The Defender (The Carrier Series Book 2)

by Diana Ryan

  “Darcy?”

  “Come on, Nolan! If we don’t leave now you’ll never get out of here.” She reached out and grabbed the hand of my good arm, pulling me off the cot and onto my clumsy feet.

  “Drink this,” she ordered and shoved a small bottle towards me. I slowly drank in the sweet contents.

  I stumbled out of the room into the hallway, almost falling to the ground several times, the muscles in my legs protesting from lack of use. The dim lights in the hallway were too bright and burned my eyes. Opening them only into slits, I saw a dead guard lying on the floor at the base of my door. Drew was waiting down the hall for us by an exit, sucking on a bottle similar to the one I had. As we approached, I noticed his eyes were black and blue, and his face was very swollen. His shirt was soaked with blood at the shoulder and upper chest.

  “You look like hell, kid,” he said to me.

  “Same to you, buddy.”

  “Quit the chit-chat you two, and get up those stairs.” Darcy had opened the heavy metal door to the fire exit and was waiting for us to ascend. We both stumbled and dragged ourselves up the stairs as Darcy followed behind us.

  “Take the first-story exit,” she called quietly, stifling back bursts of laughter at the sight of us.

  My legs felt like they were made of jelly, and my left arm was throbbing with extreme pain. Even though I had only gone up about eight steps, I was out of breath as if I had just run a 5K race.

  Darcy tried to keep her laughing under control, and even though I knew we must look ridiculous, I told her to shut up. “How long was I in there?”

  “Same as me.” Drew used the handrail to pull himself up a few more stairs. “Almost four days.”

  I could see the second-floor exit at the top of the next flight. “How did you find us, Darcy?”

  “They took our cell phones,” Drew answered, “but they didn’t check my pants pocket for the emergency GPS button I had in there! Darcy gave me one before we left Dublin and I launched it when Harper’s men bagged us. I knew things were not going well at that point.”

  Darcy climbed a few steps at a time and charged ahead of both Drew and me. “I got the signal, the IIA flew me to St. Ives, and I found you guys here in the basement of this old factory.”

  Those little GPS buttons come in handy. My mind raced back to the night I left one on Ava’s shoulder after I was forced to stab her.

  “I took out the guards at the entrance door, and the rest of the place was abandoned.” She pulled out her Glock and slowly opened the door at the landing of the stairs. “Stay here,” Darcy whispered to us. Then she stuck her head out of the door and looked up and down the dark, empty space in front of us. “Still looks clear, but we’ve got to run our asses out of here quickly before Harper realizes you’re gone. You think you boys can do that? I’ve got a car waiting out back.”

  “We’ll do our best, babe, but my mind is still a little hazy, and I don’t think it’s sending the right messages to my legs.”

  Darcy laughed and said, “Let’s go!” She shooed us out the door and then ran past us, leading the way through a large, dark warehouse. I willed my legs to move quickly but they were sluggish and weak, barely keeping up with Darcy as she jogged in her heeled boots toward an exit on the far end. It seemed as if we were passing rows and rows of metal shelving units, but I couldn't see what was on them as we rushed by in the dark.

  Suddenly, gunshots fired from behind us, ricocheting off metal and exploding a series of lights in the ceiling high above me. Glass rained down as Darcy turned her torso and expertly shot into the darkness behind us. I had to admit, she looked incredibly hot.

  With a lot of effort, Drew pushed open the door as shots bounced off the walls around us, sounding out metallic tings. The door led right into the alley behind the building where a black SUV was waiting. Drew and I opened the door and dragged our tired bodies in while Darcy continued shooting behind us back into the building. She dove into the car just as the driver pulled away from the building.

  Darcy pulled her legs into the moving car and shut the door as a few gunshots ricocheted off the hubcaps and bumper. Her strawberry-blond hair was loosely falling out of her high ponytail, and she was out of breath.

  “Well boys, my job here is done. You’ll be on a plane back to the US within the hour.”

  Drew reached over and grabbed her face in his hands. He stared sincerely into her eyes and said between breaths, “Thank you for rescuing us. You saved our lives. “

  “Not a problem. I told you I’d be there for you when you needed me.” And then as if I wasn’t even in the car, they shared a passionate kiss.

  Although my heart swarmed with sorrow wishing I could share such a wonderful moment with Ava, my heart was filled with joy and anticipation—we were actually headed home!

  Chapter Nine

  Wednesday, October 29th

  Drew and I looked like war heroes returning from battle when landed in Chicago late Wednesday afternoon. The IIA chartered a flight for us furnished with a medical staff to treat the injuries Drew and I suffered from. My arm had been broken in two places and my shoulder had been dislocated again. Drew had a fracture under his right eye socket and his nose was broken. He had a gunshot wound in his shoulder and needed surgery to repair the muscle.

  We were driven back to the Midwest FBI headquarters in Milwaukee, where Drew received more treatment and the FBI doctors performed the same state-of-the-art laser surgery on me that they had done for Ava a few weeks before. Drew and I rested in the hospital wing until late that night.

  It was almost 11:30 p.m. when Agent Bowman came into the hospital room Drew and I shared. “Agents, good work. I am proud of your efforts in Ireland and Cornwall. You were able to recover some important information.”

  Bowman sat down on the edge of Drew’s bed. “Caducuspetra Morbus.” He tapped his fingers together and stared out the window. “I’ve known for a while about Caducuspetra. I just didn’t know that I did.”

  He’s known about it?

  There was a long silence as Agent Bowman stared out the window, thinking. Neither Drew nor I dared to say a word.

  Then suddenly he stood up from the bed and cleared his throat, turning toward us.

  “You boys know about genes, right?” We both nodded. “Of course you do.” Bowman sat down on the visitor’s chair in the corner of the room, crossed his legs, and interlocked his fingers over his top knee. It was like he was settling in for a long lecture. “DNA is the building blocks of our body’s trillion cells. Long, twisted ladders of tiny pieces of code contain the maps of genetic information that make our eyes blue or hair curly.” He uncrossed his legs and continued the lesson, leaning forward so his elbows were on his knees, fingers interlocked. “What if your genes were missing parts of the DNA molecule in each cell? What if certain pieces of that ladder slowly disintegrated over a period of say, twenty years? Gradually the DNA chains would become weak, and eventually the whole ladder would collapse, leading to…death.” He seemed to be thinking out loud.

  I sat up in my bed a little. This has to do with Ava, my heart suggested.

  “We know these blue meteor rocks exhibit radiation capable of weakening DNA this way, depending on the size of the rock and the length of the exposure, of course.” He got up from the chair, walked toward the door, and shut it. “Up until now, this problem has not been widely advertised, and a cure has not been necessary.”

  “Up until now, sir?” Drew asked.

  “We have a double agent who is providing the agency with insider information from Myers’s outfit. Our mole has indicated that Myers has been collecting the names of infected Americans for quite some time. For many decades there were isolated communities of people infected, but now the number is more widely spread. Myers believes there are almost twenty-thousand victims in the continental US alone.” He paced the room silently for a few seconds while Drew and I waited patiently. “Recently he’s been searching oversees and our double estimates Myers has lea
rned the names of hundreds of others around the world that may be infected with Caducuspetra.”

  Drew spoke up. “What does he want with a list of infected people?”

  “And that’s the part of the story we are missing.” The heels on Agent Bowman’s shoes clicked as he walked to the window again. “Myers must know something we don’t.” Bowman stared out the window for a moment, thinking. “Intel believes he may try to engineer some type of antidote or cure. A million dollar enterprise sits before the creation of this cure, but I am hesitant to accept this as Myers’s only motivation.” He turned from the window. “You two have discovered that Myers believes the cure lies within the infected, but it is much more complicated than that.” Bowman let out a loud sigh. “Agents, I think Myers needs something from these people to create his cure.”

  I suddenly wanted to jump up out of the bed and drive up to Stevens Point to be with Ava. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit here while she was on Myers’s hit list.

  Agent Bowman turned from the window and saw me pulling back the blankets. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Agent Hill, but you can’t run off to Miss Gardner just yet. I need to send you and Agent Smith down to Lena, Illinois, Myers’s childhood hometown, to find out exactly what his father was researching when he died.”

  “And what about Ava?” My stomach turned butterflies.

  “I just got off the phone with Agent Greene before I came up here.” He thought about what to say next. “I won’t insult your intelligence and try to tell you Miss Gardner is in no danger. Just last night Agent Greene and Miss Gardner narrowly missed a car bombing. I’ve sent extra protection to Stevens Point to follow Miss Gardner around the clock, just in case.”

  “Shouldn’t we pull her out of there to be safe, sir?” A few extra guys weren’t going to stop Myers, I was sure.

  “We have no other indication that Myers or his men were in Stevens Point last night, and we’d like Miss Gardner to be able to live the most normal life plausible for as long as possible.” Then he paused for a moment. “Believe me, she is well looked after.”

  “It had to be him. Why else would there be a random car bombing in a little central Wisconsin college town?” The tips of my ears were growing hot with agitation.

  Agent Bowman smiled and ignored my comment. “I’ll have a car ready for you to take to Lena tomorrow morning.” He walked around to the edge of my bed and patted my feet, but looked at Drew. “That is, unless either of you object to another mission so soon.”

  Something inside me said that in my condition, I probably shouldn’t take the mission, but honestly there was no one else I trusted for the job.

  Since neither of us replied, Agent Bowman said, “Good. Now you two get some rest,” and he walked out the door.

  Easier said than done. My heart was racing with worry over Ava’s safety.

  * * * *

  Thursday, October 30th

  Drew and I woke amazed at the marvels of modern medicine. Although we did not look our best, our injuries only felt like minor nuisances.

  The trip to Lena was only supposed to take two and a half hours, but we ran into rush hour traffic around Chicago early in the morning. I spent the ride through the flatlands of Illinois on my tablet searching for anything I could about Myers or obscure genetics.

  Drew kept yawning and exhaling loudly. He really looked miserable.

  “Hey, are you sure you’re up for this? You want me to drive for a while and you can take a nap?”

  “Nope. Just crack me that energy drink in the console. I couldn’t leave my buddy when he needs me most.”

  “Thanks, Drew. You know I’d do the same for you.” It was true. There was no one else I’d rather be on this mission with. “I think we should start our search at the Lena Community Library,” I suggested. I read from my tablet when Drew didn’t comment. “Bowman knows Myers spent his childhood at the Stephenson County Children’s Home because his parents died in a car accident when he was six.”

  Drew looked in the rearview mirror and then changed lanes. “We should go there. I bet they’d have some info for us.”

  “Maybe after we hit the library.”

  I wondered how Ava was doing and when this mission would be complete. Would it be soon that we’d have enough information to truly take down Myers and get Ava back in the operating room to restore her memory?

  Lena, Illinois, was a small Midwestern community of three-thousand people. The Lena Library was a small, red brick building only a few blocks from the out-of-use railroad tracks that ran through town.

  A very overweight woman, probably in her forties, was chugging a bottle of Mountain Dew behind the front checkout counter when we walked in the door. There was an empty bag of Cheetos on her desk and a suspect ring of orange cheese powder around her mouth. Drew shot me an eyes-wide-open look and I returned the sentiment. We awkwardly stood in front of her for a good twenty seconds before she opened her eyes, stopped chugging from the bottle, and noticed us. She jumped, startled, and choked a little on the soda.

  “Oh good Lord Almighty! You two startled me!” She laughed and wiped the Cheeto dust from her mouth with the back of her hand. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  I detected a slight southern accent hiding behind her words.

  “Yes, we’re looking for the public records, specifically archives of the census, old newspapers, and family records.” The place was small and dated, and I hoped this wasn’t a waste of time.

  “We have a collection of newspapers on the microfiche machines in the basement, and there are several town hall record books down there as well.” The large librarian got up from the chair and waddled around the circulation desk. “You two veterans? You look like you’ve been through a war!”

  I was about to reply no, but Drew cut me off. “Yes. Just returned home.” I had forgotten we don’t normally offer our FBI status unless there is good reason to.

  “Thanks for your service, boys. The country is in your debt.” Her oversized backside bounced and jiggled as she led us through the library. I could barely turn my eyes from the spectacle before me, but finally looked away when I noticed Drew making obnoxious sexual gestures behind her back. I tried not to laugh, but a little snicker snuck out, so I faked a cough to cover it up.

  We walked toward the back of the building; there wasn’t another soul in the library. The librarian turned, “You two new to Lena? I know most everyone who lives in this little town and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fine young men around here before.”

  “We’re just passing through, ma’am.” Drew had a talent for quick thinking.

  “Just passing through, huh? Well, welcome to Lena.” We walked past the children’s section and around a corner to a staircase. “We were in the process of taking all those old newspaper scans and turning them into digital copies, but lately our volunteer staff have been busy preparing for the big town holiday festival in November. The whole scanning process is pretty much at a standstill at this point.” She laughed a big chuckle and her butt bounced up and down as she did so. “You boys know how to use a microfiche machine, right?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but Drew nodded his head.

  At the bottom of the stairs the librarian showed us an area with two large microfiche machines on top of a long table pushed against a wall. Nearby were bookshelves of old leather-bound, oversized books.

  “Good luck, dears. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.” Then she turned and shuffled her way back down the hallway, humming an unfamiliar tune.

  “Why don’t you check out those books while I fire up the microfiche?” Drew suggested. He sat down in front of an oversized computer screen sitting on top of a computer box with a large dial attached. There was no keyboard, only a few buttons built into the front of the box. Under the monitor was a light shining up to a place where the user could put a piece of film to be read on the monitor.

  While Drew got to work, I found the census record book from 1960�
�1970 and located Dr. Clennan and Mrs. Myrna Myers and their son Ethan Myers, residents of 519 Locust Street. I wrote down the information and put the book back on the shelf. Then I found county court records, town council meeting minutes, and many books recording marriages and divorces. But nothing seemed to be of help. I let out a sigh and turned to Drew. “Are you finding anything over there?”

  “Nah. Not yet.” He kept his eyes on the screen and turned the large dial on the machine until his phone vibrated and interrupted his work. He looked at the screen and then smiled a guilty grin and laughed quietly, trying to hide it from me.

  “Nice try. What does she want?” I knew it was Darcy.

  “Oh…you think it’s…” Then he gave up his act. “Yeah, it’s Darcy. She wants to know what we are up to.”

  “Doesn’t she have anything better to do than text you all day?”

  “I sure hope not,” he said while texting.

  I recognized that smile. “You really like her, don’t you?”

  He took a few seconds to muster up some courage, and then he said, “Yeah. I really, really do.” He put down his phone and looked up at me, his face filled with complete sincerity. “It’s so cliché but…but I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about her. She stole my heart in the five days I spent with her.” Then he let out a deep breath. “It sucks that she lives halfway around the world.” His smile faded instantly.

  “You’ll find your way back to her.” I smiled, wondering if I was talking to his heart or mine. “But for now, we have work to do.”

  “Yes, boss!” He saluted me, and then texted another message. I swiveled in my chair, and got back to reading books. I could tell Drew was still texting Darcy, however, since I heard him typing and snickering. “Oh wait, here’s an article about Dr. Myers’s research. Apparently he won a county science award for his advances in genetic medicine.”