Terminal

by Robin Cook

  Sean didn’t get to finish. The sounds of voices and footsteps were heard coming up the stairway. Janet put a hand over her mouth in panic. Sean grabbed her, his eyes desperately sweeping that area of the lab for a place to hide. There was no escape.

  11

  March 7

  Sunday, 8:05 AM

  “Here they are!” Wayne Edwards announced. He’d just pulled open a stout metal door to a small storage closet near the glass-enclosed maximum containment lab.

  Sean and Janet blinked with the sudden intrusion of light.

  Sterling stepped toward Wayne’s discovery. Kurt was at his side.

  “They may not look like fugitives or agents provocateurs,” Sterling said. “Though of course we know the truth.”

  “Out of the closet!” Wayne commanded.

  A subdued and remorseful Janet and a defiant Sean stepped out into the bright light.

  “You people should not have left the airport last night,” Sterling scolded. “And to think of the effort we’d expended on your behalf to thwart your abduction. Some gratitude. I’m curious to know if you’re aware of how much trouble you’ve caused.”

  “How much trouble I am causing,” Sean corrected.

  “Ah, Dr. Mason mentioned you were brash,” Sterling said. “Well, we’ll allow you to vent your impertinence on the Key West police. They can do battle with their Miami counterparts as to jurisdiction of your case now that you’ve committed a felony here as well.”

  Sterling picked up a phone in preparation to dial.

  Sean pulled the long-dormant gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at him. “Put the phone down,” he commanded.

  Janet sucked in her breath at the sight of the gun in Sean’s hand.

  “Sean!” she cried. “No!”

  “Shut up,” Sean snapped. The threesome surrounding him in a wide arc made him nervous. The last thing he wanted to do was let Janet give them an opportunity to overpower him.

  As Sterling replaced the receiver, Sean motioned for the three men to group together.

  “This is extremely foolish behavior,” Sterling commented. “Breaking and entering in the possession of a deadly weapon is a far more serious crime than mere breaking and entering.”

  “Into the closet!” Sean commanded, motioning toward the space he and Janet had just vacated.

  “Sean, this is going too far!” Janet said. She stepped up to Sean.

  “Get out of my way!” Sean snarled. He shoved her roughly to the side.

  Already dismayed at the appearance of the gun, Janet was doubly shocked at the sudden change in Sean’s personality. The cruel and vicious sound of his voice and the expression on his face cowed her.

  Sean succeeded in herding the three men into the narrow closet. He quickly closed and locked the door behind them. Pocketing the gun, he moved some sizable furniture against the door, including a heavy five-drawer file cabinet.

  Satisfied, he grabbed Janet’s hand and started toward the exit. Janet tried to hold back. They got halfway to the stairway when she managed to pull free.

  “I’m not going with you,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” Sean whispered forcibly.

  “The way you talked to me back there,” she said. “I don’t know you.”

  “Please!” Sean voiced through clenched teeth. “That was theatrics for the benefit of the others. If things don’t go the way I imagine they will, you’ll be able to contend that you were coerced into this whole affair. With the work I have to do back at the lab in Miami, there’s a chance things might get worse before they get better.”

  “Be straight with me,” Janet said. “Stop talking in riddles. What’s going through your mind?”

  “It’s a bit much to explain at the moment,” Sean said. “Right now we have to get out of here. I can’t tell how long that storage closet will hold those three. Once they’re out, the cat’s out of the bag.”

  More confused than ever, Janet followed Sean down the stairs, through the first-floor lab, and out the front of the building. Kurt Wanamaker’s Cherokee was angled in from the street. Sean motioned for Janet to get in.

  “Convenient and thoughtful of them to have left the keys,” Sean said.

  “As if that would have made any difference to you,” Janet said.

  Sean started the car, but then immediately killed the engine.

  “What now?” Janet asked.

  “In the excitement I forgot that I need some of those reagents from upstairs,” Sean said. He got out of the car and leaned in the window. “This won’t take but a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Janet tried to protest, but Sean was gone. Not that he’d cared much about her feelings about any of this mess so far. She got out of the car and began to pace the length of it nervously.

  Thankfully, Sean returned in a few minutes carrying a large cardboard box which he shoved into the back seat. He got in behind the wheel and started the car. Janet got in next to him. They pulled out into the road and headed north.

  “See if there’s a map in the glove compartment,” he said.

  Janet searched and found one. She opened it up to the Florida Keys. Sean took the map and studied it while driving. “We can’t count on getting all the way to Miami with this car,” he said. “As soon as those three get out of the closet, they’ll realize it’s missing. The police will start looking for it and since there’s only one road north, it won’t be hard to find.”

  “I’m a fugitive,” Janet marveled. “Just like the man said when they found us in the closet. I don’t believe it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “There’s an airport at Marathon,” Sean said, ignoring Janet’s comment. “We’ll leave the car there and either rent a car or fly depending on the flight schedule.”

  “I presume we’re going back to Miami,” Janet said.

  “Absolutely,” Sean said. “We’ll go directly to Forbes.”

  “What’s in the cardboard box?” Janet asked.

  “A lot of reagents they don’t have in Miami,” Sean said.

  “Like what?” Janet asked.

  “Mostly DNA primer pairs and DNA probes for oncogenes,” Sean said. “I also found some primers and probes for virus nucleic acid, particularly those used for St. Louis encephalitis.”

  “And you’re not about to tell me what all this is all about?” Janet said.

  “It will sound too preposterous,” Sean admitted. “I want some proof first. I’ve got to prove it to myself before I tell anyone, even you.”

  “At least give me a general idea of what you use these primers and probes for,” Janet said.

  “DNA primers are used to find particular strands of DNA,” Sean said. “They seek out a single strand from millions of others, then react with it. Then, by a process called the Polymerase Chain Reaction, the original DNA strand can be amplified billions of times. That way it can be easily detected by a labeled DNA probe.”

  “So using these primers and probes is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack with a powerful magnet,” Janet said.

  “Exactly,” Sean said, impressed with how quickly she grasped the science. “A very, very powerful magnet. I mean, it can find one particular DNA strand out of a solution of millions of others. In that sense it’s almost a magical magnet. I think the guy who developed the process should get the Nobel Prize.”

  “Molecular biology is making big strides,” Janet said sleepily.

  “It’s unbelievable,” Sean agreed. “Even those in the field have trouble keeping up.”

  Janet struggled against ponderously heavy eyelids made worse by the muffled drone of the engine and the gentle jostling. She wanted to press Sean for more of an explanation of what was going through his mind, and she thought the best way to do that was to get him to talk about molecular biology and what he was planning to do when he got back to the lab at Forbes. But she was too exhausted to go on.

  Janet had always found driving calming. Between the li
ttle amount of sleep she’d gotten aboard the boat and all the running around they’d been doing, it wasn’t long before she nodded off. She fell into a deep, much needed sleep and rested undisturbed until Sean pulled off Route 1 onto the grounds of the Marathon Airport.

  “So far so good,” Sean said when he noticed Janet was stirring. “No roadblocks and no police.”

  Janet sat up. For a moment she had no idea where she was, but then reality came back in a numbing flash. Now she felt worse than she had when she’d fallen asleep. Running her Angers through her hair made her think of a bird’s nest. It was hard for her to imagine what she looked like. She decided not to try.

  Sean parked the car in the most crowded part of the parking lot. He thought its presence would be less likely to be noticed that way and thereby give them more time. Hefting the cardboard box from the back seat, he carried it into the terminal. He sent Janet to check on commuter flights to Miami while he went to inquire about the availability of rental cars. He was still searching for a rental agent when Janet returned to tell him that a flight to Miami left in twenty minutes.

  The airline agent helpfully taped Sean’s box closed after plastering the outside with “fragile” stickers. The agent guaranteed the parcel would be treated with the utmost care. Later, as Sean was boarding the small turbo prop commuter plane, he saw someone casually tossing his box onto a luggage cart. But Sean wasn’t worried. He’d found bubble wrap back at Basic Diagnostics when he packed the reagents. He was reasonably confident his primers and probes would survive the trip.

  Once at the Miami airport, he and Janet rented a car. They used Avis, avoiding Hertz in case the Hertz computer indicated that Janet Reardon was already in possession of a red Pontiac.

  With the primers and probes in the back seat, they drove directly to Forbes. Sean parked next to his 4×4 near the entrance to the research building. He got out his Forbes ID card.

  “You want to come in or what?” Sean asked. Exhaustion was catching up with him at this point too. “You can take this car back to the apartment if you want.”

  “I’ve come this far,” Janet said. “I want you to explain what you’re doing as you do it.”

  “Fair enough,” Sean said.

  They got out of the car and walked into the building. Sean did not expect any trouble, so he was surprised when the guard stood up. None of the guards had ever done that. This one’s name was Alvarez. Sean had seen him before on several occasions.

  “Mr. Murphy?” Alvarez questioned with a definite Spanish accent.

  “That’s me,” Sean said. He’d bumped into the turnstile arm which Alvarez had failed to release. Sean had his ID in his hand visible for Alvarez to see. The cardboard box was under his other arm. Janet was behind him.

  “You are not permitted in the building,” Alvarez said.

  Sean put down his cardboard box.

  “I work here,” Sean said. He leaned over to hold his ID closer to Alvarez’s face in case the guard had missed it.

  “Orders from Dr. Mason,” Alvarez said. He leaned back from Sean’s ID as if it were somehow repulsive. He picked up one of his telephones with one hand and flipped through a Rolodex with the other.

  “Put the phone down,” Sean said, struggling to control his voice. Between everything he’d been through and his general fatigue, he was at the end of his patience.

  The guard ignored Sean. He found Dr. Mason’s phone number and started punching in the numbers.

  “I asked you nicely,” Sean said. “Put the phone down!” He spoke now with considerably more force.

  The guard finished dialing, then calmly eyed Sean as he waited for the connection to go through.

  With lightning speed, Sean reached across the Corian desk and grabbed the phone line where it disappeared into the woodwork. A sharp yank tore the cable free. Sean held the end of the cable up to the surprised guard’s face. It was a tangled mass of tiny red, green, and yellow wires.

  “Your phone is out of order,” Sean said.

  Alvarez’s face turned red. Dropping the receiver, he snatched up a truncheon and started around the desk.

  Instead of retreating, which the guard expected, Sean lunged ahead to meet Alvarez as if throwing a body check in a hockey game. Sean came up from below. The base of his forearm connected with the guard’s lower jaw. Alvarez was lifted off his feet and smashed back against the wall before he could try anything with the truncheon. On impact Sean could hear a definite crack like a piece of dried kindling being snapped. Sean also heard the man grunt when he hit the wall as the breath was forced from his lungs. When Sean pulled away, Alvarez fell to the floor, his body limp.

  “Oh, God!” Janet cried. “You’ve hurt him.”

  “Geez, what a jaw,” Sean said as he rubbed the base of his forearm.

  Janet stepped around Sean to get to Alvarez, who was bleeding from his mouth. Janet half feared that he was dead, but she quickly determined he was merely unconscious.

  “When is this going to end?” she moaned. “Sean, I think you’ve broken this man’s jaw, and he’s bitten his tongue. You knocked him out.”

  “Let’s walk him over to the hospital side,” Sean suggested.

  “They don’t have trauma capability here,” Janet said. “We’ll have to take him over to Miami General.”

  Sean rolled his eyes and sighed. He eyed his cardboard box of primers and probes. He needed a few hours, maybe even as much as four, up in the lab. He looked at his watch. It was just after one in the afternoon.

  “Sean!” Janet commanded. “Now! It’s only three minutes away. We can come back once we’ve dropped him off. We can’t just leave him this way.”

  Reluctantly, Sean pushed his cardboard box behind the guard’s desk, then helped Janet carry Alvarez outside. Between the two of them, they got him out to the rental car and into the back seat.

  Sean could see the wisdom in taking Alvarez to the emergency room at Miami General. It wasn’t smart to leave a bleeding, unconscious man unattended. If Alvarez took a turn for the worse, Sean would be in serious trouble, the kind even his clever brother would have a hard time getting him out of. But Sean wasn’t about to get caught now just because he’d agreed to this mission of mercy.

  Even though it was midday Sunday, Sean counted on a busy ER. He wasn’t disappointed. “This is a quick dropoff,” he warned Janet. “A speedy in and out. Once we get him in the ER, we’re out of there. The staff there will know what to do.”

  Janet wasn’t in complete agreement, but she knew better than to disagree.

  Sean left the engine idling, the gear in park, while he and Janet struggled with Alvarez’s still-limp body. “At least he’s breathing,” Sean said.

  Just inside the door to the ER, Sean spotted an empty gurney. “Put him on this,” he ordered Janet.

  With Alvarez safely laid atop it, Sean gave the gurney a gentle shove. “Possible code,” Sean shouted as the gurney rolled down the hall. Then he grabbed Janet by the arm. “Come on, let’s go,” he said.

  As they raced back to the car, Janet said, “He wasn’t a code.”

  “I know,” Sean admitted. “But it was all I could think of to get some action. You know how emergency rooms are. Alvarez could have lain around for hours before anyone did something for him.”

  Janet only shrugged. Sean did have a point. And before they’d left she’d been relieved to see a male nurse already intercepting the gurney.

  On the way back to Forbes, neither Sean nor Janet said another word. Both were exhausted. On top of that, Janet was unnerved by Sean’s explosive violence; it was yet more behavior she had not anticipated from him.

  Meanwhile, Sean was trying to figure out how he could ensure himself four hours of uninterrupted lab time. Between the unfortunate episode with Alvarez and the fact the Miami police were already looking for him, Sean knew he would have to come up with something creative to hold off the hordes. Suddenly he had an idea. It was radical, but it would definitely work. His plan brought a smile t
o his face despite his exhaustion. There was a kind of poetic justice involved that appealed to him.

  Sean felt justified in using extreme measures at this point. The more he thought about his current theory of what was going on at the Forbes Cancer Center, the more convinced he was that he was correct. But he needed proof, and to get proof, he needed lab time. And to get the lab time, he needed something drastic. In fact the more drastic it was, the better it would work.

  When they made the final turn into the parking lot at Forbes, Sean broke the silence: “The night you arrived in Florida I’d gone to an affair at Dr. Mason’s,” he said. “A medulloblastoma patient donated money to Forbes, big money. He headed up an airplane manufacturing firm in St. Louis.”

  Janet was silent.

  “Louis Martin is the CEO of a computer hardware manufacturing firm north of Boston,” Sean said. He glanced at Janet as he parked. She looked puzzled.

  “Malcolm Betencourt runs a huge for-profit chain of hospitals,” Sean continued.

  “And Helen Cabot was a college student,” Janet said at last.

  Sean opened his door, but he didn’t get out. “True, Helen was a college student. But it’s also true that her father is founder and CEO of one of the world’s top software companies.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Janet asked.

  “I just want you to think about all this,” Sean said as he finally got out of the car. “And when we get upstairs, I want you to look at the thirty-three charts we copied and think about the economic demographics. Just let me know what they say to you.”

  Sean was pleased that no new guard had come on duty. He retrieved his cardboard box from behind the front desk. Then both he and Janet ducked under the turnstile and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

  Sean first checked the refrigerator to make certain that Helen’s brain and sample of cerebrospinal fluid had not been disturbed. Next he got the charts out from their hiding place and gave them to Janet. He eyed the mess at his lab bench but didn’t touch it.

  “While you’re perusing the charts,” Sean said casually, “I’ll be heading out. But I’ll be back shortly, maybe in an hour.”