by Julie Rowe
Boots turned and looked at her.
She couldn’t see how the truth could help them. “I think there’s a travel ban. Possibly a quarantine.” The depth of hate in his face constricted her throat, and she had to clear it in order to keep talking. “To try to keep the outbreak from spreading.”
“We’re gonna get pulled over,” the driver whined.
The kid beside her joined him in complaint-land. “They’re not going to arrest us, not after we killed all those people at the mall and the Army base. They’ll just fucking shoot us.”
“If you don’t stop bitching,” Boots said, “I’ll fucking shoot you.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “No one is chasing us now, so we’ll keep going.” He turned to the driver. “Follow the speed limit.”
“Okay, okay,” the driver said, but his tone told her he was close to panic. He probably didn’t know what to do, so he’d grab onto anything that sounded reasonable.
“Relax, guys,” Boots said in a tone that dripped confidence. “Our encore performance is going to send a message no one in Texas is ever going to forget.”
“Is it going to work, Sam?” the kid beside her asked. “Will it make the government withdraw troops from—”
“Shut up,” Boots said. “Not in front of her.”
So, his name was Sam.
“Who’s she going to tell?” the guy behind her asked. “It’s not like there’s anyone around.” He gestured at the empty streets and deserted sidewalks.
“I’m not taking any chances. She works for the CDC, probably one of those lab rats who creates superbugs.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but Boots sent her a look so filled with venom she choked on her own words.
“She’s smart.” Boots sneered at her. “Aren’t you, lab rat?”
Oh no, the only person who got to call her a rodent of any sort was River.
“Call me a rat again,” she said to Boots, uncaring of the bullet he could put in her head if he chose to, “and I’ll rip your balls off.”
His eyebrows went up while the two young men in the back with her leaned away.
It was the driver who spoke. “You do know we have the guns, right, lady?”
“Listen, assholes,” she told them, suddenly tired of it all. “You can take your self-absorbed, whiney, hey, let’s save the world by killing everyone bullshit and shove it. I thought the bureaucracy in Africa was ass-backwards, but you guys take the cake.”
“Africa?” the driver asked.
“Yes, the Ebola crisis, remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“I was there for four months, trying to save lives. What were you doing? Oh yes, planning to release your own plague on Texas and a few bombs, too. Was achieving your goals of world peace taking so long that you decided to just kill everyone instead?”
No one said anything, not even Boots.
“Have any of you even spent time out of North America on a humanitarian mission?”
No answer.
“I’ll bet you’ve never even gone camping without all the equipment known to man in your backpacks. You don’t know a damn thing about what people need or want. All you’re doing is trying to get an adrenaline rush by being rebels. Well, congratulations, you’ve achieved it. You’ve managed to kill several hundred completely innocent people, people who have nothing to do with the establishment you seem angry with. Just what have you accomplished today? Other than proving you’re lazy.”
“You’re thinking much too small,” Boots told her in a cold tone. “And peace isn’t what we’re after. We’re the instrument of change. Our government doesn’t govern anymore. They argue, yell, and piss each other off. No one negotiates, no one compromises, they don’t even talk to each other.”
“Selfish bastards,” said the guy behind her.
“Useless, greedy, and ignorant—that’s our government,” the kid next to her said.
“The only way to rejuvenate a great society like the United States is to put it under stress. Force the public and government to do something.” Sam smiled. “History is full of examples of civilizations that rose and fell in this way.”
“Like the Roman Empire,” one of the boys with her in the back said.
“The French Revolution wiped out an absolute monarchy,” the other added.
History was never meant to be viewed through lenses of only black and white. “You think inciting another revolution is going to change our culture for the better?”
“Yes.”
“But at what cost? Are you prepared to sacrifice not only yourselves, but your families as well?” She turned to look at the guy behind her. “Your sister?”
“Collateral damage,” Boots said. “History will remember us as freedom fighters. The instigators of change, and the events here in El Paso as the first of many that will usher in a new and better America.”
She looked around her. Aside from the driver, who was watching the road, they all wore the same expression of blind devotion and utter belief.
There would be no convincing them to stop whatever they planned to do next. These young men had been turned into living weapons.
Chapter Twenty-Four
11:46 a.m.
River never imagined he’d be trying to storm a university to save a woman who meant more to him than any woman should after knowing her less than a day.
A woman he desperately wanted to kiss and caress without the possibility of anyone interrupting them. A circumstance he was determined to fix the first chance he got. He wanted to stroke and pet his mouse until she was as desperate for him as he was for her. Alone. Naked. No rushing.
And, fuck me, he was doing it during an outbreak with a retired drill sergeant watching his back.
Fucking spoiled, stupid, rich kids. Someone had gotten to them, convinced them the best thing to do with their lives was to make a big statement by blowing themselves up. When he caught that guy, there was going to be blood. Lots of it.
DS pulled over to a curb, turned on his hazard lights, then turned and gave River another one of those evaluative once-overs only a drill sergeant could deliver, and said, “How much shit are we dealing with?”
“A whole pile of steaming shit,” River replied. “We’ve got an outbreak of deadly meningitis. Probably more than three hundred dead by now. Once you get it, it kills you fast. On top of that, we’ve got a bunch of college kids running around with military-grade weapons blowing shit up, thinking all of this is going to save the world.”
“Jesus Christ on a pogo stick,” DS muttered under his breath.
“One of them shot me three times in the chest, knowing I wore body armor, just to make the woman he kidnapped panic.”
“Why didn’t the puke just kill you?”
“I think he wanted me to hurt, and not just from the bullet bruises. The woman he took is…valuable.”
“You say that like she’s the love of your life, Snowflake. Got a crush?”
There was no use hiding it. DS needed to know he’d do some serious shit to get her away from those assholes. “What can I say, DS? Smart women do it for me.”
“Christ, save me from lovebirds,” the older man muttered. “So, you’re ready to go over the wall for this woman?”
“Over the wall and into Wonderland, DS.”
The drill sergeant looked him over with a gaze that missed nothing. “You already took a bullet today, son.”
“I’m Navajo. We eat bullets for breakfast.”
The laugh that came out of the retired drill sergeant’s mouth was malicious. “Got a plan, or are we going to make it up as we go along?”
“A bit of both. I figure we use your God-given talent to create a distraction so I can go in and get my girl.”
“A distraction.” The DS said it like most people would say leprosy.
“They’ve got the same FN SCAR rifles like mine, and grenades. I’d prefer you keep them so confused about which way was up so they don’t know where to point or throw any of it
.” River glanced at the building. What were they doing in there with Ava right now? Nope, couldn’t think like that. “You got a weapon besides your voice, DS?”
The old man reached down and picked up an old fashioned lunch box. Inside were a Beretta and three clips. “You’re not the only one who likes to eat bullets.”
River smiled. “Are we related, because that’s badass!”
DS smacked his cheek a couple of times. “If you want to be a drill sergeant when you grow up, Snowflake, you gotta get mean.”
River pulled out his phone and consulted the floor plan for the building.
“Problem number one,” River began. “We don’t know their exact location. Problem number two, we don’t know how many people we’re dealing with or how they’re armed besides rifles. Problem number three, we don’t know what they plan to do, so if it’s to go out in a big bang, well…we could go poof along with them.”
“Son,” DS said with a huge sigh and a shake of his head. “You’ve gotta stop hanging out with pansy-ass doctors. Poof?”
River grinned and shrugged. “Let’s do a little recon and find out where they are. Then we can move on to distract and destroy.”
“Now you’re speaking my language.”
The drill sergeant shut down the bus, and they tried the front door. Locked. So were the rest of the entrances, but none of the doors or windows had been damaged.
“Someone let them in,” DS said. “Or one of those little assholes has a key.”
River returned to one of the single side-door entrances and pulled his lock picks out of a pocket in his pants. “So do I.”
DS snorted and watched as River picked the lock, which only took five or six seconds. They slipped inside and quietly shut the door. The stairwell they were in was empty and closed off from the rest of the building by another door. River listened for several seconds, and after hearing nothing, eased it open a tiny sliver.
No sound. No movement.
They slipped inside, closing the door soundlessly.
Listened.
Footsteps, very faintly, came from the left. Voices, two of them, followed right after. Growing louder.
“Sentries,” River said in a whisper that didn’t carry. “Two of them.”
“Hide in the stairwell,” DS said.
River nodded, and they eased back into the stairwell. River allowed the door to close, but kept the latch depressed so there’d be no noise when he opened it after the sentries passed.
Two men walked past, talking about how they were going to take out as many fascist government fuckers as they could.
The smile on the drill sergeant’s face turned merciless.
Oh, this was going to be fun to watch.
River lifted his right hand with three fingers up. He lowered them in sequence.
They went through the door like a pair of Doberman Pinchers at full speed, silent and with weapons out.
River rammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the man on the right’s head, knocking him out.
DS jumped the other one at the same time, his arm across the tough guy’s throat while poking the shit out of his kidney with the muzzle of his Berretta. “Make a sound, maggot,” he promised the guy in a harsh whisper, “and I’ll shove my 9mm so far up your ass you’ll be shooting bullets out of your mouth.”
The guy stopped struggling.
“Hand your weapon, very nicely, to my friend here.”
The kid complied without a peep, though his hands shook like they were his own personal earthquake.
“How many of you are there?” DS asked.
“There’s eight others…in the big chem lab,” the kid said, his voice sounding like it came through a telephone wire.
“What’s in the chemistry lab besides people?”
When he didn’t answer, DS tightened his grip, cutting off the kid’s air.
“A…”—he coughed as DS loosened his hold—“a…bomb.” Something about how he said it pinged River’s oh shit meter.
“How big?” River asked.
“I dunno. Real big.” He grunted.
Yeah, that headlock had to hurt.
“Describe it,” he ordered the kid.
“I only saw the crate it’s in. It’s nailed shut.”
“Did anyone tell you how far away you have to be, to be out of the blast zone?”
The kid stopped breathing, staring at River with a new terror that hadn’t been on his face the moment before. “No. No one said anything about blast zones.”
Fuck, there were eight people, plus Ava, who were going to die.
“Did you sign up to be a suicide bomber?”
“No.” The kid’s laugh was waterlogged. “Are you kidding?”
River could see the gears inside the kid’s head turning. He suddenly grabbed DS’s arms, not pulling at them, not trying to get away, holding onto them like a lifeline. When he spoke again, his voice broke. “I don’t want to die.”
He and the kid stared at each other for a couple of long seconds.
“Kid, I don’t think you’re supposed to get out of this building alive,” River told him as gently as he could. He appeared completely spooked.
“I…I really don’t want to die.”
Jesus, now he was crying.
“Neither do we,” DS said into the kid’s ear. “You going to squawk if I give you a little more air?”
“No, s…sir.”
DS relaxed his hold, but didn’t release the kid. “Don’t call me sir.”
“Did you see a woman in that room?” River asked.
“Yeah, Sam brought her. He said she’s part of a secret government plan to bring over Ebola and use it as a weapon on American citizens. You know her?”
“She fought Ebola. She’s one of the good guys. Who’s this Sam guy?”
“He’s in command.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Tall, scary. He’s working on his PhD.”
River glanced at DS. “Sam is the guy who shot me. Sam is really starting to piss me off.”
“Shooting you didn’t do the trick?” DS shook his head.
“Shit, you gotta get her out of there, man,” the kid said quickly. “I think Sam was going to shoot her, video it, and load it onto every social media website there is.”
“And after that?”
“He…” The kid swallowed hard. “He never said. Not one thing, and the dude follows his schedule closer than a nun on spring break.”
“That don’t sound too good,” DS said with a snort.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“What are you going to do with me?” the kid asked, looking from one to the other.
“That depends,” River said. “On whether you can keep your mouth shut.”
“Sir, I won’t say a thing until you tell me to. Just please don’t leave me tied up inside this building.”
“How do you feel about transit buses?” DS asked him.
“Right now,” the kid said, his voice breaking on a sob, “I’d take a riding lawnmower to get out of here.”
No one said anything for a few moments.
“It’s your call, Snowflake,” DS said.
“Let’s stick him and his buddy on the bus.”
It took them a couple of precious minutes to get Mr. Helpful and his unconscious friend trussed up and tied down to the seats inside the bus.
“How much time do you think we have?” DS asked as they headed back inside.
“Almost none at all.”
River pulled the building schematic off the internet and studied the layout for a few seconds.
The lab was an interior room with no direct access to the outside, not even windows. Which made it easier to defend from an outside force, and harder to escape from.
“We need to draw some of them out.”
DS grinned. “Leave that up to me.”
“Don’t get yourself killed. I’m supposed to return you to the City of El Paso relatively undamaged.”
&nbs
p; “Just you be sure to let me know when you’ve got her out of there, so I can hightail it out before this Sam character blows us all to shit.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll know.”
The shit-eating grin on River’s face must have communicated an entire novel of how he’d know, because DS raised one somewhat surprised eyebrow. “They told me you were a medic.”
“Yeah,” River said, his grin only getting bigger. “But I’m special, remember?”
He left the drill sergeant laughing his ass off, then circled around to the opposite side of the building, picked another lock, and went inside. He didn’t have to worry about more sentries wandering around the building. The drill sergeant was making his presence known without the use, or need, of a PA system.
“Jesus H. Christ, this building was supposed to be evacuated hours ago,” the old man bellowed. “What the flying fuck are you bunch of little pukes doing in here?”
Holy shit, that man could yell.
There was a crash and rattle as several metal objects hit the floor, and a rush of indistinct panicked voices, before one rose above the others.
“Get lost, old man, before we shoot your fucking mouth off.”
Someone laughed. That wasn’t going to last.
“Son,” DS began in a patient tone. “If I were your old man, I’d have you over my knee so I could beat your ass until you looked like a baboon.”
A stunned silence followed.
“It’s just a goddamned garbage man,” someone said. “Shoot him.”
There was a series of gunshots and a scream, then DS called out, “I never said I was the fucking janitor.”
River used the cover of noise and movement to get closer to the room where the college kids were clustered.
A few more shots. “I’m your worst goddamned nightmare, maggots. I’m your personal drill sergeant. Get your ears wet boys, ’cause I’m going to fuck the shit you have for brains right out of your heads.”
“Holy shit, I know that guy,” someone said in a surprised tone. “He drives a city transit bus.”
“He’s not a cop or with the Army?”
“No, man, he’s retired. He was some kind of drill sergeant.”
“What the fuck is he doing in here?”
