Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12

by Lecter, Adrienne

  Masking this as a call between friends wasn’t the worst of ideas, although I figured that if Decker managed to trace it, he’d already know what was actually going on. All the operator who appeared on screen needed to hear was Richards rattling off his rank and name, and the call was immediately transferred to the medical wing. Emily Raynor appeared, a completely alienating smile on her face—that took all of a second to freeze and turn into the perpetual frown that I was much more familiar with.

  “Ah, I should have realized that this was a ruse,” she drawled, her British accent as present as ever. “No need for that, of course. I’m more than happy to directly talk to your superiors, honeybun.”

  I’d seen Richards squirm before, like when at the meeting before the assault on the camp he’d realized that with Marleen and Sgt. Buehler there were two former bunkmates of his around, but that was nothing compared to how red his face got now, leveling the difference between his skin and hair color. Neither Hill nor Cole pretended not to be a step away from crying with laughter, and I was hard-pressed not to join them. Red’s only saving grace was that Nate and Hamilton one-upped each other in who could pull off that neutral-going-on-hostile non-expression, so I couldn’t very well roll on the floor, laughing.

  Damn, but we probably all deserved to be called honeybun.

  “Fancy seeing you again,” Raynor quipped in our direction. Hamilton barely got some hostile side-eye. I remembered her disdain for him all too well. On paper, she and I should absolutely get along with each other—if not for the fact that I couldn’t stand her. Nothing had changed about that in the two and a half years since I’d last talked to her. That she’d saved my life—and kept what remained of my body functioning—was beside the point. Richards took that moment to flee, much to everyone’s amusement. “Not that much of a surprise,” she conceded. “You’d both set heaven and hell in motion to drag each other back out of whatever hole someone tried to throw you into.” So much for whether Richards had already given her an update after we’d taken over the camp—or she’d heard the story from a different source and had just used an uncannily accurate figure of speech. She then glanced at Hamilton once more. “But you I didn’t expect to see alive. How did you convince her not to kill you first chance she got? She’s clearly armed and you’re distracted right now—how are you still breathing?”

  Bucky offered her a bright smile that creeped me the fuck out. On second thought, I didn’t mind his constant scowls that much. “Looks like someone has more sense than you and deduced that I’m still useful for something.”

  I could tell that Nate was already getting annoyed on my other side—making me realize that he’d actually given up on hoping Hamilton and I would bury the hatchet, but as long as we were not literally at each other’s throat, that was enough—and that didn’t change when Raynor pointedly glanced at him. His voice held a certain edge when he responded, making it plain that he liked her even less than I did. “Turns out, common enemies can make for great neutral ground.”

  Raynor smiled, and I was sure she knew all too well that he included her in that group as well. “Always good to know. But telling me this can’t have been your reason to mortally embarrass Lt. Richards. You are all so terribly fond of him, after all. Or have allegiances shifted there as well? Nine weeks can be a very long time.”

  I almost jumped when Hamilton let out a roar, going from stoic to slapping his thigh in moments. Nate’s glare promising nothing short of deadly violence got him to shut up again, but not before he shook his head and muttered something under his breath about lost causes. Raynor looked annoyed by that outburst, but it was enough for her to drop the point—something I was glad about. I knew this was my chance to cut to the chase before this could deteriorate—and if I actually liked Hamilton coming out of this conversation, I’d eat my boots. I still needed them, so that wasn’t a smart course of action.

  “We contacted you because we found some data here that might be of interest to you—provided you didn’t lie to my face and are still actively searching for a cure,” I offered.

  She scrunched up her nose. “I make it a habit of always telling the truth.”

  I knew for a fact that she wasn’t, but I was beyond bothering to clarify that now. “I have a list here of the substances they tested that made it through the protection of the serum, and I also have documentation of how they continued to tweak the serum, for whatever purpose—possible mind control, maybe, or simply to send anyone interested in it into an early grave.” Considering Stone’s great speech about too many having received access to it, that sounded more plausible than before. “I’ve already shared the data with the Silo,” I pointed out, just so she didn’t get any weird ideas. “I will also send paper copies of the report I’m compiling to every independent settlement that I can reach. The least the scavengers deserve is to know what is happening to them—the same as to the rest of us. I presume you know about the faulty immunity?”

  Raynor looked surprised that I brought up that point, but in a different sense than I’d expected. “Why do you think I wanted you out of my wing as soon as possible? I gave you a less than thirty percent chance that the serum would take and halt your inevitable conversion for long. Frankly, when you didn’t return to the base, I’d figured you had realized that you were already well past the halfway point and chose to live what little time you had left on your own terms.” Her gaze flitted to Hamilton briefly. “And he corroborated that story—for both of you, I might add.”

  This was getting better and better—and I still didn’t know how to handle the fact that Hamilton had repeatedly chosen to help us do our thing. I knew it wasn’t as a favor to either of us, and likely the only way he had been able to rebel and bend orders he didn’t want to follow for whatever non-altruistic reasons, but it still freaked me the fuck out.

  The man himself only had a shrug in response to her accusation. “As I said, I must have come in useful somewhere,” he offered gruffly.

  Raynor ignored him. “Yes, I want that list. I want everything you can give me. I presume biological material is out of the question?”

  I shook my head. “Stone destroyed what I’m sure were all the useful samples they had in storage before we got to him. We have no way that we could get anything to you that wouldn’t end up destroyed in the heat.” Liquid nitrogen kept shit cold, but it also had a tendency to evaporate in warmer temperatures. Without one of those nifty special cases that Hamilton had had with him in France—and the cold of winter—that wasn’t an option.

  “Stone? Brandon Stone?” Raynor asked, not trying to mask her incredulity. “What does that weasel have to do with any of this?”

  “You knew him?” I asked, not bothering to hide the fact that he was dead.

  “Of him,” she pointed out. “He was the figurehead leader of the laboratory in Kansas. No competence whatsoever. Apparently, I stand corrected.”

  “Not necessarily.” I quickly brought her up to date with our recent encounter. “Is that lab still operational?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Raynor said. “I was offered three of their people but declined. I like people to have to put actual effort into getting spies into my lab.” When she saw me grimace, her expression turned shrewd. “So it is true. They were the source for Taggard’s misinformed undertakings.”

  Shit, I hated when she and I agreed on something. “You know that for a fact?”

  She deflected my question with a shrug. “There have been rumors. Very few survivors, from what I have been able to gather. Whoever set them to their task made sure none of them could flip and make it easy for us to undo the damage.” She paused, her gaze going to Hamilton once more before she went on. “I’m sure that Cpt. Hamilton has filled you in on the fact that we did our best to attempt to break the serum’s hold on all affected soldiers who got the wrong versions, but we eventually had to give up since nothing short of killing them would have done the trick? That’s how that abysmal camp got started. It sounded like a goo
d idea to let them be useful in food production so they could provide for themselves, under supervision of course. That did not turn out as expected.”

  “You could say that,” I muttered. Stone’s connection to the camp suddenly made a lot more sense. If he’d been a part of the faction that was working on the wrong serum versions, it must have been easy to keep track of what happened with the affected soldiers—and then keep adding the scavengers to the mix. Complete insanity in a world that had already lost billions too many, but that didn’t seem to matter to a lot of people. If I’d learned one thing, it was that.

  “I can read you the report now,” I told her, done with that topic. “Should I find anything else, I will update you on that.”

  The interesting part of our conversation concluded, most of the others turned to focus on something other than two scientists prattling overly complicated chemical terms at each other—for the second time tonight. Nate and Bucky left for the cafeteria, with only Cole, Hill, Marleen, and Eden remaining, the two women mostly because they weren’t done with the game of cards they had been engaged in since we’d gotten started. I was damn exhausted when I finally signed off, but at Cole’s question if I wanted to hail anyone else, I paused.

  “Get me New Angeles on the line. Greene himself. And tell them he will want this to be a private conversation.” The least I could do was tell him about his father’s demise. I considered calling Nate back, but didn’t figure that necessary. All I wanted was to see Greene’s reaction, and I wouldn’t need anyone’s help to interpret that if it turned out to be what I expected. Hoped for, really, or else we were more fucked than ever.

  Unlike the other calls, it took a good fifteen minutes to get someone on the line ready to listen to us in the first place, and I’d almost given up on this when Greene, sitting in his secure office, appeared on the screen. He was staring at me expectantly. “I’d say it was a pleasure to receive a call from you, but judging from that pinched look on your face, you’re jonesing for a fight, and I’m absolutely not in the mood to oblige you.”

  Two could play that game.

  “I’m sorry to inform you of your father’s death,” I said. “Since he was directly involved in the drug trafficking to the labor camp, the infection of thousands of scavengers with a serum variant that kills them sooner rather than later, and doing his very best to find a way to cut through the protection of the working version of the serum itself, I’m not sorry about his death.”

  I felt a smidgen of relief when Greene’s eyes widened at the mention of his father. Obviously, he hadn’t been aware that Walter had survived the end of the world. He quickly regained his composure after that.

  “I presume you had something to do with his demise?”

  I shook my head. “Not directly. The guards killed the scientists while we were breaching their compound. The only one left standing was Brandon Stone, who’d been acting—yet again—as a figurehead for a much more nefarious organization.” Putting my hands on my hips, I glared long and hard at him. “I always assumed he was your spy at the Aurora, Kansas lab. Your spy and liaison to the army. It was he who leaked the location of the Colorado base to you, that you later gave us when we came after them?”

  To his credit, Greene hesitated less than I would have before he replied. “Yes, he was my spy, until he wasn’t. He did all that, and more, but soon after your crusade was over and you disappeared, we came to realize that a lot of his intel had been bad, costing many good people their lives. I hope you at least had something to do with his horrible, gruesome demise?”

  That made me feel a little better about the whole thing. “Hamilton suggested we leave him locked in the hot lab. He turned on the lab’s cleaning cycle. I doubt Stone manage to bleed to death before that. Not a way I’d want to go myself.”

  Greene looked pleased, but I could tell that the news didn’t make up for the damage caused. “Good.”

  I considered offering him the same information as I’d already shared, but figured it would be less useful to him—and he likely already had someone on a line who was painstakingly writing it all down. Maybe someone from the Silo would send down a flash drive to spare them the weeks it would take to make sense of it all.

  I knew I should have signed off then, but for whatever reason, I felt myself reluctant to do so. It wasn’t like Greene and I would ever become friends, but I couldn’t help but feel that if he was actually as much of an asshole as I loved to pretend, he would have turned on me by now. Pretty much everyone else had, including a bunch of people who I’d have sworn never would.

  I wasn’t quite sure why, but on some level I felt knowing that most people currently alive were likely going to outlive me by decades mellowed down my need to get into everyone’s face somewhat.

  While I stood there, unsure what to say or do, Greene kept studying me, going from leaning forward with his arms crossed on the desk to reclining, much more at ease. “I presume someone has by now told you that the serum isn’t quite what it was cracked up to be?” he questioned.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” I grumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me when we were hitching that ride together on the boat?” I presumed it really wasn’t recent news.

  He shrugged. “Honestly? I figured you knew. You are actually one of very few people who has a clue what that shit does and why. From what I’ve heard, accidental conversions have been going on from the very beginning of the outbreak. Since there’s usually nobody left standing to share the details, we have no clue about the unofficial numbers.”

  “And the official ones?”

  “Somewhere between one in three to one in five,” he offered, his tone surprisingly gentle.

  I swore under my breath, incapable of holding the words in. Greene’s grim expression was as close to a sincere declaration of condolence as I was likely ever going to get from him.

  “Most people still don’t know,” I stated once I had myself back under control. “Why?”

  Now a smidgen of his usual condescending attitude returned, but after dealing with Hamilton on a daily basis, it was easy to ignore. “And escalate the shit storm that has been raging for the past two years even further?” He shook his head. “How would you even get the level of confirmation needed for it to be more than rumors? Even with Cortez and his camp infecting hundreds of scavengers, most affected still got the original versions. I know you likely don’t want to hear this, but the army has been bleeding manpower more than any of the other branches—or maybe it’s a simple fact of having been better organized because of you amped-up assholes that they’ve remained more visible. Who knows? Since the marine corps didn’t systematically single out their members, it’s hard to tell them apart from the rest.”

  I couldn’t help but grin, despite the grim topic. “If you check out the odd scavengers, you’ll see a lot of them carry around a different kind of easily identifiable ink, besides the single marks on their necks.” I paused. “Do they still do that shit—mark us up?”

  He shook his head. “Not since the winter you disappeared, pretty much. Dispatch still requires the marks, but I hear they have a flourishing black market outside their gates to account for the people refusing to enter.”

  “Good.”

  Now it was his turn to snort. “People were scared—can you fault them for that? Now consider what would happen if all their worst fears got confirmed. Anyone with three marks would be shot on sight, and likely a lot with single marks as well. Traders would refuse to deliver goods to settlements. People would die of starvation again. What little we’ve regained of civilization would go up in flames quicker than you could go off in my face. Nobody wants that to happen. So you’re safe for now. Or as safe as you’ll ever be. You have a penchant for finding yourself in the worst of places.”

  I had to accede that point to him—in part. “Could have been worse.”

  Greene pursed his lips. “You mean, you could have been at that very lab you’re standing in? Stone did offer you their little satell
ite office in Kansas. And you were always kind of an overachiever.”

  I would have loved to refute his claim, but the words refused to make it over my lips. “Your father was their leader,” I choked out. “He was as much a part of why I signed that contract with his company as Raleigh Miller was. I don’t know what it would have taken for me to realize what was going on, but there’s a good chance that it would have been way too late to undo the damage.”

  If I’d expected him to throw me a pity party, he’d have disappointed me right then. “That still makes you one of the better people in the company you keep,” he remarked wryly. “Speaking of which—why is it just you here, talking to me of all people, in the middle of the night? Shouldn’t there be at least one asshole hulking in your direct vicinity?”

  “Maybe I needed a break from that,” I offered, laughing in spite of myself.

  “Don’t we all,” Greene mused, growing pensive. “That old cooter. Never thought he’d survive the apocalypse. Sure, I joked a few times that there’s a good chance he’s locked away with the elite in some doomsday bunker, but I never expected to be right about that.”

  “Do those even exist?” His eyebrows shot up at my question. “Doomsday bunkers, I mean,” I clarified. “Sure, small remodeled basements like where we spent the first winter are easy to set up. But beyond that I haven’t heard of anything else, if you ignore all these super-secret laboratories.”

  He flashed me a quick grin but his eyes remained distant. “You must have toured all of them by now.”

  “There’s still the official CDC installations,” I pointed out. “But if I found out they were connected with this as well, I’d give up.” I wasn’t even joking about that. “I can take on megalomaniac assholes, but not the people actually sworn to protect us from shit like this happening.”

  Greene shrugged as if it was the same to him. “I’d have expected things to work more efficiently if the CDC had been involved,” he admitted. “The FEMA blockades and camps got a lot of first responders killed, but they also saved a shitload of people. They did what they could on short notice that was a fraction of the most pessimistic contingency plan in existence.”