A Place Called Freedom Page 41

  She dashed across the lawn to the main entrance of Nut House and looked through the glass doors. There was no one in the lobby. She took from her pocket the plastic card that served as a key and swiped it through the card reader. The door opened. She ran up the stairs, calling: "Lisa! Are you there?" The laboratory was deserted. Lisa's chair was neatly tucked under her desk, and her computer screen was a gray blank. Jeannie tried the women's rest room at the end of the corridor. Nothing. "Damn!" she said aloud. "Where the hell are you?"

  Panting, she hurried back outside. She decided to make a tour of the gymnasium building in case Lisa was sitting on the ground somewhere catching her breath. She ran around the side of the building, passing through a yard full of giant garbage cans. At the back was a small car park. She saw a figure jogging along the footpath, heading away. It was too tall to be Lisa, and she was pretty sure it was a man. She thought it might be the missing security guard, but he disappeared around the corner of the student union before she could be sure.

  She continued on around the building. At the far side was the running track, deserted now. Coming full circle, she arrived at the front of the gym.

  The crowd was bigger, and there were more fire engines and police cars, but she still could not see Lisa. It seemed almost certain that she was still in the burning building. A sense of doom crept over Jeannie, and she fought it. You can't just let this happen! she told herself.

  She spotted the fire officer she had spoken to earlier. She grabbed his arm. "I'm almost certain Lisa Hoxton is in there," she said frantically. "I've looked everywhere for her."

  He gave her a hard look and seemed to decide she was reliable. Without answering her, he put a two-way radio to his mouth and spoke into it. "Look out for a young white female believed to be inside the building, named Lisa, repeat, Lisa."

  "Thank you," Jeannie said.

  He nodded curtly and strode away.

  Jeannie was glad he had listened to her, but still she could not rest. She remembered the maintenance man saying there was another entrance to the basement. She turned and ran around to the back again.

  The hatch was set into the ground close to the building, partly hidden by a gray Chrysler New Yorker. The steel trapdoor was open, leaning against the building wall. Jeannie knelt by the square hole and leaned down to look inside.

  A ladder led down to a dirty room lit by fluorescent tubes. She could see machinery and lots of pipes. There were wisps of smoke in the air, but not thick clouds: it must be closed off from the rest of the basement. Nevertheless, the smell of smoke reminded her of how she had coughed and choked as she searched blindly for the staircase, and she felt her heart beat faster at the memory.

  "Is anybody there?" she called.

  She thought she heard a sound, but she could not be sure. She shouted louder. "Hello?" There was no reply.

  She hesitated. The sensible thing to do would be to return to the front of the building and grab a fireman, but that could take too long, especially if the fireman decided to question her. The alternative was to go down the ladder and take a look.

  The thought of reentering the building made her legs weak. Her chest still hurt from the violent spasms of coughing caused by the smoke. But Lisa might be down there. She could be hurt and unable to move, or trapped by a fallen timber, or just passed out from the fumes. She had to look.

  She steeled her nerve and put a foot on the ladder. Her knees felt weak and she almost fell. She hesitated. After a moment she felt strong, and she took a step down. Then a breath of smoke caught in her throat, making her cough, and she climbed out again.

  When she had stopped coughing she tried again.

  She went down one rung, then two. If the smoke makes me cough, I'll just come right out again, she told herself. The third step was easier, and after that she went down quickly, jumping off the last rung onto the concrete floor.

  She found herself in a big room full of pumps and filters, presumably for the swimming pool. The smell of smoke was strong, but she could breathe normally.

  She saw Lisa right away, and the sight made her gasp.

  She was lying on her side, curled up in a fetal position, naked. There was a smear of what looked like blood on her thigh. She was not moving. Jeannie shouted: "Lisa!" She heard the shrill overtone of hysteria in her own voice, and took a breath to keep calm. She made her way across the room, through the tangle of pipework, and knelt beside her friend. "Lisa?"

  Lisa opened her eyes.

  "Thank God," Jeannie said. "I thought you were dead."

  Slowly Lisa sat up. She would not look at Jeannie. Her lips were bruised. "He raped me," she said.

  THE THIRD TWIN

  by Ken Follett

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group.

  Available now at a bookstore near you.

  Ken Follett's sensational new thriller

  THE HAMMER OF EDEN

  The FBI doesn't believe it. The Governor wants the problem to disappear. But agent Judy Maddox knows the threat is real: An extreme group of eco-terrorists has the means and the know-how to set off a massive earthquake of epic proportions. For California, time is running out.

  Now Maddox is scrambling to hunt down a petty criminal turned cult leader turned homicidal mastermind. Because Judy knows that the dying has already begun. And soon the earth will violently shift, bolt, and shake down to its very core....

  Visit the Ken Follett website at

  https://www.ken-follett.com

  Available in bookstores everywhere.

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group.