Severe Risk

by Garton, Ray

  All of that was made even worse by the thing that Fara knew dominated and virtually ran every hospital—politics, which did not even take the patients into consideration. From the inside, everything felt so cold, impersonal, and businesslike. And ultimately, that’s what it was, what it had to be. It was, after all, a business.

  But those thoughts persisted, and before she knew it, they had become feelings and she had slipped into a depression that clutched at her quietly, trying to drag her down and hold her back.

  When Dr. Urbanski called, Fara was thrilled to have an alternative. It was the kind of job she never thought she would consider taking, but Dr. Urbanski’s arguments were compelling.

  “This would be fantastic experience for you, Fara. It would look good on your CV, you would learn a great deal, and how many opportunities do you think you’ll get to work with Corcoran?”

  “I thought you said Corcoran was crazy.”

  “I did, and he is. Most people would call him eccentric because of his notoriety, but I know him, and I say crazy. He’s a bundle of quirks, and that was fifteen years ago. By now, he’s probably bouncing off the walls. But most brilliant people aren’t wired like everybody else. Look at you.”

  “Me?”

  “Drop the false modesty, Fara. You’re a brilliant woman, one of my best students, and if you had some ambition to go with your intelligence, you’d be rich by now. Think about it. How well do you fit in with average people? Do they see you as . . . odd? Does casual conversation with them come easily to you? How did you get along with people at the last, say, wedding shower or baby shower you went to?”

  “Well, I . . . I’ve never been to either.”

  “See? I rest my case. You know what I’m talking about. Jeremy Corcoran is a brilliant man, a genius, great leaps ahead of everyone else in his field. But he’s crazy. An utter loon. An emotional mess. Frankly, I’m not sure he has emotions. He has a great mind, but it’s in the possession of a man whose emotional and psychological development froze somewhere in late middle school. And to maintain access to the great mind, everyone puts up with the spoiled, self-obsessed, hedonistic asshole.”

  Fara knew the type, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to work for one.

  “Look, Fara, you’d be crazy to turn this down. The connections you’ll make alone will be worth it. One job like this can lead to other government work, and that’s always a good thing. If you want it, I think I can get it for you. I know a couple of people. But you need to decide soon. And you need to say yes.”

  Fara was still thinking about Dr. Urbanski when she left her office half an hour later. She turned left and headed down the corridor as Emilio, one of the janitors, wheeled a bucket into a utility closet, mop in hand. He was soft-spoken, a tall, heavy, black man in his mid-thirties with short-cropped hair.

  “Hello, Dr. McManus,” he said, smiling.

  “Hi, Emilio.”

  “While I’m down here, you want me to do your office?”

  “Yes, go ahead. I’ll be out for a while. I’ve got some work to do.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “No, I’m doing some work down in the . . . well, with Dr. Corcoran. Go ahead and do the office, Emilio. And thanks.”

  Her shoes clicked on the tiles as she walked past him and reverberated in the broad, otherwise empty corridor.

  Fara knew she should have thought about the job longer when Dr. Urbanski told her about it. She should have asked more questions. Once she knew what the project entailed, she should have asked for certain assurances. But she did none of those things.

  And now, she was in the former Springmeier Neuropsychiatric Hospital, making her way down to the basement, where she would engage—and not for the first time—in performing deadly experiments on human subjects against their will.

  Most of what Fara was doing there would never show up on her CV. Not even if she survived.

  2

  The closing music of Ivan Renner’s Internet radio show began to play. It was “Tangerine Dream,” a cut from the Miracle Mile soundtrack album.

  “That’s it for another Friday edition of Red Pill Radio,” he said. “This weekend, everybody here in the Redwood Empire will be hunkering down for the big storm that’s set to hit the West Coast tomorrow morning. Normally, we don’t get full-blown hurricanes here on the West Coast. We get tropical storms, what’s left of the hurricanes, because the water’s too warm and the current runs in the wrong direction. Or something like that, I’m not a meteorologist. But climate change is doing some weird things to our weather and the storm coming in is a good example of that. A lot of people are wondering, though, if HAARP is being used to disrupt our weather. Is it possible it’s being used to control us by controlling our weather? We’ll be doing a show about HAARP next week. And we’ll have a guest who’s written a new book about the US government’s history of experimenting on citizens without their knowledge or consent, too, so keep tuning in. If you missed a show, you’ll find it in the archives at our website, Red Pill Radio dot com. Until Monday, stay safe and be calm, because we’re all in this together.”

  He wrapped up the show in the small room he used as a studio. It was in what used to be his garage; six years ago, he’d added onto it and converted it, in part, into the small room where he sat for three hours, five days a week, and broadcast to the world via the Internet. The show’s audience had grown rapidly in recent years. Ivan was getting more requests for interviews in publications and on other shows with each passing month, and a New York publisher had shown interest in the book he was writing.

  The door opened and his assistant Mike Dodge stepped into the studio as Ivan stood and stretched his arms above his head.

  “Ollie just called and he’s not happy,” Mike said.

  “When is Ollie ever happy about anything?”

  “He says he’s coming in to speak with you.”

  Ivan sighed with more than a little dread. He stepped around Mike and stood in the doorway. The small room, which had a table with Ivan’s laptop and a couple of microphones and was only big enough for him and a guest, should he have one, began to feel a bit cramped by the end of the show. “Remind me, Mike—after this storm’s over, I need to have a window put in here so it’s not so claustrophobic.”

  “You know, you can do the show from your office if you’d just—”

  “I know, I know. I just like the idea of having a separate place for the show, you know? A studio. Even though this isn’t a real studio. But it’s the closest I’ll ever get to my boyhood fantasy of being a radio DJ.” Ivan stepped out of the studio and through the small alcove that opened on a room full of desks. Julie was on the phone, Rudy was busy typing at his keyboard, and the other desk was unoccupied and piled with books and papers. “Ollie didn’t say what he wants?”

  “No, but he sounds more upset than usual.” Mike looked and sounded nervous. That always happened when Ollie showed up. Mike was gay, and Ollie, who was loud and often obnoxious and never hesitated to loudly criticize things he did not approve of, made him jumpy.

  “Great. Probably something about the hospital. Ever since I mentioned a possible connection to those missing homeless people, that’s all he ever wants to talk about. I don’t know what he expects from me. Send him in when he gets here.” Ivan went into his office and closed the door.

  It was more of a walk-in closet than an office. A desk, two chairs, and a single file cabinet left room for no more than two people, three if comfort wasn’t a priority. But unlike the studio, it had a window behind the desk that looked out on Ivan’s backyard. It was dark out there and the pyracantha bush outside his window was being whipped around by the wind. The weather was bad, but it wasn’t anything too unusual. He knew the storm that would hit in the morning would be a lot worse, and he still needed to get the windows boarded up. Ivan seated himself at his desk with a sigh and mentally prepared himself for a visit from Ollie.

  Ollie Monk was something of a local celebrity. He was
loud, opinionated, sometimes paranoid, and he’d been kicked out of more than one City Council meeting for angrily disrupting the proceedings. He was a regular listener to Red Pill Radio and often called in to make bombastic comments or argue with guests. He wore a lot of camo and drove around in a black F-150 with two rifles on racks in the back window.

  Ivan knew little of Ollie’s background other than the fact that he was a veteran of the first Gulf War and he’d inherited a handsome sum from the uncle and aunt who’d raised him. His aunt had invented some kind of powdered adhesive for fabrics—or something like that, Ivan wasn’t sure of the details. Ollie had used a lot of that money to buy a little over a hundred acres of wooded land east of nearby Blue Lake, and he’d invested the rest well. The “Monk Compound,” as it was often called, was the source of a great deal of speculation. Protected by fences, walls, security cameras, and men with guns, no one got in who wasn’t allowed in.

  Most of the local gossip and speculation focused on what everyone referred to as “Monk’s Militia” (as far as anyone knew, the group had no official name), made up mostly of capable homeless veterans Ollie had recruited right off the streets in Eureka, Arcata, and McKinleyville, as well as San Francisco, Sacramento, and other cities and towns in northern California. Some were concerned that Ollie had created his own private army and worried about how he might choose to use it.

  Ivan was the kind of person who tried to find the good in everyone, and Ollie made that difficult with repugnant views that went beyond politics, which he all too often voiced, views about women and ethnic groups and gay people and most religions other than Christianity (“The Mormons may be fulla Satan and apeshit crazy, but they take care of their own as long as everybody follows the rules!”). But Ivan had managed to discover a real person behind the camo clothes and macho behavior.

  Ollie’s interest in the homeless went beyond recruiting men for his militia. The only time he was known to keep his opinions to himself and behave like a perfect gentleman was when he volunteered his time at local homeless shelters, which he did regularly. Although his political leanings went quite far to the right, he was unfailingly sympathetic toward the homeless. When it came to them, he did not subscribe to the old pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps attitude that was so prevalent among conservatives.

  Ivan did not know the reasons behind Ollie’s apparent need to help the homeless, but he was convinced it was genuine and selfless. It clashed with the rest of his personality, but it was enough of a redeeming factor to keep Ivan from simply telling him to go away.

  Ivan did not have to be told Ollie had arrived because he heard his booming voice, even with his office door closed. He got up and opened the door as Ollie hung his dripping, dark green raincoat on a coat tree.

  “Would you like some coffee, Ollie?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on into the closet and have a seat.”

  Ollie was forty-three and stood five feet, seven inches tall, and was shaped like a bullet. He wore camo pants, and carried a closed, dark blue umbrella. A black baseball cap with a small American flag on the front covered his buzz-cut head. He had a stern face and a loud voice.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t returned your last couple of calls,” Ivan said as he went around the desk and sat down. “The last few days, I’ve hardly had time to stop and think.”

  “I came to talk to you one more time about the old hospital,” Ollie said.

  “What about it?”

  Ollie lowered himself slowly into the chair facing the desk. “Ivan, I just can’t shake the feeling that you know more about what’s going on there than you’re telling.”

  “I’m not keeping any secrets, Ollie.” But that was a lie. In the last few months, he’d learned some things about what was going on in the old Springmeier Neuropsychiatric Hospital, ever since he’d managed to get a pair of eyes and ears inside the place. Ivan was afraid to tell Ollie what he’d learned for fear of what he might do about it.

  “The last time we spoke,” Ollie said, “we talked about the possibility that there was a connection between what’s going on in the hospital and the homeless people who’ve disappeared around here. You even mentioned it on your show.”

  Ivan nodded. “I mentioned it. As speculation.”

  “Yeah, because Vendon Labs is involved. At least, that’s what you said.”

  “That’s right. Apparently, the hospital was the kind of facility they needed to do whatever it is they’re doing in there.”

  Ollie cocked a brow and leaned forward slightly as he said, “And you don’t know what that is.”

  Ivan had always been a terrible liar, mostly because he always tried too hard to conceal the fact that he was lying. He cleared his throat, shifted in his chair, and said, “If I knew, I would’ve talked about it on the show by now.”

  Ollie’s eyes narrowed slightly and he slowly leaned back in the chair. “Yeah, see, I don’t believe you. I’ve got an ear for lying, and I think you’re lying.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Ollie shrugged. “Maybe you’re afraid. Or maybe you found out and they bought you off. Or scared you into not talking. I don’t even know how you found out about this in the first place, so for all I know, you’re working for them.”

  Ivan rolled his eyes. “Come on, Ollie, you’re sounding paranoid again.”

  “Yeah, well, people say I’m paranoid all the time.” He smiled. “I figure if that’s what they want, that’s what I’ll give ’em.”

  “You must not have been listening the day I talked about stumbling onto the activity at the hospital. It was an accident.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It was a year and a half ago. No, more than that, closer to two years. I was being interviewed by this guy named P.J. Burnett for Shadow Journal. Are you familiar with it?”

  Ollie shook his head.

  “It covers the whole conspiracy spectrum. P.J. was a young guy, early twenties, pudgy, looked like he didn’t get out much. But he asked some good, clearheaded questions. First we had breakfast at Cuppa Joe’s that morning. I eat breakfast there almost every day. And then I go for a walk, usually through the woods across the street from the diner. I didn’t think he’d want to go with me because I take a long brisk walk every day and he didn’t look like he could keep up. But he said he wanted to. While we walked, he kept asking questions, even though he was huffing and puffing before long. He recorded it all on his phone.”

  As they walked through the woods that morning, Ivan heard something odd and stopped walking to listen. Somewhere in the woods, he heard vehicles. He left the trail they’d been following and began walking toward the sound, and P.J. followed. The farther they went, the louder the sounds became: the rumble of vehicles, the unintelligible chatter of voices, the beeping of a truck backing up, the sound of hammering.

  P.J. said, “Sounds like some kind of construction to me.”

  “But what kind of construction would be going on here in the woods?”

  As they continued to trudge through ferns, vines, and other shrubbery, Ivan told P.J. about the area.

  “There used to be a hospital up ahead. It was the Humboldt County Mental Hospital for ages, long before I was born. When I was a kid, they used to take some of the patients on outings into town, to the beach or the park. I used to see them once in a while, and they always scared me. They were so . . . different. Scary to a little kid who didn’t know any better. Some of them would grin and babble. Others walked funny. Like hunchbacks, or something. Some were like great big children. Used to scare the piss out of me. But other than those occasional field trips, the hospital kept a very low profile.

  “In the late 1980s, it went private and became the Springmeier Neuropsychiatric Hospital, a pretty exclusive facility for those who could afford it. They stopped the field trips and after that, it was like the hospital didn’t even exist anymore. Springmeier finally closed its doors in 2001 and it’s been abandoned ever since. They bo
arded it up to keep people out, but even so, I’ve heard that homeless people use it for shelter and kids mess around in there a lot. I’ll be damned, look at this,” Ivan said as they approached a chain-link fence that stood about ten feet high.

  Beyond the fence, the ground sloped gently downward. The hospital rose like a blocky grey ogre from the center of a large clearing that had become overgrown with weeds and shrubbery. Spidery vines clung possessively to the walls, and windows with no panes stared like dead, black eyes. To Ivan’s right, a cracked and broken parking lot stretched out in front of the hospital, its white lines faded to ghostly streaks.

  There were four enormous old oak trees visible from where they stood—two in front of the hospital, one in the rear, and one on the western side, the one closest to them. That one was old and grey and gnarled, split in the center into two fat, twisted trunks.

  Workers were busy everywhere, clearing brush and vines, working on the hospital itself. A cement truck stood near a rear corner of the building, its mixer drum turning slowly, and a dump truck carried a load of cleared rubble away from the hospital and down a gravel road that disappeared into the woods behind it.

  “P.J. suggested that they might be reopening the hospital,” Ivan said to Ollie, leaning forward at his desk. “But that didn’t make sense. I drive by the hospital’s front gate almost every day, and it’s still locked and overgrown with weeds. They cut a new road through the woods behind the hospital.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “You have?”

  “Sure. I’ve been out there. Several times. Been all around it.”

  “Why?”

  Ollie shrugged. “Just lookin’.”

  “Well, the road in the back is less visible. If they were reopening the hospital, why wouldn’t they use the front entrance? Why try to hide it? Besides, if the hospital were reopening, it would be all over the news.”