Robin Cook - Terminal

“Close the door and push the button,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Janet asked.

“Come on!” Sean said. “But after the motor stops, wait for a couple of beats, then be sure to push the ‘down’ button to get me back.”

Janet did as she was told. Sean ascended with a wave and disappeared from view.

With Sean gone, Janet’s anxiety grew. The gravity of their actions hadn’t sunk in when Sean had been with her. But in the eerie silence the reality of where she was and what she was doing hit her: she was burglarizing the Forbes Cancer Center.

When the whirring stopped, Janet counted to ten, then pressed the down button. Thankfully, Sean quickly reappeared. She opened the door.

“Works like a charm,” Sean said. “It goes right up to finance in administration. Best of all, they’ve got one of the world’s best copy machines.”

It took them only a few minutes to carry the charts over to the electric dumbwaiter.

“You first,” Sean said.

“I don’t know whether I want to do this,” Janet said.

“Fine,” Sean said. “Then you wait here while I copy the charts. It’ll probably take about a half hour.” He started to climb back in the dumbwaiter.

Janet grabbed his arm. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to wait here by myself, either.”

Sean rolled his eyes and got out of the dumbwaiter. Janet climbed into the hoist. Sean handed her most of the charts, closed the door, and pushed the button. When the motor stopped, he pressed again and the dumbwaiter reappeared. With the remaining charts in hand, he piled into the dumbwaiter a second time and waited a few uncomfortable minutes until Janet pushed the button upstairs in administration.

When Janet opened the door for him, he could tell she was becoming frantic.

“What’s the matter now?” he asked as he struggled out of the dumbwaiter.

“All the lights are on up here,” she said nervously. “Did you turn them on?”

“Nope,” Sean said, gathering up an armload of the charts. “They were on when I came up. Probably the cleaning service.”

“I never thought of that,” Janet said. “How can you be so calm through all this?” She sounded almost angry.

Sean shrugged. “Must have been all that practice I had as a kid.”

They quickly fell into a system at the copy machine. By taking each chart apart, they could load it into the automatic feed. Using a stapler they found on a nearby desk, they kept the copies organized and reassembled the originals as soon as they’d been copied.

“Did you notice that computer in the glass enclosure?” Janet asked.

“I saw it on my tour on day one,” Sean said.

“It’s running some kind of program,” Janet said. “When I was waiting for you to come up, I glanced in. It’s connected to several modems and automatic dialers. It must be doing some kind of survey.”

Sean looked at Janet with surprise. “I didn’t know you knew so much about computers. That’s rather odd for an English lit major.”

“At Wellesley I majored in English literature but computers fascinated me,” she explained. “I took a lot of computer courses. At one point I almost changed majors.”

After loading more sets of charts into the copy machine, Sean and Janet walked over to the glass enclosure and looked in. The monitor screen was flashing digits. Sean tried the door. It was open. They went inside.

“Wonder why this is in a glass room?” he asked.

“To protect it,” Janet said. “Big machines like this can be affected by cigarette smoke. There’s probably a handful of smokers in the office.”

They looked at the figures flashing on the screen. They were nine-digit numbers.

“What do you think it’s doing?” Sean asked.

“No idea,” Janet said. “They’re not phone numbers. If they were, there’d be seven or ten digits, not nine. Besides, there’s no way it can be calling phone numbers that rapidly.”

The screen suddenly went blank, then a ten-digit number appeared. Instantly an automatic dialer went into motion, its tones audible above the hum of the air-conditioning fans.

“Now that’s a phone number,” Janet said. “I even recognize the area code. It’s Connecticut.”

The screen went blank again, then resumed flashing more nine-digit numbers. After a minute the list of numbers froze at a specific number and the computer printout device activated. Both Sean and Janet glanced over to the printer in time to see the nine-digit number print out followed by: Peter Ziegler, age 55, Valley Hospital, Charlotte, North Carolina, Achilles tendon repair, March 11 .

Suddenly, an alarm sounded. As the computer reverted to flashing its nine-digit numbers, Sean and Janet looked at each other, Sean with confusion, Janet with panic.

“What’s happening?” she demanded. The alarm kept ringing.

“I don’t know,” Sean admitted. “But it isn’t a burglar alarm.” He turned to look out into the office just in time to see the door to the hallway opening.

“Down!” he said to Janet, forcing her to her hands and knees. Sean figured that whoever was coming into the room was coming to check the computer. He frantically motioned to Janet to crawl behind the console. In utter terror, Janet did as she was told, fumbling over coiled computer cables. Sean was right behind her. Hardly had they gotten out of sight when the door to the glass enclosure was opened.

From where they were huddled, they could see a pair of legs enter the room. Whoever it was, it was a woman. The alarm that initiated the episode was turned off. The woman picked up a phone and dialed.

“We have another potential donor,” she said. “North Carolina.”

At that moment, the laser printer began printing yet again, and again the alarm sounded for a brief moment.

“Did you hear that?” the woman asked. “What a coincidence. We’re getting another, as we speak.” She paused, waiting for the printer. “Patricia Southerland, age forty-seven, San Jose General, San Jose, California, breast biopsy, March 14. Also sounds good. What do you think?”

There was a pause before she spoke again: “I know the team’s out. But there’s time. Trust me. This is my department.”

The woman hung up. Sean and Janet heard her tear off the sheet that had just printed. Then the woman turned and left.

For a few minutes neither Sean nor Janet spoke.

“What the hell did she mean, a potential donor?” Sean whispered at last.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Janet whispered back. “I want out of here.”

“Donor?” Sean murmured. “That sounds creepy to me. What do we have here? A clearinghouse for body parts? Reminds me of a movie I saw once. I tell you, this place is nuts.”

“Is she gone?” Janet asked.

“I’ll check,” Sean said. Slowly he backed out from their hiding place, then peeked over the countertop. The room was empty. “She seems to be gone,” Sean said. “I wonder why she ignored the copy machine.”

Janet backed out and gingerly raised her head. She scanned the room as well.

“Coming in, the computer alarm must have shielded the sound,” Sean said. “But going out, she had to have heard it.”

“Maybe she was too preoccupied,” Janet offered.

Sean nodded. “I think you’re probably right.”

The computer screen that had been flashing the innumerable nine-digit numbers suddenly went blank.

“The program seems to be over,” Sean said.

“Let’s get away from here,” Janet said, her voice quavering.

They ventured out into the room. The copy machine had finished the latest stack of charts and was silent.

“Now we know why she didn’t hear it,” Sean said, going up to the machine and checking it. He loaded the last of the charts.