Fatal

by Michael Palmer

  How was she going to tell him what she had done? And perhaps even more important, how did she truly feel about what he had written? There was no way to answer the first question without being ready to respond honestly to the second.

  Ellen splashed in another glassful of wine. This was last call, she resolved, even as she felt warm fingers working through the muscles of her face. Three glasses were quite enough. Or had it been four? The glasses weren’t that big anyway.

  Omnivax had clearly become the flagship of the Marquand campaign. With just over two months remaining before the election, the President’s camp was laying out big bucks to get their message of beneficence, progress, and commitment to campaign promises through to the public. The documentary had initially focused on vaccinations in general and now had moved on to Omnivax. The narrator—unseen at the moment—was a movie star with a voice that inspired confidence and radiated authenticity. James Garner? Donald Sutherland? Ellen didn’t watch enough movies or TV to be certain.

  “And so,” the voice was saying, “estimates are that between fifty and sixty thousand cases of potentially lethal infections will be prevented by this astonishingly potent vaccine over just the next year. I am honored to introduce to you the First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Lynette Lowry Marquand.”

  Marquand strolled the pediatric ward of a hospital as she spoke.

  “At three o’clock in the afternoon on September second, two days from today, a four-day-old child will receive the first official dose of Omnivax. I will be there for that most significant occasion, as will Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Lara Bolton, who will administer the supervaccine using this pneumatic device, especially developed for this purpose.” She held up a small gun that looked something like a derringer with a flattened muzzle. “We are on the verge of the greatest advance in preventive medicine in our history—an advance that could signal the beginning of the end of infectious diseases as we know them. . . .”

  “What about the thimerosal mercury a gazillion kids have gotten dosed with?” Ellen asked out loud, aware at the same instant that her speech was thick and her glass was empty. “What about the autism? What about the seizures and brain damage and sudden death? What about the asthma and learning disabilities and ADHD? And what about the man who’s flying around sowing disease and death to peddle his goddamn vaccine? What about all those?”

  “What about all what?”

  Rudy had entered the den carrying the manifests and other papers.

  “. . . I am proud to say that all of our major networks will be carrying the ceremony from the Anacostia Neighborhood Health Center here in Washington, where a four-day-old child will take her place in medical history as the first official recipient of Omnivax.”

  “I’m watching a program that could have been written by the pharmaceutical industry’s public relations unit,” Ellen said, “but instead was written by Jim Marquand’s. There is something about that prissy wife of his that really bugs me.”

  She tried to modulate her voice, which seemed like it might be too loud. Was there ever a time she had drunk like this? She followed Rudy’s bemused gaze to the bottle on the table next to her. There was, at most, two inches remaining in it. Lying beside it, the corkscrew and Merlot-stained cork, proof that, not long ago, the bottle had been a virgin.

  “It’s the best Merlot I’ve found for the money,” he said, gently commenting because the situation demanded he say something.

  “Rudy, I’m sorry. I’m overtired and . . . and was lost in this show and . . . and I didn’t realize I had finished so much of it.”

  “Nonsense. Good wine is to be enjoyed.”

  “But I really don’t drink very often,” she said thickly.

  Rudy sank onto the tan leather couch. There was no judgment in his expression.

  “So, what’s the status of our friendly neighborhood vaccine?” he asked.

  “Day after tomorrow a little four-day-old girl will be starting the ball rolling.”

  Brought to You by the Four More Years for a Better America Committee, the final credit announced. Ellen realized that she had neglected to learn who the narrator was.

  “If nothing else,” Rudy said, “I certainly expect the number of Lassa fever cases to drop dramatically.”

  “You have a point. No reason for Old Scarface to fly around infecting people anymore. Let the epidemic be cured.”

  “It’s a little chilly in here. Would you like a blanket?”

  “No, I mean yes, I mean, you stay there. I can get it myself.”

  Ignoring her request, Rudy withdrew a maroon throw from a refurbished old sea chest and floated it down over her lap.

  Stop being so nice to me, she thought. I’m a jerk.

  “Thank you,” she said thickly. “I don’t know how I would have done all this without you.”

  “Nonsense. You’re the pro. I’m just the caddy.”

  “No, I mean it. Rudy, I—”

  Rudy sighed. “Let there now be eternal ambiguity surrounding the phrase ‘the shot heard round the world.’ You know, before you brought me into this world of vaccinations, I more or less took the whole thing for granted. The scientists and pharmaceutical companies produce their vaccines, and their PR people make sure we know why we need their products and what horrible things will happen to us if we don’t embrace them. It seemed that simple. And after their vaccines are approved by the FDA, and the CDC tells everybody they should get them, we smile gratefully and say, ‘Thanks, here’s a clear shot at my body. Take it.’ ”

  “When drug companies make a mistake, more often than not it’s a lulu,” Ellen said, still trying to direct their conversation toward the letter. “That’s what I have in common with them. When I make a mistake, it’s a lulu, too.”

  “Tell me about it. I used to call myself the King of Screwupville.”

  “Rudy,” Ellen said, “I don’t know what made me do what I did, but—”

  “You did it because, unlike some First Ladies we know, you are a seeker of the truth. You have a granddaughter who looks as if she has been damaged by her vaccinations and you want to help determine if that is the case, and also to protect other children and parents from paying the same price.”

  “I s’pose.”

  Ellen looked about blearily and then emptied half of the remaining wine into her glass.

  “You know, Rudy,” she tried once more, “I’ve always been a very curious person—some would even say nosy. Howard used to say my nosiness was going to get me in big trouble someday.”

  “If you hadn’t been curious about all this, we would have already packed up and slipped back into our mundane existences.”

  “Some things you do and the moment you’ve done them, you wish you hadn’t.”

  “That’s how that creep who paid you a visit is going to feel when we get to him. Ellen, I’ve found some stuff for us to work with. We’re closer to figuring out who the guy is than you might think.”

  Ellen felt dizzy, queasy, and unable to focus fully on what she was seeing or hearing. She had badly overdone the wine, and she sensed that she was in the process of making a bad situation worse.

  “I’m anxious to hear about it,” she managed. “And I’ve got something I need to talk with you about, too.”

  Had she actually said those last words or merely thought them?

  “Well, then,” Rudy said, “I’ll tell you what I think is the significance of what you’ve found out.”

  “It was a mistake,” Ellen said. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, and I really am sorry. But just the same—Rudy, are you listening to me?”

  Rudy was leafing through the passenger manifests and a small sheaf of notes.

  “But just the same . . . Go on, I’m listening.”

  Ellen sighed. Next time, when she was clearheaded, she would try to do things right. Rudy didn’t deserve to have a slobbering, slack-jawed inebriate blubbering about how she had invaded his privacy.

  “What did you learn?”
she asked, clicking off the TV.

  “Okay,” Rudy said excitedly, moving the TV tray table aside, pulling a coffee table over, and taking a seat on the arm of Ellen’s chair. “I took as my criteria any male who was on multiple flights with a person who subsequently became infected with Lassa. That includes flights out of Freetown and from Ghana as well. By my thinking, our extortionist has to be one of these four men.”

  Ellen was hearing Rudy’s words, and at least some of them were registering, but the queasiness in her gut was intensifying.

  “Go on,” she said, wondering if a bite of sandwich would help matters or hurt.

  “Of course,” Rudy continued, “I think it’s a possibility—a good possibility—that all four of these men may be one and the same. Forged passports and IDs aren’t all that hard to come by for someone with enough money.”

  “And whoever is bankrolling this extortion has enough, or will.”

  “I suspect you’re right there. I have all of their names and addresses and . . . Ellen, do you want to take a break and maybe continue this in a few hours—or even in the morning?”

  “You mean the wine?”

  “I don’t see you as much of a drinker, and you have had a bit.”

  “I’m fine,” she replied with far more snap in her voice than she had intended. “Really I am. Let’s just try calling information and shee . . . see if any of these four men are listed where they say they live.”

  “Great idea!” Rudy exclaimed, seeming genuinely surprised and pleased with her contribution.

  Three of the names Rudy had culled from the passenger manifests weren’t listed at all. The fourth, Vinyl Sutcher of Tullis, West Virginia, had a number that was nonpublished, at the customer’s request.

  “I suppose we start with him,” Ellen said, now battling exhaustion as well as the nausea and dizziness. Be brave, she told herself. “Vinyl. It’s hard to believe he’d make up a name like that for a fake passport.”

  “Must be some sort of family name,” Rudy said. “Or else a mother who liked to name her kids after her furniture coverings.”

  “He’s a cute little baby. I think we’ll call him Naugahyde.”

  “Maybe we should try and get an artist who will do a composite sketch,” Rudy suggested. “Or else we might try to get a photo of these four guys from the passport files at the State Department.”

  “At some point we may have to,” Ellen managed. “But I am anxious not to lose that kind of time.”

  “You know, I was quite impressed with that little air injector the Secretary is going to use on that baby.”

  “You think that’s how Vinyl, or whoever, infected those passengers?”

  “Either with a pneumatic injection gun like that or some sort of flat, hollow plate that fits in his palm and uses compressed air from someplace up his sleeve. Technically it doesn’t seem as if it would be too complicated to rig up. A little nudge, a jet of compressed air mixed with Lassa virus, and zap—instant disease.”

  Ellen felt her eyes beginning to close.

  “Rudy,” she said in the soft voice of a child, “I need to close my eyes now, just for a little while. Need to sleep.”

  “You do that, dear heart,” she heard him say as she floated off. “You do whatever you need to do.”

  USING THE REMOTE, Lynette Marquand flipped off the television that had been wheeled into her office.

  “Well, Lara, what do you think?” she asked.

  HHS Secretary Lara Bolton was beaming.

  “Brilliant,” she said. “Masterful. There’s absolutely no way to tell that most of that program was shot a month ago. Those guys are good—no, better than good. They’re grrrrrreat.”

  “And my part?”

  “Perfect. Just enough information, not too much. And you looked absolutely smashing.”

  “Thanks. You liked the script, too?”

  “It was right on—sincere and appropriately solemn, yet excited and humble. I loved it.”

  “And the part about the kid?”

  “You mean having you mention her but holding back on saying precisely who she is?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think it worked perfectly. Nobody can criticize you for putting her and her family on the spot or invading their privacy, but everyone everyplace will be wanting to know about her. We’ll do the rest. It’ll only take one or two anonymous-source phone calls, and in a few hours everyone will be buzzing about little, adorable Donelle Cleary.”

  “And those calls?”

  Lara Bolton made a pretense of checking her watch.

  “I believe they’ve already been made, Mrs. Marquand,” she said.

  CHAPTER 28

  HAL SAWYER WAS WAITING FOR MATT AND NIKKI IN the lobby of OSHA headquarters on Constitution Avenue. He was dressed more like the commandant of a yacht club than a med school professor—white trousers, navy blazer, blue pin-striped shirt open at the collar, but his expression was grim. He embraced Matt, then shook hands with Nikki and introduced himself.

  “I’m relieved you’re both all right,” he said.

  “Thanks to you,” Matt replied. “We barely made it out of the FBI office without having to explain to them why a chief of police thinks I shot a guy in the head and then tried to burn the evidence.”

  “They might not have even known yet. But Grimes is definitely turning up the heat, so to speak.”

  Matt managed a weak smile.

  “Is it safe to be here?”

  “There’s no reason to think Carabetta knows anything at this point. I wouldn’t suspect OSHA is on the routing map of all points bulletins for murder.”

  “Lord. Mom okay? Does she know I’m not around?”

  “For a few minutes at a time she seems to. But then just as quickly she forgets. I’m really sorry for all you’ve been through. You, too, Dr. Solari.”

  “It’s Nikki, please,” she said. “I appreciate your concern. This whole business doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”

  “It will. Grimes has a lot of power around where we live, but he doesn’t have a lot of power everywhere.” He lowered his voice a notch. “I know some excellent lawyers we can go see after we get this mine business straightened out. You still think Grimes is doing all this to protect BC and C?”

  “I’m pretty certain of it, yes,” Matt said, pointedly ignoring Nikki’s expression of doubt.

  “In that case, maybe I’d better start watching my back. I’ve come in contact with these cases, too, you know.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Matt said. “All the more reason why we have to get our evidence and put the clamps on Grimes as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, speaking of evidence, I’ve found Darryl Teague’s brain, but so far Ted Rideout’s is a no-show.”

  “Could someone have taken it?” Nikki asked.

  “Well, we like to think we take decent precautions against such things. For the moment I’d prefer to believe it’s been misplaced. We have a storage facility for specimens over a year old. Even though Rideout’s death was less than a year ago, maybe it’s over there.”

  “I hope so.”

  “By the way, Nikki, I was very upset to hear about Joe Keller. I met him once at a meeting. He seemed like quite a guy.”

  “Thanks, he was. The people who murdered him took all of Kathy Wilson’s specimens. It seems possible they might be after the ones you have, too.”

  “Maybe. I intend to be careful and to try and gather up all the specimens I have and get them someplace safe.”

  “The man Matt and I are supposed to have killed was one of the thugs who kidnapped me. Grimes was at the cabin with him, questioning me about Kathy’s death. It was clear Grimes was the boss.”

  Hal whistled softly through his teeth.

  “Well, he says you two killed the guy, then tried to burn the evidence, so to speak. I told him Matt wouldn’t have bothered with the fire because he knew I was a sharp enough medical examiner not to miss the bullet hole in the guy’s skull even
if he was incinerated, but he wasn’t interested.”

  “Well, he either shot the guy or more likely had it done,” Matt said. “At least now you see what kind of person he is.”

  “Now I see,” Hal said somewhat ruefully.

  “He’s banking on support from those country club cronies of his who think I’m way off center to begin with, and probably capable of anything.”

  “I’ve known Bill, pretty well I thought, since he came to town. Just goes to show how wrong you can be sometimes. Well, it’s time for counterattacking. Let’s visit with Fred. Matthew, I’m going to let you speak with him alone. Nikki and I will wait in the reception area. If he doesn’t agree to the inspection you want, it will be my turn.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Fred Carabetta was waiting for them in a neatly maintained single-windowed space with a worn leather couch and built-in bookcase. The office would have been relegated to a low- or mid-level manager in the private sector, but in government service, indicated some clout. There were pictures around suggesting a wife and two teenage girls, and interests in deep-sea fishing and golf.

  Carabetta was a rotund, balding man around fifty, short enough to seem nearly as round as he was high. He had the tendency of constantly rubbing his fleshy thumbs across his sausagelike index and middle fingers. Probably aware of the nervous habit, he kept his hands in his lap much of the time. To the man’s credit, Matt thought, Carabetta listened patiently to his account of locating the toxic dump, only occasionally interrupting to clarify a point. Matt purposely left out any mention of Joe Keller’s death or the assault on Nikki. He didn’t know Carabetta at all, and to this point at least, there was nothing about him that suggested fearlessness or a commitment to justice.

  “Well, now,” he said when Matt had finished, “that’s certainly not a tale one hears every day around here. Knowing you were coming, I did a little research on Belinda Coal and Coke. There have been some complaints filed against the company over the past few years, but for whatever reason, all of them were submitted by you.”