The Third Gate : a novel.

Lincoln Child.

To Luchie.

PROLOGUE.

The doctor helped himself to a cup of coffee in the break room, reached for the cylinder of powdered creamer on a nearby counter, thought better of it, then poured in some soy milk from the battered lab refrigerator instead. Stirring the coffee with a plastic swizzle, he walked across the pale linoleum floor to a cl.u.s.ter of identical heavy-sided chairs. The usual sounds filtered through the door: the rattling of wheelchairs and gurneys, bleats and beeps of instrumentation, the drone of the hospital intercom.

A third-year resident named Deguello had sprawled his lanky limbs across two of the threadbare chairs. Typical, thought the doctor--a resident's ability to fall asleep instantly, vertical or horizontal, in no matter how uncomfortable a position. As the doctor settled into a chair beside him, the resident stopped his faint snoring and opened one eye.

"Hey, Doc," he murmured. "What time is it?"

The doctor glanced up at the industrial clock, set over the line of lockers along the far wall. "Ten forty-five."

"G.o.d," Deguello groaned. "That means I've only been asleep ten minutes."

"At least you've managed some," the doctor said, sipping his coffee. "It's a quiet night."

Deguello closed the eye again. "Two myocardial infarctions. An open-skull fracture. An emergency C-section. Two gunshot victims, one critical. A third-degree burn case. A knife wound with renal penetration. One simple and one compound fracture. An old gent who stroked out on the gurney. Oxycodone OD. Meth OD. Amphetamine OD. And those were all in"--he paused--"the last ninety minutes."

The doctor took another sip of coffee. "Like I said--quiet night. But look on the bright side. You could still be doing grand rounds at Ma.s.s General."

The resident was quiet for a moment. "I still don't understand, Doc," he mumbled. "Why do you do this? Sacrifice yourself on the ER altar every other Friday. I mean, I've got no choice. But you're a big-time anesthesiologist."

The doctor drained his cup, tossed it in the trash. "A little less curiosity in the presence of your betters, please." He pushed himself to his feet. "Back into the trenches."

Out in the hallway, the doctor glanced around at the relative calm. He started toward the operations desk on the far side of the ER when he suddenly noticed an increased bustle of activity. The head nurse came jogging up. "Car accident," she told him. "One victim, arriving momentarily. I've set aside Trauma Two."

The doctor immediately turned toward the indicated bay. As he did so, the trauma doors buzzed open again and a paramedic team wheeled in a stretcher, followed by two police officers. Instantly, the doctor could see this was serious: the urgency of their actions, their expressions, the blood on their coats and faces, all telegraphed desperation.

"Female, thirtysomething!" one of the paramedics bawled out. "Unresponsive!"

Immediately, the doctor waved them in and turned to a waiting intern. "Get a suture cart." The intern nodded and jogged away.

"And call Deguello and Corbin!" he called after him.

The paramedics were already wheeling the stretcher into Trauma Two and positioning it beside the table. "On me," said a nurse as they circled the body. "Careful with that neck collar. One, two, three!" The patient was lifted onto the table, the stretcher pushed away. The doctor got a glimpse of pale white skin; cinnamon hair; a blouse, once white, now soaked with blood. More blood made a drip trail on the floor, leading back toward the trauma area.

Something alarming, like a cold electric current, began to tingle in the back of his brain.

"She was T-boned by a drunk driver," one of the paramedics said in his ear. "Coded once on the way in."

Interns piled in, followed by Deguello. "You got a type?" the doctor asked.

The paramedic nodded. "O negative."

People were busy now, attaching monitors, hanging new IV lines, trundling in crash carts. The doctor turned toward an intern. "Get the blood bank, call for three units." He thought of the spatter trail across the linoleum. "No, make it four."

"O2's full," called out one nurse as Corbin hurried in.

Deguello came around to the head of the table, peered down at the motionless victim. "Looks cyanotic."

"Get a blood gas in here," the doctor rapped. His attention was fixed on the woman's abdomen, now bared but slick with blood. Quickly, he peeled back the temporary dressing. A dreadful open wound, hastily sutured by the paramedics, was bleeding copiously. He turned toward a nurse and pointed to the area. She swabbed it and he looked again.

"Ma.s.sive abdominal trauma," he said. "Possible supine sub-pulmonary pneumothorax. We're going to need a pericardial tap." He turned toward the paramedic. "What the h.e.l.l caused this? What about the air bag?"

"Slid beneath it," the man said. "Dashboard snapped in two like a twig and she got hung up on it. They had to come in from the top with the Jaws. Awful scene, man, her Porsche was totally flattened by that drunk b.a.s.t.a.r.d's SUV."

Porsche. The cold little current in his head tingled more sharply. He straightened up, trying to get a view of the head, but Deguello was in his way. "Significant blunt trauma," Deguello said. "We're gonna need a head CT."

"BP's down to eighty over thirty-five," said a nurse. "Pulse ox is seventy-nine."

"Maintain compression!" Deguello ordered.

The exsanguination was too great, the shock too severe: they had a minute, maybe two at most, to save her. Another nurse came in, hanging blood packs on the IV rack. "That's not going to do it," the doctor said. "We're gonna need a large-bore IV--she's bleeding out too fast."

"One milligram epi," Corbin told an intern.

The nurse turned to the suture cart, grabbed a larger needle, pulled the woman's limp hand forward to insert it. As she did so, the doctor's gaze fell upon the hand: slim, very pale. The hand bore a single ring: a platinum wedding band inlaid with a beautiful star sapphire, whiskey colored against a field of black. Sri Lankan, very expensive. He knew, because he'd purchased it.

Suddenly, a sharp tone sounded throughout the trauma room. "Full arrest!" cried a nurse.

For a moment, the doctor just stood there, paralyzed by horror and frozen disbelief. Deguello turned toward one of the interns, and now the doctor could see the woman's face: hair matted and askew, eyes open and staring, mouth and nose obscured by the breathing equipment.

His dry mouth worked. "Jennifer," he croaked.

"Losing vitals!" cried the nurse.

"We need lido!" Corbin called. "Lido! Stat!"

And then, as quickly as it had come, the paralysis fell away. The doctor wheeled toward a hovering ER nurse. "Defib!" he cried.

She raced to a far corner of the room, wheeled the cart back. "Charging."

An intern approached, injected the lidocaine, stepped back. The doctor grabbed the paddles, barely able to control his trembling hands. This couldn't be happening. It had to be a dream, just a bad dream. He'd wake up and he'd be in the break room, slumped over, Deguello snoring in the next chair.

"Charged!" the nurse called out.

"Clear!" The doctor heard the desperate edge in his own voice. As the workers fell back he placed the paddles on her bare, b.l.o.o.d.y chest, applied the current. Jennifer's body stiffened, then fell back onto the table.

"Flatline!" cried the nurse monitoring the vitals.

"Charge it again!" he called. A fresh beeping, low and insistent, added its voice to the cacophony.

"Hypovolemic shock," Deguello muttered. "We never had a chance."

They don't know, the doctor thought, as if from a million miles away. They don't understand. He felt a single tear gather in his eye and begin to trickle down his cheek.

"Recharged!" the defib nurse said.

He reapplied the paddles. Jennifer's body jumped once again.

"No response," said the intern at his side.

"That's it," Corbin said with a sigh. "Guess you need to call it, Ethan."

Instead, the doctor threw the paddles aside and began heart ma.s.sage. He felt her body, unresponsive and cool, moving sluggishly under the sharp motions of his hands.

"Pupils fixed and dilated," the monitoring nurse said.

But the doctor paid no attention, his heart ma.s.sage growing increasingly violent and desperate.

The sound in the trauma room, which had been growing increasingly frantic, now began to die away. "Zero cardiac activity," said the nurse.

"You'd better p.r.o.nounce her," said Corbin.

"No!" the doctor snapped.

The entire room turned at the anguish in his voice.

"Ethan?" Corbin asked wonderingly.

But instead of responding, the doctor began to cry.

Everyone around him went still, some staring in incomprehension, others looking away in embarra.s.sment. Everyone except one of the interns, who opened the door and walked silently down the corridor. The doctor, still crying, knew where the man was going. He was going to get a shroud.

1.

THREE YEARS LATER.

Growing up in Westport, currently teaching at Yale, Jeremy Logan thought himself familiar with his home state of Connecticut. But the stretch through which he now drove was a revelation. Heading east from Groton--following the e-mailed directions--he'd turned onto US 1 and then, just past Stonington, onto US 1 Alternate. Hugging the gray Atlantic coastline, he'd pa.s.sed Wequetequock, rolled over a bridge that looked as old as New England itself, then turned sharply right onto a well-paved but unmarked road. Quite abruptly, the minimalls and tourist motels fell away behind. He pa.s.sed a sleepy cove in which lobster boats bobbed at anchor, and then entered an equally sleepy hamlet. And yet it was a real village, a working village, with a general store and a tackle shop and an Episcopal church with a steeple three sizes too large, and gray-shingled houses with trim picket fences painted white. There were no hulking SUVs, no out-of-state plates; and the scattering of people sitting on benches or leaning out of front windows waved to him as he pa.s.sed. The April sunlight was strong, and the sea air had a clean, fresh bite to it. A signboard hanging from the doorframe of the post office informed him he was in Pevensey Point, population 182. Something about the place reminded him irresistibly of Herman Melville.

"Karen," he said, "if you'd seen this place, you'd never have made us buy that summer cottage in Hyannis."

Although his wife had died of cancer years ago, Logan still allowed himself to converse with her now and then. Of course it was usually--though not always--more monologue than conversation. At first, he'd been sure to do it only when he was certain not to be overheard. But then--as what had started as a kind of intellectual hobby for him turned increasingly into a profession--he no longer bothered to be so discreet. These days, judging by what he did for a living, people expected him to be a little strange.

Two miles beyond the town, precisely as the directions indicated, a narrow lane led off to the right. Taking it, Logan found himself in a sandy forest of thin scrub pine that soon gave way to tawny dunes. The dunes ended at a metal bridge leading to a low, broad island jutting out into Fishers Island Sound. Even from this distance, Logan could see there were at least a dozen structures on the island, all built of the same reddish-brown stone. At the center were three large five-story buildings that resembled dormitories, arranged in parallel, like dominos. At the far end of the island, partly concealed by the various structures, was an empty airstrip. And beyond everything lay the ocean and the dark green line of Rhode Island.

Logan drove the final mile, stopping at a gatehouse before the bridge. He showed the printed e-mail to the guard inside, who smiled and waved him through. A single sign beside the gatehouse, expensive looking but un.o.btrusive, read simply CTS.

He crossed the bridge, pa.s.sed an outlying structure, and pulled into a parking lot. It was surprisingly large: there were at least a hundred cars and s.p.a.ce for as many more. Nosing into one of the spots, he killed the engine. But instead of exiting, he paused to read the e-mail once again.

Jeremy, I'm pleased--and relieved--to hear of your acceptance. I also appreciate your being flexible, since as I mentioned earlier there's no way yet to know how long your investigation will take. In any case, you'll receive a minimum of two weeks' compensation, at the rate you specified. I'm sorry I can't give you more details at this point, but you're probably used to that. And I have to tell you I can't wait to see you again after all this time.

Directions to the Center are below. I'll be waiting for you on the morning of the 18th. Any time between ten and noon will be fine. One other thing: once you're on board with the project, you might find it hard to get calls out with any degree of certainty, so please be sure you've cleared your decks before you arrive. Looking forward to the 18th!

Best, E. R.

Logan glanced at his watch: eleven thirty. He turned the note over once in his hands. You might find it hard to get calls out with any degree of certainty. Why was that? Perhaps cell phone towers had never made it beyond picturesque Pevensey Point? Nevertheless, what the e-mail said was true: he was "used to that." He pulled a duffel bag from the pa.s.senger seat, slipped the note into it, and got out of the car.

Located in one of the central dormitory-like buildings, Reception was an understated s.p.a.ce that reminded Logan of a hospital or clinic: a half-dozen empty chairs, tables with magazines and journals, a sprinkling of anonymous-looking oil paintings on beige walls, and a single desk occupied by a woman in her mid-thirties. The letters CTS were set into the wall behind her, once again with no indication of what they might stand for.

Logan gave his name to the woman, who in response looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and uneasiness. He took a seat in one of the vacant chairs, expecting a protracted wait. But no sooner had he picked up a recent issue of Harvard Medical Review than a door across from the receptionist opened and Ethan Rush emerged.

"Jeremy," Rush said, smiling broadly and extending his hand. "Thank you so much for coming."

"Ethan," Logan replied, shaking the proffered hand. "Nice to see you again."

He hadn't seen Rush since their days at Johns Hopkins twenty years before, when he'd been doing graduate studies and Rush had been attending the medical school. But the man who stood before him retained a remarkable youthfulness. Only a fine tracery of lines at the corners of his eyes bore testament to the pa.s.sage of years. And yet in the simple act of shaking the man's hand, Logan had received two very clear impressions from Rush: a shattering, life-changing event and an unswerving, almost obsessive, devotion to a cause.

Dr. Rush glanced around the reception area. "You brought your luggage?"

"It's in my trunk."

"Give me the keys, I'll see that somebody retrieves it for you."

"It's a Lotus Elan S four."

Rush whistled. "The roadster? What year?"

"Nineteen sixty-eight."

"Very nice. I'll make sure they treat it with kid gloves."

Logan dug into his pocket and handed the keys to Rush, who in turn gave them to the receptionist with some whispered instructions. Then he turned and motioned Logan to follow him through the open doorway.

Taking an elevator to the top floor, Rush led the way down a long hallway that smelled faintly of cleaning fluid and chemicals. The resemblance to a hospital grew stronger--and yet it seemed to be a hospital without patients; the few people they pa.s.sed were dressed in street clothes, ambulatory, and obviously healthy. Logan peered curiously into the open doorways as they walked by. He saw conference rooms, a large, empty lecture hall with seats for at least a hundred, laboratories bristling with equipment, what appeared to be a reference library full of paperbound journals and dedicated terminals. More strangely, he noticed several apparently identical rooms, each containing a single narrow bed with literally dozens--if not hundreds--of wires leading to nearby monitoring instruments. Other doors were closed, their small windows covered by privacy curtains. A group of men and women in white lab coats pa.s.sed them in the hallway. They glanced at Logan, nodded to Rush.

Stopping before a door marked DIRECTOR, Rush opened it and beckoned Logan through an anteroom housing two secretaries and a profusion of bookcases into a private office beyond. It was tastefully decorated, as minimalist as the outer office was crowded. Three of the walls held spare postmodernist paintings in cool blues and grays; the fourth wall appeared to be entirely of gla.s.s, covered at the moment by blinds.

In the center of the room was a teakwood table, polished to a brilliant gleam and flanked by two leather chairs. Rush took one and ushered Logan toward the other.

"Can I offer you anything?" the director asked. "Coffee, tea, soda?"