Shock

NINETEEN

MEISSNER AND Deborah Cochrane!" A voice echoed against the front of the building. "There is no need to extend this charade. Don't make us come into the building with dogs, which we will do if you don't come out on your own accord. The Bookford Police are on their way. I repeat! Come out immediately."

"So much for our carefully crafted aliases,' Deborah said.

"If I thought they'd turn us over to the Bookford police, I'd walk out of here in a heartbeat."

"They're not going to turn us over to anyone," Deborah said.

"That's my point," Joanna said. "Come on! Let's check out the freight elevator before I lose my nerve."

Gaining some familiarity with the building, the women retraced their route back through the fourth floor to the stairwell they'd used earlier. At first they tried to descend without turning on the flashlight but quickly realized the risk of knocking some of the unseen debris down the stairs was greater than the risk presented by the shielded flashlight. They turned it off again before they entered the third-floor corridor. While in the corridor they heard the bullhorn message again.

They had to turn the light on again in the freight elevator vestibule. The elevator was exactly the way they had left it with the doors half open. Joanna shined the light into the car. Through the wire-mesh of its back wall a ladder was visible attached to the brick of the elevator shaft.

"You were right about there being a ladder," Deborah said. "But how do you get to it?"

Joanna moved the light beam to the side wall of the elevator. Attached to the cab's wall were ladder rungs. The rungs led up to a wire-mesh trapdoor in the elevator's ceiling.

"All we have to do is climb to the top of the elevator,' Joanna said.

"Is that all?" Deborah questioned sarcastically. "Where are you finding this sudden chutzpah."

"I'm pretending I'm you,' Joanna said. "So let's do it before I revert back to me."

Deborah gave a short, derisive laugh.

The women stepped over the half-open lower elevator door. Joanna held the light while Deborah climbed the ladder rungs. While holding on to the top one, she pushed up the trapdoor. Just beyond ninety degrees it hit up against a stop and stayed open.

Joanna handed up the flashlight, and Deborah placed it on top of the elevator before hauling herself up. The elevator swayed slightly when she stood up, forcing her to grab the supporting cables, which were covered with grease the consistency of petroleum jelly. A moment later Joanna came up through the hole. She stayed on her hands and knees rather than standing up.

The ladder ran along the back wall of the shaft and cleared the elevator car by only twelve inches.

"Well, what do you think?" Deborah asked.

"I think we should give it a try," Joanna said. She shined the flashlight down the shaft. It wasn't strong enough to reach the bottom. The ladder merely disappeared into a murky haze.

"You first," Deborah said. "And you keep the light."

"I'm not going to be able to climb and hold the light at the same time."

"I know," Deborah said. "But you have a pocket, and I don't."

"Okay," Joanna said with resignation. She was accustomed to Deborah's being the leader in such a circumstance. Joanna turned out the light, plunging them into utter blackness. She pocketed the flashlight, then groped for the ladder. When she got a hold of it, she had to argue with herself to abandon the relative safety of the elevator, especially when the elevator swayed slightly during the transition. Gripping the rung of the ladder tightly with both hands, she tried not to think about being suspended on a vertical ladder four stories above a black hole.

"Are you doing okay?" Deborah whispered in the dark when she didn't hear any movement.

"This is harrowing," Joanna said.

"Are you on the ladder?"

"Yes," Joanna said. "But I'm afraid to move."

"You have to!"

Joanna lowered one foot to the next rung and then the other. What she had more difficulty with was letting go with one hand. Finally she did it, and then repeated the movement with the other hand. Slowly at first, and then with building confidence she descended between the elevator and the ladder. It was a tight fit, which made the process more difficult.

"Can you give me a little light so I can see where the ladder Deborah asked from above.

"I can't," Joanna said. "I can't let go for that long."

Deborah mumbled a few choice words as she reached blindly with one hand while maintaining the grip on the i:- -cable with the other. But the ladder was too far away. Eventually sat had to go down on all fours like Joanna and creep over to the e: of the elevator's cab. Finally she got a hold of the ladder, transfer herself onto it, and followed Joanna down.

The women moved slowly, particularly Joanna. Although she began to build up confidence, a new concern emerged from feel:. corrosion on the rungs. She began worrying that one of the rungs might have become so weakened from rust that it could give way under her weight. Before she put her weight on any rung, she kicked at it to get an idea of its integrity.

The blackness of the shaft aided Joanna, especially after passing below the elevator cab. Without being able to see, the height was only a mental problem, not a visual one.

Deborah had to slow herself down when she caught up with Joanna.

After a quarter-hour of climbing, Deborah was ready to reconnoiter. "Can you see the bottom?" she questioned in a whisper. The muscles of her arms were beginning to complain, and she imagined Joanna's were as well.

"You must be joking," Joanna answered. "I can't even see my nose.

"Maybe you should shine the light for a second. You could hook your arm around one of the rungs."

"I think I should just keep going until my foot touches the floor," Joanna said.

"Do you want to rest?"

"I really think I should keep going."

Another ten minutes passed before Joanna's outstretched foot touched litter-strewn pavement. She pulled her foot back. "We're here," she said. "Hold up!" Hooking her arm in a rung as Deborah had suggested earlier, she got out the flashlight and turned it on. The bottom of the shaft was filled with debris as if it had been a garbage dump over the years.

"Can you tell if we're at the sub-basement or not?" Deborah asked.

"I can't," Joanna said. "Come on down, and we'll see if we can get the doors open."

Joanna used her foot to push away some of the trash at the ladder's base before stepping onto the pavement. She waited for Deborah to come the rest of the way down, keeping her hand over the flashlight lens.

"Wow, it's freezing down here," Deborah said, rubbing her arms once she got off the ladder. "It certainly feels like a sub-basement."

The women gingerly made their way to the doors through the junk which was mostly paper, rags, and miscellaneous pieces of wood interspersed with a few cans. While Joanna held the light, Deborah reached up and got her fingers between the upper and lower doors. Try as she might, they wouldn't open.

Joanna put the light down on the floor and lent a hand. Still the doors wouldn't so much as budge.

"This is not good," Joanna said.

Deborah picked up the light and took a step back. She shined the light around the periphery of the doors. She stopped at a spring-loaded lever arm protruding out from the wall at the edge of the doors just above where they came together.

"That's our problem," Deborah said. "I haven't seen too many action movies, but that has to be a fail-safe mechanism to keep the doors locked until the elevator is in front of the doors."

"Meaning?" Joanna questioned.

"Meaning one of us has to hold it down while the other opens the doors."

"You're taller," Joanna said. "You get the fail-safe mechanism, I'll try the doors."

A moment later the doors cracked open, although it wasn't until Joanna leaned her full weight on the lower door that they opened fully. Deborah shined the light into the space beyond.

"It's a sub-basement all right," Joanna said. The entire floor was just intersecting supporting arches through which ran a tangle of clay sewer pipes and insulated cast-iron heating pipes. There were no doors or separate rooms. The walls were brick like the basement above, but the arches were flatter and the adjoining piers thicker.

A passageway with a vaulted ceiling higher than the rest of the sub-basement led from the freight elevator to intersect with a similar corridor that ran the length of the building. Bare electrical wire looped along the peak of the vault to lighting fixtures, but they were not lit.

The women stopped at the intersection and shined the light in both directions. In each direction the view was a study in perspective, with the arches marching off into the darkness as far as the meager light was able to penetrate.

"Which way?" Joanna questioned.

"I'd favor going left," Deborah said. "That will take us toward the tower section of the building. That's the center."

"But if we go right, we're going more in the direction of the power plant," Joanna said. "The power plant is off to the southeast." She pointed forty-five degrees off the axis of the main corridor.

"How are we going to decide?" Deborah asked, looking in both directions.

"Shine the light on the floor," Joanna said. She knelt down. The floor of the passageway from the freight elevator, as well as the main corridor, was paved in clay tiles whereas the rest of the sub-basement was paved in the same brick as the walls and arched ceiling.

"There's definitely more evidence of traffic going to the right," Joanna said. "The tile shows a lot more wear in that direction, which not only suggests to me the tunnel is to the right, but also that the tunnel was used for a lot more than just heat."

"My word," Deborah commented, looking down. "I think you're on to something. Is this another trick you learned from watching those action movies with Carlton?"

"No, this is just common sense."

"Thanks a lot," Deborah said sarcastically.

The women commenced walking rapidly to the south. Deborah kept the flashlight trained ahead. Their footsteps echoed off the concave ceiling.

"This is like a catacomb down here," Joanna commented.

"Perhaps I shouldn't ask, but what were you thinking when you suggested the tunnel was used for more than heat?"

"It occurred to me that the tunnel was probably the way they transported dead bodies from the morgue to the crematorium."

"Now there's a cheerful thought," Deborah said.

"Uh oh," Joanna voiced. "Maybe we spoke too soon. It looks like our footworn corridor is coming to an end."

About thirty feet directly ahead the flashlight beam illuminated a blank brick wall.

"We're okay," Deborah said after they'd taken a few more steps. "The trail is just turning to the left." When the women reached the wall they noticed that not only did the vaulted corridor take an abrupt left-hand turn around an arched pier, but it also fell away relatively steeply. Also joining the descending corridor was a large-diameter insulated pipe.

"Thanks to your sleuthing I think we're on our way to the power plant," Deborah said as they began their descent. "Now we just have to hope these batteries hold out."

"Good grief!" Joanna exclaimed. "Don't even suggest such a thing!"

With a new worry of being lost underground in utter darkness, the women picked up their pace to the point of practically jogging. After several hundred yards the tunnel leveled out and became significantly more damp. There were even occasional puddles and stalactitic formations hanging from the arched ceiling.

"I feel like we're halfway to Boston," Deborah said. "Shouldn't we be there already?"

"That power plant was farther away than it looked," Joanna said.

Becoming winded, the women hurried along in silence, each harboring an unspoken worry about what they would face at the other end. A locked, stout door would spell disaster by forcing them back the way they'd come.

"I see something up ahead," Deborah said. She extended the light at arm's distance as they walked. A few moments later the women found themselves at an unexpected juncture; the corridor and the heating pipe bifurcated.

The women stopped, figuratively scratching their heads. Deborah shined the flashlight into both tunnels. They appeared identical, and all three tunnels intersected at approximately the same 120-degree angle.

"I wasn't expecting this," Joanna said nervously.

Deborah shined the light at the corner between the tunnel they were in and the new tunnel to their left. Set into the brick at chest height was a cornerstone of granite. Using the heel of her hand she rubbed off a layer of mold, beneath which were incised letters.

"Okay!" Deborah said with renewed enthusiasm. "One mystery is solved: The tunnel to the left goes to the farm, living quarters, which means the other one must go to the power plant."

"Of course," Joanna affirmed. "Now that I look, the pipe heading to the power plant is definitely a larger diameter."

"Wait a second," Deborah said, reaching out and restraining Joanna who'd already started in the direction of the power plant. "With a choice here, maybe we should think for a minute which might be a better destination. Assuming we're going to be able to get aboveground at either location, I think we…"

"Don't even suggest that we're not going to be able to get out," Joanna snapped.

"Okay, okay!" Deborah soothed. "Let's think where we'd rather be: at the power station or at the farm. Once we're out of the hospital building, our problem has become getting off the grounds. Maybe being at the farm would be the best idea. They probably get delivery trucks there like we saw the other day on a regular basis."

"I thought we decided we have to get off the premises tonight," Joanna said.

"That would be best, but we have to have some alternatives in case we can't manage it."

"I still think if we don't get off tonight we'll be caught."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Considering the razor-wire fence, I think our only chance is going through the gate. If we could get a vehicle, particularly a truck, maybe we could just smash through."

"Hmm, that's an idea," Deborah said. "So where do we have the best chance of getting a vehicle with its keys?"

"I suppose I'd say the farm," Joanna said. "But it's just a guess."

"I'd guess the same thing," Deborah said. "Let's try the farm at least first."

With newly found resolve the women set out toward the farm. They moved quickly avoiding the puddles as well as they could. The puddles had become decidedly more plentiful in this section of the tunnel. After only a hundred yards the tunnel bifurcated again. Another engraved cornerstone directed them to the right for the farm and to the left for the living quarters. The women continued on the right fork.

"Seeing the sign for the living quarters makes me think of Spencer Wingate," Joanna said. "Maybe we should give some thought to approaching him for help."

Deborah stopped and Joanna did the same. With the flashlight directed downward, Deborah looked at her roommate. Joanna's eye sockets were lost in shadow. "Are you suggesting we go to Spencer Wingate?"

"Yes," Joanna said. "We go to his house, which we're at least familiar with, and we tell him what we've uncovered here. We also tell him that the security people are trying to hunt us down and possibly add us to their ovary collection."

Deborah let out a short, scornful laugh: "This is a strange time for you to be developing a sick sense of humor."

"At the moment it's the only way I can deal with the reality we're facing."

"Are you basing this idea of putting ourselves in Spencer Wingate's hands on overhearing that argument between him and Paul Saunders?"

"That and his response to you asking him about the Nicaraguans," Joanna said. "Neither one of us thinks Spencer truly knows what's going on around here. If he's a normal human being, he'd be as horrified as you and I."

"That's a big if, and it would be taking a mighty big risk," Deborah said.

"We've already taken a lot of risk just being here," Joanna said.

Deborah nodded and stared off into the darkness. Joanna was right; they'd taken more risk than they'd bargained for. But did that justify taking the irreversible risk of going to Spencer Wingate?

"Let's check out the farm,' Deborah said. "We'll keep the Spencer Wingate idea on a back burner. At the moment finding some big truck that can take us out of here seems like the best idea to me. Do you agree?"

"I agree," Joanna said. "I just think we have to consider all our options."

TO THE WOMEN’S RELIEF, THE TUNNEL ENTERED THE FARM complex the same way it left the hospital building. It ran unobstructed into a basement area where the heating pipe splintered off in multiple directions before disappearing up through the ceiling. Also like the hospital, the corridor, which was continuous with the tunnel, led to a freight elevator. But the women did not try to open the elevator doors. Instead they searched for stairs. They found a flight behind the elevator shaft.

At the door at the top of the stairs, the women paused. Deborah put her ear to it and reported back to Joanna only the quiet hum of distant machinery. After dousing the light, Deborah cracked the door slowly. The fact that they were in a barn was immediately apparent from the smell. All was quiet.

Deborah eased the door open enough to get her head through and take a look around. There was a low level of illumination from infrequently spaced bare light bulbs on the ceiling of the post-and-beam structure. Across the way, numerous stalls lined the wall three deep. To the left were a number of closed doors. In between were huge stacks of cardboard boxes, bales of hay, and sacks of animal feed.

"Well?" Joanna whispered from a few steps down the stairs. "Do you see anything?"

"There are plenty of animals in the stalls," Deborah said. "But no sign of any people, at least not yet."

Deborah opened the door and stepped out onto the hay-strewn, rough-planked floor. A few of the animals sensed her presence and grunted, bringing others to their feet. Joanna joined Deborah, and the two continued to survey the scene.

"So far so good," Deborah said. "If they have a night shift they must be sleeping."

"What a smell," Joanna said. "I can't imagine how anyone could work in this kind of environment."

"I bet it's the pigs," Deborah said. She found herself looking across the room at the beady eyes of a large pink-and-white sow. The pig seemed to be regarding her with great interest.

"Somebody told me pigs are clean," Joanna said.

"They're clean if they're kept clean," Deborah said. "But pigs don't mind being dirty, and their excrement is bad news."

"Do you see what I see on the wall behind you?" Joanna questioned. She pointed.

Deborah looked over her shoulder, and her face lit up. "A phone]"

The women dashed for the phone. Deborah got it first and put the receiver to her ear. Joanna watched her with great anticipation until Deborah's expression became one of disgust, and she hit the disconnect button several times in a row. Deborah hung up. "No deal! They've turned off the phones."

"I'm not surprised," Joanna said.

"Nor am I," Deborah admitted.

"Let's look for the truck," Joanna said.

Leaving the stairway door slightly ajar, the women skirted the animal feed and the hay and walked to the nearest door. Deborah opened it and shined in the flashlight.

"My word!" Deborah exclaimed.

"What is it?" Joanna asked, trying to see over Deborah's shoulder.

"It's another laboratory," Deborah said with amazement. She had not expected a laboratory, and the transition from a barn to super high tech over a single threshold was dizzying. The lab wasn't nearly as large as the one in the hospital but appeared to be almost equally well equipped.

Deborah let go of the door and stepped into the room. Joanna followed. Deborah moved her light from one piece of equipment to another, seeing such things as DNA sequencers, a scanning electron microscope, and polypeptide synthesizers. It was a molecular biologist's dream come true.

"Shouldn't we be looking for the truck?" Joanna asked.

"In a minute," Deborah said. She walked over to an incubator and looked in at the petri dishes. They were the same as she'd been using that day in the main lab, and she gathered they were doing nuclear transfer here as well. Then her light caught a large plate-glass window dividing a separate room off from the main part of the lab.

Deborah started back toward this room. Joanna followed to avoid being left in the dark.

"Deborah!" Joanna complained. "You're sidetracking."

"I know," Deborah said. "But every time I think I have a general picture of what they are doing at this Wingate Clinic, it turns out they are doing a lot more. I didn't expect another lab here at this farm, and certainly not one this well equipped."

"It's time for professionals,' Joanna pleaded. "We have enough information to justify a search warrant. What we have to do is get ourselves out of here."

Deborah put the lens of the flashlight directly against the plate-glass divider to avoid the glare while illuminating the room beyond. "And here's yet another surprise. This looks like a fully operational autopsy room like the ones they use for people but with a very small table. What in heaven's name is it doing in a barn?"

"Come on!" Joanna urged with growing irritation.

"Just let me check this out,' Deborah said. "It will only take a second. There's a refrigerated compartment like in a morgue."

Joanna rolled her eyes in frustration as Deborah pushed through the autopsy room's door. Joanna watched through the glass partition as Deborah walked over to the compartment and unlatched the door. Except for the light now coming back out through the glass divider from Deborah's flashlight, Joanna was in the dark. She glanced back at the door out of the lab and briefly entertained the idea of searching for a truck on her own, but she decided it was foolish without the flashlight.

Mumbling expletives, Joanna followed Deborah into the small autopsy room with the intent of demanding that Deborah come to her senses, but that goal was quickly forgotten. Deborah had the tray in the refrigerated compartment pulled out and was transfixed by what was on it. Joanna couldn't see what it was, but she could tell that Deborah was trembling by the way she held the light.

"What is it?" Joanna asked.

"Come and look!" Deborah said in a quavering voice.

"Maybe you should just tell me," Joanna said. "Remember, I'm not a biologist like you."

"You have to see this," Deborah said. "There's no way I could describe it."

Joanna swallowed nervously. She took a breath and walked over beside Deborah and made herself look down.

"Ugh!" Joanna muttered as her upper lip involuntarily pulled back in disgust. She was looking at five newborn infants with bloated umbilical vessels and extremely thick, dark lanugo. The faces were flat and broad and the eyes tiny. The noses were mere stubs with the nares oriented vertically. Their appendages ended in paddlelike extremities with minute digits. Their heads were crowned with a shock of black hair accentuated with minute but definite white forelocks.

"It's Paul Saunders clones again,' Joanna sneered.

"I'm afraid so," Deborah said. "But with a new twist. I think what he's doing down here for his stem-cell research is cloning his own cells into pig oocytes, and then gestating them in pigs."

Joanna reached out and took a hold of Deborah's arm. She needed momentary support. Deborah had been right about the Wingate Clinic. This new discovery indicated that Paul Saunders and his team were operating a quantum leap beyond the realm of reasonable or even anticipated ethics. The egotism and intellectual conceit required were simply beyond Joanna's comprehension.

Deborah slid the tray back into the refrigerated compartment and slammed the door. "Let's find a damn truck!"

With indignant anger helping to overcome the shock of their recent discovery, the women retraced their steps back into the barn proper. Emerging from the laboratory, their presence again caused a stirring among the animals. Previously it had been mainly the pigs close to the stairway door which had become aroused. Now it was more generalized with even the cows adding to the growing din.

The women went from door to door until they found a passageway leading to what they assumed would be a garage. But it turned out to be something more. With the light from two red exit signs, they could see it was a hangar. Bathed in the ruby glow was an Aerospatial turbojet helicopter.

"There's our answer, if we could only fly it,' Deborah said. She stood for a moment longingly admiring the craft.

"Come on,' Joanna urged. "I think there's a garage beyond this building."

Joanna turned out to be right, and when they went through the next door, they were rewarded to see a tractor and a dump truck. Both women headed for the truck.

"Keys be there!" Deborah prayed out loud as she mounted the truck's running board and got the door open. She swung herself up into the cab. Frantically her fingers searched for keys while Joanna held the light. Deborah checked along the steering column, then along the dash. She found the ignition key slot but no keys.

"Damn!" Deborah cursed and hit the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. "I suppose we could hotwire this thing if we only knew how." She glanced down at Joanna.

"Don't look at me," Joanna said. "I have no idea, not the slightest!"

"Let's go back to that office we saw in the barn," Deborah suggested. "Maybe the keys are there."

Deborah climbed out of the truck. The women retraced their steps back to the barn, giving the helicopter another longing look as they passed through the hangar.

As they came into the barn proper, the animals became even more agitated.

"They must think it's meal time," Deborah commented. The women reached the door to the office when they heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle pulling up outside the barn. They'd also caught a glimpse of the headlights briefly coming through the windows of the door as the car turned before coming to a stop. "Oh no! We're going to have company!" Deborah rasped.

"Get back to the stairs!" Joanna cried.

The women bolted for the stairs, but they didn't make it. The barn door was rapidly keyed open and a figure burst within. The first thing he did was snap on the all the lights, catching the women more than twenty feet from their goal. All they could do was duck behind the cartons, hay bales, and feed sacks and hunker down while the man made his rounds among the stalls. They could hear him carrying on a continuous monologue with the animals, demanding among other things who was the culprit for getting everybody riled up.

"Do you think we should try to get to the stairs?" Deborah asked when it sounded as if the man was at a significant distance.

"Not unless you can see exactly where he is and whether or not he's adequately preoccupied."

Slowly Deborah raised herself until she had a view of the area of the stalls. She couldn't see the man although she could still hear him talking to one of the animals. Then suddenly he stood up, and Deborah ducked back down.

"He's not as far away as I thought," Deborah said.

"Then we'd better stay put," Joanna said.

"We could cover ourselves with some of this loose hay."

"I think we should just stay still and quiet,' Joanna said. "We should be okay unless he comes over here to get some of these supplies."

"If he comes over to go in the office, we might be in trouble."

"We'd just have to inch around the cartons," Joanna said. "That shouldn't be so hard, and once he was in there, we'd be able to get to the stairs."

Deborah nodded, but she wasn't so confident it would work. It was one of those things that sounded easy but would probably be difficult in reality.

Suddenly the women heard the sound of a second vehicle arriving outside. They exchanged a worried look. One person was enough of a problem, and two could be a disaster in the making.

The newcomer entered and the door banged behind him. The women cringed as they heard him yell out for Greg Lynch.

"Hey keep it down!" Greg called from one of the stalls. "The animals are restless as it is."

"Sorry" the newcomer said. "But we have an emergency underway."

"Oh?"

"We're looking for a couple of young women. They got in under aliases, hacked into the computer files, and broke into the egg room. Now they're somewhere out here on the premises."

"I haven't seen anyone," Greg said. 'And the barn's been locked."

"What are you doing down here at this time of night?"

"I've got a sow who's nearing term. Through the monitor I heard the animals getting restless; I thought maybe she was about to deliver, but she's okay."

"If you see the women when you're driving back to your place, let security know," the newcomer said. "They were over in the main building to start with, but we've been through it. They walked, but they haven't been back through the gate, so they're hiding someplace."

"Good luck."

"We'll get them. We've got the whole security team out searching, including all the dogs. And, by the way, the hard-wire phone system is off-line until they're apprehended. We don't want them calling out and causing us difficulties."

"No problem," Greg said. "I've got my cell phone."

After the men said their good-byes, the women heard the barn door open and then slam shut.

"This is going from bad to worse," Deborah whispered. "It sounds like they are combing the grounds."

"I don't like the idea of dogs after us," Joanna said.

"You and me both,' Deborah said. "It's a wonder they haven't thought of the tunnel."

"We don't know that they haven't."

"True," Deborah said. "But I have a feeling this fellow who just left would have mentioned it. Maybe the only way to the sub-basement over in the clinic building is via the freight elevator, and they'd never guess we'd be stupid enough to climb down the ladder."

"Do we dare go back down there?"

"If they've got dogs out looking for us, I don't think we have a lot of choice."

Fifteen minutes later the women heard Greg loudly yawn and sigh. Then he spoke out as if he were dealing with a clutch of children: "All right, you guys. Knock it off! I want you all to settle down because I don't want to have to come back here tonight."

With that said, Greg began to whistle softly. The women noticed the sound began to get louder, and Deborah hazarded a quick glance.

"He's heading for the office," Deborah whispered urgently.

Following Joanna's earlier suggestion the women crabbed along the floor in an attempt to keep the stack of supplies between themselves and Greg. It was an anxious maneuver as Deborah had anticipated, since they had to do it without looking. The man was heading in their general direction.

Once the sound of the office door closing reached them, Deborah's head popped up. "Okay," she whispered when she saw the coast was clear, and the two women beelined for the stairway door.

It wasn't until Joanna pulled the door closed that Deborah snapped on the flashlight. Wordlessly they descended the stairs. When they reached the bottom Joanna motioned for Deborah to stop. Both were mildly out of breath from tension and exertion.

"We've got to decide what we are going to do," Joanna said, speaking softly.

"I thought we were going to the power station."

"My vote is to go to Spencer Wingate," Joanna said. "There were no keys in the truck here at the farm. If there were a truck out at the power station, there's little guarantee there'd be keys. In fact, common sense would say there wouldn't be, and each time we poke our heads above ground we take the risk of being caught. I think it's time to take the chance with Wingate."

Deborah shifted her weight uneasily and chewed the inside of her cheek as she mulled over Joanna's suggestion. She hated making decisions that left no alternative available. If Spencer Wingate were in cahoots with the current Wingate Clinic hierarchy, she and Joanna would be sunk. It was as simple as that. Yet their situation had become desperate the moment they'd originally been chased back in the egg room and was now rapidly becoming untenable.

'All right!" Deborah said suddenly. "Let's throw ourselves at Spencer Wingate's mercy, for better or for worse."

"You're sure? I don't want to feel as if I've talked you into this."

"I'm not sure of anything other than the fact that I'm still exercising my free will." Deborah stuck out her hand and Joanna decisively slapped it. "Onward and upward," Deborah added with a crooked smile.

THE WOMEN RETURNED INTO THE HEATING TUNNELS WITH the unspoken concern that they could run into their pursuers at any moment. But they reached the branch to the living quarters without incident other than noticing that the flashlight beam was noticeably dimmer.

Approximately a hundred yards beyond the fork they encountered another. On this occasion there was no cornerstone to direct them.

"Gripes!" Deborah complained. She shined the failing light into both tunnels. "Have any ideas?"

"I'd say we go left. We know that the village is between the detached housing and the farm, so the village would have to be to the right."

Deborah looked at Joanna with puzzlement. "You're impressing me again. Where has this resourcefulness come from?"

"From my traditional Houstonian upbringing that you've so shamelessly berated."

"Yeah, right!" Deborah said scornfully.

After another five minutes of walking the women came to a series of bifurcations all in a row.

"I'd guess each of these tunnels are going to individual houses," Deborah said.

"That would be my guess as well," Joanna added.

"Do you have any strong feeling which we try first?"

"I don't," Joanna said. "Although it makes some sense to take them in order."

The first basement the women peered into after opening a simple paneled door clearly wasn't Spencer's since it had been renovated to some degree. Both women clearly remembered Spencer's basement from when they'd accompanied him down to his wine cellar. Backtracking, they took the next tunnel. This one terminated in a crude, rough-hewn oak door.

"This looks more promising," Deborah said. She shook the flashlight to encourage the brightness of the beam. She'd had to do it occasionally over the previous few minutes.

She handed the light to Joanna before giving the door a push.

It scraped on its granite threshold. Instead of just pushing, Deborah tried lifting the door first. It then opened with minimal sound. Deborah took the light back, and after giving it a shake, shined the faltering beam into the basement beyond. The dim light revealed the wine cellar door with its lock still hanging unclasped.

"This is it," Deborah said. "Let's do it!"

The women navigated the muddy floor to reach the basement steps. Up they climbed with Deborah in the lead. At the top of the stairs they hesitated. A crack of light showed under the door.

"I'm thinking we have to play this by ear," Deborah whispered.

"We don't have any choice," Joanna said. "We don't know whether he's even awake. Do you have any idea of the time?"

"Not really," Deborah said. "I suppose around one."

"Well, a light is on. I suppose that suggests he's still awake. Let's just try not to scare him too much. He might have an alarm that he could push."

"Good point," Deborah said.

Deborah listened through the door before turning the door handle slowly, and cracking it open. When there was no untoward response, she slowly pushed it open, revealing progressively more of the kitchen.

"I hear classical music," Joanna said.

"Me, too," Deborah said.

The women ventured out into the darkened kitchen. The light they'd seen beneath the cellar door was coming from the chandelier in the dining room. As quietly as they could they moved down the hallway toward the living room and the music. With a view of the foyer directly ahead, they 'could see that the corps of toy cavalry soldiers Spencer had knocked off the console table the evening before in his drunkenness had been carefully replaced.

Deborah was in the lead with Joanna directly at her heels. Both women were intent on the living room, which opened up to the left off the hall and where they expected Spencer to be. By happenstance Joanna glanced to the right as they passed a dark, intersecting corridor leading to a study. There in the distance was Spencer Wingate, sitting at his desk in a puddle of light from a library lamp. He was facing away from the women, studying blueprints.

Joanna tapped on Deborah's shoulder. When Deborah turned, Joanna frantically pointed toward Spencer's hunched figure.

Deborah looked at Joanna and silently mouthed the question, "What should we do?"

Joanna shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea, but then thought it best if they called out to the man. She gestured by touching her mouth and then pointing toward Spencer.

Deborah nodded. She cleared her throat. "Dr. Wingate!" she called, but her voice was tentative, and it blended seamlessly with the chorus of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony emanating from the living room.

"Dr. Wingate!" Joanna called more decisively and loud enough to compete with the music.

Spencer's head popped up and shot around. For a moment his tanned face blanched, and he stood up so quickly his desk chair tipped over with a crash.

"We don't mean to frighten you," Deborah called out quickly. "We were hoping we could have a word with you."

Spencer recovered rapidly. He smiled with relief when he recognized the women, then waved for them to join him as he bent down to right his desk chair.

The women started for the room. Both were acutely sensitive to Spencer's reaction to their presence, which so far was auspicious. His initial fear had changed to surprise with a hint of reassuring delight. As they approached, he slicked back his silvered hair and adjusted his velvet smoking jacket. But as the women came into the light his expression changed to puzzlement.

"What happened to you two?" Before the women could respond he asked: "How did you get in here?"

Joanna started to explain about coming in through the basement while Deborah launched into a capsule of their evening.

Spencer raised his hands. "Hold up! One at a time. But first, do either of you need anything? You look terrible."

For the first time since the ordeal started, the women looked at themselves and at each other. Their appearance brought expressions of embarrassment to their faces. Deborah had fared the worst with her minidress torn and tattered and abrasions on her thighs and shins from the lip of the iron lung. One of her dangling earrings was gone and her tiny heart necklace had lost all its rhinestones. Her hands were black from the elevator cable grease, and her hair was a tangled mess.

Joanna still had on the doctor's coat, which had protected her clothes to a large degree. But the coat itself was a soiled mess, particularly from crawling prostrate on the barn floor. A few stalks of hay protruded from the pockets.

Deborah and Joanna then exchanged one of their knowing glances. The combination of their appearances and anxieties brought forth a fit of laughter which took them by surprise and a moment to recover. Even Spencer found himself smiling.

"I wish I knew exactly what you women are laughing at," Spencer said.

"It's a combination," Deborah managed. "But probably mostly tension."

"I think it's mostly relief," Joanna said. "We were hoping you'd be here and unsure if you'd mind if we dropped by."

"I'm pleased you came by," Spencer said. "What can I get you?"

"Now that you ask, I could use a blanket," Deborah said. "I'm freezing."

"How about some hot coffee?" Spencer said. "I could make it for you in a moment. Even something stronger if you'd like. I could also get you a sweater or a sweatshirt."

"Actually we'd like to talk right away,' Joanna said. "There's some urgency involved here." She laughed nervously again.

"This blanket right here will do," Deborah said. She picked up a tartan throw from a velvet couch and tossed it around her shoulders.

"Well, sit down," Spencer said. He gestured toward the couch.

The women sat. Spencer grabbed his desk chair and pulled it over. He sat across from them.

"What's the urgency?" Spencer asked. He leaned forward, glancing from one woman to the other.

The women looked at each other.

"Do you want to talk, or do you want me to?" Deborah said.

"I don't care," Joanna responded. "It doesn't really matter."

"I don't care either," Deborah said.

"Of course you know the biology better than I," Joanna said.

"True, but you can explain about the computer files better."

"Wait, wait, wait]" Spencer said, holding up his hands. "It doesn't matter who does the talking. Someone start."

Deborah pointed to herself, and Joanna nodded.

"Okay," Deborah said. She looked Spencer in the eye. "Do you remember last night when I asked you about the pregnant Nicaraguan ladies?"

"I do," Spencer said. Then he laughed self-consciously. "I might not remember too much else about last night, but I remember that."

"Well, we think we know why they are pregnant," Deborah said. "We think it's to produce eggs."

Spencer's face clouded. "They're pregnant to produce eggs? I think you have to explain."

Deborah took in a lungful of air and gave her explanation. Following that explanation which she admitted was supposition, she went on to say that the Wingate Clinic was definitely obtaining eggs by an even more unethical and even unlawful manner. She explained that the clinic was removing, without consent, the entire ovaries of unsuspecting women who thought they were only donating a few eggs. Finally Deborah said that at least two women had been murdered because both ovaries had been obtained, and the women had never been seen again.

Spencer's mouth had slowly dropped open during Deborah’s monologue. When she finished, he sat back, clearly horrified by what he'd heard.

"How did you learn all this?" he asked with a raspy voice. His throat had gone dry. Before either woman could respond, he added: "I have to get a drink. Can I get anything for anyone else?"

Both Deborah and Joanna shook their heads.

Spencer stood up on mildly unsteady legs and got himself over to a built-in liquor cabinet. He opened it and poured himself a splash of neat scotch. He tossed off a portion of it before returning to his chair. The women watched him intently and noted the tremor in the hand holding the tumbler.

"We're sorry to have to tell you all this," Joanna said, speaking up for the first time. "As the founder of this clinic to help infertile couples, it must be disturbing to hear what has been going on."

" 'Disturbing' is putting it mildly," Spencer said. "You have to understand that this clinic has been the culmination of my life's work."

"Unfortunately there's more you should know," Deborah said. She went on to describe the cloning and how once again unsuspecting women were being exploited. Then she told in graphic detail about the chimeric infants being gestated in pigs in the farm which she and Joanna had just discovered. After this final piece of shocking information, Deborah fell silent.

The women watched Spencer. He was clearly distraught, running his fingers repeatedly through his hair and unable for a time to make eye contact. He polished off the last of his scotch in a single toss and winced.

"I appreciate your coming to me," Spencer managed. "Thank you."

"Our motivation wasn't entirely altruistic," Joanna said. "We need your help."

Spencer lifted his face and stared at Joanna. "What can I do?"

"You can get us out of here," Joanna said. "The Wingate Security force is searching for us. They have been chasing us since we managed to get into the egg room. They have a pretty good idea what we know."

"You want me to get you off the premises," Spencer said.

"Exactly," Joanna answered. "We've got to get out through the gate."

"That won't be difficult," Spencer said. "We'll drive out in the Bentley."

"We want to make sure you understand exactly how much they want to catch us," Deborah said. "I mean, this is a very serious situation. We cannot be seen. I'm sure they'd stop even you if they suspected."

"I imagine you are right," Spencer said. "To make sure there will be no problem, you two can squeeze into the trunk. It's not going to be comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but it would only be for about five minutes, or ten at the most."

Joanna looked at Deborah. Deborah nodded. "I've always wanted to ride in a Bentley; I suppose the trunk will do."

Joanna rolled her eyes. She couldn't understand Deborah's motivation for joking at that point. "I could deal with being in the trunk. In fact, under the circumstances I'd probably feel safer in the trunk."

"When do you want to do it?" Spencer asked. "Sooner is probably better than later. I've been known to go out for late drives on occasion, but anything after two A.M. would be suspicious."

"I'm all for sooner," Joanna said.

"I'm ready right now," Deborah added.

"Let's go," Spencer said. He slapped his thighs as he got up.

Spencer led the women back through the kitchen where he picked up his car keys off the countertop before entering the garage. He went directly behind the Bentley and keyed open the trunk.

The women were surprised at the small size.

"It's because of the storage for the automatic convertible top, Spencer explained.

Deborah scratched her head. "I guess we'll have to spoon."

Joanna nodded. "You're biggest, so you get in first."

"Thanks a lot," Deborah said. She climbed in headfirst and rolled onto her side. Joanna followed suit bending her body to fit in against Deborah's. Spencer slowly closed the lid to make sure there was no problem with arms and knees, and then raised it again.

"It's actually more comfortable than the iron lung," Deborah commented.

"What iron lung?" Spencer asked.

"That's another story," Deborah said. "Let's get this current chapter over with."

"All right, let's go!" Spencer said. "Now don't panic. I'll stop and let you out as soon as it's reasonable. Okay?"

"Button it up!" Deborah said cheerfully, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The trunk lid came down with a thud and an expensive-sounding click. Once again the women were thrust into darkness. The next thing they heard was the garage door retracting, followed by the car engine starting.

"I guess we should have thought about coming to Spencer earlier," Deborah said. "We could have saved ourselves some grief."

The women felt the car back out of the garage, do a three-point turn, and then motor down the driveway to the street.

"This is an ignominious way to be leaving this place," Joanna said.

"At least we're leaving."

"I felt rather bad for the good doctor," Joanna said after they'd driven for a while.

"What we told him certainly took him by surprise."

They drove in silence for the next few minutes while the women tried to guess where they were. Eventually they felt the car come to a stop with the engine still going.

"We must be at the gate," Deborah said.

"Shush!" Joanna said.

The trunk lid was so well insulated that the women couldn't hear anything until the engine revved again, and even then it was more vibration than noise. After they'd driven a short distance they could tell they were on gravel. A few minutes later the car stopped again, only this time the engine was turned off.

"You'd think he would have driven a bit farther away from the gatehouse," Joanna said.

"I was thinking the same thing," Deborah said. "But hell, at least we're outside the gate, so we might as well ride in style."

They heard the welcome sound of the key in the trunk lock, followed by a popping-up of the trunk cover. Joanna and Deborah looked up, and their hearts leaped in their chests. Spencer was nowhere to be seen. Instead they were looking up into the sneering faces of the Wingate security chief and his henchman.