of the red security phone. The last time it had rung was when the shit-show with those twins and the Cross boy had gone down in the cafeteria. Stackhouse picked it up, and before he could say a word, Dr. Hallas was gibbering in his ear.
“They’re out, the ones who watch the movies for sure and I think the gorks are out, too, they’ve hurt at least three of the caretakers, no, four, Corinne says she thinks Phil Chaffitz is dead, electrocu—”
“SHUT UP!” Stackhouse yelled into the phone. And then, when he was sure (no, not sure, just hopeful) that he had Heckle’s attention, he said: “Put your thoughts in order and tell me what happened.”
Hallas, shocked back to an approximation of his once-upon-a-time rationality, told Stackhouse what he had seen. As he was nearing the end of his story, the Institute’s general alarm began to go off.
“Christ, did you turn that on, Everett?”
“No, no, not me, it must have been Joanne. Dr. James. She was in the crematory. She goes there to meditate.”
Stackhouse was almost sidetracked by the bizarre image this raised in his mind, Dr. Jeckle sitting crosslegged in front of the oven door, perhaps praying for serenity, and then he forced his mind back to the situation at hand: the Back Half children had raised some kind of half-assed mutiny. How could it have happened? It had never happened before. And why now?
Heckle was still talking, but Stackhouse had heard all he needed. “Listen to me, Everett. Get every orange card you can find and burn them, okay? Burn them.”
“How . . . how am I supposed to . . .”
“You’ve got a goddam furnace on E-Level!” Stackhouse roared. “Use the fucking thing for something besides kids!”
He hung up and used the landline to call Fellowes in the computer room. Andy wanted to know what the alarm was about. He sounded scared.
“We have a problem in Back Half, but I’m handling it. Feed the cameras from over there to my computer. Don’t ask questions, just do it.”
He turned on his desktop—had the elderly thing ever booted up so slowly?—and clicked on SECURITY CAMERAS. He saw the Front Half cafeteria, mostly empty . . . a few kids in the playground . . .
“Andy!” he shouted. “Not Front Half, Back Half! Stop fucking arou—”
The picture flipped, and he saw Heckle through a film of lens dust, cowering in his office just as Jeckle came in, presumably from her interrupted meditation session. She was looking back over her shoulder.
“Okay, that’s better. I’ll take it from here.”
He flipped the image and saw the caretakers’ lounge. A bunch of them were cowering in there with the door to the corridor closed and presumably locked. No help there.
Flip, and here was the blue-carpeted main corridor, with at least three caretakers down. No, make it four. Jake Howland was sitting on the floor outside the screening room, cradling his hand against his smock top, which was drenched with blood.
Flip, and here was the cafeteria, empty.
Flip, and here was the lounge. Corinne Rawson was kneeling next to Phil Chaffitz, blabbing to someone on her walkie-talkie. Phil did indeed look dead.
Flip, and here was the elevator lobby, the door to the elevator just beginning to slide shut. The car was the size of those used to transport patients in hospitals, and it was crammed with residents. Most undressed. The gorks from Ward A, then. If he could stop them there . . . trap them there . . .
Flip, and through that irritating film of dust and smear, Stackhouse saw more kids on E-Level, close to a dozen, milling around in front of the elevator doors and waiting for them to open and disgorge the rest of the kiddie mutineers. Waiting outside the access tunnel leading to Front Half. Not good.
Stackhouse picked up the landline and heard nothing but silence. Fellowes had hung up on his end. Cursing the wasted time, Stackhouse dialed him back. “Can you kill the power to the Back Half elevator? Stop it in the shaft?”
“I don’t know,” Fellowes said. “Maybe. It might be in the Emergency Procedures booklet. Just let me ch—”
But it was already too late. The elevator doors slid open on E-Level and the escapees from Gorky Park wandered out, staring around at the tiled elevator lobby as if there was something to see there. That was bad, but Stackhouse saw something worse. Heckle and Jeckle could collect dozens of Back Half key cards and burn them, but