“Perhaps he’s in the garden. It’s the only place left.”
“We have twenty orderlies searching,” snapped Dr. Nachman.
“If he were there, they would have found him by now.”
“He’ll be found,” said Mitchell, more to convince himself than anyone else. “Maybe we’ll have to wait until it gets light.”
“I’m wondering if he could have gotten out of the hospital,” said Dr. Nachman. “He’s not the kind of patient we’d like to have found on the outside.”
“He can’t have escaped, even if he’d wanted to,” said Dr.
Mitchell. “He couldn’t have opened the security doors. And besides, Ms. Parkman has been here. She said she definitely saw the patient when she made her earlier rounds.”
“She wasn’t here when she came up to the OR,” said Dr.
Nachman.
“But that was just for a few minutes,” said Selma. “And the two orderlies on duty said that everything was quiet.”
“I want the search extended to the main building,” said Dr. Nachman, ignoring Selma. “I’m beginning to fear that someone else is involved, someone with access to the ward. If that is the case, I think we should try to activate the patient’s electrodes. That might allow us to trace the man via the transmitter.”
“I don’t know if it will work,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We’ve never tried to activate from a distance.”
“Well, try it now,” ordered Dr. Nachman. “Also, call security and tell them that no one goes through the main gate.”
Dr. Mitchell went to the telephone and called Security.
Then he called the head of programming, Edgar Hofstra, telling him that there was an emergency and he was needed in the control room. Then he and Nachman went upstairs.
The control room was on the same floor as the automated operating room. At one end, protected by a glass wall, was the MTIC mainframe computer. About a half dozen white-coated technicians were in evidence, performing a wide range of operational and maintenance procedures.
Hofstra arrived about ten minutes later, his eyes still puffy with sleep.
Not even bothering to apologize, Mitchell outlined the problem. “If we can activate the patient’s electrodes, I think security can trace the patient by the transmitter. Do you think you can activate him from long range?”
“I’m not certain,” said Hofstra, seating himself at the terminal. As soon as he punched in Iseman’s name, the computer responded by saying that there was an error and that the patient was not engaged. Hofstra overrode the signal.
Everyone in the room watched anxiously. After a minute the screen flashed “electrodes activated,” followed in another minute by the word “proceed.”
“So far, so good,” said Hofstra. “Now let’s see if his battery has any power.” He entered the command for Iseman’s electrodes to transmit. The result was a very weak signal that was unintelligible to the computer.
Hofstra swung around in his chair. “Well, the electrodes activated, but the signal is so weak, I doubt we can trace the location.”
• • •
Adam never knew where he found the courage to go back into the main building, particularly when he saw that most of the lights had been turned on and that groups of men in blue blazers, carrying hypodermic syringes, were swarming over the ground floor. Only the thought of Jennifer and her impending abortion had forced him to risk the comparative safety of the outdoors. Now he simply walked through the main building lobby as if nothing was wrong. When he got out of the elevator on six, the hall was quiet and Adam guessed that they hadn’t begun to search the guests’ rooms.
He turned on the light when he got to his room and was relieved to find Alan still sleeping peacefully.
“I don’t know if you can understand me,” said Adam tensely, “but we have to get the hell out of here.”
He pulled Alan to a sitting position and checked the rolls of gauze covering his head. Once he’d carefully unwound them, he was pleased to see that the automated surgery had only shaved a small area on either side of the man’s head. Adam grabbed his comb and carefully covered the bald patches with Alan’s remaining hair.
With his heart pounding, he helped Alan to his feet and quietly opened the door. Three orderlies were entering a suite at the end of the corridor. Adam knew that if he hesitated he wouldn’t get a second chance. The moment they disappeared into the suite he grabbed Alan’s hand and hurried him down to the bathers’ elevator. As the doors closed, Adam heard voices, but no one seemed to be shouting alarm.
He pressed the ground-floor button. To his horror, after descending briefly, the elevator stopped on three!
Adam glanced at Alan. He looked better without his bandage, but his face still had that telltale drugged blankness.
The doors opened and a scarfaced orderly stepped into the elevator. Glancing mechanically at Adam and Alan, he turned to face the closing doors. He was so close, Adam could see the individual hairs on his neck. Adam held his breath as the elevator recommenced its descent.
They were just passing two when the orderly seemed to recognize their presence. He made a slow turn. In his left hand he held a hypodermic syringe without its protective plastic cap.
Adam reacted by reflex with speed that surprised him. He went for the syringe, wresting it from the orderly’s grip with a quick twist, and then pushed the orderly forward into Alan. As the men collided, Adam jammed the needle into the man’s back just to the side of the spine, depressing the plunger with the heel of his hand.
All three of them fell against the wall of the elevator and collapsed in a heap with Alan on the bottom. The orderly arched his back, rolled to the side, and opened his mouth to scream. Adam clamped his hand over the man’s mouth to muffle the cry. The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
The orderly grabbed Adam’s arm in a tight grip and began to pry his hand from his face. Adam strained to keep the man’s mouth covered. Then he saw the man’s eyes cross.
Abruptly, the man’s grip loosened and his body went limp.
Adam removed his hand and then recoiled in horror. He pushed himself away and stared at the man, whose eyes had now rolled up into his head. Although he appeared to have had some kind of plastic surgery to mar his facial features, Adam still recognized him. It was Percy Harmon!
For a second Adam was too startled to react. Then the elevator doors started to close, and Adam knew he had to keep moving. Wedging Alan against the door to keep it ajar, he dragged Harmon outside and dropped him behind the dense ferns. He had a moment’s hope of taking him along, then realized it would be hard enough just handling Alan. He led the doctor out the back door to the path that led to the beach. His vague plan was to head over to the condominiums and see if he could find a car there.
The moon was now partially concealed, and the beach was not the bright landscape it had been before. The palms and pine trees provided deep concealing shadow.
Halfway to the club, Adam and Alan came upon the Hobie Cat Adam had hidden under. Adam halted. An idea stirred in the back of his mind. He looked out at the ocean and wondered. He wasn’t a good sailor by any stretch of the imagination, but he knew a little about small boats. And he was pleased to note that the last person to use the Hobie Cat had beached it without taking off the sails.
The sound of a man’s shout from the area of the main building made him decide for sure. Time was running out.
First, Adam dragged the boat to the water. Next, he led Alan to it and helped him climb on, forcing him to lie down on the canvas. With the bowline, Adam tied Alan loosely to the mast.
Wading into the water, Adam pulled the Hobie off the sand and into the surf. The waves were only two or three feet high, but they made it hard to control the boat. When he was waist-deep, he hauled himself aboard.
His original idea was to paddle the boat out of sight around the point, but he saw that was going to be impossible.
He would have to raise the sail. As quickly as he could, he hauled up the mainsail. He winced in pain from his raw palms, but he kept at it. Finally the sail billowed out, and the boom lifted with a clatter. To his relief, the boat stabilized the moment it was under sail. Turning around, he snapped the rudders into position, then pushed the tiller to the right.
