Eden Plague - Latest Edition

by David VanDyke

  Skull dragged in the hog-tied man they had caught sleeping, slung him next to the other one. “What about these two?” he asked, gesturing at the immobilized men on the floor.

  Spooky walked over to them with his P90 aimed.

  “No!” Daniel yelled.

  “Shut up, Markis” warned Skull. He swung his HK Daniel’s direction, an implicit threat. “It’s not your call.”

  Daniel stood up, stepped up to Skull. His forward motion stopped with the flash suppressor of the HK in his chest. One twitch of the man’s finger and he might be dead. He wasn’t at all sure his armor could stop a high-powered rifle bullet at point-blank range.

  Their eyes locked.

  “I’m making it my call. This guy’s not the enemy, he’s just doing a job.” Daniel reached up to grasp the barrel with his left hand, shoved it aside. Then stared Skull down.

  “They almost killed Larry,” the thin sniper grated, his eyes cold and fixed.

  “But they didn’t. And we saved his life. Nothing to avenge.” Daniel stepped into Skull’s personal space, put a hand on his chest, pushing him inexorably back. He stumbled, and Daniel shoved his skinny frame. He sprawled on his back. Daniel pointed a finger at him. “Next time you aim a weapon at me, you better shoot me, or I’ll shove it up your ass.”

  Skull spread his hands, backing down for the moment. But Daniel could tell it wasn’t over between them.

  “He’s right,” rumbled Zeke, reluctantly.

  I hope he means me, Daniel thought.

  “Nobody kills anybody if we don’t need to,” Zeke went on.

  Daniel let his breath out with relief. Elise stepped up behind, staring at the unconscious man on the floor. “It’s Miguel,” she said softly. “He’s a slimy bastard and rapist. This is the first time I’ve regretted the virtue effect. Part of me wants to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. But I have a better idea.” She reached over to open a drawer and pulled out a syringe. She filled it with blood from her own arm, then plunged it into each of the prisoners in turn.

  “Great, you’re rewarding them for being assholes?” Skull asked disgustedly.

  “Actually,” she said, “this is the best revenge. The virtue effect will make him regret his own misdeeds, and he won’t repeat them. Maybe it will keep other people safe from him later. And he’ll be useless to the Company now. They both will be.”

  “That’s smart, and kind. Forgiving.” said Daniel approvingly.

  Elise brightened with his praise. She reached to embrace him, putting her head against his chest.

  Skull snorted.

  A note of envy in there I think, Elise said to herself. Whatever.

  Zeke broke the moment. “That’s enough of that. Time to get out. Listen, you,” he poked Miguel, “tell your masters that we got the healing stuff. If they want it kept under control for a while longer, they’ll stop coming after us. Otherwise, maybe we’ll just release it into the water supply. Or start biting people.”

  Elise shook her head, started to say something.

  Daniel held up a hand to stop her. Rogett was still out cold and Miguel was blindfolded, and he didn’t want him to see Zeke or hear any commentary, because he knew Zeke was bluffing.

  Or thought he was.

  He also didn’t think the bluff would work. Governments, or government employees, generally don’t react well to blackmail. We’ve bloodied their noses, embarrassed them, stolen their secret formula, and the person or people behind the whole thing will want it back. The only question was, would he or she still try to do damage control, or would it be confession time, bump it up to higher authority and turn it into an official reaction by the whole Agency or worse. Daniel really didn’t want that. “Sure wish we could destroy this lab,” he remarked. “That would slow them down a bit.”

  Spooky said, “We could burn it. Best we can do. We have to go.”

  “Oh, I got something better,” answered Larry in a gravel voice. “I got claymores. And thermite. In the bag in the first closet.” Claymores were command-detonated explosive mines. Not ideal for blowing up buildings, but good enough as a field expedient. Thermite was a high-temperature incendiary that would melt its way through damned near anything.

  Zeke nodded. “Excellent. Set them up. Find the fire suppression system and turn it off. Skull, Spooky, get some flammables. Miss Wallis, are there records?”

  She pointed at one wall, where several computers sat, with rows of disks and a humming commercial-grade hard drive.

  Daniel walked over, started dumping all the recordable data media and drives he could find into a pile onto the floor. “Make sure we pour some accelerant over here,” he said.

  Elise came over to the computers, opening a drawer and reaching far into the back. She came up with something in her hand, something small, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. “Flash drive. It’s got a secret copy of almost all of our work on it, just in case.”

  In case of what, Daniel wondered? He supposed in case of something like this.

  “Take this and go over there.” She handed him the flash drive and pointed toward the door.

  Daniel was puzzled, but complied, moving away.

  She picked up a strange heavy device with a handle and a thick three-prong cord on it. She plugged it in and flipped a switch. It started to hum with a noise that made his teeth hurt. “Electromagnet,” she said. “It’ll wipe everything.” She started running the thing over the computer cases and hard drives. He saw now why she sent him and the precious flash drive away.

  Skull came in with a five-gallon jerry can of diesel and started pouring it all over everything. The guy in the hood began to scream through the gagging tape when he smelled it.

  Probably thinks we’re going to burn him. Daniel watched Skull carefully.

  Zeke shoved Skull out of the way, dragged the man outside.

  Spooky kicked Karl, who was either still unconscious or shamming. “One of you strongmen grab this one, please. I am no weightlifter.”

  Daniel left Elise to her magnetic wiping and grabbed Karl by a leg. Then dragged him none too gently out into the parking lot and left him with the other one by the Jeep.

  It was quiet outside, except for a faint buzzing sound, like a weed-eater heard from two yards over. Or a helo a few miles out. It was getting louder.

  “We got company coming, fellas,”’ Daniel said. “ETA maybe one or two minutes. I can hear a bird inbound.”

  Zeke answered for everyone. “Roger. Rally at the ORP, go go go.”

  “Wait, I have to let the chimps out!” cried Elise. She ran for the other room, frantically opening cages. She led the two apes outside, holding each by a hand.

  “We have to leave them, you know,” Zeke intoned. Elise looked pleadingly at him but he shook his head. “They’ll be fine, they will want them for the future research program. Just lock them up in the other building.”

  Elise nodded tearfully and quickly did so. The childlike primates did not want to let her go but she had no choice.

  The six of them streamed for the rally point, flames licking at the laboratory behind them. They heard two explosions inside, rattling the walls and spitting dust and debris out the doors. Larry’s claymores and thermite had done their work.

  Zeke counted heads as they arrived, then led everyone quickly through the woods by moonlight. Daniel stayed right behind Elise. A couple of brief minutes later they got to the rubber boat.

  The buzzing of the helicopter was closer, but the only thing they knew was it was coming from the east, and the trees blocked their view. They couldn’t embark on the raft until they were sure the helo wasn’t a threat. They heard it making a couple of passes near the burning lab, then it turned toward them.

  It raced overhead, suddenly visible as it passed above the treeline and then out over the water. It looked like an OH-6 or Hughes 500 variant, commonly called a ‘Loach,’ or ‘Little Bird,’ probably the best light helicopter ever made. It made a sharp turn south, paralleling the shor
eline two hundred yards out.

  Suddenly, tracers spat from the helo’s open door, striking the rented boat. Two assault weapons on full auto responded from the little squad on the beach, reaching out to intersect the insectlike device in flight. The tracers started to shift toward them, then the bird staggered in the air and lost power. Smoke started pouring from it, and they could see flames. A moment later it made a hard splashdown in the water beyond the boat, pieces of rotor flying.

  “Stupid,” said Zeke, pain in his voice. “Dammit, why did they do that?” It sounded like the Eden Plague was plaguing his conscience as well.

  At least it isn’t just me, Daniel thought.

  “Arrogant,” responded Spooky. “Be glad they did. Is one less variable.”

  “We have a bigger problem,” said Skull, standing up and walking out of the trees onto the rocky beach. “Look.”

  Their rented boat, their way off the island, was already listing noticeably. The helo’s shooter must have holed it badly below the waterline before it was knocked down.

  “Dammit,” said Larry, staring. “What now?”

  “What are you doing, DJ?” Zeke asked. “We can’t save the boat.”

  Daniel was singlehandedly dragging the rubber raft toward the water. “How about the people in the helo!” he screamed. “There might be survivors!”

  Zeke stared at him for a second, then grabbed the other side of the raft and helped him get it to the water’s edge. “Spooky, you and DJ paddle out there.” Zeke ran back to the treeline. “Elise, is there a boat in that boathouse?”

  “Yes there is! An 18-foot powerboat. Let’s go get it!” she said eagerly. She started back into the woods in the direction of the dock, Skull and Zeke following right behind. At the boathouse she tried the door, then kicked at it in frustration. Zeke kicked it powerfully, opened for real. They dashed inside to get the boat there running.

  Daniel and Spooky rowed out to where the Loach had hit. Wreckage was still floating, and there was one guy clinging to a piece. They dragged him into the rubber boat and he lay there gasping. Spooky kept a weapon pointed at his nose. They looked around but couldn’t find anyone else. Daniel kept his mouth shut. They’d saved one man anyway.

  By this time they heard, then saw, the powerboat screaming around the south end of the island at thirty knots or more. Daniel hoped they didn’t hit a submerged rock at that speed. As they got closer he could see Skull driving, with Elise in the back. He soon pulled in close to shore.

  They got their feet wet loading up, leaving the helo survivor on the shore with his hands zip-cuffed and his eyes taped over. That will be a bitch to remove. He could walk back to the burned complex, find a sharp piece of metal to cut the cuffs, and free his two buddies, but by that time the team would be long gone.

  It was crowded in the boat, but Daniel didn’t mind. Elise was pushed up against him, shivering in the cold spindrift wind. He wrapped his arms around her, just enjoying the feeling of survival, freedom and healthy woman.

  She responded, pressing herself against his muscular warmth, but suddenly pushed him gently away. She put her left foot up against the coaming and pulled up her pants leg. Strapped to her ankle was some kind of electronic device with a light on it, flashing angry red. “Cut it off,” she instructed. “They said they could track me with it.”

  While the rest stared, DJ took out his knife again and carefully sliced it off. He tossed it into the blacking sea. Track that, spy-boys.

  “Anything else you want to tell us?” Zeke yelled into the noise of the rushing air. Elise shook her head, looked down, embarrassed. Daniel squeezed her hand.

  Spooky remarked over the net, “If I was them I would have a tracker on this boat.”

  “Right. Zeke to Vinny, meet us at alternate marina Charlie with a bug-finder. We’ll pull in and you can give it a once-over. ETA maybe five minutes, so haul ass.”

  Vinny met them at a little marina a couple of miles down the coast from where they had rented the boat. He went over the speedboat with an electronic detector, soon yanking out a fist-sized GPS transmitter. He tossed that into the water.

  Larry, Elise and Daniel piled into Vinny’s Toyota and drove back to the motel. Skull roared off in the powerboat, to a different marina. Vinny dropped them off, then went to pick up the rest. Good thing there were dozens of landing places up and down the coast.

  In the hotel room Daniel phoned in a huge order of Chinese for delivery. In the meantime they ate and drank everything that was handy. Crackers, cookies, cans of vegetable juice, full-sugar soda, tuna, it was all shoveled into their gullets like pelicans at a fish farm. When the take-out arrived, they plowed into that, too. When the others returned to the hotel, they found a half-eaten styrofoam buffet and two stuffed Eden Plague carriers sitting on the floor half-asleep. The third, Larry, was in the bathroom cleaning up.

  Zeke caught a whiff of the food and grabbed the nearest box, eating with a grim determination. Daniel saw his rigger belt was cinched up tight and he looked like he had lost twenty pounds today. The other three started eating as well, though with only normal human urgency.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Daniel said over the noise of the gobbling. He forced himself up to sit on the bed. “Even if they don’t make us here, they know we’re in the area.”

  The rest nodded.

  “All right, people,” Zeke said between bites. “Tear it down. Get ready to roll out.”

  “Wait,” said Skull forcefully. He swept everyone with an even harder look than usual. “The lab’s burnt and unless there’s a lot of data stored off-site, we set them back years. But there are two loose ends. Or three.”

  “Yes,” agreed Spooky. “The scientists and the doctor.”

  Daniel preempted their argument. “So we go snap them up. Now. We know where they are. We know four of six shooters are out of the picture – at least two in the helo, two from the lab. We can probably snatch the scientists in their beds not three miles from here. Does the doctor in charge live here?”

  “No, he lives in Annapolis,” said Elise. “He comes down once a week or so. But he’s just an educated manager; he couldn’t recreate the work, though Arthur and Roger and I together could. Dan is right.” She hugged his arm, sitting there next to him, and he felt warm all over.

  “Much easier to just put a bullet into their heads,” observed Skull. He was staring at Daniel, like he was ready for the inevitable argument.

  Zeke beat him to it. “No. No murder.”

  “It’s preemptive self-defense,” retorted the sniper.

  “No, it’s assassination. It’s not justified.” Zeke was firm.

  “The hell it’s not. Those guys were trying to kill us at the lab. That’s war in my book, and that makes them targets. Enemy combatants.”

  “Those were their shooters. These guys are just scientists.”

  Skull insisted, “You don’t think all those enemy nuclear physicists that disappeared just fell into random holes, do you? We killed a bunch of them ourselves in the last twenty or thirty years, and the Israelis got the rest.”

  “Well, maybe we shouldn’t have done that,” chimed in Elise, her eyes blazing. “Maybe that makes us just as bad as they are.”

  Daniel put a restraining hand on her arm, knowing she wasn’t going to get anywhere with these guys that way. She had proved herself to him, but not to them. “Let’s not sink to their level, I think is what she means,” he said mildly.

  “Perhaps they would be useful. It is not so much more trouble to take them with us, I think,” said Spooky softly.

  Skull snorted. “Zeke, your A-team is turning into a bunch of wussies.”

  Zeke locked eyes with him. “Yeah, my A-team. Not yours. You want out?”

  He stared at Zeke a long moment. “Not yet,” he finally said.

  “Well, you let me know when ‘yet’ comes. Until then I need to rely on you. Can I rely on you, Alan?” His eyes bored in.

  Skull swallowed, nodded once, solemnly. “Ye
ah. Of course you can, Zeke. It’s your call.”

  Zeke grinned and patted Skull’s cheek, breaking the tension. “I love you too, man. Okay, hasty operation, we snatch our three mad scientists. Half an hour for planning, then we go.”

  ***

  An hour later they were on the road with two more guests. Both had been very happy to come with them. Both had been glad to get rid of their ankle bracelets.

  They were in a convoy of four SUVs. Vinny had wired the vehicles with secure commo for their tactical net. That way they could talk freely as they drove, and everyone could hear. Daniel was glad; he didn’t want to wait until the end of another road trip for answers, and he had no idea where they were going or how far.

  They sweated some before they got off the peninsula; until they made it through the Virginia Beach – Norfolk area, they were bottlenecked. Fortunately they were ahead of the posse, it seemed, and soon they were wending their way eastward on I-64 toward Richmond, Charlottesville and points east.

  They gave the two scientists an abbreviated version of what was going on. Elise said neither of them was an Eden Plague carrier. They both expressed relief at being out of the situation, along with natural fear of the government reaction. Welcome to the club. Welcome through the looking glass.

  Then it was time for some explanations. After a little bit of discussion among the former INS, Inc. employees, Roger mumbled, “Elise should tell it. She’s been around the longest, she knows the most.”

  So Elise started to speak, in a kind of detached remembering voice.

  -14-

  “I was the first to take a look at the Eden Plague, in this century anyway, I think. I was working for the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, about five years ago. They sent me over to Plum Island research center to take a look at some biological materials we had obtained. They said the materials were captured in Iraq from some technology smugglers looting the crumbling Soviet Union. Samples sealed in some Soviet-style containers, nothing but bio-hazard symbols on them. I was supposed to open them up and identify what was in them. Just me alone, compartmented for secrecy.”