Робин Кук - Pandemic

Although Jack had been trying to avoid thinking about it by using denial, he was now forced to consider that maybe Wei was not thinking of letting him go at all. In his attempt to win Jack over, Wei had told him everything they had been doing to corner the market in providing custom-made human organs for transplant grown in pigs. In a very real sense, Jack now knew too much. Maybe the reason he’d been isolated so far out of sight was to see if there were any inquiries whatsoever as to his whereabouts. If there weren’t, then they could do with him whatever they wanted.

With a shiver of fear, Jack recognized that there might have been a specific reason he had been put where he was. He remembered being told that the facility was not only a slaughterhouse but also a rendering plant, or what was known in the industry as an integrated facility. In such a place, an entire animal, composed of bones, teeth, fur, guts, hooves, fat, blood, and muscle, could be turned into useful products. Suddenly Jack could imagine himself becoming dog food and bars of soap. To make someone totally disappear, there was no better place.

With a sudden new sense of urgency, Jack began a rapid inspection tour of his lockup in hopes of finding a way out. He first walked to the left in relation to his entry point, knowing there had to be a good-size entrance for the livestock. He also thought there might be more doors similar to the one that had provided him access.

After only a short distance, Jack noticed the pen gradually had expanded in width until it was about twenty feet wide. And he did find more of the embedded wire-mesh doors every fifty feet or so, but they were all constructed with equivalent precision to the first. A quick check of each convinced him there was no chance any of them could be forcibly opened.

As he continued walking it became progressively darker, as there were no high windows in this portion of the cavernous surrounding building. Eventually he was moving forward more by feel than by vision, requiring him to have his hands extended out in front of him. After several hundred feet he collided with a wall. Since the light in this section of the cage was minimal, he was forced to use his hands rather than his eyes to inspect the wall. Rather quickly he was able to feel the outline of a pair of double doors that were devoid of any hardware. There weren’t even any hinges, meaning the doors opened outward. He gathered these were the pearly gates for the animals heading for their doomsday.

In a moment of sudden, spontaneous panic, Jack pounded on the heavy doors. He yelled, “Help!” several times at the top of his lungs, but he only succeeded in causing a ringing in his ears. Quickly recognizing the futility of what he was doing, he gave up. He doubted there was anyone who could hear him, particularly anyone who might be inclined to help.

Turning around, Jack retraced his steps. At least he was heading back into the light. He again checked each of the embedded doors he passed, in hopes of having missed something, but he hadn’t.

When Jack got back to the door through which he had entered, he kept going. Thanks to the daylight spilling down from the clerestory windows, he could now see all sorts of details, including that the cage narrowed to no more than five feet in width. He was even able to touch either side simultaneously. About twenty feet on, he came to a heavy grate that blocked further passage. Jack could see that the grate could be mechanically raised to allow individual animals an opportunity to proceed. Just beyond was the area where the animals were killed by being hoisted into the air onto the conveyor system via a hook behind their Achilles tendon and their throats being slit. The mild unpleasant odor Jack had noted when he’d first entered the huge, warehouse-like structure was the most intense where he was now standing.

Jack tried to raise the grate, but as he had assumed, it wouldn’t budge. It was made of heavy steel bars. Turning around once again, Jack made his way back to the original entrance door. Reacting to a feeling of frustration and mounting terror, he gave it another shake, but wasn’t any more successful than he had been on the first attempt.

With a feeling of utter dejection, Jack turned his back on the door and slumped down into a sitting position with his legs stretched out in front of him. He leaned back against the wire mesh. He was glad he had his jacket, as it was none too warm, and to take full advantage, he zipped it up and turned up the collar.

As he sat there, Jack found himself recalling having been in another somewhat similarly worrisome situation in which he’d been handcuffed to a drainpipe of a kitchen sink in a weekend mountain house in the Catskills by a wacky sister and brother. He’d been afraid for his life then, too, and had been ultimately rescued by his basketball buddy Warren. But the difference back then was that Warren had been involved to a degree, so his serving as the savior wasn’t completely unexpected. In this situation, Warren only knew that Jack had gone out to Dover Valley Hospital to investigate some potentially shady doings. Would that be enough to bring Warren out to New Jersey to ask questions about Jack’s whereabouts? Jack doubted it very much, unless Warren put together the shooting last night on 106th Street involving Asian men and Jack’s having had lunch with a Chinese billionaire.

Being a realist at heart, Jack had to admit the chances Warren might come looking for him were essentially nil. That left Laurie. Would she think about having the Dover Valley Hospital checked when he didn’t show up at home that evening? Jack shook his head. He could remember telling her that the powers-that-be at the Dover Valley Hospital had liked him enough to offer him a job. Now he could have kicked himself for not telling her more about his suspicions concerning the hospital.

Time passed agonizingly slowly. Jack heard absolutely nothing, making him feel as if he were being held on the back side of the moon. He wondered if the place was sound-insulated, as the slaughtering conveyor system would probably be extraordinarily noisy when in operation. Sound insulation to keep noise inside would also keep outside noise outside.

After several hours, Jack felt a progressive urge to urinate. Eventually he heaved himself to his feet and walked back fifty feet or so and peed through the wire mesh. When he was done he returned to the entry door. To get his circulation going, he ran in place for a few minutes and did some basic calisthenics. Even that slight amount of exercise made him feel a bit better. Eventually he sat back down in the same position he’d been in earlier.

By 4:30 the progressively meager light began to fade rapidly. By 5:00 it faded fast. By 5:30 it was dark and getting darker. Soon he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Deprived of visual input, his mind went back to finding fault with himself over the secrecy he’d maintained the last few days, choosing to share little with anyone, particularly with Laurie, because he was afraid she would have tried to curtail his activities. He was particularly sorry he’d elected not to tell her about the shooting episode, which he found himself mulling over anew.

After giving the episode a lot more thought, he had to admit to himself that the chances that he was intimately involved and not an innocent bystander outweighed any other explanation. But such an admission didn’t get him anyplace. In fact, it seemed to raise more questions than provide answers. But it did remind him of one curious comment Wei had made toward the end of their conversation, when Wei contrasted himself with others in his organization who thought of Jack as an existential risk. Jack had not known what to make of the comment at the time, nor did he now, but it did suggest a difference of opinion resulting in two factions.