Robin Cook - Host

They were almost out the door when Lynn remembered something else. “Hang on a second!” she said. A moment later she was back, brandishing a screwdriver.

“Why a screwdriver?” Michael questioned.

“You’ll probably make fun of me if I tell you,” Lynn said. She pulled her door closed and made sure it was locked. Usually she didn’t care, but with someone else’s high-resolution digital camera on her desk, she didn’t want anyone going in.

They headed toward the elevators. “You’re not going to clue me in about the screwdriver?”

“No,” Lynn said. “I know you too well. I’ll tell you later when we come back here to the dorm.”

“Suit yourself,” Michael said.

They rode down by themselves.

“I’m getting a bit nervous, bro,” Lynn admitted.

“You’re not alone, sis,” Michael said.

A few students were on the first floor, patronizing the vending machines and conversing in small groups. Lynn and Michael ignored them and went outside. It was not uncommon for third- and fourth-year medical students to leave the dorm at that hour, often being called over to the hospital, and no one questioned them. In the relative darkness they headed into the medical center quadrangle, following the serpentine walkway leading to the clinic building and the main hospital beyond. Very few stars were visible because of the light issuing mostly from the medical center windows. To the left, the Shapiro Institute loomed out of the darkness.

Walking quickly in and out of puddles of light cast downward by the Victorian street lamps, they approached the turnoff for the Shapiro about midway between the dorm and the clinic building. It was on their left. Opposite it, to the right, a short stretch of walkway branched off toward the bench where they had recently been sitting to watch the shift change. They couldn’t see the bench itself as it was completely lost in shadow.

The students stopped and paused, first looking ahead and then behind. Both were disappointed to see a figure coming in their direction, seemingly from the dorm. A moment later the individual entered the cone of light from one of the lamps. They could tell it was a uniformed member of the security staff.

“What should we do?” Lynn asked with moderate alarm. They didn’t want to draw attention, which they might by standing there.

Michael pointed to the right. “Let’s return to our bench. We’ll let him pass. Maybe he’ll think we’ve come here to make out!”

Lynn had to smile in spite of herself.

It took them only twenty seconds to get to the bench. They sat down. Surrounded on both sides with shrubbery, they couldn’t see the security man initially, but in less than a minute he appeared and stopped for a moment, looking in their direction.

“He might be able to see us,” Lynn whispered. “Kiss me! Make it look real!”

Michael obliged, wrapping his big arms around Lynn’s relatively narrow shoulders. It was a sustained kiss. Both closed their eyes.

After almost a full minute, they hazarded a look back toward the main pathway. The security man was gone. They detached themselves from their embrace.

“It worked,” Michael whispered.

“Such sacrifice!” Lynn teased.

“Let’s promise never to do that again,” Michael teased back, “but it must have been convincing, since he decided not to mess with us.”

Lynn nodded but didn’t respond audibly. Her attention had been absorbed by the Shapiro building silhouetted against the black sky. Its intimidating appearance was causing her to struggle with her intuition, which was now telling her a different story than it had back in the safety of her room. Now it was saying they shouldn’t go in. But that was not the only inner voice clamoring for attention. At the very same time another part of her brain was screaming at her that she had to check on Carl; she had to find out once and for all how he was being treated and if he was being used as an experimental subject. It was an ambivalence-fueled mental tug-of-war.

“All right!” Michael said excitedly, unaware of Lynn’s sudden indecision. “Let’s do this quick, fast, and in a hurry.” He leaped to his feet but noticed Lynn wasn’t moving. “What’s up, girl? You ready to step up or what?”

Lynn stood. Her hesitancy eased in the face of Michael’s eagerness. “I’m ready, I think.”

“Let’s do it!” Michael said. He moved quickly. Lynn had to almost run to catch up. When they got to the door, Michael popped up the protective cover for the thumbprint security pad with the Russian’s fake fingerprint already positioned on his thumb. He pressed it against the touchscreen, but nothing happened. “Fuck,” he said. “It’s not working.”

“Let me try mine,” Lynn said. She and Michael rapidly changed places. She put her fake fingerprint on her finger and pressed it against the pad. Again nothing!

“Mothafucka!” Michael blurted. Anxiously he glanced back along the walkway, fearing they might be observed while hesitating at the door. From the walkway they were in plain sight.

“Wait!” Lynn said. “I remember reading that sometimes you have to heat it up.” She opened her mouth widely and thrust her thumb in, being careful not to touch the layer of pliable, almost rubbery wood glue to her teeth or tongue. She exhaled through her mouth, taking several breaths. Then she tried pressing it against the touch pad again.

There was an audible click. She pushed on the heavy, solid door with her shoulder, and it opened.

“Hallelujah!” Michael exclaimed.

A moment later both students were inside, blinking against the brightness of the whiter-than-white hallway, evenly illuminated by LED light coming through the translucent ceiling. Lynn lost no time pulling the door closed. There was another audible click as the release lever fell into place. At that moment both pulled on Shapiro hats and masks.

Looking up, Michael saw, attached to the ceiling about twenty feet down the hall, what he had thought was a video device when he had visited the Shapiro Institute the first time. He pointed it out to Lynn, then whispered, “Best if we ditch the raincoats!”

After he and Lynn got their overcoats off, he balled them up into the tightest bundle possible and stashed them in the far corner by the door.

Lynn was already looking at the floor plan for fifth level.

“No need for a map,” Michael said. “The NOC is straight ahead on the right. Let’s move it!”

“There’s a locker room on the left,” Lynn said, still studying the floor plan as they started forward. “Maybe we should leave the raincoats in there, instead of out here in the hall.”

“My vote is we leave them be. There’s too big a risk of running into staff in the locker room, where we’d probably end up having to have a conversation, which would mean we’d get exposed as party crashers before we started. We can only expect to get so many miles out of these Shapiro suits.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lynn said. She looked up at the video device as they passed under it, wondering if they were already under observation. She hoped not, as it would mean their visit would be a short one.

Walking quickly, they approached the pocket door leading into the NOC.

Thursday, April 9, 12:22 A.M.

Misha Zotov was notorious for being a deep sleeper, especially after getting very little sleep the night before, and his cell phone’s selected ring tone was almost too melodious to pull him out of Morpheus’s grasp. To make things worse, he had passed the evening imbibing considerably more vodka than usual. Over-drinking was his method of dealing with stress, which he was experiencing more than usual thanks to the series of threats to the biologics program. Up until a few weeks ago, there had been nary a blip. Unfortunately that had changed dramatically, particularly over the last week or so. The last, and possibly worst, was due to Darko’s screwup with the two medical students.