Due Diligence (30 page)

Flo was wheezing behind me. “Rachel,” she gasped.

“What?”

“I can't go on.

I stopped, trying to catch my breath. “We'll take a break.”

“What?” Benny asked.

“Let's rest,” I said. “Then we'll go on.”

My elbows were scraped raw, my back was sore, my thigh muscles were throbbing. Gradually, my breathing returned to normal. As the ringing in my ears faded, I became aware of another sound: water trickling. Somewhere up ahead there was running water. I didn't know whether that was good or bad.

“Ready?” I asked.

“No,” they both said.

“Come on, guys. We're almost there. I hear water.”

“We're
in
water, for chrissakes,” Benny said, “unless one of you is taking the goddamdest piss of the twentieth century.”

“Flo,” I said, “you still with me?”

“Oh, God,” she said wearily. “I'm with you.”

“Benny?”

He growled. “Someone ought to Vaseline this place.”

We slithered forward. The floor got wetter. Each time I paused, the trickling noise was louder. As we continued crawling, the ground began to incline slightly. We were moving uphill, and there was more water now. It was moving past us downhill. It was getting harder to hold the flashlight above the moisture. The sound of running water was much louder.

I stopped and fumbled with the flashlight. The beam went on, illuminating our narrow passage. I peered around the backpack. The end of the passageway was just fifteen feet away.

“We're almost there!” I said excitedly as I turned off the flashlight.

Chapter Thirty-two

Because of the incline I couldn't see what was on the other side of our passageway, but the trickling noises and the sight of water sloshing into the opening told me what was up ahead. I elbowed forward until I reached the end of the passageway.

I poked my head out of the hole in the cave wall and clicked on the flashlight. The passageway opened onto a cave tunnel that was about eight feet wide. The entire floor of the tunnel was moving water—an underground river. The floor of our passageway was less than an inch above the water level.

I scrunched my body around the backpack. Flo was right behind me.

“It's a river,” I said.

“How deep?”

“I'm going to find out. Here.” I turned off the flashlight and handed it back to her.

I pushed my arms and head out of the opening. My hands dipped into the water. It was icy cold. Cautiously, I crawled head first out of the passageway and into the river. I couldn't see a thing. Now my upper body was through the opening. My arms were in the water up to my elbows. I kept inching forward, telling myself that sharks didn't live in caves, but then wondering what exactly did live in these rivers.

The water didn't get any deeper as I continued to move forward. That was a good sign. I pulled the rest of my body out of the passageway opening and splashed into the water. I scrambled to my feet in the pitch black. I could feel the current at my ankles. Leaning over in the darkness, I touched the cold water with my fingertips. It was just below my knees.

Thank God
.

“Turn on the flashlight, Flo. It isn't deep.”

A few minutes later, the three of us were slogging forward down the middle of the river. Before leaving the opening, we had shined the flashlight back inside. There was no sign of anyone coming after us. It either meant that we were several minutes ahead of him, or that he was still back there searching other rooms, not yet realizing where we had gone. Either way, we knew we had to keep moving.

Flo was wearing the backpack now. I had the map and the flashlight. Assuming that I was still correctly aligned with the map, the current was flowing north east. We decided to follow the current for two reasons. First, there appeared to be more branches of the cave northeast. Second, smaller rivers flow into larger rivers. One of those rivers, roughly northeast of us, was the Mississippi River. If our river was headed for the Mississippi, it might eventually reach the surface.

I left the flashlight on. It was bad enough walking on solid ground in total darkness. Wading blind down a river was far too much for me. I checked my watch. It was almost 7:00 p.m. We'd been down in the cave for more than four hours. My clothes were soaked and the water was freezing.

“You think we can drink this water, Rachel?” Flo asked, her teeth chattering. “I'm dying of thirst.”

“I don't know. Benny?”

“You're asking me? I thought you were the one who took cave law.”

I shined the light into the water just in time to see a dull gray water snake slither past my right leg heading upstream. I caught my breath but kept quiet. No sense freaking out Flo even more. A small pallid fish circled in front of me and then darted away. Snakes and fish could live in it, right? I leaned over and scooped a few drops of water into my mouth.

“It tastes okay,” I said.

We each drank several cupped handfuls. I studied the map as Flo adjusted the backpack.

“What's that noise?” Benny said.

I clicked off the light and listened, turning back toward the direction we had come. There was no sign of a flashlight back there. I listened again. The noise was the sound of rushing water. It was coming from somewhere up ahead. I turned. “I don't know,” I said. “Rapids?”

“Down here?” Flo said.

“That's what it sounds like,” I said.

“Fucking unbelievable,” Benny said. “All this, and now rapids? Who designed this miserable goddam hole in the ground? Stephen King?”

We walked on. The sound got louder. The tunnel, and thus the river, curved toward the left. As we came around the bend we saw a fork in the cave where it seemed to split into two tunnels. The sound of rushing water was much louder. As we got closer to the fork, we saw that both tunnel openings were actually positioned above the water level—the one on the right at least five feet above the water, the one on the left about three feet above. It was as if some huge drilling machine had punched two large holes into the wall. Both tunnels appeared to be dry.

The river seemed to disappear into the wall below the two tunnels. And as we got closer, we saw that the river did indeed disappear into the wall. The sound of rushing water was the sound of water falling. The river was literally funneling through a wide opening in the wall and cascading down what sounded like a significant drop-off. Seen from below, it must have been a magnificent waterfall. A Kodak scene. But we were way beyond Kodak scenes. We could have stumbled across the Taj Mahal down here and none of us would have given a damn. All we knew was that we were somewhere underneath St. Louis with a weakening flashlight beam and a growing sense of desperation.

The water current was much stronger here as the river funneled through the hole. The current dragged on us, too—pulling us toward the edge of the waterfall. Our only option was the tunnel on the left; the one on the right was too high to reach. I clambered up into the tunnel first and turned to help Flo. Then both of us helped Benny. Once we were all up in the dry tunnel opening, I took out the cave map and studied it as we caught our breath.

“Where are we now?” Flo asked.

I shook my head. “I don't know. I don't think this part is even on the map.”

“You're kidding,” Benny said.

“Look for yourself.”

He leaned closer to the map. “How can you tell whether any of these caves comes back up to the surface?”

I shrugged. “You can't.”

“So how do we know where to get out?” Flo asked.

I looked at her. “We don't.”

“Oh, brother,” Benny said.

I pointed the beam forward into the darkness. “We just have to keep walking. We don't have any other options.”

At 8:10, the batteries in the flashlight died. We put in our final set. Having lost our sense of direction, the map was totally useless. We just kept pressing forward. In order to avoid doubling back, we decided to take the left fork every time the cave tunnel split.

Ninety minutes later, the flashlight was starting to fade. We had just reached yet another fork in the cave and were about to go left when Benny grabbed my arm.

“Look.” He was pointing at the other tunnel.

I flashed the weak beam toward the tunnel on the right. “What?”

“Isn't it sloped uphill?”

“Really?”

The three of us walked into the right tunnel. After several steps I said, “You're right, Benny.” I tried to hold back my excitement by reminding myself that what goes up must come down. I prayed that the rule didn't apply to cave tunnels.

We continued on. The tunnel was definitely moving upward. Our budding hopes made it hard to keep from running. The flashlight beam was almost worthless now—just a feeble glow. The ceiling was getting lower and lower.

Before long we were walking in a crouch. But still moving uphill. Definitely up.

The tunnel got narrower and narrower. We were crawling. But still moving uphill.

Gradually, the ground seemed to level off. By then I was crawling forward on my hands and knees, my head scraping the ceiling. The flashlight was dead. I tried to block from my mind what would happen if this passageway kept shrinking until we could proceed forward no further. I tried to block it out but couldn't. If it got too narrow, we'd have to crawl back blind, all the way back to the fork in the tunnel. Then we'd take the left fork and we'd move on in total darkness and we'd just keep going and that was that. We'd deal with it then.

As I crawled forward, my head occasionally bumped the ceiling. Suddenly, though, there was nothing overhead. I stopped. Flo crawled right into me with a grunt.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“I'm not sure.

“What's that?” Benny said from behind her.

I reached over my head in the darkness. Nothing but air. Carefully, moving both hands around in the air over my head, I got to my feet. I inched forward very slowly. My hands bumped into a wall in front of me. It was a curved surface. I felt it with my hands. The wall curved toward me on either side. I realized I was standing in a vertical shaft. I kept my hands against the walls as I turned slowly in a circle. My hand touched a cold metal bar. I grasped it, felt around, grasped another metal bar.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“What?” Flo called from below.

“It's a ladder.” My voice was shaking. “It's a metal ladder. It's attached to the wall.”

“A what?” Benny yelled.

“She said a ladder,” Flo answered.

“Hot damn!” Benny hollered.

I went up first, followed by Flo, and then Benny. We climbed in total darkness. I counted the first fifteen rungs and then lost track. We just kept climbing and climbing.

My head banged into the ceiling.

“What was that?” Flo asked from below.

I felt the ceiling with one hand. “It's wood.” I leaned out from the ladder to touch as much of the surface as I could. The wood felt damp. I rapped it with my knuckles. It sounded hollow.

“Let me up,” Flo said.

I moved to one side of the ladder to make room for her. When we were even, she reached up to touch the wood.

“It feels rotten,” she said.

“It does,” I agreed.

“One way to find out for sure,” she said. I heard her take a deep breath and I felt her tense, her knees bending. Then a grunt and a quick thrust upward with her fist. The wood splintered. She did it again. More splintering, pieces dropping down on us. Again. More splintering.

And light!

There was light coming through the ragged holes in the wood. Moonlight.

I laughed. “God bless you, Flo. Have you been pumping iron?”

“Karate.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “You have brought great honor to your teacher, Florence-san.”

“Cut the crap,” Benny said. “Come on.”

Flo and I were able to reach up and yank off pieces of the rotting wood. The hole got bigger and bigger until it was large enough for Flo to climb through. I followed her, and then Benny followed me.

When we got to our feet, we were standing inside a small Greco-Roman gazebo. The gazebo was on a tiny island in the middle of a large round lake. Off in the distance, we heard the coughing roar of a lion.

“Where in the hell are we?” Flo said.

I peered around. Rising above the weeping willow on the shore of the lake was a broad, grassy hill. At the top of the hill was the unmistakable outline of a commanding figure on horseback. It was the statue of St. Louis at the top of Art Hill.

I gave Flo a big hug. “We're in Forest Park. We made it. We can wade across.” I turned to Benny with a big smile. There were tears in my eyes. I gave him a hug, too. “Oh, guys,” I said, “we made it!”

Chapter Thirty-three

It was an English Tudor with a circular drive and a giant pine tree on the front lawn. A slight breeze made the upper branches rustle and sway in the moonlight, casting menacing shadows on the freshly mowed grass below.

It was a big house surrounded by lots of land. Just like all the other homes on the grounds of the St. Louis Country Club. There were no lights on in the front of the house. Just like all the other homes on the grounds of the St. Louis Country Club. After all, it was nearly two in the morning.

Flo's sources said he was in St. Louis tonight, not Washington, D.C.

He was. The kitchen was around back, and the light was on. He was seated at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. Alone. He was wearing pajamas, slippers, and a robe.

It was his second cup of tea. I had watched him drink the first cup while I stood in the garden near the kitchen window. His girlfriend had come in—the tall, beautiful redhead. She was wearing a silky blue bathrobe and her hair was in curlers. They spoke briefly. From where I stood, it looked like she asked him if he was coming to bed soon. He shook his head, distracted. She poured herself a glass of orange juice, drank it in three gulps, left the glass and the juice container on the counter, and went upstairs. When he got up to make more tea, he placed the juice glass in the dishwasher and put the container of juice on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

While he brewed his second cup of tea, I crept onto the back porch. That's where I stood now. More than fifteen minutes had passed since the redhead went upstairs. I stepped back to look up. The second floor was dark. She was probably asleep by now.

I moved forward and peered at him through the glass of the back door. I rapped lightly on the door. He didn't respond. I watched him through the window. He seemed a thousand miles away. I knocked harder. He looked up with a start and squinted at the door. I realized I was invisible, standing in darkness. He stepped over to the door and turned on a switch. Overhead spotlights lit up the back porch, as if I were on stage. In a way I was.

He seemed startled at first, but then his features hardened. We stared at one another, both of us motionless. By now, all my fear was gone. Vanished. For the first time in weeks, I felt invincible. There was nothing more he could do to me. After a while, he seemed to realize it. His shoulders sagged a bit and he reached to open the door.

I stepped in. He moved back to the kitchen table.

“Tea?” he asked in a hollow tone.

I shook my head. “No, Senator.”

Slowly, almost painfully, he sat back down. Taking his cup in both hands, he looked up at me with tired eyes.

“You changed your hair,” he said dully.

“Did you think I was dead?” I demanded. I could feel my anger build.

He said nothing. He sipped his tea, his eyes steady.

“You know what's almost the worst part?” I said.

After a moment, he shook his head.

“The negligence,” I said. “The pure stupid negligence. Right from the outset. It's unforgivable.”

He frowned. “Negligence?”

“The way you and your cohorts tried to conceal what killed those poor women. You botched the coverup from the outset, didn't you? You thought you could eliminate all links to those women by destroying the Primax files. But that wasn't enough, was it? You failed to destroy all the key documents. You overlooked some, and Bruce Rosenthal found them, didn't he?” I shook my head in disgust. “Negligence. If you'd done it right the first time, Bruce would be alive. Karen would be alive. David would be alive.” I was shaking with angry frustration. “As if those poor dead women weren't bad enough, three more people died because of your negligence.”

He studied the pattern on the saucer.

“It had to be more than that list of names from the nursing homes,” I continued. “Bruce found something else, didn't he? The list wasn't enough. For him to understand the real meaning of that list he'd have to have found something else, too. Right?”

After a moment, he nodded.

“What was it?”

Armstrong leaned back in his chair. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared down at his tea cup in silence. “When I came back from Costa Rica,” he said in a slow cadence, “I brought two species of the Peloto plant—one that grew on the Pacific Ocean side in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, the other from the Caribbean side, near Tortuguero.” He picked up the saucer and turned it over to read the writing on the bottom. “A tribe of Indians lived near each species, and the local women ate the tubers from their version of the plant. None of the women in either tribe suffered from rheumatoid arthritis.”

“What's the point?” I said impatiently.

He looked at me. “The fact that there were two species.” He paused. “That's the whole point,” he said, the intensity returning. “That was the essence of our dilemma. We had a choice. We had to choose.”

“I'm not following you.”

“We isolated the active ingredient in each plant. We named one of the drugs Phrenom, the other Primax. We started conducting animal tests to see which performed better.”

“What did Bruce find?” I repeated.

He shook his head, staring down at the saucer. He turned it back over and placed it on the table.

“Senator, what did he find?”

He continued on, as if he hadn't heard me. “We did animal testing on both drugs.” He paused again and slowly shook his head. “We must have overlooked the earliest animal test files for Phrenom.”

“That's what he found?”

He looked up and closed his eyes for a moment. “Apparently,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “He must have found cross-references to Primax in some of the old Phrenom files. That's what must have made him curious.”

I stood there, seething. “It's your fault.”

He leaned forward, his right fist slowly clenching and unclenching. He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “I assume that you fully understand those women were not supposed to die.”

“But they did.”

Armstrong breathed in deeply and exhaled through his nose. “There was no way to predict that.” He spoke slowly and deliberately. “Can you imagine my horror when I realized what was killing those women? Can you imagine a more cruel irony—a wonder drug with a fatal flaw: it cured the disease but killed the patient.” He frowned and shook his head. “There was no way to suspect that flaw. The animal tests showed no adverse reactions whatsoever. None.” He stared at me for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was filled with emotion. “Do you think if I had had even the slightest inkling of any risk that I would have ever used the drug on those women? Good God, Rachel, we were looking for a cure to a terrible, crippling disease. We were saviors, not killers.”

“Not anymore,” I said with disgust. “And don't try to rationalize what you did to those women. Properly conducted phase one tests on healthy people would have detected that reaction. That's the whole purpose of those tests: to uncover hidden flaws. Healthy young people would have recovered. You killed fourteen innocent women, Senator.”

He sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He shook his head as he stared at the table. “We never suspected it could happen. Never.”

“Why?”

He looked up and frowned. “Pardon?”

“Why break the law? Why secret tests?”

He gave a patronizing chuckle. “Why? The world isn't black and white, Rachel. Surely you're old enough to understand that.”

“Then you help me understand,” I answered angrily. “You did it. You tell me why.”

He sighed. “When I returned from Costa Rica, I brought back two possibilities for easing the pain and suffering of millions of women. I had no idea which version would make the better drug. That was the problem. We had to choose. Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of making a mistake. We were a tiny company. We couldn't start both drugs through the FDA approval process. It takes tens of millions of dollars to bring a new drug to market. We had barely enough money to finance one. We had hoped that the animal tests would make the choice for us, but they didn't. We were back where we started. We still had to pick one. Can you grasp our predicament? If we guessed wrong, we'd run out of money and never bring any drug to market. It was all or nothing—for us,
and
for all those women.” He paused, his gaze narrowing. “Since we were going to have to bet the entire company on one drug, we had to find a way to pick the right one.

“So you cheated.”

“We bent the rules.”

“You cheated, Senator, and you killed fourteen innocent women in the process.”

He seemed to think it over. “Perhaps,” he conceded with a smile. It was a stern, unapologetic smile. “But let's not pretend this is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Fourteen women died. Was it worth it? Of course it was. Look at the big picture, Rachel. I had the courage to push the rules, and because I did, I was able to keep my company alive long enough to bring a drug to the market that has significantly improved the lives of millions of women. The price to make the drug possible? Fourteen elderly women lost a year or two off their lives. Balance that cost against the benefits. Millions of women versus fourteen old ladies in a nursing home. I think that equation more than balances.”

I shook my head fiercely. “You don't have the right to make that equation, Senator. You don't get to decide who lives and who dies.”

He gave me an indulgent look. “Rachel, I'm not claiming a divine right. I'm just telling you to take a broader view. Did we have the right to drop the bomb on Japan? Those who say we did point to the millions of lives that were saved by terminating the war. Did we have the right to invade—”

“Spare me your philosophy,” I said angrily. “What about Bruce Rosenthal?”

He shifted in his chair but said nothing.

“What about Karen Harmon?” I continued. “What about David Marcus? What's the cost-benefit analysis there? The lives of three innocent people to preserve one man's presidential ambitions? If that's another one of your moral equations, Senator, believe me, it doesn't balance anywhere in this world.”

He stared over my head toward the wall behind me. “Obviously, none of those three should have died. That was terribly wrong. Tragic. Unfortunately, certain individuals, acting out of a misguided sense of loyalty to me, got carried away by their own zeal. They did stupid things.”

“Stupid?” I repeated, outraged. “You call three cold blooded murders stupid?”

“I totally condemn their conduct.” He lowered his gaze to me, his eyes narrowing. “I did not plan the deaths of those fourteen women, and I regret each one. I certainly did not plan or authorize the deaths of those three young people. I learned of all three after the fact. I abhor what was done.”

He paused.

I waited.

I could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere in the kitchen.

“Rachel,” he said, almost casually, “you understand what's at stake?”

I looked at him like he had lost his mind. “What?”

“I'm boxed in. I can't bring the killers to justice without destroying myself in the process.”

“So what?”

“Life goes on. I can't bring the dead back to life. If I could, I would. If I could make the killers change places with the victims, I would. But I can't. Neither can you. What's done is done. All we can do is honor their memories.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“There are more than two hundred and fifty million Americans out there.” He waved his hand dismissively. “For a moment, put aside sentiment. We are poised at a crucial point in the history of our country and the world. I can make a difference. These are not the ravings of a loony megalomaniac. You know it's true.” He paused. “But to achieve what I can achieve, I have to be president. It can't be someone else. There simply isn't anyone else on the national scene. Look at the polls. You know it, and I know it.”

“So?”

He stood. “You can be part of it, Rachel. You can have an impact on this country beyond your wildest dreams. I can make it happen. Name your position. A federal judge? A position in the cabinet? Perhaps you'd like to be attorney general?” He stared at me intently. “Help me become president, Rachel, and whatever you want you can have. I can put you in position to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people.”

I'd heard enough. “Forget it,” I said. I turned toward the door.

“Wait,” he called.

I stopped, my hand on the doorknob. I looked back.

“Why not?” he asked, obviously baffled. “Consider my offer. Consider the impact you could have.”

I stared at him, unmoved. “We're different, Senator. When lives are involved, I don't believe in cost-benefit calculations. In my religion, we're taught that he who saves one person saves an entire universe.” I opened the door and paused to look back. “Senator, you've annihilated enough universes for one lifetime.”

Flo was waiting in the car. She started the engine as she saw me approach.

“Thank God,” she said as I got in. “I've been dying out here.”

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the portable tape recorder. I popped the casette into my hand and looked over at Flo.

“Well?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

I nodded solemnly. “He's finished.”

***

The
Trib's
Washington bureau chief didn't take any chances. We drove straight to the airport from Armstrong's house, arriving at quarter to three in the morning. Waiting for us there was a chartered jet and an armed guard. Four hours later, Flo and I were safe inside the
Trib
's D.C. office on L Street, where we remained for the next twenty-four hours. I organized documents and outlined facts, Flo wrote the story, and her bureau chief edited the first of what eventually became a series of thirteen exclusive front-page stories.