Morrissey coughed, spattering Nikki's shirt and chin. The drug he had been given was wearing off. His consciousness was returning. Deftly, mindless of the blood, Nikki inserted the scissors into the incision and spread them to open up the hole. Then she slid the plastic tube down into the trachea. There was a whistling, gurgling sound as the first rush of air entered the man's lungs. Quickly, his breathing calmed.
Minutes later, Colin Morrissey lifted one arm, and soon after that, his eyes fluttered open.
Two more hours passed as Ellen and Sara Jane tended to their four patients. Fred Carabetta remained comatose, although he seemed to respond a bit when cold river water was sponged over his face and lips. Sid, the guard, lay nearby, alternately sobbing and cursing. He was clearly paraplegic, and now was woefully aware of that fact. The woman who had attacked Nikki remained trussed up with tape. She slept much of the time and rattled on incoherently when she was awake. Seemingly mindless of their predicament, Sara Jane crawled from the woman to Morrissey and back, comforting them, sponging their foreheads, holding their hands, and even singing to them.
'They're lak me,' she said in one of the rare instances when she spoke to Ellen and Nikki. 'They're jes lak me.'
Nikki had insisted that Morrissey's hands be taped securely to his belt to prevent him from pulling the tube from his makeshift tracheotomy. Now, exhausted and more apprehensive each minute, she lay on the dusty floor, propped against a large boulder, her injured, throbbing leg elevated on a pile of stones. There was nothing more she could do now than wait. Horrible visions kept impinging on her mind — visions of Matt, his body wedged forever between two rocks, his limbs wafting lifelessly in the black water. In addition, the sickly sweet air seemed to be getting thicker and harder to breathe. Was it vanishing already?
Not with a bang, but a whimper… Not with a bang…
As she lay there, Nikki marveled at Ellen, who remained in almost constant motion, tending to the others, speaking cheerfully and hopefully with them and with Sara Jane. Periodically she would return to where Nikki lay to assure her that her patients were okay, and that Matt was going to make it, and so were they. On this trip, however, she had no such message. For the first time, tension etched her face.
'I'm going to try the river,' she said.
'What?'
'I won't go downstream, but I have to try something. It's been almost three hours and I think we might be running low on air. Do you think you can manage without me?'
What difference does it make? Nikki stopped herself from saying.
'I'll do what I can do,' she said instead. 'You don't think he made it out, do you?'
Ellen sat beside her and took her hands.
'I don't know what I think right now, except that we can't just sit back and let them win. For one thing, we both have new men in our lives. I want to see how that turns out for me. And for another, in just a few hours that vaccine is going to be the standard of care.
Pediatricians all over the country have been primed by the public-relations people from the pharmaceutical houses and the dear President and his wife. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of thousand doses of the stuff get administered by sunset today.'
'You're right,' Nikki said, pushing herself up. 'We've got to keep trying. You said you're a good swimmer?'
'A fish.'
'Let me hop you over. Sara Jane and I'll do fine here.'
'I know you will.'
Both women were breathing harder from the trip across the cavern than they might have expected. No comment was necessary. The supply of oxygen was definitely dwindling.
Nikki watched as Ellen made her way around the pile of wood and rubble that had once been the second bridge and lowered herself into the water. This was one hell of a woman, she was thinking — courageous, intelligent, resilient, and kind, precisely the sort of person she would like to be in her sixties. The notion of even reaching sixty brought a rueful smile. Several hours had passed since Matt headed off. It was doubtful that he had made it out of the mountain, and now what little remained of their hope for survival rested with a wisp of a woman who was nearly twice his age. Ellen would not only have to find a way out of the mountain swimming upstream, but she would have to avoid Grimes and his gunmen, find people who could and would help, and make it back to the cavern before it became an airless tomb. The chances of her pulling all that off were slim indeed.
But slim wasn't none.
Lantern in hand, Nikki settled down on the bank and waited. Her wait was not a lengthy one. Not five minutes after Ellen had paddled into the pitch-black tunnel, she came floating slowly back, feet first, facedown in the water. Nikki scrambled onto her hands and knees and reached for Ellen's blouse. The fabric slipped from her hand. Ignoring the stunning pain from her ankle, she pushed off the rocky bank in a clumsy dive and wrapped her arms around the older woman's waist just before they reached the second bridge. Holding tightly, Nikki grabbed a fistful of Ellen's hair and pulled her face clear of the water. Then she braced herself against the bridge and managed to set her one good foot on the bottom. The river lapped by just beneath her chin.
Inch by painful inch, drawing on a reserve of strength that surprised her, Nikki pushed Ellen upward until she was sprawled out prone on the bridge, her legs dangling down into the water. Then, crying out in pain, she hauled herself onto the bank and crawled over to where Ellen lay. A single downward thrust on both sides of her back cleared much of the water from Ellen's lungs. A second thrust, and she began breathing on her own, sputtering and coughing reflexively. In less than a minute, she began to come around. For some time she lay that way, her chest heaving.
'Rocks,' she said finally. 'Tunnel was blocked by rocks.' Another minute passed before she spoke again. 'I… tried to move them… Foot got caught… Couldn't get free… Water got down my — '
'Easy,' Nikki said, cradling her head in her lap. 'Easy. You gave it a great try. Just relax and catch your breath. I'm just grateful you made it back here.'
It was many minutes before Ellen could push herself up, still violently coughing out river water.
'God, but that was awful,' she said. 'The rocks collapsed on me. I couldn't get my leg out.'
Nikki hauled herself up using the bridge railing. The two women, soaked and shivering, held each other tightly. Then Ellen pulled away.
'Where are you going?' Nikki asked.
'Up on that pile of rock,' Ellen replied, gesturing toward what remained of the entrance Nikki and the others had used. 'Send Sara Jane up to help me move some of that stuff.'
Nikki started to protest, then merely shrugged and nodded.
Dead waiting around helplessly was no different than dead trying.
CHAPTER 34
Matt's first awareness was the smell of motor oil. His second was that he was alive and cold. He was in a large shed of some sort, lying in his sodden clothes on a bed of filthy rags. The walls were creosoted wood. The bare bulb dangling overhead was unlit, but thin, gray light filtered in through a foot-square, screen-covered window near the peak of the ceiling. Piled not far from him were covered plastic buckets of what looked like chemicals, and large, unmarked paper sacks of what might have been seeds or fertilizer. There were gardening tools in one corner of the coarse wood floor, several gas-powered weed whackers hanging on the wall, and a good-sized, partially dissected motor underneath them.
It wasn't until he tried to move that he realized his left wrist was handcuffed to a U-shaped pipe that seemed to have been built through the wall of the shed for precisely that purpose. He peered about again, trying to get a sense of who his captors might be. A pulsating pain encircled his head like a bandanna that had been knotted too tightly. His stomach, reacting to the odors and his dizziness, was sending acrid jets of bile into his throat. His watch
was gone, as was the pistol he had shoved into his pocket. The backs of his hands were scraped raw and coated with clotted blood. There was no traffic noise from outside, but twice over fifteen minutes or so, he heard a
