by Alex Kava
Creed’s fingers went still. He felt his body relax as his mind surrendered. The soothing hum crackled, almost like static interfering with his brain waves. It was followed by an annoying scrape and crunch. He wanted to sleep. A scratching sound followed, insistent and growing louder.
Something poked his shoulder. Just when he thought he had imagined it, he felt a second hit. And this time it came with a rush of air.
Fresh air!
He gasped and sucked it in. Tilted his head and twisted his neck, pointing his mouth and nose toward the draft over his shoulder as best he could. The object poked through a third time and knocked him in the back.
Creed’s eyes tried to adjust to see through the blur. With recognition came relief, sweeping over him along with another influx of air. That’s when Bolo’s big front paw tapped him again.
15.
As soon as he was out of the hole, someone shoved an oxygen mask on his face. Creed fought to pull it off. He wanted to smell the fresh air, not something out of a can. The medic tried to put it on again and Creed pushed it away.
“Let him be,” he heard someone say.
He gulped in air and ignored the stab of pain in his chest. He yanked off his helmet and instantly felt the cool breeze against his sweat-drenched hair.
“Bolo.”
He struggled to look around. Hands came down on his shoulders to keep him still and he shoved at them, too.
“Hell, let him see his dog. If it wasn’t for the dog, we wouldn’t have found him.”
Creed glanced up to look at the speaker, but his vision was still fuzzy. He thought he recognized the man’s voice but he couldn’t remember his name. Then Creed felt another shove at his shoulder. Before he could bat it away, he felt the lick on his cheek. Ignoring the aches, he reached up and wrapped his arm around the big dog’s neck, pulling him close. Bolo licked his mud-stained face.
The man squatted in front of Creed and waited for his eyes to focus on him.
“Can you tell me who I am?”
Bushy gray eyebrows stuck out from under the brim of a yellow hard hat. An equally bushy gray mustache hung over the man’s mouth.
Creed blinked hard a couple of times and he let his fingers caress Bolo’s head, running them over the dog’s ears then neck. Other than mud, he couldn’t feel any wounds or cuts on the dog.
The man looked disappointed and his eyes started searching for the medic.
“Vance,” Creed said.
The man’s eyes returned to Creed’s.
“But you like to be called Ollie.”
“Son of a bitch!” Then over his shoulder he yelled, “I think he’s okay.” To Creed he said, “We’re still gonna take you down to our triage center. They’re letting us use the high school gymnasium. Medic thinks you have some busted ribs. They’ll fix you up and find you a nice soft cot where you can get some rest.”
“What about Bolo?”
“He’ll go with you.”
“Is he okay?”
“As far as I can tell. I gotta tell you, though, that dog was possessed. We were looking for you up higher, where the edge gave out and the slide began. He kept insisting you were all the way down here. You traveled a good long ways, my friend.”
“What about the other dog?”
Vance scrunched up his face in question.
“The vehicle underground.”
And now the man hung his head and his eyes went down as well. When they returned, Creed knew the results.
“Driver and two passengers were dead. They were pretty bloodied up. I don’t think they survived the impact. So at least they weren’t down there suffering.”
Vance stood up and waved for the medics to come back over.
“What about the dog?”
“I think she’ll be okay.”
“She’s a scrappy thing,” the medic said, keeping his distance from Creed as if to make sure it was safe to approach him.
“She was cushioned between the seat back and one of the passengers. Probably protected her from serious injury,” Vance said.
“She didn’t try to bite anyone,” the medic told him. “She’s back in the ambulance. We’ve got her subdued on pain meds. You and Bolo mind riding along with her?”
“Not at all.”
Creed let the medic help him to his feet. It took more effort than he expected and Vance came on the other side to assist. His legs felt like spaghetti. He couldn’t get his knees to hold. His head started swirling and suddenly he was struggling to catch his breath again. This time when the medic offered the oxygen mask, Creed didn’t fight him.
“Let’s sit you back down,” the medic told him, easing him back to the ground. Then into his shoulder radio he said, “Bring up that stretcher.”
“Hey, Ollie, we’ve got something here,” one of Vance’s men yelled to him, even though he was close by, less than twenty feet away. “Smells bad.”
Creed watched them pull and tug at something buried under the mud, digging around the edges. They were being careful. It didn’t take long to realize it was a body. He saw the urgency slip away from their shoulders and hands when they realized the victim was dead.
“Looks like there’s more than one.”
But even this revelation didn’t bring with it a sense of urgency.
Vance helped lift a body out from the hole. They turned it to lie faceup.
“Holy crap!”
Creed craned his neck to see but the men were standing too close around the body, staring down at it.
“What’s wrong?” he finally asked the medic who returned to Creed’s side. “They’re dead, right?”
“Oh yeah, they’re dead all right. But not from the landslide. One has a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.”
16.
Daniel Tate shoved hard and another piece of concrete gave way. Finally he felt rain pouring down on him. He tilted back his head and opened his mouth, so thirsty he wanted to yell in relief. But he stopped himself. He had no idea how close the enemy might be.
All night long he’d heard rumbles and muffled explosions. The debris beneath him shook and the walls vibrated as though the whole place could give way again.
His fingers were raw and bleeding from digging. He had scraped out a cozy but teetering cave. Now that he could see sky—though cloudy and dark—he could see his surroundings.
The examination room had crumbled. Branches pierced through the walls. Frayed electrical wires dangled along trails of insulation from what used to be the ceiling. The door that Dr. Shaw had slammed shut and locked had been ripped away. Tate could see the dark hallway beyond the splintered doorway. Pieces of glass and broken equipment littered the floor.
What interested Tate most was the hole he had finally opened up above. It looked large enough for him to escape through. And yet he hesitated. He crouched in a dark corner atop a tattered pile of what used to be the examination table he had clung to and hidden under. It had probably saved his life.
Now he tried listening for the sounds beyond the hole that was just a foot over his head. He managed enough courage to push himself up and peek out. His eyes flew to the treetops and he scanned the branches. Before the earthquake, explosion—whatever the hell had happened—he had seen tiny green monkeys scurrying up the hallway outside his room. He looked for them now. Surely they were harmless, but what did he know about monkeys?
He crawled out onto jagged rocks slick with mud. Only then did he notice that his feet were swollen and covered with tiny cuts. It must have been the glass on the floor. His arms were cut, too, the shirtsleeves shredded. He had only been concerned about his hands as he dug his way out.
In the open air he felt light-headed. Blood dripped from his nostrils and he wiped his nose with an arm stained with dried blood. He heard a noise behind him and spun around so quickly he slipped in the mud. He c
ame down hard on his knees. So hard he felt it in his jaw.
His eyes searched for the cause of the noise. There! Behind a tree not fifty feet away he saw someone duck into the bushes. Tate kept completely still. Lowered his body closer to the mud, keeping to the ground where he’d be hidden by the debris. He never let his eyes leave the spot where he swore he had seen a face.
They were still here. And they were still after him. He knew it wouldn’t be safe up here. His heartbeat kicked against his ribs. He could barely hear over the sound of it pounding in his ears. This close to the ground he could smell something awful, like sewer gas. Still, he slithered his way through the mud and over the sharp edges of metal and rock poking up out of the ground. His eyes stayed glued, watching the bushes and the tree that he’d seen the face disappear behind.
He found the hole and slipped back down into the space he had spent hours digging his way out of. But this time he started looking for provisions he’d need: water, light, and most important—a weapon.
17.
Washington, D.C.
Benjamin Platt knew better than to offer assistance to the man walking beside him, despite his slow and laborious effort. The two men saw each other almost every week either at meetings or during their weekly lunch together. Colonel Abraham Hess had been Platt’s mentor for almost twenty years. He was the backbone of DARPA, a valued consultant at USAMRIID. Never once would Platt think to use the word “old” to describe Hess, yet today he thought he glimpsed a tired and worn-out fatigue in the man’s step.
He knew that Hess was concerned about the DARPA facility affected by the landslide in North Carolina. But Platt sensed there was something more than just concern. By the time they reached Hess’s office, Platt could hear the older man’s raspy breathing. Perspiration beaded on his upper lip and forehead. Platt watched him as they took their seats, careful not to let Hess know that he saw him using both hands to steady himself as he dropped into the club chair. His office was massive and included a huge desk and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There was also a sitting area with a small kitchenette in the corner.
“Should we have some coffee?” Hess asked.
Platt knew the offer meant that Hess wanted his guest to make and serve it. He didn’t mind. He was on his feet before he answered with “That sounds good. I’ll make us a pot.”
“Little Ellie Delanor,” Hess said, shaking his head and smiling. “She turned out to be a beautiful woman. She was all knobby-kneed and skinny as a girl. She has her father’s eyes. Reminded me how much I miss him.”
“I never had the pleasure of meeting Colonel Delanor.”
“He was one of the best men I ever knew. I’m glad to see his daughter is on our side.”
Platt knew “our side” simply meant a public official willing to stay out of the way of their jobs to research and develop what was necessary to keep the military and U.S. citizens safe. He wasn’t sure what made Hess think Ellie Delanor was on their side. As soon as they had left the conference room, Hess was handed a subpoena by a young staff member whom Platt recognized as one of Senator Delanor’s.
He said nothing, however, as he scooped and measured coffee grounds from the economy-sized, discounted can. The man could more than afford one of the fresh-ground designer brands and still chose this one. Platt saw it as a telltale sign that the genius behind so many innovative and technologically advanced ideas still liked to keep some things just the way he’d always had them.
“I need to ask a favor of you, Benjamin,” Hess told him as Platt handed him a ceramic cup that rattled against the saucer as soon as the two were in Hess’s brown-spotted hands.
“I already told you, Abe, I don’t mind testifying. The committee should hear about all the groundbreaking research USAMRIID is working on. All of us could be affected by the results of this hearing.”
“And I appreciate your help, but that’s not what I was going to ask.”
Hess pursed his lips to take a sip as he held up his finger, a familiar gesture that Platt knew meant to hold on a minute and he would explain.
“I’m concerned about the facility down in North Carolina. If there’s an investigation, it could be messy, especially now, during these hearings. I wonder if you might know someone, perhaps at the FBI, who might be able to go down there. Someone who would be discreet.” Then he waved his hand and said, “You know, someone on our side.”
Again that term, only this time it brought Platt to the edge of his chair. “How badly was the facility affected?”
Hess shrugged as if it weren’t a big deal, but his eyes flitted back and forth across Platt’s face without settling.
“It’s too early to know. I haven’t been able to talk to Dr. Shaw yet. I’ve asked Peter Logan to find out what’s going on. He promised to send down a few of his people.” He glanced at his wristwatch and shook his head in disappointment. “I expected to hear from him by now with an update.”
Platt knew Peter Logan. He was a soldier, not a scientist, and Platt had never quite understood why Hess had taken him under his wing—so to speak—even making him a deputy director. But that was what Hess did with many young men, including Platt. He saw potential where others did not, and as a result fostered an amazing loyalty. There were men who would literally take a bullet for Colonel Hess. Platt wondered if Logan was one of them.
Logan and Platt were about the same age. Both had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, though Platt served as a medical doctor and surgeon and Logan as a platoon leader. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t like the man.
“Why the FBI?” Platt finally asked when Hess didn’t offer anything else.
“They will, most likely, be the ones asking questions if something has gone wrong. I’d like to know we at least have someone who will be—” He stopped, as if to select his words carefully. “Someone who will be on our side.”
There was that phrase again, as though they were schoolchildren choosing up sides for a game of flag football.
“What exactly was at this particular facility?” Platt asked.
Another shrug from Hess, and Platt noticed how slumped his shoulders had become.
“I’m not sure at this time. You know we purposely allow our facilities and directors much leeway for their research.”
Platt did know that. There were dozens, perhaps more than a hundred, research facilities across the country like the one in North Carolina. Giving them a generous amount of independence was an attempt to relieve them of the many constraints the politicians tried to saddle them with. Platt understood all too well from his own experience at USAMRIID how much politicians could get in the way. Everyone wanted a cure for Ebola but few wanted to know the deliberate and tedious process it took to develop a serum or vaccine. Until recently they couldn’t even experiment on human cases.
“I do know Dr. Shaw, who’s the director of this facility,” Hess told him. “She’s a brilliant woman. Very impressive. I doubt there’s a virus she wouldn’t be able to replicate.”
Platt felt a knot tighten in his stomach with the sudden realization.
“Hold on, Abe. Are you saying there could be Level 3 or Level 4 samples at this facility?”
“You can’t find cures without having the samples.” When he saw Platt’s concern, he continued, “They take every precaution to keep them safe. Our laboratory lockboxes are made to withstand a terrorist explosion.”
“But can they withstand the destructive forces of a landslide?”
The phone began to ring on Hess’s desk, interrupting them. Before Platt could offer to get it for him, Hess struggled to his feet, shuffling as quickly as he could to pick up the receiver.
“This is Colonel Hess.”
Platt watched the colonel’s face as he listened to the caller. The downturned mouth, the taut jaw, the perpetual lines in his forehead remained unchanged. The perfect poker player except for his eyes, which again darted from
side to side, giving away his worry.
He was quiet for almost a minute before he said, “I’ll get back to you with instructions.” And then he hung up.
He stayed behind the desk, leaning against it as if needing an anchor. This time when he looked up at Platt, he couldn’t hide the anxiety.
“One of the scientists was found.”
Platt waited to see relief that never came.
Then Hess added, “He’s dead.”
“He died in the landslide?”
“No. Probably before. It appears that he was shot in the head.”
18.
Haywood County, North Carolina
Creed kept his palms flat against the tiled wall and let the warm stream of water course over his battered body. Beside him, Bolo was doing the same, standing still, head down, and enjoying the spray.
After he examined Creed, the medic, named Kevin, had taken him away from the noisy gymnasium that was being staged to accommodate the rescue crews. He had led Creed and Bolo down a long hallway to a small locker room with a private shower and bath. Creed guessed it was normally used by the high school’s coaching staff.
He couldn’t shake the pressure from inside his head. His ears were ringing and if he moved too quickly he got dizzy enough to see stars. Kevin had barely left them when Creed had caved to his knees, emptying his stomach in the toilet. Bolo kept close the whole time, nudging Creed and allowing him to use the big dog’s back to help him get to his feet. Even now the dog kept so close his side touched Creed’s leg. Every once in a while he noticed Bolo looking up at him.
As soon as Creed felt he had his balance back, he knelt down again, only this time he ran his hands over Bolo. He let the water help him clean and examine the dog’s back, his legs, his neck and chest. Gradually Creed felt the dog relax his muscles, and he didn’t tense when his owner palpated his sides and belly.
