Perilous Panacea (32 page)

“Shit.” It’s still in the car. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

- - - - -

Minutes passed. How long would it be before Markum was back? Curt wondered. And then what?

The rustling on the bank stopped. Curt lowered his scratched and mosquito-bitten face onto the cool creek floor. Mosquitoes only quit whining long enough to land and sting.

Branches cracked and shook, and he sensed Maxwell on top of the bank, coming closer and stopping every few yards to part the bushes and try to look into the creek. Curt strained to hear, and he thought he recognized Maxwell’s voice.

When almost directly above Curt, Maxwell parted the branches and spoke down into the darkness. “We’re going to get you, Reedan. We’ll let you down there in the ditch with Surling.”

Could he rush Maxwell and bring him down before he could get off his first shot? Where exactly was Maxwell? His scientific mind dredged up Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: If the momentum of a particle is known exactly, it is impossible to know the exact position of that particle.

Mentally, he shook his head. No time for science. Time for action. If he misjudged Maxwell’s position, he was through.

More bushes cracked. “I know you’re down there, Reedan.”

Thuck! Thuck!

The gun spit into the creek, the sound not as loud as a good fart. At close range, it reminded him of the sound that cut down Surling. How many bullets did Maxwell have left? Should he chance it?

“I’m going to enjoy killing you. I’ll enjoy it just about as much as I enjoyed fucking your wife.” He laughed. “She spread her legs just right. Even grabbed the old cock and stuck it in her cunt for us. And Beech taught her to suck. Suck and fuck. Not bad, not bad at all.” He giggled. “We even got video of it. If Applenu had any balls, he would have let us show you those pictures.”

Curt fought to control his anger, forcing himself to stay put. Got to wait for the right moment and then get them.

All was quiet except for the whining mosquitoes. How long had Markum been gone? He wondered. The rancid smell began to seep into his nostrils, evacuating the odor of rotten leaves and dank water pools. Had Maxwell moved? Or was he standing still waiting for Curt to move? If he decided to run, which way should he go to keep Maxwell from shooting him? How long before Markum would return?

More quiet and more passing time.

Maxwell spoke, his voice quiet. “Here comes Markum with the lights. When he gets here, I’m going to personally come down there in that stinking creek and blast the shit out of you.”

Chapter Forty

“What?” Maxwell yelled.

Markum shouted back, but Curt couldn’t make out the words, which seemed drowned out by the horrible stench and the knowledge of its origin.

Neither could Maxwell. “Just get your ass down here,” he growled.

In the silence, thoughts of doom scampered in and out of Curt’s mind, thoughts of death twisted around thoughts of Lori and Maxwell, Lori and Beecher.

Concentrate.

He started to ease his legs under his body to assume a crouch, but the pain in his knee made him straighten it out. Somehow, just before the light hit, he would spring up and lunge for Maxwell or Markum. Get their gun and use it.

He wondered who would find his body, probably swollen by the hot sun and twisted grotesquely up against the bank. Was that how Surling’s body looked? Where was Drafton’s?

Concentrate.

No way did they do that to Lori. They’d be afraid she’d go to the police. How did she react? What about Beth?

He pictured his dead body lying in the sun next to Surling’s and remembered a long-ago fishing trip and a dead hog at the edge of a corn field, ballooned, bloated, and stinking. Staying back where he could stand the stench, he heaved a rock and hit it. Immediately, the swollen carcass squirmed as if trying to stand up, and three slimy possums burrowed out into the sunlight and scampered off into the cornfield.

Pounding footsteps shattered his thoughts.

“You got the lights?”

Markum caught his breath before he answered. “God damn it stinks.” He stopped to breath. “We got to get back. The place is on fire, and we got to get out of there.”

“What about Reedan?”

“Let him go. He could be miles from here. Fuck him.”

“He’s down there. I can feel it as sure as I can smell Surling.”

“We don’t have time to look. We’ve got to get everything out of the factory.”

“I want that bastard so bad I can taste it.”

“Oh, we’ll get him, and you won’t have to wait too long.”

- - - - -

Curt lay still in his soggy resting place to make sure Maxwell and Markum weren’t faking him out. He willed himself ready to pounce should they move into the creek. All the while he could feel the stench of Surling’s body attaching itself to his lungs. Finally, he could no longer keep his body motionless. He pulled himself upright, listened for any indication of Maxwell and Markum, and then he hobbled back down the creek and away from the origin of the odor. With an effort, he crashed through the bushes and weeds that lined the creek bank. Once out of the creek, he stumbled into another weed-filled field.

When he finally staggered out of the field, he found another warehouse and small industrial area, deserted except for an old Pontiac behind one of the buildings. How do you jump-wire a car, he wondered. He had a PhD, but no practical knowledge.

He tried the back door. It opened, and a high-pitched voice shrieked, like Beth’s talking doll when the string was pulled. “What are you doing, mister? You can’t come in here!”

Bodies scuffled in the back seat. A boy and a girl huddled side by side in the dim yellow light, both young and both naked.

“Get dressed. I need to get to the police station.”

The boy tried to maneuver into his shorts with his knees held together, trying to hide his erection. “We don’t have to take you anywhere.”

Curt reached in, seized the kid’s skinny arms and jerked him toward the door. He stumbled out, his shorts around his ankles. Curt grabbed his arms and shook him. “I said I need a ride.”

“You got no right to do this, mister.”

He shoved the kid against the car. “Get dressed and let’s go.” He turned away as the kid jerked up his shorts. The kid got behind the wheel, and Curt got into the back seat with the girl, now dressed and cowering in the far corner

Their first stop was a fire alarm on the side of the building. Curt ordered the boy to get out and pull it. Then, thinking the firemen might not see the flames across the field, since it would probably not be in flames, he asked if they had a cell phone. The girl had one, and he told her to call 911. He remembered his previous aborted escape attempt, and he told her to tell them it was in the General Nuclear American building. The girl knew the name of the industrial park and told the 911 operator. The girl started to say something else, and he grabbed the phone and shut it off.

Now, as the car accelerated, Curt leaned back in the passenger seat. Although nowhere near relaxed, for the first time in what seemed like hours, his breathing approached normal. The stench of Surling’s body had almost cleared his nostrils. With an oily rag from his pocket, he dabbed at his cut face. No more blood, just the burning and the aching knee.

Time to think: he thought about using the cell phone to talk to the police but rejected the idea. He needed to talk to someone face to face, to inform them of what they were up against. He glanced at the girl huddled in the corner and staring out the window. Outside, a darkened city sped by, a city full of the same old eating places and gas stations: Phillips 66, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Shell…Empty now, the buildings glowed with dim night lights, easily recognized by their emblems and distinctively shaped buildings and signs. Anywhere, USA. Wherever you traveled, only the sequence in which the familiar buildings lined the streets differed. Always home in America.

He realized he should have had the girl tell 911 that there was radioactive material in the building. Probably didn’t matter, since they would not have believed her anyway. His best bet was the police.

Outside, more of America the beautiful: Crystal, Wendy’s, Long John Silver, Chevron. The sequence of businesses and the buildings in between dawned on him. “What city is this?”

“Are you kidding, mister?” The girl squeaked. “Are you drunk or something?”

He wished he was drunk.

“You better go home, mister,” the boy said. “The cops will throw you in jail for sure.”

“What town is this?”

“Oak Ridge,” the boy said. “Science City, USA. You ever been here before?”

The two kids began to giggle.

- - - - -

The door banged open, and Beecher ordered her into the hall, now filled with acrid fumes. Gasoline? Maxwell came from the loading dock carrying a five-gallon can. As he passed, he flashed his leering smile.

Beecher grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the door by the loading dock. Behind them in the other corridor, Maxwell, looking like a squat cardboard box in his khaki work clothes, splashed liquid onto the wall from the five-gallon can—the gasoline smell.

Outside, Beecher herded her toward the black Town Car and past Agent Saul’s body. But his body had moved, and there was another body next to his. The guy that shot him.

Beecher saw it and pointed it out to Lormes who was following them. “The FBI guy must not have been dead. He got Atkinson before he went down for good.”

“That will save us a job,” Lormes said. “Sherbani was going to get rid of him anyway.”

Beecher turned back to Lori and shoved her toward the car. He opened the door and grabbed at the shoulder bag. “You won’t need that.”

She clutched the bag to her body. “No…Kotex and stuff.”

He laughed. “Don’t say you got the rag on. But then we taught you some other tricks, didn’t we?”

She saw the piece of rope entwined in his fingers. “Don’t tie me up. I won’t try anything.”

“Okay, just get in there and don’t move. I’ll be right here.” He slammed the door.

The short redhead trudged past the front of the car struggling with two of the large metal containers like Maxwell had inside, heading for the building next door. Maxwell came out of the building with two similar cans and headed to the building on the side opposite where the redhead was going.

She looked at Saul’s sprawled body and then quickly looked away. Some other tricks, she thought, squeezing the shoulder bag. With no more worry about Curt’s safety, it was just them and her. Earlier, in the hall while Atkinson had talked to Lormes and Applenu, she debated about going for the gun. There were just too many of them. Maybe there would always be too many, but they took her baby and they took Curt. When the time came for her, she intended to take at least some of them with her.

- - - - -

Just inside the police station, a well-built young cop blocked Curt’s way. “Can I help you, mister?” Dressed in his navy-blue uniform trimmed with yellow insignia and a shiny silver badge, he swayed slightly, a tight grin on his thin lips as he looked Curt up and down. A white-on-black label above his right shirt pocket tagged him as T. Smith.

“I’ve got to see somebody about a fire and about the theft of some radioactive material.”

Smith lifted his billed military cap and ran a hand through his sandy, close-cropped hair. “You’ve got to see somebody about a fire and theft, huh?” A smile splashed onto his lips and drained away.

“My name’s Curt Reedan. I’ve been held prisoner…”

Smith laughed, a laugh that decomposed into a scowl. “You’ve got a kidnapping to report, too, huh?”

Curt’s mind bucked. “Uh…I guess you’d call it that.”

Smith sniffed at the air, like a coon dog searching for a spoor. He turned and led Curt from the foyer into a long corridor and past a closed door marked INVESTIGATION DIVISION. The wall on the right consisted of robin’s-egg blue tiles with a large part of the wall filled by a glass, going from Curt’s waist to the ceiling. A sign identified the dark-haired woman behind the glass as the dispatcher. She sat at a large desk filled with three telephones, a radio, two computer monitors, a computer keyboard, and a printer. For a second, Curt didn’t recognize himself displayed on one of the two TV monitors on the back wall. Seeing the mess he looked, he realized why Smith was giving him a hard time.

Smith led Curt into the Shift Supervisor’s Office across the hall from the dispatcher. There, a gray-haired man in uniform sat at one of the two desks, reading a newspaper.

Waiting until the red-faced man carefully folded the paper, Smith said, “Lieutenant Davis, this hippie here, who says his name’s Reedan, claims he was kidnapped. He’s also got a cock-and-bull story about some stolen radioactive material.”

Curt dabbed at his hair and smoothed it down. It hadn’t been cut in eight weeks or so. He must look awful. He rubbed a hand across his beard. They had not let him shave the last two days as they rushed to finish the last bombs. Besides that, his clothes were stained and stunk from the creek water and Surling. He probed gently around his face, wondering how deep the cuts were. No blood, just a burning as if he’d been in the sun for days.

Davis eased off his wire-rimmed reading glasses and glanced at the clock on the white wall: one-fifty. His pale blue eyes scanned Curt’s face, ran down the front of his shirt, then came back to his face. “Kidnapped? Is that right, sir?”

“Let’s give him a Breathalyzer test,” Smith said. He turned to Curt. “I think we better have you blow into a balloon.” He laughed. “Maybe you’ve been smoking dope—or something stronger.”

Although Curt felt like he’d been chewed on by a school of piranha and was in no mood to be laughed at, he remained calm. Being just ten minutes from Lori and Beth, he contemplated walking out. Instead, he took a deep breath, ignored the young cop, and spoke to the older man. “I turned in the alarm for a fire in a factory out in an industrial area on the east edge of town.” Since he found out he was in Oak Ridge, he figured out the approximate location of the factory. “It’s in the General Nuclear American building.”

Smith edged closer to get Curt to look at him. “Did you set it lighting one of those cigarettes?”

“There’s a lot of radioactive material in that factory that will be spread by the fire. You’ve got to get some experts out there to analyze the situation. You’ll probably have to evacuate people in the area.”

“Is that right?” Smith said. He sniffed as he forced his thin lips apart to resemble a smile.

“There were people in that building making atomic bombs. They kidnapped another scientist and me and made us help them.”

“Hey, man, that’s a good one: making atomic bombs,” Smith said. He turned to Davis. “Did you hear that? They’ll probably be selling them over at Wal-Mart before long. You know, like computers. This guy is stoned, Lieutenant.”

Davis’s gaze swept slowly from Curt to Smith, then back to Curt. “Are you from Oak Ridge, sir? Are you a scientist?”

Curt nodded. “But they kidnapped me in Miami.”

Smith giggled. “Atomic bombs, my ass.”

Davis watched Curt’s face as if trying to figure him out. “Where did these people get the radioactive material to make those bombs?”

“They stole it from the government.”

Smith laughed louder. “He read in the paper about the stolen material, and now he’s got the answer.”

Davis turned to Smith. “Dammit, Tom, hush up a minute. Right now, we need some answers, not your smart-ass remarks.”

They knew about it. Now if they could get rid of Smith, they could get down to business.

Davis stood and led Curt and Smith into the hall and to a room two-doors down from the one they left. He motioned Curt to one of the two worn wooden chairs in front of a scratched and faded wooden desk, its top clear. Davis pulled Smith aside, said something to him, and Smith left. He took a seat behind the desk across from Curt.

“You got any identification, Mr. Reedan?” he asked in a soft voice with a slight southern accent.

Curt shook his head. “It’s back in that burning building.”

“I see. There’s been some nuclear material stolen, okay. It’s been all over the newspapers and TV. But why should we believe you were involved? Why should we believe you on anything, if you can’t even prove who you are? Who was the scientist with you, and what happened to him?”

“His name was Robert Surling, a professor from Arizona State. They killed him when we tried to escape. I know where his body is.”

Davis nodded. “The FBI’s looking for a professor from Arizona. You’ve got that right, but you could be making all this up, based on what you read in the newspaper or saw on TV. According to the newspaper, all kinds of people around the country have turned in false information on these bomb makers.”