For a second Adam was too startled to react. Then the elevator doors started to close, and Adam knew he had to keep moving. Wedging Alan against the door to keep it ajar, he dragged Harmon outside and dropped him behind the dense ferns. He had a moment’s hope of taking him along, then realized it would be hard enough just handling Alan. He led the doctor out the back door to the path that led to the beach. His vague plan was to head over to the condominiums and see if he could find a car there.
The moon was now partially concealed, and the beach was not the bright landscape it had been before. The palms and pine trees provided deep concealing shadow.
Halfway to the club, Adam and Alan came upon the Hobie Cat Adam had hidden under. Adam halted. An idea stirred in the back of his mind. He looked out at the ocean and wondered. He wasn’t a good sailor by any stretch of the imagination, but he knew a little about small boats. And he was pleased to note that the last person to use the Hobie Cat had beached it without taking off the sails.
The sound of a man’s shout from the area of the main building made him decide for sure. Time was running out. First, Adam dragged the boat to the water. Next, he led Alan to it and helped him climb on, forcing him to lie down on the canvas. With the bowline, Adam tied Alan loosely to the mast. Wading into the water, Adam pulled the Hobie off the sand and into the surf. The waves were only two or three feet high, but they made it hard to control the boat. When he was waist-deep, he hauled himself aboard.
His original idea was to paddle the boat out of sight around the point, but he saw that was going to be impossible. He would have to raise the sail. As quickly as he could, he hauled up the mainsail. He winced in pain from his raw palms, but he kept at it. Finally the sail billowed out, and the boom lifted with a clatter. To his relief, the boat stabilized the moment it was under sail. Turning around, he snapped the rudders into position, then pushed the tiller to the right.
For an agonizing minute, the boat seemed to drift back toward the beach. Then, falling off the wind, it shot forward, smacking the incoming waves as it headed away from the beach. There was little Adam could do but grab Alan with one hand and hold the tiller with the other.
The boat passed directly in front of the club, but Adam was afraid to try to change his course. He heaved a sigh of relief when they got beyond the breakers. Soon after, they were around the point and safely out of sight.
Relaxing to a degree, Adam looked up at the parabolic curve of the sail contrasted against the star-strewn tropical sky. Glancing to the west, he saw the moon intermittently veiled with small, scudding clouds. Below the moon was the dark silhouette of Puerto Rico’s craggy mountains. The beauty was overwhelming. Then the boat hit the long Atlantic swells and Adam had to turn his full attention to the tiller. Cleating the mainsheet securely, he raised the jib and the Hobie Cat shot through the water at even greater speed. He started to feel optimistic that within a few hours he’d be far enough up the coast to find help.
Dr. Nachman turned from the computer in a rage. Harry Burkett had come to update the research director on the search, but Nachman wasn’t content with false assurances.
“Are you telling me that all you’ve learned with forty men and a million dollars’ worth of security equipment is that one of the orderlies has been found unconscious and one of our guests, Mr. Schonberg, is missing from his room?”
“That’s correct,” said Mr. Burkett.
“And the orderly,” continued Dr. Nachman, “was presumably injected in the back with his own syringe of Conformin?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Burkett. “He was injected with such force that the needle broke off and is imbedded in the man’s skin.” Mr. Burkett wanted to impress the research director with the completeness of his investigation, but Nachman wasn’t having any of it. He found it inconceivable that Mr. Burkett, with his huge staff and sophisticated resources, could not locate a heavily sedated patient. Thanks to Burkett’s inefficiency, what had started as an inconvenience was rapidly becoming a serious affair.
Dr. Nachman angrily lit his pipe, which had gone out for the tenth time. He couldn’t decide whether or not he should inform the inner circle of MTIC. If the problem got worse, the earlier he reported it, the better off he’d be. But if the problem resolved itself, it would be best to remain silent.
“Has there been any evidence of anyone touching the perimeter fence?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Burkett. “And no one has been allowed out of the main gate since Dr. Mitchell called.” He glanced at the psychiatrist, who was nervously examining his cuticles.
Dr. Nachman nodded. He was certain the patient was still on the grounds and that the electrified fence was an insurmountable barrier, but he still worried about the competence of Burkett’s security force. There was no reason to take chances.
“I want you to send someone to the airport to check the departing flights,” he ordered.
“I think that’s going a bit far,” said Burkett. “The patient won’t get off the compound.”
“I don’t care what you think,” interrupted Dr. Nachman. “Everyone told me the patient couldn’t have left the hospital, and obviously he has. So cover the airport.”
“OK,” said Burkett with an exasperated sigh.
Dr. Mitchell, who was well aware that he was the man who had insisted the patient couldn’t have left the hospital, stood up, saying, “Even if the transmitter is too weak to use to trace the patient, maybe if we stimulate his electrodes, he’ll reveal himself.”
Dr. Nachman looked at Mr. Hofstra. “Could we do that?”
“I don’t know,” said Hofstra. “The position of his electrodes hasn’t been neurophysiologically mapped. I don’t know what would happen if we stimulated him. It might kill him.”
“But could we stimulate him?” asked Dr. Nachman again.
“Maybe,” said Hofstra. “But it will take some time. The present program has been written with the expectation that the patient would be initially present.”
“What kind of time are you talking about?”
Hofstra spread his hands apart. “I should know if I’ll be able to do it in an hour or so.”
“But you didn’t have any trouble activating the electrodes.”
“That’s true,” said Hofstra. “But actual stimulation is much more complicated.”
“Try it,” said Dr. Nachman wearily. Then, gesturing with his hands toward Mr. Burkett, who was still on the phone, he said, “I’d like to have some kind of backup for his Keystone Kops.”
Looking at his watch, Adam realized that they’d been sailing for nearly two hours. Once they’d rounded the point north of the MTIC-Arolen beach, they’d encountered increasingly high swells that occasionally crested and broke over the canvas trampoline. A couple of times when they were in the rough of a particularly high wave, Adam was afraid they would be buried by tons of seawater. But each time the boat had bobbed up and ridden like a cork over the top of the wave.
They headed due west along the northern coast. Unsure if there were any reefs or not, Adam stayed about two or three hundred yards offshore. By far the hardest part of the adventure was dealing with his imagination. Each minute, his concern grew about sharks lurking beneath them in the dark swirling water. Every time he glanced down, he expected to see a huge black fin break the surface.
Certain that they had long since passed the limits of the MTIC-Arolen compound, Adam began to aim the Hobie Cat toward land. In the past fifteen minutes or so he’d begun to see occasional lights along the shore. He now could hear the waves pounding on the beach. He tried not to think about what that might mean.