Dangerous Conditions

by Jenna Kernan

Paige left the volunteer corps, their vehicles stranded in the snow until the plows arrived. At least Hockings and Drake had the EMS vehicle. Ironic that the representatives who shot them had also been instrumental in purchasing the equipment that might save their lives.

  Paige sped back toward the loading dock. Garrett had his mission. She had hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  If anything, the snow had gotten heavier, changing from the thick white blobs that had been cascading down the entire day to stinging needles of ice. Already, the change was adding a crusty layer over the packing snow.

  Paige returned to Logan, her clothing now drenched and her teeth chattering. She knew she needed to warm up, get out of her wet things, but there was no time.

  Unger greeted her and ushered her past the dead body of Veronica Vitale, now covered with a blanket.

  “Logan moved the prisoners inside to the filling floor.”

  Unger led the way past a bundle of the twelve boxes on the loading dock, now secured together with plastic wrap. At the base, he had used a tarp and packing tape until it formed a rectangle of six boxes stacked two high and approximately five feet long. The resulting grouping was slightly wider and shorter than the spine board. She glanced at the visible packing numbers and recognized a match.

  Paige followed the school principal through shipping and into the filling floor. There Logan stood watch over Reber, Sinclair and Newman, all now secured to the conveyers with electrical tape. In this area, the captives were out of the cold.

  Unger drew up a chair. “This will be easy.”

  Not if Siming’s Army got here first, thought Paige, but said nothing.

  At the loading dock, Paige paused to glance back the way they had come.

  “Should we bring Unger? I don’t like to leave her.”

  “I asked her that. She said she’s staying.”

  “She understands that the police might not get here first?”

  Logan nodded. “She knows. Unger told me to get this out of here as Agent Hockings instructed.”

  “All right.”

  They carried the load down the steps with the care they would have exercised if it had held a baby. Logan used the ropes provided by the volunteers to fix the board to the back of the snowmobile and they were underway, with Logan driving and her watching the sled to be certain it did not overturn.

  The ride was slow, with Logan picking his way through the dark. Visibility was terrible but she thought the change in snow from light to icy might signal the end of the storm.

  They headed away from the volunteers and the plant, taking the route through the park to the fire station. As they reached Main Street, Logan paused, idling.

  “What?” she asked, looking around at the empty street and the icy mix falling through the beams of the streetlights.

  “Plowed,” he said.

  She looked up the snowy road to Main Street and the distinctive piles of snow that told her that the highway department had finally reached them. That meant the state police would be here soon.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Keep going.” He set them in motion, pulling into the fire station.

  Logan parked along the building to the side entrance and used the key.

  “You volunteer?” she asked.

  “Constable gets a key.” He sent her inside to raise the bay door as he moved the load. She found the remote button. The garage-style doors lifted as Logan drew up out front. Beyond him a luxury SUV with chains, skidding and fishtailing down the road, came to a graceless stop just past the drive of the station.

  Logan flicked off the motor. “That’s Connor.”

  He stood beside the snowmobile, eying his brother as he approached.

  “Paige’s mom is worried,” said Connor. “Said you took her to the factory hours ago.”

  “How’d you find us?” asked Logan.

  “Spotted the snowmobile headlight from Main Street. I was heading to the factory, but I took a chance.”

  Connor waded through the snow to the tread tracks of his snowmobile as Paige’s skin began to prickle. Was he here to help or...

  “What’s that?” asked Connor, pausing before the blue tarp.

  “I was asked to secure this until the state police arrive.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s something dangerous.”

  “Let’s go,” said Connor, grabbing one side.

  Logan hesitated a moment, glancing to her. Then he took the other side and they brought the load into the garage. Once there Connor took out his phone and placed a call.

  “You have service?” asked Paige.

  He nodded. “Just came back on a few minutes ago.” Then he spoke into the phone. “Yeah, I found them. We’re at the fire station on Turkey Hollow Road.” A pause. “Yeah. Safe and sound. Great.” He disconnected the call.

  Paige watched Connor tuck away his phone. Something didn’t sit right. She squinted, thinking, and then it came to her. She’d heard Connor speak to his father on the phone many times. He always ended the call with the same thing.

  I love you, Dad.

  But not this time. So who had he really called?

  Paige was about to close the door, but instead she watched Connor as he glared at Logan with a look she had never seen before. It was...hatred.

  A chill went down her spine and her hand froze on the button. She’d been right to suspect Connor. He was guilty of far more than drugging her, lying to her.

  “Logan?”

  Connor stepped back, glaring at her as he retrieved a pistol from his coat and aimed it at Logan.

  “Step over there, Logan.”

  Logan’s smile dropped and his hands raised.

  “Connor. Don’t shoot Paige. We won’t stop you.”

  “I won’t. But I should.” He glowered at her through bloodshot eyes. “I did this for you. That house. Bringing that company here. Everything. But it wasn’t enough, was it? You still wanted him!”

  Paige stared in horror as if watching a car crash. She could not seem to look away. Connor turned his glare and his gun on Logan. She couldn’t breathe.

  “You aren’t good enough for her. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Always have,” said Logan.

  Logan backed away from the boxes, moving toward her.

  “They’re coming and they won’t stop until they get this,” said Connor.

  “You can’t let them,” said Paige.

  “I can.”

  She glanced toward the open bay door. Help was coming, she realized, but not fast enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Paige looked out at the snowy road. She was shivering again, in her wet clothing. Her fingers were so stiff. She flexed them, trying to get the blood flowing again.

  A large vehicle trundled down Main, stopping at the turn at the top of the hill.

  “Hummer,” said Logan. “That’s how they got through.”

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Siming’s Army,” said Connor, lowering his gun. “I’ve done everything they’ve asked. But not this. I won’t kill you, but they will. You need to go. Now.”

  Logan turned to her, extending his hand. “Come on.”

  She shook her head. “They’ll take the virus. They’ll use it. That could kill thousands.” She turned to Connor, pleading. “Connor, help us.”

  He snorted and shook his head.

  “Logan, we have to try. Close the door. Hold them, slow them, until the state police get here.”

  He smiled at her. She could not understand the expression. It looked like admiration.

  “This is the hill on which you are prepared to die?” asked Logan.

  She nodded, but the shivering made it seem an involuntary tremor. She lifted her hand and pushed the button to clos
e the bay door.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come with me.”

  He held out his hand and she did not hesitate, clasping tight and running with him out the side door on stiff legs and feet so cold she stumbled along, clumsy as she tried to keep pace. She heard the chains on the Hummer slow and then go silent. Vehicle doors opened and slammed. The bay door rattled up.

  Logan was not a coward. He must have a plan, some way to stop them once they had the boxes.

  She and Logan crept behind the building. He led them toward Main, wading through deep snow down the hill to the river and then up the steep bank toward the bridge.

  What were they doing?

  The wind burned her skin. She lowered her chin so her face was pressed to his back as she struggled along, hoping she had not just made the mistake that might end the lives of everyone she knew and loved.

  No. She trusted Logan.

  They reached the bridge that crossed onto Main and stepped from the deep snow onto the plowed, salted surface. She shivered continuously as they made their way east toward his offices and the road that crossed back over the river and down to the factory.

  What was their destination? She wanted to ask but was so tired she could barely walk let alone speak.

  Down Main Street came the flashing of red-and-blue lights. Three state police vehicles, salt-stained and flecked with mud, appeared behind a large plow. The caravan reached them and stopped.

  Detective Albritton stepped out and into the snowbank. Logan was already striding in the officer’s direction.

  “Constable Lynch?” said Albritton.

  “Where is the biohazard?”

  Paige glanced back the way they had come. Had the men taken the boxes? If the terrorists reached Main, they could head west. Were they driving away with the pathogen right now or, worse yet, had they opened one of those boxes?

  She straightened, noticing that she had stopped shivering and now felt pleasantly warm. But she still couldn’t feel her toes or hands. She lifted her arm to point, like a retriever, toward their target.

  “It’s at the factory,” said Logan.

  She gaped at him.

  He smiled down at her. “I sliced the bottom of each box and switched out the contents while you were getting help for Hockings and Trace.”

  Logan switched the boxes?

  Confusion made her question difficult to compose.

  “What... What’s back there?” she asked, stammering.

  “I’m not sure. Air freshener?”

  That wasn’t right. She shook her head with slow deliberation. “We don’t make that. Dis-disinfectant spray?”

  “Maybe.” He was looking at her oddly.

  “S-smart,” she whispered.

  Was it her imagination, or did she sound drunk right now?

  “You knew Connor was...”

  “There for the boxes? Yes. But I hoped I was wrong.”

  She realized then that Logan had tested his brother, let him take the boxes and trusted he wouldn’t kill them both. Paige didn’t know if she should be angry or admiring. But he’d switched the contents without telling her. Kept it from her. She lowered her head as shame and understanding collided. This is how she’d made him feel.

  “Constable Lynch,” said Albritton, “we need you to take us to the contents of those boxes. I’ve got DHS right behind us and some very scary folks from the CDC.”

  The Centers for Disease Control was here? Thank God, she thought. She was hot now and struggled to drop off her gloves and then fumbled with her zipper.

  Mr. Garrett waded through the snowdrift to them. Logan identified him to the police.

  “I’ve got three gunshot victims down there,” said Garrett. “I need that road plowed so we can get through.”

  The plow was redirected to clear Raquette Road.

  “Agent Hockings? Where is she?” asked Albritton.

  “Both Agent Hockings and the sheriff are down there in my EMS vehicle with the CEO, Allen Drake, but they need to be on their way to Plattsville Medical.” Mr. Garrett flicked on a pen light and shone it in Paige’s face. “And that’s where you are going, as well, Dr. Morris. You’ve got frostbite and I think you are hypothermic.” He pointed to her cheeks.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m hot,” she said, pulling off her cap.

  Garrett pulled it back in place. “Logan. Get her inside right now.”

  “He’s coming with us to the warehouse,” said Albritton.

  Logan gave Paige a long look and then turned to Mr. Garrett.

  “You’ll see to her?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Garrett helped her walk down to a state police vehicle.

  “Wait here,” he told her.

  The interior was stiflingly hot. In a few minutes she was loaded into an empty EMS vehicle. Drake, Hockings and Trace, she was told, were already in transit aboard a different ambulance. There the volunteers had stripped Paige out of every stitch of clothing. She was wet right down to her underthings. And her fingers were puckered and a ghastly, ghostly gray.

  “That isn’t good,” she said.

  Paige didn’t remember much of the trip to the medical center. She’d been bundled in blankets. Under her, they used a blanket filled with warm air. It sounded like a hair dryer blowing in her ear the entire way to Plattsville.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said to Mr. Garrett.

  “I know. But you can’t drink anything until you see the doctor.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Logan got the CDC to the right set of boxes. They wore yellow outfits that looked more suited to a moonwalk than a pickup, but they gathered all the deadly pathogens produced at the plant.

  He called home as soon as he had a minute and got Mrs. Morris. He explained what had happened. She asked several questions as to Paige’s location and condition. Then he heard her shout for Lori and hung up on him.

  A bit later he ran into Detective Albritton in the shipping area and asked about Connor. The detective told him that the men from Siming’s Army had taken the decoy boxes and left his brother behind. Connor was now in federal custody and Logan could not see him.

  Logan went back to work for much of the night, assisting federal and local law enforcement. Detective Albritton tracked him down after midnight and told him that he had a condition report on Paige.

  “The medical center treated her for hypothermia and frostbite. They will keep her at least until tomorrow.”

  “Will she be all right?” asked Logan.

  “She’s going to be fine. The hypothermia was the most dangerous part. Frostbite was minor. But they got her all warmed up.”

  He was so relieved he slid down the warehouse wall right to the floor. Was this how it had been for her, hearing he had been injured and fearing the worst?

  For that moment he had just an inkling of what he had put her through, reenlisting, going into a combat zone and then the brain injury. No wonder she’d been cautious of resuming a relationship with him. He had not listened to her. Had not considered her feelings or desires. In different circumstances, he might have done the same as she had. Since they’d taken Paige, fear had been so bad, he could barely function, and she’d been only half a county away.

  “What was I thinking?” he asked himself. Young and dumb, his father had called him. That he had been.

  Logan got home well past midnight to find his father waiting. Lori and her grandmother had headed to the medical center to see Paige. Steven and Valerie were in bed.

  Logan sat with his father in the kitchen where all important matters were discussed. Then he explained to his dad everything that had happened. When he told him what Connor had done, his dad listened in grim-faced silence. When Logan told him that his older son had been arrested by the FBI, his fa
ther did something Logan had not seen since the death of his mother.

  His dad started to cry. Logan wrapped his arms about his dad as he watched another piece of his father’s heart break away.

  It was a long time before the two headed upstairs to their rooms.

  After checking on Valerie and Steven, both asleep, Logan showered and headed back to the factory. The FBI had arrived, and both FBI and DHS agents were removing computers and boxes of files from Rathburn-Bramley. They took a statement from him and then told him to go home and get some sleep.

  He headed back up the hill on roads that were freshly plowed and sanded. Beyond the graying piles of snow left by the plows, the world lay under a deep blanket of unbroken white.

  Instead of going home, Logan headed to Plattsville Medical Center to find that Lori and Mrs. Morris had left some time ago. He checked in on Paige, still in the ER but sleeping. They let him speak to her. She gave him a smile and asked if he was okay. She looked exhausted, so he let her sleep, returning home to his own bed as the sun was rising.

  He woke a few hours later and called the medical center. Paige was now in a room. Another call to Paige’s mother’s cell, and he learned from her mother that Paige was with the doctor and would be home tomorrow. Her mother reported that FBI agents were also there, waiting to speak to Paige.

  Running on coffee and three hours’ sleep, Logan faced Friday and the circus of law enforcement streaming in and out of his little village. He finally got a call back from Child Protective Services about fostering the Sullivan kids and the correct paperwork via email attachment. His dad told him that Paige had returned home and they had been assigned protection. He tried to get home to see them, but the day was eaten up by the needs of others.

  Albritton checked in and told him they’d made some major arrests. Thanks to him and to Paige, they had shut down an entire sleeper cell of the terrorist organization. This cell of Siming’s Army was responsible for pickup and dissemination of the virus. Each member had been immunized against the contagion, and Albritton said they got them all.

  By the time he made it home on Friday night, the kids were all asleep, Paige and her mom were also in bed and only his dad was up waiting for him.