Michael Palmer - Fatal

"So when will you know anything?"

"Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, all I can tell you is that the vaccine seems okay, if not squeaky-clean. When's the vote?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"I don't know. All I can say is, I'll keep in touch."

"Thanks, Rudy."

"Any plans to come by these parts?"

"As soon as this vote is over. I love it up there, and goodness knows I'll need the rest."

"Good enough. I'll keep the kettle boilin' for ya."

Ellen set the phone down. Rudy wasn't going to be the answer, at least not on this round he wasn't.

Unlike her last visit to the PAVE brownstone, this time Ellen could find no parking space. Reluctantly, she pulled into an $8 for the first half-hour lot three blocks away. There were problems with vaccines that the government and scientific community weren't addressing — pure and simple. She had absolutely no doubt that lives were being lost and destroyed because of the immediate and long-range complications of immunizations. But she also had no doubt that vaccines prevented a great deal of suffering and death.

There was no standing ovation this time when Ellen stepped into the offices of PAVE. No silliness. Suddenly, her valiant, quixotic stand on behalf of issues in which they all believed had turned serious. Ellen recalled the delightful book and movie The Mouse That Roared, in which a minuscule country with an army of two dozen or so archers wages war against America. Their plan is to quickly lose in order to reap the traditional harvest of postdefeat reparations from the American victors. Except that they win. Now what?

No one, but no one, had expected to be in a position to defeat Omnivax, even temporarily. All PAVE wanted was a platform on which to take one more baby step forward — to get concerns about vaccine safety presented to the world. And Ellen had certainly come through for them in that regard.

Now what?

"Hey, comes the conquering hero."

Cheri Sanderson bounded from her office and exchanged hugs with Ellen.

"If I'm so conquering," Ellen responded, "how come I feel like there's a lemon lodged in my throat?"

"I understand John Kennedy got physically ill right before he called Khrushchev and told him to turn the missiles around or else. Come on in. Coffee? Tea?"

"No, thanks. Sally not here?"

Cheri's cluttered office featured framed articles chronicling the remarkable ascendance of PAVE, as well as mounting public recognition that vaccinations were not as warm, fuzzy, and uncontroversial as the powers that be would have everyone believe.

"She's spending the day with her husband. She's been getting a little emotional lately about this Omnivax business, and I think she's been a little hard on him."

"I can understand. I know what she's been through with what happened to her son."

"So today it's just going to be you and me. Quite a spot Lynette put you in, huh?"

Ellen stared down at her hands. This woman, no more than five-two or — three, was a giant, chosen perhaps by God to overcome massive odds in order to make a difference. Over the past decade and a half she had spent thousands of hours cajoling, writing, researching, debating, flattering, decrying, begging, consoling, sobbing in order to help the world right what she believed was a most serious wrong. She had fought beside mothers whose children were being hauled away from them because they refused to have them vaccinated. She had sat before specially appointed masters at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, holding hands with parents who had just received a piddling sum to care for their vaccine-injured child — the legally declared maximum according to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 — or worse, no compensation at all.

Ellen gazed up at one of the framed quotes. It was from a Wisconsin mother whose son, whose dream, was horribly, irreparably damaged: The government forces us to give our children these vaccines, it read, and then when something goes wrong — too had — you're on your own.

"Look," Ellen said finally, unable to couch the words, "I'm sorry for seeming so reserved, but you have no idea what I've been listening to for the past three years and who's been saying it. These men and women are not monsters or criminals or killers. They're physicians and scientists and intellectuals. They really believe in what they are doing." To Ellen's surprise, there was no knee-jerk rebuttal from Cheri. Her expression, which sometimes had the hardness of a diamond, was soft and sad.

"I know they are," she said gently.

"I won't argue the fact," Ellen went on, "that many of them get research money from the pharmaceutical companies. But does that necessarily make them wrong? For every graph I produced, they produced a dozen. For every question I asked, they offered incredibly logical, supported answers. For every expert I quoted, they brought in ten with qualifications just as sterling. When I thought my vote was going to be a token, a polite request for continued debate on the issue, that was one thing. I never wanted to be the epicenter of this controversy. I never wanted to be the linchpin."

Cheri pushed back from her desk, then walked behind Ellen and embraced her, resting her cheek on Ellen's hair. There was nothing phony in the gesture, nothing patronizing.

"Look," she said, returning to her seat, "I'm not going to say this isn't important to us. But I will say it isn't everything. It's a battle, not the whole war. There were more than five hundred in attendance at the vaccine conference we ran this year. Five hundred from all over the world — professors, pediatricians, scientists, parents, philosophers. There will be more at the next one. The press and Congress are beginning to see that we are not hysterical radicals being led around by our bitterness, hormones, and emotions, devoid of logic, unwilling to listen to reason.

"Ellen, you've done a wonderful job — more so than any of us had the right to expect. You've made Sally and me and all the others out there proud. You've already helped thousands of parents know that their opinions matter. If you vote against Omnivax, you and I both know you're headed for a feeding frenzy in the media, and maybe even the cover of Newsweek and Time. We'd be naive to think otherwise. If you vote for it, life settles back down for you, and you'll still be welcome to resume your spot on the volunteer phone. But I promise you, either way, pro or con, nothing will change in our determination to have a true, long-term scientific evaluation of immunizations. Nothing will change in our crusade for informed parental choice. Nothing will change in our commitment to find the middle ground that is safest for all people."

Ellen could tell by Cheri's expression that she wasn't playing any head games, even though she had the reputation in some quarters of being a master at it.

"My mind is nearly made up as to what I'm going to do," Ellen said, "but until I am absolutely certain, I'd like to keep things to myself."

"That's okay," Cheri replied. "It would sure be nice to know as soon as you do, and I certainly hope you deliver a blow for us."

"I intend to do what's right," Ellen added, hoping Cheri might read that things were likely to go her way.

"That's all any of us have ever asked of you," Cheri said.

As Ellen walked out past Sally's open office door, she peered in at the photos adorning the walls, and paused a moment to look at one in particular.

Ellen's home, an expanded seven-room Cape in Glenside, Maryland, southeast of D.C., was the one she and Howard had bought shortly after their marriage.

"If this is the only place we ever live, I'll be perfectly happy," he had said at the time.

Sure.

On the way home, Ellen stopped at the local superette for some eggs and milk. She loved omelets of all kinds, and with what there was in the crisper she would be able to create a gold-medal winner. Physically and mentally she was spent — as exhausted as she could ever remember being. As she was fishing out her wallet for the cashier, she glanced over at the magazine rack. Both Time and Newsweek were there. Imagine her face on the covers. Today buying eggs and milk at Kim's Korner, tomorrow her face around the world. Was she ready?