by Brad Taylor
“And we believe that shit? Really?”
“They sent a video through a back channel. It was Malik getting hanged. Honestly, most of the administration’s national security team thinks they might be telling the truth. There was no way for them to protect their own country from the virus, and it just never made any sense for them to use it. Threaten use, maybe, as a last-ditch effort should we attack them, but come right out and use it?”
“You believe that?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
The helicopter pulled overhead, and the basket began to lower. Knuckles walked up to me and said, “Here we go again. Riding like a bitch.”
I didn’t smile, and he said, “Hey, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. You’ll see her in a couple of days.”
78
Jennifer was awakened by a scream. A wail of suffering that permeated the confines of her stateroom like a gangrenous fog, reminding her of what her future held.
Someone looked in a mirror.
Someone had learned the awful truth about his or her fate. A fate that was particularly disturbing in its pernicious timeline. There was no executioner to flick a switch and be done, nor was it a six-year battle against some other, more forgiving invader. The former gave the benefit of being over instantaneously, while the latter afforded hope and the chance to prepare. This fate allowed neither. It would be a torturous demise spanning four days of agony.
She wondered if she would scream when she found out.
She had been placed in her original quarantine room for a mere six hours, then had been hustled to the aft section of the ship based on the results of her initial tests. To the hot zone. She held a thin hope that it was because of the vaccine she’d taken and that the doctors were simply not taking any chances, but she had mentally begun to prepare herself for the worst. After the initial twenty-four hours she had steeled herself and looked in the mirror for the first time. Her eyes had remained clear. No crisscrossing of blood signaling the sickness inside her.
In truth, she knew she was unique because of the vaccine. The virus wouldn’t eat her whole as it would everyone else it contacted, but she would become a walking time bomb. A modern-day Typhoid Mary who wouldn’t—couldn’t—be allowed to set foot again in the outside world.
Sitting alone with her thoughts, she had clinically considered taking her own life, should the mirror speak. She had heard others in the hot zone do it already. A muffled, panicky stampede of doctors in the narrow hallway and snatches of conversation bringing to light the decision.
She knew she couldn’t spend eternity locked in hospital quarantine.
She thought of Elina and how calm she had been. How she had sacrificed her life with a surreal devotion. In the end, Jennifer wasn’t sure she held the same iron strength. A part of her felt it was just punishment for the man she had killed.
The death of Elina’s protector had haunted her almost as much as the wails of the sick. Him staggering toward her like something out of a zombie apocalypse, his body coated in the remains of Elina. Her begging him to stop, then squeezing the trigger. His head snapping back in a spray of gore. Him lying on the deck, his clean blood mingling with the ravaged blood of the person he had tried to save.
Her greatest fear had been that Elina wasn’t infected and that she’d killed a man for no reason. She had drawn a small bit of comfort from the contagion sweeping the ship, a twisted blessing that had alleviated some of her pain, but she couldn’t get over the fact that he only might have died had she done nothing. Instead, she had ensured it.
In the end, she knew she had made the right call but desperately wished she had shot him in the legs or stomach or anywhere that a doctor could have helped. A nonlethal location, so that if he was to die, it would have been because of the virus. Because of Elina and not her. A rational part of her understood that that was just selfish wishful thinking to alleviate the mental cost of the decision she had made. There was no way the CDC team could have treated him in the middle of a hot zone, and he would have died just as easily from the wounds she had created. A slow death much like the virus.
The edges of her room gradually appeared in the thin reed of light penetrating her small porthole window, signaling the start of a new day. Signaling another visit.
The doctors will be here soon.
They came twice a day delivering awful food and bottled water, one set clinically dispassionate and the other almost fawning underneath the biohazard suits, desperately trying to salve the worry. She wondered which set would show up this morning. She glanced at her forearm; the needle tracks in it made her look like a heroin addict.
Each time they came, they drew blood and gave her an update on her status, which to this point had been inconclusive. She hoped if she came up hot, it would be the clinical ones who told her. She couldn’t take the pity from the other team.
She sat up and felt an ache in her head. A small bit of pressure right between her eyes. A symptom that could have just been her imagination. She felt the fear of her neighbor invade her. She felt like screaming.
She stood and went to the small sink, leaning into the mirror, afraid of what she would find. Afraid of what the mirror would tell her.
She couldn’t see in the darkened room and fumbled for the switch with a trembling hand. She flicked it up, blazing the room with light.
And the mirror spoke.
79
Exactly three days after I was hoisted off of the ship ingloriously in a basket, I stood outside the port of Cape Canaveral with about five hundred other people waiting to see who would get off the boat. The difference was that everyone else had a name on a manifest. All I had was the word of the Taskforce that Jennifer had been cleared and would be exiting with the rest of the passengers.
The entire affair had been horrific, with the boat devolving into some sewer existence reminiscent of the worst of Charles Dickens. The government had done what they could, but the ship just wasn’t designed to house so many people without the ability to service them. Every crew member who’d had the job of keeping it functioning had been quarantined.
The government had done an admirable job on the medical front but had trouble finding enough people qualified to do the mundane work of keeping the boat functioning. I couldn’t blame them. How would you react if someone said, “We need you to help out on a cruise ship because of your special skills. By the way, it’s a floating death trap. You might die just by showing up. Did I mention you’d have to spend every waking moment in a moon suit?”
Surprisingly, they’d found enough dumbasses to show up. And now we waited. For the first time, I felt a little bit of what my family had when I deployed. This time it was me waiting on the steps to see the loved one coming home. Only I had the added angst of not being really sure she’d step off.
Kurt had said he “thought” she was cleared and that he was “sure” she’d be on the dock, but he’d also said the communication to the CDC was convoluted, something I’d seen on the news with my own eyes. Everyone was screaming about the lack of information, which, given what had occurred and what the administration was trying to keep hidden, was to be expected.
I was a little pissed that they couldn’t find out about Jennifer, though. After all, she was the person who had stopped every damn one of them from getting sick. But I understood why. My team had been evacuated before the press started really going into a frenzy, looking for the government cover-up, so we no longer existed for them to find. Pushing too hard into Jennifer’s status might have caused questions.
My eyes were drawn to a television set on a pole, much like you see at airport departure gates. A crowd was forming around it, and I followed, recognizing the presidential podium from the White House briefing room.
President Peyton Warren arrived on-screen, and the crowd around me began making shushing noises. He looked particularly somber, which, given the circumstances, was probably not an act. He gave a prepared statement, blending fact with ficti
on, stating a terrorist strike with a biological weapon had been averted, but making no mention whatsoever of Iran’s being behind it. He left it as a “Chechen separatist” event, keeping us out of a full-scale war.
It was a skillful display, as he walked the line of what to give out based on what he knew would leak, starting with the deaths in New York City and ending with the numerous witnesses to Elina’s death on the boat. When he was done, he opened the floor to questions.
The first, of course, had to do with who had stopped the attack. The press and the American public routinely slobbered at the mouth for stuff like this, spinning themselves into the ground trying to find the super-secret SEAL team, the Special Forces killer-commandos, or the Impossible Mission Force that operated beyond the usual classified units. Trying mightily to penetrate the facade to find a unit that didn’t exist in the real world. Except in this case, there actually was one. I leaned in to hear his answer.
“A combination of indicators from our intelligence community led to the threat being exposed. Once we had actionable intelligence we initiated a direct-action operation utilizing Special Operations forces. Unfortunately, during the interdiction, the terrorist initiated her suicide device, precluding a perfect outcome.”
A clamoring of voices emerged, all shouting essentially the same question: “What do you mean, Special Operations forces? What unit? Who was it?”
I smirked at that. Like it made a bit of difference who actually executed the mission. All that mattered was the outcome. But the press would not be denied.
President Warren said, “I’m not going to divulge which unit for both the protection of our capabilities and the safety of our forces.”
A perfect answer.
Another reporter chimed in: “Were there any casualties from the team?”
Smart journalist. He was going to try to locate the unit by walking up the thread of a casualty list from the Department of Defense. Except he’d get nowhere with this one, because even if there had been a major casualty from the Taskforce—which there wasn’t—it would never enter into the Department of Defense database.
The president’s answer shook me to my core.
“Yes, but I’m not going to get into the nature of the injuries or the status. I’m not going to talk about the team in any way. Next question.”
Who is he talking about? Was it Blood’s gunshot wound? Knuckles almost getting beat to death in prison? Jesus, is it Jennifer?
80
The press conference droned on, but I heard nothing, my mind numb to the possibility that when the boat emptied, I’d be standing there alone. Waiting on someone who wasn’t coming.
The gangway door to our right opened and a trickle of passengers began to flow out, rapidly increasing to a flood, with all of them running through the terminal doors, some kissing the ground as soon as they exited. The crowd around the television broke free and rushed to the ropes separating the waiting from the arriving.
Families began waving flags as if the boat had just returned from Normandy in World War II, the crowds beginning to overwhelm the security force on the ground. And starting to piss me off because they were blocking my view.
I was jostled to the left and turned to the man who’d done it, glaring. An idiot wearing a torn-up ball cap, the man tried to push past me, and I shoved him back.
“Wait your damn turn.”
He raised his hands as if he wanted to fight, then began tearing up. His fists clenched, he stared at me, then said, “My wife is coming off that boat. Without my kids. They’re dead. Get the hell out of my way.”
He began to cry, and I remembered the blood-covered children. Realizing I was standing next to ground zero of the tragedy. His face held so much pain I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say.
He choked out, “They went on her family reunion. I had to work. I told her it was too expensive. Now . . . now . . .”
A woman screamed near us, and he broke free, dipping under the cordoned-off lines and running to her. Security closed around him, demanding he fall back behind the rope. The argument devolved into a fistfight. I felt sick.
I returned to staring at the doorway in front of the terminal escalator, straining to see any sign of Jennifer. I stood for thirty minutes. Then forty-five. The exiting flow of the passengers began to slow, the flood becoming a trickle. I thought about calling Kurt. Calling anyone who could tell me what the situation was. Wanting the reassurance I’d had when I’d come here instead of the words of the president echoing in my head.
I pulled out my phone and saw Jennifer through the glass. Looking morose and riding down all by herself.
She reached the bottom and exited through the double doors, fighting her way through the people. I shouted her name, but she couldn’t hear me. She stood for a second and started walking away. I pushed my way through the crowd, shouting like an idiot until I got her attention.
She turned and broke into a smile, sprinting toward me, only to be stopped by security at the receiving line. I pointed to the left and took off running, meeting her outside the ropes.
She literally jumped on me, wrapping her legs around me and squeezing like a python.
I squeezed back, saying, “It’s all right. We’re okay.”
She dropped to the ground, her eyes alight. “They wouldn’t tell me if you were okay. Nobody would tell me.”
I said, “Same here. I wasn’t sure if you were coming out. Where’s your luggage?”
She squinted, and I held up my hands. “Just a joke.”
We began walking to my rental, no words spoken. I was content just to be near her, but I could sense this wasn’t a perfect homecoming. It wasn’t a movie, where we’d ride off into the sunset, because the endgame had been horrific, and she’d had to live with it by herself for days.
Truthfully, I had been kicking myself for not simply putting a bullet into the Black Widow’s head instead of letting Jennifer try to talk her off the ledge. But that was all hindsight. Something others could second-guess—but not to my face. Not if they wanted to remain standing. We’d both made the right call, given what we knew.
We continued walking in silence. Eventually, she said, “How are you doing?”
I clasped her hand and said, “I’m good. The team is good. Nobody we know was killed.”
She stopped and looked me in the eye. “A lot of people are dead.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“I thought I was dead. Yesterday morning, I had a headache. I looked in the mirror, knowing I was going to see bloodshot eyes. It was the worst day of my life.”
I wasn’t sure how to make that better. I said, “I know. I waited for the same thing. A lot of people on my floor were taken way. But some of them made it. Not all of them died.”
Her face sparked pain, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
“Pike, I killed one of them. He might have lived.”
“Don’t ever say that. You can’t carry that. Yeah, he might have lived, but he would have infected anyone he touched. The odds are he would have killed many, many more people.”
She let go of my hand. “I know. In my head, I know. He had to go down, but it doesn’t feel right. He wasn’t a terrorist. Maybe I should have . . . I don’t know . . . I just wonder if I did the right thing.”
“Jennifer, it was right. You made the correct call. Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t ask for Elina to get on that boat. You didn’t ask for that guy to interfere. You can only do what you can do, and that was the right call. It’s like being a firefighter and blaming yourself because you could only save one child in a burning building.”
She leaned into me, putting her arms around my waist. I did the same and then felt her begin to cry, wracking sobs that went on forever. Eventually she stopped and looked up at me.
She wiped her eyes and said, “You’re a good man. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”
I smiled and said, “Yeah, you did once. In Bosnia, when I wouldn’t g
et in bed with you.”
She remembered the conversation and turned red. “I mean when I wasn’t screwed up by a near-death experience. When I could think straight.”
I said, “You mean like right now?”
She broke free and punched me in the shoulder. “Jesus, you can be an ass.”
I laughed and said, “Come on. I’ve got a pretty good hotel room, although it’s a little bit of a drive out of this place.”
“Better than the suite in Singapore?”
“Uh, no, but it’s got something that one didn’t.”
“What? The Marina Bay Sands room was a Taj Mahal.”
“A hot tub. You promised if I didn’t drop you in Singapore you’d get in one without a harness on.”
She gave me a hesitant grin and said, “You sure you want to do that? I could be contagious.”
“If I were you I’d be a little more worried about your kissing ability. The last time I tried to get infected it was like fighting a baboon for a piece of bacon.”
She squeezed my hand, her face splitting into a smile that finally touched her eyes.
And I knew we’d be okay.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I had already written my acknowledgments for this manuscript, thanking all the wonderful people who have helped me, when something terrible happened. In between turning in my draft and getting back the final revisions, a soldier I served with, and a close friend, was killed in action in Afghanistan.
His callsign was Taz, and he was hit repelling a synchronized suicide attack on a combat outpost in Jalalabad. I won’t use his real name because when he died he was no longer in the military and is now represented by a simple black star set into a white marble wall.
Anytime I’m asked who Pike represents, I state that he’s a composition of many men I’ve known, and that’s true, up to a point. If there was a way to split up Pike and specifically define him, many people could claim a piece, but only one would be the heart, and that was Taz.
