'He must have a stake in the vaccine.'
'If he does,' Ellen said, 'he's on the verge of becoming an extremely wealthy man. Lasaject is one of the most expensive components of Omnivax. In the next year, especially when older children and adults are immunized in addition to newborns, tens of millions of doses are going to be administered. What's this about prions? What are they?'
'The germs that cause Mad Cow disease and other neurologic illnesses as well,' Nikki said. 'We think they're responsible for the condition that man has, and also the woman who attacked me, and the girl over there. The symptoms don't appear for years after exposure, and there's essentially no test to see if someone without symptoms has contracted the disease.'
'You think everyone who gets the vaccine will get infected with prions?'
'I doubt it. Those who get the disease probably have some sort of genetic predisposition to the effects of the prions. In Britain, despite the hundreds of thousands of people who ate contaminated beef, relatively few cases of Mad Cow disease have been reported.'
'How many of the original four hundred do you think have developed prion disease?'
Nikki shrugged. 'Let's see,' she said. 'Matt and I have encountered six cases, including these three. If, say, an additional six cases have disappeared thanks to the handiwork of Grimes and his men, that would make twelve.'
'Three percent,' Ellen said.
'That may be higher than with Mad Cow disease,' Matt said, 'but the jury is still out on the rest of those exposed, because we don't know how variable the latency period of the disease is. And the British ate the germ. These people had it injected.'
'Three percent at a minimum,' Ellen said. 'That's terrible. Do either of you know the date and time right now?'
'The second,' Matt said, checking his watch. 'One-thirty A.M. Why?'
'Because later today, at three o'clock this afternoon, I think, the First Lady is going to preside over a live televised ceremony featuring the Secretary of Health and Human Services giving a four-day-old girl the first official shot of Omnivax. She's going to be inoculated at a neighborhood health center in the Anacostia section of D.C. Immediately after that first shot, pediatricians all over the country will begin giving Omnivax to their patients. The vaccine is already in their refrigerators.'
'And probably none of those kids will get sick immediately,' Nikki said glumly. 'There'll be no warning that anything is wrong.'
'Oh, some will get sick,' Ellen said. 'A percentage of children getting vaccinated inevitably get sick, some of their reactions are serious, some of them even fatal. The pediatricians and scientists and drug manufacturers tell us their lives are a trade-off for the greater good. I wonder how they would feel if it was their child's life. The real question now is one that has troubled me and others about inoculations right along: Who will be able to say what will happen five years after a child receives her immunizations, or ten — especially now that they're all rolled up into Omnivax?'
'These three can,' Matt said. 'Grimes must have realized the vaccine was flawed. With all that money on the line, rather than come clean about it or chance someone like us seeing enough cases to piece things together, he decided to eliminate everyone who has developed the prion disease. That gives him ten years before the next wave of spongiform encephalopathy and neurofibromas hits.'
'A wave maybe,' Nikki said, 'but possibly a tsunami.'
'Nikki, you told me Kathy was convinced men were following her, trying to kill her. Well, I think they might have been. I believe Grimes tracked down every single patient from the original vaccine test group. The three in here may be the last of them with the syndrome.'
'We have to stop the supervaccine,' Ellen said.
'Ellen,' Nikki replied gently, 'Grimes somehow arranged for your friend Sutcher to sign on as our bodyguard. I'm almost certain he was the one who threw the switch that blew up the entrances to this place. It's a miracle the ceiling hasn't collapsed. Clearly it was supposed to. But we're sealed in here, way inside the mountain. There's no way out.'
'There is, because there has to be,' Ellen countered with grim conviction.
'I hope you're right,' Nikki said. 'We've been around this cavern some and nothing's apparent to us. I think you can try letting up on the pressure now.'
Ellen did as she was asked. Save for a small amount of oozing, the gaping wound below Carabetta's groin remained dry. In silence, Nikki packed it with sterile gauze and partially closed it with adhesive tape. The OSHA investigator reacted to the painful procedure with nothing more than a muted groan.
'Ellen's right,' Matt exclaimed, his fist clenched. 'There's a way out because there has to be. There's too much at stake for us just to sit here waiting for a rescue we know isn't going to happen.'
'You want us to dig out? Matt, some of those chunks of rock weigh hundreds or even thousands of pounds. I can't even walk without help.'
'Well, then, Ellen and I will do it. Maybe the girl when she comes to, and even Tarzana if we can get her to calm down. What choice do we have?'
'Maybe there is one,' Nikki said. 'The stream back there. It's coming from someplace and going someplace.'
Matt latched on to the notion immediately.
'I think it enters right by the cleft where we came in,' he said, a hint of excitement in his voice, 'but that's a hell of a long way underground, and most of it steeply uphill from here. I doubt anyone could make it.'
'Maybe the way out is in the other direction, then.'
Matt looked from one of the women to the other as he tried to imagine what such a journey might be like — and how it might end. He recalled the gut-tightening panic he experienced crawling through the low tunnels. What would it be like being carried along through a narrow, pitch-black, water-filled tube? What if he got stuck? What if the passage became too small and he couldn't back up? Could there possibly be a worse way to die than to drown, pinned between rock walls in an underground river? How long would it take before he finally lost consciousness?
'Let's go take a look,' he heard himself say.
Without asking permission, he bent down and lifted Nikki in his arms. Then, with Ellen carrying a lantern, and another one left illuminated to comfort and orient the others, they made their way through the rubble, around the barrels, to the river. Nikki wrapped her arms around Matt's neck and pressed her cheek tightly against his.
'Thanks for the lift, stranger,' she said as he set her down on her good leg and she braced herself against the railing of the bridge.
' 'Tweren't nothin', ma'am.'
He tipped an imaginary Stetson, then knelt and peered down at the inky, churning water. To their left, the river entered the cavern through a narrow opening — a foot and a half at the most between the surface and the rock. Ten feet toward them were the remains of the other bridge. On the downstream side, to their right, the opening was even smaller, maybe a foot. He reached his hand down and confirmed what he already knew — the water was damn cold.
He cast about for some way to measure the depth and settled on one of the railings from the shattered bridge. The piece, between three and four feet long, struck bottom just before the end would have vanished — a good sign.
'I can do this,' he said, aware of the ball of fear that was materializing in his chest.
'I should go,' Ellen said. 'I'm smaller than you are and I swim at the Y four times a week.'
Even after just a short time together, Matt had little doubt that Ellen Kroft had the tenacity to give the escape attempt a hell of a go. But he was younger and stronger and no less motivated.
'These woods and mountain people can be pretty inhospitable,' he said, 'especially in the middle of the night. You may still get your chance. If there's no sign of me in three or four hours, you might want to try going the other way. That'll be up to you. But I'll have you know there is little to worry about. I was a junior lifeguard at the Y.'
'In that case, I'll wait,' Ellen said. 'You're going to make it.'
I am.
