Treasure of the Dead

Chapter 28

When Fabi finished talking, she was out of breath. She ended by telling Cassandra about how she watched their manager leave and deciding to see what he kept under lock and key all the time in his office, that maybe it had something to do with the disappearances. Cassandra eyed the folder Fabi had pulled from the file cabinet.

“And what’s that?”

Fabi opened the folder on the desk. “It’s some kind of special project called HAITI. I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to look at it when I had to take cover.”

Her new friend smiled. “Sorry about that, but I was a little worried about you. Let’s take a look…”

Together they read through the file’s contents, splitting the pages amongst them. After a few minutes Fabi stabbed a finger onto one of the papers. “Right here. You see that number?”

Cassandra squinted as she eyeballed the digits. “Yeah? What of it?”

“Earlier today I processed some payments, so I recognize it. It’s the same account Dr. Avila once used to purchase some computer equipment for the main clinic. He’s using it to bankroll this HAITI project, whatever it is.”

“Must be some high limit he has on that card, too, judging by these expenditures.” Cassandra raised her eyebrows as she traced a finger along the recorded charges. Fabi looked up from the records.

“Okay, so Dr. Avila is funding this HAITI project. There doesn’t appear to be a description of the actual project work anywhere here, but I do notice that some of these invoices are related to other clinics here in town.”

Cassandra leaned over. “Let me take a look… I recognize that one. It’s a small clinic in a bad part of town, receiving lots of money for unspecified ‘equipment’. That is strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“That place is notorious for being understaffed and not having enough equipment.”

Fabi shrugged. “Maybe he used this project to change that?”

Cassandra continued to study the file. “You would think, except that I was there not too long ago for a meeting to show their data manager how to set up one of our databases, and believe me, they didn’t have anything new that I could see.”

Fabi studied the reports some more, finally shaking her head. “This seems irrefutable to me. The money is flowing their way for some sort of equipment. How much of the building did you see when you went there?”

“Not all of it, but I did see the patient areas. You would think that’d be the place for new equipment.”

“Why don’t we go over there and have a look?”

Cassandra looked unsure. “You mean set up a meeting—”

“No, I mean we go over there right now and see what’s going on.”

“Fabi, I don’t know. For one thing, I don’t have a key to that place.”

Fabi grinned. “You’re not going to let a little thing like that stop us, are you?”

The clinic lay on the outskirts of town, where there were no streetlights. Only a weak outer security bulb kept the place from being in complete darkness.

“Not the kind of place that shouts, ‘all kinds of valuable stuff in here’, is it?” Fabi whispered as she and Cassandra walked up to the entrance.

Cassandra shook her head. “I doubt anybody pays much attention to this place, including Dr. Avila. But we’re here to find out, right?”

Fabi examined the latch on a window. “That’s right,” she said, reaching into her pocket and producing a nail file.

“Seriously, girl?” Cassandra sounded concerned.

“Just look around, make sure no one’s coming. I’ll have us in in a… got it!”

“Already?”

“Yeah, that was even easier than I thought.” She pulled the window open, noting the lack of a screen. “Now I need a boost.”

Cassandra held her hands together and interlaced her fingers so that Fabi could step on them. She boosted her up onto the window sill until Fabi could swing a leg over. A minute later, Fabi opened the front door and stuck her head out. “Come on in.”

Cassandra entered the clinic and they closed and locked the door behind them. Not wanting the room lights to draw attention from outside, Fabi again relied upon her keychain flashlight. Cassandra led Fabi on a tour of the facility based on what she knew of the layout from previous visits, but it didn’t take long.

“That’s it?” Fabi asked, playing her beam along the walls.

“Told you this place isn’t much, Fabi. Still not exactly sure what we’re hoping to find, but…”

“Wait, hold on.”

“Somebody coming?” Cassandra looked around.

“No, no. I mean, something’s not right with this building — the building itself.”

“Well yeah, it’s old, dirty, falling apart in places, you can pick the windows open with a nail file…”

“No, that’s not it, I mean look at this.” She shone the flashlight on the far wall of the patient room in which they stood. “See how this wall ends here…”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Well, there’s no way this wall corresponds to the outer wall of the building. When we were standing outside, we weren’t just on the other side of this wall right here, we had to be at least another ten feet away.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Fabi, building codes here are not what they are in the states. It’s anything goes. No permits, no licensing, nothing.”

“No way this wall here matches up with the outer dimensions. So what’s in the space in between?”

Cassandra threw her arms up. “Wild animals, probably. Spiders. Who cares?”

Fabi paused the flashlight beam on a bookshelf containing procedural manuals against the wall, and now she walked to it. She shone the beam behind the case, up to the ceiling and back down. Then, while Cassandra continued to question her sanity, she pulled on one end of the bookcase. The bookcase swung toward her, eliciting a gasp from Cassandra.

“Told ya.” Behind the bookcase was a door.

“That door is locked, though, and this one doesn’t look like your nail file is going to do it.”

They examined the door lock. An electronic, alphanumeric keypad was embedded in the metal door. A green LED in one corner of the keypad indicated it had power. Fabi traced the outline of the door with her light and saw that her coworker was right. This was a serious piece of construction; the only way in was through that keypad. She put the light beam on it while considering the possibilities.

Cassandra shook her head. “Oh no. I see your wheels turning, girl. Don’t even think about it. If you get the code wrong too many times, an alarm could go off.”

“One try. Just give me one try…” She was staring intently at the keypad, the keys labeled 1, with ABC, 2, DEF…

“What, you’re just going to put in some random numbers?”

“Definitely not. This thing is letters and numbers. Let’s go with some kind of code word that would be easy to remember. That’s how most people set up passwords.”

“Okay, so what’s the password?”

“Well, unless you have a better idea, I can only think of one that makes any sense: the project name.”

Cassandra’s eyes widened. “HAITI?”

Fabi moved her finger carefully across the keypad, depressing the key corresponding to each letter of the name. An LED flashed red each time she pressed a button. “… T… I… Enter.”

The keypad LED flashed yellow and then went to a steady green. They heard no sound of any kind, but Fabi pushed on the door and sucked in her breath as it swung inward, into a new room.

Deciding that since it was contained within the outer and inner walls of the building, it was safe to turn overhead lights on, Fabi flipped up the light switch she found next to the door. Racks of fluorescent tube lighting flickered to life on the ceiling.

Cassandra could not stifle a gasp. “Oh my God.”

Clearly, they were now in a laboratory of some sophistication. Lab benches supporting modern instruments such as computers, stereomicroscopes, centrifuges and spectrophotometers ran wall-to-wall. Fabi turned to look at her friend.

“Looks like this little clinic isn’t so small after all. Now you tell me… why would Dr. Avila want to hide all this?”

Cassandra looked around the room. “I have no idea just by looking at this stuff what he’s up to in here.”

But Fabi was already in motion, heading toward one end of the lab. “I have a feeling this lab isn’t the only hidden room. I’m betting this concealed space follows the entire perimeter of the building, between the outer building wall and the inner room wall. Let’s check it out.”

“Sure, why not? That attitude hasn’t gotten us into any trouble so far…” Cassandra followed Fabi to the end of the lab. Sure enough, Fabi turned the corner and walked into another space hidden between walls.

Although the overhead lights weren’t on in this section yet, there was light emanating from a series of plant grow lights suspended from the ceiling but hanging low over a bed of fern-like plants.

“Now this is just plain weird.” Fabi made eye contact with Cassandra. “Tell me, what does growing plants have to do with running a health clinic?”

Cassandra shrugged and shook her head. “Certain kinds of plants might have some purpose, if you get my drift, but ferns? I have no idea. Fabi, listen, maybe we should go. We’ve seen more than enough to know something is going on. We can think about how to bring it up with Dr. Avila on Monday.”

“Let me just see what’s around this corner here and then we’ll go, all right?”

Reluctantly, Cassandra followed Fabi into the new area. This one was dimly lit with nightlight-style bulbs, but it was enough to see that they had entered a patient care area. Two rows of cots were lined up in the center of the room, with people dozing on each of them.

“What is this? This is not an area suitable for housing patients.” Cassandra sounded livid. She moved about the cots. “And look: these people are restrained!”

“These over here, too. They all are,” Fabi confirmed.

“Oh my God! I recognize this one. This is a former patient of mine.” She went to the cot and stooped to get a better look at the woman, a local Haitian of middle age. Fabi joined her friend at the cot as she attempted to wake the patient.

“Mrs. Rameau? It’s me, Cassandra Damas. Wake up, please.”

The woman stirred against her restraints — both wrists and ankles secured with thick leather cuffs to the frame of the bed.

“Why do you think they have her restrained?” Fabi wondered.

“Sometimes it’s done to protect the patient from themselves, but I’ve never known Mrs. Rameau to be that way. Plus, all of the patients here are restrained.”

Suddenly Mrs. Rameau bent at the waist and sat bolt upright. Her eyes opened wide and she leaned in to Cassandra.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Rameau, I’m here to help you.”

The patient thrust her head at Cassandra’s arm. She pulled away just as Rameau’s teeth snapped hard shut.

“Calm down please, Mrs. Rameau. I’m only trying to help. How long have you been here? What is this place?”

But the woman only snarled and growled in return. “Something is definitely not right with her, Cassandra. She looks really out of it. And her skin, it looks really weird.”

“Really weird? Is that your professional medical opinion?” Clearly, Cassandra took offense at something negative being said about her patient.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean anything personal by it.”

Suddenly they heard the sound of a car engine approaching outside. Cassandra pointed back the way they had come. “We should get out of here.” She tried to ease the patient back onto the cot, speaking soothing words to her, but the woman was in a frenzy, non-responsive and thrashing around.

They moved as fast as they could without bumping into things through the patient area and back into the plant lab. Fabi eyed the strange ferns, fluorescing odd colors as she passed through into the lab stocked with equipment. There was a computer in here, and Fabi lit it up to check for an Internet connection. Dial-up, a very slow connection, but a connection nonetheless. She began to type.

Cassandra was impatient. “What are you doing? Let’s go.”

“Sending Maddock and Bones an email with what we’ve seen. We’ll have to go to the police, I’m afraid, but I want him to know. Just in case…”

“You mention him a lot. Did you know that?”

Fabi ignored her. She typed out a few cursory lines. “Okay, good enough.” She clicked the Send button. “Let’s skedaddle!”

She snapped the email window closed and flipped off the machine.

The pair of coworkers moved through the lab until they reached the hidden bookcase entrance. They exited into the clinic proper and then Fabi shut the keycoded door and swung the bookcase back into place. Moving through the clinic as quickly as they could with all lights off, even the flashlight, they came to the front door. Cassandra peeked through a window.

“Car’s parked out front now!”

“See anyone?”

“No, no one’s in it.”

Fabi put her hand on the door. “Let’s go.”

Cassandra nodded and the two women stepped outside. No sooner did Fabi turn around to close the front door than Cassandra shouted, “Look…” But that was all she got out before a strong hand covered her mouth. A black man wearing a white lab coat threw Cassandra hard onto the ground.

Fabi, meanwhile, had taken stock of the situation and backed up enough to assume a fighting stance. She feigned a kick and the man smiled, thinking she was faking it. He moved in. Fabi spun around and closed with a foot to the man’s throat that dropped him instantly.

“You recognize him?” Fabi panted as the man lay gasping.

Cassandra shook her head. “I recognize we should go.”

With that, the two ran off into the night. When they had made it a safe distance away and it was clear no one else was pursuing them, Cassandra turned to Fabi while they walked toward their car.

“Remind me never to piss you off, by the way. I’ll never make you wait to use the printer again, I promise. I had no idea you could fight like that.”

Fabi smiled. “I was in the Navy for a bunch of years. It’s where I met Bones.”

“Ah, so I take it Bones is a fighter, then, too.”

“He’s a terrific guy. But let’s just say you don’t want to get on his bad side. Cassandra, look out!”

A van, headlights out, came around a curve in the road. The side door slid open and four men, their faces concealed, leapt out. Cassandra never had time to complete her sentence before the two women were desperately fighting off the new arrivals. A single man quickly subdued Cassandra, leaving Fabi to take on the other three. The ex-Navy girl held her own at first, landing some crisp punches, but she soon found herself overwhelmed by the sheer weight of superior size and numbers.

“What do you want?” Maybe she could reason with them, talk her way out of this. At first she had been concerned this was a random violent crime, perhaps even attempted sexual assault, but combined with the events inside the clinic and the strange happenings surrounding her cousin’s death, she wasn’t so sure.

While the three men held her, the fourth approached her slowly. “Maybe we can solve this right now. Answer one question for me, and we will let you and your friend go.” He jerked a thumb back at the van, where Cassandra’s muffled cries now emanated.

Fabi didn’t hesitate. “Okay. What is it?”

“Where is the treasure?”

A chill coursed through Fabi’s veins as the full extent of what she had gotten herself into with this treasure hunt slugged her like a fist to the gut. Immediately she feared not only for herself and Cassandra, who was especially innocent, but also for Bones, Maddock and Willis. She should have made it more clear that the locals would be more interested in the treasure, and more vicious when it came to going after it.

“What treasure?”

“Please do not waste my time. The treasure your cousin sought.”

Fabi saw there was no use in prevaricating.

“I have no idea!” She hoped the truth in the statement would add to the conviction in her voice. But with the ringleader’s next words that hope was destroyed. He addressed his men while walking away.

“Throw her in the van.”