'Don't worry about me,' Ellen said. 'Just go fast.'
Go fast… Damn you, Hal.
With vivid, lurid images of the victims of the Belinda syndrome in full control of his thoughts, Matt swung onto the highway and hit the gas.
'Sher, the limo's here,' Don called out. 'A white stretch limo, at that. Isn't this something.'
'We're just about ready,' Sherrie called out from the bedroom. 'I want this girl to look her very best for her debut on national TV.'
'Worldwide TV,' Don corrected.
He watched as a man and a woman in dress suits, wearing sunglasses, emerged from the limousine and headed up the walk. Men in Black, he was thinking.
'Ta-da,' Sherrie sang, holding the baby out to her husband.
'You both look just fine,' Don said, beaming. 'Really fine.' He took the baby and kissed Sherrie on the mouth. 'No one could ever guess you had this baby just four days ago.'
'You're pilin' up some big-time points, sir,' she said, checking out the scene below their window. 'Not every kid has the Secret Service escort them to their baby shots. You ready?'
'Ready as I'll ever be. Even when I was fightin' Golden Gloves, I don't remember being this nervous.'
'You, nervous? What are you nervous about?'
'Believe it or not, the baby.'
Startled, Sherrie turned slowly and looked at him, a shadow of concern darkening her face.
'You mean the shot?'
'Uh-huh.'
She sighed.
'Me, too,' she said. 'I've been afraid to talk with you about it because I was afraid you'd think I was crazy or… or ungrateful. I know Mrs. Marquand told us that plenty of people, babies and grown-ups, had received this shot when it was being tested. Still, Donelle's going to be the very first to get it after it's been approved.'
'I know.'
'I was speaking to Andrea last night about her son Randy. He was one in May. He has fits all the time that his doctor says are caused by a reaction he had to one of his baby shots. He has to take medicine, and now Andrea says the medicine is messing him up.'
'I didn't know that. Is the shot one of the ones Donelle's gonna get?'
'It has to be. She's going to get thirty shots at once — all the ones she's ever going to need.'
'I wish we knew more,' Don said.
Sherrie walked across the room and embraced him and their daughter.
'Same here,' she said, just as their Secret Service escorts knocked on the door.
Thankfully, the day was sunny and dry. Matt pushed the Harley as hard as he dared, across the Virginia border, then along rolling two-lane roadways through the lush Shenandoah Mountains and the Appalachians. In less than an hour, they had picked up Route 81 in Staunton, and were headed north toward 66. Matt kept their speed at an even eighty, nudging it up a mile or two when he sensed there were no police around. The windscreen and top- of-the-line shocks made it feel like forty. In Harrisonburg, they took on four gallons and learned that they were about 110 miles from Washington. An hour and thirty minutes remained before the shot heard round the world would be fired.
Depending on the congestion once they hit the city, they had a chance. They picked up 1-66 in Middletown and headed east, barreling on through light traffic. Riverton… Markham… Marshall… The Plains… bit by bit, they were making up time, closing the gap against the moment when Lara Bolton would trip a switch and inject the first dose of Omnivax into the thigh of a baby girl.
Three percent. Maybe more. Not odds he would ever want to have operating against his child.
On the seat behind him, Ellen sat quietly for most of the trip, using the handgrips for balance, and occasionally his arms.
'This isn't nearly as unpleasant as I remember,' she yelled as they sped through a particularly spectacular mountain pass.
'I'll help you pick out your first bike,' he hollered back.
For most of the initial hour of their trip, Matt had constantly scanned his rearview mirrors and the road ahead, looking for problems or police. As the day grew brighter and the road more hypnotic, his thoughts drifted to Nikki. He pictured her hunched over Fred Carabetta, battling through the pain of her fractured ankle, using makeshift instruments to perform a delicate procedure that could easily have ripped the man's vein in half. Courage, resourcefulness, compassion, intelligence — over the short time they had known each other, she had shown him so much. He had truly never believed there was a woman who could take Ginny's place in his soul and his heart. Now, at least, he knew it was possible. Perhaps for the first time, he acknowledged the effect that Ginny's death continued to have on him — the indolent and virulent depression that had functioned like a great wall, preventing him from experiencing true joy. Was Nikki the answer? Maybe, he said to himself as they rocketed along the interstate. Maybe she was.
Catharpin… Centerville… Fairfax… by the time they passed through Arlington, they had ten minutes left. Probably not enough unless there were some preliminaries. There was still going to be the problem of getting in contact with someone with enough power to stop the injection, and doing it without getting killed.
Traffic was heavier now, much heavier, and Matt was forced to slow into the twenties to join the migration along the west bank of the Potomac. To his right he caught a glimpse of Arlington National Cemetery. Joe Keller would never be buried there, nor would Kathy Wilson or Teddy Rideout or any of the others who were victims of Hal Sawyer's war. But Matt knew that thanks to the woman hanging on behind him, the death of every one of them would eventually save lives.
Eight minutes until three.
'Take this exit,' Ellen called out. 'We'll cross the Potomac here and look for signs to Anacostia. We're almost there.'
They headed east on 395, crossed the Anacostia River at Pennsylvania Avenue, and then turned onto Minnesota. This was the tenement, lead paint, hard-scrabble section of the city — a drug-infested, 80 percent unemployed island of violence and despair, situated less than two miles from the Capitol. It was hardly an accident that Lynette Marquand had chosen a community health center here to showcase Omnivax. Her husband was trailing badly among black and Hispanic voters. Matt wondered how long it would take for Lynette to accept the tale of Lasaject and halt the inoculations.
Traffic had slowed to a near-crawl.
Two minutes, if that.
'Are we close enough for you to make it on foot?' Matt asked.
'Maybe. I'm not quite sure where we are relative to — wait! Fenwick Road. Over there! That's the street. I'm certain of it.'
Matt accelerated and swung the Harley up onto the tree belt and across a weedy lawn, onto Fenwick. Several blocks down the street, they could see broadcast trucks, a number of them, lined up along the side of the road. Then they saw the blue barricade a block ahead.
'What time do you have?' Matt asked, hoping his watch and the one Ellen had taken from Heidi's bureau disagreed.
'After three,' Ellen replied sadly, 'maybe five or six minutes. You gave it a heck of a try.'
How long was the show going to last altogether? Matt wondered. Probably not more than ten or fifteen minutes, with maybe some commentary from the various networks' health gurus after that. If regular broadcasting resumed, it might be hours before they could get their story heard, and get word out to the pediatricians of the country to stop the injections. They had failed to stop the initial injection, but there still might be a chance to get to someone in a position of influence in time to prevent thousands of other exposures.
Three percent.
'Barricade,' Matt announced. 'We're there.'
