Mindbend

Adam tensed the rope but was only able to lift Alan a few inches. He realized he needed more leverage. Suddenly, he remembered seeing pictures of Egyptian slaves hauling stones up the pyramids. They’d held the ropes over their shoulders like beasts of burden. Adam decided to do the same. Straining forward with all his might, he staggered back to the far wall and quickly tied the slack onto the same pipe where the rope had initially been fastened. When he ran back to the side, he saw Alan dangling about a third of the way up.

Adam repeated his maneuver three more times. On the fourth tug the rope stuck, and when Adam looked, he saw Alan was caught directly under the lip of the wall surrounding the roof. Reaching down, he pulled the doctor sideways and got hold of his legs, and with great effort, he heaved him over.

The two men fell onto the roof.

When Adam got his breath back, he untied the rope and stuffed it into his shoulder bag. Then he helped Alan up.

There was an angry abrasion on the man’s right cheek, but otherwise he seemed to have weathered the ordeal admirably.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Adam led Alan across the roof to the outer building and then down the stairwell.

At that point Adam was stumbling more than Alan. His arms felt limp, his thighs quivered from exertion, and the palms of his hands were raw. When they reached Adam’s room, he dropped the doctor on the bed and collapsed beside him.

Adam was out of shape for such rigorous physical activity.

He would have liked to have rested, but he knew the danger of discovery increased with every minute that passed. He helped Alan out of his hospital gown and quickly dressed him.

Fortunately, the two men were approximately the same size.

Then he tucked Alan into bed and prayed that he was still sufficiently drugged to go back to sleep. As a precaution, Adam locked the door behind him when he left the room to see if he could find a car. As he hurried down the hall, he wished once again that he had made better plans for escape.

• • •

Selma Parkman yawned and glanced at the clock over the medication locker. It was only one-fifteen. She had over five hours’ more duty, and she was already bored to death.

Glancing over at the two orderlies, she wished she had a little of their patience. From the moment she had arrived at the center she had been amazed at the staff’s placid acceptance of the dull routine.

“I think I’ll take a walk,” she said, flipping closed her Robert Ludlum novel. The orderlies didn’t answer.

“Did you hear me?” she asked petulantly.

“We’ll watch the ward,” said one of them at last.

“You do that,” said Selma, working her feet into her shoes.She knew that nothing would happen while she was gone.

Nothing ever happened. When she’d taken the job, she’d expected a bit more excitement than baby-sitting a bunch of automatons. She’d left a good job in Philadelphia at the Hobart Psychiatric Institute to come down to Puerto Rico, and she was beginning to wonder if she had made a mistake.

Selma left the nurses’ station and, desperate for some conversation, took the elevator to the OR floor and entered the gallery. Dr. Nachman smiled when he saw her. “Bored?” he said. “I can see we’ll have to get you a more exciting schedule.” In reality, he was irritated by her restlessness and had put her on the list for a course of Conformin treatment.

Selma watched the computer-generated images appearing on the screen in front of the operators, but she had no idea what she was seeing and soon became as bored as she’d been downstairs. She said good-bye, but no one responded.

Shrugging her shoulders, she left the gallery, descended a floor, and retraced her steps to the nurses’ station. The orderlies were as she’d left them. It wasn’t time for her rounds, but since she was already up, she got the flashlight and went into the ward.

The job wasn’t demanding to say the least. About half of the patients were on IVs, and she was supposed to check them at least twice during her shift. Otherwise all she had to do was shine her flashlight into the face of each patient to make sure he was still alive.

Selma stopped, her light playing on an empty pillow.

Bending down, she looked along the floor. Once a patient had fallen out of bed, but that did not seem to be the case here.

She moved over to the chart and read the name: Iseman.

Still thinking that the patient must be nearby, she went back to the nurses’ station and flipped on the ward’s overhead lights. A harsh fluorescent glare flooded the room.

Summoning the orderlies, Selma quickly checked the room herself. There was no doubt about it: Iseman had vanished.

Selma began to worry. Nothing like this had ever happened.

Telling the orderlies to keep searching, she hurried back up to the OR.

“A patient is missing,” she said, spotting Nachman and Mitchell as they were about to leave.

“That’s impossible,” said Dr. Mitchell.