No Immunity

much time. I was afraid I’d have to spend most of it just shifting cars to get out of the driveway, and Fox would nab me right there. Or if I did get out, he’d have me intercepted on the road to Gattozzi. But I’d underestimated Connie. Her place was, after all, a safe house. The potential need for escape was always on her mind. Of course she had her truck at a hidden exit. Of course she knew other routes to Gattozzi. Even so it took so long, I was afraid Louisa wouldn’t make it.”
    “But she did?”
    “She won’t be using her right arm for a while, but she’s not dead like Adcock. And she’s not bleeding out from contagious hemorrhagic fever the way you and I might have been.”
    “I’m glad you didn’t mention that danger yesterday. Bad enough I thought I was going to be permanent navy property. Then, all of a sudden, I’m sent to the shower, my clothes are pressed—”
    “Not cleaned, or deodorized, I note.”
    “Jeez, look who’s talking. You could be Lot’s wife. That’s salt, not dirt, isn’t it? But tell me. How did you get me free?”
    “Connie Tremaine has connections in the fourth estate, and it would look real bad for the United States Navy to devote taxpayers’ money to harassing a local citizen who was only caring for two disabled boys who’d entered the country legally. The boys’ fevers had broken. There’s no longer evidence they ever had an exotic virus. Anyway the virus-detection program is the second-to-last thing the navy wants on the front page.”
    “The second-to-last thing? What’s the last?”
    Kiernan laughed. “The picture of their helicopter half buried in the mine. Not exactly your recruiting poster picture.”
    Tchernak grinned. “Grady Hummacher would have loved that. It’s better than the Volkswagen in the staircase of Tasman Hall.” When she looked at him blankly, he said, “I’ll tell you later. But am I indebted to Connie Tremaine too? Did you both trade silence for my release?”
    “Hardly. Not that I don’t love you, Tchernak, but silence, really. We just got Louisa to give us the name of her contact at B-CAD. I pointed out to him that they’d be in deep enough shit without a kidnapping charge. Weak as Louisa was, she was still real anxious to minimize bad publicity. It’s one thing for a local doctor to have worked on a project with the navy. It’s quite another for that doctor to know that lethal bacteria and chemicals are being tossed into the air and citizens are not being notified. She’s desperate to keep that quiet.”
    “Desperate enough to kill?”
    “She didn’t shoot Adcock over publicity. I think she really felt she was protecting the boys. Who knows? And would she have killed Grady if the Weasel hadn’t gotten to him first? I doubt it. She’s not a stare-you-in-the-face-and-shoot-you kinda gal. Whereas the Weasel wasn’t knee-deep in qualms.”
    Tchernak laughed. “Like the lightbulb jokes: How many qualms does it take to overcome the smell of millions?”
    Kiernan fished in the hamper behind the seat and pulled out two Cokes. Mexican Cokes, the kind with the caffeine-and-sugar kick that might keep her awake. They had been in Gattozzi all afternoon answering questions. For a while she was afraid she’d get another chance at a night above the Gattozzi saloon. But at dusk the county sheriff had said “Go,” and they hadn’t looked back.
    She took a swallow of Coke. “Here, Tchernak, is Rule One from the Hostage Taker’s Guide. Don’t price your hostages before you check them out. McGuire had no way of knowing the boys had no language and were worthless to him. Adcock had Grady’s geological exploration reports; maybe he could have gotten close enough to the oil for the boys to wander back to the site for reasons of their own. To anyone else they were useless. No one would take the boys back to Yaviza and devote years to following them around in case they might come across Grady’s oil deposit—and pay the Weasel millions for the privilege of doing it. For that kind of investment you hire a seismic crew, string sensor wires, set off dynamite, and get yourself geologists to start evaluating the results. But the Weasel didn’t think that through. He went after the kidnap scheme the same way he went at Louisa and then at Grady.”
    “You mean breaking the door chains and shoving his way in?”
    She nodded. “No one else would have had to do that. For Louisa or even Adcock, Grady would have opened the