Fatal

by Michael Palmer

  “Oooeee,” Frank said, inspecting the massive front wall. “Them boys ’uz playin’ fer keeps.”

  Matt felt sick. He had images of putting a stick of dynamite among some boulders, lighting a match, and blowing a new entrance to the cavern. Piece of cake.

  As if reading his thoughts, Lewis put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We’ll git in thar fer ya, Matthew,” he said.

  Largely in silence, the three Slocumbs functioned like a highly skilled military unit. Lyle set out several kerosene lanterns, making the space nearly daylight bright, and then began unpacking their gear. Lewis, hands on hips, slightly short of breath, watched as Frank scuttled to the top of the pile of rock, then across from one side to the other.

  “You’d best be darn good, Lewis,” he called as he scrambled back down the wall.

  “Ah am,” Lewis replied simply. “Okay, Matthew, here’s the deal. This here’s the head-wall. It’s lak a plug whar there useta be a hole. Ain’t no big trouble blowin’ it up. The trick is ta do it without killin’ us an’ anyone whut mot be behin’ it.”

  “But you think you can?”

  “Ah think Ah kin try. Ain’t no one kin do more’n thet. Lyle, lis’n up. I wanna soften up this here baby with a shell from Little Bertha, jes ’bout two-thirds a the way up. Kin ya hit thet big, pointy rock rot thar?”

  “From whar?”

  “Far ’nuff back so’s ya don’ git kilt, Lyle.”

  Lyle scanned the cave.

  “No sweat,” he proclaimed. “They’s a spot ta shoot from rot back thar.”

  He opened up the long army-issue bag, removed a compact rocket launcher, and began preparing it to be fired.

  “Ain’t she a beauty,” Lewis said to Matt. “A Javelin Anti-tank Missile with HEAT—hah-explosive antitank warhead. It’ll penetrate more’n twenny inch a armor. Jes far an’ ferget—thet means ferget whut yer shootin’ at an’ ferget about standin’ round ta watch. Range a twenny-fahve hunnerd meter. Thet’s goin’ on two mile.”

  “Jesus, Lewis. How’d you guys get this?”

  Lewis replied with a wry look that said, “Ya know better’n ta ask a queschin ya really don’ want ta know the answer to.”

  “Frank,” he said, “les you an’ me git the Gel-Paks ready. Three rows up an’ down, beginnin’ with a pound at the very top an’ finishin’ with, say, ten pound at the bottom. We’ll use det cord ta link ’em up.”

  Frank quickly produced several dozen sausagelike packages from one of the rucksacks and laid them on a tarp by Lewis, along with the detonating cord. Skillfully, the brothers began linking them together.

  “Ready,” Lyle called out.

  Frank dragged the Gel-Paks away from the target and threw another tarp over them.

  “This way, Doc,” Lewis said, leading him and Frank back into the tunnel until they couldn’t even see the head-wall. “It’d be fun ta watch this, but it’d also be a mot dangerous. Ah s’pect Lyle’ll be back here purdy darn quick, too.”

  Matt heard a loud woosh from around the bend, followed by Lyle diving headfirst at their feet. At the same instant a sharp, near-deafening explosion resonated through the tunnel, followed by the clattering of rock. When Lewis nodded that it was okay to revisit the head-wall, they found the center of it largely pulverized, and the topmost rocks displaced and loosened.

  “I’d hate to see Big Bertha,” Matt muttered.

  “Fahn shot, Lyle,” Lewis said. “Ah guess they’s hope fer ya yet. Frank, les git these here sausages in place an’ mak us a hole.” He turned to Matt. “We’re gonna use de-lay detinaters ta blow this here thang so’s it clapses from the bottom up. If’n we do it rot, a space oughta ’pear et the top. If’n we miss, it had best be on the sod a too little rather’n too much. If’n we don’ git no hole the first tom, we got enuff Vibrogel ta try it again. Mebbe twice more.”

  “Hurry,” Matt said, in spite of himself.

  “Wha on earth ’uld we e’er want ta tak our tom?” Lewis replied. “Ah mean, t’ain’t lak we’re workin’ with hah explosives er nothin’.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ah thank Ah’m ready,” Frank said, looping the det cord around his elbow before he ascended the wall.

  “Ready for what, pervert?”

  Bill Grimes, his service revolver leveled at the four of them, stepped into the cave from the tunnel, followed immediately by Vinny Sutcher, still in black, who casually panned the group with a submachine gun. Last to step into view, his gun also at the ready, was the thin man Matt had outwitted at Shady Lake Manor Estates.

  “See, Vinny,” Grimes said. “I told you it was worthwhile having you and Verne hang around for a day checking the entrances to this place. This here doctor is as slippery as an eel.”

  “What an imaginative metaphor,” Matt said, noticing how incredibly calm Lewis Slocumb and his brothers appeared at that moment. He had no way of knowing for certain, but he felt some sort of information was being silently exchanged among them.

  Grimes may have sensed the same thing. His expression darkened, and his heavy pistol steadied on Lewis.

  “Step away from that stuff, Slocumb. Your brother, too,” he said. “Vinny, get around there and move that shit away.”

  Sutcher shouldered his weapon, circled around to the base of the head-wall, and eyed the pile of Gel-Paks suspiciously.

  “Ya’d best not e’en fart near thet stuff,” Lewis said, mimicking an explosion with his hands. “Ka-boom.”

  Frank, who was about ten feet to Lewis’s right, and Lyle, who was on one knee about fifteen feet behind him, both snickered.

  “So,” Grimes said, turning his attention to Matt, “I must conclude from your presence here that you are not the only one who managed to survive that devastating accident.”

  “They’ve all escaped except the guards you double-crossed,” Matt replied, sensing he needed to stall. “We’re digging those two out because they both swore to kill you if they ever saw you again. What are you, Grimes, some sort of major stockholder in the company that makes Lasaject? Is that what’s going on?”

  Surprise flashed across the policeman’s face, then just as quickly vanished.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Mrs. Kroft. Well, if you must know, I have a proprietary interest in the company, yes.”

  “Do you know how many people—how many children—will die if that vaccine of yours gets into general use?”

  “There’s no proof that’s so.”

  “Spare me. Those people you tried to kill in there are proof, and you know it. That’s why you did this to them. Well, Grimes, they’ve escaped just like me. They’re headed to Washington right now, along with Ellen Kroft and Nikki. You’re finished.”

  Matt saw uncertainty in the man’s eyes.

  “I don’t believe you,” Grimes said. “We’ll deal with the problems in there as soon as we’ve dealt with the problems right here. Verne, pat each one of them down, beginning with that one back there. Then get them together over in that corner. Then the good doctor and I need to have a little chat. If any of them give you any crap, shoot ’em in the knee. We’ll save the other knee and the balls for later.”

  “Don’t ferget ta check me fer rocket launchers,” Lyle said, choking himself on a laugh.

  Despite the obvious advantage his side held in terms of weapons and age, Verne approached Lyle cautiously.

  “Stand up,” he ordered.

  “Cain’t,” Lyle said. “Ma laig’s broke.”

  “If he doesn’t do as you tell him to, just kill him,” Grimes said. “He’s not going to hurt you, Verne. He’s a fucking old man and you have the gun.”

  “Yeah,” Lyle said, “Ah’m a fuckin’ old man.”

  He smiled toothlessly and shifted his weight as if he was going to stand.

  At that instant, there was a scraping sound from high on the head-wall. All seven of those below turned to the noise. Ellen, a gaunt, dusty apparition, was standing straight up, twenty feet directly above Vinny Sutcher. The br
oad, flat rock she was holding over her head looked as big as her chest. At the moment Grimes spun and fired at her, she hurled the rock with all her strength, straight down at Sutcher. With his head tilted back, the heavy missile caught him flush in the face, producing the sickening sound of a pumpkin dropped onto pavement from a second story. Instantly limp, blood spattered across his face, Sutcher crumpled backward onto the stony floor.

  The seconds that followed were a blur to Matt. He was still fumbling for the gun in his pocket when all three Slocumb brothers produced pistols, seemingly out of thin air. Instantly, the cavern sounded like a Chinese New Year. Gunshots seemed to be coming from everywhere. But the only muzzle flashes Matt saw came from the Slocumbs. Grimes was instantly hit in the chest, neck, and face. His eyes wide with disbelief, he danced sideways like a giant marionette, arms flapping, legs disjointed. Then he crumpled as if his strings had been sliced, held a sitting position for a single beat, and toppled lifelessly onto the dust. Verne caught bullets in his throat, mouth, and the center of his forehead, and was dead before he hit the floor.

  Matt raced over to the head-wall. Above him, Ellen was down, but he could see that she was moving.

  “Ellen?”

  “I’m okay,” she called back. “I slipped when I threw the rock. My pride’s going to hurt when I sit, but otherwise I’m not hurt badly.”

  “Is Nikki all right?”

  “She’s back there with the others. It’s slow going with her ankle. I think it’s broken.”

  “Is there enough air in there?”

  “There is now, thanks to whoever created that hole.”

  Ellen began making her way down to where Matt waited. Vinny Sutcher lay at his feet, deeply unconscious, breathing shallowly and intermittently. His broad pancake face was a pulpy mass, his eyes obscured beneath twin pools of blood. His head was cocked at a sharp angle, leading Matt to suspect that his neck had been fractured. Ellen moved in beside him, her jaw tightly set, her eyes fixed on the horrific damage she had wrought. Then, without a word, she bent down and, with great effort, picked up the rock again and leveled it over Sutcher’s face.

  “Ellen, don’t,” Matt urged. “It’s over. Trust me, it’s over.”

  Tears glistened through the dust on Ellen’s cheeks. Her arms were shaking from the effort of holding the rock. Sobbing, she turned and dropped it to the floor, where it split in two. Matt put his arms around her and held her. A few seconds later, Sutcher took a single, shuddering gasp, and stopped breathing forever.

  Matt led Ellen over to where Frank was once again arranging the Gel-Paks, and introduced the two.

  “I’m going in to see Nikki,” he said.

  Ellen pointed to his watch. “Matt, listen. That first shot of Omnivax is going to be given to that baby in a little over three hours. As soon as it is, other kids all over the country are going to start getting it. We’ve got to stop them.”

  “Is there someone we can call?”

  “This is the biggest campaign stunt of this election. I don’t know anyone in a position to rein in the First Lady at this point. Do you?”

  “No. We could try calling in a bomb threat.”

  “I hate that idea, but I suppose we could try it if we absolutely had to. I can see us accomplishing nothing except to give them more publicity and land us in serious hot water.”

  “If they go ahead with the shot, how many kids do you think will be vaccinated by the end of the day?”

  “I really can’t do more than guess,” Ellen replied, “but I think it could be lots, especially on the West Coast, where pediatricians’ offices will be open three hours later than the ones on the East Coast. Thanks to the President’s publicity people, the papers are calling today’s injection The Shot Heard Round the World. The public and the pediatricians just love vaccines. Omnivax is the most eagerly awaited advance in immunizations in decades, but it’s been made clear that even though tens of thousands of doses have been shipped to offices and clinics around the country, administering it to patients won’t be legal until after Lynette Marquand and Secretary Bolton have had their worldwide TV photo op. So . . . What? Maybe a few thousand doses by the end of the day? Maybe more. Who knows?”

  “With a three percent prion infection rate.”

  “Or more.”

  “Or more,” Matt echoed.

  He peered up at the hole high on the rock wall and made his decision.

  “My Harley’s at my Uncle Hal’s place. I can probably get you to D.C. on time, but I don’t want to leave before I see Nikki. We’ve been through too much together.”

  “I understand, but please, let’s get going as soon as you can.”

  “We will.”

  “And Matt, I apologize for getting so wrapped up in my issues just now. I’m sorry about your uncle. I really am.”

  “Thanks. Me, too. Lewis, can you wait a little before setting off those charges?”

  “Ain’t no place we got ta be. We don’ ’specially need Lyle, neither. He kin drahve ya ta yer bike.”

  “Great. Lewis, tell me something. How on earth did you guys get your guns out so fast?”

  Grinning broadly, Lewis pulled up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing an arrangement of leather straps and springs.

  “Ma brother Frank, thar, invented this here gizmo a couple a year ago an’ built one fer each a us. We ain’t really got ta use ’em, but we put ’em on taday ’cause we jes don’ truss Bass Vernon much. An’ the older we git, the more careful we git. That rot, Frank?”

  “Thassit.”

  “So that’s why you guys were looking at each other like you had a secret.”

  “We knowed somethin’ they dint, thet’s fer sure,” Lewis said. “The moment Grimes tol’ his boy thar ta git our guns an’ dint jes pull the trigger, we knowed he ’uz a dead man, providin’ Frank’s gizmo worked the way it’s s’pose ta.”

  “And did it ever. Ellen, I’ll be right back. We’ll make it. My uncle’s place isn’t too far from here. His girlfriend is away, but I know where he keeps a spare key.”

  “Good, because there’s someone I need to call.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  Matt was halfway up the head-wall when he heard Nikki’s voice.

  “Hey, sailor, come up here and get your Red Cross advanced swimmer’s badge.”

  Looking about as grungy and disheveled as a person could, she sat perched on a slab to one side of the rent Lewis had made in the massive wall. Matt hustled to her side and kissed her unabashedly.

  “I knew you’d make it,” she said. “I just knew it.”

  “You did not.”

  “Okay, I didn’t. But you made it just the same, and that’s what counts.”

  “How’s your ankle?”

  “Better now than it was a few minutes ago. You know any decent orthopedists?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. How many people are still alive down there?”

  “Believe it or not, all the ones that were alive when you left.”

  “Even Fred?”

  “He’s actually a little better. I did a trach on Colin.”

  “Incredible. You dun need no steenking OR.”

  Nikki looked down at the three bodies sprawled in blood amid the stones and dust.

  “Did you do that?” she asked.

  “In my mind I did, especially Grimes. But I didn’t even get a shot off.”

  “I never trusted that Vinny.”

  “I know. Listen, it’s almost noon. Let me help you down. I’ve got to get Ellen to D.C.”

  “Oh, yes, that first shot is due this afternoon. Hurry. I can get down myself.”

  “You can let me help you.”

  It was a slow, awkward descent. When they finally reached the bottom, Matt carried her to a safe spot in the tunnel and set her down. Even beneath the bandage he had applied, he could feel the enormous swelling in her ankle. He kissed her hand, then her neck, and finally her lips.

  “You think you might like to, I don’t know, hang w
ith me after I get back?”

  “Only if you promise me we get to do something really, really dull.”

  “I promise.”

  They kissed once more before he headed back to Ellen. As he passed Grimes’s bullet-riddled body, he paused.

  “See, I told you there was proof,” he said.

  CHAPTER 36

  CLEARLY PLEASED WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY LEWIS had bestowed on him, Lyle Slocumb hopped up behind the wheel of the old Ford pickup. Matt saw Ellen mulling over how best to negotiate the gearshift protruding up from the floorboards and saved her the maneuvering by taking the center seat.

  “I could have handled it,” she said, sliding in beside him.

  “Hey, after watching what you did with that rock, I would say you can handle just about anything. I just figured since me and Lyle have known each other from when I was a boy, he might enjoy rubbing elbows with me.”

  “Yer nuts,” Lyle said.

  “Yes, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  As they pulled away, Matt looked back toward the mountain, feeling an odd mix of horror, relief, and foolishness. True, there was a toxic waste dump just as he’d suspected. Soon the mine owners were going to be exposed for the callous, unscrupulous profit-mongers they were, and the cave would be cleaned out. But his narrow-mindedness regarding the mine owners and the cause of the Belinda syndrome had kept him from the truth and had, to some degree, cost lives—most notably for him, his godfather’s. He also knew that there was going to be trouble for Lewis and his brothers. The Slocumbs had become legendary for their mysterious, hermitlike existence. Now, unless a way could be found to dissociate them from the carnage in the tunnel, there was going to be publicity, inquisitions, and scrutiny, and probably weapons charges as well.

  Inwardly, he shrugged. He had done what he thought was right and had tried his best. That was the way he had been taught to live his life. There was nothing more he could ask of himself. But there was also no hiding the fact that his exuberance about the mine had almost enabled Grimes and his Lasaject cronies to pull off their lethal deception. Over time, he would have to deal with the way he had handled matters, perhaps with Nikki’s help. For the moment, though, it was essential to focus on other things. All that mattered right now was beating the clock to Washington, and placing Ellen in a position to stop the initial injection of Omnivax and all subsequent injections as well.