Out Through the Attic (18 page)

There is nothing to fear.

The single phrase echoed within her mind as loud as a thunderclap, gentle as spring rain.

She felt herself pass within the maw, and a screech of terror clawed at the back of her mind as the mouth closed around her. The new darkness folded in and a calmness carried her into oblivion.

She’d awakened on the plane with thoughts of the mouth closing around her. She shivered at the thought and pushed it away, focusing on the children in need who lay ahead of her. She’d gotten off the plane and been greeted by a short man in a black suit and cap, holding a small sign with the word SARANTOS upon it. With only a few words exchanged, he’d escorted her to baggage claim and then led her to a waiting limousine.

She’d only sat in a limo twice before. The first was the day of her wedding, a union that turned out to be nothing more than an expensive prelude to a very ugly divorce. The second was her baby’s funeral. She’d lost the little girl to SIDS, and her ex blamed her for the death. After that she lived only for her work.

“Ever been to Atlanta, Dr. Sarantos?” the driver called back with a thick southern accent.

She pulled her gaze from the magnificent blossoming trees lining the highway and looked at him in the rear-view mirror. Her iPad lay forgotten on the seat next to her, the screen still displaying a paper on SIDS. “You can call me Chrys. And no, I’ve never been. Are you from Atlanta?”

“Born and bred … not many of us natives left … Chrys. Is that short for something?” His eyes flicked from the highway back to look at her, and she saw his eyes crinkle in a smile.

“Chrysanthy,” she said and smiled.

“My name’s Charlie.” He tipped the brim of his hat, in true Southern style. “Chrysanthy Sarantos … pretty name…. Spanish?”

“Greek, although I was born here in the States. How close are we to CDC Headquarters?”

“It’s about ten miles behind us, but that’s not where we’re going.”

“We’re not?” she asked, surprised. “Dr. Hayes said over the phone that the project was under the governance of the CDC.”

“It is … least they’re the ones who sign my checks. But we’re headed to Applegate. It’s a smaller facility west of Atlanta. It’s for special projects they want to keep off the media’s radar.”

“Do you know anything about the project?” she asked.

“Nope. Don’t want to, either. There’s actually quite a few projects at the facility, but I’m just a driver. I don’t have much interest in all that stuff.”

The driver suddenly tossed a cell phone through the window between them, and it bounced on the seat in front of her. He looked at her in the rearview mirror and winked. There was a sticky note attached to the phone, and the phone was a cheap, prepaid model. She leaned forward and picked it up. The sticky note simply read “REDIAL.” She looked up to the driver with a questioning look. All he did was nod at her with serious eyes.

She peeled the sticky note off, flipped the phone open and hit the redial button. It was picked up on the first ring, and she immediately heard a shower running in the background.

“Wave at the driver and don’t say anything,” a man’s voice on the other end said. She could barely hear him over the sound of the water. She recognized the voice as Dr. Hayes. “I’ll explain the cloak-and-dagger as much as I can before you arrive. Just ignore the driver. He’s going to keep talking.” A perplexed look upon her face, she waved at the driver.

He nodded. “Let me tell you the one about the preacher and Nooky Green….” the driver said, continuing in a lower voice. She focused all of her attention on the voice of Dr. Hayes.

“It seems I may have gotten you into something dangerous, but it’s too late to get you out now, and I really need you.” She heard worry and fear in his elderly voice. “Besides, you may be the only one who can help the infants. Something’s happened, and I don’t know if it’s wonderful or terrible. Two days ago we lost thirty-five of the babies. Their life-signs just stopped in the middle of the night. The other babies have shown remarkable improvement but no sign of coming out of the coma. Drake, the co-chair of the project has grown increasingly nervous, even suggesting euthanizing them all with a lockout protocol. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but there have been two deaths amongst the staff: a suicide and a car accident … both in the last two weeks. They seem suspicious, but I don’t have any proof. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t believe that Drake is with the CDC, and I’m certain that Graebel, the security man for the project
isn’t
. Some of the things they’ve said over the past eight months lead me to believe that they may be intelligence or military or something. Whatever you do, don’t trust them; don’t tell anyone what you’re working on and look for signs from me for when we can speak in private. Just act as if it’s business as usual, and I’ll tell you more as soon as I can. Throw this phone and the note out of the window, and don’t let anyone see you do it.”

The call ended, and the driver was still talking. “No sir, I think it’s the light coming through the stained-glass window,” he said. He started laughing and looked in the rearview window expectantly.

She started laughing at the driver’s joke without knowing what she was laughing about. Chrys felt queasy as she closed the phone, rolled down the window and, checking to see if there was anyone behind them, threw the phone out the window.
What has Hayes gotten me into?
she thought. She picked up the iPad and started scrolling through the SIDS data. “That was a good one,” she said, trying to sound natural, “but I have to finish up reading this paper before we arrive. Is that okay?”

“Of course! No worries. It won’t be long now.” He turned his eyes fully back to the road.

She rolled past pages of the medical journal she had been reading, but all she could think about was Hayes’ cryptic message. Ten minutes later they pulled up to a security gate with a twelve-foot steel fence running away from it in both directions. A guard with a sidearm and a radio clipped to his belt stepped out of the booth and held out his hand for the car to stop. There was another guard inside who picked up a phone. The driver rolled down his window, spoke to the guard and showed him an ID badge. After a quick look at a clipboard, the first guard turned to the one inside and nodded. The one inside pressed a button, and the steel gate in front of them rolled to the side. The driver rolled up the window and pulled away, driving slowly up a gently curving, two-lane road that led to a large, eight-story building with glass circling the first, third, fifth and seventh floors.

She could see Dr. Hayes standing just outside the main entrance, wearing the sort of tweed suit he’d always worn when he was a professor at Harvard. Chrys had always teased him that he should wear something more contemporary. A middle-aged, stern-looking man in a black suit and red tie stood next to Hayes. Hayes waived at the car as it approached while the other man merely stood there. The limo pulled up and the driver got out, quickly opening the door for Chrys.

“I’ll get your suitcase, Miss Sarantos.”

“Take it to her quarters,” the stern-looking man said.

Dr. Hayes stepped up and hugged his old pupil. “It’s good to see you, Chrys.” He smiled at her, but his eyes held a seriousness that she’d never seen in him. She knew she couldn’t ask him anything yet, but she was bursting with questions. “Jim, may I present to you Dr. Chrysanthy Sarantos, the best student I ever had and a better pediatrician than you or I will ever be.” She held out her hand, and the man shook it firmly. “Dr. Sarantos, this is Dr. Jim Drake. We’re running the project together, and we felt we could use your help.”

“Doctor,” she said to Drake and nodded her head.

“Doctor Sarantos,” Drake said, releasing her hand and watching the driver go by with her suitcase. “I read your file: Harvard Medical; four years at Children’s Hospital in Boston; three years neonatology in Philadelphia; five at Johns Hopkins with their Children’s neurology program … now the UN? And old Hayes here has been singing your praises for a week, which is the biggest endorsement of all, if you ask me.” Drake gave her a flash of teeth that she thought was supposed to be a humorous smile but looked stiff and contrived. His teeth partially agape, he held the rictus for a few seconds then changed the subject. “So, what has my friend here told you about our project?” Drake eyed Hayes almost suspiciously.

“Not much … just that you have a room full of comatose infants and that you need some outside expertise. I’m afraid that I don’t know much else.”

“Good,” he said as he peered at Dr. Hayes. Chrys raised her eyebrow. “I mean, it’s good that you may be able to help the children. I must admit, we’re a bit stumped here. A fresh set of eyes will certainly do us some good.” Drake paused and focused his attention on Chrys to the point of making her feel almost uncomfortable. “I’m curious, did you glean any more information about Atlantis on your trip?”

“I beg your pardon?” The question surprised her.

“Atlantis.” There was the stiff grin again. “Did you learn anything new?” He asked the question as if it was perfectly natural that he knew where she had been and what she was doing there.

Chrys got the message, and she understood why Hayes was suspicious of the man. She kept her response level. “Not really. Just some rumors of a ship that had found something but got lost at sea.”

“Pity. What a remarkable find that would be, yes?”

Chrys paused deliberately and then let a slim smile break on her face. “Yes, it would,” she offered quietly, and the conversation hit a dead spot.

“Jim,” Hayes started, breaking the silence. “How about I show Doctor Sarantos to her apartment? She can get freshened up, and then we’ll show her the lab and her new patients.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you both at the lab in … say … two hours?”

“We’ll see you there,” Hayes confirmed. He put his arm around Chrys’ shoulder and led her into the building with Drake close behind. They passed through a rotating glass door. Hayes and Chrys approached a security desk while Drake approached a glass airlock. Drake slid an ID card over a reader and pressed his palm to a glass plate. A light on the panel turned green, and the door before him slid open. He stepped in and then cycled through the airlock, disappearing down a hallway out of sight.

“Gary, set Miss Sarantos up with a Level 5 ID for the Danaë project, please,” Hayes said to the guard behind the counter.

“Of course. I’ll need your auth, sir,” Gary said, placing a portable reader on the counter. The guard nodded to Dr. Hayes and then turned to Chrys. “We’ve already got most of your data set up, but some things we just can’t fudge.” He smiled warmly at her. “Could I see your ID as well?”

“Danaë?” she asked, looking at Hayes as Gary typed some information quickly into his terminal. “As in the woman who consorted with Zeus and bore Perseus?” Chrys pulled out her passport and a government ID she’d received when she started working for the U.N. The guard reviewed both, took a close look at Chrys and nodded.

Hayes passed his own ID card over the reader and then pressed his palm upon it. “You don’t miss much, do you?” Hayes grinned and gave her a sidelong glance.

“I’m Greek. That story is practically a nursery rhyme.”

The guard nodded. “Miss Sarantos, would you please place your hand on the reader and hold still?” She did as instructed, and he nodded a few seconds later. There was the sound of something sliding out of a printer. He reached below the desk and retrieved her card, promptly handing it to her. “Please keep this with you at all times when you are in the facility, and report its loss or theft immediately. She took the card and looked a little wide-eyed at Dr. Hayes.

“Security is pretty tight around here, but it has to be,” Hayes offered. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”

They made their way to the airlock Drake had gone through, and Dr. Hayes indicated that she should use her card. She slid it, set her hand on the reader and waited. The green light appeared, and the door opened. She cycled through and waited for Dr. Hayes on the far side. Without a word they walked down a narrow hall to a bank of elevators where Hayes repeated the card and palm process. “Pretty much every door you’ll go through here will have one of these.”

“Is all this security really necessary?” she asked as the door slid open.

“The separate teams don’t know what each other is working on, and considering what we’re working with and how it’s evolved, I’d say it’s definitely necessary.”

“So when do I find out what’s going on?”

“I’ll give you a full briefing when we get to the lab. But first, take some time and relax. These may be the last two hours you get to yourself for a while.”

“You keep pretty busy here then?”

“We get a new subject every day, sometimes two, and the data keeps mounting.”

“Every day?” she asked, shocked and thinking about three-hundred infants in comas.

“Yeah,” he said a bit sadly and hit the three on the elevator panel. “And those are just the ones we hear about that survive.” Hayes’ face brightened somewhat. “I meant to ask you, before Drake beat me to the punch back there, how is your Atlantis research going? Still spending all of your off-hours in pursuit of that fairy tale?” He nudged her in the arm with his elbow and chuckled. She’d developed her fascination for Atlantis as a child, and it had turned into a full-blown obsession in adulthood. At Harvard there wasn’t a professor of hers, including Hayes, that she didn’t hen-peck about anything they knew or anyone they might know who had done any research on it.

“I am, and it’s no fairy tale.” She slugged him gently in the arm as she laughed defensively. “I was serious when I told Drake about the ship. Only last year a deep dive crew claimed to have found something in the middle of the Med. I was in Greece researching their story when you called me. It turns out the whole crew was lost at sea during a storm.”

“The mystery deepens …” Hayes said in a mock-sinister tone.

“It certainly does, but I’m convinced more than ever that it did exist, and somewhere in the Mediterranean basin, not the Atlantic.”

Hayes smiled like an understanding father. “Of course, Chrys. I’m sure you’ll find it someday.” His eyes full of laughter, he couldn’t have been more playfully condescending, and she didn’t miss it.