Whistleblower and Never Say Die (48 page)

For a moment there was only the sound of the flames, crackling across the street. Then, somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed.

Polowski stirred and groaned.

“Sam!” Victor turned his attention to the wounded man. “How you doing, buddy?”

“Got…got one helluva stitch in my side….”

“You’ll be fine.” Victor flashed him a tense grin. “Listen! Hear those sirens? Help’s on the way.”

“Yeah.” Polowski, eyes narrowed in pain, stared up at the flame-washed sky.

“Thanks, Sam,” said Victor softly.

“Had to. You…too damn stupid to listen…”

“We got her back, didn’t we?”

Polowski’s gaze shifted to Cathy. “We—we did okay.”

Victor rubbed a hand across his smudged and weary face. “But we’re back to square one. I’ve lost the evidence—”

“Milo…”

“It’s all in there.” Victor stared across at the flames now engulfing the old theater.

“Milo has it,” whispered Sam.

“What?”

“You weren’t looking. Gave it to Milo.”

Victor sat back in bewilderment. “You mean you
took
them? You took the vials?”

Polowski nodded.

“You—you stupid son of a—”

“Victor!” said Cathy.

“He stole my bargaining chip!”

“He saved our lives!”

Victor stared down at Polowski.

Polowski returned a pained grin. “Dame’s got a head on her shoulders,” he murmured. “Listen to her.”

The sirens, which had risen to a scream, suddenly cut off. Men’s shouts at once sliced through the hiss and roar of the flames. A burly fireman loped over from the truck and knelt beside Polowski.

“What’ve we got here?”

“Gunshot wound,” said Victor. “And a wise-ass patient.”

The fireman nodded. “No problem, sir. We can handle both.”

By the time they’d loaded Polowski into an ambulance, the Saracen Theater had been reduced to little more than a dying bonfire. Victor and Cathy watched the taillights of the ambulance vanish, heard the fading wail of the siren, the hiss of water on the flames.

He turned to her. Without a word he pulled her into his arms and held her long and hard, two silent figures framed
against a sea of smoldering flames and chaos. They were both so weary neither knew which was holding the other up. Yet even through her exhaustion, Cathy felt the magic of that moment. It was eerily beautiful, that last sputtering glow, the reflections dancing off the nearby buildings. Beautiful and frightening and final.

“You came for me,” she murmured. “Oh, Victor, I was so afraid you wouldn’t….”

“Cathy, you knew I would!”

“I
didn’t
know. You had your evidence. You could have left me—”

“No, I couldn’t.” He buried a kiss in her singed hair. “Thank God I wasn’t already on that plane. They’d have had you, and I’d have been two thousand miles away.”

Footsteps crunched toward them across the glass-littered pavement. “Excuse me,” a voice said. “Are you Victor Holland?”

They turned to see a man in a rumpled parka, a camera slung over his shoulder, watching them.

“Who are you?” asked Victor.

The man held out his hand. “Jay Wallace.
San Francisco Chronicle.
Sam Polowski called me, said there’d be some fireworks in case I wanted to check it out.” He gazed at the last remains of the Saracen Theater and shook his head. “Looks like I got here a little too late.”

“Wait.
Sam
called you? When?”

“Maybe two hours ago. If he wasn’t my ex-brother-in-law, I’d a hung up on him. For days he’s been dropping hints he had a story to spill. Never followed through, not once. I almost didn’t come tonight. You know, it’s a helluva long drive down here from the city.”

“He told you about me?”

“He said you had a story to tell.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Some stories are better than others.” The reporter glanced around, searching. “So where is Sam, anyway? Or didn’t the Bozo show up?”

“That Bozo,” said Victor, his voice tight with anger, “is a goddamn hero. Stick
that
in your article.”

More footsteps approached. This time it was two police officers. Cathy felt Victor’s muscles go taut as he turned to face them.

The senior officer spoke. “We’ve just been informed that a gunshot victim was taken to the ER. And that you were found on the scene.”

Victor nodded. His look of tension suddenly gave way to one of overwhelming exhaustion. And resignation. He said, quietly, “I was present. And if you search that building, you’ll find three more bodies.”

“Three?”
The two cops glanced at each other.

“Musta been some fireworks,” muttered the reporter.

The senior officer said, “Maybe you’d better give us your name, sir.”

“My name…” Victor looked at Cathy. She read the message in those weary eyes:
We’ve reached the end. I have to tell them. Now they’ll take me away from you, and God knows when we’ll see each other again….

She felt his hand tighten around hers. She held on, knowing with every second that passed that he would soon be wrenched from her grasp.

His gaze still focused on her face, he said, “My name is Victor Holland.”

“Holland…Victor Holland?” said the officer. “Isn’t that…”

And still Victor was looking at her. Until they’d clapped on the handcuffs, until he’d been pulled away, toward a waiting squad car, his gaze was locked on her.

She was left anchorless, shivering among the dying embers.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to come with us.”

She looked up, dazed, at the policeman. “What?”

“Hey, she doesn’t have to!” cut in Jay Wallace. “You haven’t charged her with anything!”

“Shut up, Wallace.”

“I’ve had the court beat. I know her rights!”

Quietly Cathy said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll come with you, officer.”

“Wait!” said Wallace. “I wanna talk to you first! I got just a few questions—”

“She can talk to you later,” snapped the policeman, taking Cathy by the arm. “
After
she talks to us.”

The policemen were polite, even kind. Perhaps it was her docile acceptance of the situation, perhaps they could sense she was operating on her last meager reserves of strength. She answered all their questions. She let them examine the rope burns on her wrists. She told them about Ollie and Sarah and the other Catherine Weavers. And the whole time, as she sat in that room in the Palo Alto police station, she kept hoping she’d catch a glimpse of Victor. She knew he had to be close by. Were they, at that very moment, asking him these same questions?

At dawn, they released her.

Jay Wallace was waiting outside near the front steps. “I have to talk to you,” he said as she walked out.

“Please. Not now. I’m tired….”

“Just a few questions.”

“I can’t. I need to—to—” She stopped. And there, standing on that cold and empty street, she burst into tears.
“I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how to help him. How to reach him.”

“You mean Holland? They’ve already taken him to San Francisco.”

“What?” She raised her startled gaze to Wallace.

“An hour ago. The big boys from the Justice Department came down as an escort. I hear tell they’re flying him straight to Washington. First-class treatment all the way.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “Then he’s all right—he’s not under arrest—”

“Hell, lady,” said Wallace, laughing. “The man is now a genuine hero.”

A hero. But she didn’t care what they called him, as long as he was safe.

She took a deep breath of bitingly chill air. “Do you have a car, Mr. Wallace?” she asked.

“It’s parked right around the corner.”

“Then you can give me a ride.”

“Where to?”

“To…” She paused, wondering where to go, where Victor would look for her. Of course. Milo’s. “To a friend’s house,” she said. “I want to be there when Victor calls.”

Wallace pointed the way to the car. “I hope it’s a long drive,” he said. “I got a lot of gaps to fill in before this story goes to press.”

Victor didn’t call.

For four days she sat waiting near the phone, expecting to hear his voice. For four days, Milo and his mother brought her tea and cookies, smiles and sympathy. On the fifth day, when she still hadn’t heard from him, those terrible
doubts began to haunt her. She remembered that day by the lake bed, when he’d tried to send her away with Ollie. She thought of all the words he could have said, but never had. True, he’d come back for her. He’d knowingly walked straight into a trap at the Saracen Theater. But wouldn’t he have done that for any of his friends? That was the kind of man he was. She’d saved his life once. He remembered his debts, and he paid them back. It had to do with honor.

It might have nothing to do with love.

She stopped waiting by the phone. She returned to her flat in San Francisco, cleaned up the glass, had the windows replaced, the walls replastered. She took long walks and paid frequent visits to Ollie and Polowski in the hospital. Anything to stay away from that silent telephone.

She got a call from Jack. “We’re shooting next week,” he whined. “And the monster’s in terrible shape. All this humidity! Its face keeps melting into green goo. Get down here and do something about it, will you?”

She told him she’d think about it.

A week later she decided. Work was what she needed. Green goo and cranky actors—it was better than waiting for a call that would never come.

She reserved a one-way flight from San José to Puerto Vallarta. Then she packed, throwing in her entire wardrobe. A long stay, that’s what she planned, a long vacation.

But before she left, she would drive down to Palo Alto. She had promised to pay Sam Polowski one last visit.

(AP) Washington.

Administration spokesman Richard Jungkuntz repeated today that neither the President nor any of his staff had any knowledge of biological weapons research being conducted at Viratek Industries in California. Viratek’s Project Cerberus, which involved development of genetically altered viruses, was clearly in violation of international law. Recent evidence, gathered by reporter Jay Wallace of the
San Francisco Chronicle,
has revealed that the project received funds directly authorized by the late Matthew Tyrone, a senior aide to the Secretary of Defense.

In today’s Justice Department hearings, delayed four hours because of heavy snowstorms, Viratek president Archibald Black testified for the first time, promising to reveal, to the best of his knowledge, the direct links between the Administration and Project Cerberus. Yesterday’s testimony, by former Viratek employee Dr.Victor Holland, has already outlined a disturbing tale of deception, cover-ups and possibly murder.

The Attorney General’s office continues to resist
demands by Congressman Leo D. Fanelli that a special prosecutor be appointed…

C
athy put down the newspaper and smiled across the hospital solarium at her three friends. “Well, guys. Aren’t you lucky to be here in sunny California and not freezing your you-know-whats off in Washington.”

“Are you kidding?” groused Polowski. “I’d give anything to be in on those hearings right now. Instead of hooked up to all these—these
doohickeys.
” He gave his intravenous line a tug, clanging a bottle against the pole.

“Patience, Sam,” said Milo. “You’ll get to Washington.”

“Ha! Holland’s already told ’em the good stuff. By the time they get around to hearing my testimony, it’ll be back-page news.”

“I don’t think so,” said Cathy. “I think it’ll be front-page news for a long time to come.” She turned and looked out the window at the sunshine glistening on the grass.
A long time to come.
That’s how long it would be before she’d see Victor again. If ever. Three weeks had already passed since she’d last laid eyes on him. Via Jay Wallace in Washington, she’d heard that it was like a shark-feeding whenever Victor appeared in public, mobs of reporters and federal attorneys and Justice Department officials. No one could get near him.

Not even me,
she thought.

It had been a comfort, having these three new friends to talk to. Ollie had bounced back quickly and was discharged—or kicked out, as Milo put it—a mere eight days after being shot. Polowski had had a rougher time of it. Postoperative infections, plus a bad case of smoke inhalation, had prolonged his stay to the point that every day was
another trial of frustration for him. He wanted out. He wanted back on the beat.

He wanted a real, honest-to-God cheeseburger and a cigarette.

One more week, the doctors said.

At least there’s an end to his waiting in sight,
Cathy thought.
I don’t know when I’ll see or hear from Victor again.

The silence was to be expected, Polowski had told her. Sequestration of witnesses. Protective custody. The Justice Department wanted an airtight case, and for that it would keep its star witness incommunicado. For the rest of them, depositions had been sufficient. Cathy had given her testimony two weeks before. Afterward, they’d told her she was free to leave town any time she wished.

Now she had a plane ticket to Mexico in her purse.

She was through with waiting for telephone calls, through with wondering whether he loved her or missed her. She’d been through this before with Jack, the doubts, the fears, the slow but inevitable realization that something was wrong. She knew enough not to be hurt again, not this way.

At least, out of all this pain, I’ve discovered three new friends.
Ollie and Polowski and Milo, the most unlikely trio on the face of the earth.

“Look, Sam,” said Milo, reaching into his backpack. “We brought ya something.”

“No more hula-girl boxer shorts, okay? Caught hell from the nurses for that one.”

“Naw. It’s something for your lungs. To remind you to breathe deep.”

“Cigarettes?” Polowski asked hopefully.

Milo grinned and held up his gift. “A kazoo!”

“I really needed one.”

“You really do need it,” said Ollie, opening up his clarinet case. “Seeing as we brought our instruments today and we weren’t about to leave you out of this particular gig.”

“You’re not serious.”

“What better place to perform?” said Milo, giving his piccolo a quick and loving rubdown. “All these sick, depressed patients lying around, in need of a bit of cheering up. Some good music.”

“Some peace and quiet!” Polowski turned pleading eyes to Cathy. “They’re not serious.”

She looked him in the eye and took out her kazoo. “Dead serious.”

“Okay, guys,” said Ollie. “Hit it!”

Never before had the world heard such a rendering of “California, Here I Come!” And, if the world was lucky, never again. By the time they’d played the last note, nurses and patients had spilled into the solarium to check on the source of that terrible screeching.

“Mr. Polowski!” said the head nurse. “If your visitors can’t behave—”

“You’ll throw ’em out?” asked Polowski hopefully.

“No need,” said Ollie. “We’re packing up the pipes. By the way, folks, we’re available for private parties, birthdays, cocktail hours. Just get in touch with our business manager—” at this, Milo smiled and waved “—to set up your own special performance.”

Polowski groaned, “I want to go back to bed.”

“Not yet,” said the nurse. “You need the extra stimula
tion.” Then, with a sly wink at Ollie, she turned and whisked out of the room.

“Well,” said Cathy. “I think I’ve done my part to cheer you up. Now it’s time I hit the road.”

Polowski looked at her in astonishment. “You’re leaving me with these lunatics?”

“Have to. I have a plane to catch.”

“Where you going?”

“Mexico. Jack called to say they’re shooting already. So I thought I’d get on down there and whip up a few monsters.”

“What about Victor?”

“What about him?”

“I thought—that is—” Polowski looked at Ollie and Milo. Both men merely shrugged. “He’s going to miss you.”

“I don’t think so.” She turned once again to gaze out the window. Below, in the walkway, an old woman sat in a wheelchair, her wan face turned gratefully to the sun. Soon Cathy would be enjoying that very sunshine, somewhere on a Mexican beach.

By their silence, she knew the three men didn’t know what to say. After all, Victor was their friend, as well. They couldn’t defend or condemn him. Neither could she. She simply loved him, in ways that made her decision to leave all the more right. She’d been in love before, she knew that the very worst thing a woman can sense in a man is indifference.

She didn’t want to be around to see it in Victor’s eyes.

Gathering up her purse, she said, “Guys, I guess this is it.”

Ollie shook his head. “I really wish you’d hang around.
He’ll be back any day. Besides, you can’t break up our great little quartet.”

“Sam can take my place on the kazoo.”

“No way,” said Polowski.

She planted a kiss on his balding head. “Get better. The country needs you.”

Polowski sighed. “I’m glad somebody does.”

“I’ll write you from Mexico!” She slung her purse over her shoulder and turned. One step was all she managed before she halted in astonishment.

Victor was standing in the doorway, a suitcase in hand. He cocked his head. “What’s this about Mexico?”

She couldn’t answer. She just kept staring at him, thinking how unfair it was that the man she was trying so hard to escape should look so heartbreakingly wonderful.

“You got back just in time,” said Ollie. “She’s leaving.”

“What?” Victor dropped his suitcase and stared at her in dismay. Only then did she notice his wrinkled clothes, the day-old growth of beard shadowing his face. The toe of a sock poked out from a corner of the closed suitcase.

“You can’t be leaving,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “It was unexpected. Jack needs me.”

“Did something happen? Is there some emergency?”

“No, it’s just that they’re filming and, oh, things are a royal mess on the set….” She glanced at her watch, a gesture designed to speed her escape. “Look, I’ll miss my plane. I promise I’ll give you a call when I get to—”

“You’re not his only makeup artist.”

“No, but—”

“He can do the movie without you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you
want
to leave? Is that it?”

She didn’t answer. She could only look at him mutely, the anguish showing plainly in her eyes.

Gently, firmly, he took her hand. “Excuse us, guys,” he said to the others. “The lady and I are going for a walk.”

Outside, leaves blew across the brown winter lawn. They walked beneath a row of oak trees, through patches of sun and shadow. Suddenly he stopped and pulled her around to face him.

“Tell me now,” he said. “What gave you this crazy idea of leaving?”

She looked down. “I didn’t think it made much difference to you.”

“Wouldn’t make a
difference?
Cathy, I was climbing the walls! Thinking of ways to get out of that hotel room and back to you! You have no idea how I worried. I wondered if you were safe—if this whole crazy mess was really over. The lawyers wouldn’t let me call out, not until the hearings were finished. I did manage to sneak out and call Milo’s house. No one answered.”

“We were probably here, visiting Sam.”

“And I was going crazy. They had me answering the same damn questions over and over again. And all I could think of was how much I missed you.” He shook his head. “First chance I got, I flew the coop. And got snowed in for hours in Chicago. But I made it. I’m here. Just in time, it seems.” Gently he took her by the shoulders. “Now. Tell me. Are you still flying off to Jack?”

“I’m not leaving for Jack. I’m leaving for
myself.
Because I know this won’t work.”

“Cathy, after what we’ve been through together, we can make
anything
work.”

“Not—not this.”

Slowly he let his hands drop, but his gaze remained on her face. “That night we made love,” he said softly. “That didn’t tell you something?”

“But it wasn’t
me
you were making love to! You were thinking of Lily—”

“Lily?”
He shook his head in bewilderment. “Where does she come in?”

“You loved her so much—”

“And you loved Jack once. Remember?”

“I fell out of love. You never did. No matter how much I try, I’ll never measure up to her. I won’t be smart enough or kind enough—”

“Cathy, stop.”

“I won’t be
her.”

“I don’t want you to be her! I want the woman who’ll hang off fire escapes with me and—and drag me off the side of the road. I want the woman who saved my life. The woman who calls herself average. The woman who doesn’t know just how extraordinary she really is.” He took her face in his hands and tilted it up to his. “Yes, Lily was a wonderful woman. She was wise and kind and caring. But she wasn’t you. And she and I—we weren’t the perfect couple. I used to think it was my fault, that if I were just a better lover—”

“You’re a wonderful lover, Victor.”

“No. Don’t you see, it’s
you.
You bring it out in me. All the want and need.” He pulled her face close to his and his voice dropped to a whisper. “When you and I made love that
night, it was like the very first time for me. No, it was even better. Because I loved you.”

“And I loved you,” she whispered.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, his fingers burrowing deep into her hair. “Cathy, Cathy,” he murmured. “We’ve been so busy trying to stay alive we haven’t had time to say all the things we should have….”

His arms suddenly stiffened as a startling round of applause erupted above them. They looked up. Three grinning faces peered down at them from a hospital balcony.

“Hit it, boys!” yelled Ollie.

A clarinet, piccolo and kazoo screeched into concert. The melody was doubtful. Still, Cathy thought she recognized the familiar strains of George Gershwin. “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

Victor groaned. “I say we try this again, but with a different band. And no audience.”

She laughed. “Mexico?”

“Definitely.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a taxi idling at the curb.

“But, Victor!” she protested. “What about our luggage? All my clothes—”

He cut her off with another kiss, one that left her dizzy and breathless and starved for more.