by Alex Kava
Suddenly another wave of nausea washed over Creed and he stopped. Leaned his forehead against Bolo’s side and felt the dog’s muscles go rigid. Creed waited, head pounding, ears ringing. There was nothing more in his stomach to churn but acid. Bolo stood still, also waiting. Then the dog twisted his neck to look back at Creed. He didn’t move his body away, letting Creed continue to lean on him.
“I’m okay, buddy,” Creed told the dog, but he still didn’t move. Right now the slightest motion threatened to drop him. And Bolo seemed to know this.
He remembered the medic showing him his helmet. The back had cracked like an eggshell.
“You’re gonna feel like a truck hit you then backed up and ran over you,” Kevin had said to him.
He told Creed they could transport him to the nearest hospital to get X-rays, that he was almost certain Creed had a few broken ribs. Creed had refused the transport, but agreed to have Kevin wrap and treat him after he scraped the mud off.
He wasn’t sure how much time had gone by. How long had he been on his knees, eyes closed, forehead nestled against Bolo? He hadn’t heard the door open. Hadn’t sensed anyone else’s presence.
“Mr. Creed?”
He heard Kevin’s voice but still didn’t move.
“You doing okay?”
The man was older than Creed, shorter but lean and muscular. Callused hands suggested he had another job—perhaps part-time—or a hobby that required other skills. He had been careful when he examined Creed earlier, experienced in knowing how much pressure he could get away with. But now he stood across the room, waiting for permission.
“Wishing the room would stop tilting.”
“Sure I can’t talk you into that ride to the med center in Clyde?”
As if he needed to prove it to himself as much as to Kevin, Creed pushed himself to his feet, holding on to Bolo with one hand and the wall with the other. He needed to catch his breath while he shut off the water and grabbed a towel.
“I’ll be okay. Just need some rest.”
He bent to dry off Bolo and bit his lip when the pain in his chest took him off guard.
“You have anyone who can keep an eye on you tonight?”
“This guy right here.”
Kevin didn’t look pleased. He was digging in his medical duffel, pulling out bandages, ready to work on Creed’s body again.
“How’s the dog doing? The one we dug up?” Creed asked, remembering he wasn’t the only patient in the ambulance back from the slide site.
“About as good as you. Battered but stubborn.”
“She gonna be okay?”
“I think so. She actually didn’t refuse to be taken to the animal hospital.”
“What’ll happen to her?” He remembered Vance saying that all the other passengers in the car they had pulled up out of the mud were already dead. Her entire family, gone.
“If there’s no other family or friends to take her, she’ll probably go to a shelter.”
“Can you do me a favor? If there’s no one else, would you make sure I get her?”
“Seriously?” Kevin looked up at him. “The rescue of that dog almost got you killed. You sure you want it?”
“It wasn’t her fault.” Finished with Bolo, he grabbed another towel for himself. “Can you do that for me?”
The guy shook his head like he still couldn’t believe Creed wanted the dog. He filled his hands with scissors and ACE bandage, but when he looked up again, Creed could see the hint of a smile when he said, “Sure, I can do that for you.”
19.
Newburgh Heights, Virginia
Maggie O’Dell grabbed the ringing cell phone off her nightstand. Eyes too bleary to see the caller ID. Instinct from too many late-night calls made her simply answer.
“This is O’Dell.”
“I woke you.”
The surprise in Benjamin Platt’s voice was warranted. O’Dell rarely slept more than a few hours a night, and even those were interrupted by nightmares. Some of which Ben had experienced firsthand. If she’d had her way earlier tonight, he would have been there beside her.
Theirs was an odd relationship. Friends wanting to be more, but neither willing to give in and admit it. Too many ghosts. Too many expectations. Too much discipline. Or both just simply cowards.
“I must have fallen asleep for a change,” she laughed. Eyes focused now, she glanced at the glowing faceplate of the digital alarm clock. It was 1:36 AM. “Let me guess. You haven’t been to bed yet?”
He had stopped over earlier on his way home. Her Tudor-style house in a suburban, private neighborhood wasn’t anywhere close to Fort Detrick and definitely not on his way home from the District.
His excuse—or what he had said—was that he wanted to find out about her friend Gwen Patterson, who was recovering from a mastectomy. But he also wanted—maybe needed—to talk about the upcoming highly publicized and overly politicized congressional hearing.
She let him talk while they enjoyed a couple of beers on her patio, watching O’Dell’s dogs play in her backyard. They laughed at Harvey biting at lightning bugs. The sun had set before Ben arrived. While they sat in the dark enjoying a pleasant buzz from the alcohol, O’Dell wanted to ask him to stay the night. The last month had been a tough one. Something about cancer and the thought of possibly losing her closest and oldest friend had left her with a hollow feeling.
But she didn’t ask.
What was worse—he didn’t suggest it, although all evening she sensed there was something he wanted to ask her.
And once again, they continued to play the worn-out game. Perhaps they were nobly protecting each other or selfishly protecting themselves. O’Dell didn’t even know anymore.
Now, hearing his voice on the phone, she simply wished he was there with her.
“About tonight,” Ben said.
O’Dell pulled herself up and leaned against the headboard. So maybe he was feeling the same way she was.
“This hearing has been weighing on my mind more than I realized,” he continued. “I don’t mean to drag you into this.”
“You were only venting.”
“Actually, not just venting. I need your help, but I was waiting to hear back from Director Kunze.”
Raymond Kunze was the assistant director of the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico, and he was O’Dell’s boss.
Now she was confused . . . and maybe a bit disappointed.
Before she could ask, he began to explain.
“There was a landslide in western North Carolina. One of DARPA’s research facilities was affected. Yesterday a rescue crew found the body of one of the scientists. He’d been shot in the head.”
“And the other scientists?”
“We haven’t heard from any of them. The first slide—the major one—happened about ten-thirty at night. Should have been minimal staff. Most of them live in the vicinity, so their homes may have been affected, as well. It’s too early to know. Everything’s still a mess. There were other bodies but no one’s certain who they are. They may be from the facility or they could be others in the community who were caught in the slide. It’s been difficult getting much coherent information.”
“So how is it you’ve already identified this scientist?”
He was quiet for too long.
O’Dell ran her fingers through tangled hair, pushing it out of her eyes. She leaned over and snapped on a lamp. Harvey looked up at her from the foot of the bed, then plopped his head back down. She didn’t see Jake. The shepherd had taken on her bad night habits and was probably patrolling the downstairs.
When Ben still hadn’t responded, she asked, “What does this have to do with you?”
Ben was a medical doctor, an army colonel, and director of USAMRIID (United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases) at Fort Detrick. DARPA repo
rted to an entirely different chain of command. And yet he was using “we” as if this facility was one of his responsibilities.
“We’re working with DARPA on several projects. Sometimes they can do things we can’t. Many of their remote facilities, like this North Carolina one, work off the grid with little regulation or oversight. Vaccines, protective military gear—there’s a wide variety of projects.”
“And this facility, what project was it working on?”
“Unfortunately that’s classified.”
At first she thought he might be joking. He had a dry, sarcastic sense of humor, but the longer he hesitated, yet again, the more she realized he was serious.
“Let me get this straight,” and now she couldn’t hide the irritation. “I think you’re getting ready to ask me to go check out why a scientist working for DARPA ended up murdered in the middle of a landslide, but you’re not going to share with me what he was working on? Even though it may have been what got him killed?”
“I know it sounds odd, but I actually don’t know yet. Details of each operation are on a need-to-know basis. Right now the concern is how this scientist ended up dead. And if there’s still possibly a threat to the others who may have been at the facility.”
“Is there a chance it was a suicide?”
“I honestly don’t know. Possibly. Again, details are murky. But you see the challenge. Until we find out what happened, it would be premature to release any information that could be harmful to the success of the operation.”
He sounded like a bureaucrat. Of course, as the director of a government agency and an army officer, he was a bureaucrat. But she still hated when he sounded like one. As an FBI agent for over a decade, she was officially a government official, too, but O’Dell usually found herself bucking the system. In her own defense, she did what she believed was the right thing. Unfortunately, others in the bureau didn’t necessarily agree with her on what was right, especially if it wasn’t politically correct. Unlike Ben, she didn’t always play by the rules. And consequently, she had a reputation for going rogue. Which made her wonder why in the world he’d want her to go down and check on this.
“Everything has been happening pretty quickly. Peter Logan, a deputy director of DARPA, is trying to find out what happened to the facility, but the FBI will be in charge of the murder investigation. Because of the sensitivity of that facility’s research, Colonel Abraham Hess asked if I could recommend someone we could trust to be discreet, and of course I thought about you.”
Ah, so there was her answer. It was her expertise he needed as much as her discretion.
He paused and she wondered if he was waiting for her to feel grateful or flattered. It was O’Dell’s experience that when government agencies needed to keep secrets, it usually amounted to covering their own asses. But Ben had helped her several times, actually saved her life once. He didn’t ask for favors. This had to be something terribly important to him.
“Of course, I’ll do whatever I can.”
He surprised her when he said, “You don’t have to do this just because it’s me asking, Maggie. You can say no.”
And this time his tone was gentle and filled with concern—the Ben she knew and respected and maybe even loved.
“I’ll leave in the morning after I check in with Gwen.”
“It should only take a few days,” he told her. “Logan already has some people down there. His assistant, Isabel Klein, is there, and he hired a K9 unit. The dog handler is someone Logan knew in Afghanistan. I believe he said his name is Ryder Creed.”
She had worked with Creed twice before. The last time only about a month ago. And suddenly O’Dell was glad they were on the phone so Ben couldn’t see her reaction. Because she could feel herself respond involuntarily.
How was it possible that just the mention of Ryder Creed’s name could send an annoying but pleasant rush through her body?
DAY 2
20.
Haywood County, North Carolina
Dust blurred Creed’s vision. He could taste it, clots of it stuck in his throat, trying to suffocate him. Somewhere on the other side of the mud wall he could hear Peter Logan telling his men to stand down until the dogman cleared the way. But when Logan appeared from around the corner, none of his men accompanied him. Instead, he was walking with a small boy.
Creed recognized the kid. His name was Jabar, but the men in the platoon called him Jabber because for an Afghan kid he talked a lot and fast, no matter which language he used. From what Creed had observed, Jabar spoke at least three, including English.
He guessed the boy was nine or ten going on twenty. The men thought it was funny that Jabar acted so grown-up, even bumming cigarettes off the men and smoking alongside them. The first time Creed met him, Jabar took one look at Rufus and backed away. It wasn’t as if he was frightened but that he thought the dog was bad luck. He warned Creed that the other children in his village would throw rocks at dogs and if Creed didn’t want the animal to be hurt he should not take him beyond the camp.
Jabar came and went as he pleased. The men barely noticed him, and if they did, they teased him. But even after a few weeks Jabar still kept his distance from Rufus. Creed had put it off as superstition, until that last day, when he discovered the real reason.
He was back there again, seeing it as if he were standing off to the side, watching and knowing what happened next but not able to change the outcome. So many warning signs. Why hadn’t he seen them?
Jabar’s bright white athletic shoes should have been a tip-off. A size too big and laced up around his long skinny legs. But the kid was always showing up with crap like that. Most likely the shoes came from Logan. The two exchanged contraband on a regular basis. It was one of the things Logan expected Creed not to notice, or if he did, to look the other way. Especially since Creed had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in “free” designer sunglasses or athletic shoes or diver’s watches. And he declined the experimental cough drops and cough syrup. He knew there was other experimental stuff Logan distributed to his men. That was the real reason for the gifts. Where or how Logan got any of those things, Creed didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He and Rufus would move on to the next platoon in another week or so.
Jabar showed up that day wearing a baggy jacket, a sleek zip-up windbreaker in addition to the white athletic shoes. The sleeves were rolled up to the kid’s elbows, bulging with too much fabric and making his stick arms look even more fragile. Likewise, the rest of the jacket bulged, but in ways that indicated there was more than only Jabar’s slight frame hidden underneath.
At first Creed thought certainly Logan must know that Jabar wasn’t exclusively his little con artist. The kid was a hustler who could swindle and trick even someone like Logan.
But on that day Jabar jabbered faster and louder than usual. He had the swagger and belligerence of someone twice his age and three times his size. Creed heard him yelling at Logan, climbing on rocks and jumping down with his arms out, making the baggy sleeves look like wings.
Logan seemed annoyed but not alarmed. He cursed at the boy, then laughed at him, but it wasn’t in jest. Instead it sounded too much like mockery, too much like he was daring the boy.
Rufus started whining at Creed’s side, straining at the end of the leash. Nose in the air, neck hair bristling, tail curled, ears pricked forward. The dog was alerting.
That’s when Jabar saw Rufus. Creed didn’t notice that the boy’s hands were balled up. The first rock he threw hit Creed in his temple. The next landed with a sickening thud against Rufus’s shoulder. Jabar yelled at them, digging into his pockets, plucking out and throwing rocks, his arms swinging in exaggerated wild loops. Even Logan took a hit.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“He’s loaded,” Creed yelled, pulling Rufus back along with him.
He saw the boy dig into the folds of the wi
ndbreaker. Saw the cord. Knew he’d never make it behind the boulder ten paces away. He snatched up Rufus, all eighty squirming pounds of him, and he dived for shelter as he heard the explosion. It blasted him off his feet.
Dirt and rocks crumbled, raining down. Burning pieces of metal shredded his back. The last thing he heard was Rufus’s whimper before everything went black.
Creed felt the wet tongue licking his cheek. His eyelids were heavy. When he tried to open them it was as if sandpaper scraped against the lenses. Blurred figures danced in the dim light above him. A dog nose hovered, then the licking started again. Creed reached up and caught the small head between his hands, massaging the ears and containing the licks.
When his vision finally focused he was surprised to see not Rufus but Grace, his Jack Russell terrier.
“What are you doing here?” Creed asked the dog as his eyes darted around the large area, a towering ceiling with steel beams and massive light fixtures on low. The bed beneath him screeched under his movement and he remembered the small cot in the corner of the school gymnasium.
North Carolina. Not Afghanistan.
Landslide. No explosions.
Bolo butted his big head up against Creed’s side. Grace scampered along the other. Just as he was trying to put the pieces together in his fuzzy mind someone said from behind him, “It’s about time you woke up.”
He twisted his neck to see Jason Seaver, his hired dog trainer. But he had left him back at his facility in the Florida Panhandle.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
21.
Washington, D.C.
Maggie O’Dell stepped off the elevator and immediately felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She wasn’t looking forward to telling her friend that she needed to leave her side for an out-of-town assignment. Last night, when she was leaving Gwen, O’Dell caught a glimpse of something in her friend’s eyes.
