Susan had little time to think. A man walked past the sink, his trousers brushing against the half-closed cabinet door. He unlocked the door to the hall, then he went over to the table. Audibly straining, he lifted the tank which contained the heart and carried it away, leaving the light on and the door ajar.
Susan’s mind raced back over all the details of her investigation: the T-valve on the oxygen line, D’Ambrosio’s face, the image of Nancy Greenly, and the heart in the Plexiglas container. She remembered the conversation in the morgue below, and she realized that the heart must have been Berman’s. She began to feel a sense of urgency, a sense of pervading panic. The concept of this lurid affair was too overwhelming. She had to get away and, for the first time, she realized how difficult that was going to be. This was no ordinary hospital. At least some of the people running it were criminals. She had to get out and get to someone who could comprehend what was going on. Stark. She had to get to Stark. He would be able to appreciate the whole business and was powerful enough to do something about it.
Carefully Susan moved her left hand out of the cabinet onto the floor, pushing open the door as she did so. She listened. There were no noises except for the quiet whir of the pump perfusing the kidney on the table. With great effort she began to pull her right leg from the far corner of the cabinet. Then she heard footsteps in the hall. There was only a second. Her foot went back where it had been. She pulled in her arm, pushing herself into the cabinet as far as possible. The elbow of the drain from the sink above dug into her back.
The man came back into the room at a fast walk. He came between the sink and the table and kicked the cabinet door shut. The sound and compression made Susan’s ears ring. She heard him strain with the second tank. Then his footsteps left the room and receded down the corridor.
Susan stayed still for another two or three minutes before she dared to move, listening. There were no footsteps, only a muffled laugh from the first OR. Susan extracted her cramped body from beneath the sink. A spray can fell out onto the floor and rolled a short distance. Susan froze. Nothing. Then she ran for the door into the unlit operating room.
She had to pause once again to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Here the forms of the overhead operating lights were visible. Carefully Susan moved to the common wall with the corridor, feeling for the door handle. Once she found it, she cracked the door and looked into the scrub area immediately beyond.
At that instant a piercing alarm shattered the stillness and all the lights went on in the previously darkened room. In a panic Susan let go of the door and turning threw herself against the wall expecting an assailant.
The room was empty.
A red light was blinking on and off next to a small loudspeaker. The loudspeaker crackled: “There is an unauthorized intruder in the building. Female. She must be detained immediately. I repeat … there is an unauthorized individual in the building … detain immediately.” The loudspeaker went dead. Susan sighed in relief. She left the OR and peered around the wall of the scrub area. The corridor was dear.
Two white-uniformed guards strode briskly through the main ward, oblivious to the hundred-odd human beings strung op around them. Each had a pistol in his hand. The larger of the two was listening to his Sony two-way radio. He replaced it on his belt. “I’m to take the elevator in the computer room up to two. You’re to head through the morgue and down to the machinery spaces.”
The two men entered the corridor beyond the ward.
“And remember, our orders are clear. If you find her and she comes along willingly, fine; if not then shoot her. But shoot her in the head. They may want the kidneys or the heart, depending on her tissue type.”