Final Epidemic

by Earl Merkel

  He nodded—a little too quickly, April thought.

  “I’ll sweep the left arc with my flashlight; you take the right. If we’re lucky, Trippett’s in there sawing wood; all that happens is he gets what you might call a rude awakening. We take him down, toss the place, bring him in. But if we run into somebody else—or if somebody else is in there with him—stay out of the line of fire, right? This case has enough bodies hanging on it.”

  “Just don’t shoot me,” Beck said. He saw the look that crossed her face, and frowned, puzzled. “Sorry. It was a joke.”

  “Then get serious, fast,” April said.

  An image rose in her mind, and she pushed it down.

  “Just a minute,” April said. She stepped to the car’s trunk and fumbled with the key in the dark. Then she eased up the hatch, removed an object as long as her arm, and closed the trunk silently. She came back to Beck, who looked at her with what she could barely make out as a frown.

  “You think you’ll need that?” he asked.

  April O’Connor hefted the object she had removed from the trunk, holding it firmly in two hands across her chest. It was a Mossberg shotgun, the 12-gauge pump model commonly issued to police tactical units. It was fully loaded with five rounds of double-ought buckshot, each shell packed with nine 32-caliber lead balls. At close range, she knew, its blast could cut a human being almost in half.

  “The last time I ran into this guy, his friends were carrying automatic weapons,” she said grimly. “You didn’t see what happened next. I did.”

  They covered the quarter mile to the edge of the quarry in less than ten minutes, moving through the grass alongside the road as quietly as if they had been in a church. Twice, April had stopped short as something substantial had scurried out of her path; once, she had even seen a flash of movement in the grass, and wondered what variety of venomous snake called this region home.

  She had not looked back, but she knew Beck was behind her. She could hear his soft footfalls occasionally; once, when he stepped too close to the soft incline of the drainage ditch, she heard his sharp inhalation as he slipped and caught himself. She even imagined she could hear the regular timpani of his heartbeats, though she knew it was more likely she was listening to her own.

  A few yards away, the water slapped at the banks of the quarry, loud in the night. April dropped to one knee. In a moment, Beck was next to her. She pointed into the night, and he strained to see.

  It was there, a patch of darkness thicker than that which surrounded it. April could make out the lines of a trailer, the kind with flat aluminum sides and top, engineered more with economy than stylishness in mind. She discovered that she could see the object better by not looking at it directly. In her peripheral vision, it contrasted more clearly from the copse of cottonwoods that framed it at a short distance.

  April felt Beck’s hand touch her shoulder lightly. She looked at him and saw him point to his eyes, then toward the trailer and lift his palms in a doubtful shrug. She mimicked his gesture; April, too, could see no sign of human presence.

  They could have been playing musical instruments, these two whose approach he had heard long before he saw their silhouettes against the lighter crushed stone of the roadway. Such a clatter they made, each step rasping through the grass in a boringly regular pace that stood out starkly against the natural sounds of the night. Twice he had heard the one in front halt, then resume the approach; the one in the rear, he had decided in a flash of wit, either had a physical defect involving his equilibrium or was simply unnaturally clumsy.

  Whoever they were, they approached this place in a manner doubtless meant to be of stealth. But the pair was without adequate training and devoid of natural skill.

  And now,he thought with a shrug,they will die.

  For a moment, he toyed with the idea of feeling sorry for them; it would not alter the fate he would deal them, but he had been raised by a grandmother who took upon herself the teaching of a faith that was officially discouraged, if not banned. Despite his experiences since then, and particularly since reaching the age when military service was compulsory, he occasionally found himself pondering such half-forgotten concepts as mercy and compassion.

  But only briefly, and certainly not in this matter.

  No,he decided—though deep inside, he also understood the decision had been made all along—they will die. One of them may even be the person we seek. If so, all the better. If not, I may keep one alive long enough to find out why they, too, have come here.

  The thought filled him with something he might have described as joy.

  Okay,April O’Connor told herself,let’s keep this simple. One: I move to the trailer door; Dr. Casey will be two steps behind, on my right. Two: I kick the door and that cheap piece of tin will pop open like a beer can. And three—well, once we’re in, we’ll see if there is a three.

  A sudden foreboding chilled her, and she felt her hair prickle along her neck. She recognized it as fear, and the realization startled her.

  April looked at the shotgun she held, then once again eyed the trailer doorway.Shit, she thought,that’s one narrow-looking door. And I’m going to barge in there carrying this goddamn clumsy blunderbuss? She pictured trying to swing the shotgun around in what were bound to be close, confined quarters; she had an image of the barrel hanging up against a wall while somebody carefully sighted on her.

  That was the clincher. April softly laid the shotgun on the grass and drew her Glock. She checked the action by feel, and fished a small, powerful Maglite from her side pocket. This too she examined by touch, running her fingers lightly along the metal tube until she found the rubber thumb switch in its base.

  Still April hesitated, and realized suddenly that she was dragging out the moment intentionally.What’s the matter? she chided herself silently.Hell of a time to turn chicken, lady. . . .

  Beck watched her, waiting for her sign. She pointed one forefinger toward her chest, held it upright and then jabbed it in the direction of the trailer. As one, they rose and rushed at the trailer door.

  Despite the advantages he held, the speed with which the two figures moved surprised him. Almost before he realized they had risen, they were halfway across the space between the road and the concrete block being utilized as a front step.

  Mi’shova mat,he thought, falling into his native tongue at the surprise,the one in front runs like a woman!

  He felt as if he had been given a very good, and very unexpected, present.

  Perhaps it was the memory of the warehouse, or perhaps it was the rush of adrenaline that coursed through her body. It may have been the shout of “FBI!” she gave, loud as any explosive scream from a martial arts master as every available erg of energy is focused on the target. It may even have been the fact that the trailer was not new, or that April O’Connor had spent hours in the gym to develop lower body strength even more impressive than what was already granted to her gender.

  For whatever reason, the kick April delivered to the trailer door did not cause it to pop open like a beer can. Instead, it tore the hinge strip completely out of the light frame of the doorway and sent the entire assembly skittering across the inside width of the trailer. It smashed against the far wall and toppled to the side with a crash of metal and glass.

  More important, it left no obstacle to delay, even momentarily, the entry of April and Beck.

  “FBI! Nobody move!” April shouted again, and thumbed on her pocket flashlight. At that instant, she saw the movement on her left. She spun, her pistol in a right-handed grip and the flashlight in her left locked under the gun hand’s wrist. In the circle of light at the end of her extended arms, the sights filled with the chest of a man wide-eyed in surprise, seated less than a dozen feet away in a folding chair. As he jerked his own gun upward toward her face, she could see the cylinder in his revolver already rotating and knew she was about to die.

  April pressed her own trigger.

  The room lit up as if from a photographer’s
strobe, the two flashes so close they appeared as one. Simultaneously, the concussion from the shots, vicious and flat, pressured her eardrums painfully as the pistol recoiled against her hand. Without conscious effort, as April O’Connor had learned in long hours on the firing range, she absorbed the recoil’s energy in her forearm, letting the force of the slide as it snapped back to battery help her again center the sights on her target.

  There was no need. His shot had missed, gone off to who-knows-where in the objective precision of ballistics. Hers had not. The bullet had torn into the man’s left shoulder, and the impact jerked his body to the side. At the same time, the pistol flew from his right hand, clattering on the stained carpeting. The first pulse of blood jetted crimson from the wound.

  “Freeze,you son of a bitch!” April screamed, her voice blazing with what felt like rage. “Do not move or Iwill shoot!”

  Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Beck step up close behind her.

  “I’ve got this guy,” she said, her heart still racing. “Shine your light on the rest of—”

  Something hard exploded into the side of her head, and the man behind her—the man who was not Beck Casey, the man who had waited motionless from the shadows outside as she and Casey approached—now watched her fall heavily to the floor.

  Chapter 29

  White Bison County, Montana

  July 23

  Real life is seldom like the movies. In the movies, a blow to the head of the hero results in what appears little different from a brief nap. A short time later, the hero awakes, shakes her head to clear the cobwebs, and proceeds to analyze the intricacies of motive and opportunity.

  The reality of April O’Connor’s situation was starkly different.

  Despite the crushing force, she was never completely unconscious from the impact to her head. She could still hear, though the ringing was magnified far beyond what had been caused by her shot. She could even see her flashlight where it lay on the trailer floor a few feet from her head, though now there were two flashlights, one slightly overlapping the other, and both moving sickeningly in and out of focus. Against her cheek, she could feel the rough nap of the carpeting that covered the floor; she was even aware of the sour smell of mildew it gave off.

  But she could not move, not a muscle; not even when two black shoes—boots, really, ankle high and with nylon zippers along the side—stepped close to her face. She had no strength in her body, not even to react when she felt a sharp poke against one of her buttocks. Then a face, its identical twin again superimposed by the double vision of the concussion she had suffered, filled her field of view. April felt a thumb on her eyelid, the one that was uppermost as she lay, and then a light brighter than the midday sun exploded in her face and was gone again.

  His tests completed, the man who had come up behind April straightened. He felt an irritated disappointment, as if he had broken a favored toy.

  I struck harder than I intended,he thought,perhaps too hard.

  He had seen people die before from a single blow to the head, their bruised brain seeping blood inside until all function stopped; he had even killed once or twice this way himself.

  But her pupils still respond to light, so we will see. And if she does not—well, I still have the other.

  He knelt beside the motionless woman. With the efficiency of an expert, he collected her weapon, field gear and personal effects. With a careless flip of his wrist, he opened her badge carrier.

  She is FBI,he thought, unimpressed.Their training leaves much to be desired, I believe.

  A few feet away, the idiot he had brought with him to bring back this Trippett—American hoodlums have too much muscle,the dark man thought with scorn,and not enough brains —lay in his own blood, moaning and muttering in a low voice. His right hand was locked over the wound, and had stoppered the pulsating arterial bleeding into a slower trickle that seeped through his fingers. With irritation, the dark man remembered how his companion’s single wild shot had hissed close past his ear. He stepped over April and bent over the man.

  Even in the near-darkness, he could see the black stain that was spreading from under the man.

  I have no time for fools,the dark man thought, mentally addressing the moaning figure.If by some miracle you do not die, that will teach you to sleep when you should be working. He reached into the wounded man’s jacket and removed a set of car keys.Thank you. I will drive myself now.

  Again stepping over the motionless FBI agent, he moved through the hole where the door had been. Sprawled on the ground outside, one foot still on the concrete block step and the other folded under at the knee, Beck Casey lay where he had fallen.

  Almost nonchalantly, the man grabbed Beck’s shoulder and rolled him roughly onto his stomach. The flashlight reflected wetly from the blood matting the hair just above the nape of Beck’s neck. The dark man repeated the test he had made on April, jabbing one forefinger hard against a cheek of Beck’s posterior.

  A person can feign unconsciousness in a number of ways. But long ago, in a dirty little room in Chechnya, he had learned from a battle-hardened sergeant that no truly conscious person—even one trying to gain a momentary respite from the interrogator’s harshest methods—can refrain from involuntary tensing the gluteus muscle against such a jab.

  As Beck did, though sluggishly. And when the Russian thumbed up an eyelid to test pupil response, Beck groaned and weakly pulled his head away.

  Satisfied, the Russian squatted and searched Beck, methodically pulling each pocket inside out. He made a small pile of the contents, examining each in the flashlight’s beam. There was surprisingly little, though what there was told the dark man the most important fact.

  Ah,he said to himself,am I to believe most Americans carry two—no, make that three—different sets of identity papers? He studied the photos on each of the driver’s licenses and compared them to Beck’s features.So. Without doubt, he is a government operative. I would guess CIA, and— he fingered the two twenties and a single five-dollar bill in Beck’s wallet—certainly an underpaid one.He smiled at his own joke and stuffed the money in his own pocket.

  And now, my heavy-footed little friend, it seems that the idiot who drove me here is feeling unwell. Perhaps you could provide me with directions? Never mind—I have a good map.He dropped the wallet carelessly to the ground and picked up one of the other items April had carried.Well—let us begin, eh? You have things to tell me before I go.

  Beck Casey was aware that he was being pulled by his arms over what felt, and tasted, like mud and weeds. His head ached agonizingly, limply lolling facedown and occasionally bouncing against the uneven ground. Once, when he mustered enough strength to lift his head a few irritated inches, he found himself looking at the slightly scuffed, pointed toes of what appeared to be black leather shoes. He noted, with a remote curiosity, that they had no laces.

  His head fell forward again, and all he could see was the damp grass over which he was sliding, sliding, sliding, his hands held high in some powerful grip. His eyelids drooped, and Beck drifted away.

  And then they stopped, and he felt himself being lifted like a large, inert sack, held on his own unsteady legs by pressure against his chest while something cold tightened around first one wrist, then the other. Beck’s eyelids fluttered open, and he looked into eyes as empty as death.

  He was not quite hanging from, not quite leaning against, a metal framework. Despite all the rust he could feel powdery against his bare arms, the frame was unmoving and solid. Beck tilted his head back, wincing from the sharp pain as his wound pressed against the slightly inclined I-beam support. Above him, handcuffs that could have been FBI issue were locked around his wrists, threaded over and around a short, horizontal length of angle iron. Whatever they used this for, Beck realized, it had been built to last.

  His mind was beginning to clear slightly, and he realized his legs had also been secured to the steel frame. The dark man who had dragged him here straightened and stepped back. Th
en the stranger reached around to the small of his back and pulled out an object that glinted even in the light of the thin moon.

  “I’m a police officer,” Beck said, pushing each word past a tongue that felt thick and only partially under his command.

  “No,” said his captor, in a voice that, despite the accent, sounded almost cheerful to Beck. “I do not believe you are.”

  He moved closer and bent in a casual manner. Beck felt a tugging at his waist and the coolness of the predawn air on suddenly bared flesh.

  The dark man again stepped back and held the knife close to Beck’s face so that it filled his vision. The blade, Beck could see, was honed razor sharp, scalloped with serrations almost to its needle-tipped point.

  “You must tell me about yourself. And about other things as well.”

  April O’Connor felt a terrible urgency, though she could not remember why. It did not matter. She had vomited, and the acid of it still burned her throat; it did not matter, either. Almost nothing mattered, except for the voice inside her head, urging her to stand, to kneel, to crawl if she must—but togo, to get out of this dark and evil-smelling place now.

  Her fingers scrabbled for a hold, and she pushed with first one leg, then the other. In front of her was only more darkness, punctuated with an occasional pained sound that she had thought was hers until now. Something made noises, moved fitfully over there; April did not want to go in that direction.

  She rolled her head, feeling the starburst of more pain as she did, until she was facing her other side. A rectangular patch—actually, two of them, though April had begun to understand she was seeing double—was slightly less dark than its surrounding blackness. It was, the voice inside told her, a way out; the thought spurred her to increase her efforts.

  By inches at first, she crawled. By the time she got to the doorway, an infinity later, she had mustered enough strength to push herself to her hands and knees. She almost decided to rest there awhile, head hanging and mouth open, until a surprisingly vivid picture came unbidden to her mind. It was of an olive-skinned man, his shirt torn open and two ragged rents weeping blood, lying open-eyed on a cold concrete floor. She saw hands that may have been her own frantically pushing hard against the unmoving chest.