PART 5 — The net closes in
The footsteps on the steel stairs grew louder. It didn't sound like a single person; there were several, heavy boots hammering against the metal. "Hurry, Frank!" Houtman pushed me toward the back of the room with surprising strength. "That emergency exit leads into the alley behind the mortuary. There are no cameras there!" "And you?" I asked, clutching the thick binder of documents tightly to my chest.
"What happens to you?" Houtman smiled somberly. "My time ran out twenty years ago. You have a chance to bring the truth to light. Go!" With a loud bang, the heavy archive door burst open. The harsh light of a flashlight cut through the darkness. "Hands up! Stay right where you are!" shouted the voice of Security Chief De Jong. I didn't hesitate another second.
I grabbed the handle of the hidden emergency door in the corner, threw all my weight against it, and fell forward into the cold, wet night air. Behind me, I heard De Jong shouting and orders to open fire. A dull thud echoed through the alley—a bullet shattering against the brick wall right beside my head. I ran. I ran faster than I had in eighteen years.
I completely ignored the pain in my knees and lungs. Adrenaline surged through my veins. After running a hundred meters in the pitch black, I slipped on the wet cobblestones of the alley and stumbled onto the public street. A passing taxi slammed on its brakes, tires screeching, stopping right in front of me. The driver honked furiously and stuck his head out the window.
"Are you crazy, man? You're just running into the street!" I yanked the door open, dove inside, and slammed it shut. "Drive!" I screamed, pulling a handful of banknotes from my pocket and tossing them onto the center console. "Drive away, as fast as you can! To the train station!" The driver stared at me in the rearview mirror, saw my deathly pale face and the mud on my clothes, and pressed the gas pedal to the floor without asking another question.
We sped forward. As the city's neon lights flashed past the window, I opened the binder I had brought with trembling fingers. The paper was cold, but the information written on it burned before my eyes. On the first page was a list of names. Patients who had died in the hospital between 2002 and 2004. And there, somewhere in the middle of the list, was the name I both feared and hoped to see: Thomas Keller — Cause: Cardiac arrest during procedure. But at the bottom of that page was a handwritten note from Thomas himself, scrawled in red ink: If they are reading this, I am not dead. They transferred me to Unit 4.
