The Ghost Pattern

…14

Dr. Gary Davis shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tensing his muscles to restore blood flow. He trotted gently in place, then stretched on his toes and extended his arms above his head, as if reaching for something hanging high from the ceiling. Then he relaxed his arms and shook them gently, welcoming the refreshed blood flow in his veins.

He didn’t dare to move; he couldn’t see anything in the pitch-black darkness of the hole they’d been thrown into. He didn’t want to step on any of his cellmates. The other two were lying somewhere on the cold, concrete floor. In the time that had passed since they left the aircraft, they had learned to sense each other’s presence in the nightly blackness of their confinement.

During the daytime, faint slivers of light made their way through two tiny vents at the joint of the back wall with the stained ceiling, making their lives a little more endurable. Those vents were the only source of fresh air and light they had. At nighttime though, no shred of light made it in.

Their cell was about ten by ten feet, and the ceiling was quite high; he could sense an echo when they spoke. The two vents cut in the concrete wall were the only openings; there were no windows, and the massive, green, bolted metal door was always closed. It had stayed closed since they were brought there, despite sustained, repeated banging and yelling, in their attempts to get someone’s attention. Anyone.

Daylight, fading into darkness, and back into light again had helped them keep track of the days going by. Growling, aching stomachs and parchment-dry throats kept track of time with equal accuracy. They’d been in that hellhole for three days, living off moldy, musty bread and stale water from a rusty pot, now empty.

“You know what I appreciate about this place?” A woman’s voice, with a strong French accent, and a husky, guttural pitch asked, resonating strangely in the thick darkness.

That was Marie-Elise Chevalier, Dr. Chevalier to be precise, professor, researcher, and thought leader in the field of molecular neuroscience and neuroanatomy. Since they’d been sharing a cell, they all had time to become properly acquainted. Although in the past their paths had crossed, at medical conferences and scientific events, they had never spoken to one another before their detention.

“You actually like something about this place?” The British accent of Dr. Declan Mallory spiced up the dialogue. “I know a good therapist, he might be able to help you,” he added, a trace of cynical humor in his voice.

Dr. Mallory specialized in ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders. A great guy: calm, focused, supportive, yet sometimes moody. Great scientist and partner to be abducted and incarcerated with, Gary Davis couldn’t help thinking, a grim sense of amusement tinting his otherwise clinically dry judgment.

“Oui, absolument,” Dr. Chevalier replied. “But can you guess what?”

Gary chuckled quietly. This exercise of theirs had kept them sane for a while, and it was probably bound to continue to keep them sane for a little while longer, but not more. They had played word games, engaged whatever remnant of their sense of humor they could muster, and counseled one another. Cried on other’s shoulders, and told stories of their families. Shared hope and hopelessness, both equally volatile in the hell they’d been confined to.

“I give up,” an almost morose Dr. Mallory said. “I cannot fathom what you could possibly like about this place. You win.”

“Bugs,” an almost cheerful Dr. Chevalier said. “There are no bugs here. Oui?”

“Right,” Gary agreed. “Roaches could have made this sejour much worse.”

“Or rats,” Dr. Mallory added.

A moment of silence followed, interrupted immediately by Chevalier.

“Oh-la-la… rats are worse,” she said, thoughtfully. Then she changed her mind. “Mais non, bugs are worse!”

“Let’s put this to a vote,” Mallory quipped.

“Shh…” Gary whispered, “I hear something. Footsteps.”

They all fell silent, holding their breaths. They could hear footsteps approaching; two, maybe three men, closer, louder.

The sound of the door latch being pulled startled them, and the light that burst inside blinded them, making them squint as their eyes tried to adjust to the brutal invasion of powerful fluorescent light.

“Yebat, move it!” One of the men, a six-foot tall, heavily tattooed goon, dressed in mismatching uniform parts, stepped inside their cell and prodded him with the barrel of an AK47. The sleeves of his uniform were rolled up, showing muscle fibers knotted under his grimy skin, and making the inked king cobra curled on his right forearm seem alive.

“All right, all right,” Gary replied, holding up his arms in a pacifying gesture, and stepping out of the cell. Drs. Chevalier and Mallory followed closely, still squinting badly from the intense light.

They walked behind King Cobra on an endless, slightly curved corridor, while the two other armed men ended their procession. After a few hundred feet, they came to a stop in front of another green, massive metallic door. King Cobra unlatched that one, and immediately prodded the occupants to step outside.

Four more squinting, wobbly prisoners stepped out of that cell. Dr. Gary Davis recognized two of the speakers from the conference they had all attended what seemed like years ago. Dr. Theodore Adenauer, a top-notch researcher from Germany, had presented his thesis on molecular psychopharmacology in his typical arrogant manner. Yet not even his irritating arrogance was able to diminish the value of the work presented. Arrogant or not, the man was scintillating, and his work had been recognized as foundational research for recent advances in drug research, leading to significant progress in antidepressants, SSRIs, and the overall understanding of synapse chemistry.

Dr. Howard Bukowsky, a kind and easy-going Canadian, had shown no trace of arrogance when he’d spoken to a jaw-dropped audience about the results of a newly introduced therapy regimen, a combination of sensory-motor therapy and minimal drug support, engaged together in the treatment of PTSD. Dr. Bukowsky was the only clinician on the speakers’ list, and the only practitioner Gary would have chosen as his personal therapist.

Right behind Howard Bukowsky followed a young woman, her face stained and smudged from tears and makeup. She blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust to the blinding light, while straightening her clothing. She’d obviously been sleeping on the concrete floor, like the rest of them, curled up in the dirty blankets their captors had thrown in their cells before slamming the doors shut. She seemed familiar, although she was too young to have been in medical research. Then she put on her jacket, bearing the Universal Air logo, the “X” with a curvy, extended left arm, and Gary immediately remembered her. She was one of the flight attendants, most likely the one servicing first class, if he remembered correctly.

The fourth to come out of the cell was a woman in her mid-fifties, needing some assistance to walk, which Dr. Bukowsky immediately offered, calling her “Dr. Crawford.” She looked pale and sick, too weak to walk.

One of the goons prodded her to move faster, and she groaned in pain.

“Hey,” Dr. Bukowsky said, holding her and helping her walk. “Take it easy, will ya’? She can’t move any faster, can’t you see?”

King Cobra resumed walking farther on the endless corridor, while the two Russians at the end of their procession talked angrily among themselves, gesturing toward the prisoners. Gary Davis didn’t understand a word they were saying. For the first time in his life, he regretted not studying Russian as an elective in school. He’d chosen French; not very useful under the circumstances.

“Where are you taking us?” Dr. Adenauer’s strong German accent echoed in the hallway. “I demand to know.”

The two Russians looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“Vy yebat! You fuck! You demand to know? This is all you need to know,” the Russian continued, slamming the stock of his weapon in Adenauer’s back, making him keel over with a loud groan. Mallory picked him up quickly, in the roars of laughter sprinkled with expletives coming from the two Russians.

A few more yards, and another green massive door unlatched, its four detainees pushed outside in the blinding light.

Dr. Teng, from Taiwan, emerged with tears that streaked his face, and with hollow, expressionless eyes. His achievements in psychosomatic medicine and his latest research in brain imaging had made the thin, fragile man well-known in their circles. He was barely recognizable now.

Dr. Alastair Faulkner, a British national and the world’s foremost authority in regional and seasonal affective disorders, was grayish pale and a little unstable on his feet. He touched the walls a number of times to gain stability. Definitely not a good sign, and, by the sad, accepting look in his eyes, he was well aware of it.

Dr. Fortuin, Klaas Fortuin, if Gary remembered correctly the Dutch man’s first name, professor of biochemistry and neuropharmacology, held his spine upright, in typical Dutch manner. Gary remembered he’d read somewhere that the Dutch are tough, almost harsh in their parenting, being focused on building character and resilience in their offspring. Dr. Fortuin definitely displayed character and resilience in the face of adversity, walking tall and almost proud, calm, unfazed, as if not noticing he walked between two loaded machine guns, not reacting to the barrel of the AK47 bruising his left ribs.

The last to vacate the cell was their pilot, his uniform wrinkled and stained; most likely he’d slept in it despite how warm it was. As usual, Gary noticed the most unusual details for the respective moment, and that time he noticed the wear and tear on the man’s uniform. The sleeves shined at the elbows, and the cuffs were almost fringed with wear. That level of wear couldn’t have been from just three days of incarceration; that was months’ worth of daily use. There used to be glamour about a pilot’s job; apparently, not anymore.

Gary found himself counting the members of their group, as King Cobra had resumed his walk down the endless corridor. They were nine scientists and two flight crew. So far.

King Cobra opened a massive door, but this time gestured his followers to walk in. Gary entered a large room, organized as a makeshift lab. As soon as he stepped through the door, he found himself at the top of a five-step flight of descending stairs, leading to the main floor.

He hesitated a second, taking in everything in the huge lab. More than two hundred feet wide by maybe one hundred and fifty feet deep, the space had tall, dark gray, concrete walls, one of them curved, matching the curvature of the hallway they’d just walked through. The opposite wall had windows, placed at least ten feet high above the ground, with rusty frames holding dirty, almost completely opaque glass. The room seemed to be a part of a larger, round structure.

Rows of tile-covered tables lined up almost wall-to-wall, covered with equipment and chemicals. Autoclaves, incubators, Bunsen burners, and refrigerators took the first row of lab tables. Microscopes, scanners, centrifuges, a liquid chromatograph and a mass spectrograph lined another row of tables. Against the wall, there was a surprising collection of modern lab equipment: a Hitachi 917 automatic analyzer, a microscale, a recent model Belson biochemistry machine, Chinese but decent, state-of-the-art pharmacology analysis equipment, and a digital amalgamator. Some of the equipment was antiquated, but most of it was modern, the latest the industry had to offer.

Supplies were neatly organized and stored against the right wall, labeled in English. Almost forty feet of refrigerators filled with drugs, chemicals, reactives, and serums covered the wall. Past the refrigeration area, several tens of feet more continued with room-temperature shelving, holding thousands of drug formulations and chemical compounds. It was, by all appearances, a well-equipped lab. Where the hell were they? What was this place?

Some sleeping cots stood against the back wall, leading Gary to assume they wouldn’t be leaving the lab anytime soon. Simple, folding military cots, with dirty blankets on each one. In the far corner, an improvised separation for personal use, probably the Russian version of a port-a-potty. And everywhere, the same insufferable, inescapable, musty smell of moldy concrete.

“What is this place?” Dr. Chevalier whispered, her French accent stronger than usual.

“It’s a nuclear missile silo by the looks of it,” the pilot replied. “This facility is half-buried underground.”

“Nuclear?” Dr. Adenauer jumped in the conversation. “Does that mean there’s radiation here?”

“Oh, my God…” the flight attendant whispered, tears running freely from her red eyes.

“Quiet,” King Cobra shouted, punctuating his words by pounding his weapon into the ground. “No talking.”

A middle-aged man wearing a lab coat walked through the door and closed it. The noise of the massive door latching got everyone’s attention. They turned toward him.

“I am Dr. Bogdanov,” he said in harsh, heavily accented English. “This is your lab. You all work for me now.”

They shifted their weight nervously, some gasping, others wringing their hands.

Forced labor, Gary Davis found himself thinking, doing who knows what for the Russians. We are so fucked.

“Make no mistake,” Bogdanov continued. “If you are not worth keeping in the lab, we will use you as lab rats for the test batches. One way or the other, you will work for us.”

A deathly silence engulfed the small group. Bogdanov smiled, satisfied.

“Now get to work. Organize everything, make a list of what you’re missing, make sure you’re ready to produce the chemicals we need. Is that clear?”

No one replied. He waited a few seconds, then turned to leave.

“Dr. Bogdanov, if I may,” Dr. Bukowsky spoke, his Canadian politeness intact despite the circumstances. “We need insulin. Dr. Crawford is diabetic, and she ran out of supplies yesterday.”

Dr. Crawford grabbed Bukowsky’s sleeve, as if asking him to stay quiet.

“We will see about that,” Bogdanov replied. “How useful is she? What does she do?”

Someone gasped behind Gary. As if hypnotized, he heard himself speak.

“She is quintessential to any neurochemistry research,” Gary spoke clearly, calmly, and sounding sure of himself. Although he was making it up on the fly, he hoped he was right about the Russian’s intentions. “Her dissertations on the clinical aspects of applied psychopharmacology, and her fellowship experience with the University of Virginia make her irreplaceable to any drug study.”

Dr. Crawford looked at him with amazement, a hint of a smile fluttering on her lips as she mouthed, “Thank you.”

“I will bring insulin,” Bogdanov said. “Now, get to work.”

Dr. Faulkner, still weak on his legs, stumbled forward and said, “You can’t do this! You can’t force us to work for you! What kind of doctor are you?”

Bogdanov turned and stared at Dr. Faulkner in disbelief, then gestured at King Cobra with a swift head movement.

Cobra took three large steps and, as he reached Faulkner, struck him in the stomach with his knotted fist. Dr. Faulkner gasped, then keeled over, curled up on his side. He moved his legs spasmodically, and, as Gary and a couple of others rushed to assist him, he drew his last breath with a terrifying groan.

Gary put his fingers on Faulkner’s neck, searching for a pulse.

“He’s gone; probably a massive coronary,” he said bitterly. “Great job,” he turned and said to Cobra. “At this rate, you’ll kill us all before we do whatever the hell you got us here to do, you stupid fuck!”

Cobra took a step toward him, cussing in Russian, his face congested and scrunched in anger, wielding his fist in a threatening motion. Gary stood there, not even flinching. Que sera, sera, he thought, bracing himself for the beating that was to come.

Cobra’s fist never came down on him.

“Enough,” Bogdanov said, then left the lab, followed closely by his men.