Sean held up a finger. “I took the liberty of testing your treatment in some cell cultures, too.” He withdrew a couple of cell flasks from the incubator and examined them in the biosafety cabinet. “Take a look at this!”
Lauren and Peter crowded around him.
“The mineralization process appears to have stopped. No more calcium apatite production, which would mean the suckers causing these formations have probably died out. And look at this.” He swirled the flask around, and the mineralized tissue disintegrated into particles clouding the pink liquid media.
“The EDTA therapy actually ate away the calcium apatite like we predicted,” Lauren said. Again, she felt a mixture of satisfaction and worry. “But that means Glenn and the others will have to be careful. Their bones could be especially brittle as they recover from the treatment.”
“Definitely,” Sean said. “But I’m willing to bet they’re not going to turn now.”
“I appreciate your confidence,” Lauren said. As a doctor, she wanted her patients to recover. But in her dual role as a researcher, she knew a test population consisting of a couple of tissue culture samples and only one time point in a rushed clinical trial wouldn’t cut it. “Let’s keep an eye on them as this develops. Either way, I want to get this information to Dom. It might be useful if he’s anywhere near Detrick.”
Peter and Sean promised they’d be fine with the patients, and Lauren went through the decon chamber and into the ship’s corridor. She entered the electronics workshop. The room was alive with humming computers and the intermittent squawks of radio chatter. Chao and Samantha’s fingers tapped away at their keyboards, their eyes glued to the banks of monitors. Crumpled cans from energy drinks lay in a heap on one side of Chao’s desk. Samantha’s desk shared a similar memoriam of conquered caffeine-laden beverages.
“Can you put in word to Dom for me?” Lauren asked Chao.
He nodded, his mouth slightly agape and his gaze remaining on the screen before him. “Can do.” He clicked an icon on the monitor and handed Lauren a handset.
“Dom, this is Lauren. Dom, do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Doc. What’s the news?” He seemed strangely happy.
“You’ve found your girls,” Lauren stated.
“I have indeed. We’ve reconnected with Meredith and several other survivors.”
“Any luck reaching Detrick?”
“Nothing on our front,” Dom said. “We haven’t had any luck over UHF. Adam is hoping there’s someone on the ground listening to chatter over a SINCGARS, but we have to get in range to make contact. I’m hoping you’ll have something for us to tell them.”
“I do,” Lauren said. Dom had already been briefed on the disastrous events resulting in Ivan’s attack on Divya, so she relayed what she and the team had found in the medical bay. She also cautioned that this was all preliminary data. There was no indication what the long-term effectiveness of the treatment might be. Whether or not Glenn, Scott, Amir, Ivan, and Divya became Skulls was yet to be determined. “But it might be a cure, Captain. We might actually be able to stop the Oni Agent.”
“Fantastic. This might be a bargaining chip if we can reach someone at Detrick. Anything else?”
“Nothing else significant to report,” Lauren said.
“Thanks for the update. Keep me abreast on all developments. Everything we can share with Detrick is worth a shot.”
She handed the headset back to Chao.
“You really think you’ve found something?” he asked, looking her in the eye for the first time.
“Maybe.”
“God, I hope so.” He pushed away from his desk and ran his fingers through his jet-black hair. “Everything we’ve picked up indicates the Oni Agent is spreading like nothing we have ever seen. Cities, nations are falling like that.” He snapped a finger.
“Have you and Samantha put together a map and timetable of the agent’s spread?”
Chao nodded. “Yep. It’s not pretty.”
“When things become a little more stable in the medical bay, I’m going to send Sean in here to take a look at your data. He can put his epidemiology background to good use.” She tugged at the lapel of her white coat. “For an agent transmissible only through direct contact, it has spread way too fast. There’s got to be something else we’re missing.”
“Maybe someone else,” Chao said. “The spread of this disease might be more than just an accident, don’t you think?”
Lauren nodded but wasn’t ready to commit further to any other conspiracy theories. The one theory she needed to focus on was the elimination of the debilitating nanobacteria swimming through her patients. “I better get back to medical.”
Chao turned back to his monitors with a headset strapped over his ears. On her way back to the medical bay, Chao’s words echoed in her mind. There was something they were missing, something about the spread of the Oni Agent that didn’t make sense. It spread faster than the Spanish flu, yet it wasn’t airborne.
The moment she pushed open the doors to the medical bay, she banished those nagging thoughts from her mind. She needed to focus on making these people better before she could dream of healing the rest of the world.
-33-
Dom and Miguel set up flanking positions the moment the AW109 raced over the cul-de-sac. With one hand on his rifle, Dom used his other to wave Frank down. The landing wheels connected with pavement, and a draft of wind bit into Dom’s flak jacket. Adam jumped from the chopper while Frank kept the bird’s rotors going as a trio of Skulls staggered out of a nearby house. They tilted their heads, following the chopper.
Dom pointed to his eyes then to Miguel and then to the Skulls. Three short bursts from their suppressed SCARs shattered the bony frames of the creatures. They slumped to the asphalt, blood soaking from their distorted bodies.
With no other attackers in sight, Adam rushed out under the churning blades.
“Frank, keep the bird alive,” Dom said. “We won’t be long.”
The pilot saluted from the cockpit. “You got it, Captain.”
Dom brought Adam into the living room to meet up with the others. The Weavers huddled together on the couch, with Shauna and Eric seated near them. Hector and Renee kept watch for Skulls. Maggie whined when she saw the newcomers, limping over to the group. Miguel crouched beside the golden retriever and tousled the curly fur along her shoulders. The dog tried to sit and put too much weight on her splinted front leg. She yelped, and Miguel helped her lay down.
Miguel clicked his tongue at her and displayed his prosthetic. “At least you didn’t lose the whole thing.”
Maggie’s tail beat the floor as she licked his artificial fingers.
While Dom had been overjoyed to find his daughters and Meredith alive and well, he felt sickened by the fate of his ex-wife. They’d parted as amicably as they possibly could in the divorce. Dom had refused to give up his time-sucking career, and she had refused to accept a husband who wasn’t there nine months of the year. Hearing Bethany had become one of the Skulls stirred bittersweet memories of the woman he’d once loved. He pushed aside those thoughts and turned his attention back toward the task at hand. “Frank, what’s our status?”
“We’ve got contacts spread thin. No word over UHF, but I’m hoping we can strike something up when we’re in range of potential VHF comms with Fort Detrick. The bird’s got enough for a short jaunt to the base but not enough juice for any fancy flying.”
“We counted less than a dozen contacts in our direct line of sight on landing,” Adam added. “There’s far more activity—smoke, fires, apparent gunfire—closer to downtown Frederick, and from the looks of it, Detrick.”
Dom looked to Meredith next. “Anything helpful in your arsenal?”
“Lost just about everything when we were ambushed at the bus depot.” Meredith patted the holster at her side. “This is the only weapon we’ve got besides a lug wrench and pry bar.” She gestured toward Shauna and Eric.
“Sorry I
lost the Pack-Rifle,” Eric said.
“A Pack-Rifle is next to useless against these guys,” Miguel said, still scratching Maggie behind her ears. “You’re probably better off walloping heads with the wrench.”
“What about transport?” Dom asked Meredith. “How’d you three get here from the depot?”
“Public transit,” Meredith said wryly. “We borrowed a school bus. I moved it down the street so you’d have room to land the chopper.”
Dom nodded. The group looked at him, waiting for direction. He counted off the civilians and then called Frank over his comm link. “Frank, how easy would it be to fit eight people into your chopper?”
“Well, it’s pretty easy if one of them is flying and Adam’s sitting out, but if you want that chopper to move with me at the helm and Adam working the comm equipment, we can realistically only take six people safely. The bird’s not made for heavy lifting, especially with the winds the way they are out here and the fuel situation getting a bit more precarious.”
“Understood.” Dom glanced at the Weavers, Eric, Shauna, and his daughters. Nina Weaver placed an arm around the boy Dom had rescued. He was still too shell-shocked to say another word, though he’d stopped shivering, and some color had returned to his face. “Frank, I want you to make contact with Detrick. Get everyone in the Army’s protection, and we’ll come after in the bus.”
“You’re not going on the chopper?” Kara asked.
Dom shook his head.
“I’m not either.”
“Not happening,” Dom said. “You’re going with the others.”
Kara’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t raise her voice. “I’ll be more useful on the ground than stuck in that chopper. I know my way around these Skulls. Ask them.” She pointed to Joe and Meredith. “I can help, Dad. I want to help.”
“Absolutely not,” Dom said. “No way in hell.”
Dom counted up the choppers’ prospective passengers, starting with the children. He considered Joe and Nina. He couldn’t separate Zack and Leah from both parents, but one would have to stay on the ground. “Joe, I’m going to need you to ride with us.”
Joe blanched, his jaw dropping and his lips quivering. “No, no, no, no. I can’t...I can’t.”
Nina grabbed Joe’s arm. “Please, don’t do this to us.”
Remorse filled Dom. He knew what it was like to have been separated from his children while the world went to hell, but he was in charge now, expected to make the tough decisions. “I’m sorry, Joe, but that’s the way it’s got to be.” He turned to Nina. “I promise I’ll get him to you safely, but we can’t waste any time. We need to go.”
“Dom, you can’t do this. We were neighbors. I lived next to your—”
Dom stood and silenced the man with a single glare. The room went cold as Dom assumed the double-edged sword of utter authority. “Joe, you’re on the bus with us.”
Joe’s face turned red, and his fists balled up, clenching tight until his knuckles turned white. But the man quieted.
“And you two.” Dom glanced at Shauna and Eric. “You’re coming with us, too.”
“Okay,” Shauna said in a meek voice. She squeezed Eric’s hand and looked at Dom.
Eric wrapped an arm around her, his bottom lip shaking, and she leaned into his shoulder. “We’ll be okay, babe. We’ll be okay.”
Dom clapped his hands together. “Let’s move out! Hunters, Meredith, everyone on the ground, we’re covering these people until they get in the air.”
“What about Maggie?” Sadie asked.
Dom met Sadie’s eyes. “She goes with us.”
“But—”
“We’ll take care of her.” Dom could see the fear in his daughter’s expression, but there was no way he could even ask Frank if they could take the dog up in the bird after he’d just told Joe, Eric, and Shauna their fates lay on the ground with the Hunters and Meredith.
“Don’t worry. You get your little butt in the air,” Miguel said to Sadie. He ruffled the dog’s fur and lifted her. “I’ll protect her.”
“Move out!” Dom said, ushering the others to the front of the house. “No time to waste.”
Kara approached him and spoke with a lowered voice. “What about Mom?”
His heart caught in his throat, but he couldn’t let emotion get in the way now. “For now, we’re going to leave her here.”
“Alive?” Kara asked.
“Of course.” He placed hand on her shoulder. “My team thinks they found a cure. And if it works, we’ll do everything we can for her.”
Kara nodded. She opened her mouth to ask another question but seemed to think better of it.
“I love you,” Dom said, squeezing her shoulder. “Take care of your sister until I get there, okay?”
“Always have, always will,” Kara said. “But I’m still going to be pissed at you for not letting me ride with you guys.”
“You wouldn’t be my daughter otherwise.” He shouldered his weapon and signaled to Renee. They both rushed out the door and led the group toward the AW109.
Frank prepared the chopper for liftoff, and the others strapped in. Miguel let Sadie pat Maggie’s head one last time before he took the dog in his arms and backed up out of the rotor wash.
“You’re clear,” Dom said to Frank over the comm link. The pilot saluted through the cockpit, and the chopper took off. “Keep me patched in to all your transmissions so I know what’s going on.”
“Will do, Captain,” Frank said.
Dom stole a quick glance at the helicopter as it moved northwest toward Fort Detrick. His reunion with his daughters had been all too short, and he prayed he’d see them again in due time.
“Godspeed,” he whispered as the helicopter sped away.
The Hunters gathered around Dom, along with Meredith, Joe, Eric, and Shauna. They moved through the neighborhood toward the bus.
Dom wondered how many of the houses they passed were filled with families entrenched until the Oni Agent outbreak subsided. But another thought lingered in his mind, one he’d tried to ignore for the purpose of fulfilling this mission and preventing his conscience from destroying him.
If Lauren and his team did discover a cure, if they could reverse the effects of the Oni Agent...was every Skull he killed nothing more than a sick person who could have been healed? Instead of eliminating enemy threats, were he and his team actually killing civilians whose only crime was succumbing to a biological agent?
He shuddered at the thought and almost keeled over where he stood.
Miguel caught up to him and laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. “You okay, Chief?”
“Just my ankle acting up,” he lied. The cognitive dissonance of it all threatened to crush him if he dwelled on it too long. He wanted Lauren to find a cure, to prove they could reverse the drastic changes the Oni Agent had caused and save his daughters’ mother. But a darker, more selfish part of him wanted her to say that there was nothing they could do. That these people turning into Skulls were truthfully no longer people—they were monsters, and their deaths were justified. Wrestling with these thoughts did nothing to ease his worries as they boarded the damaged bus.
“Moving out,” Meredith announced over the bus’s PA system as the diesel engine rumbled to life.
The Army better have some answers. He just hoped they would hold their fire long enough to allow them through the gates, but as the bus charged down the road, Dom wasn’t so sure he was going to like what he found at Detrick.
-34-
Dom watched the once-picturesque streets of Frederick pass by. A few were nothing but smoldering ruins and ashes. Empty cars littered the road, making their trip long and tedious. The rumble of the diesel engine attracted a bevy of wandering Skulls, now screeching and following the bus.
Dom spotted a van with doors ajar and a couple suitcases, ripped and torn, spilling from the vehicle. He wondered what had happened to the family that must’ve been trying to get the hell out of Dodge. Then a sick feeling
overtook him when he saw the white bones, picked clean of flesh, scattered along the sidewalk near the van. A single Skull chewed on one of the larger bones, sucking the marrow dry. It looked up from the remains as the bus trundled past and joined the herd, thirty or forty deep now, of Skulls chasing after Dom and the Hunters.
The skeletal growths protruding from their spines and shoulder blades appeared almost as large as those of the Skulls they’d seen aboard the IBSL. Crimson saliva dripped from their mouths. A thin, lean beast with ropey muscles led the pack, scrambling over wrecked sedans and pickups. A couple of other larger Skulls shoved each other in their desperate attempt to reach the bus. One tumbled to the asphalt, and Dom watched as the others trampled it, caught up in their frenzy for live prey.
One wrong turn, one accident, and the creatures would be on them in seconds.
“How long until we reach Detrick?” Dom asked, his hand on one of the brown vinyl seats to brace himself as he stood by Meredith.
Meredith had chosen to backtrack over the path she’d taken to get to Dom’s family’s home. It was a long route, but she’d said she’d encountered fewer hostiles by sticking to the outskirts of the city. “An hour or so, I hope.”
Dom sat in the seat near her and pressed on his comm link. “Frank, this is Dom. How’s air traffic?”
“I don’t see any of the Black Hawks Webb reported before,” Frank responded. “But there’s certainly ground activity around Detrick. I’m guessing we’re almost in range. I’ll keep you patched in.”
There was a moment of silence over the line. Dom imagined Adam adjusting their radio aboard the AW109.
Then Frank’s line came over the comm link again, relaying their current attempt to reach the Army base. “Fort Detrick, Fort Detrick. This is Frank Battaglia, pilot of an unregistered aircraft approaching your airspace. I’ve got eight souls aboard, none infected, and we’re looking to land. Fort Detrick, do you copy?”
The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) Page 26
