Knowing he had to risk being seen, he moved back into the city to search for her, ducking into whatever hiding spot he could find every time he heard soldiers nearby. Right before six p.m., several cars raced past on an adjoining street and screeched to a halt a few blocks away. Sanjay moved down an alley until he reached a building close to the spot where the cars had stopped. Using the stairwell just inside, he made his way to the roof, and positioned himself so he could look down on the street.
No!
Kusum was backed against a parked car, facing four UN-clad soldiers.
Her voice drifted up to Sanjay. “I did nothing wrong. You should not treat me like this. I am already heading to your survival station.”
“We are merely offering you a ride,” one of the soldiers said.
“From the way you are acting, I do not think I want your ride.”
“It is only a precaution. I must insist.”
“And I am telling you no.”
Sanjay looked from one soldier to the next, wishing he could do something. But even if he had a rifle and knew how to shoot it, he wouldn’t be able to get all of them before they did something to Kusum.
“You can either walk to the car, or one of my men will carry you,” the soldier said.
The back and forth went on for a few more minutes, but ended with the inevitable—Sanjay watching as his wife was driven away.
The rest of the evening he’d spent watching the compound. For the longest time, there was no sign of Kusum. Finally, thirty minutes earlier, she’d been led out of the main building, into the same fenced area where Arjun and Darshana were.
Sanjay was convinced whatever the fake UN personnel had planned for them wouldn’t be good, and knew he had to get them out. In fact, if possible, he had to get all the prisoners from both holding areas out, too.
In his favor, he’d spent a lot of time at the compound when he’d worked for Pishon Chem, had even lived at the on-site dormitory, so he was very familiar with the layout. There were three official entrances in all: the front and back gates, and a door along the perimeter wall across from the administration building.
Unofficially, one could always try going over the wall, but the broken glass cemented across the top would make that very difficult. There was, however, another way, also unofficial—a way that had the additional benefit of being located in a remote, seldom used part of the compound. It was an area where previous tenants had dumped things like wooden crates, old machinery casings, rusty empty barrels, and worn tires. Sanjay had no idea how long the junk had been there. He just knew the Pishon Chem people had left it untouched. Behind the piles of rubbish, a dip in the ground near the base of the wall had eroded from years of monsoons until the bottom of the wall had been exposed, and a channel to the outside created. Without much work, Sanjay figured he could widen it enough to get through.
How he would get everyone out the same hole in a timely manner, he’d figure out later.
Right now, he needed to concentrate on getting in.
KNOWING HER PARENTS would forbid her if she told them what she intended to do, Jabala sneaked away from the school, pushing one of the motorcycles they had obtained, until she felt she was far enough away that she could start the motor without anyone hearing it.
She took with her only four items: a large bottle of water, a flashlight, the satellite phone with its charger, and a backpack to carry them all in. After talking to Leon from America, she knew, despite his warning, she had to go to Mumbai. It seemed he had valuable information about the survival stations that Sanjay and Kusum needed to know now. Waiting for them to return might be too late. Anything that would lessen the danger her sister and brother-in-law were facing was worth the risk of the journey.
She didn’t let the fact that she didn’t know exactly where they were deter her. She was aware of what part of town they would be in, and was confident she could find them.
So she rode into the night, only her bike’s headlamp lighting the road in front of her. Everything else was blanketed in an unnerving darkness. To keep her mind off what might be out there, she turned the trip into a game, seeing how long she could stay on the centerline without drifting to the side.
By the time she reached the outskirts of Mumbai, her record was fourteen minutes.
PULLING THE DIRT out of the way wasn’t the issue. No, the issue was the large rock sticking out of the ground, limiting the space to squeeze through. Sanjay thought he could move around it, and knew that both Kusum and Darshana would have no problems, but Arjun would never be able to slip through. Chances were, many of the other prisoners would get stuck, too.
He had no choice but to dig it out, wasting twenty minutes he could have been using to free everyone. When it was finally out of the way, he slipped through the hole and into the compound. Moving quietly, he headed around the piles of debris and between two storage buildings. On the other side was the parking area Pishon Chem had used to keep excess vehicles—a couple dozen Jeeps, nearly as many light trucks, and a handful of sedans. At the time, Sanjay had barely given them a second thought. Now he knew they had always been intended for use after the flu outbreak.
Unlike before, the lot was nearly empty. All the Jeeps were gone, as were most of the trucks. The only vehicles left were three pickups and five sedans.
Leapfrogging his way through the lot, he moved from vehicle to vehicle until he neared the main building. This would be the difficult part. He had to run along the side of the building, over to a storage area, and then around an annex before he finally reached the back of the holding areas.
It took him two minutes to reach the annex building and drop to the ground at the corner. Peeking around the edge, he could now see the holding areas. The one to the left was where Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun were located. It was a bit farther away than the other one, and he would have to travel across an open area to get there, but there was no moon tonight and little other illumination bleeding into the area. If he was careful, he should be okay.
Forcing himself to move at half speed, he crawled across the open ground until he reached the first of the double fences. He studied the enclosure. No one was outside, which meant they all had to be inside the only building.
He checked the guard posts he could see from his position. No one seemed to be paying the holding areas any attention. From his shoulder bag, he removed the heavy-duty wire cutters he’d found in a shop several streets away. With one hand gripping the handle, and the other covering the snips to muffle the sound, he began to cut. He went up and over two meters in both directions, creating a flap. After he passed through, he put the flap back in place so it wouldn’t be noticeable. He made a similar opening on the inner fence, pulled it out of the way, and entered the holding area.
Please do not let that have been the easy part, he thought.
Hugging the building, he circled around to the door and went inside. From his observations, he’d determined no guards were inside the holding areas, so, as he’d hoped, he didn’t find any inside the barracks, either. What he did find was a room filled with twenty bunks, three beds high, the seventeen current residents scattered among them.
A few moved at the sound of the door opening and closing, but most remained as they were, some snoring, some breathing deeply, every last one asleep.
He found Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun at the far end, the women on the same lower level of side-by-side bunks, with Arjun sleeping on the mattress above Darshana.
Seeing his wife, Sanjay had never felt so relieved in his life. Though he had not admitted it to himself, he had known there was a chance he’d never be this close to her again.
He leaned over and gently touched her shoulder. “Kusum,” he whispered. “Wake up.”
She stirred but remained asleep.
“Kusum. It’s me. Wake up.”
She blinked and looked at him, half asleep, then her eyes widened.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Why did you let them catch you?”
He hugged her and whispered, “No one caught me.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“I came for you.” He pulled the wire cutters out of his bag and showed them to her.
“You broke in?”
He nodded.
The change in her expression was quick and dramatic. First she was stunned and confused, and then she was angry.
“Are you crazy? You could have been killed.”
“How could I let you stay here? If I was the one trapped, you would come for me.”
“I would not.”
“You would,” he said. He didn’t have to see it in her eyes to know he was right, but it was there anyway. “Now get up so I can get you out of here.”
“Not without the others.”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t mean just Darshana and Arjun,” she said, correctly sensing that was his intention. “We need to get everyone out of here.”
“And we will, but I need to show the three of you the way out first so you can help me. All right?”
This time she was the one who pulled him into a hug.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Jabala to realize the empty darkness of the country was preferable to the partially lit silence of the city. The reality of what she was seeing kept fighting with her memories of how things used to be. Even at this late hour, Mumbai had always been active, always full of people.
Not tonight. Not ever again.
The closer she got to the center of the city, the more the noise created by her motorcycle concerned her. But the thought of getting off and walking terrified her more, so she settled for lowering her speed as much as she dared so that the drone of the engine would be kept to a minimum.
Ten minutes later, she was glad she did. The reduced sound allowed her to hear a car heading in her direction. She killed her engine and moved tight against a taxi parked at the curb, just as the lights of the car came into view.
She was trapped, no way to get around the parked cars and hide without drawing attention. The best she could do was sink down to the street, and act like she was one of the corpses that littered the city. Dropping quickly, she turned her head so that she was facing the parked car, and froze.
The car on the road rushed past her without even the slightest hint of slowing. As soon as the sound of its engine faded, Jabala stood back up, and started to move the motorcycle away from the car, but stopped. She’d been lucky that time, but she might not be so lucky if it happened again.
Like it or not, it was time to walk.
SANJAY AND KUSUM decided the best method for getting everyone out was for the two of them to escort the remaining detainees in small groups to the hole in the wall, where Arjun would help them through from the compound side to Darshana waiting on the city side.
The actual guiding of people to the hole went smoothly. Convincing them they needed to leave was the problem. Most still clung to the belief they were in the hands of the UN, and would soon be given the vaccine. But even the most die-hard of those was troubled by the way they’d been treated since they’d arrived, so while some did put up a fight, in the end they all agreed to go.
When the last person from the first holding area was safely on the other side of the wall, Sanjay turned toward the interior of the compound.
“Where are you going?” Kusum said, grabbing his arm.
“There are still more people back there,” he replied, pulling the wire cutters out of his bag. Where did she think he was going?
“No,” she said, pulling him toward the wall.
“What do you mean, no? We cannot leave them here. You said so yourself.”
“Sanjay, the ones in the other area are all showing signs of the flu. Darshana and Arjun saw several of them brought in earlier.”
So that was the difference, he thought. She was right. They couldn’t risk escorting them out. While he, Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun had been vaccinated, the people they’d rescued had not. Any exposure to the disease was likely to kill them all.
Still, how could they do nothing?
“Give me five minutes,” he said.
“Sanjay, they are sick already. We can’t take them with us.”
“I understand, and we won’t. But I’m not going to leave them locked in there.”
Knowing she would continue trying to dissuade him, he pulled from her grasp and hurried around the debris pile. When he reached the second holding area, he immediately set to work cutting an opening in the outer fence. This time, instead of creating a flap, he cut out the entire section and laid it on the ground.
He then did the same for the inner fence. He contemplated entering the barracks and telling them about the way out, but he feared he would pick up traces of the flu and carry them back to the others, so those who were inside would have to find the holes on their own.
He had hoped Kusum had gone under the fence to join the others, but she was still waiting at the wall when he returned.
“Go, go,” he whispered, motioning her toward the hole.
She didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for? Go,” he said.
“What did you do?”
“I cut a hole in their fence, that’s all.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head in disapproval, but she couldn’t help from grinning. When she looked at him again, she placed a hand on his cheek. “You are a good man.”
She kissed the corner of his mouth, dropped down, and crawled through the hole.
OMAR WOKE IN a fit of coughing.
“No,” he silently pleaded, after the spasms stopped.
He’d seen the symptoms in others countless times in the last week, and though he’d somehow been able to avoid the flu for over a week, he knew his luck had run out.
He’d woken up with a headache the previous morning. That’s what finally spurred him into going to the survival station. Until that point, he’d been too afraid to journey across the city and risk exposing himself to the disease. He wasn’t quite sure how vaccines worked, but they were still effective even if you were already ill, weren’t they?
When he arrived, he tried to mask how he felt, but somehow the soldiers had figured it out, because not only had he not gotten a shot, but they had put him into what was basically a prison, with others who seemed also ill. Oddly, only a dozen or so meters away from their enclosure was another where those who still seemed healthy were placed.
He was angry he’d been locked up, but he could at least understand it. Why the UN would lock up those uninfected made no sense to him. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter anymore. The detention pen he was in was where he’d die.
As he coughed again, someone shouted a weak “shut up.”
Thinking maybe a little fresh air would help, he shuffled through the barracks and out the door. He had no idea what time it was. He only knew it was still night.
His need to cough was replaced by an urge to pee. Having no desire to return to the barracks to use the facilities there, he walked around the back of the building and zipped down his pants. He watched the stream of water turn the dirt to mud for a moment, and then his gaze began to wander, his mind all but blank.
Several seconds passed before he realized what he was looking at. Not the chain links of the fence, but a square hole cut into the barrier. He bent down and looked through the hole. There was another missing section on the outside fence.
A way out.
This cage didn’t have to be the place where he died.
He could go home and lie down on the bed next to his dead wife.
He almost stepped through the opening then and there, but he remembered the old man, Mr. Kapur, who also talked of a wife he’d left behind. Omar was not so sick that he couldn’t take the time to let the man know about the opportunity. What Mr. Kapur decided to do then would be his business.
Decision made, Omar headed back into the barracks, content in the thought that very soon he’d be on his way home.
SENIOR MANAGER DETTL
ING woke to the sound of someone pounding on his door.
“Mr. Dettling? Are you awake?” van Assen, his assistant asked.
Dettling threw back his covers and sat up. “What is it?”
“Sir, the detainees have escaped.”
Dettling, already rising to his feet, froze for half a second. “They what?”
“Someone let them out. There are holes in the fences.”
Dettling walked quickly to the door and pulled it open. “Which pen?”
“Both, sir. We caught some from the infected group trying to get out. Four of them are still missing.”
“And the others?”
Van Assen looked uncomfortable. “The uninfected detention area is empty. They’re gone, sir.”
“They can’t be gone.”
“I have people searching the compound, but so far they haven’t found any of them.”
If the uninfected warned others to stay away, the Mumbai recovery operation could turn into a failure. “Have you sent out search parties?”
“Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for? Do it! Now!”
JABALA DISCOVERED THE Mumbai survival station purely by accident. She knew she must’ve been getting close, but when she reached the next corner, she had not expected to see its gates right there in front of her.
She jumped back out of sight, hoping she hadn’t been seen, and pressed herself against the side of the building. When she was finally able to get her panic under control, she realized the street was still quiet. They had not seen her.
Slowly, she retreated to the previous block, and turned down the road that paralleled the one the survival station was on. Three businesses down was a restaurant where most of the dining had been done at tables spread under a tattered awning along the sidewalk. She sat at a table in the back corner, where she could watch the street and be able to hide quickly if anyone showed up.
Okay, now what? she wondered.
When she’d left the boarding school, she’d been sure that finding Kusum and Sanjay would not be a problem, but now that she was here, surrounded by the reality of the city, the task seemed impossible. While Sanjay had said the plan was to find someplace where they could watch the survival station, there were far too many buildings in the area. He and Kusum could be in any of them.
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2: Books 4 - 6 (Ashes, Eden Rising, & Dream Sky) Page 39
