"Becky, please," Matt called out.
There was no response. He looked up at the small window, trying to get a sense of the time of day. How long had he been gone? His damp clothes and the freshly clotted blood suggested it hadn't been all that long, but he couldn't be certain. The handcuffs were police-department grade and put on way too tight to slip out of. He set his feet against the wall, grasped the copper pipe with both hands, and tried to pull it loose. The futile effort sent a fusillade exploding through his head. Frustrated, he sank back onto the oily rags and kicked the walls until his strength was gone. There had to be a way out. Waiting for Bass or whoever was supposed to kill him did not seem like his best chance.
"Becky," he shouted. "Samuel is sick. Really sick. You know he is. He's not going to get better without medicine. That stuff draining out of his nose is serious. I can help him. He could get very ill. Please listen to me. People are going to die if I don't get some help. Don't leave me here like this."
"Bass, no!" he heard Becky cry.
An instant later the shed door burst open. The man stood there, filling the space. He was six-five, with shoulders that nearly spanned the doorjamb; heavily tattooed, tree-trunk arms; and a massive gut. His thick, shoulder-length auburn hair and full beard hadn't seen a scissors in months, if not years, and his vest, perhaps once the covering for an entire cow, was studded with chrome spikes. His narrow, feral eyes held not a bit of warmth.
"Who the fuck are you?" he said, taking a step into the shed. "And who do you work for?"
Behind him, Matt could see at least one other biker, as well as Becky, Samuel still riding on her hip. He pushed himself to his feet.
"I'm a doctor," Matt said, certain that he had better state his case quickly. "My friends and I were trapped in a mine explosion. I swam out in the river to get help."
"Bullshit."
"No, please, it's true. I'm from Belinda. I need to get to the Slocumb brothers' farm off 82. Do you know them? They can vouch for me."
"I don't know them. I don't know nothin' except that you were where you shouldn't have been with a gun in your pocket. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You DEA?"
"No, I'm a doctor from Belinda."
"I'm gonna find out, and I promise it ain't gonna be pleasant for you. Tell me who you work for and I'll see to it you don't suffer too much. Fuck with me, and I promise you'll be beggin' to die."
"What I told you is the truth," Matt pleaded stridently. "I swear it is."
Bass stepped forward, grabbed Matt's shirt in his massive fist, and lifted him onto his toes. Matt could smell the odor of marijuana wafting from his clothes.
"You have half an hour," Bass growled.
He whirled and left, slamming the door with a force that threatened to collapse the shed.
"I'm tellin' you, he really is a doctor," Matt heard Becky say. "Ask him to look at Rake."
"No!"
"Christ, Bass, he's your brother."
"Shut up! This guy's a fed and in a little while he's gonna be a dead fed. This ain't no fuckin' game we're playin' here. I want to know how in the hell he found us."
Drugs! Matt felt certain the bikers were either growing them, processing them, or more likely both. He again checked the single window. The overcast sky seemed brighter now. Time was running out — for him, for Nikki, and for the rest of those in the cavern. It was also running out for some children who were about to receive the so-called vaccination of a lifetime.
For a while, he lay in silence, assuring himself again that the handcuffs were unyielding, and trying to conjure up a way to expand on his primitive effort to exploit Becky, clearly a weak link in the chain. Twice a bike rumbled off. He couldn't tell for certain if either was one he had heard before. He imagined his own Harley and the indescribable sense of freedom and completeness he felt when riding the hills. Then, soundlessly, Becky eased open the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her. Samuel wasn't with her. Instead, she was carrying a dirty pillowcase, partially filled with something.
"You are a doctor, ain't you?"
"Just like I said. Becky, I — "
"Tell me which of these will help Samuel."
She dumped the contents of the sack onto the floor in front of him — dozens of bottles and vials of various pills and liquid meds, almost all of them legitimately labeled from one pharmacy or another.
"The guys 'mos always clean out the medicine cabinets a the houses they… um… visit," she whispered. "They all love Perks and Oxys, but a couple of 'em prefer codeine. The rest a the pills they jes keep around. Will any a these help Samuel?"
Matt fingered through the vials and picked out two different brands of amoxicillin, 250 milligrams — thirty capsules in all.
"This'll work," he said, pulling one of them apart. "Just take about half the powder from one of these capsules and mix it in his food three times a day. For the first dose, use a whole capsule's worth. Does Samuel have any allergies?"
"Any what?"
"Don't worry about it. Here, half a teaspoon of this liquid medicine will help his cough."
"Thank ya, Doctor," she said, gathering up the pills. "I'm sorry Bass don't believe you."
"Becky, you've got to help me get out of here."
"Oh, I cain't do thet."
"They're growing drugs here, aren't they. Is that what Bass is afraid I'll find out?"
"I gotta go now."
"Becky, I swear I won't tell anyone. I just want to help get my friends out of that mine. Please, he's going to kill me."
"I know. I sure wish he wasn't."
"Who's Rake?" Matt asked suddenly.
"How did you — ? Ah, you heered me talkin' ta Bass."
"What's wrong with Rake?"
"He's… sick. Some kinda cancer or somethin' in his back, they said. He kin barely walk, an' he cain't ride his bike at all."
"Show me on you, Becky. Show me where Rake's cancer is."
Becky hesitated, then turned and pointed to her lower back.
"I gotta go now. Thanks for helpin' Samuel."
"Becky, get Bass," Matt said desperately. "Tell him I'm ready to talk. I'm ready to tell him everything."
"You ain't a doctor?"
"I am. Now, please, get him."
"I'm sorry," he heard her say as the door closed.
Matt sensed the woman hurrying away. He should have been harder on her. If she didn't agree to help him, he should have threatened to tell Bass that she had. Stupid. Frustrated, he whipped his manacled hand up with such force that a slice of skin peeled back from his wrist. He barely noticed the pain.
"Bass, I'll talk," he called out, certain his voice hadn't carried past the walls. "Let's make a deal. Come on."
Nothing.
Ten minutes passed, maybe more, before the door opened again. Two bikers, both in black, but neither needing to dress tough in order to look tough, strode in and pulled him roughly to his feet. One of the men — shaved head; broad, flat nose; tattooed neck — unlocked the handcuff on the pipe and secured it to his own wrist.
Thank God, Matt thought. But then, as they led him outside, another, far more ominous thought came to mind. The bikers were making no attempt to conceal their compound from him. In all likelihood, no matter what he did or said, he was a dead man. Scattered in the dense woods, well hidden from above, were ten wooden structures of various sizes. The largest, looking something like an Indian longhouse, had smoke curling from two chimneys. Above the chimneys a broad metal roof, suspended from the trees, diffused the smoke, which carried a distinctive, chemical odor. Opium, Matt guessed. No way they were going to let him go having seen this.
The two men led him across a dirt and pine needle courtyard to a modestly sized rough-hewn house with a small, low front porch. Bass was inside, standing by a bed in what might have once been a living room. Lying on his side on the bed, knees drawn up, was a man so like Bass in appearance that Matt guessed they were twins. A husky woman, her face deeply pocked from burnt-out acne, sat in a wooden rocker in one corner of the room, breast-feeding an unkempt infant who looked as if it might be battling the same germ as Samuel. Rake, pale and sweating, was obviously ill and in pain.