She dyed the healthy cells red and the sickly ones blue, and passed them on to Alfred, who conducted his own analyses and tests and wrote the results down in the notebook that he kept locked up.
Working was not the only thing she did. She would leave the room for brief periods, telling Alfred that she needed to use the bathroom. On her first excursion, she went up the staircase to the forbidden second floor, prepared to look lost and ingenuous if anyone discovered her. From the top step, she saw the locked door with the keypunch lock and, trained upon it, mounted on the opposite wall, the camera.
On the second day, she learned the code to unlock the door.
Through the window, she had seen that the guard was out of doors. She left the lab, went across the courtyard and slipped into the security room. There on the monitor was the view of the locked door. She opened a drawer, found the tape machine that corresponded to the monitor and pressed Rewind. The tape fluttered until the image of a person came on, moving backward jerkily. She put it on Play and watched carefully: the figure approached the door, raised a finger and punched the keyboard four times. She played it back and looked again closely at the keypunch until she got it: 8769.
She moved the tape ahead, restarted it and left, checking her watch. She had been away six minutes. Not bad; it had felt like fifteen.
"Where have you been?" demanded Alfred. "The work's piling up."
"Women's problems," she explained, looking down. That usually took care of male curiosity.
He shook his head, but said nothing.
Bending back over the microscope, she reflected that obtaining the code had been the easy part. Using it to get inside the restricted laboratory — and out again in one piece — that would be the trick. She was more than a little scared, and glad that Jude had given her Raymond's phone number just in case.
Jude waited for Raymond near a grove of pine trees inside the entrance to the park. It was dusk, which was good. That way, he would be able to see the headlights of Raymond's car as it approached. And the parking area was divided into lots separated by trees, which was good, too. Raymond wouldn't be able to tell that he hadn't parked his car there.
He lighted a cigarette and pulled the smoke deeply into his lungs.
Jude had tried to plan everything ahead of time. He knew he was running a risk in showing himself. There was always the chance that the FBI would snatch him as soon as he was out in the open — there wasn't much he could do to prevent that — but he was operating on the assumption that it wasn't him they were after, but Skyler. He was the one who could identify the conspirators. The FBI wanted to use Skyler; the Orderlies wanted to eliminate him. Either way, Jude had to ensure that he could extract himself from a meeting without leading them to Skyler — in other words, without being followed.
He could tell on the phone that Raymond was eager. His old friend had sounded desperate for a meeting; he'd made no effort to conceal his excitement at hearing Jude's voice or pretend that everything was normal.
"Where are you?" he said, giving each word its own emphasis. "I need to see you."
"That could be arranged," said Jude, warming up to a role he had seen countless times in the movies — the hunted man calling the coppers on a pay phone. "But it's gotta be on my terms."
"Name them," replied Raymond, falling into the same familiar patter — the gumshoe leading the dragnet.
No tricks, no weapons, no backup, Jude insisted.
No problem, said Raymond — he'd even come without his partner. Jude named the time and place, a spot he had carefully chosen, the Delaware Water Gap, an odd bit of untamed nature only an hour and a half west of New York.
Of course, he'd already been there when he placed the call.
He took another drag on the cigarette and tried to quell that little voice inside that told him he was being foolish.
There was nothing else to do. He and Skyler and Tizzie couldn't take on the Lab alone. They needed allies now. They had done all they could by themselves, and that was a lot: they had tracked down the origins of the cult in Jerome. They had found the island. They had even discovered some co-conspirators. But now they needed help. They didn't have evidence; they didn't know where the group had gone or what it was planning. They had a password that could open up the files, but they didn't know where the goddamned files were.
The discovery of Eagleton's involvement had changed everything. They were up against some powerful people. Who knew how high up this conspiracy extended? Or what it was capable of? Or what could explain that ghastly sight of suffering and dying children back at the Nursery? And meanwhile, if the victims of the killers in Georgia were who Jude thought they were, the group was still murdering people.
The evening was warm, almost muggy, but still Jude felt himself shivering. Nerves. He would have to control himself in front of Raymond — the agent did not overlook weakness in others.
Fifteen minutes before the appointed time, a car pulled up. It was a black Lexus, Raymond's own. He'd probably made a point of using it, knowing that Jude would recognize it from the ferry.
A lanky figure got out and looked toward the pine grove. Jude pulled on the cigarette to make it glow, signaling his presence, and the figure walked across the tarmac.
"I keep telling you, but you don't listen," said Raymond. "That stuff's gonna kill you." He was back to his old self.
"Yeah, and I lead such a healthy life otherwise."
Raymond looked around. "Quite a spot you picked out here."
Jude knew Raymond was registering everything — looking for other cars, another person, something out of place. He thought of a wisecrack, decided against it.
Jude gestured up a pathway that led into the woods behind him.
Time to deal.
"Let's take a walk," he said.
Raymond shrugged. "It's your dime."
They were silent, trudging up through the darkness. The pine needles softened their footsteps and warmed their nostrils with a pungent smell. Jude led the way and, nervous with Raymond behind him, began to breathe heavily as he made his way up a slippery incline. His body took over its own defense, listening intently to the night sounds around him, a rustling here, a small animal darting across the leaves there.
They walked for a good ten minutes, following the path. Twice, Jude had to pull out his flashlight to find the way.
"Don't forget, we gotta find our way back," complained Raymond. "I'm a city boy. Put me in Central Park and I'm helpless."
Jude grunted.
At the top of the slope, they came to a flattened ridge that ran in a straight line in both directions; in the darkness they saw two parallel bands disappearing over the horizon — railroad tracks. Jude stepped on the bank of coal and then onto a wooden tie between the steel tracks. Raymond followed him and looked up and down as far as he could see. It was pitch-black except for what looked like a green signal way off to the east.
Raymond reached into his pocket, pulled out a bottle of pills and tossed one into his mouth. He took out a hip flask and swigged it down. When he turned, Jude got a whiff of whiskey.
"Like I say, a helluva spot," said Raymond. "I hope you checked out the train schedule. What tracks are these, anyway?"
"A freight line. The old Pennsylvania."
Time to end the small talk. Jude started walking west on the railroad ties, with the FBI man at his side.
"I need your help, Raymond. I'm in so deep in this thing, I don't know which way is up."
"You're right about that. Don't say I didn't warn you." He stopped in his tracks. "By the way, that day you guys came to the Bureau, why did you run away?"
"I thought I'd be the one to ask questions."