Chapter 5

Paul parked with the front bumper almost touching the huge iron gates, then reached under the instrument panel and pressed a switch. When the short-range signal was received on the unit in the clinic offices, he knew, his vehicle would be studied on the television monitor which displayed the scene picked up by the hidden cameras behind the gateposts.

The gates opened inward, and he drove on up the wide asphalt driveway. In his rear-view mirror he could see the electrically operated gates close and latch behind him. Their twelve-foot height matched the level of the rugged fence which encircled the entire grounds.

He rounded a sharp curve, admiring the heavy growth of tall shrubs and trees which lined both sides of the drive. Then he stopped at the second gate which separated the central complex of the foundation from the outside world. This one, like the fence it formed a part of, was electrified.

It swung open to let him drive through, then closed behind him. Moments later he pulled into a huge garage that adjoined the main clinic building.

Stillwell came out of the swinging doors which separated the garage from the larger building. He met Paul at the rear of the vehicle with a comradely smile and upraised eyebrows. As Paul unlocked the lift-gate tail-gate latch, the doctor's scarcely concealed eagerness was put into words.

"Bring us another playmate, Paul?" he asked.

"Yes and no," was the confusing reply. "She's going to be my playmate, at least for a while. If I decide to keep her to myself longer than you can wait with only Betty and Heidi to amuse you, I'll help find you another new one."

"Like that, huh?" said the slightly disgruntled doctor. His expression revealed his disappointment, but he seemed to resign himself, shrugged, and set down the bag he had brought out with him.

"Yeah, like that, Jonas. At least, for now. We won't need to bring her out of it with the needle, though. I used the new oral stuff on her -- Boswell's Cyclopentenyl variant. Gave her one and a quarter grains. She ought to be coming to in another hour or so."

Paul had the rear wide open. Now, he grabbed a leather strap at the center of the wooden platform which rested on the interior "floor" formed by the collapsed seats, and pulled. The whole big section of cabinetry moved rearward for almost eighteen inches, and Paul reached under the edge, then pulled down sturdy legs with casters which rested on the garage floor.

He grabbed the leather loop again and the cabinetry wheeled out until he was able to open the ingeniously vented and padded compartment in the center. They looked down on the slightly flushed face of Palmyra Weston. Paul checked her pulse while Stillwell peeled back one of her eyelids and studied the pupil.

"That's good stuff, all right," said Stillwell. "I like it a lot better than the earlier versions. I hate to fuss around with Bemegride I.V.'s to balance the toxicity some of them seemed to get from the older forms."

"Yeah," replied Paul. "Especially since you might have to turn around and feed 'em pentothal to counteract the Bemegride."

"God, yes!" said Stillwell. "I remember a case where..."

"Later, Jonas," Paul interrupted. "Let's get her inside and settled down before she starts to come out of it." Stillwell gave a grunt, then helped his partner lift the limp form out of the coffin-like compartment. They carried her in through the swinging doors, down a hallway past surgical-looking rooms, and to a large elevator at the center of the hall.

They put her down on a padded, sheeted cart which stood by the elevator, then wheeled it into the car, closed the door, and took their patient to the floor below.

The basement of the building was not quite like the other floors. It did not resemble a hospital in any manner. Anyone operating the elevator -- other than Paul Harshman or Jonas Stillwell -- would discover no control to move the elevator below the ground floor.

They wheeled Pal into a room where she was slid on the cart onto a hospital bed -- the only clinical item in the room. She was secured to the bed by safety straps, and a cord ending in a push-button switch was placed under her hand.

Then they left the room, closing the door behind them.