Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  Without hesitating she set her feet on a ledge no more than six inches wide, dug her fingers into a shallow crevice, and pulled herself out onto the slippery rock.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Willing herself not to look down, Abby clung to the wet rock with her fingertips, moving steadily sideways as swirling gusts threatened, again and again, to tear her away into the blackness. The cliff curved gently to her right. The farther she could move around the bend, the more difficult it would be for Quinn to shoot at her if, in fact, that was his intention. It was hard to imagine that Quinn, or whoever conceived of the laboratory escape routes, had ever tried getting down from here. But, then again, the exit they were probably expecting to use was the one at twenty-five feet.

  Abby focused desperately on the rock to her right. Each time it seemed there was no place for her to go, a crack in the rock and foothold would become apparent, and she could move on. She uttered a soft little-girl's cry with each breath, trying her best to ignore burning pains in her shin and shoulder. A piece of lightbulb glass, embedded in the side of her palm, now felt like a deep needle jab every time she tightened her grip. Still, she moved laterally, trying to put some distance between her and the ventilation shaft opening before Quinn reached it.

  She was almost midway between the top of the mesa and the ground. The slope of the rock was such that while climbing down was a possibility, there was absolutely no way to go up. From far above, the glow from the giant neon COLSTAR sign reflected obscenely off the rain, staining the pitch-black sky crimson.

  Finally Abby worked herself to a position that was secure enough for her to pause and look about. She was some fifty feet from the opening in the rock. The spot she had found was in the shadow between two beams knifing upward from the powerful lights below. Quinn was still nowhere to be seen. Wind-whipped rain continued to make even standing motionless treacherous. Abby clung to her hold and scanned the boulders and meadow below. The chain-link fence, topped by barbed wire, was unscalable. To the north it was built up into the cliff itself. No chance there. But the south end looked possible. The fence ended against a high wall of almost sheer rock. There was clearly no way over it from the outside. But the fence had been built to keep intruders out The rock on this side looked to be sloped. If she could get to the fence, it might be possible to climb back up the cliff there and slide or tumble down the other side. The prospect of trying that route was only slightly less terrifying than the notion of giving up. In the distance the blue strobes of the police cruisers were moving closer.

  Having decided on a course of action, Abby took a single step to her right. Still distracted by Quinn's failure to appear at the opening, she missed her footing and slipped. Before she could even react, her feet were out from under her. Clawing frantically at the wet rock, she slid downward, scraping her belly, chest, and arms. Ten feet, twenty. Suddenly her feet bounced off a large, jagged spire of rock, slowing her fall enough for her to twist her body and grab hold of the spire as she slid past. Her full weight snapped down, nearly tearing her hands away. Her arms were stretched out painfully straight. Her legs dangled like a doll's. She locked her fingers around the spire and peered down over her shoulder. Below her stretched thirty feet or more of rain-slicked rock, ending at the boulders. The glass shard in her right hand was a stiletto now, sending continuous electric shocks up her arm. Her shoulder and chest throbbed unbearably. Still, she managed to hold her grip as she searched frantically with her feet for purchase.

  At the moment when she felt she could hold on no longer, the toe of her right sneaker landed on a tiny prominence and held. Gingerly, she pushed upward, taking some of the strain off her hands. Six or eight inches above her right foot, her left connected with a more substantial ledge--twelve inches wide at least and sloped downward into the cliff. She planted her full weight on that ledge, released her hands one at a time, and slowly worked them into cracks in the cliff face.

  She clung there, gasping in air until gradually her breathing eased. Tears mixed with the rainwater cascading over her face--tears of relief and anger and pain. The bruises over the front of her body were throbbing mercilessly--worse than what she remembered from the broken arm she had suffered in a high-school soccer game. But she was much closer to the ground now. The rock below her seemed craggier and may have even had a bit more slope. She could almost completely visualize her path of descent. If she could stay focused and careful, she could make it down. But where in the hell was Quinn?

  Suddenly, through the darkness and the downpour, from far to her left, he hollered out to her.

  "That was a close one, Abby! Good thing you eat your Wheaties!"

  He had unlocked the accordion gate and gone through the lower escape tunnel. Now he was out on the rock, about thirty yards to her left. A spotlight was directly on him. He had discarded his black sports jacket, but his turtleneck and trousers blended in totally with the cliff face. The light shimmered eerily off his face, hands, and especially his hair.

  Abby glanced down at the fence. If she could get to the south corner, there was the very definite possibility of climbing back up the rock and vaulting over. As quickly as she dared, she began moving diagonally downward.

  "I could shoot you, Abby! Right here, right now! Wanna see?"

  There was a firecracker snap, and a bullet pinged off the rock three feet from her face. A second shot sprayed her with chips. She cringed and reflexively slowed, then, helpless and wondering what it felt like to be shot, she continued lowering herself toward the meadow.

  "You're better off up there than down below!" Quinn called out.

  He was moving toward her now, and fairly rapidly. He paused long enough to fire twice more, the first time just above her head, and the second time ricocheting off the rock and actually tearing across the back of her calf. The sharp sting was nearly lost among a dozen other, much deeper, pains.

  So now you've been shot, she thought. The sight of the bastard moving confidently toward her brought as much anger as terror. Abby tried to shut him out of her mind and concentrate on each placement of her feet and hands. But she knew she wasn't going to come close to making it. Once she reached the bottom of the cliff, she would be scrambling over huge boulders for fifty yards before she reached the corner of the fence. Then she would have an almost impossible fifteen-foot climb up the rock and a drop down the other side at least that far. She was moving on adrenaline, but the heavy humidity, plus her gashed leg, multiple bruises, and mediocre conditioning, were all working against her.

  "Abby, you'd better listen to me! The guards aren't going to like you invading their turf!"

  Abby was no more than ten feet from the ground and just a few feet from the top of the largest boulder. For the moment she was out of Quinn's line of sight. She squinted up through the rain. The Colstar cliff looked like a windowless skyscraper. Above it the garish neon sign, hidden by the jutting edge of the mesa, bloodied the night. Her best bet, she decided, was to go around the boulders, not over them. If Quinn's guards showed up, then that would be that. But Quinn wouldn't have warned her to stop if he was confident they were going to reach her.

  When she was six feet above the ground, Abby dropped, landing in some muddy dirt between a boulder and the cliff. She huddled there for a few seconds, catching her breath and listening for Quinn or his guards.

  "Abby--!"

  Quinn's voice still seemed some distance away. Abby felt renewed hope that if she could skirt the huge rocks, stay low, and steer clear of his line of sight, she might actually make it to the end of the fence.

  "Allee, allee in free! ... Come out, come out, wherever you are.... Our guards are going to be very annoyed--"

  Abby stayed in a crouch and moved quickly around the boulder. There was almost no way that Quinn could spot her unless he came off the cliff and stepped away from it into the meadow, toward the fence. If he did that, and he spotted her, it would be a race. There was still no sign of Quinn's guards.

  Abby hurried acros
s six feet of wild grass to a series of smaller rocks. She had a sense of where Quinn was. And if she was right, there was absolutely no way he could see her. Advantage Dolan. She was no more than thirty or forty feet from the end of the fence now. It was possible she'd get there and find the rock wall on this side too steep to climb. But since that horrible moment in the scanner room, each time she needed a break or a miracle, she had gotten one.

  "Hey, Doc, last chance," Quinn called out coyly. "I've got the whistle in my hand. One blast and the guards are loose in the meadow. The good news is that two toots and they'll stop whatever it is they're doing to you. At least I think they will...."

  Abby moved around another rock. The meadow was narrowing as the fence drew nearer to the cliff.

  "Okay, Abby. Have it your way. Go ahead, guys. Soup's on!"

  There was no whistle blast, but in an instant Abby understood why. The long fenced-in field was patrolled not by guards, but by guard dogs. She looked up the meadow to the north and saw them--two ebony torpedoes, streaking across the undulating terrain, closing on her with terrifying speed. Instinctively, she took several steps backward into the open meadow. Then, suddenly, just as she was about to turn and run, Quinn appeared on the top of a large boulder. He was still twenty-five yards from her--far enough away so that she might actually have made it to the corner of the fence, but close enough now to have a decent shot at her whenever he wanted to. Instead, he stood atop the rock, hands at his sides, legs spread. The vision of haughtiness.

  "Heeeere's Johnny," he shouted.

  Trying to outrun the dogs, Abby knew, was futile. But there were really no other options. She whirled but almost immediately slipped on the muddy ground, stumbled, and fell. She could see the dogs flashing past the boulder where Quinn was standing. They were huge Dobermans--black-and-gold phantoms, streaking through the bright wash from the spotlights, one slightly ahead of the other. She could hear their snarling now.

  Oh, my God ...

  The first dog hit the top of the small rise in front of her at full stride and leaped, its body stretched outward like a sprint swimmer leaving the mark. Abby screamed and instinctively lifted her forearm up to shield her face. Suddenly the hurtling shadow changed direction in midair and landed heavily on the ground beside her face. The second Doberman had come over the rise and begun its charge. This time, just as it left the ground, moving upward toward her face, there was a whiplike snapping sound from off to her left. The animal pitched toward the cliff and fell to the ground with a heavy thud, a long hunting arrow through its neck. Only then did Abby notice the arrow shaft protruding from the thorax of the first Doberman.

  "Ives!"

  As she shouted the word, a gunshot rang out from where Quinn was perched. She felt a sharp bite through the skin at her right hip and knew that again she had been hit. The shot was still echoing across the meadow, and the pain in her hip was still burning when she heard the snapping bowstring from her left once more. Quinn cried out, fired wildly, and then toppled off the rock.

  "Quick, Abby! Over here!"

  Ives was on his knees by the fence, rapidly snapping through the links with enormous wire shears. As Abby hurried to him, she could see Quinn writhing on the sodden ground, Ives's long arrow through his knee. Only then did she appreciate that the hermit had made his three incredible shots through a small opening he had cut in the chain-link fence. Ives pulled a corner of the fence up enough for Abby to scramble through on her belly. Then, albeit briefly, he allowed her to throw her arms around his neck.

  "You look like you met up with an angry mob," he said.

  "I'm okay, thanks to you." She glanced back at the meadow. "Ives, I'm sorry about the dogs," she said. "I know how hard that must have been for you."

  The hermit squeezed her hand.

  "We'd better get going. Two police cruisers just headed up the Colstar drive." He gestured to the field and added, "I don't think they're going to have much trouble figuring out who did this."

  "Damn you, Ives!" Quinn was bellowing now. "I'm going to get you for this, you son of a bitch ... !"

  "Do you think the arrow broke his leg?" Abby asked as they scrambled along the fence toward Ives's mountain.

  "I don't know. If it did, it means I'm in need of much practice. I wasn't aiming for bone."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  With Sam Ives leading the way, they hurried north along a corridor of shadow just outside the fence. Although Abby was battered and exhausted, she had little trouble keeping up. Ives's leg was healing well, but the muscles that had been destroyed by chronic infection were gone for good. As a result he ran with a stiff, syncopated gait that Abby sensed was causing him some pain.

  She glanced over at the hospital as they passed and realized that somewhere just a few feet below them was the tunnel from the MRI unit to the Colstar lab. She wondered about Kelly Franklin--whether Barbara Torres was still standing guard, whether Lew planned to take over when his relief showed up at the ER. Abby had said she'd be back in ten or fifteen minutes, and that had been a lifetime ago. He must be frantic, wondering what had happened to her.

  She peered up into the rain. The ceiling was still too low for a MedFlight landing and transfer. If Kelly hadn't regained consciousness, morning was going to be too late for her. Hell, the truth was, it was probably too late for her already.

  To her right she could see the two open emergency exits gaping like wounds on the rock face of the Colstar cliff. In a few minutes or a few hours the holes would be sealed and the Colstar spin doctors would be meeting. The story they would concoct was sure to do nothing to slow her plummeting reputation. She glanced back just as one of the police cruisers, blue strobe flashing, siren wailing, sped down the Colstar drive. It was disgusting, but totally typical of the man, that before Quinn climbed into the tunnel to pursue her, he would have issued orders to Gould to get a warrant for her arrest. Human experimentation, falsified autopsy report, murder, attempted murder, fabricated arrest warrant. The Colstar Golden Rule: we have the gold, so we make the rules.

  Well, you haven't got me yet, she thought angrily. And later on, when she connected with Lew, one would be two. Then there would be more--Torres and Gil Brant, and surely others when the word got out. The dike was leaking--one hole after another. And soon Colstar was going to run out of fingers.

  By the time they passed the north corner of the fence, Abby was gasping for breath again. She stumbled crossing the narrow footbridge over the Oxbow River and tripped on the gentle slope leading up to the foothills,

  "Ives, I've got to stop," she begged.

  Ives glanced nervously back at the valley.

  "Do whatever you have to do," he replied. "You've been through a lot. Are the police after you, too?"

  "I think so."

  "Do you have anyplace to go?"

  "No place that's safe. My best bet is Dr. Alvarez's farm. I could hide out there until he gets home."

  "I call him Dr. Lew. I did some work for him."

  "I know."

  "Good man. Where's your car?"

  "At the hospital. But I could never go there. Ives, I'm in real trouble."

  "I guess you could say we both are. Are you ready to move?"

  "I can handle a fast walk," she said.

  "Fine."

  "Where are we going?"

  "My place, for starters. The back way--the way I got down. There's some climbing involved. Think you can make it?"

  Abby looked back at the Colstar cliff.

  "I can make it."

  Ives slipped his longbow onto his back, and they headed upward at a brisk pace, Ives in front, Abby a few steps behind.

  "Ives," she said as they neared some very steep terrain, "the police know where you live, don't they?"

  "I imagine they do. We won't be able to stay for very long. But there's some clean, dry clothes for you--your clothes, as a matter of fact, at least the clothes you brought me. Then I'll head up to where some friends of mine have a place. None of them is too fo
nd of the police. Besides, I doubt anyone could follow me up where I'll be going. You can head over to Dr. Lew's."

  "His place is a few miles from here. How'll I get there?"

  "Unless you suddenly sprout wings, you'll walk. Come on, let's go. You can explain how you ended up popping out of the Colstar cliff when we get to my place."

  "And you can explain how you managed to show up like you did."

  "Deal."

  The back way to Ives's camp was an ingenious series of heavy ropes strung from tree limbs and roots at strategic intervals. The ropes, along with some carefully carved toeholds in the rock, enabled him to make a near-vertical ascent without too much difficulty, although Abby needed some help. The hike up to the camp by the usual way took thirty to forty-five minutes. By this route they made it up in not much more than ten. Having seen the hermit drop down the rope from his hammock, Abby bet that the descent to the meadow took him five minutes, if that.

  Once they'd reached Ives's compound, he hurried into his hut and came out with a small knapsack, a dozen more perfectly hewn arrows, an old sweat suit and black rain slicker of Josh's. It was strange to see Ives anxious or rushed.

  "Go ahead in there and change," he said. "I'll be sitting right here, so you can tell me what's going on."

  Abby did as he asked. The inside of his hut was always surprisingly neat. Tonight it was lit warmly with a Coleman lantern. She glanced over at the cinder-block-and-boards bookcase, filled to overflowing with well-worn paperbacks. It made her deeply sad to think about Ives having to leave his place on her account. But at the moment there was nothing she could do about it. She stripped her sodden clothes off with some difficulty. The gash over her shin, and the many other abrasions, welts, and cuts, were ugly but tolerable. The bullets that had torn through the skin of her calf and hip had done no serious damage.

  She took some of the dressings she had brought for Ives and bandaged the most troublesome wounds on her leg, hip, and shoulder.