Casper put the oxygen probe on Ashley’s finger. She moaned intermittently. At least she was responsive. The rash on her body had begun to blister and the fluid looked pink tinged. The discoloration could signify that she was suffering the effects of both illnesses.
Her oxygen level was borderline low.
Just as Casper reached for an oxygen mask, Jared threw him against the wall. Even though the man had at least thirty years on him, the force with which Casper hit stunned him. His head snapped against the brick and he almost slipped to the floor, his body numb, disoriented from the surprise assault. Stiffening his legs, he pushed himself up. More than anything else, he didn’t want to look weak in front of this man anymore. He was tired of being chased by this maniac. It was time for his evil deeds to be exposed.
Casper had to get himself, Ashley and her father out of this alive. As far as he knew, they were the only ones who knew about the pending attack now that Ethan was dead.
“Just what exactly was your plan with this stunt?” Jared asked, spit on his lips.
Casper narrowed his eyes. “How long ago was your smallpox vaccine? You know, it’s been shown that they wear off after a few decades. And who knows if it would have worked against what you’ve paid someone to create.”
Jared spun his head around and eyed Russell. “You don’t have to look too far to find who the creator of ES1 is.”
* * *
The trio of yelling men pulled Ashley from her fever-induced delirium. She was in a room...a small medical area that resembled the setup of her own ER rooms. Something was attached to her finger and she pulled at it haphazardly, not quite able to register in her mind what the common piece of medical equipment was.
Physically, she felt eviscerated. Her nerves were on fire. Her tongue—thick, hot and dry. She’d give anything for an ice chip, although she’d need buckets to ease this thirst. Each small movement of her body caused pain. Her skin itched and when she ran her fingers over her neck to scratch, she felt small raised areas.
Blisters.
The disease was progressing rapidly—like flames over dry, barren land. What she’d said before about being at peace with death had upended itself now that her body pummeled toward that reality.
Lord, bring me peace. I’m scared. I’ve never been this sick. I don’t want to die. I want a life... I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Upon opening her eyes, she’d awakened unto a movie already half over. Casper thrown against the wall by Jared, whose arm was dangerously close to his throat before Casper fell and righted himself. Phrases she couldn’t understand. Jared was out of his biohazard suit. The two armed gunmen stood off in the distance—way off—even though they still had their suits in place, but they held their weapons with much less conviction than before. In fact, they were mouthing something to one another and Ashley thought she saw the word go silently uttered several times.
Casper muscled his way past Jared and went to Ashley’s bedside. “How are you feeling?”
Now she realized how inane a question that really was to someone flirting with death. She gave him an unconvincing smile. It amazed her that he still looked so well. He released a lever and eased her bed up. She’d heard the last several exchanges, but nothing made sense in her mind.
Casper’s face hardened. He was angry and looking directly at her father. “I want to know what Jared’s talking about.”
Her father’s features looked markedly aged even compared to a day ago. He reached his hand out, grabbed a chair on rollers, eased himself down and buried his face in his hands. “Jared is right. I took the work that the Russians had started and finished it. I manufactured mass quantities of ES1.”
It felt like she was falling. Her heart raced. The room tilted violently, and she pressed her fingers against her temples to give her mind a steadying hand.
Jared walked to the bottom of Ashley’s bed. “Makes you think differently about a man, doesn’t it?”
Ashley avoided Jared’s glare and looked up at the ceiling. She sank back against the mattress. Even Casper’s face looked crestfallen at the news. The man he’d admired his whole adult life had just face-planted off the pillar Casper had built for him and all he was left with was chunks of plaster in his hands.
“How could you?” Casper asked, his voice cracking. “Do you know how many people died in Black Falls? Over ten! That’s probably only the beginning.”
Russell straightened himself up into the chair and rolled closer to Ashley’s bedside. “I know you will never understand my decision at this time in your life, but I did it to save you. We needed money to pay for your heart surgery. Jared assured me it was sanctioned by the US government. I thought the amount of money he provided proved that to be true.”
Ashley’s mind drew a blank. She didn’t have enough experience with world-upending confessions to offer him any type of statement. Should it be an angry tongue-lashing? Words of comfort? Even she didn’t know how she felt toward her father. The mixture of his absences, of them finally finding him, collided within her like atoms splitting. Between this illness and these revelations—her mind...her body fractured.
“I knew then it was wrong even if sanctioned by the government. Solving a short-term problem this way has ruined my life and many others. The reason I left over two years ago was to find a cure for what I’d created.”
Casper seemed as paralyzed as Ashley.
Russell turned to Jared. “What you don’t know, Jared...is that Ashley is yours. You infected your own daughter.”
Ashley’s mouth dropped open. How was that even possible?
Jared doubled over, placing his hands on his knees, gripping them until his fingers washed white. When he stood, the veins in his forehead jutted out. His face had gone purple with rage. “It’s not true!” he yelled.
Jared stalked up to one of his henchman and ripped the sidearm from his hand. He paced back to Russell and pressed it against temple.
Russell calmly held his hands up in silent surrender. Every one of them stilled in the room for endless minutes. Would this be the end? Would Jared shoot everyone?
“In your heart you know it’s true, Jared, but denial is a powerful thing. When you found out about Ashley’s mother’s pregnancy...you left her, calling her a liar. I merely picked up the pieces. We both loved her. I just won out, but mostly because you gave up. That’s why I hid what Ashley looked like from you for all those years.”
Jared eased his weapon down.
Casper crossed his arms over his chest. “Putting the family dynamics aside, you have a problem on your hands. You’re going to get just as sick as Ashley if you don’t get the cure, but I won’t allow Russell to give you the cure until you tell us the exact time and date of this bioweapons attack and you confess to these other crimes.”
Jared laughed. “No, you do not dictate to me what I will do. The first thing we’re going to do is make sure the cure Russell has really works. Show me where it is.”
Jared and Russell left the room, leaving Casper and Ashley alone. Even the two gunmen momentarily disappeared. What threat was Casper? It was obvious he wasn’t going to leave.
They couldn’t escape with Ashley in her current state.
Casper rounded the bed and sat down, taking Ashley’s hand. “I don’t...I don’t even know what to say. This isn’t over. I will get us out of this...all of us...alive.”
The first thing she felt was bitterness. Casper, the ultimate optimist, was painting a reality she didn’t believe in. The reality she’d known all of her life was a fairy tale. If what Russell said was true—and really, why would he lie—then who was she? The daughter of an evil, maniacal man?
Ashley withdrew her hand from Casper’s and rolled away from him. Her body was swept with heat again, and she tucked herself tightly into a ball from the rigors. Her muscles seized up, racked with pain.
All she cou
ld do was cry and scream silently in her mind.
Casper laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Even though the weight of it increased her pain, she found that she needed him. Needed something sure. Needed his presence.
He was the first man who hadn’t abandoned her despite grim circumstances.
If there was any good to come from Russell’s confession, it was that she understood a lot that had happened in her life. Now, everything her father had sent her over the past months strangely made sense. The pieces clicked into place. Her mother and Jared had been an item. The pictures her father had sent her proved it. The photo of Jared and her mother staring lovingly into one another’s eyes was proof of something more than friendship. Her instincts had been correct.
Personally, she’d never felt that way toward a man. Not until Casper.
And now she was going to die before she knew what being loved by a man truly felt like.
NINETEEN
Russell returned with three bags of solution in his arms and plopped them down on the counter next to Casper. Jared raised the gun up to Russell’s head. “Step back.”
Russell did as instructed.
To Casper, Jared said, “Pick which one you want to give to Ashley.”
Clearly, Russell raising Ashley and hiding her identity from Jared had been a wise choice because after this act there wasn’t any way that it could be claimed Jared had a compassionate bone in his body. This was an interesting game Jared played. If Russell had given him bags of something other than the cure, then Ashley could get sicker or even die. Even though Russell’s actions were suspect, he’d at least demonstrated that he loved his daughter by trying to fix his mistake in developing a cure for ES1.
That was why Casper felt all of them were a cure and it really wasn’t a hard choice. But what did that mean? Russell was likely immune from already treating himself in the past. If he wasn’t, he wasn’t demonstrating any worry about it.
These three doses were for him, Ashley and Jared.
Russell was giving the cure to Jared without getting anything in return. Casper’s plan could be ruined—only Jared’s suspicion kept it alive.
Casper picked one from the group and held it up.
“Great,” Jared said. “Now put it back down and pick another one.”
This game could go on forever, but Casper picked up another bag.
“Now infuse it,” Jared ordered.
Casper looked to Russell for advice.
“The infusion runs over twelve hours,” Russell instructed.
Ashley still had her IV in place. Casper looked through the cabinets until he found some IV tubing. He primed the set and after several false starts, he loaded the cartridge into the pump and started the infusion to run over the stated time.
Casper looked at Jared just as Jared slumped to the ground. For a few moments, Russell and Casper looked at one another, perplexed, and both seemed to be running through the same conversation in their minds. Do we help him or do we take advantage of this opportunity to escape?
“Help him!” one of the gunmen ordered.
Cautiously, they walked to the fallen man. They bent down, hoisted him up and carried him to the bed on the other side of the room. Even without a thermometer, Casper could feel Jared’s temperature was high.
So fast? Even for Ashley it took a few hours. Jared shivered. Casper measured his temperature with a thermometer affixed to the wall. Elevated. Just like Ashley’s.
“Why do you think Jared was affected so quickly by the exposure?” Casper asked Russell.
Russell busied himself by slipping an oxygen sensor onto Jared’s finger and then turned the monitor on. “Jared has a medical condition that has left him immunocompromised.”
“What is it?”
“He doesn’t have a spleen. It was taken out after he suffered an IED attack in Iraq. The point is, he doesn’t have an adequate immune system to mount a defense. These dual pathogens are going to kill him faster than any other victim so far.”
Jared moaned and opened his eyes. “Didn’t you just violate patient confidentiality?”
Russell crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not your doctor. We’re hostages. I’m not sure that particular law applies here.”
Casper reached behind him for an IV start kit. “Are you going to let us put this in and give you the cure?”
“Not for the price you ask. I’ll have my gunmen shoot you first.”
“Then I guess we wait,” Russell said, stepping back from the bed.
From the cabinet, Casper reached in and got a bottle of Tylenol and ran the faucet to fill a cup of water. Once he had both, he held them out to Jared. “Better take these. It’s about to get rough.”
* * *
As an unknown amount of time passed, all Ashley was aware of was the percolating battle within her. Pain cramped her muscles. When she turned to find comfort, agony zinged through her nerve endings. Her only reprieve was the cool washcloths placed on her forehead and tender kisses to her hands.
Everything was hazy. Tunnel-like. Figures at the end she couldn’t reach. Speaking was impossible with her teeth clenched against the agony. There were words being spoken to her, but they sounded engulfed in water.
Then, the words slowly began to make sense. Her right hand was enclosed in the comforting grip of two others. A forehead pressed to her forearm.
A prayer being whispered for her...by Casper.
“Lord, heal Ashley from this sickness. You brought her into my life for a reason. It can’t have been just to die. Is she the one for me? I feel like we’re meant for each other. Give us the chance for a life together. Help me find a way to save her just as You saved us.”
Did Casper mean for her to hear those words? This repeated mantra became the focal point of the comfort she could most count on, something she could believe in, wrap her heart around. She had mused these things in her own mind and now she knew that Casper felt the same way.
When she was able to open her eyes, the room was dim. There was a rattle of a stool toppling over, but she was too tired to startle. Casper’s face popped into view, a broad smile consumed with relief welcoming her back.
He hugged her gently. “How do you feel?”
Shifting in the bed, she sat up. The room spun wildly and she gripped the side rail to slow things down. Taking stock of her symptoms, she felt most had decreased in severity. The headache was nearly gone. Muscle pain tolerable. She touched her chest—the blisters were resolving.
She looked at Casper standing next to her and he had an IV in his arm with an infusion going. “How do you feel?”
“I think having a recent smallpox vaccine kept most of the symptoms at bay. Your father’s cure did the trick and brought you back to me.”
It was strange hearing those words...your father. Even if Russell had been what she thought of as a good dad, he wasn’t her father biologically. Jared hadn’t denied his confession. Russell had adopted her, raised her and, though imperfect, had loved her in the best way he could. He’d sacrificed for her—his distance had been meant to keep her safe.
Adoption. Sacrifice. Were these things really different from what God did? Jesus had done these things for her. Firming that up in her mind made the things Casper talked about more reasonable. Sensible.
True.
Maybe all these things had happened for a reason.
“Casper—”
“Don’t say anything now.” He raised the head of the gurney so she could sit supported. “We can talk about things when we’re out of here.”
Ashley looked past Casper and saw Jared lying on the other bed in the room. He shook violently, his skin red and blistering. His moaning caused her head to dip between her shoulders. “You haven’t given him the cure yet?”
Casper sat down. “Why would we? He hasn’t fulfilled his end of the d
eal. If he doesn’t confess then I don’t think we have enough evidence to prove what he’s done. What are a few pictures and files? Your father’s statement will be viewed as corrupted considering what he’s done. Jared will weasel out of this, Ashley. He’s been smart enough to hide his fingerprints.”
“Where’s my father?”
“Sleeping.”
“I know you’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” Ashley said.
“Don’t even think of asking me what you’re going to.”
“Then I won’t, but just do it.”
Casper stood. The stool rolled away—violently ejected. It veered into Jared’s gurney. He didn’t even wince.
“We don’t owe him anything, Ashley. He’s suffering because of his own evil plan. He’ll twist this around and make it look like we’re the criminals. We’ll go to jail. He’ll be out and rich. This is what you want?”
What she wanted was not to give a man a death sentence for not cooperating. There had to be a better way than to impose the same type of madness that men had used for centuries.
“You’re better than this, Casper. I am, too. If you believe God orchestrated these events then there has to be a way for the truth to win without coercion. There has to be a path where mercy works.”
Casper gripped the IV pole in his hand, staring at her. His eyes darted about the room as if he were searching for a counterargument and coming up blank.
“Russell’s not going to agree to this.”
Ashley pulled her knees up and laced her arms around her legs. “My father doesn’t have to. We’re the only other two people in this room and we have everything we need to give it to him. Please, Casper. Could you look back on letting this man die and truly be at peace with it? You’re a doctor. You swore to never do a patient harm. I think you want to be with me. I want to be with a man who will uphold the oaths that he takes.”
“He’s...a criminal.”
“He’s still a person, too. Maybe the one thing that can turn him around and get him to confess is showing him grace. Jared could be the way he is because no one has ever done that for him before. He’s just used to people treating him like you are and doing the same to others.”
Fugitive Spy Page 17
