Michael Palmer - Fatal

One agent, a lanky black man with a scar across his chin, eyed them suspiciously, then took a silent poll of the other two. Both merely shrugged.

"ID?" he asked.

Ellen shook her head.

"Of course."

"Wallet, jacket pocket," Matt said.

"Take it out slowly."

The agent handed Matt's wallet over to the other man, who scanned the contents,

"West Virginia license. Matthew Rutledge. It says he's a doctor."

"And I'm the Pope," the first agent muttered, removing a set of handcuffs from his back pocket. "On your feet, both of you. Jill, pat 'em down."

"I'm telling you," Matt said desperately, as his left wrist was shackled to Ellen's right, "we have to get down there before they go off the air."

"Shut up!" The agent turned to the other two. "Well?"

Jill lifted the two-way radio from her hip.

"Bert, it's Jill. How much longer of a delay before they get the show going?"

"Delay?" Ellen asked.

"I said, shut up!"

"Alan, Bert says ten more minutes," Jill said to the black agent.

The man sighed.

"Tell him we're bringing down two party crashers for him to talk to. The sooner we get this out of our hands and into his, the better."

"Thank you," Ellen said, utterly relieved. "You're doing the right thing."

"Why does that sound to me like Find another job?"

"Have they given the shot yet?" Ellen risked asking.

"No, they haven't even gotten on the air."

"What happened?"

"What happened is, some wacko got in there dressed as an electrician. He used a pair of electrician's shears and cut the pool feed cable from the camera inside the clinic to the truck that transmits the signal to all the networks. We've been on delay for forty-five minutes now. But I think the cable's just about been replaced."

"Then, hurry," Matt said. "Get us to one of Mrs. Marquand's people before they give that shot, and I promise you, you'll be heroes."

"You better be right."

With an agent on either side of them, and a sizable crowd jeering from tenement windows, Ellen and Matt were led down the sidewalk, toward the clinic.

"I can't believe we're going to make it," Matt said.

"I told you not to give up."

"No, that was me. I told you."

Ellen turned to Jill.

"Do you have any idea why the man cut the cable?"

"Like Alan said, he's a wack-job. Listen, in case you couldn't tell, we're not having a good day. If you're juicin' us about who you are or this vaccine, we're gonna cuff you to the same tree he's huggin' and leave all three of you there overnight to sample the hospitality of the neighborhood."

The agent gestured to their right, where the culprit stood, his arms shackled around a good-sized oak.

Ellen grinned as they hurried past him toward the gleaming health center.

Rudy waved with his fingertips.

"Hey, Rudy," she called out, "this is my new friend, Matt Rutledge. Matt, this is my… significant other, Rudy Peterson."

Just as they reached the clinic, a couple emerged. The woman was cradling an infant in her arms, holding her so that the child was bathed in the warm afternoon sun. Behind her, just inside the door, Matt could see what looked like more Secret Service people. At the sight of the two of them, handcuffed together, the couple took a wary step backward.

"Hi," Ellen said cheerily, her smile threatening to escape the bounds of her face. "Is this the baby who's going to get the vaccination?"

"Yes," Sherrie replied, glancing down lovingly at her child. "Her name's Donelle."

Late afternoon shadows were stretching across the streets of D.C. when Matt finally fired up the Harley and headed back toward West Virginia. He was riding alone. Ellen and Rudy remained behind to answer more questions from the FBI and to review the evidence Rudy had brought into the city with him. The progression from the Secret Service agent in charge of security at the clinic to his counterpart on Lynette Marquand's staff to Marquand herself had been rapid.

There had simply been too much at stake for anyone to delay.

In a small conference room, Matt and Ellen were being interrogated by former Georgia Congresswoman Joanne Kramer, Marquand's chief of staff, when word was brought in that the feeder cable Rudy had severed had been replaced. It was the moment of truth. Kramer hurried from the room, leaving the two of them with a Secret Service agent. Five interminable minutes passed before the door opened and Kramer reentered. With her was the First Lady of the United States. Beneath her piled-on-for-TV makeup, Marquand was ashen. There was no warmth in her expression as she took stock first of Matt, then Ellen.

"So, Mrs. Kroft," she said, still standing, "it would seem that your abstention from the Omnivax vote did not mean you had lost interest in the vaccine."

"Hardly," Ellen said. "A man had threatened my granddaughter's life if I voted against it. I needed to buy some time."

"And now that man is dead."

"Yes. He worked for the owner of Columbia Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the Lassa fever component of Omnivax."

"And there is something fatally wrong with that component?"

"Yes."

"And you are convinced it would be a grievous error for us to vaccinate the infant who is out there awaiting her immunizations."

Ellen sighed in relief at the news. The shot heard round the world still hadn't been fired.

"Yes," she said again. "I most emphatically do."

"And you, Dr. — "

"Rutledge," Matt said, clearing his throat. "Matthew Rutledge. People from my community in West Virginia who received test doses of the Lassa fever vaccine ten years ago are dying. I think the agent that is killing them is still in the vaccine."

Marquand again leveled her gaze at Ellen.

"Mrs. Kroft, my staff has informed me that you have been a financial supporter of my husband's opponent in the upcoming election. Is your miraculous appearance at this moment at all politically motivated?"

Ellen took some time before responding.

"I disapprove of your husband's position on social security," she said finally. "That is why I support Mr. Harrison. But our being here now has nothing to do with politics. I assure you of that."

For fifteen seconds, all was silent as Marquand steadily probed Ellen's eyes with her own.

"Thank you," she had said finally. Her voice was husky, her expression still gray. "And you, too, Dr. Rutledge."

Without another word, she and Kramer then turned and left the room. Fifteen minutes after that, the first of the FBI interrogators had arrived. The child had been sent home; the cameras had been shut down; and no doubt, the administration's spin-doctors had been called in for emergency work.

Before leaving for home, Matt had sat alone in one of the empty clinic examining rooms wrestling with the decision of whether to notify the police about the situation at the toxic dump site or to wait until he had the chance to evaluate things in person. When Lyle didn't return, Lewis and Frank would surely have known there had been trouble at Hal's. He was certain of that. What they would or could do about it, though, was anybody's guess. Their brother was dead. Their beloved old truck was at the bottom of Long Lake. They were several miles from their farm, and Lewis was not in the best of shape for travel. Still, the problems Matt would cause for them by sending the authorities to the scene of such carnage might well destroy them. Nikki and those inside the cave were reasonably stable when Ellen and he had left for Hal's place.

Finally, after a heated internal debate, he had decided to wait on calling for help from anyone until he could ride out to the mountain himself.

Rush-hour traffic was a bear, and Matt took many more chances than he was accustomed to in getting across the Potomac and out of the city. It was seven-thirty by the time he was first able to accelerate past seventy.