The Law of Nines (Sword of Truth 15.50)

Beyond the front of the counter, on the other side of the nurses’ station, he could see the body of his mother. There was nothing he could do for her now. There were people still alive who would die if he didn’t leave her and try to get people to safety. He knew it was the logical thing to do, but he hated how cruel it felt.

“Help me,” the orderly lying near her pleaded. “Please . . . don’t leave me.”

He was lying on his side, holding his guts in with both arms. He lay stiff and still, fearing to move.

This was the man who had killed his mother. He had no trouble killing a helpless woman. Now, fearing for his own life, he was reduced to begging for mercy. Alex only briefly met his beseeching gaze and then hurried on. He was in anything but a merciful mood.

They had to skirt the far side of the utility room to get past the flames to make it to the internal stairway in the back. Alex stopped Jax as he reconsidered the plan to go down to each floor alerting patients to the fire. Jax leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as she caught her breath.

Alex realized that he had no way of knowing how many of the staff were involved in Dr. Hoffmann’s plot. For all he knew, everyone could be involved.

They could be rushing down into an ambush.

For all he knew, Hoffmann had alerted the staff before starting to set fire to the files. They might be torching the place on the floors below.

“Do you think that all the people working here could be from your world?” he asked Jax.

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 Hos

pital is on fire.”

“What address?”

“It’s the old hospital on Thirteenth Street.” Alex pressed his fingertips to his forehead, trying to think. “I don’t know the exact address.”

“Can you see flames, or smoke?”

“I’m inside the building. The fire is on the top floor.”

“How extensive is the fire?”

“The entire top floor is ablaze. The fire alarms don’t work. The sprinklers and the fire hoses don’t work. Get the fire department here now!”

“They’re on their way, sir. Please stay on the line. What is your name?”

Alex ignored the question. “I have to help the staff get people out of here! Hurry—get the fire trucks here!”

He tossed the phone on the counter without hanging up. He saw the nurses out in the wards rousing the patients. He headed for the stairs in the back to go down to the next floor. Jax was right behind him. At the doorway into the stairwell he met one of the nurses coming back down. Her face was nearly as white as her dress.

“It’s a solid wall of flame up there!”

“A building this old is going to go up in a hurry,” he told her. “Help get everyone out. There’s not much time. I’m going to warn the floors below.”

She nodded. “All right.”

Alex pointed toward the front counter. “Nine one one is on the cell phone. Tell them your name and that you work here. Confirm what I told them about the fire being out of control. Keep the phone with you, keep them on the line, but help everyone get out the fire escape and then follow them out and help the people from the ninth floor already down there.”

The woman scooped up the phone and with barely contained panic in her voice started telling the operator about the fire and how many hundreds of people were in danger. She told the operator to send ambulances as there were bound to be casualties. Alex didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. He raced for the stairs, pulling Jax along behind.

As they burst through the stairway door, a red-faced orderly, nearly out of breath, was just arriving at the top step. Alex skidded to a halt and drew back as the man slashed wildly with a knife.