Chapter 4
The Heritage Foundation, Vienna, Austria
One blink. Two blinks. Blue eyes turned into green ones. Felicia studied her reflection in the mirror one more time. She threw the now empty contact lens case into the trash. She straightened her lab coat and calmly left the ladies room. She was here for a reconnaissance mission and she'd best get on with it.
Her identity card read: Elizabeth Meisner. She was employed at the foundation in the capacity of a medical technician. Having tended to Frisco wounds in the field and having taken a course on basic nursing care, Felicia was confident enough of passing for the role. In truth, her bigger worry was staying undetected long enough to meet Frisco for pick up tomorrow.
She wandered around for a half hour managing to look busy whenever someone with authority passed by. She found a building map and traced her way to where she should be. She headed for the elevators.
There seemed to be a line leading to the elevators. Tamping down her nervousness, Felicia stood in the queue keeping quiet but straining to hear every sound around her. As she got closer to the front, she studied those ahead of her and discovered the cause of the delay. Two grim-faced security guards flanked a data card reader. Each employee swiped their ID card across the reader's interface then stepped forward. One of the guards would bark out a number and the employee moved to one of four elevators. The elevators doors would open and the employee stepped inside. Then the next employee would swipe their card and the process begun anew.
Eventually, it was Felicia's turn. Feigning an air of general disinterest, she swiped her card and stepped forward. Fear gripped her heart tighter and tighter as the seconds passed waiting for a number to be called out.
"Vier!" came the guard's voice.
Felicia let out her breath and moved to the open fourth elevator and stepped inside. The elevator didn't have any buttons so she stood waiting for the doors to close. They did.
The elevator's unexpected downward movement startled Felicia. She squared her shoulders and prepared herself for anything. What she found when the doors opened was almost anticlimactic. It looked like a lobby of a bank or a hotel. She stepped out and made for the first door she saw. She passed an alert guard whose eyes, she noticed, drifted to her ID card and then back to his paperwork.
The soft strains of violins wafted towards her as she opened the door. She gazed curiously at the adults huddled in small groups in the spacious room. She could see that they seemed to be well-groomed and not in the drugged daze that she would have expected. The attendants were doing their best to be entertaining. Some played simple games with balls and pillows. Others read from a book. Still others played music or sang to her charges.
"Elizabeth?" said a voice to her far right.
Felicia swallowed and stiffened her resolve. She turned and ruthlessly stopped her natural urge to flee. Her hands twitched at her side as she saw who had called her alter ego's name. It was Elena Cosgrove Villiers, the head of the Foundation.
Face composed and hand steady, Felicia approached Elena. She stiffened her spine and tried for an authoritative gait. She had made sure to look enough like Elizabeth Meisner to pass for her on casual observance. How well did Elena know Elizabeth?
In her wheelchair beside a low settee, Elena seemed an unlikely person to bear the notoriety granted to her. Paralyzed from the waist down, her slender frame seemed smaller and her fair skin more translucent than before. It was only when one looked into her face and was caught in her bright, intelligent crystal blue eyes that one understood why this woman was considered dangerous. Her eyes burned with a fanatic's light - steady, strong and strangely hypnotic - a cobra's eyes.
In the late 80s, Elena had planned and executed the assassination of several top members of the WSB and the DVX hierarchy. She had targeted Sean, Robert and Anna for termination and nearly succeeded. But they had turned the tables on her in a memorable confrontation on Mount Rushmore. Long believed to have died in an act of suicide, Elena had emerged in a new identity - Elena Villiers. She had established the Heritage Foundation some years ago. It was lauded for its good works and stellar research.
A common saying goes that still waters run deep. Elena was a complex, ambitious and insidiously clever woman whose plans could well be hallmarks of byzantine intricacy. If what the Scorpio team suspected was true, then they had every reason to be deliberate and thorough in investigating Elena and the Foundation. Robert was convinced that the Foundation was a front for Elena's true agenda. What that was, they were only beginning to unravel.
Felicia nodded and stood attentively in front of Elena. Elena gestured to a brown-haired woman of middle age sitting on the settee and repeatedly brushing her hair with a hairbrush.
"I believe Therese is tired, Elizabeth. Bring her to her room please. I will see her next week." Imperiously, Elena called her assistant to her side. "Anya, I have a meeting in the boardroom."
"Yes, madam," said Anya. She wheeled her charge away to the entry doors.
Felicia sank unto the settee by a woman she assumed was her patient, Therese. She let out the breath she hadn't been aware she had been holding in. She took some deep, calming breaths. As she regained her equilibrium, Felicia became aware of her patient's singsong humming. Felicia gently took the hairbrush from the woman and began to brush her hair. She leaned in closer to hear. The tune sounded so familiar. She began to hum along and the words came to her.
Felicia began to whisper and sing. "Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda. You'll come a waltzing matilda with me. And he sang-"
The woman suddenly turned around and stared at Felicia. When Felicia stopped singing, the woman began humming again. Felicia began to sing softly once more. She studied the unfortunate woman's face. Surreptitiously, Felicia read the patient's identification bracelet. It said: Therese 9411CX53 Rm 16. She memorized it.
Felicia escorted Therese to her room all the while singing to her or if there were others around she hummed along. In the room, Felicia tucked Therese into her bed. There was something about the woman that made Felicia feel instantly protective towards her.
Therese reached under her pillow and took out a tattered scrap of cloth. The pattern was faded but Felicia could tell it had had multiple colors when it was new. Therese stared at Felicia for a long time. Felicia did not feel uncomfortable. She took one of Therese's hand and held it. Felicia smiled and began the song again. Therese began to sway from side to side. She did not smile but she seemed happy all the same.
After five minutes of singing, Therese seemed to tire. She held out the scrap of cloth to Felicia. Her eyes seemed more focused as she looked at Felicia.
"You want me to take this?" asked Felicia. She held out her hand and Therese placed the cloth in her grasp. "All right. I'll keep it safe for you."
Therese reclined into her pillows. Her eyes shut closed. She began to hum softly. Felicia sat on the edge of the bed. She stroked Therese's long hair and sang Waltzing Matilda into her ear until she was sure Therese had fallen asleep. The brown scrap of cloth she slipped into her lab coat pocket.
Felicia remembered Robin's discovery of the Foundation's true purpose - human experimentation to facilitate drug development. Stopping the Foundation had become Robin's driving motivation. Felicia was in complete agreement with her.
"Are you one of them, Therese?" said Felicia. "One of those given the compound and experimented on. We're going to do our best to help you. I promise."
The night shift staff was light in the adult ward. Their charges were safely medicated and secured in their beds. Each staff member was assigned a zone in which ten patients were housed. Every few hours, the staff member would physically check each patient then return to their own work.
Fortunately for Felicia, her alter ego, Elizabeth Meisner, was relatively new and was assigned to float between the second and the night time shifts. Few staff members knew her well enough to detect a pretender. The real Elizabeth Meisner had unexpectedly won an all expenses paid sweepstakes vacation for two to any destination she desired courtesy of the Trident Group. She had wasted no time in claiming the prize and was now vacationing in Greece.
Felicia logged off the computer network. Elizabeth's computer clearance was very low. She suspected that any digital snooping she could attempt would trigger alarms.
"Time to do some old fashioned snooping then," said Felicia under her breath. She went to the medical cabinet and got a few supplies out - some cotton balls, a few tongue depressors, a pair of latex gloves and a face mask. She checked that her plastic penlight hung from a leather chain around her neck.
She made her way to the emergency stairs. She put on the mask and the latex gloves. The better to not leave fingerprints or too clear an image on video cameras. She went into the stairwell. She stuffed some cotton balls into the locking mechanism of the door to prevent it from locking when she closed it.
The stairwell was dimly lit but like everything at the Foundation it was clean. There was no dust on the floors, the steps or the railing. One set of stairs led up and another down. Felicia took the down staircase. On the next landing she was surprised that the stairs continued downward into darkness.
"How many sub-cellars does this place have?" She took out her penlight and scanned the darkness. The stairs were rougher, older looking.
The air grew stale the further she descended. Her nose crinkled at the musty smell common to unused spaces. At the bottom she came to a metal door coated with dust. She tugged at the handle. It was locked. A small key lock was barely visible underneath a layer of dirt and oily grime.
Wasting little time, Felicia broke a tongue depressor into two lengthwise. She used one piece as a makeshift lock pick. She unlocked the door on the first try. With infinite slowness, she opened the door. She braced herself for any sudden sounds. The metal hinges opened soundlessly. She wedge a tongue depressor on the door frame for an easier exit.
Felicia physically recoiled as she stepped through the door. The combined smell of ammonia and lime was overpowering. The room had a low ceiling and the floors were bare cement. Dust motes danced in the feeble spotlight she shined on the floors, the walls and the fixtures. Metal benches and bare shelves lined the walls of one room. She explored further.
She came to a door marked with a metal plate bearing the name "Ward 1." She pushed and the wooden door creaked loudly. It was a room little bigger than a walk-in closet. She shone the light on what appeared to be mounds of earth. The floor was covered with soil with two mounds that came to her waist. Bits of something glittered under her light. Curiosity getting the better of her caution, Felicia examined the top of the mounds. On top of the earth was at least a foot of yellow and green lime crystals.
"That the lime I keep smelling."
She made to move out but her foot caught on something. She froze instantly. Shining her light to her foot, she saw that had nudge something white and hard.
"How careless," whispered Felicia. She lifted her foot and was about to step out when again curiosity won out. She bent down to touch the white object.
On closer inspection, the object wasn't white but pale yellow. It protruded out from under the mound. Felicia cleared some soil from around the object. The more she cleared, the more the bile in her stomach crept higher and higher up her throat.
"A human bone," she whispered. Her eyes moved to the second mound. She noticed a heavy chain encrusted with rust lying on the floor with human-sized cuff on the end. "My god, what is this place?"
She stepped out of the room with her mouth clamped shut to keep from vomiting. She shone her light and saw three more doors. Each had an identical plate. She shuddered with revulsion and fear. She had no doubt that the rest of the so-called wards would also be filled with earth and lime.
She ran back to the door, opened it, removed the tongue depressor and closed it tightly. She then ran up the flight of stairs to where she had been before - the adult ward. In the staff restroom, she took off her mask and gloves. She swore that the smell of ammonia and lime permeated her clothes. She vomited in a stall. She washed her face and hands thoroughly but still the smell lingered about her. The face that gazed back at her was pale with luminous eyes that now were wide with shock and grief.
Felicia returned to the ward. She noticed that each patient's room had a small plate on it with the room number and a ward number underneath it. Each one filled her with disgust. Unable to bear the sight any longer, she retreated to Therese's room. She gazed at Therese with misty eyes.
She reached out a hand to stroke Therese's hair. "They've never stopped, have they? Just became more sophisticated." Felicia pulled the blanket higher on her patient's chest. "This IS going to stop. It's probably too late for you, Therese. I'm sorry. But for your sake and the others, I'm going to do what I can to stop this. Maybe that will give you some peace in the end. I'm so sorry."
Felicia returned to her small office. She logged into the Foundation's internal network. Over the next half hour, she tried various tricks to surmount the layers of system security. She was about to give up when an inadvertent key press led her to access a file dated sometime in 2002.
Her eyes scanned the contents. Two words leapt out at her - Robin Scorpio.
"What?" exclaimed Felicia. She re-read the file committing as much as she could to memory. "This can't be true. It can't."
A knock at the door made her jump. She turned off the terminal. The knock came again.
"Frau Meisner?" came a voice from behind the door.
"Uh, ja?" said Felicia as she opened the door to one of the male caregivers.
The caregiver held out a sweater still wrapped in plastic. A cart full of packages was by the door. "This is a new sweater for Therese. May I put it in her room?"
Felicia caught enough German words to piece together the gist of the caretaker's offer. "Ja bitte!"
The caregiver went off to deliver the rest of his packages. Felicia closed the door and relaxed against it for a few seconds. She looked at her watch.
"Hours to pickup. Do I hide or keep looking around?" She eyed the terminal. She sat back down and began to access the network again. "Robin, what are you doing in here?"