Capitol Reflections (32 page)
Dinner was polite but stilted. Hamlin and his wife carried most of the small talk with conversation about the environment, the growth around Seattle, and the school activities of their children. Mark managed to learn that Tassin had left Germany as a child and been raised in Bangkok and Saigon. Mei Long and Su Chi were practically mute, despite Mark’s best use of his reporter’s skills. They certainly seemed to speak English, but dinner conversation simply wasn’t part of their agenda. Mark was left wondering a great deal about what exactly was going on between Dieter, his wife, and her sister.
After dinner, Mark went back to his hotel room and changed into a brown jumpsuit that closely matched the ones he’d seen Pequod’s warehouse workers wear. He took one of his many picture IDs from his suitcase—never leave home without them!—and attached it to a silver ball-chain around his neck. A quick look in the mirror assured him he passed muster. He rode the elevator down to the parking garage and got into his rented Neon.
Aware that he was about to attempt one of the more brazen stunts in his career, he thought of what he’d tell his congenial host if someone caught him trying to gain access to Pequod’s roasting chamber—the heart of their operation. Aw shucks, Billy, I was just doing my job. Snooping around to see if you had been straight with me. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
He had copped a Pequod’s parking permit from the lobby desk at the main building after his private tour. He removed the Enterprise stickers from the windshield of his rental and hung his Pequod’s pass over the rearview mirror.
He encountered trouble as soon as he pulled up to the company gate.
“Don’t have any record of a Mark Treadwell,” the guard inside the small booth said.
“I was only hired three days ago,” Mark said, as if startled. “Finished my orientation session yesterday. Was just me and a fellow named Smith.”
The guard looked at the roster fastened to his clipboard. “You mean Ed Smith at the loading dock?”
“One and the same,” said Mark, grinning from ear to ear. “He’s a character, that one.”
The guard shone a flashlight at the pass hanging over the mirror. “I see they gave you a temporary pass, eh?”
“Yep.”
The uniformed man swept his beam across Mark’s chest. Noticing an ID hanging against the jumpsuit, he shrugged. “Okay. Have a good night.” He pushed a button in his booth, and a yellow gate swung open.
Mark was in.
“Stop!”
Mark wheeled around to see who was shouting at him.
“You ever hear of punching a time clock?” asked a man with a white coat and a clipboard.
Mark mouthed the word “sorry” and nodded. But where was the time clock? If he walked in the wrong direction, he would be marched into the Pequod’s security office within sixty seconds. He needed to guess—and guess right. The only logical place to put a time clock was at an entry point. Aware that the man who yelled at him, probably a foreman, was still observing him, Mark turned around quickly and headed for the wall next to the door he’d entered moments before.
There it was. Several dozen rows of cards sat in metal slots fastened next to the clock. Mark casually chose one at random and studied the clock. It was part of a digital system, with a bar code on the card that was scanned by a beam under the clock. He passed the card under the clock, heard a beep, and replaced the card in its slot. When he turned around, the foreman was walking in the opposite direction.
But now what? Do I just saunter up to the roasting chamber and walk past the guards?
Mark walked toward one of the forklifts so that he wouldn’t appear to be wandering around aimlessly. He surmised that somewhere high above him, supervisors looked at the entire warehouse 24/7. Looking up at a distant wall of the enormous complex, he saw two signs. The one on top said SAFETY FIRST! Below it, a blinking electronic sign said ROASTING PERSONNEL USE DOOR 1. Apparently, workers assigned to the roasting chamber were directed to use different doorways depending on which set of machines were up and running at any given moment. Mark headed for DOOR 1.
A large hand gripped Mark’s shoulder.
“You don’t belong here,” said a voice behind him.
Busted!
Mark thought, slowly turning around to face his adversary.
Mark thought, slowly turning around to face his adversary.
Dr. Jason Sutherland brought Gwen to a waiting area and sat down, motioning for her to do the same.
“Jack is out of immediate danger, Mrs. Maulder. In the course of the grand mal seizure, your husband suffered a spinal cord injury.”
“Look, I’m a physician. Spinal cord injury can mean just about anything.”
Sutherland took Gwen’s hand, nodded, and smiled. “Jack is doing okay, Gwen. His speech is slurred from the after-effects of the seizure, and he has partial paralysis on his left side. You know as well as I that it could be anywhere from hours to days to see if his speech or motor skills begin to return. Right now, he needs rest. Sorry for the cliché, but I’m sure you’re aware that is what’s best for him right now.”
Gwen managed a weak nod.
“If things remain constant, he’ll naturally need therapy,” Dr. Sutherland continued. “As I’m sure you know, there are several new mechanical devices that are employed to help spinal injury patients regain mobility. Hydrotherapy is also an option down the line, plus we’ll have consultations with speech therapists when we know more.”
“Is there any visual impairment?”
“None that I can detect.”
“Why did this happen?” Gwen asked. “His hypertension was under control. He’d started to smoke again, but just in the last couple of weeks.”
“We can’t really say what precipitated the episode, Gwen. I’ve reviewed the medical history you gave the nurse when Jack was admitted, and frankly, this seems to have come out of the blue. The only time I see this kind of presentation is when some college student or biker shows up with a bad reaction to various kinds of drugs.”
“He’s been sneaking cigarettes, but nothing more.”
“That certainly shouldn’t cause a seizure. For now, it’s a mystery.”
Gwen briefly visited Jack in the ICU, but he was fast asleep. She stayed in the waiting room across the hall, wishing she had paid more attention in Sunday school as she tried to remember snippets of prayers.
She prayed that Jack had heard her say she wanted to have his baby.
“I said you don’t belong here. Cat got your tongue?”
Still working out what he might say, Mark turned very slowly and saw an old man wearing wireless spectacles. He had white, unkempt hair and a bushy moustache. His hand still gripped Mark’s shoulder tightly.
It was Dieter Tassin. Pretty strong grip for an old dude.
At dinner, Tassin had been polite, if not altogether congenial. His countenance now bordered on demonic, his face frozen in an ugly stare that spoke of anger and mistrust. How, Mark wondered, could this man work for the amiable Billy Hamlin?
“You may be Hamlin’s guest,” he spit out venomously, “but no one is allowed in this facility without permission. That’s not even a legitimate Pequod’s ID tag.”
“I thought it would be okay for me to look around. Actually, I hoped I might run into you here, Dieter. We didn’t really get much of a chance to talk at dinner.” Mark was sweating bullets. Surely, Tassin wouldn’t believe a word he said.
“I see. And ‘Billy’ authorized you to enter restricted areas of the plant?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“Let’s call him up then, and ask him if you should be here at all, shall we?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll just go since you’re obviously upset.”
Tassin released his grip on the reporter’s shoulders. “I’ve got a better idea, Mr. Reporter. You wanted to see the roasting chamber, didn’t you?”
“Not in particular,” Mark lied.
“Oh, sure you did. Everyone wants a peek inside our secret chamber. Let’s go inside and see if you have any idea what you’re looking at.”
Mark started to backpedal but Tassin took hold of his arm, his fingers digging deeply into Mark’s bicep.
“I insist,” said Tassin.
The roastmaster urged Mark forward. Just ten yards away from entrance number two to the chamber, Mark felt the air getting warmer.
“You’re a reporter,” Tassin said, his tone friendly, but his eyes cold and calculating. “You like to see things for yourself, right? Let’s go in and have a look.”
Tassin’s grip on Mark’s arm eased slightly as they moved forward.
Mark started to feel a little queasy.
41
Jan Menefee had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered was sitting in the van with Peter, feeling lightheaded. Her surroundings, however, did not resemble a hospital. She was lying on top of a thin brown blanket tucked into an army cot. She started to sit up but immediately lay back down when the room began to swim in circles.
The room? A cell, to be more exact. The area, about ten feet by ten feet, consisted of cinderblock walls with no windows. A low-watt light bulb on the ceiling was covered with wire mesh.
She sat up again, swinging her feet onto a bare cement floor. Her head throbbed, but the clarity of her vision slowly returned.
They didn’t intend to kill me. They just wanted me out of circulation.
But for how long? Permanently?
She stood, walked eight paces to the other side of her cell and then back to the bed.
And where’s Peter?
The solid iron door of the cell opened, letting in fluorescent light that painfully struck Jan’s retinas.
“Who’s there?”
The door closed, and an unseen hand switched on the lights in her cell. Jan still could not make out any of the features of her visitor.
“Time for another treatment, Dr. Menefee.”
“Treatment? What are you talking about? Who are you?”
Her eyes adjusted to the stark lighting from the overhead bulb. She saw a thin man standing before her wearing a white shirt and black pants. He had a pocket protector filled with Bic pens, and his black frame glasses and crewcut reminded Jan of every geek from high school.
This geek, however, held a syringe and smiled ghoulishly.
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