The Zulu Virus Chronicles Boxset (Books 1-3)

by Steven Konkoly

  Chapter 22

  Ecker reached for the rear passenger door handle, eager to get this over with. In a few minutes, he would either be free to join his family or dead. His bet was on the latter. They truly didn’t have any practical reason to risk letting him go.

  “Front seat, if you don’t mind,” said Rich.

  “Sure,” said Ecker, pretty sure his bet was a sure thing.

  He got inside the vehicle and closed the door. Even the driver wouldn’t look at him. All Ecker wanted to do was see his babies again. These people didn’t have any right to take that away from him. He engaged every ounce of restraint he could muster to keep his right hand away from the thigh holster that softly beckoned him. Maybe he was being paranoid, and they’d honor their word, like he fully intended to do. The rear passenger door slammed shut.

  “Let Larsen’s HUMVEE and the van back out first,” said Rich. “We’ll meet up with them shortly.”

  He said “Larsen” on purpose. Ecker’s hand started to drift from its position on the door to the holster. He’d probably be dead before he got the pistol halfway out.

  “Ecker, what’s your first name?” said Rich.

  “Frank,” he said, stopping his hand.

  “Frank, contrary to what you’re probably thinking right now, I’m not going to kill you. You’re free to go once we find you suitable transportation.”

  Ecker breathed an audible sigh of relief and moved his hand as far away from his holster as he could without looking like an idiot.

  “I do want to make something perfectly clear to you,” said Rich. “And you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  Ecker turned to look at him. “That’s fine. I can take it.”

  “If you double-cross us, not only will I kill you, but I’ll kill everyone you hold dear,” he said, pushing a slip of paper between the seats.

  Ecker swallowed hard and took the folded sheet, unfolding it in his lap. It was a full-color Google Maps street view of his house in South Bend.

  “Regardless of what happens to me and this team, the order will be executed by others,” said Rich. “Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes. I have no intention of double-crossing you.”

  “Then we’re good,” said Rich, his tone suddenly uplifted.

  “We’re good,” said Ecker, still not fully convinced he wasn’t about to die.

  “Let’s get Frank an SUV with enough fuel to get home,” said Rich.

  A few minutes later, he sat in a late model Nissan Pathfinder, its engine revving thanks to the smartphone-sized device Graves had given Rich. The tank wasn’t full, but the console display indicated he had enough fuel to make the trip home, with a little to spare for detours.

  “I recommend you drive a good distance west before you pick a route north. You want to get north of Lebanon before heading east again,” said Rich. “Just to be sure.”

  “Thank you for not killing me,” said Ecker.

  “It goes against my better judgment, but—” he said, pausing. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  Ecker couldn’t help but grin.

  “What?” said Rich.

  “Who are you people?” said Ecker.

  “The good guys, of course.”

  “But who sent you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody?” said Ecker.

  “That’s the problem, Frank. We don’t know who to trust,” said Rich.

  “What happens to Archer?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Not really,” said Ecker.

  “Safe travels.”

  “Good luck. I hope you make a difference out there,” said Ecker.

  “Me too,” said Rich before rolling up the HUMVEE’s window.

  Ecker followed the convoy out of the neighborhood, turning west on Route 40. He trailed them for several miles, slowly increasing the distance until the HUMVEEs disappeared. When they remained out of sight for a full minute, he pulled over and put his head on the steering wheel—breaking out in tears. He was going home. It might take a while, but he’d get there.

  Chapter 23

  David fought to stay awake as they approached Connersville. He needed about twelve more hours of sleep before he’d start to feel remotely human again. And a cup of coffee. What he wouldn’t give for a hot cup of rural diner coffee right now. He’d even settle for gas station swill at this point. Anything caffeinated would be appreciated.

  They’d stop in Connersville to fill up the Jeep’s tank and grab some beverages if anything was open. So far, he hadn’t seen any signs of life at any of the gas stations or convenience stores on their route. They must not be far enough away from Indianapolis yet.

  The thought raised a question. How far did they have to go, or would it be the same everywhere? He wouldn’t be surprised to drive through “ghost towns” all the way to Evansville. Thankfully, the Jeep had two five-gallon gas cans jammed into the back—under the AT4s. Probably not the best place for them.

  As the cornfields gave way to neighborhoods along the two-lane road leading into town, something in the distance caught David’s eye.

  “What the hell?” he mumbled, finally figuring out what he was seeing.

  A pair of helicopters crossed the road from left to right about a half mile away, rising rapidly. He pulled them onto the shoulder of the road and watched the helicopters speed west, toward Indianapolis.

  “What’s going on?” said Joshua, his eyes barely open.

  “We okay?” added Emma.

  Jack was still dead asleep.

  “Probably nothing,” said David, watching a second pair of helicopters appear. “Or maybe it is. We’re turning around. I think there’s some kind of airfield in Connersville. Lots of helicopters buzzing around. Can you find us an alternate route?”

  Joshua unfolded the map, following the roads with the tip of a pen. “We could go back the way we came and cut in a little closer to Rushville—right here,” he said, keeping the pen on the road junction.

  David took a look at his suggestion. It brought them back toward Rushville, which made him a little uncomfortable, but their other choice was to head even farther north and take a really long detour west, which put them near the Indiana-Ohio border. Connersville had been a safe halfway point between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, another city hit by the bioweapon. He’d rather deal with the quarantine boundaries and checkpoints he knew, rather than risk running afoul of a different incident zone. They’d backtrack like his son recommended.

  “Looks good, buddy,” said David, nodding. “I just don’t want to take any chances with a big military presence. Or any presence.”

  “I think that’s a smart call,” said Emma. “Hard to know who’s real, anyway.”

  “No kidding,” said David, putting his hand on the map. “Let’s keep the map out for now. This is going to be all back roads again, and the turn onto this road didn’t have a street sign.”

  “I remember a collapsed barn across from the road,” said Joshua.

  “You just described half of the barns out here,” he said, laughing.

  Before David got them back on the road, his cell phone chimed. A quick look at the phone’s screen got his attention. Satellite number. This had to be good news. If things had gone sideways at the airport, he didn’t expect to hear from Larsen or Rich’s people again.

  “Eric?” he said, observing the security protocol agreed upon with Rich.

  No last names or identifiable details would be spoken on a cellular connection. Larsen’s half was secure, but David’s was still vulnerable to electronic snooping.

  “The one and only.”

  David nodded, and Joshua sat up with a look of excitement he hadn’t seen since they got back from camping. Emma tried to awaken her husband, who barely stirred. She quickly gave up and leaned between the seats to hear the conversation.

  “I assume the mission succeeded?” said David.

  “You could say that,” said Larsen. �
�We’re heading into phase two. Hopefully, there won’t be a phase three.”

  David had a vague idea what Larsen meant by that. The main purpose for returning to the hangar wasn’t to destroy it. They wanted to gain access to the next level of the conspiracy, which he assumed was this “colonel” guy mentioned by Larsen and Ragan a few times. As Rich had said, they were climbing the ladder.

  “That’s good news,” said David. “I’m taking the scenic route south, avoiding any construction. Hope to be in position to return those tools to your friend in an hour or so.”

  The plan had been to meet in Franklin, almost due south of Indianapolis. He’d rerouted his parents to Columbus, where he told them to wait for further instructions. It wasn’t more than a thirty-minute drive between the two towns.

  “I wanted to talk to you about your route,” said Larsen. “Our friend can’t meet us down south. He needs to stick closer to his work site. Was hoping to meet you north.”

  No way. He wasn’t going to ask his parents and their friends to drive north of Indianapolis and run the risk of getting nabbed by a police checkpoint, military patrol or the lunatics responsible for the outbreak. Screw that. He was headed south.

  “Then your friend will have to do without those tools for now,” said David. “I’m not dragging everyone north.”

  “Those are important tools,” said Larsen. “My friend said you could keep the Jeep. That way, it’s only you making the trip.”

  “And a few other people,” said David. “Unless your friend is willing to wait for me to drop them off.”

  “He’d prefer you drive straight here,” said Larsen. “The situation is fluid.”

  “Yeah. Dripping through every crack,” said David, covering the microphone and whispering, “They want us to drive north of Indianapolis.”

  The Jeep exploded in disagreement.

  “There’s your answer,” said David.

  A few seconds passed without a response. “Hello?” Still nothing. He checked the cell signal, seeing three bars. Wasn’t his end of the call, or maybe it was. Calls dropped all the time with a full signal.

  “Eric, you there?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Shit,” he said. “We’ve got a problem. Not us, actually, but I need your help.”

  “Tell our friend that I’m not taking the bait,” said David. “Nice try.”

  “It’s our Army friend,” said Larsen. “He’s about to be arrested, and his unit put into lockdown. Can you get in touch with him? Give him a warning?”

  “Not directly, but I know someone who can,” said David. “This is going to keep spreading, isn’t it? And I’m not talking about the virus.”

  “That’s why our new friends aren’t wasting any time,” said Larsen. “None of this ends until we cut off the right snake’s head. That’s why I’m still part of the crazy train.”

  “I’ll take my chances—for now,” said David. “I need to make a call.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t drive south yet,” said Larsen. “Just give us a little more time to figure out what has to be done. Those tools might be critical.”

  “I’ll sort of stay put for now,” said David. “Stay safe.”

  “You too.”

  David held the phone and shook his head.

  “We’re still going south, right?” said Emma.

  “Eventually,” said David, searching for Gary Hoenig’s number on his recent call screen. “Major Smith is in some kind of trouble.”

  Chapter 24

  Major Smith lay half asleep on his cot, oblivious to the sweltering heat. He’d probably logged about two hours of horizontal time in the past forty-eight hours, both of them fitful, restless bouts of sleep. As he drifted out of consciousness, Smith replayed everything he’d done since they returned. Reports had been filed. The officers and noncommissioned officers had been debriefed. He’d stopped by the battalion commander’s tent to personally report on the mission, but found that they had departed an hour earlier to rendezvous with the only special-purpose group that hadn’t returned from its hospital evacuation mission.

  Rumor had it he wasn’t the only commander that had had a problem with his or her orders. He’d just been smart enough to keep it to himself and solve the problem outside of official channels—for now. Smith had no doubt last night’s events would catch up to him eventually. He just hoped to grab a few hours of sleep before they did. Those hopes would be short lived.

  “Major Smith!” said Sergeant Major Riddle, dashing into the tent.

  Smith sat up suddenly. He could count the number of times the sergeant major had publicly expressed excitement on his thumb. Something had gone wrong. His first thought was that one of the nearby quarantine camps had somehow been breached, spilling its detainees into the nearest community, and his unit would have to hunt them down.

  There was no safe way for his soldiers to nonlethally detain the infected. He’d need a three to one ratio in his favor, and his repurposed infantry company had been undermanned from the start. One hundred and three men and women had reported for duty. Injuries over the course of the past twenty-four hours had dwindled Special Purpose Force Bravo down to ninety-three. A breakout at one of the camps in Greenfield would require the entire regiment to contain—unless lethal force was authorized. He didn’t want to think about that.

  “Outside, Sergeant Major,” said Smith. “Everyone’s asleep.”

  “Not for long. We have a problem,” said Riddle.

  “What’s up?” he said, dragging Riddle out of the darkened tent.

  He could barely see in the bright sunlight, having to squint to see the sergeant major’s face. Riddle looked absolutely pale. Something was more than just wrong. He handed a scribbled note and one of the battalion’s satellite phones to Smith. At first the words and the phone number blurred together, not making much sense. Then it hit him.

  Same government agency responsible for outbreak coming for you. You swiped his card. Call me immediately.

  “This came in over the battalion’s digital communications network,” said Riddle.

  “Right. I gave the NevoTech head of security guy—Gary—the number for the system. Just in case. They were pretty shaken up.”

  “In case of what?” said Riddle.

  “I don’t know. I just thought it was the right thing to do,” said Smith, dialing the number and putting the call on speakerphone.

  A few seconds later, Gary answered. “Major?”

  “You definitely got my attention. What’s happening?”

  “Don’t ask me how, but Larsen just discovered a federal warrant for your arrest, issued about an hour ago. They’re also going to lock down your unit. Agents are on the way right now, backed up by a platoon of infantry from the 10th Mountain Division.”

  “Agents?” said Smith.

  “The same fake federal agents that have been flying around in helicopters, murdering people.”

  “Hold on. How does this involve me?”

  “You swiped his ID card last night, which puts you right in the middle of this shit storm.”

  “His card was fake,” said Smith. “A dummy card.”

  “Apparently it registered in the system and triggered an alert around seven this morning,” said Gary.

  That was right around the time he’d reconnected his HUMVEE to the network.

  “Well, they can show up and try to arrest me,” said Smith. “And lock down an infantry company surrounded by two other infantry companies. All with a platoon.”

  “Major Smith, they will do anything to close the loop on Larsen. You may not believe this, but the same people who ordered your arrest showed up here about an hour ago and strafed the forest with miniguns—before sending in a squad of contract soldiers to attack us.”

  “The forest by the road?” said Smith.

  “Yes. Killed more than a dozen of the people I was protecting,” said Gary.

  “But you repelled the attack?”

  “With help. That’s a story for another time,�
�� said Gary. “Right now, you need to get out of there. Larsen also found evidence that these nut bags dropped two precision-guided one-thousand-pound bombs inside the city last night. The target location was Dr. Chang’s apartment.”

  “How the hell did they manage that?” said Smith.

  “No idea,” said Gary. “But Larsen found aerial-reconnaissance pictures of the destroyed target. The strike happened. I’d hate to think what they might do to you and your soldiers if they got desperate.”

  “They wouldn’t cross that line,” said Smith.

  “This whole thing started on the other side of that line,” said Gary. “What’s a tragic friendly-fire incident in the grand scheme of things? Get out of there, Major, and do it fast. Larsen says you have about twenty minutes, and that was three minutes ago. Good luck, Major. Thank you again for everything you did last night. Sorry it got you mixed up in this.”

  The call disconnected, leaving the two of them speechless for a few moments.

  “What did you make of that, Sergeant Major?” said Smith.

  “I don’t know,” said Riddle. “But I’d like to get you and the rest of the company on the road immediately.

  “What about the rest of the battalion?” said Smith.

  “They should be fine as long as you and the rest of Bravo Company are gone,” said Riddle. “I’ll stay behind and throw them off your scent.”

  “This has to be purely voluntary,” said Smith. “I can’t ask them to desert their posts on my account.”

  “Everyone agreed to take part in our off-mission activities last night. Everyone,” said Riddle, raising his eyebrows. “They stand behind you one hundred percent, but I’ll ask if you insist.”

  “I do,” said Smith. “I’m outside of my authority as Special Purpose Force commander. They have to volunteer to leave with me and understand what that means.”

  “I’ll make sure they understand the stakes,” said Riddle.

  “I like how you said that,” said Smith, grinning. “I can’t tell one way or the other what you’re going to tell them.”