Perilous Panacea (33 page)

Even though the air conditioning blew cold air across Curt’s shoulders, sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. As hopeless as running in the weed field, he thought.

“How come your wife didn’t report you missing?”

“They told her they’d kill us if she did.”

Smith, looking younger with his hat off, swaggered in and perched on the edge of the desk, squinting down at Curt like a vulture waiting for death.

Curt shifted in his chair, pointed to the clock that stood at two-fifteen, and spoke to Davis. “Look, we don’t have time to play games. That fire is going to spread radioactive material all over the east side of town. Depending on the wind, it might be blowing it right down on top of us this very minute. You’ve got to do something.”

“We’ve got to do something, alright,” Smith called from his perch. “Let’s throw him in jail until he sobers up.”

Curt stood. “If you won’t do anything, I’m going home. I haven’t seen my wife in…”

Smith dropped from the desk and shoved his body up against Curt’s, blocking his path, his right hand resting on the handle of the gun on his hip. “He’s drunk. Look at his face. He’s been in a fight. He ought to be arrested for public intoxication.”

Davis glared at Smith. “Didn’t I just tell you to cool it? When you were out, we got a report from the fire department about responding to a fire on the east end. I dispatched two cars out there. Get in there and have Shirley find out if they got any more information on it.”

Smith turned and bolted from the room. Davis followed him and returned with a wet towel he handed to Curt. “Smith may be a good cop some day, but first he needs to grow up.”

Curt nodded. Although the towel cooled his burning face, it didn’t relieve the discomfort inside that came with the knowledge that they had no time to spare. Across town radioactive particles filled the air like so much ragweed pollen, spreading a deadly hay fever. Human lungs would breathe that pollen; the firemen were already breathing it. Eric Drafton died from it.

Davis sat and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head.

“Excuse me, sir, but you’ve got to get an expert out there to assess how much radioactive material is going into the atmosphere. Somebody’s got to decide how much of that area needs to be evacuated.”

Davis smiled. “You’re still young, too. Just take it easy.”

Smith returned, serious now, his pale face barely colored by his pink slit of a mouth. He ignored Curt and spoke to Davis. “It’s in that new Melton Hill Industrial Park on the east end. It’s bad: three buildings on fire. Lieutenant Majors figures arson.”

“What’s in the buildings?” Davis asked.

“I asked about radioactive material. Majors said the middle building where the fire started is General Nuclear American.”

“They were written up in the paper awhile back,” Davis said.

“Probably. Majors says they’re new in town, and they were setting up to make something for nuclear reactors. He says…”

“That’s what I told you,” Curt said, remembering the sign he saw the night of his messed-up escape attempt about a million years ago. “It was a front. Don’t you see they picked the perfect place to pull this job? Nuclear manufacturing facilities are always welcome in Oak Ridge. Here they could build nuclear-handling facilities, put out a good cover story, and no one would think anything of it.”

Smith waited for Curt to finish and then turned back to Davis. “Majors says there’s no radioactive material in the building. Or the other two either. A company has to notify the fire department whenever they introduce any hazardous materials into their buildings. It’s the law, and according to the fire department’s records, General Nuclear American didn’t plan to bring in any nuclear material until after the first of next year.”

“It was all a cover,” Curt said, tossing the towel on the desk. “By the first of the year, they figured to have their bombs made and be long gone.”

Smith ignored Curt. “Now for the interesting part, Lieutenant. Besides being arson, they found two bodies laying right next to the burning building. Majors thinks both were shot. One looked to be just about dead, and the other one looked to be completely dead. They got an ambulance to take them to the hospital.”

Smith and Davis looked at Curt.

Curt didn’t know who he hated most: He hoped it was Beecher and Maxwell. He hoped they were both dead. Or Lormes would be fine, too. He just hoped it wasn’t Applenu. Maybe they found out that he let Curt escape.

He leaned forward with his hands on the desk and spoke to Davis. “Contact Lieutenant Majors. In this town, he’s bound to have radiation-detection equipment with him. Tell him to use a G-M meter or an alpha-detector to check for radioactivity in the fire.”

- - - - -

Lori stared into the bathroom mirror as she listened to Lormes in the hallway.

“Just be back within an hour so we can get out of here,” Lormes said.

She pulled the comb through her hair, anything to get her mind off of what they were talking about.

“We’ll be back in an hour,” Beecher said.

“And we’ll have that bastard Reedan with us,” Maxwell said. “Either that, or he’ll be dead.”

She opened the medicine cabinet, looking for something—anything.

Lormes said, “Just bring him back, and we’ll get rid of both of them later.”

The apartment was like the dreary one they lived in their first year in Oak Ridge. She stared at the small window above the tub. It would be impossible to slip through it without making too much noise by banging the tub when she pulled herself up there.

“If he’s not there,” Lormes said, “leave a message.”

A knock on the bathroom door, and Beecher said, “Ten seconds, Mrs. Reedan.” The door burst open, and Beecher stood there, a rope in his hand. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed her shoulder bag from the lavatory with her right hand just as Beecher grabbed her left arm. He pulled her into the hallway. “You got your house keys in that bag?”

She hesitated.

He jerked her around to face him, his body up against hers. “Just give me the bag.”

She shook her head and dug into the bag. Her hand rested momentarily on the handle of the pistol, but with Beecher in her face there was no chance. She pulled out the keys.

He snatched them, grabbed her arm, and propelled her into the bedroom, where Maxwell was stuffing clothes into a suitcase.

Maxwell grinned at her, his bandaged-and-swollen face like a Halloween mask. He stepped over to her, his grin never fading. “You look real good in blue jeans, too, cunt.” Before she could step back, he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her onto the bed. He ran his hand up between her legs, probing. “Hell, she don’t have no rag on.”

- - - - -

While dabbing at the crusted blood on his face with the damp towel, Curt continued to insist they have the firemen check for radioactivity.

Davis stood and rubbed a hand over his thinning gray hair to assure maximum coverage.

Smith never faltered. “Let’s lock him up. He’s probably one of those anti-nuclear nuts, like the ones that showed up last week out at Y-12 for Hiroshima Day, or whatever they called it. You can see he’s a hippie. The long hair. He needs a shave. He sets that nuclear company on fire and then comes in and says people are making bombs out there, something he’s seen in the paper or on TV.”

“It probably won’t hurt to have the firemen check for radioactivity,” Davis said, heading for the door. He returned ten minutes later with three cans of coke and sent Smith back to the dispatcher to wait for an answer to his radio query.

Half a coke later, Smith called for Davis.

Alone, Curt eased the coke down his abraded throat and looked at the clock. The waiting, the coke, and the thousand variations on the nightmare scenarios that inhabited his brain like ghosts—all of them too true—iced down the air-conditioned room. The ghosts, but not the cold, were momentarily chased when a worried-looking Davis hustled past the open door, never even glancing in at Curt. A few minutes later he rushed by the other way without stopping.

Curt stood and limped after Davis into the Shift Supervisor’s Office, where Davis was behind his desk, talking on the phone. When he hung up, Curt said, “What did you find out?”

Davis stared at him as if he had never seen him before. “Oh…you were right. Majors says the radioactivity’s hotter than the fire.” He stood and started past Curt headed for the door.

“I can give you descriptions of the people who were involved. They probably got most of the bomb material out…”

“What are you talking about?”

“The people that were making the bombs.”

“That’ll have to wait. We’ve got a fire to fight, and we’ve got to evacuate a hell of a lot of people.” He started through the doorway and then turned back to Curt. “How many people you think we’ll have to evacuate? You think the whole town will need to leave?”

“Depends on a lot of things, I guess. On how much radioactive material was in the building, on the strength and direction of the wind…”

“I guess it’s not my job to worry about that.”

“Can you get somebody to take me home?”

“No way. I’ll need every man I’ve got.”

Then he was gone, leaving Curt alone and suddenly very tired. Every muscle ached, like they used to after losing a basketball game. He decided that he had won this game even if he ached like a big loser. He had beaten Lormes and his goons, thanks to Applenu.

Although he hated to scare Lori at this time of night, he reached for the phone on the desk. After twenty-some rings, he hung up. The answering machine must be turned off, he thought. He decided she was afraid to answer, afraid it was Beecher. For a brief moment, he panicked. Maybe they had her. Not so. The pictures they showed him were taken in their living room. Maybe she was at the Motts or the Wilson’s.

A taxi? Not in this town. They lucked out there anyway: better to have nuclear material spreading in a two-taxi town, none after ten o’clock, than in a large metropolitan area.

The silver keys glistened from hooks on the green wall, like ornaments on a Christmas tree, each set attached to a white tag. Why not, he thought. He had to get home to Lori, and he was too tired to walk the five miles. He picked one:

GREEN CHEV UNMARKED DCK 523

On the sign-out book below the key rack, he signed his name, listing his home address as the destination, letting them know he had no intention of stealing the car. He decided he’d get home, and then he and Lori could bring the car right back before the police missed it.

Outside, even with dawn still hours away, the stars had faded into the dark-red glow that crawled up the eastern horizon spreading its ashes of doom.

He recalled reading some university professor’s estimate that any plutonium spread around by a catastrophic nuclear accident would require the evacuation of several-hundred square miles for 250,000 years. Hyperbole, a scare statement and a gross exaggeration, but…

He shivered, remembering his last image of Drafton and remembering Surling’s perilous panacea. Surling once spouted figures on Chernobyl: after the accident, over 100,000 people were evacuated from a 30 kilometer radius around the reactor. By the time they finished, they evacuated an area half the size of Iowa. A city of 45,000 had been turned into a ghost town. Oak Ridge contained only 30,000 people.

Chapter Forty-One

Curt drove the unmarked car west and away from the plague-filled clouds churning in the eastern sky. A cool breeze from the open window blew across his face, soothing the burned skin. He fiddled in the dark with knobs and switches on the police radio and finally located the on-off switch.

Lieutenant Davis’s soft voice rolled from the radio, talking to the fire chief, who was now at the scene of the fire. They discussed pulling all firemen back from the fire except for those with respirators. To add to their problems, the roof of a building across the street had caught fire.

The radio hissed and cracked, and the chief asked. “What about civil defense? Over.”

“The head man’s on his way. You think they’ve got an evacuation plan? Over.”

“I don’t know… Who would ever have thought we’d face something like this? You might have predicted it for one of the plants. They’ve probably got a plan for that with the reactor out there at the lab and all. I doubt they’ve got a plan for something like this. Over.”

“I’ve got some squad cars on the way over there. You can tell them which houses should be evacuated first. Over.”

“Right. There are houses fairly close on three sides. Maybe civil defense will have some health physicists from the lab who’ll be able to assess the situation and put priorities on the evacuation. How the hell did all that radioactive material get into that building without us being notified? Over.”

“We’ve got a guy here who claims the people the FBI is looking for were making atomic bombs in there. He’s got a hell of a story, but there’s no way it’ll check out. Over.”

“He’s might be right,” the chief said. “I didn’t mention that a squad of FBI agents showed up about thirty minutes after we got here. They were going to raid the place based on a call they got from one of their colleagues confirming what you just said. Then they began looking for him, but they decided he must have left, probably following the guys that were in there making the bombs. They’ll want to talk to the guy you’ve got. Over.”

“I’ll make sure we keep him here,” Davis said. “Over.”

“It makes you stop and think,” the chief drawled. “My old man came here back in forty-and-three when he got a job on the project making the first atomic bomb. He used to tell the story about how they all cheered like hell when they dropped those bombs on the Japs. Now, it’s like it’s come full circle, and…”

A click of the off switch killed the chief’s voice as Curt turned onto Wilden Lane. Home at last, he thought, and finally out of reach of muddled distant voices on radios, out of reach of the deadly rain, and out of reach of the fatal grasp of Lormes and company.

Scenes of the past weeks flashed through his brain like color slides from a vacation trip: Beecher and Maxwell boasting about Lori; Beecher’s hand on Lori’s breast; Drafton, naked, rambling on about love and their future, and Surling grabbing at the green door to freedom. It was all over at last. Mentally, he collected the slides and boxed them up, intending to leave them in the back seat of the car. Get out of the car and get on with life.

With his driveway up ahead, a heaviness lifted from his body as he contemplated his new future with Lori, Beth, and the baby. He anticipated Lori’s pretty face peering cautiously through the space of the chain-locked door, then throwing it wide open so he could hold her, truly and completely hold her.

Spurred by thoughts of the future, his mind flashed to the MIT job offer, and he tried to recall the deadline date for accepting it. He decided to call first thing in the morning and ask for an extension. He smiled, seeing himself slipping into his old ways. He’d also call Colorado School of Mines and ask them for an extension. He and Lori would need some time to decide about their future.

Because of the large car with out-of-state plates parked directly across the street from his driveway, he cut the corner short and barely missed a shrub at the corner of the drive. As the headlights flashed across the front of his house, something on the porch moved. Was it a man?

He braked to a stop back from the house, leaned out the window, and called, “Who’s there?”

Voices: two people talking. Two dark figures stepped off the porch but stayed in the shadows. Once on the sidewalk, they moved faster. When the lead figure hit the driveway and began running toward the car in the headlights, Curt recognized him.

He shoved the shift lever into reverse and floored the accelerator. Tires yipping, he cut the corner too short, crushed a shrub and bounced across the curb, dragging the underside of the car. He screeched to a stop on the street, shifted, and sped forward, tires squealing.

In the rear-view mirror, Beecher bolted into the street, dragging a sluggish blimp in his wake: Maxwell.

Two explosions erupted in the back seat, as if someone had hit the trunk with a sledge hammer. Lights from the other car flashed in the mirror and died.

At the cul-de-sac, he slid into a u-turn. Floor boarding the accelerator, he raced out, only to find himself on a collision course with their car, now broadside in the street.

He shoved the brake pedal toward the floor and held on while the car screeched and growled as it squirmed to a halt sixty feet from the roadblock and forty-five degrees to the road. Smoke from burning rubber assaulted his nostrils before the squeals died.

A dog barked frantically.

Beecher and Maxwell hunkered behind the hood of their car. Their heads pushed forward, they stared at Curt, like hunters waiting for their prey to move.

A second dog joined in a chorus with the first. Windows lighted up around the neighborhood.

Curt backed up to straighten the car in the road; he gunned the engine. To get around them, he would have to jump the curb and dodge the shrubs that edged the street. If he stalled, they had him. Even if he didn’t stall, they would get several good shots at close range.

He thought about the police radio, but rejected it. They would never make it in time. Besides, they were too busy evacuating the other end of town to bother with this little incident.

Beecher and Maxwell strolled around the long black car, which Curt now recognized as the Lincoln Town Car he’d been in the night of his escape attempt. Side by side, they marched toward him, their right arms lengthened by their silenced pistols. Only one escape route: get out and run, head for the woods behind the house. He knew he’d never make it this time, not with his aching knee.

Beecher and Maxwell stopped thirty feet in front of the car. They raised their pistols and aimed at Curt.

Curt tromped on the accelerator. Wheels screamed and sent more burning rubber into the air. His headlights splashed across the two startled men’s faces as they scattered like scared rabbits, one to each side of the street. Ten feet from the Lincoln, he swung a hard right into Karl Eberhard’s driveway.

Squealing tires re-energized the barking dogs.

He leaned on the horn and shoved the brake pedal to the floor, sliding to a fish-tailed stop five feet from Eberhard’s garage door as upstairs lights flashed on inside the house.

Curt scrambled from the car and headed for the house yelling. “Karl! It’s Curt Reedan, let me in.”

Behind him, footsteps pounded into the driveway and climbed the hill.

“It’s Curt Reedan, Karl. Let me in. Get your guns.”

A foyer light flashed on.

Curt hobbled up the three porch steps just as the porch light blazed on, setting him up as a perfect target.

He shoved at the door. Locked. He hammered with both fists. “Karl, it’s Curt Reedan.”

Phutt.

A bullet clapped into the house above his head; a second one hit a few feet to his right. Another one, this one closer.

“Karl, open up.” When he leaned his body against the door, it opened, and he tumbled inside, falling onto his stomach.

“Curt, what is it?”

Curt dragged his legs inside and kicked the door shut. “Turn out the lights.” He pulled himself up the steps of the split foyer and ran into the living room to a window that looked out over the driveway.

Eberhard followed him. “What is it, Curt. Are you okay?”

Beecher and Maxwell stood half-way up the hill, talking. Beecher motioned at the house with his elongated gun.

Curt wiped sweat from his eyes. “Get your guns, Karl. Hurry, get a rifle.” Thank God Karl was a hunter.

The room lights flashed on, and Sarah Eberhard appeared in the doorway. “Curt, what’s going on?”

Curt jerked back from the window. “Turn out the lights.”

“What is it, Curt? You look awful. What happened?”

“Turn out the lights, and call the police.”

The lights went out.

“I’ve got a rifle,” Eberhard said, out of breath from climbing steps. “What the hell’s going on?”

Curt eased open the window. “Shoot them.”

“What? I can’t shoot anybody.”

Karl, the one always yelling about every man’s right to bear arms and defend himself and his family, the one quoting the National Rifle Association’s doctrine, he can’t shoot anybody.

Beecher yelled at the house, “Just come out, Reedan, and no one else will get hurt.”

“Who are those guys, Curt?”

Curt grabbed for the rifle. “Is it loaded?”

“It’s loaded, but you can’t shoot inside of town.”

The slick wooden stock slipped from Curt’s sweat-drenched grip, but he grabbed it with his other hand. He raised the window, rested the barrel on the window sill, and aimed at Beecher. He hesitated. If he missed, he’d hit the house across the street.

“I can’t get the police,” Sarah said from the doorway. “Nine-one-one’s busy. What’s going on, Curt?”

Curt raised the barrel to fire into the air. He pulled the trigger. Nothing. He turned to Eberhard.

“The safety’s on,” Eberhard said.

Curt wiped sweat from his eyes and fumbled around the trigger guard with his sweaty fingers.

Eberhard reached over and clicked a button on the rifle. “I see you haven’t done much shooting.”

Curt shoved the barrel out the window, and fired into the air, a loud crack that would get the neighbors dialing the police. Fat chance they’d have of getting through.

Beecher and Maxwell dropped onto their stomachs, leaving only their heads visible above the slope of the hill.

Curt fired into the air again, and they pulled their heads down until only the tops were visible. “We need a shotgun, so we can fire at them and not hit the house across the street.”

“You can’t just shoot people, Curt. Tell me what’s…”

Curt yelled out the window. “It’s two of us against two of you. We’ve got rifles.”

Beecher raised his head and yelled back. “If you want your wife back, you’d better come with us.”

Lori. They couldn’t have her. They’re bluffing. He fired two more shots into the air.

More lights blazed on around the neighborhood. Dogs barked everywhere. Somebody hollered from across the street: “What’s going on out there?”

“Okay, Reedan,” Beecher yelled. “We’re through with you for now. We’re leaving. But before you go and do something stupid, you’d better read the note we left in your house. Otherwise you’ll never see your wife again.”

- - - - -

Curt sprinted from the Eberhard house across his yard, wondering how to get into his house without a key. He found the front door wide open. A note on one of Lori’s yellow legal pads lay on the kitchen table on top of a brown envelope. Curt picked up the note and read:

Reedan,

If you want to see your wife again you better not go to the police. As far as the police are concerned just make yourself scarce. We will call tonight about six and tell you how you can get your wife back.

He ripped open the envelope and extracted a packet of eight-by-ten photos, the top one of Lori, naked and on her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks. Beecher was also in the picture.