Robin Cook - Host

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 continued 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.