by Robin Cook
In the back of the room were a number of stainless steel cabinets filled with various supplies. There was a desk of sorts for the circulating nurse. The right wall had an X-ray screen. The rear wall, next to the door, had a large institutional clock. The large red second hand swept around smoothly. Another door led into an adjoining supply room, shared with OR No. 10, which contained the sterilizers and other paraphernalia.
Susan spent almost an hour going over room No. 8, as well as No. 10 for comparison. She found nothing abnormal or even mildly curious about room No. 8. It was an OR room like so many thousands. No. 10 appeared no different.
Without challenge, Susan retraced her steps to the nurses’ locker room and changed back into her nurse’s uniform. She threw her scrub dress into a hamper and started for the door. But she paused then, looking up at the ceiling. It was a drop ceiling, made with large blocks of acoustical tile.
The wastebasket provided an intermediate step. Susan moved from the wastebasket to the sink to the top of the lockers. The ceiling was about three feet above the top of the lockers. Crouching on all fours, she tried the first ceiling block. It would not lift up because of some piping immediately above it. She tried another. Same problem. The third tile, however, lifted easily, and Susan slid it to one side. She then stood up on top of the locker, projecting half of herself into the ceiling space. Contrary to her estimate, the ceiling space was generous in its size. There was almost five feet of vertical space from the dropped acoustical ceiling to the cement of the floor slabs above. A myriad of pipes and ducts ran through this space, carrying the hospital’s vital supplies and wastes. The light was very poor, with only pencil-like beams seeping up from below in scattered locations between ceiling tiles.
The dropped ceiling was composed of the cardboard tile, held in place by thin metal strips, which were in turn hung from the cement slab above. Neither the tiles nor the metal strips were strong enough to carry any weight. In order to enter the ceiling space, Susan had to pull herself up onto the pipes, which she found either ice cold or very hot. Once up in the ceiling space, she replaced the ceiling tile she had moved. It fell back into place, cutting off the direct source of light.
Susan waited until her eyes made the adjustment from the fluorescent world below to the semidarkness above. Eventually outlines took forms and Susan could move ahead along the pipes. She noticed a row of studs which continued through the ceiling space to connect with the concrete above. She guessed that they marked the wall of the corridor.
Progress was slow; it was difficult to move on the pipes, treading on one, keeping hold of another or, here and there, a stud for support. She did not want to make any noise, especially when she guessed she was over the area of the main desk. Once over the OR area itself, the going became definitely easier. The ceilings over the OR and the recovery room were fixed and made of prestressed concrete. Susan could move at will provided she avoided tripping on the piping and provided she bent over considerably, for the space here was only about three feet high.
Susan found a concrete wall which she guessed housed the elevator shafts. Then she discovered that the corridor of the OR area had a dropped ceiling. Beyond the OR corridor, over what was probably part of central supply, Susan could see that the maze of pipes and ducts running through the ceiling space converged in what seemed a tangled vortex. Susan guessed that was the location of the central chase which housed all the piping and ducts coursing vertically in the building.
Susan was interested primarily in locating room No. 8. But that was not easy. There were no specific demarcations from one OR to the next. The pipes seemed to spread out and dive through the concrete to the operating rooms below in utter anarchy. The corridor ceiling led to a solution. By carefully picking up the edges of the ceiling blocks over the corridor, Susan was able to orient herself and locate the ceiling area of rooms No. 8 and No. 10. Susan satisfied herself that the number and configuration of the pipes to and from the two rooms were identical.
The gas lines corresponding to the painted intake connectors she had seen down below in the ORs had the same color codes in the ceiling space. Over room No. 8, Susan found the oxygen line with a splash of green paint. Susan traced the oxygen line from room No. 8. It coursed back to the edge of the corridor then bent at a right angle to run parallel to it, alongside similar oxygen lines coming from other ORs. As Susan passed additional OR rooms, more lines joined the oxygen line she was trailing. In order to be sure she was still following the pipe from No. 8, Susan kept her finger on it all the way to the edge of the central chase. Then her finger hit something. In the dim light she had to bend over to see what it was. She saw a stainless steel female connector. Just over the edge of the chase carrying the pipes up from the hospital depths was a high-pressure T-valve on the oxygen line leading to room No. 8.
Susan stared at the valve. She looked at the other gas lines coming up the chase. There were no similar valves on any of the other lines. With her finger she examined the valve. It was obvious that the oxygen could be tapped from the line at that point. But equally as possible was that something, another gas, could be bled into the oxygen line at the same point.
Keeping to the fixed ceilings of the ORs, Susan worked her way back to the area of the main desk. Then she began the difficult part of crossing the large expanse of non-fixed ceiling. Wishing she had dropped some bread crumbs in the forest of pipes, Susan was forced to reconnoiter. She lifted a corner of a ceiling tile, but it was over the hall. She lifted another tile only to find herself over the doctors’ lounge. The third tile was over the nurses’ locker, but too far from the lockers she needed to step on. The fourth tile was perfect, and Susan descended with little difficulty.
Thursday
February 26
1:00 A.M.
Like any major city, Boston never completely goes to sleep. But unlike many a major city, Boston becomes almost silent. As Susan settled back in the taxi speeding along Storrow Drive, only two or three cars passed, all going in the opposite direction. She was very tired, and she craved sleep. It had been an unbelievable day.
The laceration of her lip and the bruise on her cheek had grown more painful. Gingerly she touched her cheek to see if the swelling had increased. It had not. She looked out over the Esplanade and the frozen Charles River to her right. The lights of Cambridge were sparse and uninviting. The taxi banked sharply left off Storrow Drive onto Park Drive, requiring Susan to steady herself with her arm.
She tried to assess her progress. It wasn’t encouraging. To keep within a reasonable limit of safety, she thought she had another thirty-six hours or so to press her search. But she was stymied. As the cab crossed the Fenway, Susan admitted to herself that she had run out of ideas on how to proceed. She felt she could not chance the Memorial by day with Nelson, Harris, McLeary, and Oren all lined up against her. She doubted the nurse’s uniform would work on a direct confrontation.
But she wanted more data from the computer. She needed the other charts, too. Was there a way to do it? Would Bellows help? Susan doubted it. She now knew that he was truly anxious about his position. He really is an invertebrate, she thought.
And what about Walters’s suicide? How could those drugs be tied in?
Susan paid her fare and got out of the taxi. Walking up to the door, she decided that in the morning she would try to find out as much as possible about Walters. He had to be related. But how?
Susan stood by the front door with her hand on the knob, expecting to be buzzed in by the watchman at the front desk. But he wasn’t sitting there. Susan cursed as she rummaged in her coat for her keys. It was uncanny how the man at the desk seemed to disappear whenever you needed him.
The four flights up to her floor seemed longer than usual to Susan. She paused on several occasions, because of a combination of physical fatigue and mental effort.
Susan tried to remember if Bellows had said succinylcholine was among the drugs found in the locker in the doctors’ dressing room. She distinctly re
membered his saying curare but she could not remember succinylcholine. She got to the top of the stairs still very much lost in thought. It took another minute to find the correct key. As she had done countless times, she inserted the key in the lock. It took a bit of effort.
Despite her deep thought and exhaustion, Susan remembered about the wad of paper. Leaving the key in the door she bent down to look.
The paper was not there. The door had been opened.
Susan backed away from the door, half-expecting it to open suddenly. She remembered the horrid face of her assailant. If he was within the room, he was undoubtedly poised, expecting her to enter as usual. She thought of the knife he had not used the last time. She knew that she had very little time. The only factor in her favor was that if he were in the room, he would not know Susan suspected his presence. At least for a few moments.
If she called the authorities and the man was found, she’d be safe for some hours perhaps. But she recalled the threat about telling the police, the photograph of her brother. Did that suggest a burglar or a rapist? Not likely. Susan understood that the man who attacked her before was both professional and serious, deadly serious. She should run, perhaps even leave town. Or should she call the police anyway, as Stark had suggested? She was no professional; that was painfully apparent.
Why would they be after her already? She felt confident she had not been followed. Maybe the wad of paper had fallen out by itself. Susan advanced toward the door again.
“What the hell’s the matter with this lock?” she said aloud, shaking the keys, playing for time. She remembered that the watchman was not at his desk downstairs. Should she go down and knock on someone else’s door, saying that hers was stuck? Susan backed away again and moved over to the stairs. She thought that was the best idea under the circumstances. She knew Martha Fine on three well enough to knock at this hour. She didn’t know what she should tell her. It was probably best for Martha if she told her nothing. All she’d say was that she couldn’t get into her own room and she needed to sleep on Martha’s floor.
Susan stepped slowly onto the wooden stairs. They creaked mercilessly under her weight. The sound was unmistakable and Susan knew it. If someone was poised behind her door he would have heard it. Susan ran down the stairs headlong. As she got to the third floor she heard the latch on her door snap open. She went on down, not bothering to stop. What if Martha wasn’t there, or wouldn’t answer? Susan knew that she could not let the man get hold of her again. The dorm seemed asleep, although it was only a little after one.
Susan heard her door fly open and hit the wall of the hall. She heard some steps and imagined that someone had run to the banister. Susan dared not to look up. Her mind was made up. She’d leave the dorm. It would be easy to lose whoever was following her within the medical school complex. Susan felt she could run relatively quickly and she knew every inch of the area. She was at the ground floor when she heard her pursuer start down the stairs above.
At the bottom of the stairs Susan turned sharply to the left and ran through a small archway. Quickly she opened the door to the quad outside, but she did not exit. Instead, she let the hydraulic hinge begin to close the door. She turned and passed through the door into the adjacent wing of the dorm, shutting that door after her. She could hear feet running on the landing of the second floor.
Avoiding the noise her shoes would make if she ran normally, Susan moved down the ground-floor hall of the adjacent dorm, keeping her legs relatively stiff. She moved quickly but silently, passing the Student Health Office. At the end of the hall she opened the stairwell door quietly and allowed it to close behind her without a noise. She found herself on a stairway to the basement level and wasted no time in descending.
D’Ambrosio was tricked by the slowly closing door to the quad but not for long. D’Ambrosio was no novice at pursuit and he knew just how much time Susan was ahead of him. As he ran into the quad, he knew immediately that he had been duped. He would have been, except there were no other doors close enough for her to have got back into the building.
D’Ambrosio darted back through the door he had just opened. There were only two alternate routes. He chose the nearest door and ran forward down the hall.
Susan entered the tunnel connecting the dorm with the medical school. She was sure she must be in the clear. The tunnel proceeded straight for twenty-five or thirty yards, then twisted out of sight to the left. Susan moved ahead as quickly as she could: the tunnel was fairly well lit by bulbs in open wire cages.
At the end of the tunnel she reached for the handle on the fire door and opened it. A breeze of air hit her as she went through. A sinking feeling passed over her as she realized that could mean only one thing. The door behind her had to be open at the same time! Then she heard the unmistakable heavy footsteps of a man running in the tunnel.
“My God,” she whispered in a panic. Perhaps she had misjudged. She had left a dorm full of people, even if asleep, for the labyrinthine spaces of a dark, deserted building.
Susan rushed up the stairs ahead, feeling a sense of helplessness as she remembered the strength of D’Ambrosio. Quickly she tried to think of the layout of the building she was now in. It was the Anatomy-Pathology Building, which had four floors. There were two large lecture amphitheaters on the first floor as well as several ancillary rooms. The second floor had the anatomy hall with a number of smaller labs. The third and fourth floors were mostly offices, and Susan was not familiar with them.
She opened the door onto the first floor. Unlike the tunnel, the building was totally dark except for light from the streetlamps filtering through infrequent windows. The floor was made of marble and it echoed with her footsteps. The hall followed a circular pattern as it skirted the pit of one of the amphitheaters.
With no particular plan in mind, Susan rushed up to one of the wide but low doors leading into the first amphitheater. It was the door through which patients were wheeled for demonstrations. As Susan closed the door she heard running footsteps on the marble hall behind her. She moved away from the low door into the center of the amphitheater. The banks of seats rose in regular tiers until they were lost in darkness. She mounted the steps leading up one aisle from the pit.
The footsteps got louder and Susan hurried upward, afraid to look back. The footsteps passed and became less audible. Then they stopped altogether. Susan moved higher and higher. Behind her the pit of the amphitheater became more and more difficult to distinguish. Susan reached the upper tier of seats and moved laterally along it. She heard the footsteps on the marble again. She had a few moments to think. She knew there was no way she could cope with this man directly; she had to lose him or hide long enough so that he would give up and leave. She thought about the tunnel to the Administration Building. But she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it would be open. Occasionally it had been locked when she tried to take that route home from the library in the evening.
She froze as she heard the door open into the pit of the amphitheater. The shadowy figure of a man entered. She could barely see him. But she was dressed in the white nurse’s uniform and she feared that she was more easily visible. She slowly crouched down behind a row of seats, but the backs of the chairs only rose eight to twelve inches above the level she was on. The man stopped and did not move. Susan guessed that he was trying to scan the room. She carefully lay down on the floor. She could see between the backs of two of the seats. The man walked over to the podium and seemed to be searching. Of course. He was searching for the lights! Susan felt panic again take control. Ahead of her, about twenty feet away, was a door to the hall on the second floor. Susan prayed that the door would be open and not locked. If it were locked she would have to try to make it to the door on the opposite side of the amphitheater. That would take about as long as it would take D’Ambrosio to get from the pit up to her level. If the door ahead of her was locked, she was lost.
There was a snap of a light switch and the lamp on the podium went on. Suddenly and eeri
ly D’Ambrosio’s horrid pockmarked face was illuminated from below, casting grotesque shadows and making his eye sockets appear like burnt holes in a ghoulish mask. His hands groped along the side of the podium, and the sound of a second switch reverberated in Susan’s ears. A strong ray of light sprang from the darkened ceiling, illuminating the pit in a brilliant beam. Now Susan could see D’Ambrosio clearly.
She crawled forward as rapidly as she could toward the door. Another light switch snapped and a bank of lights lit up the blackboard behind D’Ambrosio. At that point D’Ambrosio noted the switches for the room lights to the left of the blackboard. As he walked over to the switches, Susan got up and broke for the door. She turned the knob as the lights went on in the room. Locked!
Susan stared down into the pit. D’Ambrosio saw her and a smile of anticipation came to his thin, scarred lips. Then he ran for the stairs, taking them in twos and threes.
Susan shook the door in despair. Then she noted that it was bolted from within. She threw the bolt and the door opened. She flung herself through it and slammed the door behind her. She could hear D’Ambrosio’s deep breaths as he neared the top row of seats.
Directly across from the second-floor amphitheater door was a CO2 fire extinguisher. Susan ripped it from the wall and turned it upside down. She spun around, hearing the metallic click of D’Ambrosio’s shoes coming closer and closer, and got set just as the knob turned and the door swung open.
At that instant, Susan depressed the button on the fire extinguisher. The sudden phase change and expansion of the gas caused an explosive noise that shrieked and echoed in the silence of the empty building as the spray of dry ice caught D’Ambrosio full in the face. He reeled backward and tripped over the upper row of seats, his big body teetering, then crashing sideways onto the second and third rows. A seat back dug deeply into his side, snapping his left eleventh rib. His arms flew out to protect himself, grabbing at the seat backs as his feet continued over his head. He fell lengthwise facedown into the fourth row, stunned.