When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [74]
We arrived in an open space, about fifty feet square. It was some kind of workplace. Where were we now?
“Max? What’s this?”
“It’s just offices. For business stuff. No big deal. Pretty boring.”
“What kind of business?”
She shrugged. “The boring kind. You know, business.”
Whatever old fixtures had once been in this part of the building were long gone. There was no wood paneling, no fireplace, no dentil moldings, just a warren of free-standing office-style cubes. Computers squatted on desktops of dull gray steel. A coffee pot on a file cabinet caught my eye. The pot was cracked, and a thick black gum coated the bottom.
I picked up a mug from a desk. O.B.’s Coffee, I read. The floating blue circle of mold told me the cup had been here at least a couple of days. Where is O.B.? Who is O.B.?
And what was dead and putrefying in the building? What had happened at this so-called School? What kind of business was conducted in this awful place?
I glanced at Max, but she was moving again. She was home sweet home. She obviously accepted all this horror and madness as normal. It was so quiet that even my normal breathing sounded loud. I held my breath and listened for a moment. I had a four-color expectation that as soon as my back was turned, someone would jump out of a closed room. But no one did.
Max pushed open another door. There was a soft, clicking sound. Were they photographing us? My heart was still pounding. I felt tired. Things were getting a little blurry. Where was Kit? Was he okay?
“This is where I work,” Max announced. “It’s usually full of doctors.”
Chapter 78
WE ENTERED a cavernous room that must have been sixty feet long and about half as wide. My eyes swept the workroom, quickly took everything in. It was a standard-issue laboratory, but a good one, with top-of-the-line, very expensive equipment. Who had funded this? Who was subsidizing this business?
There were a dozen fancy workstations. Slides were scattered everywhere on table and counter surfaces. Expensive microscopes were stacked on shelves.
I noted a scale/beam balance and several hydrometers. There were laser spectrographs, cell culture hoods, high-speed centrifuges. Obviously, no expense had been spared on the equipment.
A little pride crept into Max’s voice. “This is my station, Frannie. Come look. I was taught to make myself useful. So I did. I was a good worker.”
“I’ll bet you were, sweetie.”
Max climbed up and sat proudly on a tall metal stool. Her workstation. She switched on an overhead fluorescent light. There was a small sign on the desk: TINKERBELL LIVES.
She showed me how she had used a glass pipette to transfer droplets of DNA cocktail from a tray of small wells onto plates of growing medium. “We run out the chromosomes by cooking them in here,” she explained.
I didn’t recognize the chrome-plated unit she pointed to, but it was a brand-new model. Before I could question her further, Max slid down from the stool.
“Let’s go,” she said. “There’s a lot more to see.”
I followed her. “I’m right behind you.”
“I know you are. I have a really good sense of hearing.”
“So I’ve noticed. Who’s Tinkerbell?”
Max turned to me. She looked upset. “Nobody, really. She’s dead.”
Tinkerbell, I was thinking. Was that what they called Max here at the School? I suspected it was, and that she didn’t like it. Tinkerbell was her lab name, wasn’t it?
We passed through a smaller room filled with shiny steel cryogenic tanks. What in hell had they been freezing in there? Another, even smaller room, contained half a dozen blood diagnostic machines.
No worn-out university equipment for these folks. They were extremely well funded. By whom? To do what?
“Mice,” said Max, pointing toward an enclosed room. “This is the Mickey Mouse room. It’s gross. Hold your nose, Frannie. I’m not kidding. You were warned.”
The smell of death seemed to be concentrated in here. I tried to catch my breath; I did hold my breath, but even that didn’t help much. I thought I was going to be sick. I held back a dry heave.
I peered