‘What about the refrigerator?’ Candace offered.
With no time to argue, the three darted to the refrigerator. Kevin got
the door open. A cool mist flowed out to layer itself along the floor.
Candace went in first, followed by Melanie and then Kevin. Kevin pulled
the door shut. It’s hardware clicked soundly.
The room was twenty feet square, with stainless-steel shelving from
floor to ceiling that lined the periphery as well as forming a central
island. The hulks of a number of dead primates lay on the shelves. The
most impressive was the body of a huge silver-back male gorilla on the
middle shelf of the central island. The illumination in the room came
from bare light bulbs within wire cages attached to the ceiling at
intervals along the walkways.
Instinctively, the three rushed around to the back of the central island
and squatted down. Their heavy breathing formed fleeting spheres of mist
in the frigid temperature. The smell was not pleasant with a hint of
ammonia, but it was tolerable.
Surrounded by heavy insulation, Kevin and the others could not hear a
sound inside the refrigerator, not even the whine of the elevator. At
least not until they heard the unmistakable click of the refrigerator
door’s latch.
Kevin felt his heart skip a beat as the door was pulled open. Preparing
himself to see the sneering face of Siegfried, Kevin slowly raised his
head to look over the bulk of the dead gorilla. To his surprise it
wasn’t Siegfried. It was two men in scrub suits carrying in the body of
a chimpanzee.
Wordlessly, the men placed the remains of the dead ape on a shelf to the
right just inside the door and then left. Once the door was closed,
Kevin looked down at Melanie and sighed. ‘This has to have been the
worst day of my life.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ Melanie said. ‘We still have to get out of here.
But at least we got what we came for.’ She opened her fist and held up
the key. Light glinted off its chrome-colored surface.
Kevin looked at his own hand. Without realizing it, he was still
clutching the detailed contour map of Isla Francesca.
Bertram turned on the light in the hallway as he exited the stairwell.
He’d gone up to the second floor and had entered the pediatric unit.
He’d asked the crew if anybody had just run through. The answer was no.
Entering his examination room, he switched on the light in there as
well. Siegfried appeared at the door to Bertram’s office.
‘Well?’ Siegfried questioned.
‘I don’t know if someone was in here or not,’ Bertram said. He looked
down at the stainless-steel pail that had moved from its normal position
under the edge of the examining table.
‘Did you see anyone?’ Siegfried asked.
‘Not really,’ Bertram said. He shook his head. ‘Maybe the janitorial
crew left the lights on.’
‘Well, it underlines my concerns about the keys,’ Siegfried said.
Bertram nodded. He reached out with his foot and pushed the
stainless-steel bucket back to its normal position. He turned out the
light in the examining room before following Siegfried back into his
office.
Bertram opened the top drawer of the file cabinet and pulled out the
Isla Francesca folder. He unsnapped the securing elastic and pulled out
the contents.
‘What’s the matter?’ Siegfried asked.
Bertram had hesitated. As a compulsively neat individual he could not
imagine having crammed everything into the folder so haphazardly.
Fearing the worst, it was with some relief that he lifted the Stevenson
Bridge envelope and felt the lump made by the ring of keys.