Perilous Panacea (31 page)

Lormes glared back. “Those things bloody well happen. So what do we do now?”

Applenu toweled at his hair while he walked to the door that led to the chemical-processing room. He hoped Reedan made it and wished he was beside him running like bloody hell to get away from this place. He looked around and wondered what he needed to do to save his own skin. No more stalling, he thought. Time to find out where they stood with the fire, and he would have to be the one to find out.

Four closely spaced pops from outside broke the silence.

“That takes care of Reedan,” Lormes said. “But they should have used silencers.”

Applenu glanced back down the hall at Lormes. “Good. Now all we’ve got to worry about is whether we’re looking at a bloody fire.”

Applenu eased open the hall door into the airlock: nothing. He stepped into the airlock and went quickly to the door that led to the chemical-processing room. He placed his hands flat against the door. No heat. He put his ear against it: still nothing.

After slipping on a breathing mask, he slowly cracked open the door into the chemical-processing room. At the sound of a loud crack, he jumped back. Cautiously, he surveyed the room and located the source of the sound, the small barrel on the floor in front of the atmosphere chamber. No doubt about it, a fine plume of smoke curled upward from the barrel.

Another loud crack, as the barrel continued to heat up and expand. Much more smoke. They could have put it out easily if Maxwell and Markum had gone right in, he thought. Even if they let it go now, there was plenty of time before it would break out of the barrel. And still more time before it consumed the chemical-processing room and broke through a wall to a large source of fresh oxygen, plenty of time to make a fast and orderly exit.

How the bloody hell should he play this? All he wanted was to join Reedan on the run toward his former life. Although the amount of smoke curling from the barrel was increasing even as he watched, Simmons could dress out and go in and extinguish it. Then they could finish machining the last nuclear explosive. Trouble is, it would be hell getting Simmons in there—or anyone else.

Another loud crack and a small flame emerged from the side of the barrel. It was now just a matter of time—seconds…minutes…an hour?—before the barrel would fracture and spread the fire into the room. It would then be an hour, maybe several hours, before it broke through the thick walls of the chemical-processing room.

So be it, he thought. Time to put paid to the project and get serious about escape. While machining the final plutonium a few minutes before the fire broke out, he’d been assessing what they had accomplished: they essentially pulled off the whole thing just as planned. Although he knew Sherbani and Atkinson wouldn’t admit it, they never expected to get close to fourteen bombs out of the fifteen for which they had nuclear material. They did it. He did it. Despite himself and the apprehension he felt about his future and about the future of the bombs they had created, he couldn’t help feeling a pride of accomplishment. Maybe he shouldn’t, but it was there. So unfortunately for the world, their success wasn’t diminished by this little muck up.

A loud explosive whoosh and the smoke enveloped the barrel and the flame grew.

Applenu slammed the door to the chemical-processing room.

- - - - -

Bent forward at the waist, Curt hobbled along the creek bed, the thick bushes on the bank hiding him from Markum and Maxwell. Several yards up the creek he stumbled over a tangled mass of branches, jammed there by heavy rains during some part of the year. He climbed over them and ran on. The humid air reeked, further inhibiting his breathing, the stench getting stronger as he moved up the creek.

Now and then his foot splashed into a water puddle on the creek bottom. He kicked a metal can that clanged across the rocky creek bottom. His right foot plopped into a water hole; cold water soaked his foot to his ankle. God, what he would give for a cold drink. What was that stink? Smelled like something dead.

He stopped to listen: nothing but the roar from his nose and throat fighting for breath and not wanting to breathe. After a mental strangulation that pushed him to one knee, he concentrated to get the outside sounds past the thump-thump of his heart in his ears. Gradually, the screech and squeak of cicada and crickets seeped in. Then he heard them, forty-to-fifty feet down the creek where he went in, coming this way.

- - - - -

As Applenu stepped back into the hall from the airlock, the office door with the broken window opened, and a young woman walked into the hall, followed immediately by Atkinson and then Beecher, both men holding guns. Atkinson with a gun? He did it all, Applenu thought. He had come a long way from the Austin he met in Princeton.

“What the hell is this?” Lormes asked, pulling the towel away from his hair. “Hearn. I thought you went back to the base.”

“The name’s Atkinson, remember? I came back when I found out Saul, the dead FBI agent out there, was coming down here to nose around.”

“Mrs. Reedan here brought the fucking FBI,” Beecher said.

“The FBI. Where?”

“Don’t worry, we took care of him. But if it wasn’t for this guy, my ass would have been fried. All of us would have been fried.”

Atkinson pointed to Lori. “Mosely said that bitch followed your guys out here and then called Saul.” He turned to Applenu. “Is the job finished?”

“It’s essentially done.”

“We better get the hell out of here,” Lormes said. “If there was one FBI man, there’ll be more.”

“I’ve got to go,” Atkinson said, “and you better hurry. I’m sure Saul called for backup before he got out of the car to investigate. You’ve probably got an hour or so.”

“We have to clear out anyway,” Applenu said, “unless we can get someone to put out the fire.” He explained the fire in the pyrophoric alloys to Atkinson.

“I should never have put that in the shipment we hijacked,” Atkinson said. “Have someone get rid of Saul’s car. I’ll take an early morning flight back to our base, where I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Sounds good,” Lormes said. “I’ll be glad to wrap up this job.”

Atkinson turned to face Lori Reedan, who stood next to Beecher, clutching her shoulder bag to her body. “You know she can identify all of us.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Lormes said. “She won’t be telling anybody anything.”

- - - - -

Once he knew Austin, the big man, and Lori were inside the building, Saul assessed the damage. He hurt all over, especially his scraped and bleeding face from hitting the asphalt. One bullet smashed into his shoulder, and one burned into his thigh, the impact propelling him forward, and off balance, he slid onto the asphalt. Thank God, the once-dead Austin couldn’t use a gun as well as he used a computer. It was Austin that shot him in the back when the big guy thankfully missed. His face hurt worse than the bullet wounds although he was aware of wetness around both.

Because the two men were busy making sure Lori did not escape, they momentarily forgot about him. After they caught her, they hurriedly checked him and from the blood concluded he was dead. In the chaos, he heard Mosely’s name, another one of his fuck-ups. Ironic, he thought, playing dead was the only thing he did right in this sorry state of affairs. But because of him, they now had Lori Reedan.

The thigh wound throbbed when he flexed his leg. He probed his aching shoulder through the drenched shirt. What now? He wondered. How long would it be before the Knoxville office detail got here? How long before he bled to death?

He heaved himself into a sitting position, saw his gun two feet away, and stretched out for it. He patted his jacket pockets for his cell phone.

Lights flashed on and then off in the window above him, and then the door the three went into earlier opened. Saul flattened himself on the pavement, shoved the gun under his body, and reassumed the dead-man pose.

Approaching footsteps indicated one man. Foot steps stopped, a voice, which Saul recognized as Austin’s said, “The computer game was fun, Mr. Saul. I win; you lose.”

Austin began to walk, and Saul waited until he was past. He strained to sit up. “Stop right there, Austin, and raise your hands.”

Caught in mid-stride, he halted, hesitated a second, and then turned and faced Saul.

In the dim light Saul could not read the expression on Austin’s face. He levered himself to his feet with his left hand, keeping the gun in his right hand aimed at Austin. In his attempt at a quick movement to stand, a shimmering blackness momentarily blurred his vision. He steadied himself against a dizziness that clouded his vision and enveloped his entire body. He widened his stance for better balance, but felt himself sway slightly as if on a boat. “The game’s not over,” he said, taking a wobbling step toward Austin.

Austin stepped toward him, a smile now visible. “So you’re still with us, Mr. Saul?”

Saul saw the gun at Austin’s waist tucked behind his belt. “I want your gun,” he said, taking another wavering step forward, now only a couple of feet separating them, his vision swimming in and out of focus.

Austin stepped back and reached for his gun.

Memorized FBI rules for firing his weapon flashed into his mind and vanished as Austin jerked the gun from his belt.

Saul fired, a loud blast of pain to his ears. He fired again, then once more. He saw Austin’s body accelerate backward as a shroud of blackness enveloped him. As Saul’s body slumped toward the ground, fading thoughts in his mind tried to assess the situation: Was Austin dead? Was the game now over? No…No…Bombs…Plutoni…

- - - - -

Curt eased himself onto his stomach and squirmed up under the overhanging bushes on the bank toward the direction he came from and the side Markum and Maxwell were on. In stretching out, his left leg was chilled by a puddle that extended from ankle to thigh. It balanced his soaked right shoe.

Water: just one drink, he thought, to quench the fire in his throat and douse his burning face. His cheek rested on his left sleeve, soggy from the water he fell into earlier. With his face turned toward the bank, a pungent stench of dead and decaying plants oozed into his nostrils, the odor of dank Iowa creeks from summers long ago, momentarily replacing the stink all around.

Behind him, bushes cracked as someone went into the creek. They crashed up the opposite bank.

“Nothing over here but more of the same goddamn weeds,” Markum said.

“That means he’s in the creek,” Maxwell wheezed. “Be quiet a minute.”

Curt squeezed back his breath; his chest quivered.

After several seconds of silence, Maxwell said, “He’s laying low, hoping like hell we won’t find him.”

Bushes cracked. “It’s dark as hell down here,” Markum said. “And man, does it stink.” More bushes cracked as he climbed back up the bank to join Maxwell.

Maxwell spoke, his words squeezed around forced breaths. “We know you’re down there, Reedan. If you come out, I’m sure Lormes will make a deal with you. I don’t blame you for not going in there to put out that fire.” Maxwell paused to breath. “If you don’t come out, we’ll come down and find your ass. Then there won’t be no deals.”

Because of the mosquitoes that swarmed over his face like maggots on a dead rabbit’s head, their whine sounding in Curt’s ears like the sound of a high-pitched police siren, he barely heard Maxwell’s voice. God, he wanted to slap and chase the mosquitoes, then scratch at the proliferating welts on his neck and splash something cool on the burning gash across his face.

“What the hell is that stink?” Markum asked. “It smells like something’s dead down there.”

Maxwell chuckled. “What do you think Beecher and I did with Surling? We had to do something with him quick.”

Curt felt sick. He wondered how far he was from the body.

“I’d say we will have to go down and flush the bastard out,” Maxwell said.

“No way will we find him without a light. It’s darker down there than the inside of a black-cat’s asshole.”

Maxwell laughed. “Maybe a goddamned rattlesnake will crawl up his asshole.”

Curt’s sweat-drenched body froze. The fear of snakes crowded out thoughts of Surling and the stink. Goose flesh blanketed the mosquito bites.

“I’ll wait here while you go back and get some flashlights and some more ammunition,” Maxwell said. “If he moves while you’re gone, I’ll blast the shit out of him. We can lay him out right next to Surling.”

Markum laughed. “No way am I going to get next to that stinking piece of shit.”

Curt heard Markum run off, and then he heard something rattle on the bank a few feet above his head. The whining in his ears quieted. Mosquito bites no longer burned and itched, and the air and water no longer stank. Snakes! He held his breath without trying. Snakes struck at heated objects. Though inwardly chilled, his body was one large heat source.

He raised his head from the rocks, ears cocked, his neck forced down into his shirt, waiting for a slimy rope to twist across his back, heading for his exposed neck.

- - - - -

After Atkinson left, the three men discussed what needed to be done before they left. Lori’s arm ached where Beecher gripped it. She considered going for the gun, but she needed both hands free.

Three muffled pops sounded as if they came from outside.

“Maybe now they finally got Reedan,” Lormes said. “But goddammit, they should use silencers.”

Beecher jerked her arm and led her down the hall. He yanked open a door, shoved Lori into the room, and slammed the door.

Lori slumped onto the edge of a green vinyl couch, hugging her shoulder bag. She glanced around at the boarded-up windows, and then she recognized the suitcase on the floor next to the portable cot. She opened it: his suit, shirts, ties…Curt.

They had him here all the time. If only she had taken the chance and gotten the FBI sooner. If only Saul had brought help. But he had to see for himself. If he had just…Not Christmas today, she thought, remembering what Dad used to say: “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it’d be Christmas every day.”

The cell phone, she thought, emerging from her gloomy thoughts. She dug into the handbag down below the pistol. It wasn’t there. Where was it? She remembered using it in her car to call Saul. After the call, she placed it on the seat next to the handbag as she contemplated whether to call Sarah and see about Beth and tell her she would be late getting back.