Fatal (38 page)

“I can fix this,” Matt said.

“Ain’t no one can fix cancer,” one of the bikers said.

“Shut up,” Bass snapped.

“This isn’t cancer,” Matt replied. “It’s infection. I need to open it up and wash the pus out. You have anything like a bathtub here? I mean one with hot water. It’s got to be big enough for him to fit into.”

“Tub’s back there,” Bass said. “We kin get plenty a hot water from . . . we got it.”

“And soap, like the kind you wash dishes with.”

Bass looked over at the nursing mother, who nodded.

“We got that,” he said.

“And some rags, a lot of them—the cleaner the better.”

Another look, another nod, this time in the direction of the kitchen. One of the bikers went in there and returned quickly with a small armload of rags. He set them where Matt indicated at the foot of the bed.

“Okay, I need a knife—a sharp one.”

In an instant, all three bikers had produced blades from nearly invisible sheaths, the smallest of which was half a foot or better.

“Pick one an’ don’t do nothin’ stupid,” Bass warned.

Matt chose the smallest knife and hefted it in his hand, examining the point at the same time.

“Finally, I need some hot, soapy water,” he said. “Half a pail.”

Bass grunted something, and in a minute, the bald biker had left, returned, and set a bucket half filled with sudsy water at Matt’s feet.

“Tell him this is going to hurt like hell,” Matt said. “A little while after I’m done, much of the pain he’s been having should go away.”

“You hear that?”

“Tell him to do whatever the fuck he has to,” Rake groaned.

Given what awaited within Rake’s infected pilonidal cyst, there was no sense in bothering to sterilize the knife or his skin. Matt wrapped a cloth around the blade and held it in place about an inch from the tip.

“Okay, Rake. Ready . . . and . . . now!”

He thrust the knife straight in and pulled it straight down through the tattoo, almost two inches. Rake hissed through clenched teeth, but made no other sound. Bloody, foul-smelling pus, under tremendous pressure, spewed from the wound. Much of it hit the cloth surrounding the blade. Some of it actually spattered Matt.

“Soon as he can move, get him into the tub of hot, soapy water,” Matt ordered, cleaning the wound out as best he could and rinsing his hands in the bucket of water. “It might sting, but it’ll help a lot. Does anybody here have any antibiotics? Now that the infection is open, they might help.”

“You’re a shitty liar,” Bass said. “Becky already told me what you did with Samuel.”

Obviously anticipating the need, he tossed over the pillowcase of purloined medications, and Matt selected out the most powerful of them.

“Two of these four times today,” he said, wondering if being caught in this particular lie was a minus or a plus, “then one four times a day. He really should be seen at a hospital, but even if you don’t take him, this cavity should heal from the inside over two weeks, three tops. Send someone to a store for ten or twelve bottles of peroxide and some gauze bandages. You can wash out the hole with the peroxide and then pack it with the gauze.” He glanced down at his unprotected hands and added, “Get a few boxes of rubber gloves, too.”

He hesitated, carefully choosing the words to make a sort of deal with Bass. Before he could speak, though, without a word of thanks or warning, Bass motioned with a jerk of his head, and Matt was unceremoniously pulled, almost dragged, from the house and returned to the shed.

“Wait a minute,” he complained as Shaved Head locked his cuff back onto the copper pipe. “Wait one fucking minute. I just saved that man’s life. No questions asked. Listen, I need to get out of here. My friends are going to die if I don’t. Tell Bass I won’t ever say anything to anyone about having been here. I promise.” The bikers were already headed out. “Stop! This isn’t fair! I saved your friend’s life!” He was railing at the inside of the closed door. “Goddamn it.”

Matt kicked the wall and made yet another fruitless attempt to pull the pipe free. No chance. He was as good as dead. If they let him live, it would only be to care for the cavity he had created in Rake’s back.

“You bastards!” he yelled. “Ungrateful bastards!”

He slumped down onto his bed of oily rags, pulled the blanket over him, and closed his eyes. Nikki and the others had virtually no chance now, either. For a time he thought about slow suffocation. Breathing gets more difficult, you feel sleepy, you lay down and close your eyes, you don’t wake up. There were certainly worse ways to die, probably including whatever the bikers had in store for him.

Time passed. He might have actually dozed off when the door flew open again. Bass stood there as he had initially, all but blocking out the scene behind him. But this time there was a difference. This time his left hand was behind his back and his massive right paw, dangling loosely at his side, had a gun nestled in it.

“Shit. Bass, don’t do this,” Matt begged in a half whisper. “I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise.”

“You better mean that,” Bass growled. “It’s a good thing fer you yer such a crummy liar.”

He bent down and skimmed Matt’s pistol across the floor to where he lay. Matt hadn’t fully absorbed the significance of the gesture when the key to the handcuffs followed along with a pair of dry jeans and a work shirt. Without another word, Bass turned and left the shack.

Standing in his stead, taking up considerably less space, was Frank Slocumb.

 
CHAPTER
35

AIN'T IT JES THE BALLS, LEWIS? HAR THIS BOY 
survives a friggin’ mine cave-in, goes o’er a thirty-foot unnerground waterfall, an’ then ends up gittin’ hisself captured by Bass Vernon an’ his lunatic gang.”

“Y’are somethin’,” Lewis Slocumb said to Matt.

Lewis, his jury-rigged chest tube pinned to his shirt, sat crammed between his brother Frank and Matt in the cab of their battered 1940-something red Ford pickup. In the back, amidst boxes and tarps, was younger brother Lyle. Kyle had been left to guard their farm.

“Frank,” Matt said, still giddy from his close call with the bikers, “except maybe for when you popped out of your mother’s womb, I swear no one has ever been happier to see you than I was back there.”

“Who sez Mammy ’uz happy?” Lewis chimed in. “She ’bout slit her throat when she first saw him.”

“An’ she ’bout slit yourn when she saw yew.”

Matt joined in their laughter. It was just past ten on a heavily overcast morning. The truck had been jouncing up a steep, rutted dirt road for nearly half an hour, circling the mountain that contained both the Belinda mine and the toxic storage dump.

“Ya done took yerself quat a trip, Matthew,” Frank said. “Five mile allagether, mebbe six from whar ya started ta whar Vernon’s people foun’ ya. You are some lucky man.”

“I thought I was dead going over the falls, then I really thought I was dead when Bass came in with that friggin’ gun in his hand.”

“Thet’s his way. Bass is crazy as a bedbug. Mean, too, dependin’ on whut drugs he bin takin’. Ah don’ know if’n Ah ever seed him let someone go after they done been ta his camp. You, Lewis?”

“’Ceptin’ us,” Lewis said.

“He knowed we mak the best damn hooch inna valley. We got no intrest in the stuff they grow in thet hellhole. But they got more guns an’ ammo than the U.S. Army, an’ we’re always intrested in thangs thet go bang.” Again he and Lewis laughed heartily. “O’er the years they come ta trust us—leastways, much as Bass is capble a trustin’ anyone. Ya musta done somethin’ purdy special fer him ta b’lieve us thet ya kin be trusted, an’ let yer ass go.”

“I saved Rake’s life,” Matt said simply.

“Ain’t no one’s gonna give ya no medal fer thet,” Lewis said.

Matt checked his watch. There had to be enough air in the cave to get Nikki and the others this far. He prayed that Nikki or Ellen hadn’t given up on him and tried to get out via the river. It was doubtful the gods would let two survive that trip in a single morning.

“How much longer?” he asked.

“Almos’ there,” Frank said. “They’s no way ta git direct from Vernon’s place ta the tunnel we plan on usin’.”

“And Vernon explained what I needed? I mean, you brought some explosives?”

Frank smiled.

“Ah think ya kin say thet,” Lewis replied.

“Wha d’ya think Ah been drivin’ so slow,” Frank added.

Matt gulped and looked back through the window at Lyle, who was stretched out calmly among the bundles, smoking a cigarette.

“I owe you guys big-time,” Matt said.

They drove the last quarter mile off-road, weaving through the trees and rolling over roots. At the spot Frank pulled over, there was no hint of a tunnel along the rocky base of the broad, wooded hill.

“Where are we going from here?” Matt asked as they unloaded two large rucksacks from the truck, as well as two smaller nylon bags and a long, khaki canvas bag with a U.S. Army insignia stenciled on it.

“Jes ’cause ya cain’t see somethin’ don’t mean it ain’t there,” Frank said, passing Matt one of the large backpacks and two thick coils of rope. “They’s a bunch a entrances inta this here moun’in. Trick is ta know which one of ’em end suddenly in big, deep holes.”

Only Lewis wasn’t loaded down as the four of them made their way across twenty yards of shrub- and leaf-covered ground to the hill. Matt felt his excitement beginning to surge at the prospect of seeing Nikki alive.

Hang on, baby. Just a little longer.

This entrance to the tunnel, completely obscured behind an outcropping of rock, was no more than four feet from top to bottom—a jagged crack large enough to admit a person on hands and knees, but certainly not one with a pack. They piled their gear by the entry, and Matt and Frank made their way inside, each pulling one end of rope. Matt was not the least surprised to realize that his pulse remained relatively slow and stable, despite the tight passageway.

Step right up and get it, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Rutledge’s Famous Cure for Claustrophobia.

Guided by powerful flashlights, they made their way thirty feet along the narrow tunnel before arriving at a vestibule high enough to stand and wide enough for all of them and their gear. Frank tied the ropes together, forming one end of a long loop, with enough cord extending from the knot to lash onto a strap. Lewis was doing the same outside. One piece at a time, they hauled their gear in, while the empty cord was returned to Lewis and Lyle for reloading.

Hurry!
Matt wanted desperately to yell out.
Hurry!

The trip into the mountain by this route seemed longer and narrower than the one from the cleft, but there were no drop-offs and no water until they passed over the river on some planks near the very end of their journey.

Ten-forty
.

The landscape of what used to be the entrance to the toxic dump had been completely transformed. Much of the overhead wall had collapsed, making a new cave outside the old one. The ceiling of the new cave, perhaps twenty feet above them, could be reached by climbing up a wall of rock that was just ten degrees or so short of vertical. The floor was littered with rubble but passable, and some of the right-hand wall had collapsed, leaving a strangely smooth gouge that looked as if it had been produced with a giant ice-cream scoop.

“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.”