Fatal

by Michael Palmer

  “The second,” Matt said, checking his watch. “One-thirty A.M. Why?”

  “Because later today, at three o’clock this afternoon, I think, the First Lady is going to preside over a live televised ceremony featuring the Secretary of Health and Human Services giving a four-day-old girl the first official shot of Omnivax. She’s going to be inoculated at a neighborhood health center in the Anacostia section of D.C. Immediately after that first shot, pediatricians all over the country will begin giving Omnivax to their patients. The vaccine is already in their refrigerators.”

  “And probably none of those kids will get sick immediately,” Nikki said glumly. “There’ll be no warning that anything is wrong.”

  “Oh, some will get sick,” Ellen said. “A percentage of children getting vaccinated inevitably get sick, some of their reactions are serious, some of them even fatal. The pediatricians and scientists and drug manufacturers tell us their lives are a trade-off for the greater good. I wonder how they would feel if it was their child’s life. The real question now is one that has troubled me and others about inoculations right along: Who will be able to say what will happen five years after a child receives her immunizations, or ten—especially now that they’re all rolled up into Omnivax?”

  “These three can,” Matt said. “Grimes must have realized the vaccine was flawed. With all that money on the line, rather than come clean about it or chance someone like us seeing enough cases to piece things together, he decided to eliminate everyone who has developed the prion disease. That gives him ten years before the next wave of spongiform encephalopathy and neurofibromas hits.”

  “A wave maybe,” Nikki said, “but possibly a tsunami.”

  “Nikki, you told me Kathy was convinced men were following her, trying to kill her. Well, I think they might have been. I believe Grimes tracked down every single patient from the original vaccine test group. The three in here may be the last of them with the syndrome.”

  “We have to stop the supervaccine,” Ellen said.

  “Ellen,” Nikki replied gently, “Grimes somehow arranged for your friend Sutcher to sign on as our bodyguard. I’m almost certain he was the one who threw the switch that blew up the entrances to this place. It’s a miracle the ceiling hasn’t collapsed. Clearly it was supposed to. But we’re sealed in here, way inside the mountain. There’s no way out.”

  “There is, because there has to be,” Ellen countered with grim conviction.

  “I hope you’re right,” Nikki said. “We’ve been around this cavern some and nothing’s apparent to us. I think you can try letting up on the pressure now.”

  Ellen did as she was asked. Save for a small amount of oozing, the gaping wound below Carabetta’s groin remained dry. In silence, Nikki packed it with sterile gauze and partially closed it with adhesive tape. The OSHA investigator reacted to the painful procedure with nothing more than a muted groan.

  “Ellen’s right,” Matt exclaimed, his fist clenched. “There’s a way out because there has to be. There’s too much at stake for us just to sit here waiting for a rescue we know isn’t going to happen.”

  “You want us to dig out? Matt, some of those chunks of rock weigh hundreds or even thousands of pounds. I can’t even walk without help.”

  “Well, then, Ellen and I will do it. Maybe the girl when she comes to, and even Tarzana if we can get her to calm down. What choice do we have?”

  “Maybe there is one,” Nikki said. “The stream back there. It’s coming from someplace and going someplace.”

  Matt latched on to the notion immediately.

  “I think it enters right by the cleft where we came in,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice, “but that’s a hell of a long way underground, and most of it steeply uphill from here. I doubt anyone could make it.”

  “Maybe the way out is in the other direction, then.”

  Matt looked from one of the women to the other as he tried to imagine what such a journey might be like—and how it might end. He recalled the gut-tightening panic he experienced crawling through the low tunnels. What would it be like being carried along through a narrow, pitch-black, water-filled tube? What if he got stuck? What if the passage became too small and he couldn’t back up? Could there possibly be a worse way to die than to drown, pinned between rock walls in an underground river? How long would it take before he finally lost consciousness?

  “Let’s go take a look,” he heard himself say.

  Without asking permission, he bent down and lifted Nikki in his arms. Then, with Ellen carrying a lantern, and another one left illuminated to comfort and orient the others, they made their way through the rubble, around the barrels, to the river. Nikki wrapped her arms around Matt’s neck and pressed her cheek tightly against his.

  “Thanks for the lift, stranger,” she said as he set her down on her good leg and she braced herself against the railing of the bridge.

  “’Tweren’t nothin’, ma’am.”

  He tipped an imaginary Stetson, then knelt and peered down at the inky, churning water. To their left, the river entered the cavern through a narrow opening—a foot and a half at the most between the surface and the rock. Ten feet toward them were the remains of the other bridge. On the downstream side, to their right, the opening was even smaller, maybe a foot. He reached his hand down and confirmed what he already knew—the water was damn cold.

  He cast about for some way to measure the depth and settled on one of the railings from the shattered bridge. The piece, between three and four feet long, struck bottom just before the end would have vanished—a good sign.

  “I can do this,” he said, aware of the ball of fear that was materializing in his chest.

  “I should go,” Ellen said. “I’m smaller than you are and I swim at the Y four times a week.”

  Even after just a short time together, Matt had little doubt that Ellen Kroft had the tenacity to give the escape attempt a hell of a go. But he was younger and stronger and no less motivated.

  “These woods and mountain people can be pretty inhospitable,” he said, “especially in the middle of the night. You may still get your chance. If there’s no sign of me in three or four hours, you might want to try going the other way. That’ll be up to you. But I’ll have you know there is little to worry about. I was a junior lifeguard at the Y.”

  “In that case, I’ll wait,” Ellen said. “You’re going to make it.”

  “I am.”

  Matt put his arms around Nikki and held her close.

  “You want me to carry you back to your patients?” he asked.

  “Ellen and I will get back to them okay,” she said, sniffing back some tears. “Matt, I’m frightened. I . . . I don’t want you to go.”

  Matt kissed her—at first gently, then with intensity.

  “I can think of a few things I’d rather be doing myself,” he whispered. “But like Ellen said, I’m going to make it because I have to.”

  He sensed there wasn’t as much conviction in his voice as he had intended. The knot of fear beneath his breastbone was nearing the size of a bowling ball. He stared down again at the river, then over at the slim opening above the surface where it reentered the mountain. In college, a mind game he and his roommates had played from time to time centered around what they would do, what they would feel, if somehow they learned precisely when they were going to die. Now it felt as if he might actually be in a position to know.

  Again the questions rattled through his mind.

  Was there any other way—any other reasonable possibility of escape for them? If he became wedged, how much time would it take before he lost consciousness? How long could he hold his breath? What did it feel like to drown?

  The revolver he had taken from Grimes’s massive associate was nestled in the pocket of his sweat pants. The weapon might prove helpful if he ever made it out and then got into trouble. He knew enough about handguns to feel confident it would fire after being submerged for a short time, provided he remembered to empty t
he water out of the stubby, two-inch barrel before pulling the trigger. If he got trapped, it was doubtful he’d get the chance to use it on himself.

  More questions . . .

  Was there anything else that might be useful to take? Better to remove his shoes or leave them on? Hyperventilate or just go for it?

  Matt knew that he was stalling. He galvanized himself by imagining the terrible loss of life down the road should their suspicions about Lasaject and spongiform disease be true. Holding that thought, he slipped over the rocky edge and into the chilly water. Nikki leaned down and touched her fingertips to his.

  “I’ll see you soon,” she said.

  He walked chest-deep toward the opening in the rock. Once there, he took several deep breaths and looked back over his shoulder.

  “You bet you will,” he said.

  With that he took a final, lung-filling draught, ducked below the surface of the ebony river, and pushed off downstream.

  CHAPTER 33

  THE BURNING IN MATT’S CHEST—THE FIRST sensation of air hunger—began after just fifteen or twenty seconds of swimming beneath the surface of the chilly, pitch-black water. His awkward swimming became even more uncoordinated. Fearing that if he tried to break the surface he would encounter only the ceiling of his tomb, he pulled himself ahead for another twenty seconds. The fire in his lungs was becoming unbearable. Terrified, he reached overhead. His hands broke water, but then, almost immediately, with his elbows still bent and his feet scraping along the bottom, his fingers touched rock. There was some air space above him, though it was difficult to be certain how much.

  Battling a horrible, smothering sensation, he pinched his nose closed, tilted his head back as far as he could, planted his feet on the bottom, and pushed himself up. His face was level with his forearm when it broke water. There was not enough room for him to stand straight up, but there was a four- or five-inch space. With his forehead pressed upward against the rock, he took half a dozen grateful breaths of stale, heavy air. Next he lowered himself until his eyes were just above the water’s surface and slowly turned 180 degrees. The darkness behind him was intense and absolute. It was doubtful Nikki and Ellen had already left the bridge, so he concluded that he had either swum farther than he reckoned or that the river had turned sharply. The cold water flowed steadily past his face. He worked his way around again so that the current was behind him, then tilted back so he could breathe once more.

  Even pinching his nose shut, with his forehead pressed tightly against the ceiling, water still sloshed into his mouth, making it hard to get air in consistently. Fingers of panic, infinitely colder than the water, squeezed at his throat. He was alive, but nearly immobilized by fear. The oppressive, claustrophobic sensation was worse than he’d expected—much worse. There was absolutely no way he could go on. He had to get back—back to where he could straighten up, back to where there was more space to breathe, back to Nikki. He struggled unsuccessfully to swing around again, but his strength seemed gone.

  The current, though not that forceful, kept pushing him downstream, lifting his feet off the stony bottom, and dragging him underwater. With effort, he could wedge himself between the floor and roof of the tunnel, but only for ten seconds at a time before the current won out. Aware of little beyond the hideous impotence of being confined, he floated on. An outcropping of rock struck his hand and forehead with surprising force, dazing him momentarily. The walls of the tube scraped at his arms. The energy it took just to hold himself in place quickly had him gasping.

  He simply couldn’t take it anymore.

  He had to stand up straight.

  Damn you, Grimes.

  Matt braced himself once more and shut his eyes tightly. Vision was useless here anyhow. He calmed himself down some by imagining that there was a cave just ahead . . . a vast cavern . . . unlimited air . . . space to move . . . space to turn around and stand . . . space to think.

  Slowly, with his head dragging against the ceiling, he lowered his mouth and nose below the surface and took a controlled step downriver . . . then another, and still another. He sensed his pulse begin to slow and his thoughts to focus. The icy fingers loosened their grip. Every six or seven steps, he paused long enough to tilt his head back and suck in a few more gulps of air. Emboldened, he actually dropped down beneath the surface and propelled himself forward with several breaststrokes. However, this time when he broke water, he could straighten up even less than before, and the air space had become reduced by half—two inches, maybe three. There was the chance for only a couple of incomplete breaths before the current pushed him ahead. Another few feet and the space disappeared completely. With less than full lungs, he dropped down, leveled off, and began to swim forward again, this time desperately and with all his strength. Twice he tried to break through the surface. Twice he was met by rock.

  This was it. This was the end.

  The current was increasing now as well, and turbulence was becoming an additional problem. Frantically, he clawed through the churning water, trying to stabilize his body. His lungs were afire once more, and each heartbeat was a shell-burst inside his skull. The walls of the tunnel seemed to be closing together, tearing at him as he tumbled past.

  Don’t breathe! . . . Hang on! . . .

  At the instant he had to inhale, his face broke the surface of the water. Coughing and gagging, he struggled to adjust to the now powerful current, trying to keep himself upright as he sucked in some of the dense air from what he sensed might be a small cave or even a cavern. But his weakness and merciless coughing made regaining control impossible.

  The river had widened and become shallower. No more than three feet deep, it churned ahead at intense speed through the pitch-black space. Matt tried to scramble to the right-hand bank, but water roiled about him, forcing him under, then flipping him over like a rag doll. Twice he was slammed into rocks protruding from the bottom. Over the years, he had rafted a number of West Virginia’s rivers, traversing dozens of rapids either by oar or swimming. The goal either way was to avoid boulders, and the technique when in the water was to navigate feet first, in a near-sitting position, using one’s arms as rudders. Constantly being hammered by rocks, he attempted to establish that position. But in the dark, with no visual cues and no warning of an approaching boulder, he had little chance.

  Sputtering on aspirated water, he careened helplessly down a steep slope. The swirling, foaming river seemed to be moving closer and closer to vertical, and now he could hear a roar echoing off the rock—the roar of falling water. He tumbled on, slamming against the stony bottom and one boulder after another. His arms, which he was using to protect his head and face, were absorbing a fearsome pounding. His wind was gone, his consciousness was waning, and his lungs were filling with water. Suddenly, what had been a slope became a drop. Weightless and airborne, he hurdled over the precipice. He hit the shallow pool below awkwardly and with great force. Pitching forward, his forehead smacked against a jagged rock. Pain exploded through his brain from the impact.

  An instant later, there was nothing.

  FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, Nikki and Ellen stood silently by the bridge, a lantern fixed on the opening where the river left the cavern.

  “I’m frightened for him,” Nikki said finally.

  “I understand why. That was a very brave thing he did.”

  “He has claustrophobia. He told me so himself.”

  “The river has to come out someplace. He can do it.”

  “You don’t know!”

  Ellen put her arm around Nikki’s shoulders.

  “Sorry. I was just trying to sound positive. I know how awful this must be for you. It’s terrible for me, too.”

  “Sorry to have popped off,” Nikki said.

  “Nikki, what Matt chose to do was right. You and I both know that as things stand, we don’t have much of a chance here. I’m going to wait a couple of hours, and if nothing’s happened and we can’t think of anything else, I’m going to try and make it out of her
e, maybe going upstream. Are you ready to go back and check on the others?”

  Nikki peered toward the narrow slit between the river’s surface and the ceiling of the tunnel. The lantern beam sparked off the water, then vanished into the darkness. Reluctantly, she picked up the light and lay her arm around Ellen’s shoulders. Her ankle was throbbing with even slight movements, but it really didn’t matter. She had always done pretty well with pain.

  “You’re a very good person,” she said as she hobbled and hopped back toward where Colin Morrissey lay.

  “As are you,” Ellen replied, her arm around Nikki’s waist. “As are you.”

  The girl, her flaxen hair matted and filthy, was sitting beside Morrissey stroking his hand. Nikki cringed at the fibromas that distorted what might have once been a pretty face. Morrissey, whose face was even more disfigured than the girl’s, was still unconscious and not moving air at all well. The stridor, a sign that at least there was some airflow, was reduced to barely audible wheezing.

  “He’s dead,” the girl said in a distant, singsong voice that was devoid of emotion.

  “No. No, he’s not,” Nikki replied, kneeling next to her. “My name’s Nikki. I’m a doctor. This is Ellen. She teaches school. What’s your name?”

  “Sara Jane Tinsley. Are ya gonna help him?”

  No fear, no anxiety, no questions about what had happened to her or where they were now. Nikki decided not to press the issue unless the girl asked pointedly. Clearly, shock and denial were at work, along with the residual effect of whatever drug she had been given, and maybe even the spongiform disease that was probably eating away at her brain.

  Just as well, Nikki thought. The less aware the girl was of their circumstances, the better.

  “I’m going to try, Sara Jane,” she said.

  “Ah think he’s dead, dead, dead.”

  “No, see, he’s br—”

  Nikki stopped in midsentence. Morrissey’s wheezing was gone. His contused, swollen throat had finally closed entirely. She checked his pulse, which was weaker than it had been but still present. From this instant until irreparable brain damage, she had three to four minutes to bypass the obstruction and deliver some oxygen to his bloodstream. Almost in spite of herself, she hesitated, her mind unable to get past the likelihood that Morrissey already had an irreparable, progressive brain disease.