A horde of footsteps echoed in Corridor C. It sounded as though every employee in the building was converging on his position. He smiled. Escaping from a place like this was a game of one versus many — success would depend on timing, confusion, and crowd control.
Despite their uniforms and short haircuts, the security staff was decidedly nonmilitary. They were unpolished, like hired hands, and Patient-65 had come to question their proficiency and gumption. He predicted that a real crisis would send everyone flying blindly toward the action, like moths to a flame. He wanted them to converge — as many guards as possible — right here, right now, to the third floor.
Because he was going to leave them all behind.
He burst through the door into the stairwell and breathed a sigh of relief. They were still there: eight flat bedsheets, taken from the laundry bin outside his room each night between 23:04 and 23:09, while the beds were being stripped in the two rooms adjacent to his own. The makeshift thirty-foot rope of knotted, folded cotton was exactly where he had left it, coiled neatly on the landing with one end tied to the metal railing.
He wrapped the free end of the sheet-rope around his right arm, about his chest, under his armpit, and then around the same arm yet again. He snugged it tight and took a deep breath. Then, he jumped.
The door slammed open behind him. The leader of the swarm of yellow suits lunged for his legs, but Patient-65 was already airborne, catapulting over the handrail. One by one they rushed to the edge and peered down at the pale, half-naked form plummeting into the dark. Starched white bedsheets ruffled and flapped as he made the otherwise silent three-story plunge.
The fall was terrifying, idiotic. As flights of stairs rushed past, thoughts of impending injury flooded his mind: His shoulder would be dislocated, ripped from the socket most likely. His neck would probably snap. He had not imagined it happening this way. With half a second to spare, he reached up and grabbed the sheet above him, as if trying to climb away from the fall. He drew his arms together, slightly bent at the elbows, in preparation.
The force of the deceleration hit him like a Freightliner. The section of sheet that was wrapped around his chest absorbed most of the energy, compressing his ribs and driving the air out of his lungs. His abdominal muscles tore. The tendons in his shoulders burned like individual strands of fire. He could taste fresh blood in his mouth. Still, the fitted sheets had held, and the eight slipknot shock absorbers had performed exactly as intended, popping like firecrackers and averting multiple fractures and dislocations from the one g-force fall.
Suspended in midair, dangling four feet above the concrete floor, he gasped for air. He unraveled himself from the sheet-rope and dropped to the ground in a heap. Footsteps echoed in the stairwell as his pursuers renewed their chase from three flights above. He smiled despite the pain. The jump had won him a substantial lead, and in a chase where seconds would determine success or failure, he needed each and every one.
He looked up at the sign on the door in front of him. GROUND LEVEL–CORRIDOR E. His injured stomach muscles screamed in protest as he pushed open the heavy metal door. Before it slammed shut, he could hear the footsteps growing louder.
Corridor E was silent and empty. Thirty yards away, freedom beckoned. He could just make out the words “Emergency Exit — Alarm Will Sound” stenciled in large white letters across the red fire escape door at the end of the corridor. His legs responded grudgingly to yet another call for action, and he managed to move toward the exit in a gait feebly resembling a run. He spied a jacket, draped over an open door, in a row of employee lockers along the wall of the corridor. He snagged it midstride, gambling it might fit.
As he closed the gap, panic began to well up inside him. The emergency exit was the only element of his plan he had been unable to test. The truth was that he didn’t know what would happen when he tried to go through that door. It might be locked; that wouldn’t surprise him in this place. It could lead to another corridor or to a lobby full of security personnel. It could even be bricked over on the other side.
In any case, he had no choice. There was no turning back now.
He barreled into the red door.
It opened so easily that he lost his balance and went tumbling to the concrete. After two awkward somersaults, he came to an abrupt stop on his hands and knees, staring down into a puddle of cold, muddy water. Behind him, the Emergency Exit alarm shrieked, announcing his arrival like a royal trumpeter, and then fell abruptly silent as the door slammed shut. He struggled to his feet. He was standing in the middle of a deserted sidewalk along an unfamiliar city street. His pupils were still adjusting to the darkness of night, and he could not make out the street signs or recognize which avenue he was on. A stiff, cold breeze sent a crumpled paper advert, with strange Cyrillic words, tumbling over his foot. Bewildered, he surveyed his surroundings as he shrugged on the jacket, covering his bare torso.
In all the months of planning, he had never considered what he would do after he was out. His escape fantasies had always ended at the red door.
His heart pounded; they would be on top of him in seconds.
He started running.
Any direction would do.
As he pushed his battered body onward, the illuminated rooflamp of a taxicab caught his attention. It was bright, yellow, and beautiful. The taxi was stopped at a red traffic light at the nearest intersection, some twenty meters away.
Panic erupted inside him. If the light changed to green before he could close the gap…
The emergency exit alarm shrieked anew behind him. They were coming.
He hurtled himself toward the cab.
Ten meters to go. Still red.
A car, traveling on the cross street, braked to a stop. The light would change any second.
Three meters.
It flashed to green.
“Wait,” he yelled.
In a final adrenaline-charged burst, he flung himself against the side of the taxi, just as it started to pull away. The cab jerked to a stop, and he fell onto the street next to the curb. From his knees, he opened the rear door, and hauled himself into the passenger compartment of the beat-up sedan.
The cab driver turned to greet his new fare. The jovial smile he wore melted immediately to a frown at the sight of the beggarly-looking man huffing in his back seat.
“Drive. Anywhere. Please, just go!” Patient-65 said as he slammed the car door closed.
He looked frantically over his shoulder. Yellow-suits were pouring out of the emergency exit like angry bees from a rattled hive, and still the cab was not moving.
“Please. Help me. They’re coming.”
The cab driver looked into the other man’s pleading eyes and saw fear. But that was not what moved his foot to the accelerator. In Patient-65’s eyes he saw decency; he saw goodness. It didn’t matter that he would sacrifice a fare. It didn’t matter that he would probably lose his driving permit — again. All that mattered was a kindred spirit needed saving, and he was the only one in the world who could do it.
“We go! I save you,” the cabbie exclaimed as the turbo diesel engine launched the sedan into motion.
With only one hand on the wheel, the cab driver whipped the taxi through a squealing right turn onto the cross street. After slamming the shifter into third gear, he turned up the radio — almost as if to add a soundtrack to their getaway. He shouted unintelligible expletives as he swerved around a slower-moving car. As they sped away, Patient-65 turned for a final glance out the rear window. He watched the angry yellow-suits until they had completely faded from view.