As they crept away, they could hear people crashing and thrashing their way into the progressively more dense laurel. Sanderson’s Hell it was called. Hell indeed, thought Leon, knock yourselves out, boys.
Leon smiled to himself as he thought of the line in Brer Rabbit, Whatever you do, don’t throw me into the briar patch.
Other men might’ve been reluctant to employ the tactics of a bunny rabbit to try to evade stone cold killers. But Leon was not only wise enough to use the most humble of methods to save the lives of four innocent people, including himself, but also he was secure enough in his masculinity to be able to enjoy it.
Chapter 9
Phoebe took the curve of the exit ramp so fast the Datsun truck hopped several times in its struggle to make the tight turn. At the bottom of the ramp she looked both ways and then ran the red light that guarded the entrance to the jumbled complex of hospital buildings. She drove to the closest parking garage and took a ramp down into the underground portion. When she was on the lowest level she stopped in front of a set of glass doors that led into a small elevator lobby.
There were no benches anywhere to be seen. That was not good. Maybe she should’ve gone to the Emergency entrance, but she was trying to keep a low profile—very low, subterranean, in fact.
She looked over at her passenger to make sure he was still alive. He was breathing, at least. They hadn’t spoken during the drive to the hospital. He’d seemed to faint almost as soon as he got into Leon’s truck. Whether it was from an injury or the shock of being forced out into wide-open spaces, she didn’t know. She’d had to fasten his seatbelt for him.
Now she touched him on the shoulder to rouse him, and said, “Can you stand here while I park the car?”
“Maybe,” he said in a husky voice.
His eyes opened to little slits. Phoebe registered the color for the first time. They were a beautiful clear green.
She threw the gearshift into park and ran around to let him out. She helped him hobble through the automatic doors and left him leaning against the wall in the little lobby while she ran back to the truck and drove it to a dark corner of the garage. She parked it next to a concrete pillar to hide it as well as she could.
So far so good. She was no expert, but she didn’t think they’d been followed.
Nick’s skin was a pale blue-gray by the time she got back to him. She hoped his pallor was due to the eerie anti-viral lights mounted on the wall and not an indication that he was bleeding to death internally.
“It’s a long way to the Radiology Department,” Phoebe said, as she pressed the button to the elevator. “I’m sorry.”
There was a ding to signal the arrival of a car. She draped his left arm over her shoulders, and said, “Try to act as normal as possible.”
He grunted and nodded, then shuffled alongside her as she moved into the elevator. They went up three floors and then moved out into a long empty corridor. At first Phoebe was surprised that no one was around and then she realized it was Sunday afternoon and this was the building that housed the offices of the various medical specialists. They were all closed today.
They slowly made their way toward the main part of the hospital. At one point they had to use a glass overpass to cross above a street. Nick shuddered the whole way across. When they approached a corridor where there were some people, he loosened his grip to a more affectionate, less desperate looking hold. But his pace slowed even more.
Phoebe realized he wasn’t going to make it, so she commandeered an abandoned wheelchair left beside one of the exit doors and rolled him the rest of the way toward their destination. He sagged in the chair and Phoebe had to grab the back of his t-shirt a couple of times to keep him from falling forward into the floor.
They had to pass through the central lobby at the hospital’s main entrance to get to the Radiology Department. They arrived at the automated double doors at same time a gurney was being rolled in, so they followed it inside.
Phoebe searched her brain, trying to remember how to get to Charlie’s office. Nick didn’t look like he had more than a few minutes left in him.
She heard someone call out behind her, “Stop!”
She knew better than to look back, but she couldn’t help herself. A burley man dressed in blue jeans and a navy windbreaker was staring at her while talking into a fancy little radio. He was clearly not hospital security.
Dang, they had people watching the hospitals.
Phoebe shoved the wheelchair with all her might. She took the first turn she came to and pushed Nick at a flat out run. She couldn’t keep that up for long, though. It made a spectacle for one thing. Doctors and nurses only ran and screamed and acted like lunatics on television shows. Behavior like that would be highly detrimental to a real patient’s recovery.
Phoebe needed to find a place to hide until she could figure out a way to get in touch with Charlie. She took another turn and then, miraculously, she realized where she was. And she got an idea.
She mentally blessed Charlie. He was such a good friend. Who else could she go to in such a bizarre situation?
She loved the Radiology Department. She’d spent many a night sitting beside Charlie, for hours on end, watching him work. There was something so calming about his black and white world. It was the only place in the hospital where there was no color, no sound, no blood, no screaming. Here he could work all alone, in serene isolation, without any real patients ever showing up in person.
Until now.
Chapter 10
Phoebe’s breath was coming in gasps and she was slowing down, but then she saw it—a matte black rounded protrusion from the wall. “In here!” she said.
“In where?” Nick asked.
“Can you stand up outta this wheelchair on your own?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re gonna have to do your best. I’m not strong enough to lift you by myself and they’re right behind us.”
“In that case, sure.”
“We’ll only get one try at this, so whatever you do, don’t fall. One, two, three,” she said and then heaved and slammed Nick against the wall, pressing against him with her whole body, to keep him from falling.
“Don’t you dare faint!” she gasped into his ear.
She kicked the wheelchair backwards across the hall and it came to rest in an alcove next to a rack of protective clothing for the Radiology staff.
She slid her hands between Nick and the wall until she was able to grab both her wrists and lock her arms around him.
“Sweetheart,” he groaned, “everywhere you’re touching me … hurts.”
“Slide to the right,” she said, “just a single step to the right.”
“Don’t worry, I like bossy women,” he panted. “It’s sorta fun being manhandled, as long as it’s not by men.”
Again he was displaying that heroic comic response to an extremely unpleasant situation. Phoebe liked this guy. And she liked his voice. It was husky, like he hadn’t spoken very much for a long time.
Phoebe put her fingertips into a depression built into the curved metal that bulged out slightly into the corridor and did something that seemed to pry the wall away. Then she helped Nick move one more step to the right. She glanced across the hall one last time to confirm that the wheelchair was rolled out of sight of anyone looking down the long hallway.
“This is going to be a tight fit,” she said, as she shuffled backwards into the dark space with him hugged to her. “Keep your arms and fingers inside,” she warned.
“Inside what?” he asked in a slurred voice as she fumbled toward the wall again and slid a half round cover around them on a circular track. It was as if she’d swirled a big black cape around them both. The whole world went dark.
For a moment Nick thought he’d fainted,
but then the gloom lightened almost imperceptibly. That made him wonder if he’d died. If he had, he hoped he’d be seeing the light people talked about, but no more light came. That seemed like a bad sign. He groaned, but then he realized was still standing up, sort of, with Phoebe’s arms clenched around him and she was yammering into his ear.
“Okay,” she said, breathing heavily, “You have to step out into the room now. Watch out, there’s a slight lip on the track for the door.”
“Where are we?” he mumbled.
“The darkroom.”
“Good name for it.”
“It’s not used any more,” Phoebe said. “Things are digital now. They don’t develop film in trays these days. Nobody will find us in here. Nobody would even think to look. Only the old-timers know this room exists.”
Nick’s eyes were adjusting to the deep gloom and he could barely make out a small room, maybe ten feet square, with waist-high counters lining three walls. A jumble of metal trays and various incomprehensible tools and gadgets were piled around. It was extremely dusty.
“I need to sit down,” he said, and promptly fell to the floor.
“Don’t do that!” Phoebe said. “You’ll hurt yourself!”
She crouched beside him, “You coulda hit your head!” she scolded. “If you’re gonna faint, the least you can do is protect your head when you fall.”
He didn’t respond. He might’ve swooned into unconsciousness again. She sighed and felt for his face and brushed his hair off his forehead. Then she felt around on the back of his head. His hair was still dry. Good, he hadn’t cut his scalp.
She sat down beside him and tried to think what to do next. “You’re right,” she said, talking into the darkness, “you’re better off in the floor for now. Nothing else can possibly happen to you if you stay down here.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he mumbled.
She couldn’t see his face, but she could tell from his voice that he was trying to smile. Phoebe wasn’t used to so much exertion. She was worn out. She lay down next to him on the dusty floor and, without meaning to, fell into an exhausted slumber.
Once they were certain the bait had been taken and their adversaries were well and truly ensnared in Sanderson’s Hell, Leon and Ivy carefully circled back.
They approached Phoebe’s Jeep with the utmost stealth. Fortunately no one was waiting for them there. They were able to retrieve the vehicle and drive to Hamilton’s Store to await Phoebe’s call.
They wolfed down grilled cheeses and sweet tea the owner, Phoebe’s good friend Jill, set before them. They briefed her and café regular, Doc, the retired local doctor who’d mentored Phoebe all her life.
It was a deeply worrisome situation, but all they could do was wait for Phoebe to contact them.
“We’ve lost them,” the man in the windbreaker said into his radio. “We know they’re in here somewhere in the hospital, though. So it’s just a matter of time until we find them.” He pretended more confidence than he felt.
He liked knowing their quarry was injured seriously enough to need to come here. But the place was enormous, a labyrinth of halls that wound above and below ground among half a dozen large buildings. The Cancer Institute, the Heart Pavilion, the Brain and Spine Center, the Emergency Room, two professional buildings with a hundred doctors’ offices. Four parking garages.
He was going to need a lot more men to do a comprehensive search of the place. He called for reinforcements to help him flush the target and his helper.
Chapter 11
Phoebe awoke suddenly and had a horrible couple of moments thrashing around in the dark trying to remember where she was.
“Ouch!” a groggy male voice said.
Then she remembered.
“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to go to sleep.”
“You snore,” Nick said.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I doubt it.”
She sat up and tried to get her bearings. It was largely a waste of effort. The room was lit by only the faintest of light leaks from a corner of the suspended ceiling where a mouse had gnawed on it. There was no sound, no perceptible air movement.
Phoebe had no idea how long she’d been asleep. She hadn’t meant to go to sleep at all, but she must’ve needed it. “I need to find Charlie,” she said as she rubbed her face and swallowed. Her mouth tasted awful. “Wait here. I’ll go see if I can find him.”
He grunted a response.
She said in her most authoritative tone, “You. Stay. Here.”
“Not a problem,” he mumbled, from where he lay splayed out on the floor.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Phoebe said, then she stepped into the portal, swept her magic cape around herself, and vanished.
It was surreal that two middle-aged strangers could combine forces on the spur of the moment and successfully elude half a dozen professional soldiers in a mountainous wilderness. It was like trying to catch a couple of gerbils that had gotten loose in Central Park.
Surely, the Gryphon thought, by morning it would all be over. As night approached, he watched the city go dark and the hundreds of thousands of lights come on in the buildings that ringed Central Park. It was a long time before he turned his own lights on.
The bad news about the failed hit and the unexpected escape was certain to be moving up the food chain. Heads were going to roll. He wanted to be sure his wasn’t one of them.
Phoebe slid the door around on its circular track as slowly as she could, to keep any noise or visible movement to a minimum. She paused when she could peep out into the corridor. The darkroom door was set into the wall of a hallway that passed down one side of the Radiology Department.
Directly across the hall from her was an open area that held not only the abandoned wheelchair and the lead-lined protective gear, but also it contained the controls for two radiology suites, one on either side of the observation space. Counters facing each of the suites held monitors and exotic panels filled with switches and dials. The walls on both sides were made of glass so you could see into the suites.
Phoebe knew from having watched Charlie perform fluoroscopy here that each of the rooms was mostly taken up by a huge looming x-ray machine and fluoroscope that wrapped around a motorized table set on gimbals.
She looked both ways, confirmed that no one could see her, and crept across the hall into the control area. She removed a lab coat from the back of one of the rolling office chairs and put it on over her hiking clothes. Then she picked up a face shield from the counter and donned it as well to disguise herself in case anyone walked by.
Heavy-duty stainless steel prongs jutting out from the wall supported assorted bits of lead-lined protective gear—kilts, sleeveless tunics, and throat guards. She wouldn’t put any of that on unless she had to because the pieces were extremely heavy.
She didn’t know what time it was, but the place seemed to be empty. She thought these suites were heavily scheduled during the week, so they would be in use continuously from about 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night. The fact that she didn’t see anyone meant it had to be late Sunday night or the wee hours of Monday morning.
She had no idea where Charlie might be. He had insomnia and preferred to work at night, but he often volunteered to fill in on weekends or for people on vacation. His home phone was unlisted, but if he was in the hospital and if she had his pager number, she could get in touch with him that way.
Even if he was at work, he could be in any of half a dozen reading stations, as they called the darkened suites where they sat and read images on computers and dictated their findings to voice recognition. Unfortunately she had no idea how to go about finding his number and she wasn’t sure how to look for him without being seen.
She didn’t have a cell phone, b
ut even if she had, she didn’t know if it would work underground and in these shielded areas. She didn’t see any phones except the ones on the wall that were for in-house calls only. Landlines to the outside were in each of the private offices, but she knew those were kept locked.
She crept down to where she thought Charlie’s office was and found a door with his name on it. She tried the knob, but it was locked. She wracked her brain for ideas…and then she got one.
She went back to the fluoroscopy suites and went into one to take a visual inventory of the supplies. She didn’t see what she was looking for, so she crossed over to the suite on the other side. She heard voices approaching, so she stepped behind a privacy curtain and stood perfectly still, holding her breath. The sounds of conversation came close and then passed by and kept going.
She stepped out from behind the curtain saw what she was looking for—a bag of a clear liquid hanging from an IV pole. She went to it and read the label, diatrizoic acid. She knew what that was. It was contrast medium, a liquid that looked clear to the human eye, but was opaque to radiation.
Some of the radiological agents went into the bloodstream, some were inhaled, and some were safe to drink. But it was obvious from the fitting on the end of this particular bag that it was intended for use on the lower end of the digestive tract. It was an enema tip.
Phoebe checked to make sure there was a cassette loaded into the holder underneath the center of the table. Then she rummaged around until she found the stash of plastic cups used to feed the patients barium.
Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 02 - The School for Mysteries Page 4