Carter was right behind him, moving fast. More tires screeched. Horns blared.
Frank’s chest felt like it might burst, he was so out of breath. The problem wasn’t the air valve now. The problem was Frank. Even after several rigorous days of training, he still wasn’t ready for a run like this.
“Peeps,” he heard Carter say, “my visor’s fogging, losing visibility. I’m removing my helmet.”
“Negative,” said Peeps. “Negative. Suspect could still be hot, over.”
Carter’s video feed suddenly went to static, and the red dot representing Carter on Frank’s map became stationary.
“Peeps,” said Frank, between heavy breaths, “what’s happening?”
“I lost him. He took off his helmet. I got no visual, nothing to track.”
Frank reached Santa Monica Boulevard and turned west on the sidewalk. Cars were stopped in the road. A half a dozen of them had collided. Drivers were out of their vehicles, yelling at each other, and people were coming out of restaurants and stores to see the source of the commotion.
Frank hit the speaker on his comlink. “Out of the way,” he said.
The crowd on the sidewalk in front of him dispersed as people scurried to the side to let him pass. A woman screamed with fright at the sight of him in his suit.
Frank ran three blocks before he found Carter’s helmet on the roadside. He picked it up and continued running. The pain in his chest was now so intense that he wanted to vomit. No matter how wide he opened his mouth, he couldn’t get enough oxygen. He felt completely drained of energy. His legs were wood.
He heard ambulance sirens behind him in the distance and hoped they were going to the apartment building and not the crash scene. No one he ran by on Santa Monica Boulevard looked hurt, but he couldn’t say the same about the apartment.
He turned the corner, and there was Carter, hunched over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. Alone. Frank stopped running, ripped off his helmet, and threw up into a garbage can.
A young couple out for a late-night stroll saw him heaving and hurried away in the opposite direction.
Frank felt a hand hitting him softly on the back. “You, okay?” said Carter.
Frank dry heaved a final time before calming and standing erect, the bitter taste of vomit still in his mouth. “What happened?”
“Car was waiting. But even if there hadn’t been, I never would have caught him. He never slowed down, only got faster.”
“You get a license plate?”
“It was too far away. I couldn’t even tell what color it was in the dark.” Frank spoke into his comlink. “Peeps, we need a ride.”
A fleet of ambulances surrounded the apartment building when Frank and Carter returned. Medics with BHA insignia on their backs were lifting team members onto stretchers. There were no body bags as far as Frank could see, which was a relief.
Riggs was awake but badly shaken, walking to and from the wounded, assessing their damage. A doctor tried to examine him, but Riggs brushed him off. Police were setting up a barricade to keep back the neighbors who were gathering around the building and craning their necks to see the scene.
Frank found Kimberly and Agent Hernandez in the back of an ambulance. Kimberly was inside the containment bag with the breathing apparatus near her mouth. She glanced at Frank and abruptly looked away.
The medics arrived with Roland Turner on a stretcher and pushed him into the ambulance. Kimberly brightened at the sight of her father, but then grew still when she saw the blood-soaked bandages around his arm.
“I’m okay, princess,” Turner said. “It’s just a scratch. Come here and let me look at you.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Turner,” said Hernandez. “Kimberly needs to remain sitting here. She can’t have any contact until she’s been fully tested and treated.”
Turner’s face grew ugly. “Who do you people think you are, huh? First you come into my home, pointing guns at us, putting my daughter and me in danger.”
“Mr. Turner,” said Frank, “the man you let into your home was carrying a virus that—”
“You think I don’t know that?” said Turner. “Do you think I’m such a fool that I would let a man into my home without knowing full well what he was bringing with him? My daughter is sick, you hear me? Sick. And hurting. Pain you can’t imagine. And she’s my daughter, not yours. I know what’s best for her. And now you’ve gone and ruined everything. If she isn’t healed because you interfered, so help me you’ll pay for it. I swear to you.”
Frank felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Carter beckoning him to step away from the vehicle. When the doors of the ambulance closed, Turner was still shouting.
“You can’t reason with them, Frank. Don’t even try.”
Carter left him alone after that, and Frank stood there, staring up at the apartment building. Agents he didn’t recognize marched inside with contaminant rods. They would scan for the virus and quarantine the building. Other agents were escorting the building’s other bleary-eyed tenants outside to a table, where they would be tested for possible infection.
News helicopters flew overhead, their bright searchlights sweeping the entire city block.
Sirens blared as more police vehicles arrived, and neighbors and news crews jockeyed for position at the police barricade. If the world didn’t know about Healers before now, they were about to find out.
“You okay?” said Peeps.
Frank faced him. “Yeah. You?”
“I feel like I skould be hurt, but I’m not.” He shook his head. “We had four men on the ground out here, Frank. All armed. That Healer was unarmed. One guy. Unarmed. And these guys . . .” he motioned to the agents being loaded into ambulances, “. . . they didn’t stand a chance. That Healer could’ve killed them, I think, if he wanted to. With his bare hands. Just his hands. And did you see how fast he was running? He had four rounds in him and he was running like the Six Millon Dollar Man. His body was doing things it shouldn’t have been able to do.”
“Yeah, I saw.”
“You know what I think?” said Peeps, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “The guy’s got CIPA.”
“What?”
“CIPA. Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. It’s a genetic disease. Rare as hell. People who have it don’t feel pain. They can fall off a roof and not know they’re hurt until they find their arm in the bushes.”
“A genetic disorder?”
“CIPA. Look it up, if you don’t believe me.”
“And you think this Healer may have this condition? You think he’s incapable of pain?”
Peeps shrugged. “What’s to say they don’t all have that disease? Think about it. These guys produce a virus that fiddles with your genes, right? Heals you of some disease? But who’s to say they can’t do the opposite? Who’s to say they can’t take a healthy person and give them a genetic disease?”
Frank considered that. He remembered The Book of Becoming. Galen wasn’t averse to manipulating healthy DNA. He had embraced the idea, in fact.
Riggs approached, holding a long-range communicator. “Peeps, we’re going to need that van. Tell the ground crew we’re borrowing it for a while. The whole setup. If they give you any lip, tell them I gave the order.”
“What’s wrong?” said Frank.
“I just got off with headquarters. The sheriff up in Agoura Hills called in. An ambulance crashed up there. Three dead bodies.”
“What’s that got to do with us?” said Peeps.
“Sheriff said it looks like something melted their faces off.”
“Melted their faces?” said Frank.
“His words. Not mine.”
The photograph of the dead police officer that Frank had been shown on the plane came to mind.
Riggs said, “The helicopter’s flying some of our boys out there now. We’ll catch up with them. Get your gear.”
He walked off, and Frank closed his eyes. His head was poundin
g. His biosuit was heavy with sweat. His muscles ached from overexertion. And from the sound of things, the night was only going to get worse.
17
SITE
The incessant ringing of the doorbell woke Director Eugene Irving from an otherwise peaceful slumber. He rolled over, looked at his wife, who continued to sleep undisturbed, and realized that she wasn’t getting up to answer it. Cursing under his breath, he threw back the covers and got out of bed. He found his slippers and his bathrobe and shuffled down the hall.
The doorbell buzzed again.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.”
He passed the grandfather clock and saw that it was two in the morning. He found the light switch, flipped on the blinding lights, and slowly descended the stairs to the front door.
Someone knocked.
“I’m coming,” he said angrily. He flipped on the porch light and peered through the peephole. He immediately recognized the white-haired figured looking back at him. Stone.
Irving felt a momentary panic. He unlatched the deadbolt, freed the chain, and opened the door.
“What are you—”
Before Irving could finish, Stone’s hand was at his throat, constricting it, pushing him back into the house as Stone entered and kicked closed the door behind him. “You set your men on me,” he said in a low growl.
Irving’s mouth was open, gagging. He tried to speak but no sound escaped him. Desperate, he pulled at Stone’s hands. He could’ve been pulling at a mountain for all the good it did him. His lungs screamed for air. He could feel his face turning blue. Just when he began to see spots, Stone released him. Irving fell to his knees, gasping and sputtering.
Then Stone’s hands moved again, inhumanly fast, this time clutching Director Irving’s bathrobe and lifting him off the ground, bringing him within an inch of Stone’s nose.
“Explain yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He could feel Stone’s hot breath on his face.
“Your men. They came while I was treating one of our patients. They were watching the apartment.”
And then Irving remembered the list. The list of downloaded names. “We found a list. A list of names that you had downloaded from Children’s Hospital. I had some of our people watching those addresses.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Irving whimpered. “That was several days ago. When I gave the order I didn’t think they’d watch this long. I forgot that—”
Stone dropped him. “Humans are weak. I should’ve expected as much.” He pushed past Irving and made his way to the kitchen.
As Irving followed, he paused at the banister to glance up the stairs to make sure his wife wasn’t standing there watching. She wasn’t.
In the kitchen, Stone found a glass, filled it at the sink, downed it, filled it again, and downed it a second time.
“I need bandages,” he said.
“You shouldn’t be here. You can’t stay here. You have to leave. Now.”
“I need bandages first,” Stone repeated. “And a new shirt.”
Irving looked at Stone’s black shirt and noticed for the first time that it was soaked with blood. Stone pulled the shirt off, and Irving put a hand to his mouth. Four deep puncture wounds—bullet wounds, maybe—dotted Stone’s chest. They had stopped bleeding, but they were big enough for Irving to poke his finger into.
“Bandages,” Stone said, a little more urgently this time. “And pliers.”
“Pliers?”
“For removing the bullets.”
Irving felt the dinner of the previous evening start to venture back up his esophagus. He put his hand back to his mouth, swallowed, and tried to calm himself.
“Your home is the only one I know in the area,” said Stone. “I didn’t come here to bully you. I need your help. Now please find me pliers and some bandages so that these can heal.”
Irving composed himself, stood erect, and looked as menacing as possible. “I don’t answer to you. Now get out of my house.”
Stone looked at him blankly and spoke calmly. “Do you see these holes in my chest? If I can withstand this, do you think I would be remotely intimidated by you? You will either find me what I need or I will be forced to harm you.”
A minute later, after sterilizing the needle-nosed pliers with hot water and alcohol, Irving handed the requested items to the Healer in his kitchen.
“A bowl, please,” said Stone.
By the time Irving found a silver mixing bowl, Stone was already pulling the first slug out of his chest. He dropped it into the bowl, where it landed with a ka-tink. Irving stood there, staring at the bloody slug in the bowl still clasped in his hands. He didn’t dare lift his eyes to watch Stone remove the others. It wasn’t until the third bullet that he realized that Stone made no sounds, no cries of anguish. If it pained him to dig deeply into himself with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, Stone gave no sign of it.
Finally, the fourth bullet dropped into the bowl.
Next came the bandages. Irving cut tape as Stone applied the sterile gauze to the areas. By the time they patched up the fourth hole, it looked as if it was healing already. Heavy red scar tissue was forming where a gaping hole had been only moments ago.
When they were finished, Stone said, “May I have a shirt now, please?”
Rather than point out that he had nothing in Stone’s size, Irving tiptoed back up to his room and found a T-shirt in his closet. His wife stirred, and Irving froze, daring not to make a sound, fearful that she would wake and suddenly have the urge to go downstairs to the kitchen for a late-night snack. Instead, she rolled onto her side and continued sleeping.
When Irving returned to the kitchen, he was horrified to see Stone on the phone. For an instant he thought someone had called and that Stone had answered. But then he realized that the phone would have rung first. Stone recounted to whomever he was speaking what had happened to him and how he had run the two miles or so to Irving’s home. When he was finished, he offered the receiver to Irving.
“Hello?” Irving said, knowing before the voice answered who would be on the other line.
“Thank you, Eugene,” Galen said. “I appreciate your helping Stone. I’m disappointed that you failed to tell us about the stakeout. But let’s put that past us, shall we? To err is human. And you, unfortunately, are human. We’ve had our own problems here this evening, Eugene, or I’d offer to come get Stone myself. As it is, you’ll need to loan him your car.”
The sound of the master’s voice was like the gentlest of breezes, as soft as the brush of a cotton ball. Irving suddenly wondered why he had allowed himself to get so upset at Stone. He, Irving, deserved the mild rebuke. Stone was only doing the master’s work. And any friend of the master was a friend of Irving’s. He told the master that he wanted to come with Stone, but the master, much to his disappointment, told him that it was more important for him to remain in his current position.
After he hung up the phone, Irving realized how happy he felt. He gave the T-shirt to Stone, who pulled it on, then retrieved his car keys from the kitchen counter.
“I just got it detailed,” Irving said, dropping the keys into Stone’s hand. Then, with a wink, “Try not to scratch it.”
Frank sat in the passenger seat of the van as they drove north up the dark highway toward Agoura Hills. Riggs was at the wheel. Carter and Peeps sat in the back. Everyone else, with the exception of Agent Hernandez, who had accompanied the young girl and her father back to the BHA, had been too injured to join them.
Two red lights ahead of them turned out to be road flares, and Riggs slowed the van. A state trooper had his vehicle parked perpendicular to the road, blocking traffic. He waved them to stop with his flashlight, and Riggs pulled the van up next to him.
“Road’s closed, sir,” the trooper said. “You’ll need to turn your vehicle around.”
Riggs flashed his ID, and the state trooper touched the brim of his hat apologetically. “Thought you
boys had all arrived. Your vehicle isn’t marked or I would have waved you on through.”
“How far away is the crash site?” Riggs asked.
“Not sure exactly. Your boys had us block half the county. I only know what I heard over the radio.”
“Which is what?”
“Well, I’m only getting bits and pieces, mind you. You probably know more than I do. But the way I heard it, there’s two sites. One is just a body, dumped on the side of the road. And the other is the actual wreck, about two miles up from that. Grisly scene, I hear. Ambulance went right off the cliff.”
“Thanks for the warning,” said Riggs, putting it into gear.
The trooper put his hand on the van, stalling them. “What you suppose that ambulance was carrying, anyway? Hazardous material? Must of been something to get you all involved.”
“Thanks for your help,” Riggs said and drove around the flares and past the trooper’s car.
Two miles later they came upon the first body. A dozen men in biosuits were hunched around the corpse, some taking photographs, others taking blood samples. Riggs stopped the van, put it in park, and slid a new biohelmet over his face. The others followed suit and checked themselves for leaks before getting out.
The agents recognized Riggs and parted as he approached. He and Frank squatted by the corpse. The EMT’s face was severely burned and dotted with black splotches.
“Did you take a sample?” Riggs asked one of the agents.
“Definitely VI6,” the agent said. “We think he may have contracted it from whoever they were carrying in the ambulance.”
“Where’s the ambulance?”
“Straight that way,” the agent said, pointing up the highway.
Riggs thanked them, told them to carefully bag the body, then got back into the van with Frank and the others.
Debris littered the highway ahead. Riggs had to drive slowly, weaving around the boxes and equipment that had spilled out of the ambulance.
Riggs parked the van near a large white tent set up in the middle of the highway and led Frank and Riggs inside. Peeps stayed in the van to run the video feeds.
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