“No!” Kimberly yelled. He started to twist around, and one of the soldiers shoved him forward. He stumbled and nearly pitched face-first onto the pavement. “You can’t leave that backpack! It’s too important!”
Alarm swelled up in Ethan, and he struggled against the hands that were propelling him forward. “You have to bring that backpack with us!” he said, his voice frantic. “It has important research in it!”
That didn’t work, until Kimberly said the magic words that made the soldiers around them pause.
“The cure is in that bag!”
Everyone stopped where they were, and Ethan wrenched free enough to twist around to see Kimberly. She was halfway between him and their abandoned backpacks, her face alarmed and tears streaming over her cheeks. “Get the backpack,” he said, backing her up. “For the love of everybody uninfected that’s left in the world, get the backpack.”
“What the hell is going on here?” a muffled voice asked from behind him. Ethan turned back in the direction of the military convoy. A MOPP4-outfitted man strode toward them in a manner that suggested he meant business. Not wanting to put Kimberly in the line of fire any more than necessary, Ethan straightened and faced the man with as much authority as he could muster.
“We’re looking for a medical facility that we heard was in Eden, North Carolina,” he explained. “We think we have the cure, or at least the key to the cure, and we’re trying to get it into the hands of someone who might know what to do with it.” The masked soldier stared at him. “It’s true,” Ethan implored. “We were surviving with a CDC doctor who worked with the virus. He was still working on it when we connected with him. Kimberly, who is with me, she was his assistant. They found a rudimentary vaccine for the virus that, in certain circumstances, can reverse the effects of the virus and potentially be a cure.”
The soldier stared at him for another long heartbeat and motioned to the squad surrounding Ethan, Kimberly, and Chris. “Get the backpacks and bring the three of them to one of the trucks. We’ll let Major Bradford decide what to do with them.”
One of the soldiers jabbed Ethan in the back with the barrel of his rifle, indicating for him to start walking. He gritted his teeth at the rough treatment but obeyed, allowing the soldiers to goad him toward one of the Humvees blocking the road. A soldier standing by the Humvee opened the back door, and Ethan slid inside awkwardly. Kimberly scooted in seconds later, and the door shut behind her.
“Where’s Chris?” Ethan asked.
“They put him in the other Humvee,” she replied.
Two soldiers climbed into the front seat. The one in the passenger seat twisted around to watch them, his rifle angled so he could get it raised and fire into the backseat in an instant.
“No talking,” the soldier ordered, and Ethan swallowed and nodded.
The Humvee jerked forward, and Ethan lurched toward the front seat involuntarily. Thankfully the soldiers didn’t think he was about to attack them, because they didn’t react. He slouched back against the seat, the metal bracelets of his handcuffs digging into his wrists, and looked at Kimberly. She was looking back at him, no longer crying, though her cheeks were stained with previously shed tears. He was dying to wipe them away, but with his hands cuffed behind his back, that was impossible.
“Are you okay?” he mouthed to her.
Kimberly shrugged and mouthed back, “I don’t know. Not what I expected.”
“Me neither,” Ethan said.
The two of them looked away from each other and watched the miles and the scenery roll by. Ethan struggled to stop the spiral of terror over Kimberly’s safety as he imagined everything that these soldiers could possibly do to her.
His shoulders were hurting from tension when the convoy turned onto a long, remote road that, by all appearances, led to a rural airstrip. Four hulking black helicopters sat on the runway in a widely spaced row, several military vehicles arrayed near them with soldiers standing guard, rifles in hand. This looked like a well-run operation, and Ethan started to have second thoughts on how well the rest of the world had survived. For all he’d known before, Chris had been lying or exaggerating about the circumstances the world was in. He couldn’t conceive that the world at large had had that little of a problem with the Michaluk Virus considering the speed with which it had spread in their own cities. The extensive military presence on the airstrip was a good indicator that everybody else had it a hell of a lot better than Ethan and his companions had had over the past two years.
The thought of everyone living their lives normally didn’t make Ethan angry; it made him incredibly sad. After everything he and his friends had been through, after the deaths of his wife, and Nikola, Theo and Gray, among others, it made him feel like they’d gone through it all for nothing.
One of the soldiers opened his door and motioned for him to climb out, and he slid to the pavement, trying to roll his stiff and sore shoulders. The soldier shut the door behind him and pointed to one of the helicopters. “You’re getting in that one,” he said, nudging him in the back. “Get moving.”
“Are we going to Eden?” Ethan asked and started walking toward the helicopter as instructed.
“We’re taking you to see Major Bradford,” the soldier said, and Ethan sent up a silent prayer of thanks that someone was willing to tell him a little about what was going on.
“Is he the one in charge?” Ethan asked.
This question the soldier didn’t answer. “Have you ridden in a helicopter before?” he asked.
“Yeah, several years ago when the police department got its own helicopter and the pilot took us all out for joy rides,” Ethan said.
“You were a cop?” the soldier asked.
“Yeah. I’d just gotten promoted to major at the Memphis Police Department the day before all this shit started,” Ethan answered.
“Memphis?” the soldier repeated, and through the man’s gas mask, Ethan could see his eyes light up. “My brother was an officer in Memphis. Caleb Jones. Did you know him? He was at the second precinct.”
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I worked in the first precinct. The name rings a bell, but I don’t think I knew him.”
The soldier sighed, the sound hollow as it echoed through his gas mask filters. “Oh well. I thought maybe…” He motioned toward the helicopter again. “Climb on in. We’re going to take you to see the major, and maybe he can help you with this cure thing you say you have.”
Ethan clambered into the helicopter. One of the soldiers already inside put a helmet on his head and fastened the buckles for him. Ethan settled back and saw Chris and Kimberly being led to the same helicopter. While the soldiers who’d helped Ethan into his seat assisted them, he watched the soldier who’d asked him about the Memphis Police Department and wondered if the man would serve as a potential ally in whatever was going to happen next.
Chapter 32
Lindsey was sitting at her desk, a binder full of typewritten pages opened in front of her, her head resting against the palm of her hand. She was trying to study the most recent report the day shift had left her and Jacob, but she wasn’t having much success. Her mind was still stuck on her worries over Michael Brandt Evans, her apparent brother-in-law, and how and when she could attempt to get him out of the military’s custody. It was a difficult problem, and it was one she was putting her powerful brain to, shuffling through possibility after possibility, trying to find one that would be most likely to work.
She’d tossed four different ideas by the time she realized her lab partner had gone into the decontamination chamber, and she jerked to attention when the steady hiss of the chamber’s water shut off. A few moments later, the door to the chamber slid open, and Jacob stepped out, fully dressed, still drying his hair off with a towel. Lindsey glanced at him, then licked her thumb and turned a page in the binder, though she had no idea what the page she’d just left had said.
“You look like you’re very deep in thought,” Jacob said. He sat on the edge of her de
sk and tapped his fingertip against her forehead. “You’re going to get worry wrinkles right here if you frown any harder.”
Lindsey slammed the binder shut. “I have no idea what I’ve read,” she said. “I’ve been staring at these notes for hours now.”
“That means you’ve missed out on all that I’ve been doing in the lab,” Jacob said. He motioned toward the door. “What do you say we get out of here and I’ll fill you in over some coffee?”
“Is it Earth-shatteringly important?” Lindsey asked, and Jacob nodded. “Let me get my stuff.” She opened a desk drawer and shoved the binder into it, then retrieved her purse and keys from another drawer. “Your car or mine?”
“Let’s take mine,” Jacob said. “I have an urge to drive.”
They processed out of the building, retrieved Jacob’s SUV from the parking garage, and started on their way to the coffee shop. Jacob was changing lanes to get to the shopping center that was home to a Starbucks they liked to frequent when Lindsey cleared her throat and asked, “So what’s going on?”
“You know that guy the military brought in? The lieutenant?” Jacob asked. Lindsey nodded. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but the results of his blood tests came back. He’s showing positive for infection with the Michaluk Virus.”
“Oh hell,” Lindsey muttered.
“Sort of.”
Lindsey raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by, ‘sort of’?”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Jacob said. “I barely understand it myself. I think he’s infected with a different strain than what we’ve seen in the infected we’ve captured so far. The paperwork the military scavenged from the remains of the CDC alluded to multiple strains of the pathogen. I think we’ve found one of them.”
“Really?” Lindsey asked. “Are you serious? It’s one of the missing strains?”
“I believe so,” Jacob said, “though I can’t say for sure.”
Lindsey frowned. “Wait. He’s not showing any symptoms. Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Jacob said. “I ran the tests four times to make sure.”
“Well hell,” Lindsey said. “I don’t know, then.”
“Maybe he’s a carrier,” Jacob suggested. “He could be infected and not showing symptoms.”
“Like Typhoid Mary?”
“Exactly,” Jacob said, his tone delighted at the fact that she got where he was going with this. “So what were you plotting when you were in the offices just now?” Lindsey didn’t answer, staring out the passenger window. He pulled the car into the drive-thru at Starbucks and asked, “You’re still thinking about what to do about that lieutenant, aren’t you?”
“His name is Michael,” Lindsey corrected. “And I found out earlier that he’s my brother-in-law, or he says he is.”
“Do you believe him?”
“He knows enough about Cade to make him seem believable,” Lindsey replied.
“So you still want to get him out of there? Even knowing he’s most likely infected?”
“Yes, because he might know where my sister is,” Lindsey said. “And right now, she’s the most important thing to me, even beyond the work we’ve been doing.”
“Any idea how you’re going to do it yet?”
Lindsey sighed. “Not a clue. He always has guards on his cell, and I don’t know how I can get past them to get him out of there. Then there’s getting him out of the building…”
Jacob paused in the conversation long enough to put in their orders, and once they’d pulled forward, he said, “Maybe we can tell Bradford we need to do a medical exam and get him moved to one of the medical rooms.”
“That won’t work,” Lindsey said. “They handcuff him to the bed in there, and they don’t give me a key. Besides which, the last time he was in there, the guards insisted on staying in the room with him. The medical ward is out.”
“Shit,” Jacob drawled. He pulled his wallet out and sorted through the cards inside for his debit card, then passed it to the cashier at the delivery window. Once he’d paid and gotten their drinks—a hot mocha latte for him and a caramel frappuccino for her—he pulled away from the window. “Do you think you could take me to him, let me examine him?”
“He won’t trust you,” Lindsey warned. She took a sip of her drink and set the cup in one of the cup holders between them. “He barely trusted me until he found out who I was. You, he won’t tell you anything, and he won’t believe anything you say.”
“Then I’m going to have to make him believe,” Jacob said.
“Why?” Lindsey asked. “What do you need to see him for, anyway?”
“You can’t possibly think I’m going to let you deal with all this on your own,” Jacob said. He put his cup in its cup holder and took her hand in his, squeezing it lightly. “I’m here to help in any way I can.”
“Why?” Lindsey asked. “What’s in it for you?”
Jacob steered into a random parking lot and pulled into a space, shoving the car into park and turning in his seat to look at her. “Do you really not know, or are you playing at ignorance?” he asked. Thankfully, he didn’t sound like he meant it insultingly, or Lindsey would have crawled across the car and smacked the shit out of him. “You honestly don’t know that I like you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Lindsey said, her eyes widening with surprise. “But, Jacob, I don’t know if the two of us is a wise idea. I don’t… I don’t date coworkers.”
A fleeting look of disappointment came into his eyes, and he nodded. “Understandable,” Jacob said. “That doesn’t mean I won’t help you, though.”
“How?”
“I’ll help you get him out of there,” Jacob said. “I’ll help you figure it out, and I’ll do whatever needs to be done to make sure you make it out of the facility in one piece.”
Lindsey smiled warmly. “You’re a good man, Jacob. You know that?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I do my best. So what do you say we get back to the facility and start looking for holes to slip your lieutenant through?”
Twenty minutes later, Lindsey and Jacob were walking back into the lab, coffee cups in hand, when a soldier rushed inside and stopped at Lindsey’s desk. “He’s asking for you,” he told her as she stared up at him in bafflement.
“Who is?” Lindsey asked. She set her grande frappuccino cup on the coaster near the corner of her desk calendar and looked at him in confusion.
“The prisoner,” the soldier explained. “He said he’s ready to talk, and he’s specifically asking for you.”
Lindsey pushed away from the desk, and in her haste to grab her medical kit, she knocked her drink over. Ignoring the tan-colored liquid that spilled across her calendar, she followed the soldier out of the room at a near run.
Brandt sat on the edge of his cot, his hands pressed together and resting on his lap, rocking back and forth slightly. When the door creaked open, he looked up at Lindsey expectantly, and though his face remained somber, there was excitement in his dark eyes.
“Lieutenant Evans?” she said, keeping her tone measured and steady as she walked toward him. “You wanted to speak to me?” Brandt nodded, and she glanced back at the soldiers briefly then stepped closer to him. After a second’s hesitation, she sat on the edge of the cot, far enough away to maintain a professional demeanor but close enough that he could speak with a reduced risk of being heard. “What is it?” she asked, her voice low. She opened the zipper on her medical bag and made a show of rooting through it.
“They fuck up around meal times,” Brandt said. “They let their guards down when they bring me my meals.”
“How much do they let it down?”
“Enough that you could use it,” he replied. “I’ll take care of the immediate obstacles if you can get here to get me out.”
Lindsey started to wrap her blood pressure cuff around his bicep, smoothing it out and taking out her stethoscope. “I’ll check the meal schedule,” she murmured, making a show of unkinking the stethoscope’s cable
. “Don’t make any moves until the meal after next.” She plugged the stethoscope’s earbuds into her ears and pressed the cuff to the crook of his elbow, starting to inflate the cuff.
Once she’d taken his blood pressure and pulled the cuff away from his arm, he said, loudly enough for the guards to hear, “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t feel like talking right now.”
It was a fight for Lindsey to suppress the grin that teased her lips while she stuffed her blood pressure cuff into her bag and stood. “I understand,” she said. “I’ll come back later and see if you’re ready to chat then.”
When Lindsey left the cell, her hopes were soaring with excitement and elation as she made her way back to the labs. She was getting Brandt out two meals from now, and after that, he would be able to take her to her sister.
Chapter 33
Remy’s head had started to hurt again, badly enough that it felt like her skull was about to split open. The bumping and rumbling of the truck wasn’t helping, and not for the first time since they’d gotten out of Atlanta, she wished she could crawl into the cab, throw Cade out of it, and curl up in the passenger seat where the trip was bound to be quieter and more comfortable. But the last person she wanted to piss off was Cade; that woman could wipe her across the floor without breaking a sweat. Rather than grumble about the pain in her head or the ache forming in her lower back from sitting on the hard cargo bed for so long, Remy kept her mouth shut, sucked it up, and dealt with it as best she could.
She’d almost dozed off, her head lightly thumping against the side of the truck bed with the rhythm of the tires on the road, when the truck screeched to a halt, jerking her to attention. She sat up straight, looking around the darkening cargo space myopically. “What the hell is going on?”
“No idea,” Sadie replied, and Remy made out the shape of her pushing her way through a crack in the canvas covering the cargo area. As her lithe body slid halfway out into the open air, Remy levered herself to a standing position, hanging onto one of the canvas supports arching above her head. Keith and Jude had also come to attention when the truck had rocked to a stop and were scrambling for weapons and other supplies in case they needed them. Remy didn’t look at them, watching Sadie, waiting for her word.
The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) Page 19
