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“We don’t have any choice. There should be enough room.” Lynn reached up and touched the ceiling. The tunnel was like a tube, with seemingly more than enough room to scramble over a body.

“I don’t think it is going to be difficult, but it sure as hell ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“We’ll manage,” Lynn said, although she wasn’t sure she believed
it herself. She couldn’t think of too many experiences worse than climbing over a naked, comatose patient in an upwardly angled, dark cylinder.

Lynn heard Michael say, “Sorry, bro,” as he struggled forward. Lynn waited. Looking straight ahead and to the side of Michael’s dark form, she could see a bit of light, giving her the confidence there wasn’t that much farther to go.

“Okay,” Michael said a minute or so later. “Your turn! I’m sure this poor bastard is going to think you are a picnic after me.”

Getting past the patient was physically easier than Lynn had anticipated but psychologically more trying than she’d imagined. She struggled not to put any weight on the comatose person but wasn’t totally successful. The fact that he was supine rather than prone made it worse.

“Okay,” Lynn said breathlessly once she was past. She had been holding her breath while in close contact with the individual. Michael was waiting impatiently.

“Let’s get a move on!” Michael whispered urgently as he began crawling forward. They could hear voices behind them more clearly. “They might reverse the direction of the belt.”

After another fifteen feet of their racing on all fours, the belt leveled off and the ambient light increased dramatically, especially after the belt made a ninety-degree turn. After another ten feet they emerged into Cluster 5-B, which was a mirror image of Cluster 4-B. Relieved at having made it, both stood and climbed over the side. As they did so, the belt suddenly resumed operation, with the rollers moving in the opposite direction, as Michael had feared.

With a sense of partial relief from having avoided being pulled back into the clutches of the people chasing them, they used the conveyor superstructure to swing down and drop onto the walkway. With all conveyor machinery shut down, the room was quiet. The only real noise was from the intermittent flushing process in various cylinders.

The students lost no time. They rushed to the door leading out of the room and, once they determined the hallway was clear, made a mad dash for the exit. They ran past the NOC and soon skidded to a stop at the door to the outside. Michael snapped up their raincoats and handed Lynn hers, and they pulled them on quickly. They didn’t want to have to explain themselves if they ran into anybody on their way to the dorm or in the dorm itself.

“Ready?” Michael asked. His hand was poised above the door lever.

“More than ready,” Lynn said, glancing back over her shoulder. “Come on! Let’s get the hell out of here!”

Michael hit the lever, but to their horror nothing happened! He hit it again several times in a row with the same effect. Then he pressed on the lever as hard as he could and held it. Still nothing. The door didn’t budge.

Lynn folded her arm against her torso and lunged at the door with her right shoulder. She hit it hard, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Michael did the same with the same result. The door was made of steel, with a solid core. It was meant as a significant barrier, and both of them knew it.

The two students eyed each other in desperation.

“What are we going to do?” Michael barked.

Lynn didn’t respond. Instead she whipped out the stapled bundle of floor plans and rapidly flipped through them.

“Come on, sis!” Michael snapped breathlessly. “We have to run. Our only chance is to cross over to the hospital. Are you looking for the best route?”

At that moment both heard the unmistakable sound of a door bursting open. They couldn’t see it and assumed it was the stairwell door.

“This way,” Lynn said hurriedly. She started forward in the opposite direction from the hospital.

Michael ran after her, trying to tell her they were headed in the
wrong direction, but she ignored him. After turning a corner, Michael again tried to talk to her. Behind them they heard the sound of men running in their direction.

Lynn turned yet another corner, entering a long hallway that stretched out like a study in perspective. She was running at full speed, with Michael a few steps behind. They were passing doors on either side.

“Where the hell are we going?” Michael gasped.

Lynn continued to ignore him. Suddenly she stopped in front of one of the doors along the main corridor. She did it so precipitously that Michael plowed into her. He had to grab her with both hands to keep both of them from falling. She struggled out of his arms and hit the door’s opening lever. The moment it slid open, she dashed inside.

Michael followed. He was confused as to what she was doing. Before the pocket door had opened, he’d seen the block letters on the door that identified the room as
PHARMACY AND GENERAL SUPPLIES
. Once inside, he turned around and closed the door. Facing back into the highly air-conditioned room, he saw that it was filled from floor to ceiling with rows of shelving, crammed with all manner of drugs and associated supplies. To his further surprise, Lynn had disappeared.

Michael ran up the center aisle, glancing down each cross aisle, looking for Lynn. Her behavior had him baffled. He found her at the very back, on her hands and knees, in front of a relatively large metal latticework screen some two feet high and three feet wide that was positioned just above the baseboard and painted the same color as the wall. She had her screwdriver out and was madly removing the sheet-metal screws holding it in place.

“What the hell are you doing?” Michael demanded. “They are going to be in here in a flash and the ball game’s going to be over.”

“And we won’t be here,” Lynn said confidently.

“Are you suggesting . . .”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Lynn said quickly. She took out the last screw and then struggled to remove the grille. It wasn’t cooperating; dried paint was holding it in place. “When I was at the building commission today, I learned that the Shapiro shares infrastructure with the hospital, including the HVAC system. This return duct will take us back to the hospital.”

“I ain’t going in there, no way,” Michael said.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Lynn said. She was now frantically using the screwdriver to scribe the periphery of the lattice. A moment later she was able to break it free from the wall. “Finally,” she voiced. She leaned the screen against the wall to the side of the opening and put down the screwdriver.

“How do you know you won’t get lost?” Michael said.

“Easy,” Lynn said. “We’ll follow the airflow. The good thing is that the ducts have to get larger and not smaller.”

“How come you picked this room out of all the rooms we passed?”

“I knew a pharmacy would be kept cooler than other rooms, meaning bigger ducts. And we are in luck. I don’t see any video cameras in here.”

With mounting panic, Michael glanced up at the ceiling. She was right. There were no cameras. Then he bent down and stared into the duct. Compared with this dark, narrow duct, dealing with the conveyor system had been a comparative picnic. Considering his size, he wasn’t sure he’d even fit.

“We got to do this, bro,” Lynn said. “It might take us a while, and I hope you are not claustrophobic. You want to go first or second? Whoever goes second has to try to reposition the grille.”

“You first,” Michael said.

“Okay,” Lynn said, trying to bolster her courage. Despite what she had said to Michael, she had serious misgivings about what they were about to do. At the same time she knew they had to either try it or give up. And with the enormity of what they had discovered on
their visit, she wasn’t eager to put herself and Michael into the hands of Sidereal Pharmaceuticals or Middleton Healthcare.

Taking a deep breath, Lynn stretched out her arms in front of her and then, using her feet, pushed herself headfirst into the duct. By slithering like a snake, she found moving on the metal surface was actually easier than she had envisioned. She’d gone six or seven feet into the steadily growing darkness when she heard the metal grate hit against its housing. She sensed Michael was not behind her. Without being able to turn around or even see behind her with ease, she called out to Michael. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m replacing the grille,” he called to her. “You go get the Marines. I’ll duke it out here. Who knows? Maybe they won’t find me, at least right off.”

“Michael!” Lynn yelled loud enough to hurt her ears in the confines of the duct. “That’s not fair. You tricked me!”

“For good reason,” Michael said. “If they found this grille detached, they would know what we were up to. This way you have a fighting chance, not that I envy you. Go to it, girl!”

“Michael,” Lynn yelled again, but with a bit less volume. “Don’t do this! We are a team. Those were your words.”

“Sorry,” Michael said. “The ball’s through the hoop and the game’s over. Good luck!”

“Michael, please!” Lynn yelled, but he didn’t answer. “Michael, are you still there?” Silence reigned.

“Holy shit,” Lynn murmured. For a moment she debated trying to back up and see if she could kick the grate off. The reality was that she didn’t think she could. Instead, after taking another breath, she began crawling forward, going deeper into the confined, utter darkness.

Thursday, April 9, 3:24
A.M.

B
enton Rhodes clicked off his smartphone and slipped it into his pocket. He had been playing Angry Birds to entertain himself but he had run out of patience. He checked the time. More than two hours had passed since the security team had gone after the students. Although they had quickly cornered and tranquilized one of them after a relatively short chase, the other was irritatingly still at large.

“That’s it,” Benton said. He pushed back his chair and stood up to stretch. He, Fyodor, and Misha were still in the control center. Viktor had been busy supervising the Shapiro staff to get the automation equipment on floors four through six that had been shut down back online.

Fyodor and Misha turned to look at him. They, too, had been killing time. Everybody was tired and on edge.

“I think we should go ahead with the mock surgery on the male,” Benton said. “There is no reason to wait to find the female, and Dr. Phillips has been ready for almost an hour.”

“Fine with us,” Fyodor said.

“When do you think you’ll find the female?” Benton asked. He couldn’t keep derision from his voice.

“It should be soon,” Fyodor said. “We have brought in more personnel, and we are going to be systematic about it, starting from the sixth floor and working down. Frankly we are surprised she has eluded us this long. Obviously she’s found somewhere to hide. We didn’t expect that they would split up.”

“Can one of you get me to the patient viewing room A?”

“Of course,” Fyodor said.

Thursday, April 9, 4:35
A.M.

L
ynn could tell she was nearing the end of what had been an arduous journey, both physically and psychologically. The first hour had been the hardest, as the size of the duct remained small. She had come to multiple junctions, some of which were hard for her to negotiate. At times she had to squeeze forward on her side and bend at the waist to get around sharp corners. As difficult as it was in places where she had to negotiate what seemed initially like insurmountable barriers, she seriously questioned whether she would be able to back up. A few times she used the flashlight app on her phone to help, but otherwise she remained in absolute darkness. Purposefully, she mostly kept her eyes tightly closed. With them open, she felt more claustrophobic and frightened. She was thankful there was a constant and gradually increasing breeze moving through the duct, assuring her she was moving in the right direction, particularly at junctions. The draft also kept her from feeling suffocated in the tight space. As difficult a time as she was having, she tried not to think about Michael and what he might be facing.

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 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.

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.”