The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 1: Books 1 - 3 (Sick, Exit 9, & Pale Horse)

by Brett Battles

  Dr. Karp frowned at his television. Mood? Where do they get these people?

  The picture switched to the same desert shot beside the roadblock the network had been using most of the morning. Centered in the frame was Tamara Costello, their on-scene reporter.

  “The high level of tension we noticed when we first arrived at the western roadblock has become more of a simmer as we await word of what’s actually happening in town,” she said.

  “I’ve talked to several members of the highway patrol who are manning this post with a squad of Army personnel, and I can truthfully say no one has any more information concerning the residents of Sage Springs than we do here.”

  The image on the screen split in two, with a shot of the in-studio anchor on the left, and Tamara in the desert on the right. “There’s been a report that at least twenty-five people have died in town,” Greg said, “and somewhere between seventy-five and one hundred are feared infected.”

  “We heard that, too, Greg. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to confirm any numbers. I can say that twenty minutes ago, a convoy of vehicles, mostly Suburbans, passed through the roadblock and headed into town at high speed.” As she spoke, footage of the caravan replaced the two talking heads. There were five vehicles altogether, their windows blacked out. “Our producer, Joe, heard from someone on the roadblock that these were part of a CDC team here to help the situation.”

  The picture switched back to the double shot.

  “Are there any concerns that the virus could reach where you are currently situated?”

  Dr. Karp rolled his eyes. Ten miles away through a warm desert? His skills were excellent, but they weren’t that excellent.

  “Greg, we’ve been told that our position is completely safe. In fact, one of the officials who stopped here earlier made a point to say that even if the roadblock were just a mile out from the town, there would still be no problem. A source has told me that the extra distance gives the authorities enough room to spot anyone crazy enough to try and sneak into or out of Sage Springs. As we already know, two people have attempted this and have been arrested.”

  “Thanks, Tamara. We’ll check back with you—”

  “I do have one piece of new information that I can share with you, Greg. It concerns the man authorities have deemed a person of interest.”

  Dr. Karp leaned forward. Beside him, Major Ross did the same.

  “Daniel Ash?”

  “Yes. According to my information, Ash is either in or was in the U.S. Army. We know that three and a half years ago he was a lieutenant at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and before that, he was stationed at Fort Irwin, which is less than eighty miles from Sage Springs.”

  “How the hell did she learn that?” Major Ross said.

  Greg, the anchor, looked equally surprised by this new information. “That’s certainly something we haven’t heard yet. Is there more?”

  “That’s all I have at the moment, Greg, but as soon as I know anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, Tamara. You and your crew be careful out there.”

  “We will, Greg. Thank you.”

  As the image switched to a one-shot of the anchor, Ross picked up the remote and hit MUTE. He then quickly punched a number into the conference-room phone, making sure the speaker was engaged.

  One ring, then, “Yes?”

  “Were you watching that?” Ross asked.

  “If you’re talking about the Costello woman, then yes, I saw it,” Shell said.

  “How the hell did she find that out?”

  “Apparently her brother sent her the information in an email.”

  “Her brother? I thought you had her brother.”

  “We do. We only learned twenty minutes ago that the email had gone out before we were able to fully secure his equipment.”

  “Twenty minutes ago? You could have stopped her then!”

  Shell was silent for a moment. “There was no reason to. The information was going to come out eventually. It’s not going to do any harm.”

  Dr. Karp, who’d been content to let the other two fight it out, finally said, “I think we can use this to our advantage.”

  Major Ross glanced at him doubtfully. “You want to explain that?”

  “We’ve already been putting the pressure on Captain Ash. A little more can only help. I say we identify him as a mole. People will already be thinking that’s a possibility anyway.”

  “So change him from a person of interest into a suspect,” Shell said, the hint of a smile in his voice.

  “Not a suspect,” the doctor said. “The suspect.”

  It would either flush Ash out or get him killed. Either way, he wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

  Twenty-One

  THE ONE THING Ash was very good at was going all in when he decided on a course of action. The only goal he had in his life now was getting his children back. Rachel, Matt, and the others described a plan that, even a few hours earlier, he would have found crazy. But not only was his face plastered all over television, it was now being openly speculated that he was responsible for the virus outbreak, exactly as Rachel had predicted.

  Give it another day and he would be branded a terrorist, something they were all convinced would occur. And when it did, not only would he be in danger of being arrested if anyone recognized him, there was a good chance some “concerned citizen” would try to kill him.

  If he was going to save his kids, the Ash he saw every morning in the mirror had to go.

  “Watch your step,” Matt said as he opened a door that led down into the basement of the Lodge—the name that apparently everyone called the ranch’s main building.

  Matt went down first, with Ash following and Billy bringing up the rear. When they reached the bottom, Ash saw that the space was mainly being used for storage.

  Matt headed straight to the south wall, stopping in front of a clear spot between two shelving units. For several seconds, he didn’t move. Ash looked over at Billy, his eyebrow raised in question, but Billy was looking at the wall, too.

  A sudden thunk caused Ash to look back around. Nothing had changed as far as he could see. Then Matt reached out and pushed on the wall. A door-shaped panel of stone moved inward, and a light in the space beyond came on.

  Matt started to go through the opening, but Ash hesitated. “You’re not going to lock me in down there, are you?” He’d had his fill of confinement.

  Matt paused. “Absolutely not. Besides this, there are two other ways out—one that exits in the dormitory where your room is, and another in the ruins of an old barn in the trees. We’ll show you both, and I promise no doors will be locked behind you.”

  The two men watched Ash until he nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Stepping through the door, Ash found himself in a five-foot-by-five-foot room. As soon as Billy closed the secret panel, Matt put his hand on the wall. A small square section surrounding his palm lit up for several seconds. As soon as it went dark, the wall to their right slid open, revealing a set of stairs.

  These were at least double the length of the ones that led down from the first floor into the regular basement. When the trio reached the bottom, Matt palmed the wall again, and a door popped open.

  The only thing about this new level that said basement to Ash was the lack of windows. Otherwise, he thought it was very much like a high-tech military facility. There was a long corridor running down the middle, with rooms and other hallways leading off to the sides.

  “How big is this place?” he asked.

  “The footprint’s about twice as large as the Lodge,” Matt explained as they walked down the corridor. “We can comfortably house fifty people down here for several months, if necessary. There are actually two more levels below this, but both are smaller and used only for storage.” He pointed to the left, down an intersecting hallway. “There’s a firing range down there, and our armory. That room…” He pointed at a door just head. “That’s the IT room, where all our
servers and other computer equipment live.” He nodded at another hallway. “We have a small cafeteria down there, and several dorm rooms just on the other side of it.”

  “I thought bomb shelters went out with the fifties.”

  Matt glanced at him. “There are a lot more things to be scared of than just bombs.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like viruses that get out of control,” Billy said.

  “Or, more importantly, the people behind them,” Matt added. “Here we are.”

  He opened a set of double doors, then ushered Ash in. Billy’s examination room upstairs was nothing compared to the full-on operating room they’d just entered.

  Billy pushed past both of them, heading straight for a sink against the wall. “There’s a shower and some gowns back there,” he said to Ash, pointing at a door in the far corner. “When you’re done, come back here and I’ll throw a couple ideas at you.”

  Ten minutes later, they were all standing in front of a computer screen on a counter not far from the surgery table.

  “If we had time, I’d do a lot more, but for now we need to achieve the biggest change we can with the minimum amount of downtime for you. Now, this is what I was—”

  “I don’t care what you do,” Ash said.

  “Don’t you want to have some say?”

  “I just want my kids back.”

  No one said anything for a moment.

  Matt gave Ash’s shoulder a pat. “I’ll choose for him.”

  Billy looked at Ash, silently asking if that was okay, but Ash said nothing.

  The ranch’s doctor shrugged. “All right, then. Let’s mark you up.”

  RACHEL WAS SITTING next to Ash’s bed when he woke, a book in her lap. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  His whole head throbbed. “I’m fine. What time is it?”

  “Nine.”

  “Evening, or…or morning.”

  “Evening. You haven’t been out that long.”

  It had been two p.m. when the surgery began, so he’d been unconscious for seven hours. He tried to touch his face, but it seemed to be covered in bandages.

  “You’re a mess right now,” she said. “But in a couple of months it’ll all look normal to you.”

  He tried to push himself up, but couldn’t. “I can’t…wait a couple of…months.”

  “Of course not. We talked about that, remember?”

  Did we? Maybe.

  “Two days only, and we’ll use that time to get you as prepared as possible.”

  Two days also seemed like too long. But what choice did he have? Without the new face, there was no chance he would ever even get close to his kids.

  “Do you want to go back to sleep? Or get started?”

  “Get started,” he said, his voice still weak.

  “Excellent.” She picked up a folder that was on the stand by his bed. “Who are you?”

  He squinted at her. “What?”

  “You can’t be Captain Daniel Ash anymore, so who are you?”

  Now he understood what she meant. A false name. “I don’t care. Anything. John Smith.”

  “I think we can do better than that. Besides, you’re not just choosing for yourself, you’re choosing for your kids, too.”

  He started to shake his head, but it only made it pound harder. He gave it a few seconds, then said, “Once people know what happened…we can go…back. Be ourselves again.”

  She gave him a sad, knowing smile. “I tell you what. Why don’t we just pretend it’s important for right now? Better safe than sorry, right?”

  “Sure. Whatever,” he replied, thinking he’d just choose the first name that came to mind. “How about—”

  She touched his hand, stopping him. “I have some choices for you.” She opened the folder. “Tell me which one of these grabs you. Tyler Wright, Harold Boyce, Adam Cooper, William Keys, or Samuel Hunter. Anything stand out?”

  He honestly didn’t care at all. “The third one,” he said.

  “Adam Cooper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Because I like the number three.”

  She raised an eyebrow, then laughed softly to herself. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged, rifled through the papers in the folder, and pulled one out. “All right, Mr. Cooper. Let’s see exactly who you are.”

  Twenty-Two

  KARL TRAINER COULD have just let it go, but he wasn’t that kind of friend. Besides, his route took him near Hector Mendez’s house anyway, so stopping for a quick check to see why his friend hadn’t shown up for work wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

  When he got there, the first thing he noticed was Hector’s car still parked out front. He’d been hoping that maybe they’d just missed each other on the highway, and Hector was already at the warehouse. Of course, it could have been that his friend was having car troubles and had gotten one of his neighbors to drive him in. That would definitely explain why he was late.

  Sure, that had to be it.

  Karl almost drove off, but, hell, he was here anyway. Might as well check. He went up to the door and knocked.

  No answer.

  “See? Not home,” he said to himself.

  As he took a step off the porch to head back to his rig, the nape of his neck began to tingle.

  “Dammit,” he said.

  His wife called it his whodoo-voodoo. He’d get it every once in a while, a feeling that something wasn’t right. The feeling itself wasn’t always right, either. Still, there were enough times it was that he’d learned not to completely ignore it.

  With an exasperated sigh, he decided to have a look around.

  He’d been to Hector’s enough times that he knew its layout. Contrary to most of the houses he’d lived in, the living room in Hector’s place was in the back. Up front were the spare bedroom and the kitchen.

  He skipped the window to the spare bedroom because he knew Hector only used it to store his mom’s old stuff, and glanced into the kitchen. There was nothing unusual there. An empty beer bottle on the counter, but what house didn’t have one of those now and then?

  Hector’s place was far enough out of town that he didn’t need a fence. So Karl simply moved around the house and looked through the sliding glass door into the living room.

  Nobody there. Nothing out of the ordinary. But that damn tingle wouldn’t go away.

  He moved along the back to the window that looked in on Hector’s bedroom. The shade was pulled down, but the window was open about four inches so air could get inside.

  “Hector?” he called through the gap.

  Silence.

  “He’s not here,” he said, trying to convince the tingle this was one of those times it was wrong. But it just kept burning away back there, in no apparent hurry to leave.

  The screen over the window was loose, so it was a simple matter to pull it out a few inches, slip his hand behind it, and move the shade out of the way so he could take a look.

  The room was dark, full of shadows, but the glow from the clock radio on the nightstand was bright enough that Karl could see someone lying on the bed. By the guy’s shape, Karl was all but positive it was his friend.

  “Hector, is that you? Buddy, what are you doing? It’s after midnight. Hector. Hector! Wake up.”

  Hector didn’t even twitch.

  Karl’s first thought was that his friend had had a heart attack. Hector did love his greasy burgers so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise.

  “Goddammit. I swear if you’re dead, I’m going to be pissed!”

  Not knowing what else to do, Karl pulled the screen all the way off, pushed the window out of the way, and climbed through the opening. There was a dresser just on the other side, and as much as he tried to be careful, he ended up knocking a few things onto the floor before his feet reached the carpet.

  “Sorry,” he said automatically.

  Hector was lying on his side, facin
g away from him, so Karl moved around the bed, flicking on the bedroom light as he passed the switch.

  It was Hector all right.

  Karl put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and was surprised at how cold Hector felt.

  “You okay, man?” he said, shaking him.

  He touched his friend’s neck, searching for a pulse. But there was nothing.

  “Oh, God.”

  He was too late. Hector had already passed. As he started to pull his hand back, he noticed a whole pile of tissues, half on the bed, half on the floor below it. Without even thinking about it, he leaned down to take a closer look, then suddenly stopped himself and took a step back.

  The previous night had been his off night, which meant he’d gone to bed a lot earlier and gotten up around noon. While he’d been sitting around the living room, flipping through the channels on the TV, he couldn’t help but get sucked into the news about the deadly flu outbreak in Sage Springs. Some of the reporters were saying that so far anyone who caught the disease had died. By the evening, after his wife had come home and they were watching the news together, the reports gave the impression that the situation was under control.

  But here was Hector, dead from what looked like the flu to Karl. And didn’t Hector’s route take him through Sage Springs?

  He stumbled back further, falling to the floor, his hand touching something moist. Quickly, he pushed himself back to his feet, not taking the time to see what it was.

  “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”

  Facing the bed as if he expected Hector to rise out of it and attack him, he moved back to the window and scrambled outside.

  There, he doubled over and rubbed his face as he tried to catch his breath. After several seconds, he stood up, knowing he had to get out of there. He raced to his truck and reached up to open the door. That’s when he saw it. The damp spot on the side of his hand. Water or…