Night had fallen as Barrett, Hobbs and Carla huddled in the back of the locked police van. Hobbs had been correct about the quarantine sites – all in Manhattan. He’d grimly commented, ‘Probably because it’s an island.’
‘So are Staten and Riker’s, for that matter,’ Carla responded.
‘Yeah,’ Barrett said, ‘so are Ellis and Roosevelt, but none of them have the medical facilities all set up and ready to go.’
Hobbs had convinced their NYPD escort to take them to the quarantine facility that had been established at University Hospital in the Village. It was the closest to the Lower East Side and it was where Barrett’s sister worked.
As they drove across the Whitestone Bridge that connected Queens to the Bronx he again tried to reason with the hazmat-suited driver. ‘Could I at least speak to my supervisor?’ he asked, still fuming over Felix’s betrayal, but maybe now that the heat was off and the three of them were in custody he’d listen.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been given direct orders to take the three of you straight to quarantine. Your supervisor is aware that you’ve been found and of where you are being taken.’
‘I have vital information,’ Hobbs persisted, ‘that pertains to Richard Glash. He needs to know this.’
‘Sir,’ the driver replied, uncertainty in her voice, ‘my orders come from very high up. I can’t go against them.’
‘You said your orders were to take us to quarantine. What does that have to do with my speaking to Captain Schmitt? Or if not to him I could give you the number for Agent Anderson with the FBI?’
The driver hedged, as the vehicle slowed at the tollbooth. Her male partner flashed a badge through the windshield and they were waved through. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but my orders state you are to speak with no one. That you and the ladies are to be processed in quarantine and kept isolated.’
‘Who would give such a bone-headed order? And why?’
‘They’re trying to spin this,’ Barrett muttered. ‘What do they think we’re going to do, go the press? Look,’ she said, pleading with the driver and her partner, ‘Richard Glash did not dump all of the plague bacteria into the reservoir. I know because I was there. I was his hostage and I saw what he did. I also know that he’s not dead. They’re saying they’ve made a positive ID, but they haven’t. We have vital information, and no one will to listen to us.’
‘I was there, too,’ Carla said, backing up Barrett, and making certain the two hazmat-suited cops had their attention. ‘He did not dump all the bacteria, but that’s what he wanted people to believe. Even if he’s dead, which he’s not, there’s more bacteria out there.’
‘Listen,’ Barrett said, ‘as we speak he’s somewhere in Manhattan, quite possibly at his father’s place in the Lower East Side. He’ll be figuring a way to infect the most people possible. The reservoir was just a ploy to buy time.’
‘Guys, you’ve got to believe them,’ Hobbs pleaded. ‘Think of your families, your children, millions will die if he’s not stopped.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the driver repeated, her voice wavering. ‘I have orders; you’re to speak with no one. I was told that you’d try to get me to deviate from my orders. We cannot do that, sir.’
Hobbs felt like his head might explode; it was futile, but he couldn’t let up. They pleaded and begged. Hobbs gave them the numbers for Schmitt and Anderson. He gave them the street address for Glash’s father. It was met with a steady stream of ‘We are to take you to quarantine. We are under strict orders.’
In the dim light of the van he saw Barrett lose it. ‘Look, we’re not in Nazi Germany. Can’t you think for yourselves? Just imagine for half a second that the three of us aren’t all psychotic. Maybe what we’re saying is the truth. Even if it’s a remote possibility don’t you think you should follow it up?’
Hobbs felt for the driver and her partner, their hands tied by bureaucratic threats; if they deviated in the slightest they’d be brought up on insubordination. They were probably thinking of their families and their mortgages. Even so, he couldn’t let up. ‘Please, at least let me talk to Detective Schmitt.’ He could see the man turn to the driver and shake his head. Neither one of them would say anything further as they drove down the West Side Highway across 14th Street and down Broadway to University Hospital. When they arrived they were ordered to put on HEPA masks and were escorted at gunpoint by Guardsmen in hazmat suits.
Barrett and Carla didn’t stop as they stared into the frightened young faces through the visors of the suits. They continued to plead their case, rattling off the phone numbers and Peter Glash’s address.
Barrett searched over their heads and between them, hoping to catch a glimpse of Justine among the doctors, nurses and aides gathered at the far end of the corridor. She knew that her sister would be there, even though she desperately wished that both Justine and her mother were far away from the city.
‘Barrett!’ Justine shouted over the wall of guards.
‘Justine! You’ve got to get someone to listen. Richard Glash is in the city.’ Before she could say more, three guards detached themselves and rushed away Justine and all of the other medical personnel who’d gathered.
‘Somebody has got to listen to us,’ Carla pleaded, attempting to make eye contact with the guard next to her. She saw her reflection in his visor. ‘Why won’t anyone listen? You’re making a horrible mistake. Richard Glash is here, in the city. He has the bacteria. It didn’t go into the reservoir.’
Nothing any of them said seemed to matter as they were led to a small reverse-airflow medical isolation room. To Barrett, the small, windowless room with its three beds seemed more a prison cell than a hospital room.
‘Hobbs,’ she said, ‘somebody has got to believe us.’
A hazmat-suited sergeant leading the squadron of Guardsmen locked them in. ‘Homeland Security has informed us that all of the bacteria was accounted for,’ he said. ‘It was all introduced at the Ashokan Reservoir. It’s been isolated and what we’re doing now is just a precaution.’ His tone was meant to reassure the trio. He’d been thoroughly briefed.
‘That’s not true,’ Barrett said, trying to make eye contact through his mask.
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘Why would they lie to us and put the entire city in jeopardy? That makes no sense. I understand the three of you have been through very traumatic events. That can confuse your thinking.’
‘I’m a psychiatrist,’ Barrett said, feeling like she wanted to scream. ‘I know the effects of trauma. But you have three people who all believe the same thing. Richard Glash intends to infect as many people as possible with bubonic plague. He doesn’t care if he survives. You’ve got to believe us. And even if we’re wrong, won’t it have been better to be safe? To just have someone check out what we’re telling you?’
The sergeant hesitated. He glanced behind him, and then in a low voice said, ‘If you were going to call someone, who would it be and what would you tell them?’
Hobbs quickly rattled off Anderson’s cell and the message, which included Peter Glash’s address.
The sergeant nodded, and then closed the door behind him.
‘He’s not going to do anything,’ Carla said.
Hobbs looked at her. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘He just did that to humor us,’ she added, ‘to get us to go into our cell – excuse me, hospital room – without a fight.’
Barrett was frantically checking out the space – three small cots made up in white linen with folded hospital-issue pajamas in faded shades of brown, green and blue. There were three small end tables, a telephone and a fifteen-inch television bolted to a corner stand that jutted from the wall. Overhead, vents sucked up the air, sending it through a series of filters, while fresh air got pumped back through a second set in the floor.
Hobbs picked up the telephone receiver. ‘Great!’ he muttered.
‘What?’ Carla asked.
‘This,’ he said, punching the button to put it on speaker. A mechanical voice spilled out, ‘This extension is equipped to receive only. If you wish to make an outgoing call please consult with your hospital courtesy coordinator. Thank you.’
‘They don’t want us talking to anyone,’ Barrett said, and the three of them spent the next four hours searching fruitlessly for a way out.
At midnight, the lights shut off without warning.
‘I guess they’re trying to tell us something,’ Hobbs said.
‘Yeah,’ Barrett agreed, but as she lay back on the freshly-made bed, convinced that she would never fall asleep, she was out cold in minutes.
When she opened her eyes, the room was still dark. She heard Hobbs’s snoring and as her eyes adjusted, she saw Carla curled up in the bed next to hers.
Easing out of the bed, she went to the small en-suite bathroom with a stall shower. She closed the door and tried the light; she was surprised that it worked.
She looked at the shower, and realizing it wasn’t exactly the thing to do at the end of the world, she turned on the water and peeled off her torn navy slacks and once-white shirt. Blood had fixed the thin cotton of her blouse to the gash on her right shoulder. She slowly pried it back, trying not to rip the scab. Fresh blood oozed around the edges. She thought about how nice it would be to have fresh clothes – even if it were just hospital pajamas. She put a hand under the spray and adjusted the heat. She unwrapped a bar of white soap and stepped under the warm, cascading streams. It felt wonderful to stand there letting the warmth touch her skin, to let it melt away four days of sweat and grime. She smoothed the soap across her belly. Had it started to swell? She thought about the lie she’d told Glash, that the baby growing inside her was Ralph’s. Who would ever know? ‘Right,’ she said aloud, knowing that three people would know – Justine, Hobbs and George. So what? she argued with herself. If they truly cared for her … loved her … and this is what she wanted … She stopped herself as the fantasy took shape: her with a baby, holding him or her, realizing she actually had a preference – a girl. For the briefest of moments she let an old, cherished dream return. Her own little girl. Holding her, breastfeeding, changing diapers, buying pretty outfits, bringing her to her mother’s apartment in the East Village for babysitting. The vision of her mother, Ruth, still young looking with her Country-Western auburn hair and loving eyes, caused her to gasp.
She startled at a knock at the bathroom door. It was Hobbs. ‘Barrett, Justine’s on the phone … are you in the shower?’
‘Hold on.’ Still soapy, she turned off the water, grabbed the largest of the towels and wrapped it around her. She went out into the room where the lights had come back on and caught odd looks from Carla and Hobbs. ‘It’s not like we’re going anywhere,’ she said, taking the phone. ‘Justine?’
‘Barrett, you don’t know the trouble I had finding your room number. What did you do?’
‘Justine, let me talk. The so-called authorities have gotten everything wrong and you’ve got to get us out of here.’ She quickly filled her sister in on the salient points.
‘Barrett, I understand what you’re saying, but if Glash has been walking around with this stuff, and you’ve been with him for the past few days, isn’t it possible you’ve been exposed?’
‘I don’t think so, Justine. What time is it?’
‘It’s a little after seven.’
‘In the morning?’
‘Yuh.’
‘Great! Look, it’s been over a day since we were last in contact with Glash. He always kept it bottled up and away from us. If we’d been infected, we’d already … be sick.’
‘Jesus, Barrett!’
‘You’ve got to get us out of here.’
‘They’ve got that entire floor locked off,’ Justine said. ‘It used to be a psyche floor.’
‘Yes, I recognize it, even though everything’s been changed … there’s got to be a way.’ Barrett again looked around the room, taking in the neatly arranged furniture, the oxygen hook-ups, all its typical hospital-room features, minus a window and with a single locked door. Hobbs was standing on the middle bed poking at the ceiling tiles and shaking his head. The vents were bolted shut with the screws on the opposite side. Carla was sitting on the far bed watching Barrett intently and listening.
‘People escape from psych wards all the time,’ Carla said.
‘That’s true,’ Barrett replied as Hobbs got down from the bed, having given up on the ceiling.
‘How?’ he asked.
Barrett quickly ran through every instance she could think of. ‘Usually in the company of friends and family, or they attach themselves to visitors leaving the unit. You’d be amazed how visitors don’t want to say anything even if they think it’s weird that one of the patients – in pajamas – is following them off the unit.’
‘Makes sense,’ Hobbs said, ‘herd mentality. Like this bullshit! Is that the only way?’
‘Laundry carts and meal carts,’ Carla added. ‘They’ve got to feed us at some point.’
‘I wonder if they’ve even thought that far,’ Barrett said. ‘From what little I saw, we’re getting the luxury accommodation.’
‘You have no idea how confused things are right now,’ Justine said through the receiver. ‘We’ve been told that no medical personnel can leave for any reason, and that until the all-clear is given, we have to be prepared to quarantine as many as twenty thousand people in a hospital with a twelve-hundred bed capacity.’
‘Good,’ Hobbs said. ‘Chaos is good. What’s bad is we seem to have pissed off people in high places.’
‘Justine,’ Barrett said, ‘I’m going to ask you to do something that could get all of us into big trouble. I don’t even know how big, but—’
‘Stop right there,’ Justine said. ‘This could actually work. I’ve been issued a hazmat suit and I’ve got my hospital ID. I’m assuming this will be two for lunch?’
‘I’m coming too,’ Carla spat out.
Hobbs and Barrett exchanged glances.
‘Look,’ Carla said, ‘you need every bit of help you can get. You don’t know what we’re going to find out there. I have friends in the DA’s office, maybe I can get someone to listen to us.’
‘What the hell,’ Barrett said, grabbing the closest of the pajamas. ‘Make it three, Justine. And please … hurry.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And she hung up.
Barrett, with her hair wet, dripping suds and still dressed in a towel, felt something close to hope flutter in her chest.
‘Do you think she’ll be able to do it?’ Carla asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Barrett said, retreating to the bathroom, not wanting to change in front of Hobbs. ‘She’d do anything for me. I think it’s our only shot.’ She closed the door and looked down at her ripped slacks. Her blouse reeked of sweat and blood. She pulled on the pajama top, her filthy slacks and rubber-soled hospital slippers. Her heart was pounding, and it wasn’t just fear. There was something more. She sat on the bathroom floor and hugged her legs. She thought about Hobbs and about Justine and what they’d say if they knew what she was thinking. But there it is, she thought. If I survive, I’m having this baby, and no one is going to talk me out of it. And in spite of everything, she thought of Justine’s bad joke when she was trying to get her to have the abortion; she grinned and whispered aloud, ‘Call me Rosemary.’