Free Terminal by Robin Cook Page B

building.”
    “This doesn’t interest me,” Sean said. “Let’s see the research areas.”
    “Hey, you get the twenty-five-dollar tour or none at all,” she said sternly. Then she laughed. “Humor me! I need the practice.”
    Sean smiled. Claire was the most genuine person he’d met so far at the Center. “Fair enough. Lead on!”
    Claire took him over to an adjacent room with eight desks manned by busy people. A huge collating copy machine stood off to the side busily functioning. A large computer with multiple moderns was behind a glass enclosure like some kind of trophy. A small glass-fronted elevator that was more like a dumbwaiter occupied another wall. It was filled with what appeared to be hospital charts.
    “This is the important room!” Claire said with a smile. “It’s where all the bills are sent for hospital and outpatient services. These are the people who deal with the insurance companies. It’s also where my paychecks come from.”
    After seeing more of administration than Sean would have liked, Claire finally took him downstairs to see the laboratory facilities which occupied the middle five stories of the structure.
    “The first floor of the building has auditoriums, library, and security,” Claire droned as they entered the sixth floor. Sean followed Claire down a long central corridor with labs offeither side. “This is the main research floor. Most of the major equipment is housed here.”
    Sean poked his head into various labs. He was soon disappointed. He’d been expecting a futuristic lab, superbly designed and filled with state-of-the-art technology. Instead he saw basic rooms with the usual equipment. Claire introduced him to the four people they came upon in one of the labs: David Lowenstein, Arnold Harper, Nancy Sprague, and Hiroshi Gyuhama. Of these people only Hiroshi expressed any more than a passing interest in Sean. Hiroshi bowed deeply when introduced. He seemed genuinely impressed when Claire mentioned that Sean was from Harvard.
    “Harvard is a very good school,” Hiroshi said in heavily accented English.
    As they continued down the corridor, Sean began to notice that most of the rooms were empty.
    “Where is everybody?” he asked.
    “You’ve met pretty much the whole research staff,” Claire said. “We have a tech named Mark Halpern, but I don’t see him at the moment. We don’t have many personnel presently, although word has it that we are about to start expanding. Like all businesses, we’ve been through some lean times.”
    Sean nodded, but the explanation did little to allay his disappointment. With the impressive results of the medulloblastoma work, he’d envisioned a large group of researchers working at a dynamic pace. Instead, the place seemed relatively deserted, which reminded Sean of Ramirez’s unsettling remark.
    “Down in security they told me some of the researchers had disappeared. Do you know anything about that?”
    “Not a lot,” Claire admitted. “It was last year and it caused a flap.”
    “What happened?”
    “They disappeared all right,” Claire said. “They left everything: their apartments, their cars, even their girlfriends.”
    “And they were never found?” Sean asked.
    “They turned up,” Claire said. “The administration doesn’tlike to talk about it, but apparently they are working for some company in Japan.”
    “Sushita Industries?” Sean asked.
    “That I don’t know,” Claire said.
    Sean had heard about companies luring away personnel, but never so secretly. And never to Japan. He realized it was probably just another indication that times were changing in the arena of biotechnology.
    Claire brought them to a thick opaque glass door barring further progress down the corridor. In block letters were the words: No Entry. Sean glanced at Claire for an explanation.
    “The maximum containment facility is in there,” she said.
    “Can we see it?” Sean asked. He cupped his hands and peered through the door. All