“So the I.I.A. can do it again somewhere else?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her sharply. “So you know about the I.I.A., do you? I wasn’t sure you’d find out.” He pulled the printout from the console and began to read it.
“Just like that, Mark? Just a little surprise that I found out that the federal internal security people are in charge of this atrocious farce? Don’t you realize what’s happening out there, Mark?”
“Of course I know what’s happening.” He offered the printout to her. “You might want to look at this.”
“What is it?” She was determined not to let him sidetrack her.
“It’s the current curve for the incidence of smallpox. We have others, for the other diseases. The disease rate is picking up now, Nat. From now through most of the summer it should climb steeply, then level off for a few weeks before going into a rapid decline. This is the most recent update, and making certain allowances for a slight increase in the death rate, we’re more or less on schedule.”
Natalie had put her hands over her eyes. “Oh, God,” she said thickly, “you don’t realize what you’ve done. Curves! Those curves are dead people, Mark. They’re dying. You might as well be killing them yourself. That’s just your hospital figures, isn’t it, that report? Well, how about the people who aren’t in hospitals and won’t go to hospitals? Or hadn’t you taken that into account? I have. I’ve seen more than a hundred of them at the Van Dreyter house. They’re coming in with smallpox, with diphtheria, with typhus...”
He interrupted her. “Typhus?”
“Yes.”
His brow raised. “We didn’t anticipate having typhus so soon. It’s not this early in our projected figures.”
For one insane moment Natalie was afraid she was going to laugh. Hysteria bubbled in her, pushing to explode. With a terrible effort she mastered herself. “You mean that this disaster isn’t going according to Peter Justin’s choreography? How very inconsiderate.”
“Now, Nat,” he warned, his face growing ugly. He put down the printout.
“You cretinous ass! Look what your great idea has done to us. Your priceless plan has one little flaw in it, and we’re paying the price.”
“Nat,” he said patiently, “you don’t know...”
“Shut up!” She was almost as surprised as he at this outburst. And she felt a deep satisfaction as she went on. “I’ve been listening to you for five years, and all you told me were lies. And now you’re going to listen to me, and I’ll tell you the truth. This great demonstration of population control you’re so proud of has one or two things wrong with it. Don’t interrupt,” she snapped as he opened his mouth.
“Somehwere along the line you forgot that you aren’t dealing with one, or even two, diseases, but many diseases. If you’d just wiped out one third of all smallpox vaccines, or cancer vaccines, or any of the others, that would be all we’d have to contend with: a moderate smallpox or cancer epidemic. An outbreak of polio, maybe. That would have made the job fairly simple. But no, you had to be greedy. You had to have the whole lot of them. So you put every major disease back in business. Which means that, statistically, each of us is probably going to catch two different fatal diseases. The hell with the four we statistically won’t catch.”
“Nat, you’re being too emotional...”
“Have you been outside? Have you been outside this lab in the last week? Have you been outside the hospital? Do you have any idea of what’s going on out there? Well?”
Mark hesitated. “I’ve had my hands full here,” he said, then came toward her. “What do you want, Nat? You didn’t come back for this futile gesture, did you?” The confidence was back in his smile, and he made his voice deep and melodic. “You little bitch. You want to blackmail me. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“No,” she said, holding her ground.
He came closer. “You want me to call this off, don’t you?”
“If you can,” she said, and luckily stung his vanity.
“Of course I can. Me, Wexford, Justin and Cockburn, we’re the only ones who can give the orders. No one else.”
Natalie stared at him. “And you won’t issue that order, because you like this life-and-death power. That’s why you don’t give a damn about how many people are dying, or how many diseases are let loose. You like this. You like this.” Her words were soft, but anguish burned in them. “Is there the slightest chance you’ll help us? Let us use the labs, maybe, or at least have a little space to check out this new stuff we’ve been seeing more of?”
“What new stuff?”
She forced herself to speak calmly. “I’m surprised you aren’t aware of it. Many of the patients we’ve seen have had a disease that looks like polio, but as far as we can tell, it isn’t polio.”
“Fatal?”
“Not that we know of. Not yet.” She saw the fascination in his eyes, the gloating over the new disease. She closed her eyes and went on. “But there’ve been increasing amounts of it, and some of the cases look fairly severe. We wanted to run some tests, see what it responded to, what it is...”
“No.”
“We’ll work off hours, Mark. We’ll bring in our own help, we’ll supply our own slides...”
“No.”
“I see. Not deadly enough for you, is that it?” How tired she was, now that she knew she had failed. “I only hope you live long enough to know what you’ve done. And not take pride in it.” She turned away from him and walked resolutely to the door.
“Nat!” His voice was its most compelling. “Nat, let me explain to you.” He started after her.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me. I understand.”
“But we know what’s happening, Nat. We know where the outbreaks are the worst, and we’re being careful. We’re not monsters.”
She had reached the door. “Aren’t you?”
“Nat, we have to cut down the population. We must. Or we’re all doomed. We’re trying to find a way to handle the problem while there’s still time.”
Her face had hardened now, and she felt rage in her once more. “You had access to vaccines and you let your son die. You knew what was going on, you helped it, and you let your son die.”
Natalie saw the blow coming and turned away from it, so that Mark’s fist landed on her neck rather than her jaw. She staggered against the door, but took private satisfaction when she did not fall. She felt a surge of dizziness, then her head cleared. “You’re not going to convince me that way.”
“Philip was a mistake. You’re talking as if I murdered him.”
She read arrogance in his stance, and realized that he wanted an excuse to hit her again. “That’s because I think you did.” She was standing steadily once more, and knew she could walk out of the room without stumbling.
“Nat, he was only one child. You can have more.” He moved toward her. “You were doing a good job with him. You’re a good mother. There’s still time for you to change your mind. When this is over, we can afford to have several children. You’re at your best with children.” He put out his hand persuasively, offering her so much.
“Generous!”
His face flushed. “At least consider this before you throw it all away for foolish heroics.”
Quite suddenly she was nauseated. She knew that if she stayed near Mark much longer she would be sick. “Mark,” she said as she pulled the door open, “you’re obscene.” Sensing that her contempt bothered him, she let the door close in his face.
Over two dozen people sat in the Van Dreyter house foyer-turned-waiting-room at noon, their faces carefully guarded so as not to show fear to their neighbors. Lisa Skye was busy with preliminary checks, going from one to another with patience and serenity. She saw Harry and motioned him to step aside with her.
“What is it?”
“Has Ernie brought that list of extra beds available?”
“No, not yet. Why?” Harry felt dread churn in him.
“We’re going to need
them. Today. I tried to call him at his office, but the phone wasn’t working.”
“His phone?”
“No, our phone.” She steeled her pretty face, and her doll-like beauty changed to awesome resolution. “We have to get some other message service. We need information, Harry.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got two smallpox for sure. We must get them into beds. And there’s at least three, and possibly more, of that new polio. More and more of that stuff is showing up. I wish we had the time and equipment to study it.”
“I wish we could do something to stop it,” Harry said, and frowned as the knocker sounded. “More of them. That’s all we need.”
Lisa patted his arm. “No rest for the wicked.”
“Good luck,” he said as he went from her to open the door. He swung it open and stared.
“He’s all yours, mister,” said the larger of the two teen-agers who supported something between them that Harry recognized, after one horrified moment, as Stan Kooznetz.
Harry tried to speak, words coming disjointedly. “But... I don’t... Why? ... What did...” He reached toward one of the teen-agers.
“Tristam said to drop him off here. He’s your problem now.”
Harry clung to the name. “Tristam?” he said, then staggered under the weight as the boys let Stan fall into his arms.
In a few moments the two teen-age boys were gone, and Harry found, to his surprise and horror, that Stan was breathing. “Stan?” he whispered. “Stan? Can you hear me?”
The flesh in his arms quivered, and Stan made a dreadful guttural sound as Harry tried to comfort him. “No, Stan, you don’t understand. This is Harry, Stan, Harry Smith. You’re back at the Van Dreyter house...”
Behind him, Harry heard the door open wider, and then a sharp gasp. “What is this, Harry?” Amanda asked faintly. “I saw you come to the door, but what is this?”
“It’s Stan,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’ll need some help getting him into the house. Call someone, will you, Amanda?”
“Nonsense,” she said very matter-of-fact, “I’m quite capable of giving you a hand. Tell me what you want me to do.” She was on the open porch now, and she was making a quick, dispassionate survey of the damage. “It will be best not to touch him more than we have to. What on earth do you think happened to him, Harry?”
Harry did not answer as he steadied Stan’s weight against him. He braced himself to take more of the weight and then eased the door open. “Now, Amanda. We can get him inside. We’ll need help after that.”
“Maria can give us a hand. And Dominic.”
“Fine. Just help me get him through the door, and then make sure there’s a place for him.” He hesitated as an idea struck him. “You remember on the second floor, that old-fashioned waterbed? See if it will still hold water, because Stan can use it. He’ll need to be kept motionless as much as possible. The way those burns are...”
Amanda expertly lifted Stan’s ankles over the threshold, sympathy showing in her lined face while he groaned.
“Yes, he’s been burned, but those marks on his legs aren’t burns, or the wounds on his hands,” she said critically. “What is it, Harry? Did they beat him? I haven’t seen wounds like that before, except once, in Ian Parkenson’s division. What did they do?”
Harry pulled Stan into the entry hall. “You’re right, Amanda. He hasn’t been beaten. He’s been tortured.”
“I don’t care what you think,” Carol Mendosa said as she turned on Harry. The others looked worried as she paced the length of the common room, showing in her tension the tension they all felt. “I say this has gone far enough and that we have to get out of here. Look out there in the lobby if you don’t believe me. We have over forty people waiting, and there isn’t a spare bed in this house. Where the hell are we going to put them? Well?”
“My colleagues will help,” Ernest Dagstern promised.
“That isn’t good enough. How long will it be before they’re beaten, or killed, or die from one of the diseases we’re treating? How long will it be before we all start dying?” She challenged the others with her eyes. “Natalie isn’t back from Westbank, is she?” Carol asked, and saw the faces change. “That makes a difference, doesn’t it, Harry?”
“It always makes a difference,” Harry said, and realized with a start that there was as much anguish in Carol’s face as he felt himself.
Amanda rose. “I have patients to look after. You must excuse me.” She went slowly to the door, then turned back. “You’re an excellent doctor, Carol. You must do what you think is right. I won’t stop you from leaving, if that is what you must do. But I won’t go with you.” She opened the door and went out.
Radick nodded. “I cannot leave either, Harry. If the rest vote to go, I will help as much as I can, but I must stay here. There’s still a little chance that something might prevent some of the worst diseases. And someone must look after Stan and Dave. We cannot move them and we cannot leave them.”
“Look,” Carol said, desperation changing the lines of her body from elegant curves to ridges. “You don’t seem to understand, none of you. We’re licked and we’ve got to admit it. If we stay here we’re going to die. We’re going to get sick or be killed. What happened to Dave wasn’t an accident, just a random beating of a chance victim. They wanted a doctor. They proved that when they got Stan.”
Jim Varnay shook his head. “Sorry, Carol. Maybe you’re right, but I can’t leave. Not yet, anyway. If there’s worse and we get too shorthanded, that’s another matter.”
She turned her angry eyes on him. “You’ve got to be the big hero, don’t you? You have to prove your bravery to your damn masculine pride.” She turned away from them. “Men! You fools!”
“I’m with them, too,” Lisa Skye reminded her gently. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Carol. But I have to fight. Otherwise I’ll lose my self-respect, you see.”
“Self-respect. What good is that when you’re dead? If we don’t get out of here, if we don’t find out who’s in charge and make them stop, then all this will have been in vain. Don’t you see that? If they ever try this again, we’ll have done it all for nothing.”
Dominic Hertzog nodded. “I’m with you, Carol. But the rest can’t see it yet. Give them a couple of more days of dead bodies and attacks on doctors, and they’ll come around to your point of view. Believe me.”
At that, Radick made a gesture. “We aren’t going to solve any of this right now, and there are patients waiting for us. We must get back to them.” He nodded to Harry as he rose. “I will talk to you later, Harry.”
When the others had left, Harry turned to Carol. “You know I’m worried about Natalie. There’s good reason to worry.”
Carol would not meet his eyes. “You could have stopped her going.”
Harry laughed. “Could I? If you think that, you’ve never had an argument with her. If she made up her mind to go to Westbank, neither you nor I could stop her. No matter what you or I said, she’d go.”
“What if...” The words stopped. “We’re losing ground here every day, Harry. We’re in quicksand and it’s sucking us down.”
“Yes.”
“Then, why don’t you do something?”
“I am doing something,” he said, and hoped with all his soul that this was true.
There were no lights in Stan’s room off the laundry, because Tristam’s gang had kept bright lights on his eyes for many hours, and now the sight of a lightbulb, even at a distance, made him scream. The old waterbed was still sound and had been filled so that he could lie without moving and be spared pain.
Kirsten Grant checked his dressings and applied new pads where they were necessary. “We need the rain unit in Intensive Care,” she said to Harry. “Changing dressings every hour isn’t enough. He’s got three infected wounds now, and I know that at least two of the other wounds are going to become infected. No matter how many times we change the pads.”
“Do the best you c
an,” Harry said slowly as he moved closer to Stan. “Has he said anything useful yet?”
“No.”
“It’s bad enough not having Dave and Stan working, but they’re both taking up more time than any of us can spare.” He saw the severity in Kirsten’s face and went on in a different tone, “I’m tired, Kirsten. I’ve been up for almost eighteen hours on less than five hours’ sleep. And I’m frustrated. It’s true we can’t take proper care of Stan and Dave because we don’t have any intensive care units here. We’re in no position to give either of them what they really need. But we do our best, which might not be good enough. Who’s taking care of Dave right now, do you know?”
“Howard. He’s given up part of his lab time.”
Harry frowned. “We can’t afford that.” He stepped away from Stan and motioned to Kirsten to come with him to the door. “Kirsten, if he says anything at all that’s the least bit sensible, will you be sure to write it down. Write it down if there’s the remotest chance it might make sense. I have to know who Tristam is and why he’s doing this. We can’t let anyone else get trapped by him.” Unbidden, the thought of Natalie rose in his mind, and he ruthlessly turned it away. “Do you have a notepad in there?”
“I think so. There’s supposed to be one. Radick said he’d leave one.”
“Well, make sure there is. And tell your relief to make sure to take notes. Sometime, Stan’s got to tell us what happened.” He attempted a smile. “I know it’s hard. But Ernest is bringing us help, and you know he’s reliable. If it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have our lab or the X-rays. If he knows other chiropractors, you know they’re good doctors.”
“Sure. But maybe they won’t want to come when he tells them what’s going on.”
“If they saw Eric Patman die, they’ll want to come,” Harry said grimly.
“Do you think he really did that to himself? Injected himself with botulin?” She rubbed her arms, as if cold. “Botulin. Someone else could have done it, and then said he did.”
Harry nodded. “I know. That’s what I thought at first, but now I’m not so sure. Eric was that kind, you know. He had to make the gesture, no matter what. I think that’s what he did. He made the gesture because he didn’t know anything else to do. He thought the public had to be made aware of what’s going on, I know that. He hated the lies. And you know what his ulcers had done to him. He wasn’t getting any better, Kirsten.”
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Time of the Fourth Horseman Page 17