If we're going in blind, trying different doors, we'll get caught. Second, we need a distraction. Something that draws the guards away from the east wing long enough for us to get in. locate her and get out. Third, we need an exit plan. Getting her out of the building is one thing.
Getting her off the property and away from immediate pursuit is another. What do you suggest? I suggest we recruit help. We need someone on the inside who can tell us her exact location and maybe create the distraction we need. Do you have contacts among the staff?
Harrison thought of the nurses, women who were already taking risks by passing information. Possibly, but I can't ask them to do something that would definitely cost them their positions and possibly worse. Then we need to make it worth their while. How much money can you access? Harrison had some savings, a small inheritance from his mother, funds he'd been setting aside for retirement. $3,000, perhaps a bit more if I sell some possessions.
That's enough. Offer one of those nurses $1,000 to tell us exactly where the girl is and to create a distraction at a specific time. The remaining funds we use to get the girl and her mother out of Massachusetts entirely. New city, new identities, enough money to establish themselves somewhere the authorities won't immediately look. Where would they go? Canada, probably.
Toronto has a community of freed slaves, people who understand the necessity of helping others disappear. We get them across the border, connect them with contacts there, give them enough money to start fresh. It's not perfect, but it's survivable.
Over the next 3 days, Harrison negotiated with one of the nurses, a woman named Elizabeth Carr, who was deeply troubled by what she witnessed at Brightwater, but terrified of losing her position. He offered her $1,000, enough money to leave nursing entirely to move to another city to start over. At first, she refused, the risk too great. But Harrison appealed to her conscience, describing what would happen if they did nothing, painting a picture of a brilliant child broken by systematic psychological torture. Finally, Elizabeth agreed, but only if Harrison promised that she would never be named, that if caught, he would claim the information came from another source.
He promised, though they both knew such promises might not protect her if things went wrong, Elizabeth provided crucial intelligence. Lydia was in room 307, third floor, east wing, fifth door from the stairwell on the left side of the corridor. Her door was locked, but the key was kept in a cabinet at the nurse's station 20 ft away. The guards changed shifts at 8:00 p.m., a moment of vulnerability when the evening guards were just arriving, and the day guards were eager to leave. Most importantly, Elizabeth agreed to create a distraction.
At precisely 8:15 p.m. on June 24th, she would trigger the facility's fire alarm. It was a manual system, a pull lever that would ring bells throughout the building. The alarm would create chaos, draw the guards to investigate, and give Harrison and Marcus perhaps 5 minutes to get in, reach Lydia's room, and get out. 5 minutes isn't much, Marcus said when they reviewed the plan. It's enough.
It has to be enough. They brought Clara Johnson into the planning. She deserved to know, deserved to be part of her daughter's rescue. When Harrison explained what they intended, Clara didn't hesitate. What do you need me to do?
Wait at the roadside with a wagon half a mile from the facility entrance. We'll bring Lydia to you and then we run. All of us, you, Lydia, and me. Marcus will stay behind, create confusion about which direction we went. Then we separate.
Marcus goes his own way. We take you and Lydia to a safe house in Connecticut, then arrange passage to Canada within a week. You're coming with us, professor. You'll lose everything. I've already decided.
I can't send you into hiding while I stay here pretending nothing happened. I'm complicit in this. I need to see it through. Clara's eyes filled with tears. Why are you doing this?
Really? You're a white man with position and respect. We're nothing to you. You're not nothing. Your daughter is one of the most remarkable people I've ever known.
And if I stand by and watch her be destroyed because acknowledging her brilliance is inconvenient, then everything I've claimed to believe about human dignity and truth and justice is a lie. I'd rather lose my career than live that lie.
The days before June 24th moved with agonizing slowness. Harrison continued his normal teaching duties, maintaining the appearance that nothing was wrong, all while making quiet preparations. He withdrew his savings in cash, converted some to traveler's checks under a false name. He packed a bag with essentials, clothes, documents, funds. He wrote letters to colleagues, sealed and dated, to be opened only if he didn't return.
Letters explaining what he'd done and why. He said goodbye to his life because he understood that after June 24th, Professor Harrison Webb of MIT would cease to exist. He would become Harrison Miller or John Collins or whatever name they chose in Canada. He would become a fugitive, a kidnapper in the eyes of the law, a man who had thrown away respectability for principle. And he found that he was more at peace with that decision than he'd been with anything in his careful, respectable academic career.