Syndrome - Thomas Hoover (best summer books .TXT) 📗

Friday, April 10

8:45 P.M.

Ellen O’Hara had not left after the day shift ended at six P.M. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night.

The evil had begun when Kristen Starr’s mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she’d been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she’d been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.

Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa Hampton, but he wasn’t put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.

May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she’d met once when they were on a public-health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel.

Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.

Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem-cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She’d begun responding in a matter of hours.

She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement?

Now Ellen O’Hara knew the reason.

She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they’d performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.

The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.

She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn’t know what she could say that wouldn’t sound like an indictment. Still, she was damned well determined to do it.

If nothing else, it would provide a diversion.

She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area.

“Everything all right, Grace?” she asked the nurse at the desk.

“My, you’re working late,” came the pleasant reply. “Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it’ll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over.”

“Right.” But they’re not over, Ellen thought. And there may not be a celebration. “I’m going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?”

“I think he’s in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something’s scheduled for later on. I don’t know. Everybody looks kind of worried.”

“Well, nobody has said anything to me.” They don’t need to, she thought. I saw the file.

She swiped her card through the security slot and got onto the elevator.

When she stepped off, the laboratory was dark and a light was showing under Dr. Van de Vliet’s office door.

Good. She swiped her card in the reader next to the laboratory air lock and went in. Another swipe and she was on the elevator down to the subbasement, where she was not authorized to be.

She went to the second door and slipped her card through the slot, wondering what she would see.

The room was dark and smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. She quickly closed the door behind her before turning on the overhead fluorescents.

Alexa Hampton was secured to the bed with restraints, and she appeared to be sedated, though she did slowly open her eyes as the light flickered and then stabilized. There was a wheelchair in the corner.

“Ms. Hampton, can you hear me?” she whispered, hoping not to alarm her. “Do you remember me? I was the one who helped you when you were first admitted.”

She watched as Alexa stared at her for a moment and then quietly nodded.

“I… I want to get out of here.” Her eyelids fluttered and then she closed her eyes again. “But I’m too weak. I can’t move.”

“You’re strapped down, love. Let me help you.”

She reached for the Velcro straps and then paused. Was this a decision she wanted to make?

If I do this, it’s the end of my career here. Have I lost my mind? What will I do after this?

But if I don’t try to stop them, God knows what… we could all end up convicted of criminal conspiracy and in prison.

“That reporter friend of yours is here.” She pulled open the straps, then helped Alexa sit up in the bed and swing her legs around. “I’m going to take you to him.”

“It’s so horrible,” Ally went on. She was settling into the wheelchair as though she expected it. Then she looked up, her eyes dazed. “Where are you taking me? ‘Reporter’? Do you mean—”

“Like I said I’m moving you into your friend’s room.”

She rolled her to the door, then stopped and cracked it and peeked out.

“Don’t say a word dear,” she whispered as she began pushing Alexa down the hall. There was a pale flickering light under the door at the end. “Debra and David and the others have all gone out to the diner down the road and Dr. Vee is in his office, probably running some last-minute computer simulations. But we need to be quiet.”

The fluorescent lights seemed to swirl overhead. This all feels so familiar, Ally thought. This is where I saw Kristen. Does Ellen know what happened to her?

“You two have to decide what you want to do.”

“Stone? You’re sure he’s here?”

“Yes,” she said “and he’s in some kind of battle of wills with Mr. Bartlett.”

When they reached the door at the end she tried it and it was locked. She pulled out her magnetic card and zipped it through the slot.

As they went through, Ally realized the room was lit only by the glow of a laptop computer screen.

“Stay here,” Ellen said turning to leave. “I’m going to try to talk to Dr. Vee.”

As the door closed Stone finally looked up. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and had been typing furiously on a Gerex laptop.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” He paused to glance down and save what he’d been writing, then clicked off the computer.

“I have no idea.” Something about him didn’t seem quite right. It was like he was on happy pills or something. “How about you? The last time I saw you, I was passing out.”

“I don’t actually remember all that much of what happened after that. I think I went back to the city. But I feel great now. Like I went through a dark tunnel and came out the other side. I feel very different. I don’t know what’s next, but right now I’m just happy to be in the middle of the biggest story in the history of medical science.”

What’s going on with him? she wondered. He’s spacey. He has to be on some kind of drug. What have they done to him?

He closed the laptop, then reached and clicked on a light by the bed. “Come on. Want to see something incredible? It’s a marvel of medical science, never before happened.”

“What—”

“Come with me. I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it.”

He tossed the laptop onto the bed, then swung his feet around and settled them onto the floor. She noticed that the room was a pale blue, with white linoleum. There was a pair of white slippers next to the bed.

He slipped them on and then opened the door and grabbed her wheelchair.

The hallway felt colder now, yet it was also stifling, as though someone had drawn the air out of it.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Stone said.

There was a hint of madness in his voice. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still sane, and it wasn’t working. He was just barely holding it together.

Then she realized he was about to go into intensive care, where Kristen had been.

“So Kristen’s still here?”

“Oh, you’d better believe it,” he said. “She is most definitely still here.”

When they got to the door, he revolved back.

“Ally, you really don’t have to see this, you know. Not if you’d rather… Nothing remotely like this is going to happen to you. They assured me.”

What the hell is he talking about?

“On the other hand,” he went on, “maybe you should see it. Maybe everybody in the world should