“What should we do?” Lynn asked with moderate alarm. They didn’t want to draw attention, which they might by standing there.
Michael pointed to the right. “Let’s return to our bench. We’ll let him pass. Maybe he’ll think we’ve come here to make out!”
Lynn had to smile in spite of herself.
It took them only twenty seconds to get to the bench. They sat down. Surrounded on both sides with shrubbery, they couldn’t see the security man initially, but in less than a minute he appeared and stopped for a moment, looking in their direction.
“He might be able to see us,” Lynn whispered. “Kiss me! Make it look real!”
Michael obliged, wrapping his big arms around Lynn’s relatively narrow shoulders. It was a sustained kiss. Both closed their eyes.
After almost a full minute, they hazarded a look back toward the main pathway. The security man was gone. They detached themselves from their embrace.
“It worked,” Michael whispered.
“Such sacrifice!” Lynn teased.
“Let’s promise never to do that again,” Michael teased back, “but it must have been convincing, since he decided not to mess with us.”
Lynn nodded but didn’t respond audibly. Her attention had been absorbed by the Shapiro building silhouetted against the black sky. Its intimidating appearance was causing her to struggle with her intuition, which was now telling her a different story than it had back in the safety of her room. Now it was saying they shouldn’t go in. But that was not the only inner voice clamoring for attention. At the very same time another part of her brain was screaming at her that she had to check on Carl; she had to find out once and for all how he was being treated and if he was being used as an experimental subject. It was an ambivalence-fueled mental tug-of-war.
“All right!” Michael said excitedly, unaware of Lynn’s sudden indecision. “Let’s do this quick, fast, and in a hurry.” He leaped to his feet but noticed Lynn wasn’t moving. “What’s up, girl? You ready to step up or what?”
Lynn stood. Her hesitancy eased in the face of Michael’s eagerness. “I’m ready, I think.”
“Let’s do it!” Michael said. He moved quickly. Lynn had to almost run to catch up. When they got to the door, Michael popped up the protective cover for the thumbprint security pad with the Russian’s fake fingerprint already positioned on his thumb. He pressed it against the touchscreen, but nothing happened. “Fuck,” he said. “It’s not working.”
“Let me try mine,” Lynn said. She and Michael rapidly changed places. She put her fake fingerprint on her finger and pressed it against the pad. Again nothing!
“Mothafucka!” Michael blurted. Anxiously he glanced back along the walkway, fearing they might be observed while hesitating at the door. From the walkway they were in plain sight.
“Wait!” Lynn said. “I remember reading that sometimes you have to heat it up.” She opened her mouth widely and thrust her thumb in, being careful not to touch the layer of pliable, almost rubbery wood glue to her teeth or tongue. She exhaled through her mouth, taking several breaths. Then she tried pressing it against the touch pad again.
There was an audible click. She pushed on the heavy, solid door with her shoulder, and it opened.
“Hallelujah!” Michael exclaimed.
A moment later both students were inside, blinking against the brightness of the whiter-than-white hallway, evenly illuminated by LED light coming through the translucent ceiling. Lynn lost no time pulling the door closed. There was another audible click as the release lever fell into place. At that moment both pulled on Shapiro hats and masks.
Looking up, Michael saw, attached to the ceiling about twenty feet down the hall, what he had thought was a video device when he had visited the Shapiro Institute the first time. He pointed it out to Lynn, then whispered, “Best if we ditch the raincoats!”
After he and Lynn got their overcoats off, he balled them up into the tightest bundle possible and stashed them in the far corner by the door.
Lynn was already looking at the floor plan for fifth level.
“No need for a map,” Michael said. “The NOC is straight ahead on the right. Let’s move it!”
“There’s a locker room on the left,” Lynn said, still studying the floor plan as they started forward. “Maybe we should leave the raincoats in there, instead of out here in the hall.”
“My vote is we leave them be. There’s too big a risk of running into staff in the locker room, where we’d probably end up having to have a conversation, which would mean we’d get exposed as party crashers before we started. We can only expect to get so many miles out of these Shapiro suits.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lynn said. She looked up at the video device as they passed under it, wondering if they were already under observation. She hoped not, as it would mean their visit would be a short one.
Walking quickly, they approached the pocket door leading into the NOC.
43.
Thursday, April 9, 12:22 A.M.
Misha Zotov was notorious for being a deep sleeper, especially after getting very little sleep the night before, and his cell phone’s selected ring tone was almost too melodious to pull him out of Morpheus’s grasp. To make things worse, he had passed the evening imbibing considerably more vodka than usual. Over-drinking was his method of dealing with stress, which he was experiencing more than usual thanks to the series of threats to the biologics program. Up until a few weeks ago, there had been nary a blip. Unfortunately that had changed dramatically, particularly over the last week or so. The last, and possibly worst, was due to Darko’s screwup with the two medical students.
After the fourth ring, Misha was conscious enough to recognize the sound. With great effort he reached for the phone on his bedside table. As he did so, he looked at the clock and cursed loudly. Blinking madly to focus, he checked to see who was calling. When he saw it was Darko Lebedev, he started cursing anew.
Misha slapped the phone to his ear and flopped back onto his pillow. “This better be good,” he growled in Russian.
“It’s good,” Darko said, sounding strangely upbeat. “Very unexpected but good: the medical students have taken care of themselves.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Timur and I have been keeping them under observation since you and I talked this afternoon. At first they seemed to be acting normally and apparently did not tell anyone about my visit last night. But then this evening they went out into the hospital garden around ten-thirty and sat for an hour in the dark on a secluded bench that had a view of the door to Shapiro Institute.”
“You think they were observing it?”
“That was our impression, because it was during the shift change.”
“So how is this taking care of themselves?”
“It gets better. After they left their observation spot, we thought we were done for the night. Then, to our surprise, Timur called me to come back because they reappeared a bit later, dressed in raincoats. They then went back outside to the same bench and after making out for a while, they went over to the Shapiro door. We had no idea what they were planning. To our shock, they opened the door and went inside!”
Misha sat up suddenly, pulling the covers off his companion for the night. “How the fuck did they open the door?”
“We don’t know. Apparently they fooled the thumbprint scanner, which isn’t all that difficult.”
“This is terrific,” Misha said. “It’s like having fish jump into the boat.”
“I thought you would be pleased.”
“Listen! Call whoever is heading up security tonight. Tell them that I have authorized a lockdown for the Shapiro until further notice. Have them electronically seal the external door and even the door through the visiting area to the hospital.”