased it

  open. Beyond was a much larger furnace room that was dimly illuminated.

  Moving quickly, Jason crossed the second room and mounted a steep steel

  stairway. He opened the door at the top and immediately realized he had

  reached the front hall. From his previous visits he knew the stairs to

  the wards were to his right. On his left was an office where a

  middle-aged woman in a bulging white uniform was reading at a desk.

  Looking down toward the front entrance, Jason could see the guard's feet

  perched on a chair. The man's face was out of sight.

  As quietly as possible, Jason slipped through the basement door and let

  it ease back into place. For a moment he was in full view of the woman

  in the office, but she didn't look up from her book. Forcing himself to

  move slowly, he silently crossed the hall and entered the stairwell. He

  breathed a sigh of relief when he was completely out of sight of both

  the woman and the guard. Taking the stairs on tiptoe two at a time, he

  headed for the third floor, where the ward for boys aged four to twelve

  was located.

  The stairs were marble, and even though he tried to be quiet, his

  footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent, cavernous space. Above him was

  a skylight, which at that time looked like a black onyx set into the

  ceiling.

  On the third floor, Jason carefully opened the stairwell door. He

  remembered there was a glassedin nurses' office to the right at the end

  of a long hallway and noticed that although the corridor was dark, the

  office still blazed with light. A male attendant was, like the woman

  downstairs, busy reading.

  Looking diagonally across the hall, Jason eyed the door to the ward. He

  noted it had a large central window with embedded wire. After one last

  check on the attendant, Jason tiptoed across the hall and let himself

  into the darkened room. Immediately, he was confronted by a musty smell.

  After waiting a moment to be sure the attendant hadn't been disturbed,

  he began searching for the light. To confirm his suspicions, he would

  have to turn it on even if it meant being caught.

  The drab room was suddenly flooded with raw, white fluorescent light.

  The ward was some fifty feet long, with low iron beds lined up on either

  side, leaving a narrow aisle. There were windows, but they were high,

  near the ceiling. At the end of the room were tiled toilet facilities

  with a coiled hose for cleaning and a bolted door to the fire escape.

  Jason walked down the aisle looking at the nameplates attached to the

  ends of beds: Harrison, Lyons, Gessner ... The children, disturbed by

  the light, began to sit up, staring with wide, vacant, and unknowing

  eyes at the intruder.

  Jason stopped, and a terrible sense of revulsion that expanded to terror

  gripped him. It was worse than he'd imagined. Slowly, his eyes went from

  one pitiful face to another of the unwanted creatures. Instead of

  looking like the children they were, they all looked like miniature

  senile centenarians with beady eyes, wrinkled dry skin, and thinned

  white hair, showing scaly patches of scalp. Jason spotted the name

  Hayes. Like the others, the child appeared prematurely aged. He'd lost

  most of his eyelashes and his lower lids hung down. In place of his

  pupils were the glass-white reflection of dense cataracts. Except for

  light perception, the child was blind.

  Some of the children began getting out of their beds, balancing

  precariously on wasted lim6s. Then, to Jason's horror they began to move

  toward him. One of them began to say feebly the word "please" over and

  over in a high-pitched, grating voice. Soon the others joined in a

  terrifying, unearthly chorus.

  Jason backed up, afraid to be touched. Hayes's son got out of his bed

  and began to feel his way forward, his bony, uncoordinated little arms

  making helpless swirling motions in the air.

  The mob of children backed Jason up against the ward door and began to

  tug at his clothes. Frightened and nauseated, Jason pushed open the ward

  door and retreated into the hall. After he closed the door, the children

  pressed their mummylike faces against the glass, still silently voicing

  the word "please."

  "Hey, you!" Jason heard a rasping voice behind him.

  Turning his head, he saw the attendant standing outside his office,

  waving his open book in astonishment. "What's going'on?" the man yelled.

  Jason ran across the ha
ll to the stairwell, but he'd descended only a

  few steps before a second voice echoed Up from below. "Kevin? What

  gives?"

  Looking over the railing, Jason saw the. guard down on the first-floor

  landing.

  "Well, I'll be damned," the guard said, and charged up the stairs, club

  in hand.

  Reversing direction, Jason returned to the third floor. The attendant

  was still standing in the doorway of his office, apparently too

  dumbfounded to move as Jason sprinted across the hall and back into the

  ward. Some of the children were wandering aimlessly about the room;

  others had collapsed back on their beds. Jason frantically beckoned them

  over, opened the door, and as the attendant and guard appeared, they

  were immediately surrounded by a swarm of boys.

  They tried to shove their way through the crowd, but the children clung

  to them, shouting their eerie, monotonous chorus of please.

  Reaching the emergency door at the opposite end of the room, Jason

  depressed its lever which, for safety's sake, was positioned six feet

  off the floor. At first the door wouldn't open. Obviously, it had not

  been used for years. Jason could see that paint had sealed it shut.

  Putting his shoulder against it, Jason finally got it to swing fr~e.

  Stepping out into the dark night, he pushed several of the boys back

  into the ward before closing the heavy door.

  Wasting no time, he clambered down the fire escape. There was no need to

  be quiet now. He was at the second level when the door above him opened.

  Once again he heard the shrieking of the children.

  Then he felt the vibration of heavy boots on the fire escape.

  Pulling out a pin caused the final ladder to descend with a deep thud,

  as it hit the asphalt of the parking lot below. Even before it had

  touched down, Jason was on it. The slight delay enabled the guard behind

  Jason to close the distance between them.

  Once on the lawn, though, Jason's running ability soon left the beefy

  guard far behind, and by the time Jason reached his car, he had plenty

  of time to start the engine, put it in gear, and pull away. In his

  rearview mirror he could barely see the man just reaching the edge of

  the road, shaking his fist in the light of a street lamp.

  Jason could barely control his disgust and fury at what he'd seen. He

  drove directly to Boston police headquarters and brazenly left his car

  in a no-parking zone in front of the building.

  "I want to see Detective Curran," Jason told the officer at the desk,

  then identified himself.

  The policeman calmly checked his watch, then called up to Homicide. He

  spoke for a minute, then covered the receiver with his hand. "Would

  anyone else do?"

  "No. I want Curran. And now, please."

  The policeman spoke into the phone a few minutes more, then hung up.

  "Detective Curran isn't available, sir."

  "I think he'll talk with me. Even if he's off duty."

  "That's not the problem," the policeman said. "Detective Curtan is on a

  double homicide in Revere. He should be calling in within an hour or so.

  If you want, you can wait or leave your number. It's up to you, sir."

  Jason thought for a moment. He'd been up most of the night, his nerves

  were shot, and the idea of a shower, a change of clothes, and food had a

  lot of appeal. Besides, once he got together with Curtan, he would be

  busy for some time. He left his home number, asking that Curran call as

  soon as possible.

  The United flight from Seattle had been dela yed considerably, and by

  the time*it landed At Logan, Juan Diaz was in a sour mood. He'd not

  screwed up an assignment so badly since he hit the wrong man in New

  York. That fiasco was excusable, but his current one was not. He'd been

  within a few seconds of popping both the doctor and the nightclub puta

  when Jason, an amateur, had outsmarted him. Juan had no excuse and had

  told the contact as much. He knew he had to redeem himself or else, and

  he looked forward to it eagerly.

  As soon as he got off the plane, he went to the phone. It was answered

  on the second ring.

  Jason drove the short distance from the police station to Louisburg

  Square, trying to erase the horrible image of the prematurely aged

  children at the school. He didn't even want to think about Hayes and his

  discovery until he was safely in Curran's presence.

  When he got to his building, he drove around the block a couple of times

  to make sure no one was watching it. Finally, convincing himself that

  the guard at the school had not looked at his ID, and hence had no idea

  who he was, Jason parked his car, carried his luggage up to his

  apartment, and turned on the lights. To his relief, the place was

  exactly as he'd left it.

  When he glanced out at the square, it seemed as peaceful as ever.

  Jason was about to get into the shower when he remembered the one other

  person he should speak to besides the detective. He dialed Shirley. She

  finally answered on the eighth ring. Jason could hear animated voices in

  the background.

  "Jason!" she exclaimed. "When did you get back from vacation?"

  "I got in tonight."

  "What's the matter?" she asked, picking up on the exhaustion and worry

  in his voice.

  "Big trouble. I think I've figured out not only Hayes's discovery, but

  how it was being misused. It involves the GHP in a far worse way than

  you could ever imagine."

  "Tell me."

  "Not over the phone."

  "Then come right over. I have guests here, but I'll get rid of them."

  "I'm waiting to speak to Curran in Homicide."

  "I see you've already contacted him?"

  "He's out on a case, but he should be calling shortly."

  "Then why don't I come to your apartment? You've got me really terrified

  now."

  "Welcome to the club," Jason said with a short, bitter laugh. "You might

  as well come over. You probably should be present when I talk to

  Curran."

  "I'm on my way."

  "Oh, one other thing. Do you remember who's currently medical director

  at the Hartford School?"

  "Dr. Peter-son, I believe," Shirley said. "I can find out for certain

  tomorrow."

  "Wasn't Peterson closely involved in Hayes's clinical studies?" Jason

  asked, suddenly remembering that Peterson was the. doctor who had done

  the physical on Hayes.

  "I think so. Is it important?"

  "I'm not sure," Jason said. "But if you're coming, hurry. Curran should

  be calling any minute."

  Jason hung up and was again about to take*his shower when he realized

  Carol too might be in danger. Picking up the phone again, he dialed her

  number.

  "I want you to be sure to stay at home," he said the moment she

  answered.

  "I'm not fooling. Don't answer -your door-don't go out."

  "Now what is it?"

  "The Hayes conspiracy is worse than anything I could imagine."

  "You sound anxious, Jason."

  In spite of himself, Jason smiled. Sometimes Carol could sound like a

  psychiatrist.

  "I'm not anxious, I'm scared to death. But I'll be
talking with the

  police shortly."

  "Will you let me know what's going on?" Carol demanded.

  "I promise." Jason hung up and finally went into the bathroom and turned

  on the shower.

  The buzzer sounded and Jason ran downstairs to see Shirley smiling at

  him through the glass side panel of his front door. He stepped back to

  let her in, admiring her usual impeccable dress. Tonight she was wearing

  a black leather miniskirt and a long, red suede jacket.

  "Has Curran called?" she asked as they walked upstairs-.

  "Not yet," Jason said, carefully double-locking his apartment door.

  "Now fill me in," Shirley said, slipping out of her jacket. Underneath

  she was wearing a soft cashmere sweater. She sat on the edge of Jason's

  sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, and waited.

  "You're not going to like this," Jason said, sitting next to her.

  "I've tried to prepare myself. Shoot."

  "First let me give you a little background. If you don't understand the

  current research on aging, what I'm about to say may not make Much

  sense.

  "In the last few years, scientists like Hayes have spent a lot of time

  trying to slow the aging process. Most of their work has focused on

  cells in cell cultures, although some work has been done with rats and