“My blood is O-negative, the most universal of all types,” continued Jarvis. “Anyone can tolerate my blood without risk of a hemolytic reaction.”
“They wouldn’t get sick from the virus?”
“Almost certainly not. The virus in my body is severely weakened. Within hours, a healthy host would kill it off entirely.”
“If that’s the case,” said Tanner, “your magic serum would only work for a few hours. Not much use if you ask me.”
“That’s true. However, I’m convinced that a serum, if you want to call it that, can be developed that would last much longer, maybe even forever. Think about it. Man and monster could live in peace. Together, they could build a new society that truly understands the fragility of our planet.”
Tanner wasn’t buying it. “And who’s going to develop this serum? You?”
Dr. Jarvis looked up at him, hurt filling his eyes.
“Of course. It has to be me. My blood is the key to everything. I didn’t realize it in the beginning, but my role goes far beyond simply destroying the evils of mankind. I have to be the one to provide for a new beginning.”
“That’s not going to make things right, Doc. I hope you know that.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but it might help to make them a little less wrong.”
After Dr. Jarvis had confessed to being the world’s worst mass murderer, Tanner and Samantha quickly grabbed up their gear and prepared to leave the Abner Cloud House. He pleaded with them to stay a little longer, perhaps out of loneliness, perhaps to offer more justification for his heinous actions, but neither of them had much interest in being in his presence any longer. His plan to develop a serum that helped survivor relations didn’t involve them. That was his personal penance and not one they were willing to help pay.
Dr. Jarvis was still talking when Tanner stepped out of the front door and pulled it shut behind him.
“Let’s put a little distance between us and him.”
Samantha seemed lost in thought.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It just occurred to me that Dr. Jarvis killed my father. I’m not sure what I should do about that.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I… I don’t really know. Part of me wants to cry. Part of me wants to go in there and shoot him dead.”
“If you want him dead, I’ll do it for you. All you have to do is ask. Lord knows that man deserves it.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I think we need him.”
“Need him? I need him about as much as I need a blister on my di—. He cleared his throat. “On my big toe.”
“You heard what he said. His blood holds the key to everyone’s survival. We shouldn’t take that away from the world.”
Tanner put his arm around her.
“You’re way nicer than I am, Sam.”
“No kidding.”
He smiled. “Rest assured that Dr. Jarvis will eventually get what’s coming to him. People like that always do.”
“You mean when he goes to heaven and meets God?”
“Darlin’, that man ain’t going to heaven. Now come on,” he said, starting across the parking lot. “We need to get out of this city before dark.”
Samantha took one final look back at the house and then hurried after him. They followed the trail down to the bridge and crossed over the canal. The water was only about a foot deep and maybe ten feet across, but using the bridge kept their feet dry. At the opposite end was a blue and white sign in the shape of an anchor, Welcome to Fletcher’s Cove.
The path turned both left and right, with no obvious benefit to going in either direction. They opted to go left. The trail continued on, taking a lazy curve before coming to a four-way intersection. Directly ahead, the path continued to circle around, almost certainly leading back to the canal bridge. To the left was a paved driveway heading up to a large house, and to the right was a path that sloped down toward a long wooden pier, beyond which lay the Potomac River. Dozens of brightly colored canoes and kayaks rested upside down on the dock.
“This way,” Tanner said, heading down toward the pier.
As they got closer, they saw that in addition to the canoes and kayaks there were also a dozen gray metal rowboats moored to the dock. Tanner looked out across the Potomac. From the mouth of the cove, it was probably five hundred feet to the trees on the opposite bank. Two fishing poles were wedged against the dock’s wooden posts, their lines stretching out into the water. Without saying a word, he reached down and hurled them both out into the river.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I figured they were probably the good doctor’s. It’s now my personal mission to make his life a little harder.”
She nodded and turned to face the river.
“How should we get across?”
“Let’s take a rowboat. A man my size doesn’t need to be in something as wobbly as a canoe.”
“Good point. I don’t want you to sink us.”
Leaning over the water, he grabbed a mooring rope and pulled one of the rowboats up to the edge of the dock. Samantha held onto a heavy wooden post and carefully stepped down into the boat. Once it steadied, Tanner followed behind her. They set their packs and weapons on the bottom of the boat before taking seats on opposite thwarts.
“Do you know how to row one of these things?” she asked, rubbing her hands over the heavy oars.
“I don’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“That’s gonna be your job.”
“What? Why?”
Tanner untied the boat from the dock, coiled the rope, and set it on the floor of the bow.
“Because this is one of those learning opportunities.”
“I don’t need to know how to row a boat.”
“You do today. Who’s to say you won’t tomorrow?”
She struggled to find fault with his logic.
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head, “but you’re not fooling me. I know that you’re just being lazy.”
“An old man’s prerogative,” he said with a smile. “Now, take a seat between the oars with your feet together, facing the stern.”
“Backwards, right?”
“That’s right.”
She positioned herself as instructed.
“Grab an oar in each hand with your palms down.”
She gripped the worn wooden handles.
“Perfect. Keeping the blades straight up and down, push your arms out, and then dip the oars into the water behind you.”
She pushed forward and plunked the oars down into the water.
“Not so deep. You’re not trying to knock the fish unconscious. Only the blades need to be in the water.”
She tilted them so that the oars were riding a little higher.
“Great. Now, pull both oars toward you nice and smooth, being careful to keep the blades straight up and down in the water.”
As she pulled the oars toward her, the boat started gliding out into the river.
“I’m doing it!” she said, looking back at him with a big smile on her face.
“Yep. You’re a natural.”
She rowed them out a few strokes before realizing that the river’s current was slowly pushing them off course.
“How do I steer?”
“Hold one oar in the water, and pull the other one. Give it a try.”
She kept the left oar back in the water and pulled the right one toward her. The boat started turning left as it pivoted around the stationary oar.
“Cool.” She practiced steering both direction a few times. “This isn’t so hard.”
“Tell me that when we get to the other side,” he said, grinning.
Not really understanding what he was getting at, she started rowing. To Tanner’s surprise, they made it nearly three quarters of the way across the Potomac before Samantha offered even the slightest protest.
“I’m getting tired,” she said, letting the oars hang from
their rowlocks as she spun around. “And I think you gave me a blister.”
“I gave you a blister?”
“You made me row.”
“Take a break. It’s all right if we float for a while.” Tanner wasn’t about to try to trade positions with her. One of them would undoubtedly end up in the drink.
“We’ll drift off course.”
He shrugged. “What’s it matter? We’ll land where we land.”
She leaned back and placed her hands on the seat.
“It’s peaceful out here on the water, isn’t it?”
Tanner smiled and let the sun warm his face.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s nice.”
She waited for some kind of wisecrack, and when it didn’t come, she leaned over to dip her fingers into the water.
The crack of a gunshot sounded. Tanner instinctively tumbled down onto the floorboards, pulling Samantha along with him.
“Ouch,” she cried, bonking her elbow against one of the thwarts.
“Stretch out and lay flat to get as low as you can.”
She wiggled around until her legs were outstretched. Another gunshot sounded, and they heard a faint splash of water.
“Who’s shooting at us?” she asked.
Tanner propped up and scanned the far bank. He saw a muzzle flash, followed by another crack of the rifle firing. The shot went wide by nearly thirty feet. Whoever was shooting at them was a piss-poor marksman.
Tanner dropped back down.
“He’s almost directly ahead of us.”
“Okay, but why’s anyone shooting at us at all? We haven’t done anything.”
“The why doesn’t matter. We accept our circumstances and fight.”
“Right,” she said, sliding her hand over to grip her rifle. “But how are we going to hit someone hiding in the forest?”
It was a good question. Even against a novice shooter, they were at a disadvantage. Tanner reached over and unhooked a sheathed six-inch hunting knife from his pack. He stuck the thick leather into the front of his waistband.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll swim downstream and come up behind them.”
“You’re going to leave me here all alone?”
“I suppose we could both just lie here hoping they run out of ammo.”
She snorted. “At least take your shotgun.”
“Can’t. The shells will get wet.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Once you hear me holler, row the boat to shore. Until then, stay down.”
“Okay, but be careful.”
He grinned. “You said it this time, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll see you in a few.”
Tanner sat up, threw one leg over the side, and rolled into the river.
Chapter 11
“I must say that you handled that old man extremely well,” Mason said, ducking down and following Leila and Bowie through a narrow passage between two overturned cars.
“You mean after I stopped beating on him.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, after that.”
“Poor thing. Joe and Elsa should have gone together. It’s better that way sometimes.”
Mason’s mind drifted to thoughts of Ava, his girlfriend murdered by one of General Hood’s operatives during their hunt for President Glass’s daughter. While he had known Ava only a short time, he had come to love her, and love was not something he could let go of easily. Despite not having stumbled into the abyss of insanity like poor Joe, Mason thought he understood how such a plunge might be possible.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” he said, hoping to avoid any further discussion of relationships.
She slowed and carefully stepped across a set of railroad tracks.
“What can I say? I’m Israeli.”
He nodded. “While in the Rangers, I trained briefly with the Israeli Shayetet 13. They were tough and very well trained.”
“We are a country of incessant war. While not everyone is as fierce as our special forces, even the oldest woman knows how to put on a gas mask or slice a man’s throat.”
Before he could reply, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him behind a car.
“What is it?”
“Look,” she said, leaning around and pointing. “Over there, by that building.”
Mason rose up and peeked through the car’s windows at a nondescript red brick building that sprawled for several hundred yards. A sign hung on the front wall that read The J.M. Smucker Company, Home of JIF. The letters for JIF were striped in red, blue, and green, the iconic colors of the peanut butter brand. In a small delivery lot near the front entrance sat one of the black SpeedHawk helicopters.
“What do you think they’re doing here?” she asked.
“Same as us, I suppose. Looking for Lenny.”
“At a peanut butter plant?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they know something we don’t.”
“Just one helicopter though.”
Mason scanned the skies. There was no sign of the second SpeedHawk. The soldiers had apparently split up to cover more ground. That meant they weren’t sure of exactly where to find Lenny either.
“This is a huge plant,” she said. “Maybe we should try to get ahead of them and see if we can find him first.”
“Good idea.”
Mason shuffled behind a Mayflower tractor-trailer that had flipped on its side and was now blocking Winchester Road. He lowered his pack to the ground and rummaged around until he found his flashlight.
“I’m going in to look around,” he said, shoving the flashlight into his back pocket. “It goes without saying that you should probably stay out here.”
Leila set her own pack down and pulled the Beretta from her waistband. The full-size semiautomatic handgun looked enormous in her small hand.
“I’ll come too. You might need help.”
“Can you even shoot that thing left-handed?”
She weighed the firearm.
“Not great, but if they get close enough…”
“You don’t strike me as a killer.”
She tilted her head and eyed him.
“I’m not a killer, but I am willing to defend myself.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
Mason poked his head around the trailer, and as he did, Bowie moved up beside him. He reached over and stroked the dog’s head.
“What do you say, boy? Do you feel like doing a little exploring?”
Bowie pressed up against him.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Leila shuffled a little closer and put her hand on his shoulder. That sort of tactile feedback was common among soldiers, but Mason was a little surprised to see her using it.
“How many soldiers do you think there are?” she asked.
“A standard squad would consist of two teams of five. Probably split evenly between the helicopters, if I had to guess.”
“That doesn’t sound like a fight we can win.”
“Maybe not, but we’re not here to kill these men. We’re here to find Lenny.”
“Right,” she said. “Let’s not give them any reason to consider us part of their mission.”
“Agreed.”
Mason studied the huge manufacturing plant. The helicopter was directly in front of the employee entrance, almost certainly the soldiers’ point of entry. The only other obvious way to get inside was a small hole that the tractor-trailer had punched through the side of the building.
“Let’s see if we can get in through there,” he said, pointing to the breach.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Mason shuffled from car to car, careful to keep cover between him and the helicopter. It wasn’t out of the question that they might have left a man behind, not only to watch the helicopter but also to prevent anyone from flanking the rest of the team. Bowie stayed close by his side, and Leila followed a few paces to the rear. As he got closer, Mason s
aw that the hole was only about three feet across—a tight fit even without his backpack. What remained of the brickwork looked tenuous, but he thought that by hugging the edge of the truck, they could probably slip through.
He stopped and crouched down on one knee, his rifle trained on the dark hole. Before he could decide on the safest way to enter, Bowie plowed ahead into the darkness. After a few seconds, he poked his snout back out, officially pronouncing it safe.
Mason shooed him back and shimmied in through the narrow hole. He stopped a few feet inside, offering as small a silhouette as possible. The sudden change in lighting left him momentarily blind, and his sense of smell was overwhelmed with the odor of burnt peanuts. Leila came up behind him, but as she worked her way through the hole, her shoulder bumped one of the bricks overhead. Almost immediately, the wall started to collapse. She dove forward, taking Mason with her onto the cold concrete floor.
When the cave-in finally subsided, a pile of bricks and mortar blocked the small hole. A cloud of dust floated over Mason and Leila, and they both waved their hands and coughed a few times. The room was now completely dark, and Bowie started to whine.
“It’s all right, boy,” Mason said, rolling up to his knees. He reached out and felt for Leila, finding soft hair and the warm skin of her shoulders. “You okay?”
She rolled over onto her back, and his hands brushed across her breasts. Rather than protest, she slid her uninjured hand into his and used it to sit up. Mason felt her heart pounding against her chest as he gently pulled her forward.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “But that was a little too close.”
“My commander used to say that close calls are there to remind us to be thankful for all the things that don’t happen.”
She leaned even closer, and he felt the heat radiating off her body. Her face was only a few inches from his, and her skin held a musky odor that was as unique as it was beautiful.
“I’ve always thought they’re there to remind us that every moment is precious.”
Before Mason could say anything more, Bowie ruined the moment by pressing his way between them.
“Where do you think we are?” she said, finally releasing his hand to hold the dog back.
Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) Page 10
