by John Saul
Judith’s expression hardened. She glanced toward the door as if she expected to see someone standing outside, listening. “I got you out of there,” she told him, her voice dropping, “because I don’t understand what those shots are all about, and I don’t know why the kids are being given them.”
“They’re just flu shots—” Jed began, but Judith didn’t let him finish.
“Maybe. But something is wrong.” She told him about the conversation she’d had with Sally Rosen the day before. “The thing that really got to me,” she finished, “was the UniChem label on the boxes.”
Jed’s eyes narrowed. “UniChem?”
Judith nodded. “It just seems strange to me that on the day UniChem is taking over Borrego Oil, they’re also giving shots to every kid in town. Especially when someone I trust tells me there is no effective inoculation against the latest strain of flu.”
“Jesus,” Jed whispered, his tongue running over his lower lip. “What are you going to do?”
Judith shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “In fact, I don’t even know what I ought to do. But I know I’d just as soon you skipped that shot.”
Jed smiled crookedly. “That’s okay by me,” he said. “The last time I had a shot I passed out.”
Together they headed back to the cafeteria, but as Judith toyed with the limp sandwich that was all that remained by the time they passed through the line, she kept thinking about those shots.
By the time her afternoon classes began, she had come up with an idea.
Judith stepped out into the hall, closing the door of the lounge behind her. It was almost four, and the school was nearly deserted, only a few teachers left in the lounge, lingering over gossip rather than work.
Across the hall, the door to Laura Sanders’s office stood slightly ajar. Inside, Judith could see the boxes of syringes sitting on the table where Laura had apparently left them. Laura herself had come into the teachers’ lounge a few minutes ago, looking harried and announcing that she intended to take a good long break. “I missed lunch waiting for Jed Arnold,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes balefully at Judith, “and he didn’t even show up. Can you beat that?”
Judith had shrugged sympathetically, then waited until Laura had settled into conversation with Elliott Halvorson. Certain that she had at least ten minutes to herself, she had finally slipped out of the lounge.
Now she hesitated, glancing in both directions.
The hall was empty.
Quickly, furtively, Judith crossed the hall, slipped into Laura’s office and quietly shut the door behind her.
On the table, neatly stacked, were all the class lists of the day, duplicates of her own. Beside each name there was either a five-digit number or a notation that the student had been absent that day. Clipped to each class list were the permission slips that had been collected from the students.
On the floor by the table next to the window, boxes with the UniChem logo were carefully stacked. All but one of them were empty, but on the table itself were two more boxes. The seal on one of them was broken. Judith opened it. The box was nearly full. Good! No one would notice if one of the syringes disappeared. Making up her mind, she took one of the needles out of the box and started to slip it into her purse.
And then she saw the serial number neatly printed on the tube of the syringe.
She frowned, then picked up the class lists once more. Scanning through them, she counted the number of students from throughout the school listed as absent that day.
Twenty-two.
On the table was one box of twelve syringes, its seal unbroken.
The open box had contained ten more, but one of them was now in her hand.
Apparently UniChem had supplied exactly enough syringes to inoculate the entire student body, and had insisted on an accounting.
Judith’s sense of unease over the whole inoculation program congealed into fear. Why would UniChem be so concerned about accounting for all the needles?
Still, because of what she’d seen that morning, she was prepared for this accounting system, and now flipped through the lists once more, until she found the one for her own first-period class.
The second name from the top was Jed Arnold’s, and the space next to his name was still blank. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that, expecting him later in the day, Laura Sanders had not yet marked Jed as absent.
Judith fished in her purse and found the permission slip she’d taken from Frank’s refrigerator that morning. Her eyes flitting guiltily toward the door, she added the slip to the stack attached to the top of the class list. Next she picked up a pen, tested it to make certain its ink matched that of the pen Laura had used to fill in the class lists, then carefully copied the number from the syringe she’d taken from the box into the space next to Jed’s name.
The handwriting match wasn’t perfect, but it was so close that she didn’t think anyone would notice.
Leaving everything as she had found it, Judith slipped the syringe into her purse, and moved quietly to the door.
She listened for a moment, but heard nothing from the corridor outside.
Finally she opened the door a crack and peered out into the hall.
It was empty.
Unconsciously drawing her breath in, Judith pulled the door open and slipped through. Leaving it a few inches ajar, just as she had found it five minutes before, she walked quickly away, her mind already fully occupied with figuring out the fastest way to get the syringe to Sally Rosen in Los Angeles. And then she remembered Peter Langston.
She’d dated Peter in Los Angeles for a few months, until he’d moved to Los Alamos to take a position with a think tank. The work was highly technical, he’d explained, and secret. It was, he’d added, the opportunity of a lifetime.
And here was her opportunity: Peter was a chemist—he’d be able to tell her exactly what was in the syringe.
If Judith had looked back at that moment, she would have seen Stuart Beckwith emerge from his office and frown as he saw her disappear around the corner toward the cafeteria, then turn his attention to the open door to Laura Sanders’s office.
He stood where he was for a moment, apparently lost in thought, then went to the nurse’s office himself.
He scanned the lists carefully, then took his own count of the syringes.
He repeated the process, assuring himself that the number of needles matched the number of students who’d been absent that day.
Perhaps, he finally decided, he’d been wrong.
Perhaps Judy Sheffield hadn’t been in Laura’s office at all.
Still, as he left the nurse’s office a moment later, he made certain the door was firmly closed, and locked it as well.
He made a mental note to reprimand Laura Sanders. Greg Moreland, after all, had made it absolutely clear that the syringes were to be kept under lock and key at all times.
Well, nothing had gone awry, so there was really no point in even mentioning the incident to Greg.
Laura Sanders, on the other hand, was another matter.
He went into the teachers’ lounge, already silently relishing the tongue-lashing he was about to give her.
Chapter 14
Frank drove quickly down the narrow dirt road that edged the canyon. Only a fraction of his attention was focused on driving, for the ruts in the road were so deep that the pickup essentially drove itself. His mind kept turning over what he’d seen at the dam.
He still wasn’t certain why he’d decided to start poking around after the meeting in Max Moreland’s office; he only knew that, despite Kendall’s assurances to the contrary, he had not been expected to attend. He’d seen it in Otto Kruger’s eyes.
He also knew, regardless of Kendall’s claims, that UniChem’s plans were not going to be nearly as beneficial to Borrego as Kendall maintained. Over the past two days, despite the hectic schedule of the plant shutdown, he’d still managed to do his homework, and now, on Thursday morning, he knew more about Un
iChem than Kendall—or anyone else, for that matter—suspected. This morning, with the shifts already juggled so he could attend Max’s funeral, he’d decided to drive up to the dam and have a look around.
He hadn’t liked what he’d seen.
Everywhere he’d looked, there had been signs of sloppy maintenance.
Greasy rags, which should have been stowed away in a fireproof bin until they were ready to be washed, were scattered haphazardly through the passages.
Valves had been allowed to rust and corrode, some of them so badly they should have been replaced weeks, if not months, earlier.
When he’d finally taken a look at the main flume, the shaft that carried water from the lake down through the dam to power the huge main turbine itself, he’d been downright scared. Cracks had developed in the flume’s lining—cracks too big to have developed overnight, or even over a period of days. In fact, they’d been damned lucky they hadn’t lost the entire turbine. If a sizable chunk of concrete had come loose, they would have had a major disaster on their hands.
When he’d asked Bill Watkins why the dam had been let go so badly, the operator had shrugged helplessly. “Otto just kept telling us to make do,” he explained. “He kept telling us Max didn’t have the money.”
Though he’d said nothing, Frank knew that whatever Watkins believed, Otto Kruger had been lying to him. Max Moreland would have closed the dam down before he’d have let it run in the condition he had just observed.
As Frank’s anger built, his foot pressed down on the accelerator and the truck shot forward. He knew Kruger would be at the plant, and no doubt Kendall was with him. Whatever they were up to, Frank was not going to let them get away with it.
As he suspected, the two were in Kruger’s office when Frank stormed in. Paul Kendall looked up, a smug smile playing at the corners of his lips as Frank spoke.
“I’ve just been up at the dam, Otto,” Frank said, steel in his voice. “And I want to know what the hell is going on. The shaft’s ready to blow, and that didn’t happen overnight.”
“Now just a minute,” Kruger broke in, his face livid. “Max Moreland ordered those maintenance cuts, not me—”
He’d given Frank the opening he was waiting for. Staring straight into the other man’s eyes, he finished the sentence for him. “And Max, conveniently enough, isn’t here to defend himself, right, Otto?”
Though he’d been careful to make no direct accusation, the implication was clear. Without another word, he turned and left the office.
Paul Kendall stared at the door Frank had just slammed, then turned to Kruger. “What’s going on with him?” he asked. “I thought you had him under control.”
Kruger’s eyes fixed malevolently on Kendall. “He’s shooting blind,” he said. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Kendall regarded his plant supervisor darkly. “Well, if that’s the way he wants to fight, there’s a few things I can do too.”
“Listen to Frank,” Max said.
Rita Moreland froze. She felt suddenly cold, although above her the sun was blazing down, and she could feel the midday heat radiating from the sandstone boulder on which she sat; her legs, clad in a pair of worn jodhpurs, curled beneath her, her back as ramrod straight as ever.
She wasn’t certain how long she’d been sitting there, high up on the mesa above her house, gazing out over the town.
It lay spread out before her, the sun glinting off the tin roofs of its small rectangular houses. Beyond the town she could see the refinery, and even a few of the oil wells. And then, in the distance, the mouth of Mordida Canyon, its sandstone walls sloping gently down to the desert floor, a winding double row of cottonwoods lining the banks of the Mordida wash as it emerged from the confines of the canyon itself.
She knew why she’d come to the mesa; it had always been one of Max’s favorite places, indeed the only place where he could stand and gaze out over everything he and his father before him had built.
Gone now, all gone.
Her jaw clenched as she turned to look at Max.
He was standing a few yards from her, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the distance. When he looked up, Rita’s eyes instinctively followed her husband’s.
High up, almost invisible against the brilliant blue glare of the sky, an eagle soared, its wings outstretched as it effortlessly rode the invisible currents of a thermal over the mesa.
As she watched, the bird drifted lower, and she imagined that it was coming down to look at her.
“He knows,” Max said. “He knows everything.”
Rita’s eyes left the soaring eagle and returned to Max. Now he was smiling at her and his hand was outstretched, as if to take her own.
She stood up and took a step toward him, then another.
But he was no closer, and she suddenly felt a stab of fear.
She took another step, and then another. Then she was running, stumbling toward Max along the rough path hewn out of the mesa’s crumbling sandstone. But no matter how fast she ran, Max seemed only to slip farther and farther away from her.
And yet he still smiled, and his hand was still outstretched. Then, so abruptly she didn’t realize it had happened, her foot slipped and she lost her balance. She stumbled, fell, slipped over the edge of the path.
“Max!”
And then she was falling, tumbling through the air, and the eagle was swooping down toward her, its talons extended.
“Max!” she cried out again.
This time, as she cried out her husband’s name, she woke from the dream.
She blinked in the late-morning sunlight, her whole body still trembling from the memory of the dream. Slowly she regained control of herself. She was all right, she repeated to herself. She was at home, in her bed, and nothing had happened to her at all.
Automatically she reached out to touch Max, reached out to feel his solid strength next to her in the bed.
He wasn’t there; would never be there again.
Her hand, feeling suddenly heavy, dropped to the sheet, and for just a moment she wondered if she would be able to get through this day.
In only another hour she was going to bury Max, lay him to rest in the small graveyard on the edge of town, next to his father and mother.
Summoning her will, she threw off the covers and left the bed, moving to the window to close it against the growing heat of the day, but pausing to glance up toward the mesa. Even from here she could see the spot from which she’d fallen in the dream. High up, it was a dangerous place in the path, a place that Max had always warned her about. Even now, fully awake, she half expected to see him there. Almost against her will, her hand came up to wave to him.
But the path was empty, the mesa standing in its placid majesty like some great sentry looking out over the desert. And then, soaring high, she saw the eagle.
Now, in the morning sunlight, it looked exactly as it had in the dream, its wings fixed, circling slowly on whatever faint traces of breeze there might be, its eyes hunting the ground below for prey.
Except that, as in the dream, Rita had the strange sensation that the eagle was watching her.
Shivering despite the warmth of the morning, she closed the window and began dressing. But even as she slipped into the simple black silk dress she would wear to her husband’s funeral, she heard once more the words he’d spoken to her in the dream.
“Listen to Frank.”
She seated herself at the small vanity in her dressing room, then willed her hands to stop trembling as she began carefully applying the mask of makeup that would hide her emotions. One hour from now she would sit in the church, trying to look at Max’s coffin without really seeing it, for she knew that if she let herself truly accept that it was Max inside that dark mahogany box, she might well lose the bulwark of self-control she had so carefully built since the moment she’d been told he was dead.
Finally satisfied with the image she saw in the mirror, she went downstairs, where Greg was al
ready waiting for her in the breakfast room at the back of the house.
He stood as his aunt came into the room, and his eyes seemed to search her, as if looking for a chink in her serene armor. “Are you all right, Aunt Rita?”
Rita managed a slight smile. “I dreamed I was falling this morning,” she said, apparently out of nowhere. Greg gazed blankly at her. “And it’s odd, but Max was there, trying to help me,” Rita went on. “But of course he couldn’t, and it seemed I couldn’t help myself either.” She took a sip of coffee. “Have you ever dreamed you were falling, Greg?”
Greg frowned, trying to puzzle out what his aunt was saying. If there was some hidden message in her words, he couldn’t fathom what it might be. “Everybody dreams of falling,” he said at last.
Rita’s eyes clouded for a moment as she remembered once more the words Max had spoken to her in the dream. “I haven’t,” she replied, setting the cup back on its saucer. “And I don’t think I ever shall again.”
An hour later Rita, with Greg at her side, watched the pallbearers slowly lower her husband’s coffin into the hard ground of the cemetery. A dense crowd surrounded her, for nearly the whole town had turned out for Max Moreland’s funeral, but still she felt alone, even with Greg on one side of her and Judith Sheffield on the other. At last, as the pallbearers stepped back, she moved forward, stooped down, and picked up a clod of earth. She held it for a moment, and then, feeling eyes on her, she looked up.
A few feet away, on the other side of Max’s grave, Frank Arnold stood watching her, his eyes glistening with the tears he refused to give in to.
Rita hesitated a moment, and yet again Max’s words in the dream sounded softly in her head. Her eyes met Frank’s and she smiled at him.
Her fingers closed on the lump of earth in her hand and the clod broke up, sifting down onto the coffin in the grave.
Rita looked up into the sky. There, as if at her command, the form of an eagle appeared, hovering for a moment, then wheeling around, its wings beating strongly. A moment later it disappeared over the rim of the mesa and was gone.
