Baby Girl Doe (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 5) (16 page)

May 10, 1985

Bill Alden found Colonel Frank Prescott at his usual picnic table at Montauk Point, eating his lunch alone under the shade of a blossoming dogwood tree.

“Frank?”

Prescott looked over his shoulder. He stared at Alden for a long moment, taking him in as he approached. Alden looked gaunt. His beard was overgrown, and he had deep circles around his eyes. “Bill,” he said with surprise. He finally smiled and patted Alden on the shoulder. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. You’re not supposed to report back until the end of the month.”

Alden sat down on the bench opposite Prescott. “I’m not reporting back, Colonel. I wanted to catch you alone, off the base.”

“Sure. Sure,” Prescott said. “Want half of my BLT?”

“No thanks. I still don’t have much of an appetite but enjoy your lunch. You eat and I’ll talk, if that’s okay with you.”

Prescott popped the top of a can of Coke and took a sip. “How are you holding up, Bill?”

“Good days and bad, mostly bad. Aw, who am I kidding? Every day is just plain miserable.”

Prescott looked off toward the Atlantic. The surface of the water was painted silver by the glare of the sun. His eyes clung to the image for a moment and then he sighed a troubled sigh. “So no improvement in your wife’s condition?”

“Twenty-two days and counting. The machines are keeping her alive. She’s still asleep and . . . I don’t think she’ll last much longer.”

Prescott looked stricken. “I’m sorry, Bill. I truly am. What about your little girl?”

“She’s out of the incubator. I’m taking her home tomorrow.”

“That’s wonderful news. What can I do to help?”

“I’ll cut right to the chase, Colonel. I can’t take care of a baby, not now and maybe not ever. I can hardly—” Alden averted his eyes. “The day Caitlin went into the hospital, I was passed out in my car in the parking lot for three hours. By the time I got to the hospital, she was already unconscious.” His throat tightened. “I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to her.”

“You said that you were passed out?”

“From the sessions—two years of nonstop experimentation has really taken a toll on me. I’ve got other stuff going on too. My stomach’s a mess. If I eat more than once a day, I just give it all back. I don’t sleep most of the night and then just before dawn I lie awake and hallucinate. I’m afraid I’d only wind up hurting her.” His lips curled downward. “That’s no life for a child.”

“Do you want out of your current program, Bill? Don’t worry about pay and benefits. I can reassign you to another activity, one that won’t beat you up so badly.”

“You’d do that?”

Prescott hemmed and hawed, shaking his head from side to side. “It’s unusual, but if it’ll help you . . . at least until you’re feeling better about yourself. Maybe all you need is to get your confidence back.” He saw that Alden had a faraway look in his eyes. “Is there more?” He took a tiny nibble of his sandwich. “What else?”

“Without Caitlin . . . Like I said I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to take care of a child. You know my history.”

Prescott seemed to be trapped in thought. He put down his sandwich. “Are you thinking about putting your daughter up for adoption? Isn’t there someone in your family who can help out?”

“I’ll give it to you straight, Frank.” He swallowed before speaking again. “I hear talk about a program studying infants and children, the one Kleeb is trying to push through.”

Prescott averted his eyes. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Does it matter? Look, my daughter is flesh of my flesh, and there’s a fifty/fifty chance that she’ll be able to do what I can do. That’s a far sight better than wasting your time with orphans with no demonstrated ability whatsoever, isn’t it?”

“I guess there’s a lot more scuttle floating around the base than I knew about. Kleeb’s pretty full of himself, isn’t he?”

Alden nodded.

“Still, do you know what that would mean? Do you realize what kind of childhood she’d have?”

“Not exactly, but at least she’d be close enough to me that I’d be able to keep tabs on her. If I give her up for adoption, I’ll never see her again, Frank. Isn’t it better that I can watch her grow up? I mean, what would you do if she was yours?”

Prescott became completely still. A long moment passed, and then he puffed out his cheeks and expelled his breath.

“Are you all right?” Alden asked.

Prescott rubbed his eyes. “I’m just tired. Look, that’s a lot to chew on, Bill. I’ll have to—”

“Think on it?”

“No. I mean . . . you asked what I would do if I were in your place. But, yes, I’ll have to think about it.” He put down his sandwich and wrapped it up.

“Aren’t you going to finish?”

“No.” Prescott shook his head. “I’m done.”

“Do what you have to, okay? Look at me, Frank. If you were a baby, would you want this sorry mess to be your father?”

September 25, 1985

Alden tapped lightly on the glass panel.
The military nurse looked up from her desk and slid the glass to the side. “Can I take a peek, Margo?” he whispered.

“If you promise not to disturb her. She’s got thirty minutes left on the simulator. I don’t want to have to make up another cock-and-bull story about the projector breaking down again.”

“I promise. I promise. I’ll just watch, okay?”

Margo nodded. She slid the glass panel closed and stood. A moment later the door to the nursery opened. “She’s in here.”

He followed her into a darkened room where his daughter was lying in a crib. A projector positioned alongside the crib cast images onto the ceiling above her. The baby seemed captivated by the images of puffy, white clouds moving across a crystal-blue sky. Most of the clouds were amorphous in shape. Alden watched his daughter as her eyes followed the forms moving above her. Randomly a cloud resembling a smiling face would roll slowly across the sky. When it did, a lullaby began to play. The baby gurgled, making a happy sound until the smiling cloud disappeared and the music stopped.

“She’s getting big,” Margo said. “She’s a beautiful, healthy girl.” She rubbed Alden’s arm. “We’re taking real good care of her, Bill. We treat her like she’s ours.”

A tear formed in the corner of his eye. “Is she getting any fresh air?”

“I take her upstairs every day, weather permitting.”

“Thank you. I don’t want her thinking this is what the world really looks like. It’s so dark and gloomy down here. I don’t want her to know that she’s below ground, under the earth, like—” He stopped and redirected his gaze back to his daughter.

The smiling cloud rolled back across the screen. The baby cooed in anticipation of the nursery rhyme music.

“She’s smart too,” Margo said. “She catches on to everything right away. Smartest child down here.”

Bill glowed for a moment. “My little girl.”

The nursery rhyme ended. “You’d better go, Bill. You know I’ll catch shit if someone finds out you’ve had contact with her. You don’t want her getting removed from the program, do you?”

“No. No. No.” He blew his daughter a kiss. “Thank you, Margo. See you tomorrow?”

“We’ll see,” she said with uncertainty. “Now scoot!” She gave him a playful smack on the butt, sending him on his way.

He closed the door without making noise as he left.

Margo watched the promenade of clouds cross the ceiling. She had seen it often enough to know the order in which the different shaped clouds passed before the baby’s eyes. There was the oblong, billowy shape, followed by a grouping of tiny poof-shaped clouds, then the long, shimmering one, and finally the smiling face with the music. As she watched, the long shimmering cloud rolled away. The baby’s face grew excited. “What a smart little girl you are. You know what’s coming already, don’t you?”

June 25, 1988

“It’s too tight.”

“Sorry, Bill, it’s got to be really snug.” The technician adjusted the straps on Alden’s helmet. “Any better?”

“Not really.”

The technician shrugged. “Best I can do.” He untangled the electrical leads and snapped them onto the helmet. “The doctor doesn’t want you to get into the tank until he checks you. Just hang out a few minutes.” He made a notation on the experiment chart and left the room.

Alden sat quietly in a chair, watching the shimmering water in the isolation tank. The thermometer read ninety-eight point three degrees. The saline solution in the tank had been cooled so that it was exactly the same as Alden’s measured internal body temperature.

The door creaked open. Alden turned and regarded Dr. Kleeb without any emotion.

“This is the same experiment we tried yesterday, Bill, except we’d like to give you a little something to help you relax. All right with you?” Kleeb asked.

“I didn’t sign up to take any drugs,” Bill said flatly. “TMS and sensory deprivation are one thing, mind-altering drugs are something else.”

“What’s the big deal? You’ve been in the program for years. Have we ever done anything to put you at risk?”

“Not while Colonel Prescott was around.”

“Meaning what?” Kleeb asked with insult in his voice.

“Meaning Prescott knew where to draw the line.”

“And you’re insinuating that I
don’t
?”

“And I’m
saying
that you don’t,” Alden said hotly. “So back off!”

“All right, get into the tank, Alden.” Kleeb went over to the medication cabinet and unlocked it while Alden slid into the isolation tank. “Be careful not to loosen the helmet.”

The tank was white and shaped like a large lima bean with the ends higher than the middle. It allowed the participant to submerge up to the neck in the saline solution without covering the head. Alden was floating in the tank when Kleeb returned and set a hypodermic needle on the tank ledge even with Alden’s line of sight.

“Are you kidding me? Alden said angrily. “What did I say? What did I goddamn say?”

“You think your friend Prescott was a real prince of a guy, but you don’t know the half of it.”

“What does that mean?”

Kleeb’s lips parted, but he remained silent. A moment passed along with his nerve. “Anyway, he’s gone now, and I’m in charge.”

“I don’t care what you’re in charge of. I said no drugs and I mean it.”

“You know I have complete autonomy down here and there’s absolutely nothing to prevent me from booting you and your daughter out of the program.”

Alden turned his head abruptly, his eyes growing wide with alarm as he and Kleeb locked gazes.

“That’s right,
I know
. Prescott thought he had buried all the pertinent documents, but I did my own snooping around when I took over. All the paperwork is clean, but I know that Baby Girl Doe’s hospital records have been falsified. I know everything, Bill, and I’ve kept my mouth shut. So don’t give me your highhanded bullshit about me not being the man Prescott was. He’s not the hero you think he is. I took pity on you because of what happened to your wife and son . . . tragic.”

“You’re a real prick, Kleeb!”

“Your daughter is three years old. I’ve allowed the sham to continue as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the program and I’ve made sure that your little girl is very well cared for. I presume you’d like that to continue, wouldn’t you?”

Alden bit his lip, suppressing the expletive he was about to hurl. “What’s in the hypodermic?”

“That’s a good boy,” Kleeb said in a calming voice. “Scopolamine, just a couple of milligrams.”

“At the same time as transcranial electromagnetic stimulation? Is that a good idea? How long does it last?”

“The scopolamine should wear off hours before you’re out of the tank. It’s a small dose. Nothing to worry about.”

“Have you tried this before?”

“No.”

“So I’m the guinea pig.”

“That’s why we pay you the big bucks, Alden.” Kleeb injected Alden’s arm without waiting for his approval. “You’re all set. Now give us a good show.” He stood and lowered the cover on the isolation tank. Alden was now enclosed in a soundproof isolation tank in a state of complete and utter darkness.

Kleeb signaled through the glass panel to the technician in the adjacent control room to begin recording data. He was stepping through the doorway when he mumbled, “Entitled son of a bitch.”

~~~

“Is the man coming?” the little girl asked, her voice childlike and inquisitive.

“Your friend Bill?” Margo checked her watch. “It’s kind of late—maybe tomorrow, sweetheart. Are you ready for your quiet-time bath?”

The little girl nodded excitedly. Her blond curls bounced atop her head. “Uh-huh. Can I have a
dwink furst
?”

“Sure. What would you like?”

“
Appul duce
.”

“Apple
juice
. Say apple
juice
.”

“
Appul duce
,” she said with an impish smile.

Margo giggled. “Okay, but tomorrow we’re going to have to work on your pronunciation. Okay?”

The little girl once again shook her head happily. Margo opened the refrigerator and handed her a juice box after detaching the straw and puncturing the foil seal. “How’s that?”

“Good,” she said after taking a long sip. “Can I have a cookie?”

“After your quiet-bath. Now come on, let’s get ready.”

Margo took her hand and led her to the room with the juvenile isolation tank. It was white and shaped like a lima bean with both ends higher than the middle. She put her juice box down on a chair and took off her robe.

“Your bathing suit is so pretty,” Margo said.

“
Fank
you.”

“You’re welcome.” Margo picked her up and lowered her gently into the tank. “Is it warm enough?”

“Good,” she said while nodding. “Can I play with Brynn tomorrow?”

“Of course.” Margo gently pressed adhesive contact pads to the little girl’s forehead and then attached electrical leads. She flipped a switch and the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” began to play from speakers located in the tank lid. “Are you comfortable, sweetie?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I ready to get
keen
.”

“Okay. I’m going to close the lid. Shut your eyes and dream happy dreams. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”

“
Kay
. You think the man will come back tomorrow?”

Margo smiled. “I think so.”
I wonder what happened to Bill?
“Here we go. Sweet dreams.”

“
Kay
. I
dweam
about my toys.”

“That’s a good idea.” Margo slowly lowered the lid on the isolation tank. She set the instrumentation panel and left the room after asking one of the other nurses to keep an eye for her.

The corridors in the underground complex were long, labyrinth-like, and always chilly. She folded her arms in front of her for warmth and walked quickly toward the adult-male section of the testing area.

The testing coordinator had gone home for the evening, but the schedule was still on his desk. Margo checked for Bill Alden’s name to see if he was still onsite and if he was scheduled for any tests that would run past standard hours. She noted that he was scheduled for isolation testing at ten a.m. and had signed in. Testing should have concluded at three p.m., but he had not yet signed out. Margo dropped the clipboard and ran down the hall.

When she got to the adult isolation area, she found the room empty and all the lights switched off. She flipped on the lights. All but one of the isolation tanks was empty. “Christ!” She hit the panic button and raced out of the control room. Red strobe lights flashed in the corridor, and sirens blared.

She lifted the lid on the isolation tank. “Oh my God.” Alden was passed out, his head slack, his chin touching his clavicle. She unbuckled his helmet and lifted it off his head. “Come on, Bill. Wake up. Wake up.” She slapped his cheeks repeatedly. “Come on. Come on.” She grabbed the emergency kit and had her hand on the smelling salts when the door opened behind her.

Kleeb towered over her, his eyes beaming down angrily. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

“Look!” she said with dire urgency in her voice while pointing at Alden.

Kleeb grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her to her feet. “Get out,” he ordered and shoved her toward the door.