CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

I propped my pencil flashlight in a corner of the crate, took the socket wrench from my pocket and began unscrewing the four nuts.

When the last one came free, I put it on the boards near my feet, then slid the crate’s top sideways, gripped its exposed edge and lowered the thing slowly to the floor. One of the long bolts fell out and wobbled toward the wall. In a few more moments I was outside the crate and in some kind of storeroom. There was a sharp almost vinegary scent in the air. Enough light spilled under a nearby door, so that I could see shelves along three walls, filled with small items of unfamiliar equipment and stacks of cloth items, some green and some white—maybe robes the workers wore, or towels; I didn’t check. Instead, I stepped to the door, turned the knob and pulled. Nothing; the door opened outward. I took a deep breath, and stuck my neck past it, looked left, right, and let my breath bubble out in a long sigh.

I knew immediately where I was. It was apparent I was in the “bisecting” corridor Hank had described—which I might have anticipated, since Hank had said it ended at two large double doors in the building’s rear, next to the loading dock. The dock where I’d just been.

When I looked right, I could see those large doors, closed to my left, highly polished ivory and white linoleum stretched away from me until it met the east-west hallway I’d been in earlier today. Halfway up this hallway, on my left was the large metal bin Hank had made a point of mentioning to me. The burn-bin. From this angle, I could barely see the metallic gleam of what appeared to be a metal plate in the wall at this side of the bin but about level with its top. Probably an opening to the slide, extending down into the incinerator which Dr. Wintersong had made a point of mentioning to Grinner.

I stepped out of the storeroom, turned left and walked up the hallway over the polished linoleum, heels squeaking slightly on its waxy stickiness. That sour vinegary smell got stronger, was almost overpowering when I reached the bin.

Now that I was out of the confining crate, and the storeroom, the faint sounds I’d heard when in there, like distant surf, were a little louder and, finally, in part identifiable. I could hear the yap-yapping and barking of what sounded like half a dozen dogs, another dog howling somewhere like a wolf baying at the moon. And there was the higher, shriller, more nerve-shredding cry of a cat—sounded like a big cat, in pain.

Hank had told me that most—but not all—experimental animals subjected to experimentally-necessary torture or trauma made no sounds, did not bark or wail or scream, due to the fact that their vocal cords had been cut. I could certainly understand why scientists and research physicians would perform such simple surgical operations before experimentation commenced, because thousands of animals making all kinds of horrible noises would unquestionably be disturbing to the researchers involved, even possibly—more likely, probably—so distracting as to invalidate some of their experimental results. Certainly the few animal sounds I could hear, far off or behind walls somewhere, but persistent, unending, fell upon my ears with extraordinary effect, much like the effect that might be produced by several chalks squeaking on living blackboards, or an audible version of what you feel when you accidentally bend a long fingernail backwards into the tender quick...a sort of shivering discomfort beginning in ears and seeping into miles of thin, twitchy nerves. I didn’t like it at all.

I put thoughts of what might be happening to Dane out of my mind, or tried to, and walked in front of the large bin. No question, that’s where the stink was coming from. Part of it, but only part, was undoubtedly some kind of bactericide or antiseptic. The down-slanting metal lid or cover, its lower edge almost touching my midsection, was closed—more than closed, the damned thing was locked, a padlock’s shiny steel U looped though holes in the metal flanges welded to both the cover and top-front of the bin.

Everything else I’d brought with me was in my pockets, but I had been holding the two-foot-long crowbar, carried along for a different purpose, in my left hand. I shifted it to my right hand, inserted one end through the U and started prying. Without any success—probably because I was trying to avoid making any noise, which was clearly going to be impossible. Finally I rammed the crowbar’s narrow end between the two flanges, already weakened by those holes drilled through them, and after a minute of prying broke the top one cleanly near the weld. Cleanly, but noisily.

I checked the empty corridor then half-ran to its end, where it joined the intersecting hallway. No sign of life, animal or human, and the only sound was the muffled yap-bark-howl of animal protest constantly twisting in my ears.

I waited a full minute to be sure no one was hustling this way, then trotted back to the now-unlocked burn-bin. That thick sour smell seemed even stronger now, maybe because my heart was pounding slightly and I was breathing more deeply.

Whatever the reason, the putrid stench was clogging my nostrils and itching like acid at the back of my throat. Almost gagging, with an unusual quivering tightness between my shoulder blades, I gripped the bin’s metal cover and lifted, raised it and shoved, pushing its top edge over against the wall.

Then I looked down into the bin—and turned away.

After a few deep breaths, sucking in stink but also more oxygen, I turned around and looked again. Made myself look carefully as impassively as I could. Nearly filled with the bodies of animals. Bodies. And parts of bodies. Visible, concealing whatever was beneath them, were corpses and pieces of corpses—of mice, probably several hundred mice, plus some rats, and guinea pigs, two bantam chickens and a brightly-plumaged bird, frogs, rabbits, cats, dogs, three small monkeys.

Near the bins right side, atop the heap and stiff with rigor mortis, was the body of a mature Irish setter, red coat still shiny, healthy-looking. Closer to me, almost directly below my eyes, were two Siamese cats, with the breed’s distinctive beige-and-chocolate-brown markings, with open and glazed eyes, staring blue eyes. I could see the tops of both cats heads—or, rather, the upper curves and convolutions of their exposed brains. An oval portion of each skull had been removed, for what purpose I could only guess, because there was no longer evidence of whatever had been done to the cats before they died.

Hank’s little camera was still in the breast pocket of my jacket. I took the camera out, concentrated on making sure it was correctly focused and on snapping the first shot from where I stood. Then I hoisted myself onto the bin’s side, stood for a few wobbly seconds up there on a right-angled corner and took two more shots. Then I hopped down at the bin’s left end, steadying myself by pressing one hand against the wall. Or, rather, intending to steady myself—but my hand pressed not wall but that metal panel I’d glimpsed a few minutes ago, when looking up here from the storeroom. It slid sideways and I stumbled, almost fell. The shiny metal panel was about three feet square, and I remembered Hank describing a “sliding metal door” at the top of the chute.

The door had moved from my right to left about a foot; I pushed it open all the way, revealing something that looked like a yard-square galvanized-metal air-conditioning duct, slanting down. I could see into the opening for only a few feet because a baffle of some kind, made of a black material that looked like rubbery plastic, hung from the chute’s top and concealed everything beyond it. There wasn’t any unusual heat perceptible here, which figured.

The incinerator would be well beneath this floor, and undoubtedly the chute was equipped with many additional screens or baffles like the one I could see.

For a few curiously depressing seconds, I looked into that yard-square opening, and mentally all the way down to the flames, imagining everything I’d just seen in the burn-bin in a kind of slow motion sliding, spinning down the slick metal chute into fire, becoming a small pile of powdery ash. And I wondered how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of dead animals, how many tons of stiffening corpses, had already been turned into fluffy gray ashes and bits of white bone.

I could only guess. But I knew Omega was just one medical-research facility of thousands, many of them smaller and some much larger than Omega, not all with jim-dandy crematoria of course, but all determinedly, scientifically, and above all efficiently, turning the brothers and sisters of Fido and Coco and Squeakie into easily disposable homogenized miscellany in order to save mankind from sickness.

Scowling, I slid the metal door shut, lowered the heavy cover down onto the stinking bin, and got the hell away from there.

The sick, sour smell was still present, heavy in the air, but for some reason it didn’t bother me much any longer. Oddly, or perhaps not oddly, the multiple whimpering-yapping-barking-whatever, still constant, did. In fact, it bothered me even more now, irritated me, plucked at my ears and nerves and brain. Worse, unless I’m pounded severely on the head, I never get a headache, but I was getting a headache.

I walked away from the bin and the smell, turned left, then paused, stood unmoving for a few seconds. The last time I had approached this same front hallway I stopped just short of it, peered around the wall’s edge, carefully made sure no other person was here with me. This time, I simply walked straight out into exposed openness, turned left, headed for the door that said “Director”—the same door I’d burst through yesterday moments before colliding with Dane.

Only after I’d done it did I realize I had simply blundered out here without any of the normal care and caution that keeps guys like me alive. Slow down, I told myself; don’t get jerky and blow the whole bit.

I had to slow down briefly, whether I wanted to or not, at the door marked “Director,” because it was locked; the knob didn’t turn at all. Set into the doorframe was one of those combination locks with three rows of three numbered push buttons. I remembered watching the white-smocked gal yesterday afternoon, bending forward and poking at a similar lock across the hall.

Fortunately, I had written the sequence down, because I couldn’t remember any of it now. I got out my notebook, poked 1-9-3-3-8-8-1, heard a metallic click, and the knob turned. I eased the door open, slipped through and closed the door behind me, Colt Special ready in my right hand.

No problem; the big room was empty, at least empty of people. There was shadowy movement within the thirty or forty animal cages lining three walls, but nobody stood at the two long workbenches where yesterday I’d seen men washing equipment in stainless-steel sinks. In the far wall ahead of me were the three solid-wood office doors, closed, and to the right of that third door—on which I recalled was the large gray-painted door with the bright-red warning: DANGER – LETHAL RADIATION – DO NOT ENTER.

I went straight to Wintersong’s office and was not in the least surprised to find it locked. There was, however, no nine-number panel here like the one I’d pushed to get inside; so I took out my set of lock-picks, and got to work.

It took me three minutes, and I was sweating before finally getting the door open. Sweating, primarily, not because of the minimal effort involved but because I kept thinking somebody was behind me, eyes fixed on the back of my head, silently approaching as I worked on the lock. That nervousness, or subdued fear, was baseless, because nothing moved in the big room except those caged animals, but I couldn’t shake it entirely. Partly, I suppose, because the room was so quiet; I could hear the soft sound of movement, occasional clink of chain or brief rattle of metal door, but not any barking or chittering or howling, no sound of animal voices.

So when the tumblers moved and the lock was open I pushed the door inward and stepped into Wintersong’s office, closing the door again quickly and leaning back against it—in darkness. I found a light switch, flipped it and bright overhead light bathed the room. This, I remembered well. Dark-brown carpet, black desk with large padded-leather chair behind it and small angular chair in front, nearer me. Also the large shockingly bright abstract painting on the wall to my right, the painting which I now knew was exactly the same size as some kind of door concealed behind it.

The black desk was just as neat and uncluttered as when I’d first seen it. Two precisely aligned black-plastic baskets, gold pen and pencil set, small square clock with its black face and white numbers—and speedy white second hand racing around the dial. Plus what I was after: a telephone.

I had assumed that if there was anywhere in this joint a phone with its own direct line outside Omega, it would be the Director’s. That assumption was correct. Seated in Wintersong’s swivel chair, I picked up the phone and heard a welcome dial tone; pressed in Hank’s number and got Eleanora, and five seconds later, Hank.

I had also assumed correctly that Hank would have several dozen questions. He would probably have asked them all, one after another without pausing for breath, if I hadn’t cut him off.

“Hold it,” I said. “I don’t have much to tell you—yet. And that’s not why I called. I need your help.”

He didn’t interrupt while I told him that I’d made it inside Omega without difficulty, was in fact using a phone in the Director’s office, and then explained my concern about Dane Smith, repeated what I’d overheard Wintersong saying.

“Sedated?” Hank said. “That is not good.”

“It’s lousy. Right after that, both Wintersong and Belking drove away, so I don’t know which one she was with. Now...” I dug out my notebook, flipped some pages. “This morning, when Belking drove away from his Museum after our talk, he was in a new Mercedes Benz sedan, license plate number CVY176. His wife was right behind him in a Jaguar Sedan, license number PHS988. Unfortunately, I don’t know what Wintersong would have been driving.”

“That can be discovered without difficulty, I will take care of it.”

He went on to say he would contact many of his friends, and there would be observation made of Wintersong’s home, and Belking’s, for me not to be concerned but to concentrate on seeing and photographing whatever I felt might be of value or significance, and then getting back out of Omega safely. “Incidentally,” he finished, “how will you do that?”

While he spoke, I had been remembering the last time I’d been in this office, and how abruptly that interview had ended. I could almost hear again that faint insistent buzzing, see Wintersong’s sudden shock and pallor before becoming agitated. He had opened one of the drawers in his desk—the upper-left drawer, so close to me now I could touch it.

The keyhole of the lock, in that upper left drawer, into which Wintersong had finally managed to insert his red key, looked ordinary, standard. No matter how much doctors may know about tibias and fibulas, sulfas and ‘cillins, from a private eye’s point of view they’re laymen. And many of them think if a front door, or briefcase, or desk drawer, is locked, it’s really locked. Which, of course, it isn’t.

I got out my lock-picks again, selected one and wiggled it gently into the narrow keyhole.

Hank was saying, again, “How will you get out of Omega, Sheldon? You did not tell me before. You have another marvelous plan for accomplishing this, yes?”

Actually, the answer was: No.

I scowled, clenched my teeth together, wiggled my lock-pick, snorted through my nose. Well, dammit, I told myself, a man can’t think of everything.

“Sheldon? How—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Look, don’t worry about it. I promise you, Hank, I’ll uh, worry plenty for both of us.” That was true. I’d already started.

Then, suddenly, the upper-left drawer was sliding open. I pulled it out a little more, freed the lock-pick, reached inside the drawer. Wintersong, ashen, had fumbled in here, about halfway back on the left, was my guess. Yeah, there was something, felt like an inch-long protuberance, shaped like a tiny bowling pin.

I pushed it forward. Nothing happened.

Hank was saying, “So if there is anything of significance you have seen, or can tell me—”

I interrupted, “Not yet, Hank. I really just got started. But...”

This time, I pulled on the little protuberance, it moved a quarter of an inch, and—click. It was a solid sharp sound, the same thing I’d heard yesterday. And from the corner of my eye, even before turning my head to look, I saw that big bright swirl of oils on the wall move.

I jerked my head around. The right side of the painting had again, same today as yesterday, swung slightly away from me, toward the interior of the adjoining room. With an inch of space all along the painting’s right edge, it looked now very much like a door standing ajar. Which, of course, is what it was.

I said to Hank, “... maybe I will have, soon. Call you back later.”

“Bueno.”

I hung up, got to my feet and moved to the painting, put one hand against it. For a moment I thought of that red-lettered warning, on the wall outside this room next to Wintersong’s office, DANGER – LETHAL RADIATION. When Wintersong had hurried through this same door yesterday, he’d seemed unusually concerned, yes. But concerned about radiation? I didn’t think so.

I pushed the door open. The room beyond it was dark, illuminated only by overhead light spilling from behind me in the office. I stepped through the doorway. Directly ahead of me was something like a large bookcase with shelving and bins holding coils of tubing, wires, glass bowls and bottles, odds and ends of equipment that I merely glanced at. The wooden structure apparently designed to provide storage space, also blocked my view of the room’s interior because it was about six feet high and extended all the way to the wall on my left, and about halfway to the other, or front, wall on my right.

I looked for a light switch, spotted one on the wall a foot from the open door and flipped it on. Harsh light blazed from four fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling. I squinted briefly, then walked past the end of those wooden bins, turned sharply and was looking into a large cluttered room.

For a few seconds, I didn’t have any idea what I was looking at. There were several long tables, some covered with retorts and Petri dishes and strange collections of coils and tubes and wires, things I’d never seen before. A few feet away on my right were several dark green upright cylinders like those that contain oxygen and other liquefied gasses. On their left was what looked like a barrel about half the size of a fifty-five-gallon oil drum, but made of seamless and smoothly polished stainless steel. A pair of thin transparent tubes entered the bottom of the barrel, and a similar pair entered—or exited—at the top. I didn’t know what the thing did, but it was doing something, making a constant low humming sound.

Nearer, on my right, was a large and bulky piece of equipment almost the size of a piano but with its upper face covered by dials; a protruding shelf below the array of dials, was fitted with perhaps a dozen upright pens, most of them wiggling, with their points leaving wavering lines on white paper tape moving beneath them. The wide strip of paper tape folded slowly into a large cardboard box resting on the floor.

From the back side of that bulky piece of equipment, a shelf of wires rose, very fine insulated wires running over pipes and through loops. Most of them extended toward something at the far end of the room from me, but a dozen or so swept just over my head and continued on to my left, and down.

At that moment, I saw...something. At first I thought it was slow movement, glimpsed from the corner of my eye. But it wasn’t anything moving. I pulled my head left, looked, stared at the thing. At first I thought it was a dog.

It was on a solid, square metal table about ten feet away. I stepped toward it, suddenly filled with a strange tremulous apprehension, as though my nerves were also thin wires, stretched too tight. There was a musty, almost oily, smell in the room, different from the sharper stink I’d noticed outside in the hallway. Clearly, this was what those fine wires led to, and where those four fine transparent tubes led also, carrying fluids from or to that humming barrel-like machine. Apparently the piano-sized instrument with those dials and wiggling pens was recording electrical impulses from this plastic-tube-fed source.

The source was a dog’s head.

The top of the dog’s skull had been surgically removed, a six-inch-long oval neatly excised—as in the smaller skulls of those two Siamese cats dead in the burn-bin—and the ends of those ten or twelve fine wires were buried in the living brain. Living, because both eyes in the dog’s head were functioning, moving, following me as I approached and stopped a foot before it.

The dog’s head. Head only. It wasn’t a dog. It was the severed and nutrient-fed and electronically monitored—but alive—head of a dog. It was a shocking, stunning thing to see, that head without a body, grisly obscene. Near this end of the metal table was a small white plastic-covered box, its tip about five feet above the laboratory floor. And atop the box rested the dog’s head. Nothing else remained of him, no body, no legs or paws, no wagging tail. Just the head and part of the neck wound with thick white gauze at its base; below the truncated neck and surgical gauze only the white box, much too small for a dog’s body but large enough for the four transparent tubes that stretched, like multiple umbilical cords out of its sides, through holes in the plastic up to wall-to-wall piping above me, then on to that humming barrel. The head was held immobile by curving metal pincers, blunt ends pressed against each side of the skull.

The head was immobile, but its eyes were not. That was the worst thing of all; seeing those living, intelligent eyes, the only things that moved, except for pulsing synapses in the brain, their amplitude and frequency being traced by wavy lines on moving paper tape.

And then I saw the tuft-like patches of whitish hairs, above those moving eyes...distinctive chalky areas which had, in the beginning reminded me of my own goofy eyebrows. I’d found Hank’s dog, Rusty.