Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  Oleander looked around for approval of his story. Martin Bartholomew and Del Marshall nodded that he was doing well. Captain Gould and Joe Henderson remained statuelike, their arms folded across their chests. Quinn, his silver hair fairly glowing beneath the bright fluorescents, made no acknowledgment at all. He appeared ready for action. His hands hung loose at his sides, but his fingers were in minute, constant movement. His linebacker's shoulders were square to her, his feet apart. He looked like a panther, getting set to spring.

  The medical chief cleared his throat, shifted uneasily, then knelt so that he was speaking directly at Abby. His tone now was somewhere between pleading and patronizing.

  "For a while, with some government contracts coming in, it looked like things might turn around for us. Then, about eight years ago, some terrorists in South America blew up the huge Colstar plant that mined and refined most of the raw materials used in our manufacturing operation here on the mesa. Five Colstar employees were killed in the blast. After the explosion no one down there would help the corporation rebuild. It looked like that was the death knell for all of us up here. That's when Senator Corman stepped forward with a proposition."

  "An offer you couldn't refuse," Abby said, keeping Oleander and the others in check with her eyes, while her mind evaluated and discarded one possible move after another.

  Run ... scream ... give in ... fight ... grovel ... try to win the weak ones over ...

  "I suppose you could say that," Oleander responded. "The truth is, we didn't want to refuse. Every other day, in some country or another, a new chemical weapon was popping up. Our scientists were working with animals to develop antidotes to them. But as often as not, the treatments that seemed to work all right on some pig or sheep or monkey ended up making our troops sicker than the chemicals. The Gulf War syndrome is a perfect example. Half the symptoms in our troops were from chemicals Hussein was exposing them to. The rest were the result of the so-called protecting drugs we were feeding them."

  The NIWWs, Abby realized. The Alliance had been in the right church by suspecting that an exposure of some sort was what unified the patients on their list. But they were mostly in the wrong pew. Cadmium was only part of the nasty picture. The NIWWs' varied symptoms were certainly consistent with those reported from heavy-metal exposure, but they were positively identical to the myriad complaints issued by returning Gulf War veterans.

  "So Corman wanted a human laboratory," Abby said. "A controlled environment where microscopic amounts of gases could be pitted against microscopic amounts of antidotes."

  "Something like that. At one time the government worked with prisoners. But that just isn't allowed anymore. Besides, they needed an even more rigidly controlled situation."

  "Like a hospital," Abby said.

  "Initially we used our CT scanner. Then, when MRIs became available, we were able to get one when no other hospital our size in the country could. Some people have been ... inconvenienced. I won't deny that. But in addition to our scanner, what we got in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with our country's needs was a rebirth of the entire valley--the businesses, the schools, the parks, and especially this hospital."

  And a hefty payday for each of you.

  Perhaps sensing from Abby's expression that she had not been moved by Oleander's explanation, Joe Henderson stepped forward. The medical chief got to his feet wearily and moved to one side.

  "Abby, I'm sorry about that autopsy thing," the husky hospital president began, grinning his superficial Henderson grin, and not bothering to kneel. "But you were like a pit bull about this thing. You had your teeth into our leg, and you wouldn't let up. We decided it was best for all concerned if you just left Patience. Maybe we should have sat down with you and explained."

  "Maybe you should have," Abby said hollowly, knowing there was no way that option had ever been considered before the red pickup, fake autopsy report, and high-powered rifle were rolled out.

  The corner of Henderson's mouth twitched. His plastic smile vanished for a second. Then, just as quickly, it returned.

  "Well, we're doing that now, aren't we?" he said in his bogus drawl.

  His manner and expression indicated that he was about finished reasoning with her.

  Abby looked up at Lyle Quinn and saw the emptiness in his eyes. He was a soldier, but a soldier devoid of conscience. Welcome to My Lai, Lieutenant Calley. She knew there had to be a reason why she wasn't already dead--and it had nothing to do with Quinn's compassion.

  "How did you know where I was just now?" she asked.

  The chorus deferred to Quinn.

  "You set off a silent alarm," he said. "A photoelectric beam at the other end of this tunnel. Unfortunately, it functioned improperly. The lights went on all over the cliff outside, but there was no alert to me or the security man on duty--or I should say, not on duty. By the time we picked you up on our monitors, you were crawling around in the office. I assumed you were headed back to the hospital and decided it would be best if we met you here."

  "Why?"

  "I don't understand."

  "Why did you let me get all the way back here? Why didn't you drug me, stick me in a car in a garage, and turn on the engine, like you did to Kelly Franklin?"

  As she made the statement, Abby was focused on the chorus standing to Quinn's right. Bartholomew, Oleander, and Del Marshall looked surprised. Gould and Henderson knew.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Quinn said vehemently. "I'm sorry about Kelly. I like her very much. But I certainly had nothing to do with her suicide attempt. Abby, we need your cooperation. We need to know who else in this hospital--this town--knows what about Colstar. We need to know how you knew your way into our facility. And mostly we need to know whether you will join us in keeping this program, and with it this whole valley, alive."

  "I ... I need some time to think about it."

  "About what?" Quinn said, an unmistakable note of impatience in his voice.

  He stared down at her, and Abby could tell--the Colstar security chief had decided that he had seen and heard enough.

  "There are several others who know where I am and what I'm doing," she tried.

  Quinn's icy eyes studied her for just a few more seconds.

  "This is bullshit," he snapped suddenly. "We tried it your way, George. Now we'll do it mine. Out of here, all of you. Except Gould."

  It seemed as if the four hospital men were glad to be let off the hook. They left quickly. Abby knew that their mute departure was her death sentence.

  Quinn's eyes now were menacing. Standing behind him, the tall police chief wore an unnerving half smile. Unconsciously, he wet his lips with his tongue. Whatever was about to happen to her he was going to enjoy.

  "Abby, suppose we three go on back to my office in the plant," Quinn said, stepping toward her. "We'll have a talk."

  Abby flashed on Kelly's inert body, stretched across the front seat of her car. The men standing above her were remorseless. Whether with drugs or torture or both, Quinn would find a way to get his answers. Then Abby Dolan would simply vanish. And in all likelihood Lew Alvarez would end up missing or dead, as well. Quinn had done it to David Brooks and Kelly. There was no reason to suspect she had anything better in store.

  The prospect of Quinn merely touching her was terrifying. The thought of being completely helpless before him refused to register at all. She felt as frightened as she could ever remember, and as defenseless. Still, there was no way she was going to allow herself to be taken without a fight. It was possible that screaming might have some effect--possible, but highly doubtful. Instead, she slid one foot back from the rung on which she was standing, and as Quinn moved toward her, she pushed back with the other and dropped into the tunnel. Above her, Quinn quickly issued an order to Gould, then headed down after her. But Abby, hunched over, arms spread to maintain herself between the rock walls, was already running awkwardly along the wood-slatted floor, through the consuming darkness.

  "Abby, don
't do this," Quinn called out, his voice flooding the tunnel. "It's not necessary. And it won't help."

  At that instant the row of ceiling bulbs flashed on, stretching out ahead of her like some obscene carnival attraction. Momentarily blinded, Abby lurched ahead, losing her balance and stumbling heavily against the wall. She cried out, as much from the surprise as from the jolt to her shoulder.

  Now she could hear Quinn's leather soles, snapping down on the wooden slats like pistol shots. He was moving quickly. The darkness and the low ceiling height had been to her advantage. Now they had essentially been neutralized. Desperately, she reached up her fist and snapped the next lightbulb off with a sideways blow. If the glass cut her hand, it wasn't bad enough to matter. Head down, she sprinted ahead, hammering the fleshy side of her fist against bulb after bulb, spraying herself and the area around her with glass, but also restoring the blackness. Behind her the footfalls slowed.

  "Abby, give it up!" Quinn cried.

  He tried to sound confident, but Abby sensed he was frustrated. The notion brought her a burst of energy and more resolve. As long as there was no one coming at her from the other end of the tunnel, she had a chance. And if there was someone moving toward her, he had better be ready. She had a decent mental picture of the entire Patience mine and, before, had made it up as far as the Upper Dig. Somehow the elevator or the circular staircase connected with the main plant. They had to. And there was bound to be at least one more staircase somewhere--probably off the cavernous Upper Dig itself. If she could only make it to that stairway, she had a chance.

  Running with lights ahead of her, Abby knew she had to be moving faster than Quinn. She sensed herself making the final, protracted curve to the right and wished the tunnel were longer. But at least no one had intercepted her. She wondered if Quinn had ordered Gould to call over to the lab, and the cop had failed to reach anyone. Whatever had happened, the end of the tunnel was in sight and unobstructed. She had gotten a major lucky break. The next one she would have to manufacture for herself.

  It would be obvious to Quinn that she had gone up the circular staircase. With walls of glass throughout the lab, there was simply no place else she could go. For that reason alone she frantically tried to think of an option. The bathroom came immediately to mind. If she could get in there and Quinn ran up the stairs, she could head back through the tunnel to the hospital. But if he spotted her going in, or thought to look there, it was over.

  She wondered if she could outrun him up the stairs by enough of a margin to give her a shot at finding the stairway in the upper chamber--if, in fact, there even was one. She had fifteen years or so on him, but he looked to be in great shape, and she knew she wasn't. From a dead-even start she probably couldn't outrun him at all. That depressing notion was dominating her thoughts as she reached the end of the tunnel. The elevator and staircase were right in front of her. The bathroom was about twenty feet away. But she could hear Quinn coming hard. Within a few seconds he would be there. Then she noticed the emergency fire alarm and manual sprinkler lever, and below them, the row of fire extinguishers. With no time left to reason things through, she grabbed the small hammer suspended on a chain, smashed the glass, and activated both the alarm and the sprinkler systems. Instantly there was a powerful whooping from sirens throughout the lab. Seconds later dozens of overhead nozzles erupted in the equivalent of a typhoon rainstorm.

  Abby snatched up one of the fire extinguishers, pulled the safety pin, and stepped back from the tunnel just as Quinn charged through. He was only a few feet away when he turned toward her, already sodden from the downpour. No longer composed and confident, he was actually snarling. She aimed the broad nozzle at the center of his face and fired. Instantly, his head vanished within a burst of chemical foam. He cried out and sank to one knee as he pawed at his eyes. But the sprinklers, moments ago her ally, were already rapidly washing away the foam.

  Frightened of getting any nearer to the man, and panicked at losing her advantage so quickly, Abby hoisted the heavy extinguisher to her chin and hurled it across at him with an awkward chest pass. It struck him on the front of his shoulder and the side of his face, bowling him over backward onto the rapidly flooding tile. But Abby could tell he was not badly injured. She whirled and raced up the stairs, three at a time.

  The lower stairs were dangerously slippery. Abby's foot skidded out from under her. She slammed her shin into the steel edge of the stair above. Electric pain shot up her leg, and for the briefest moment she thought it was broken. She cried out and stumbled, barely managing to keep from falling. But she knew she had been badly gashed. She glanced back. Quinn was on his feet, still pawing at his eyes, but obviously regaining his vision. There were no sprinklers past the ceiling of the Lower Dig, so the stairs were dry. And although Abby's lungs were beginning to burn, adrenaline enabled her to continue taking two or three steps at a time. Then, just as she passed the locked accordion gate at the first emergency tunnel, she heard the clanging of heavy footsteps from the stairway high above her.

  It wasn't even worth slowing to look back. She knew Quinn was coming. The vise was closing. The only hope she had--a wafer-thin chance, at that--was to make it to the vast Upper Dig and pray she could find a staircase up to the plant.

  No, she realized suddenly. No, that wasn't her only hope. There was another option--not much better, but possible. The landing at the upper escape tunnel was just a short distance above her. If she could make it there without running into the man who was charging down from above, there would be some confusion between him and Quinn about whether she had gone left to the short flight of stairs leading to the Upper Dig, or right, into the old ventilation shaft. That hesitation might give her time to reach the emergency exit and throw the six bolts holding the door. Once outside, she would just have to improvise. But she had been doing that since she had entered the MRI unit in the first place. From that point there had to be grips built into the rock to get down to the meadow or up to the mesa.

  The man clanging down from above couldn't have been any farther away than a single loop of the staircase when Abby hunched down and plunged to her right, into the tunnel that the Gardner monograph on the Patience Mine had captioned "Piercing an Imposing Wall of Rock." The ceiling of the passageway, a foot or so lower than the tunnel to the hospital, was worth maybe another ten or fifteen seconds to her. But even for her the run along the hundred-foot channel was awkward and difficult. What little light penetrated from the main shaft disappeared within a few feet. The darkness was stifling. Again and again she lurched heavily against the rock walls. Her shirt, soaked through from the sprinklers, shredded at the point of her left shoulder, along with the skin underneath it. The pain barely registered.

  The burning in her lungs was a wildfire now. The heavy, stale air refused to allow her a decent breath. The hundred feet seemed like a mile. Suddenly she hit the door--a stunning blow off the side of her forehead. She fell backward, dazed. Then, frantically battling dizziness, pain, and a wave of nausea, she scrambled to her knees and pulled Lew's penlight from the pocket of her sodden jeans. Remarkably, the promotional gift from Ezra Black's pharmaceutical company was still working. She pulled one bolt back, then another and another. Her knuckles scraped against the rock. From behind her in the tunnel she could hear the continued wailing of the emergency sirens. But now she could hear footsteps as well. Then, as she threw the fourth and fifth bolts, Lyle Quinn's voice filled the darkness.

  "Give it up, Abby! There's an arrest warrant being put together right now saying that you tried to kill Kelly! Working with us is your only hope! Only we can save you now."

  Desperately, Abby clawed at the last bolt.

  "Abby, stay right there! You'll never get down the rock alive!"

  The bolt wouldn't budge. There were no hinges, so the door had to be removable. But inward or out? Quinn's footsteps were drawing closer. Abby dropped to her back, drew both knees to her chin, and shot her legs out with all the force she could manage. The door brok
e free, splintering at the bolt, and flew out into the cool night. Instantly the tunnel was flooded with fresh air ... and light.

  Abby peered out. She was far above the valley and the town. From beyond the meadow below, at the base of the fence, widely spaced spotlights were illuminating much of the cliff. Steady rain--now windblown--was continuing to fall, making the dark rock glisten. In the distance, near the center of town, she could see the blue strobes of two police cruisers heading toward the plant. If Quinn was telling the truth--and on this she had no reason to doubt him--the drivers of those cruisers had been dispatched with a warrant for the arrest of one Abby Dolan. If Joe Henderson could come up with a bogus but totally legal autopsy report, and George Oleander could arrange to have toxic chemicals instilled into his trusting patients, a mere fraudulent arrest warrant had to be child's play for the men of Patience.

  As far as she could see, there were no man-made handholds on the rock. But to her relieved surprise, although the cliff was frighteningly steep, it wasn't perfectly sheer. There was more slope than she had appreciated from Lew's slides or even from looking up the rock. Not much slope, but some. Given optimum conditions on a dry day, if she was in no particular hurry and never looked down, it was likely she could have found enough purchase and footholds to make the descent. But no situation could have been further from optimum than the one she was in now.

  She would have done almost anything to keep from stepping out onto the rock face. But measured against her fear of being killed on the jagged boulders at the base of the cliff was the unthinkable prospect of becoming Lyle Quinn's captive.