Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  "Ives, there's a laboratory inside the base of the cliff," she said as she worked. "Colstar's getting hefty government contracts for their batteries. In exchange they're testing chemical weapons and the antidotes for them on patients in the hospital. I found their lab, but then Quinn found me."

  "Well, you set off the alarms inside the plant, and all the spotlights went on across the fence line," Ives replied. "I had never seen that before, so I got out my field glasses. Then, while I was watching the cliff, out you popped. Right out of one of those openings you once called to my attention. I had a sense you might need some help, so I took the back way down."

  "I'm very grateful you did," Abby said.

  "You're a good person. You do good things for folks like me. From time to time we get the chance to do something back."

  "Ives, absolutely everyone with any power in this town is involved in this thing, and they're all after me. Quinn, the chief of police, the president of the hospital, the chief of medicine, even that boor who sewed up your face--they made a pact with the devil in the form of Senator Corman. In exchange for turning the town over as a lab, and running the experiments, they get full employment for the region, beautiful parks, great schools."

  "Faustville."

  "Exactly."

  Abby emerged from the hut wearing Josh's frayed sweat suit, rubber rain jacket, and even an old green-and-gold Oakland A's baseball cap that he had given up on for one reason or another. Wearing his clothes was something she had always enjoyed. And although she had stopped the day he left, it felt strange, but not uncomfortable, to be doing it again.

  "We ought to get cracking," Ives said. "You can come with me if you want."

  "I can't put you in even more jeopardy. My only real hope is to connect with Lew."

  "The trail I'll show you runs along the hillside through the woods. Use the flashlight I'll give you sparingly, and I doubt you'll be seen from down below."

  He took a powerful four-battery flashlight from his knapsack and handed it to her.

  "Ives, I can't take this. You're going to need it as much as I will."

  Sam Ives looked at her. From above his thick beard, his eyes sparkled.

  "As I recall, you and I have already had a conversation about the circumstances in which I can and cannot see. Don't make me show off."

  Abby tested the flashlight and nodded her acceptance of it. Then, after Ives shut off the lantern in his hut, he allowed his gaze to make one final sweep of the camp before they set off toward the west.

  The forest was fully saturated, the branches dripping so steadily, Abby could not tell how much rain was still falling. They hiked downward for a time until she could easily make out the town, perhaps two hundred feet below them and to their left. Some distance from Ives's camp they connected with a partially overgrown trail.

  "Get used to the way this path looks," he said. "It's like this all the way along the rim of the valley. Keep your eyes sharp and you should be able to stay on it all the way. If you get lost, just keep Patience on your left, don't go up and don't go down, and you should make it okay."

  Suddenly he raised his hand and put one finger over his lips. Then he pointed down the hill. Through the dense woods Abby could see a car approaching down a straight road that appeared to end right below where they were standing. Then she recognized the street as the one she took to visit Ives's camp.

  "Police," he whispered, well before she could make out the unlit lights on the roof.

  "That didn't take long."

  "They'll be going the other direction up to my place, but we'd better keep moving."

  For the next fifteen minutes they hiked in silence with Abby leading the way. Only once, for just a minute or so, did she stray from the trail. She recovered smoothly, backtracked, and found the trail once more. Apparently, Ives decided he had seen enough.

  "Okay, this is it," he said. "From here you go straight and I go up. You know the town well enough to tell approximately where you are. You've got about three miles to go. When you get near Dr. Lew's place, you can go up into the hills and come down in the field beyond the house, or drop down to the road and take your chances going up his drive."

  "I think I'll probably do the hill. Ives, if the police or any of Quinn's people catch me, I don't think I'll be allowed to live. There's no way they can let me get out of Patience. I've seen too much. Before we split up, I want to tell you what I know.

  "The lab beneath the Colstar cliff pumps small amounts of toxic gas through tubes that run along a tunnel into the MRI scanner in the hospital. There's a trapdoor in the floor by the MRI machine. The lever to open it is beneath the machine in the back. If an antidote to the gases is being tested, the patients get it from their doctors. The people I know are involved are Quinn, Joe Henderson, the hospital president, Dr. Bartholomew, Dr. George Oleander, Dr. Del Marshall, and Captain Gould of the Patience police. There are almost certainly others. Can you remember most of those names?"

  "My brain is extremely uncluttered these days. There's plenty of room for a few names or facts."

  "Sorry I even asked. Dr. Sandra Stuart is a friend of mine at St. John's Hospital in San Francisco. If you get the chance, call her and tell her what you know."

  "I still have some colleagues at the university who would be interested in your findings and might have some influence."

  "Excellent. Ives, please be careful."

  "And you, Dr. Abby."

  "When I get out of this, I'm coming back to find you and finish working on that leg. I'll also make sure everyone who'll listen knows why you put that arrow through Quinn."

  She embraced him, and he awkwardly responded in kind. Then he headed up the steep slope to their right. Abby stood there watching him. After a few yards the hermit stopped and turned back to her.

  "You're a credit to your profession," he said.

  He resumed his climb into the blackness, and within half a minute he was gone.

  Abby remained there in the dark, listening to the noisy silence of the forest, feeling acutely alone and painfully melancholy. At least you have someplace to go, she reminded herself. She glanced down at the town in time to see a police strobe flashing in the distance. They would be out in force by now, and every road out of the valley would be blocked.

  She risked a few seconds illuminating the trail. Finally she broke through her inertia and continued west. With each step her mood improved and her resolve deepened. She hadn't come this far--hadn't been brought this far--to lose. Lew was scheduled to stay on at the hospital after his shift to take over from Barbara Torres. But perhaps Barbara's husband was having a turn for the better and she had decided to stay the night. It would be wonderful to reach Lew's place and find him waiting there.

  The hike, in sodden sneakers through the sodden forest, seemed endless. Dry clothes and the slicker definitely helped, but within half an hour Abby was soaked from the waist down, chilled to the bone, and shivering whenever she stopped. The trail was, as Ives had promised, not that difficult to follow. Each time she worried that she might be drifting, there was a break in the foliage and a vista of the town. Occasionally, in one part of the valley or another, she could see the distinctive flashing blue of a cruiser. She imagined the frantic goings-on at the station and on the roads and wondered whether Lyle Quinn had been taken to the ER for treatment of his leg wound. She laughed out loud at the irony of Lew being on duty when Quinn was rolled in.

  After more than an hour of walking Abby knew she was close. She could see the neon of Five Corners in the distance and gauged that the driveway up to Lew's place was almost directly below her. She was battling exhaustion now, aching in places she didn't even remember injuring, and working with each breath to get the moisture-laden night air into her lungs. And to make matters worse, as Ives had warned her, the trail took a turn to her right and began a fairly steep upward incline. This was where she could bushwhack down to the road and try walking up the driveway, or go up, around, and down, approaching the house f
rom across the fields in the back.

  She pictured what she remembered of the topography of the farm from her visits there. To the southwest there were two broad, flat planted fields, one of corn and one of wheat or hay. Bordering them on the south and east were deeply undulating meadows, and beyond the meadows, to the east and north, were the hills--steep, rocky, and sparsely forested.

  The rain had lessened to a heavy mist, but there was some wind, and the temperature had fallen below the comfort zone. Abby drove herself up the slope with mental images of crackling fires, warm, dry clothes, and steaming cocoa. She had no idea what Lew would come up with to get her out of the valley, but she felt certain he would find a way. San Francisco would be best. St. John's was a safe house for her. And once she had made it there, once she had told her story, she would no longer be the liability for Quinn and his people that she was now. Of course, there was the very strong possibility that no one with any clout would believe her account or dare to go up against Mark Corman and Ezra Black. But she couldn't afford to start thinking that way.

  The lights of town were no longer visible from where she was, so there was no easy way to judge her position. If she started down too soon, she would waste a great deal of time and energy and end up dangerously visible on the road--on the long driveway leading up to the farm. She leveled off, now essentially bushwhacking through low brush and wild, thorny brambles that raked her legs through the sweatpants. Finally, she decided, it was time. She cut to her left and battled her way downhill, slipping on rocks and stumbling over tree roots hidden beneath the dense ground cover.

  Now, the lights of the town were visible again in the distance. She had judged her position perfectly--another hopeful sign. A dozen more steps and the last of the forest was behind her. She was on the top of a broad, smooth ledge. To her left, a few hundred yards away, were the house, barn, and outbuildings of the farm. There was a light on outside the back door of the house, but otherwise it appeared dark. Barbara hadn't stayed at the hospital, after all.

  Abby slid down the ledge in a sitting position, then made her way across the meadow. In addition to the back-door light, there was a spotlight high up on the side of the barn illuminating the empty parking area and the top of the driveway. The silence was pervasive. She glanced about warily, gave brief thought to breaking a window to get into the house, and then decided that the barn would be a satisfactory place for her to hide out until Lew's return.

  At that instant she heard an automobile approaching up the drive. She flattened herself against the barn by the side door, reached back, and assured herself that the door was open. Silently, she prayed to see Lew's Blazer pop over the top of the drive. What she saw instead was a black-and-white police cruiser, rolling slowly with its lights cut. Quickly, she ducked into the barn. It was dark inside, but thanks to the back-door light filtering in through numerous cracks, not totally so. Although two of the four horse stalls were covered with straw, the large old structure was the home to equipment and baled hay, not animals.

  From outside she heard hushed voices but could not make out what they were saying. There was a wooden ladder leading up to a hayloft, but she rejected that option, sensing that they might look up there first. Instead, she hurried to the last stall, where a truck or car was covered by a large vinyl tarp.

  She was huddled on the ground between the tarp and the wall when the huge front door of the barn creaked open. A powerful flashlight beam shot from one wall to another, to the loft, and back. As Abby predicted, the ladder to the loft was the policeman's first choice. She heard him walking overhead, at one point directly above her, scuffing at the hay. She wondered whether or not he had his gun drawn. After a few minutes he came back down and began moving her way. Abby dropped to her belly, pulled the tarp over her, and squirmed well under the vehicle, which was some sort of old truck. The chassis smelled of dried mud and oil. The footsteps shuffled closer. By holding her breath she could hear the man breathing. She sensed him standing not six feet away and buried her forehead in her hands, expecting any moment to have the tarp whisked aside and to be skewered by his flashlight beam.

  Please no ... please no ... please ...

  Suddenly the footsteps retreated. Abby remained motionless, exhaling slowly, silently, then filling her lungs the same way. The barn was totally quiet now. Outside, there was a brief hushed exchange. Then the cruiser rumbled to life and pulled away. For five minutes, ten, Abby remained in her hiding place. Finally she decided it was safe. She squirmed out from under the old truck, standing with the creaking, aching difficulty of the Tin Man. Another bullet dodged.

  As she rose, the vinyl tarp snagged on the bill of her A's cap, and pulled upward. Abby turned to free it, and froze. Her hand shaking, she drew her flashlight from the waistband of her sweatpants and shined it on the truck. Her pulse began to race as a tidal wave of uncertainty and confusion washed over her. The truck under which she had been hiding was a battered red pickup with oversize tires.

  No longer worried about whether one of the officers might have stayed on, she threw a flap of the tarp over the top of the cab. The black steel plow frame that had slammed into the rear of her Mazda was still there, bolted over the grill.

  The door to the cab was locked. Abby shined her flash inside. On the floor by the passenger seat was a black ski mask and a box of bullets. And on a rack in front of the rear window was a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight.

  There was a cellular phone on a stand bolted between the two seats.

  Get out! the muffled male voice had demanded just a minute or so after she had nearly been shot. Get out now.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Abby pulled the vinyl tarp back into place and leaned against the barnside, her mind unwilling or unable to wrap itself around the significance of what she had just discovered. It was Lew, not Quinn, who had come at her with the pickup--Lew, not Quinn, who had fired at her outside her house, then called her with a menacing message. But why? Why would he want to frighten her into leaving Patience?

  She had sensed that day on the road that the ski-masked assailant in the battered pickup had passed up the opportunity to force her off the road and into the trees. And Gould was right that the sniper who had shot at her could have killed her had that been his intention. But why would Lew want to frighten her? She hadn't been hurt either time, but she might have been. Why was he willing to take that chance just to scare her out of town?

  Why ... ?

  Bewildered, she wandered out the side door of the barn into the drizzly night. The lights of Patience winked through the rain like a Christmas display. So charming. So innocent. Faustville. Beyond the lights was the ebony hole in the night sky that she knew was the Colstar cliff. And glowing above the rock were the seven letters that had so changed her life.

  Why ... ?

  Lew was totally dedicated to proving that Colstar was making people sick. That much was indisputable. And Abby had done much to forward his cause. It simply made no sense for him to try to drive her away. Abby forced herself to reject the obvious conclusion that Lew was out to intimidate her into leaving Patience. And the moment she did so, she knew the truth.

  It had never been his intention to frighten her--at least not for long. He had made it a point to get to know her--to understand what might make her recoil, and what was more likely to make her arch her back and take a stand. He had done his homework well--no, not well, masterfully. His goal was to anger her--to make her so furious with Lyle Quinn and Colstar that she would do anything to help bring them down. Initially, her commitment to the Alliance had been lukewarm. She wasn't a fighter or a crusader, she had told them. She was apolitical--put together to deal with the pain and suffering of others on an intimate, one-to-one basis.

  Yet since that Alliance meeting, thanks in no small measure to Lew's attacks on her, she had ended up leading the battle against Colstar while he had remained in the shadows. All along he had been the one supplying the information. She had been the one acting on i
t. She was the catalyst. It was she who had used her academic connection to get the definitive blood analysis for cadmium, she who had won Kelly Franklin over, she who had discovered the Colstar lab, and she who had almost died as a consequence. Lew remained as removed from the spotlight as he had been the day they had met.

  Why ... ?

  Heedless of the rain, Abby paced to the end of the gravel parking area and back. A memory kept flashing like neon in her head--a snippet of a conversation with Lew.

  I would suggest part of Garrett Owen's evaluation of your friend should be a serum-cadmium level ...

  He had said that about Josh the night of the Alliance meeting. He had seemed so confident. And although he was completely right about Josh, he was absolutely off base about all the other NIWWs. It wasn't cadmium at the root of most of their symptoms. It was the gases and, at times, the antidotes. Lew blamed Colstar's control of the PRH laboratory for all the negative cadmium tests. He was certain of it. But now Abby knew that the tests for cadmium were negative in all those patients because the heavy metal simply wasn't there. How could Lew have been so insistent, so certain it was going to be present in Josh? Unless ...

  He's the one who sewed up my thigh when I tore it on that nail, remember? ...

  The words were Josh's, speaking about Lew, about the one time the two of them had met. Willie Cardoza had fallen off a ladder and gashed his scalp. Ethan Black's father and his shrink dated his violence problem from an auto accident in which he suffered a head injury and a laceration. All along it had seemed as if the three of them, plus Angela Cristoforo and more recently, Gus Schumacher, had been a group apart from the rest of the NIWWs--sicker than the others, with probable or proved evidence of cadmium toxicity, and with no history of having gotten an MRI before their symptoms began. And each of them was a Colstar employee. Lew had definitely sutured Josh. Could he have sewn the others as well? If so, what had he done at the time he was treating them?