Host

by Robin Cook

  After the first hour of worming her way deeper and deeper into the system, the dimensions of the duct increased in a progressive, incremental fashion. Eventually she was able to make significant headway when the duct became large enough for her to crawl on all fours, as she and Michael had done in the conveyor tunnel. When the duct angled downward, she adopted a sitting position to slide down on her backside, as if she were on a slide in a children’s playground. But out of fear that she might collide with something at the bottom, she inched along, keeping her feet pressed against the sides.

  Once the duct again became flat and she could walk bent over at the waist, she made better time. To help orient herself, she ran her hands lightly along the metal sides. As she continued forward, she became more and more aware that the noise level and the turbulence of the moving air were increasing. She guessed they were coming from fans, which she assumed had to be large and powerful to move so much air over so great a distance. It dawned on her that she was getting close, and she began to worry that in the dark she might stumble into one of them.

  Such concerns forced her to turn on her flashlight app before proceeding, yet she soon realized that using such a bright light would quickly exhaust her phone’s battery. Instead of the flashlight app, she just used the light from the screen, which was more than adequate. The only problem was that the phone kept turning off.

  A hundred feet farther on, the duct suddenly enlarged significantly, and ten feet beyond that, the passageway was completely blocked by a large dark gray filter screen. From the noise and vibration, Lynn could tell that the fan or fans were just on the other side.

  With a new concern that she might be trapped by the filter blocking the duct, she approached it and reached out to see if it would hinge or somehow open. It didn’t move. With the battery clearly weakening, she went back to the flashlight app and shined what light it was producing around the filter’s border. That was when she noticed a narrow band of exterior light along the right-hand edge.

  Lynn turned off her phone. The line of light along the filter’s border was easier to see, and stretched from the duct’s floor to its ceiling, giving her the idea that the filter slid in at that point from the outside. She tried again to move it by pushing in that direction. With some effort it moved this time. She pushed it out a few feet, noticing a dramatic increase in the airflow moving past her. To look beyond the filter, she went to turn on her flashlight again. But just before doing so, she noticed an additional, less intense vertical line of light coming in through the wall of the duct to her right, a few feet back from the filter.

  Suddenly encouraged, Lynn turned her flashlight back on and shined it in the direction of this new line of light. What she saw was a hinged access panel and, most important, it was fitted with a handle. Pocketing her phone, she tried the handle. A moment later she was able to crack open the panel enough to see that beyond was a lighted machinery space.

  As much as she wanted to burst out and escape the claustrophobic confines of the duct, Lynn forced herself to be slow and careful. Despite the noise and vibration of the fan or possibly fans, which had to be close beyond the filter, she tried to listen for any sounds of life in the machinery room. Quickly realizing it was impossible to tell, she carefully opened the panel farther, slowly and noiselessly, to afford herself a gradually expanding view of the room beyond. At that point in her ordeal the last thing she wanted was to run into someone and have to explain herself. Luckily she saw no one, even when the panel was wide open.

  Being reasonably sure she was alone in the room, which was not surprising since it was past four-thirty in the morning, Lynn scrambled out through the opening and lowered herself to the floor. She had no idea where she was and just hoped she was in the hospital mechanical spaces, and not still somewhere in the Shapiro.

  The first thing Lynn did was check for service on her phone. Now that she was out, her first thoughts were for Michael and how he was faring. Unfortunately there was no phone service, at least not in the hospital basement, where she hoped she was. Without being able to make a call, she quickly scanned the room for the exit. She was about to run to it when she became aware of how filthy she was. Looking down, she could see that the once-white Shapiro coveralls were almost black on her chest, abdomen, the front side of her legs, and the underside of her arms. She’d been totally unaware of how much dust there was in the air-conditioning ducts. Now she worried her face might be equally as soiled.

  Lynn did not want to draw attention to herself, particularly from security. Understanding the apparent complicity of Sidereal Pharmaceuticals and Middleton Healthcare, she was not willing to trust any authorities. Despite the hour, she thought the chances were good she would run into some people in the hospital even if she tried to avoid it. Although the hospital slowed at night, it never completely slept. She had to do something about her appearance.

  Lynn tore off the Shapiro hat. She did the same with the mask, which was still tied around her neck. The hat was soiled but not as much as her scrubs. She tossed the hat and the mask into a waste container, and ran over to a sink. Cupping her hands, she rinsed her face and then quickly dried it with paper towels.

  As dirty as the towels were after drying herself, she knew she had been right about her face. There was no mirror to check, so she rinsed her face yet again. This time the paper towels were only slightly dirty. She tried to use wet paper towels to clean her scrubs. It was useless. She wished she had not abandoned the raincoat in the duct as soon as she had been able to get it off.

  Frantically she looked around for some other, more normal coveralls, anything she could possibly use to cover herself, but there was nothing. It was clear that what she needed to do was to get up to the women’s changing room off the surgical lounge and get a clean set of normal hospital scrubs. She didn’t think it would be a problem at that time of the night, as the ORs were generally quiet, and the changing rooms even more so. She also knew it would be a convenient place to use her phone, as there was a good signal. What she wanted to do more than anything was call Markus Vandermeer. She wanted the FBI and the CIA or even, as Michael joked, the Marines. As far as she was concerned, she couldn’t even be totally confident of local law enforcement. Middleton Healthcare was a powerful and important player in local politics.

  Lynn cracked the door, which she assumed would lead out into a basement corridor, but it didn’t. Apparently the huge HVAC system had its own space. The door led into an even larger machinery area. Here Lynn saw some hospital workers facing a large console filled with all manner of gauges. Like the main HVAC room, the ambient noise was significant and the lighting equally bright.

  It wasn’t difficult for Lynn to see what was undoubtedly the main door out of the area, as it was a pair of doors rather than just one. To further corroborate her suspicion, while she was watching, a worker came in, offering her a brief but encouraging glance out to what looked like a more typical hospital corridor.

  Lynn watched for a short time. The workers seemed intent on their respective jobs, alternately checking gauges and writing in logs. No one, it seemed, paid much attention to the main exit except when they used it. Finally Lynn decided to take a chance.

  Walking quickly, but not so quickly that she would draw attention, Lynn traversed the industrial-style setting. She felt terribly obvious but accepted that there was little she could do about it. She had no idea what she was going to say if someone stopped her. Luckily no one did. She went out through the double doors and sighed with relief.

  Taking her phone out yet again, Lynn checked for a signal as she ran down the hall. There was still none. The battery power was less than five percent, so she switched the phone off. She entered the first stairwell she came to, fearful of eventually running into someone in the main hallway. There was no way she was going to use the elevator.

  She took the stairs by twos and threes, hardly pausing on the landings. Passing the first floor, she co
ntinued up at the same pace until she reached the second. There she paused briefly to see about the phone signal. Finally there was something, but it wasn’t much. But at least now she knew she was close to her goal, the women’s surgical locker room.

  The stairway opened up in a section of the second floor across from the Surgical Pathology Department and not far from the Anesthesia office where she and Michael had spoken with Sandra Wykoff. Lynn hurriedly passed through the area and reached the main bank of elevators, where she slowed. She saw no one, although she could hear the TV in the surgical lounge. Pausing at the open door, she carefully glanced inside.

  Two orderlies were enjoying coffee and newspapers. There were no nurses. Lynn took it as an opportune time to pass through, which she did at a pace that wouldn’t garner attention. She went directly into the women’s changing room. Luckily it was completely empty, as she had hoped.

  The first thing she did was tear off the Shapiro scrubs, roll them up, and push them down into the bottom of the trash bin, making sure they were completely covered. Once she had pulled on a new set of normal scrubs, she took out her cell phone, and now the signal was fine as she anticipated. From her contacts she pulled up the Vandermeer home phone number and pressed it. While waiting for it to go through, she checked the time. It was going on five o’clock in the morning.

  It was Leanne who answered. After apologizing for the hour, Lynn asked to speak to her husband, explaining that it was important. When Markus came on the line, Lynn didn’t waste time. At the moment, her main concern was Michael.

  “Sidereal Pharmaceuticals is not doing unauthorized drug testing on patients,” she said in a rush. “It is much, much worse. They are using the patients to make drugs and causing them illness and even death in the process.”

  “Okay, slow down!” Markus said, trying to wrap his sleepy mind around what Lynn had said. “Come again?”

  Somewhat slower but with even more conviction and passion, Lynn repeated herself.

  “How do you know this?” Markus demanded. Lynn could hear the sudden seriousness in his voice.

  “Michael Pender and I broke into the Shapiro Institute tonight,” Lynn said. “You are aware that it is run a bit like Fort Knox.”

  “Of course,” Markus said. “It is for the benefit of the patients, keeping them from various diseases.”

  “That might be true to an extent. But from what we have found, we think it is more a cover for what they are really doing, and that is putting the patients at risk to produce monoclonal antibody drugs. And it is not just the inmates of the Shapiro. They are doing it with many ambulatory patients hospitalized in Middleton Healthcare hospitals. It is a massive conspiracy between Sidereal and Middleton. We are sure, as sure as we can be. And there’s more. This is the worst part, especially for you and your wife and me personally. Carl’s condition was deliberately caused so that he would be moved into the Shapiro to produce a specific drug. It wasn’t an accident! It was a recruitment.”

  For a moment there was silence. Lynn thought that perhaps they had been disconnected. “Markus, are you still there?” she asked.

  “I’m here,” Markus said. “I’m trying to process all this. It is overwhelming.”

  “I know it is horrendous,” Lynn admitted. “And there have to be a lot of top people involved. Otherwise it couldn’t happen. I think they are making billions.”

  “Are you and Michael still in the Shapiro?”

  “I’m not. We were discovered in there and chased. I got out through the HVAC system. Michael covered my tracks and is still in there. I have to assume they caught him and are still looking for me. Something has to be done, and done immediately! They could kill him.”

  “Okay!” Markus said. “I will immediately call the federal authorities, the FBI specifically. Where are you at the moment? Are you safe?”

  “I’m in the women’s surgical lounge in the main hospital.”

  “Have you spoken with anyone else?”

  “No one. I don’t know whom to trust.”

  “Smart! Maybe you should just leave. Get away from there.”

  “I still have Carl’s car.”

  “Drive it away. Come here!”

  “Okay,” Lynn said. “But Michael? What’s going to happen?”

  “We will put it in the hands of the federal authorities. Perhaps a state SWAT team can be immediately mustered. For the moment I would prefer to keep the local police out of it, just in case.”

  “I agree,” Lynn said.

  “All right, get yourself over here. By the time you’re here I’ll know more.”

  50.

  Thursday, April 9, 5:11 A.M.

  After pocketing her phone and taking a deep breath, Lynn looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. She was glad she hadn’t run into anyone since climbing out of the air-conditioning duct. Despite having rinsed her face, Lynn saw it was still streaked with dirt, which made her look somewhat like a raccoon. Recognizing that she would undoubtedly run into people, she knew she had to make herself appear more presentable. With a bit more effort and a little soap, she was able to improve her appearance dramatically. She even straightened her hair, using her fingers as a comb. Accepting that she wouldn’t be able to marshal much more of an improvement, she at last gave up.

  Her plan was to try to avoid everybody as much as possible. If approached or questioned, she’d be pleasant but self-contained. The place she was most concerned about was the parking garage, as it was patrolled by hospital security after a recent episode with a nurse being confronted in the wee hours of the morning. She wanted to steer clear of all security people.

  Coming out through the door of the women’s lounge, she noticed that a nurse had appeared and was helping herself to coffee. Lynn started for the exit to the main hall feeling like a cat with its ears back. She avoided so much as glancing at the nurse, hoping to elude attention. Instead she looked off to the side, and because of this, her eye happened to catch a glimpse of the monitor on the wall, which indicated there was a neurosurgical case in progress in OR 12. The surgeon was Norman Phillips. It was what explained the paucity of people in the surgical lounge.

  Lynn did a double take and stopped dead in her tracks. She blinked, hoping her eyes were playing tricks on her. The patient’s name was Michael Pender! The diagnosis was subdural hematoma, and the planned procedure was an emergency craniotomy.

  A short, involuntary cry—more like something a tortured animal might make—escaped from Lynn’s lips. Frantically, she looked to see what the timing was. The case had started only a few minutes before, at 4:58 A.M.! “No!” she cried with enough volume to shock the three people in the surgical lounge.

  Lynn spun around, her eyes stretched open to their limits. “No! No! Not again!” she yelled to no one in particular. The people in the room stared at her and didn’t move. They were frozen in place, gaping at her unblinkingly, fearing she was mentally unbalanced.

  A second later, Lynn was out the door in a headlong rush toward the paired swinging doors leading to the OR proper. As she ran, she pulled out her phone. Just inside the OR’s doors, she paused briefly to bring up onto the screen her last call. Quickly she reconnected it, holding the phone to her ear as she began to run again. Behind her she heard the nurse from the surgical lounge yell for her to stop, saying she was not allowed in the OR. The nurse had burst through the swinging doors right after Lynn and was now chasing after her.

  Coming to a halt outside of OR 12, Lynn was relieved to hear Markus’s voice. Breathlessly she told him Michael was in surgery. “This has to be stopped. It can’t be allowed!” Lynn cried. “He’s not going to wake up. I know it! The same thing that happened to Carl is going to happen to Michael!”

  The nurse who had chased Lynn ran up to her. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded shrilly.

  Lynn ignored her, concentrating on talking with Markus. “You ha
ve to get someone here now! The police, the FBI, anybody! Please! He is in OR Twelve! You have to stop this!”

  “Hello?!” the nurse yelled, extending the word in the form of a question while she tried to get the phone out of Lynn’s hands. “You can’t be in here!”

  Lynn disconnected from Markus and roughly pulled the phone away from the nurse’s grasp. For a brief instant she eyed the nurse, who was looking at her as if she were a crazy person.

  “Let’s not cause trouble,” the nurse said, trying to speak as calmly as possible. She reached out to grab Lynn’s arm to lead her back out of the OR.

  With a blow as forceful as a karate punch, Lynn knocked the nurse’s hand away. Spinning on her heels, Lynn pushed through into the operating room. Inside, there were five people: anesthetized the patient; the gowned and gloved surgeon; a similarly attired operating nurse; the anesthesiologist; and a circulating nurse. Initially, no one looked in Lynn’s direction, and everyone continued their banter. Benton, functioning as the anesthesiologist, and Norman, the neurosurgeon, were talking about golf while Norman operated. The scrub nurse and the circulating nurse were discussing scheduling. It wasn’t until the second nurse burst in behind Lynn and loudly ordered her out of the operating room that activity and conversation in the room stopped, and everyone’s attention galvanized on Lynn’s sudden presence.