Emerging onto the basement level, Jack walked down the hall and peered into the modern cafeteria. There was a handful of doctors and nurses having coffee. No one paid him any heed. Backtracking toward the elevators, Jack opened the first of two walk-in coolers. There were no bodies. Closing the heavy door, he stepped on to the next. The fairly ripe aroma told him he was in the right place.

There were two gurneys and two bodies, both covered with sheets. Luckily, the temperature was fairly cold—Jack guessed just about freezing. Grasping the edge of the sheet on the first gurney, he flipped it back. The patient was an obese man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties. Jack assumed it was Herbert Benfatti.

After re-covering Benfatti, Jack moved to the second gurney. He pulled back the sheet and found himself staring at Maria Hernandez. Her broad, full face had collapsed somewhat, pulling her mouth down in a grimace. Her color was a mottled greenish-bluish gray. Pulling the sheet down more, Jack could see that she was still wearing her patient’s johnny. Even her IV was still in place. Jack returned the sheet back over her. For a minute he pondered how to handle the situation. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t feel he had a lot of choice.

Returning to the door, Jack stepped back outside. He looked down the long corridor and saw a guard in an oversized baggy uniform sitting in a chair next to a pair of double doors he was ostensibly guarding. Without hurrying, Jack walked down to the elderly man, who’d watched him approach but otherwise didn’t move.

“Hello,” Jack said with an insouciant smile. “I’m Dr. Stapleton.”

“Yes, Doctor,” the aged guard said. Except for his eyes, he was motionless. He was like a statue until Jack caught a partially suppressed pill-rolling tremor. Jack surmised the man had Parkinson’s disease.

Jack pushed through the doors and stepped out onto the loading dock. There was one van in the small parking area. On its side in careful lettering it said Queen Victoria Hospital Food Service. Satisfied, Jack turned back inside. He smiled again at the guard, who smiled back. Jack was confident they were now old friends.

Back on the elevator, Jack pressed the button for floor four. He wasn’t particularly choosy; he just wanted a patient floor, and when the door opened, he knew he’d chosen wisely. He walked over to the busy central desk. The first wave of patients had been sent up to surgery a little more than an hour earlier, and the second wave was being readied. It was mild pandemonium.

“Excuse me,” Jack said to the harried ward clerk. “I need a wheelchair for my mother.”

“The closet next to the elevators,” the clerk said, pointing with the pen in his hand.