by David Achord
“They were sitting awfully close together,” she huffed. “And, he had a fresh haircut.”
I grunted again and reminded myself to ask Kelly about it later. She’d have the inside info. Riley helped me refill one of the homemade waterers and collect eggs. We carried them into the kitchen and was mildly surprised to see Charlie Mac in the kitchen.
“Hello, Zach,” he said, with maybe a little tenseness in his voice.
“You’re on the kitchen crew again?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said and gestured at the others. “Same crew.” He then pointed over at the food waste barrels. “We’ve already carried last night’s barrels to Harold’s. These don’t go until tomorrow.”
“I hope Harold was pleased,” I said as Becky took the eggs from us.
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “He said we were the best kitchen crew as far as getting the food waste to him on time.” He finished that sentence with a chuckle.
“Say, about that smokehouse he wants built. I’ve been thinking about it and we’ve discussed it amongst ourselves. We’d like to build it.”
I was surprised again. That’s three times already and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. “You would?”
“Yeah,” Charlie Mac said and turned to one of the men. “Hey, Kass, show him what you’ve drawn up.”
Kass walked over and pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of his pocket. He unfolded and smoothed it out before handing it to me. It was a highly detailed design of a smokehouse, complete with dimension lines.
“I like it,” I said.
“Harold likes it too,” Charlie Mac said.
“I get the feeling you’ve done stuff like this before,” I said to Kass.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “I’ve always been a bit of a handyman and back home I had a wood shop.”
“I don’t recall that aspect of you coming out in the debriefing interview,” I said. “I would have remembered something like that.”
His only response was a shrug. Charlie Mac spoke up.
“If you could put in a good word with Lydia, we’d be glad to build it. The four of us would like to get out of kitchen duty for a while.”
I looked at the four of them, who were looking back hopefully.
I looked at the drawing again. It was hand drawn and meticulous. I kept any emotion out of my face. Charlie Mac was nothing more than manual labor, as was Becky and Starr, the two women in this work crew. I don’t know if Lydia did it on purpose, but she put the four of them together on any type of work detail they were assigned to. If she had an ulterior motive, it worked splendidly because they paired off rather quickly and had been together for over a year now.
“This is a good drawing, Kass,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied.
“Okay, the weather is warming up. Let’s give it a week and then I’ll get you four assigned to this project,” I said while gesturing at the drawing. The four of them broke out in smiles.
“Thanks, Zach,” Charlie Mac said. “Don’t get me wrong, working in the kitchen during the winter is fine, but if we get through early, Lydia assigns us extra work. We’re ready for a change of scenery.”
“I understand.” I then turned to Kass. “Can you train these three how to build stuff?” I asked.
“You bet your ass I can,” he replied with a grin.
“Good. In the library is an apiary book. Go check it out and have a look at the beehive boxes. We need at least fifteen built. Work up a drawing and we’ll go from there.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
We spoke some more before Riley and I walked out of the kitchen.
“Is that your job?” she asked.
“Yeah, among other things.”
The reason I went to the horse barn was to be alone and think. So far, it wasn’t working. I was about to head to my office, but I realized Riley was bored and wanted someone to hang out with. She’d no doubt want to tag along. I thought carefully and came up with an idea.
“Say, have you seen the school where Kelly works?” I asked. She shook her head.
“Why don’t I show you? Oh, by the way, always wash your hands after handling chickens and chicken eggs. You know that, right?”
“Salmonella infection?” she said.
“Yeah, that’s one possibility. There’s others, but I won’t bore you. Let’s get cleaned up.”
We were soon standing in the doorway of the daycare where Maria was. She was sitting with a group of kids playing some type of game. She looked up and waved. I introduced Riley to the kids and it didn’t take much for them to talk Riley into joining in. Satisfied with my cleverness, I eased out and went back to my office.
Chapter 35 – Confronting Parvis
I’d been sitting in our office for an hour when Parvis walked in. He was a man of habits, and headed directly to the hotplate.
“Oh, you’ve already got the kettle on,” he exclaimed.
“Yep.”
“Excellent.”
I watched him as he sat and watched the kettle. I’d almost timed it accurately. The kettle started whistling within a minute. A look of delight crossed his face as he poured two mugs and put the tea balls in. He sat a mug in front of me before sitting back down. Suddenly, he was hit with a coughing fit. He found his handkerchief and coughed into it.
“Do you need anything?” I asked in concern.
He shook his head as he continued coughing for almost a full minute before regaining control. He then took several sips of tea and gave me a rueful smile. I didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be having a lot of coughing fits lately.
“You’d think I have lung cancer instead of prostate cancer,” he lamented.
I gave him a slow nod. There wasn’t anything I could say. We’d already talked about it at length. Unfortunately, removing his prostate did not help. The cancer had spread throughout his body and was starting to show now. He’d been steadily losing weight and if one looked closely, you could see a hint of jaundice in his sclera.
“The general has gone back to Fort Detrick,” he said. “He took a substantial amount of food supplies with him.”
I nodded and for some reason started thinking about all of the different types of food we didn’t have. Back when Felix and I were best friends, we loved Nashville hot chicken and ate it almost every weekend. Those were good memories. Of course, it didn’t stop me from putting a bullet in his head a few years later.
“Did you have anything special you want to tackle today?” Parvis asked, breaking me from my reverie.
I stood up and walked over to the wall where we had a map hanging of the continental United States, Canada, and most of Mexico. There were three circles around Mount Weather, each one depicting the one hundred, two hundred, and three-hundred-mile radius. We had little green dots and code numbers of each location our scouts had visited. The code numbers had a corresponding data file on Mount Weather’s intranet. The scout teams collected information from each site they visited, including still photos and videos.
“What are you thinking?” Parvis asked. I gestured at the map.
“Even though we’re now into the three-hundred-mile ring, there are still many areas we have not yet explored,” I said, looking at all of the blank areas without green dots. Green meant friendly contact with survivors. Red meant contact with hostile survivors. Orange signified a large presence of zeds. We made the marks with dry erase markers, and I noted Parvis had removed the green dots from Dayton and Eastgate. They had been replaced with black dots, which meant abandoned or lost. I pointed to the spot where Riley and I encountered the zeds.
“This is the spot where we smelled wood smoke, but we don’t have any notation of people living here. We need to explore this area further and make sure this is a safe route to and from the Hook.”
“Yes, a lot of unexplored areas, but I think our primary focus should be on helping Marcus Hook at this time,” he said.
I knew what he was thinking, but I asked anyway
.
“How so?”
“Raymond has agreed to stay there for the next three months, and the Bristol people are certainly helping, but they need another dozen people. We should limit scouting activity and instead divert all of that manpower to Hook.”
I stared at him levelly. “What about Fort Detrick?”
“What about it?” he asked without making eye contact.
I continued. “It’s going to be up to you and I to find out who all was involved in sabotaging those vaccinations.”
“I’m sure General Fosswell’s investigation and subsequent conclusions are adequate,” he said. “Is there something that leads you to believe otherwise?”
“You don’t think it’s a little too cut and dry?” I asked. “I mean, he has laid the entire blame on his son. His dead son. It’s a little too convenient, don’t you think?”
He gazed at me pointedly. “Do you have any evidence which would prove otherwise?” he asked.
“What if I did?” I countered.
He stared at me a long moment. “Do you?” he finally asked.
“Yes, I have something,” I answered.
“So, do you want to tell me or should I guess?”
I did not answer. There were a lot of things I could have said, but I chose to remain silent.
Parvis gently set his cup down. “Zach, you’ve come a long way since we first met, but sometimes you’re like a bull in a china shop. A raging bull.”
He had another coughing fit for a moment, and then wiped his mouth with a handkerchief before continuing.
“You’ve obviously come upon some information which makes you suspicious, and yet you are disinclined to share it with me. It begs the question, Zach, why won’t you share it with me?”
“I believe there are more people involved in this,” I said. “And there is more going on than sabotaging a batch of vaccines.”
“So, what do you suggest? Dragging in the suspects and giving them an old-fashioned interrogation, like cops with lead saps and a harsh light pointed in their face?”
“Parvis, over a hundred people were infected. Whoever sabotaged those vaccines committed the equivalent of mass murder, and whoever assisted or aided them is every bit as culpable.”
Instead of answering, Parvis went to the restroom. After a moment, I heard the toilet flushing and then water running in the sink before he came back out. He gathered up his cup and made a point of thoroughly washing and drying it.
Parvis and I were friends, close friends. We’d spent many hours together over the past five years. There were several minutes of silence while Parvis read something on his laptop.
“Yes, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced we need to divert manpower from the scout teams to Marcus Hook,” he said. “But, not only that, we need to convince at least ten more people to live there permanently. We can present a sales pitch, maybe give some kind of incentives, like personally assigned vehicles with motor pool privileges or something.”
When I didn’t answer, he looked up. He must have seen the consternation on my face. “Is there something else bothering you, Zach?”
“I need to ask you something,” I finally said.
“Yes?”
“The vaccines.”
“We’re still on that?” he asked with a sigh.
“Do you have any inside information about the sabotage?” I asked.
“No more than you,” he answered. “Why?”
“Did you ever know Mayo Craddock?” I asked suddenly.
“Of course I did. He was a little squirrelly, but a good man. Why do you ask?”
“Tell me about him,” I said.
“Well, not a whole lot to tell. He was a virologist working as a civilian contractor at Fort Detrick. He was rescued along with Kincaid and Smeltzer.”
“He was good friends with General Fosswell, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I believe he was. They went to high school together and were altar boys in the same church, if memory serves me correctly.” He eyed me a moment before he took his glasses off and began cleaning them with the tail of his shirt. “I’m sensing you believe there is some kind of nexus between Doctor Craddock and the current situation with the vaccines.”
“A task force was created to go back to Detrick and attempt to secure the facility.”
“That’s right.” He picked up his mug and tried a sip, forgetting it was empty.
“It’s my understanding Doctor Craddock insisted on going with the task force.”
“Yes, he did. He stated his expertise would be a valuable asset. And, yes, in answer to your unasked question, they somehow met a violent death up there.”
“Nobody knows what happened to them,” I stated. “Not even you.”
“Correct,” he replied. “And that was a little over five years ago now. We may never know what really happened at Detrick. So, your turn. Why are you concerned about Doctor Craddock?”
“So, he was a Catholic man?”
“Yes, why?”
“Devout? Fanatical?”
“I have no idea, why?”
“Would he be the type of person to do something drastic, martyr himself maybe?” I asked.
Parvis frowned. “What an odd question.” He waited for me to react, but I merely stared at him. “I didn’t see that in him,” he finally said.
I hesitated. Parvis continued staring at me with a steady gaze. He often did that when he knew I was thinking something through. He’d always been a patient man with me.
“Say what you’re thinking, Zach.” His voice was quiet now.
“Alright, I believe General Fosswell conspired with Craddock, and possibly others, to somehow sabotage the mission. His scheme was probably not intended to lead to Craddock’s demise, but somehow it happened. And, I believe General Fosswell sabotaged the two individual batches of vaccine destined for Ohio. And, I believe General Fosswell, for reasons I’m unsure of, orchestrated those two events, among other acts which were designed to undermine the fundamental mission of Mount Weather.”
Now he was giving me a solemn look while I stared back. I was looking for anything in his behavior or demeanor which gave any type of indication of deception. He placed his hands under his chin and formed a steeple with his fingers. I’d seen him do this before. He did it when someone, usually one of his kids or me, threw him a curve ball.
“Were you involved?” I asked.
His eyes widened when he realized what I was asking. “Zach? Do you really think that?”
I maintained eye contact with him and waited.
“The answer is no, Zach. I am not, nor have I ever been, complicit in any nefarious activity you suspect General Fosswell of. Furthermore, President Stark has no knowledge of this either. What makes you think Fosswell is behind all of this?” He stopped to address another coughing fit.
“Alright, Zach, tell me what your evidence is. I know you wouldn’t be wasting my time pursuing this line of questioning unless you had some kind of compelling evidence. So, what is it?”
“I’d rather not say,” I said. He eyed me shrewdly.
“Grace,” he suddenly said. “She’s been acting peculiar lately. You two found something.”
I didn’t answer. He dipped his chin down when I didn’t respond. I’d seen this mannerism before as well. In spite of the innuendo in the tone of his emails to Fosswell, I was now convinced he knew nothing.
Parvis was a brilliant man. One would think his level of intellect would make him arrogant and condescending, but he wasn’t. He was the opposite; humble and unassuming. He had taken me under his wing when I first got here, and I’d spent five years under the tutelage of a MIT professor who was arguably one of the smartest men in the world. I’d learned a lot from him. And what’s more, I learned what kind of man he was. I knew he was honest, forthright, and there wasn’t an evil bone in his body.
“I don’t yet know why he’s doing what he’s doing, but I’ve been put off long enough. I’m going to find out, wit
h or without your consent. And, I believe he is not acting alone.”
At some point during this conversation, he no longer felt the need to maintain eye contact with me and instead stared at the map on the far wall. After a while, he spoke softly.
“I’m tired, Zach. So tired.”
He rubbed his chin in thought a moment before reaching for the phone.
“An important matter has come up. I believe we need to talk to you right away. I think it’d be better if we discuss it in person.” There was a pause before he spoke again. “Thank you, sir, we’ll be right there.”
He hung up and motioned at the door. “Let’s go speak with President Stark. You can plead your case to him.”
The meeting lasted two hours. When it ended, I walked around Mount Weather until I found Captain Justin Smithson. He was in the warehouse, looking over our inventory, trying in vain to find replacement parts for a baby carriage. He spotted me as I walked in.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Remember that day we went fishing and we had a discussion about some things?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“And we talked about the sabotaged vaccinations?”
“And I said I’d help you out if you needed it,” Justin said. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Were you serious?” I asked. Justin nodded somberly.
“Alright. You, me, and Fred are going on a little trip tomorrow,” I said and explained.
Chapter 36 – Confronting Fosswell
I drove the deuce. Justin was in the passenger seat. We’d dropped Fred off a few miles away from Fort Detrick and watched him as he jumped out and ambled off into a nearby wood line.
“Why drop him off this far out?” Justin asked as I put the deuce in gear.
“If you were running Fort Detrick, wouldn’t you have active patrols?” I asked.
“Okay, point taken, but will you explain to me once again how he’s going to be our backup?”
“He didn’t really say. He only said he’d be there when we needed him,” I said.
