The Law of Nines

She opened her eyes, struggling to focus. “I don’t know, Alex. I suppose it’s possible. We know they’ve been coming here for a long time. It’s possible that over that time they’ve infiltrated the whole place. But why would they do such a thing?”

“Dr. Hoffmann was taking orders from Sedrick Vendis. Maybe they weren’t just trying to get information from my mother. Maybe they used this place to get information out of other people when they needed to. After all, they kept you and me here in an attempt to find out what we knew.”

“That’s possible,” she said, running her fingers back into her hair as she tried to think. “We know they’ve been working on things here in this world for a long time, but we don’t know the extent of their meddling. They would have had plenty of time to set up this hospital as a place for questioning people. From what I’ve seen it would certainly have given them the seclusion, anonymity, and cover they would have wanted.”

“So then there’s no telling how many of staff could be involved,” Alex said, thinking out loud. “For all we know, they could all be involved.”

Jax wiped a weary hard across her face. “I can’t answer that.”

“From what I can tell, it seems most of the people working up here on this floor were from your world. Others, like Hoffmann, were cooperating with them. This is a large facility. The top two floors are relatively small, but below that the hospital extends along the whole block. It has a lot of different mental-health services. It could be that they confined their activities to this floor and maybe the unit below. Being locked down as they are they could control everything easier. Dr. Hoffmann could have seen to that control.”

Jax gave him a look. “But we’d better not take that for granted.”

“I think you’re right.”

If there were other people involved, they could be looking for him and Jax. Going down to the next nurses’ station could get the two of them captured. But without an alarm to warn them, a lot of innocent people could die in the fire. He tried to think of what to do.

Struck with an idea, Alex went into the utility room and snatched a couple of the longer white coats off the rack. They looked like lab coats that went to mid-thigh. He handed one to Jax. “This might help fool them.”

They buttoned up the coats on the way to the stairs. It took Alex a frustratingly long time to find the right key out of the dozens on the fat key ring. He was finally able to unlock the stairway door. Once in the stairway, he shut the door tight, hoping it would slow the spread of the fire.

Jax followed close behind as they raced down the stairs to whatever waited.

40.

ALEX UNLOCKE THE DOOR on the eighth floor and raced past the utility room and the shelving area with the files. He didn’t see any fire. That much of it was a good sign. Several nurses turned when they heard Alex and Jax coming. One of them, frowning, stepped toward them to block their way. “Who the hell are—”

“Fire!” Alex screamed. “The top floor is on fire! It’s already spread through the ceiling. The whole upper floor is involved. We opened the fire-escape doors and got everyone we could out of the place.”

“I’d better go check it out,” one of the other nurses said.

“You need to evacuate your whole floor! Do it now!”

“There’s been no alarm,” the first nurse said. “We can’t evacuate a secure facility without an alarm—especially when we don’t know who you are.”

Alex, gritting his teeth in frustration, ran to the wall and yanked down the lever on the fire alarm. Nothing happened.

“See? The alarm doesn’t work. Hurry! The fire is spreading out of control. You need to get everyone out, now!”

One of the nurses at the counter picked up the phone. She pressed the line of buttons one at a time.

“The phone lines are dead.” She sounded stunned.

Alex snatched the fire extinguisher off the wall. He pulled the pin and squeezed the handle.

“Dead.” He held it up, squeezing the lever, demonstrating. “See? The extinguisher upstairs was dead, too. The sprinklers don’t work. There’s no way to fight the fire or even slow it down. The people in here have only one chance—they have to get out and they have to get out now!”

The first nurse frowned at him. “What department do you work in? Who are you?”

“Get moving or you’re all going to burn to death!” Alex yelled.

His tone of voice changed their attitude and sent them scrambling into action, rushing to the locked doors to each side. One of the nurses ran for the stairway Alex and Jax had come down. As two of the other nurses pulled keys from their pockets and unlocked the doors, Alex spotted a purse on the lower working counter behind the higher public counter.

He grabbed the purse and dumped the contents out onto the desk. A cell phone slid across the counter. Alex snatched it up. As soon as he had the power on, he punched the buttons.

“Nine one one. What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“Mother of Roses Psychiatric Hospital is on fire.”

“What address?”