Hard Road: Deadly Horizon (Dark Plague Book 2)

by Bradley West

  * * * * *

  As they approached the shower tent, Travis and Carla held hands only to see a toweled Jaime hotfoot it across the sandy soil, shower sandals left behind. The couple looked at each other, shrugged and kept walking. Soon enough, they heard Barb’s anguished moans. “We’d better come back later,” Travis said in a whisper.

  “Later never comes,” Carla replied. “I want you so bad my teeth ache. Barb? Are you okay?” she called out.

  The crying stopped, and the water shut off. Barb emerged a second later in her bikini.

  “Damnit,” Carla whispered to Travis. “Give me a towel. Get in there and clean up, and don’t start without me.”

  Carla wrapped the beach towel around Barb and put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders as Travis entered the shower, stripped off, and lathered up with a song in his heart in the knowledge of good times ahead. Ten seconds later, the hot water ran out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  D-Day

  Saturday, July 18, 2020: Las Vegas, Nevada; Weiser, Idaho; Spice Land, Idaho, afternoon into night

  Steph stepped away to check on Tyson. To her immense relief, the fellow nursed with greater enthusiasm than of late. When she returned to the den with her child at her breast, Meatball Matt and Greg were in a lively discussion. Greg looked up and awkwardly waved her over. “Matt and I have reached a new agreement. He will introduce us to a specialist today at no charge.”

  “That sounds wonderful. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” Matt said. “Just that you need to delay uploading the Dark Cure videos to YouTube for one or two days. He outlined everything that’s in the recordings, and that gave me an idea.”

  Steph stared at her husband. “Precisely what did you agree to?”

  “Only what he said—we delay the uploads.”

  The penny dropped. Steph rounded on their host. “Your plan is to buy up the lab equipment needed to make the Dark Cure. You need a few days’ head start to corner the Las Vegas market, and then you’ll make a fortune selling centrifuges, right?”

  Meatball Matt was impressed. “More or less. It helps you and helps me. It doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Not at all,” Steph spat. “You get rich and my antibodies save only wealthy people. What’s not to like?”

  “Be realistic,” Matt said. “What’s the difference between making a few bucks selling to people I know and having strangers who own medical supply distributors make the money instead? This way, at least the inventors benefit from this wonderful public service you’re providing.”

  Her disdain grew. “Not so fast. You can’t make the Dark Cure without—”

  “A survivor’s plasma,” Greg said. “Covered.”

  Steph frowned. “I can’t give any more blood. I’m already down one and one-half pints, plus the blood loss from my bullet wound.”

  “No, but I can,” Greg said. “I agreed to donate two pints as part of our deal with Matt. He’ll hire doctors to separate the plasma and antibodies, then they’ll return the red blood cells to my body. It won’t be so bad.”

  Steph stormed out of the den. Matt looked at Greg. “Still a deal?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Greg replied.

  “We’ll head across town. I’ll confirm the appointment for eleven.” He noticed Greg untying his sneaker, not an easy feat when you have a bullet hole through one of your thighs. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll hide the USB drive with the recordings in my insole,” Greg said. “If my wife gets hold of it, she’ll upload them while we’re asleep.”

  “I’ve always had trust issues with women,” Meatball Matt said. “I think that’s why my marriages failed. Let’s get back to those videos. I want to copy the brand names and model numbers off the lab components.”

  “There’s a separate file with photos of the step-by-step instructions, including the preferred equipment listed by type and brand. Couldn’t we just print that out instead?”

  “Look at the big brain on Greg.”

  * * * * *

  Steph’s anger toward her husband and their fixer diminished as Meatball Matt drove onto the shuttered hospital’s grounds. The parking gates stood open alongside an armed guard who noted their license plate and waved them in. There were plenty of spots in the staff-only lot outside the main entrance. Matt pulled his Cadillac CT5-V into a handicapped space. “Ready?”

  Greg confirmed he had the cooler, the Glock and a pair of crutches. Steph managed her own way out of the front seat, juggling a sleeping Tyson as she did so. They’d agreed to Matt’s suggestion that they leave their face masks on to avoid unwanted attention.

  Before departing from Matt’s home, the Fergusons had researched Dr. Mona Almeida and were impressed by the neurologist’s résumé, particularly her specialization in children. The hazmat-suited guards in reception unlocked the hospital’s main doors and directed them to her clinic. Every third overhead hallway bulb was lit, just enough to guide their way. Dr. Almeida’s nurse locked the door behind them and doused the lights in reception. The furtiveness of their entry underlined the illegality.

  Dr. Almeida wore a decontamination suit with a Plexiglas face shield, as did her nurse. Meatball Matt felt naked in comparison with only an N95. He kicked himself for not having bought a suit of his own.

  “Call me Mona,” Dr. Almeida said as she took them down a checklist of standard questions. The physician was in her fifties with an olive complexion that spoke to her predominately Portuguese ancestry.

  “Seizures or convulsions?”

  “No.”

  “Blood or clear fluid draining from ears or nose?”

  “Yes,” Steph said to Greg’s surprise; after a discussion they had agreed that an on-off runny nose wasn’t spinal fluid.

  “Pupils of different sizes?”

  “No.”

  “Pupils slow to react to light?”

  “Yes . . . Maybe.”

  “Tiredness?”

  “Yes!”

  “Loss of awareness of surroundings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he been exposed to Covid?” Dr. Almeida asked, departing from the script.

  “Yes, in utero.”

  “Covid-19 or 20?”

  “20.”

  “Did he show symptoms at birth?”

  “No.”

  “And you both fully recovered?”

  “I discharged myself from Marin Catholic Hospital on July 6 and have been healthy since.”

  “Is there anything else pertinent to Tyson’s health that’s Covid-related?”

  “Former military men kidnapped him and took unknown amounts of blood twice to generate a convalescent plasma antibody treatment.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Your injuries came from rescuing your baby?”

  “Nothing major,” Greg said.

  “Nonsense!” Stephanie said. “Greg saved my life and they shot him through the thigh. He needs a muscle graft or he’ll limp forever. I received just a scratch the night I injured Tyson.”

  Dr. Almeida returned to business. “Does this treatment cure or prevent Covid-20?”

  “Yes, to both,” Stephanie said.

  “And do you have any of this treatment with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you inoculate your husband with the same substance?”

  “Yes.”

  Mona turned to Greg. “What more can you tell me about this treatment?”

  “We’re part of a convoy of twenty adults and children. None of us has contracted Covid-20 since being inoculated, and four members of our group with Covid-20 healed after receiving their shots.” Greg didn’t like lying, but the comingling of the vaccine’s and Dark Cure’s results seemed a necessary simplification.

  “Hmm. Very interesting.” Dr. Almeida turned her focus to an inspection of Tyson’s head. The baby awoke and the doctor tried to engage his attention. He fussed and cried and ignored the neurologist but responded to Stephanie’s proffered breast. She delighted at his r
egained appetite.

  “Normally, I’d order blood tests but our lab isn’t operational. I brought in a radiographer who will operate the CT scanner. I’ll need your consent to sedate Tyson and run him through the machine. It will take another hour for us to interpret the pictures. My suspicion is that he’s suffered a traumatic brain injury that includes a fracture, probably a diastatic break since there’s no depression at the injury site. Newborns have softer skulls with jagged lines between the plates called suture lines; I’m guessing that there’s been a break that widened the natural gap. Beneath the fracture, there’s likely to be brain swelling, known as intracranial pressure or ICP.

  “I might need to operate to release the ICP. Before doing so, I’ll measure the pressure by inserting a catheter—a tube—into the fluid-filled space between the skull and the brain if the CT scan shows ICP.”

  “Why a CT and not an MRI?” Greg asked.

  “CT scans are more commonly used to diagnose skull fractures. In addition, the energy consumption is only five percent that of an MRI—something to consider given that we’re trespassing in the hospital and drawing energy from the backup batteries.”

  “Fair enough,” Greg said as Steph nodded.

  Dr. Almeida turned to Meatball Matt. “While my nurse preps Tyson for the scan, I’d like a word in private with the Fergusons to discuss compensation.”

  After banishing Matt to reception, the doctor divulged Meatball Matt’s offer of one hundred thousand dollars in cash, plus a syringe of each parent’s whole blood. That blood would be the feedstock of a separate joint venture that Matt would set up, details to be negotiated, but at a minimum, the doctor would receive an injection and extra Covid-20 treatments to dispense as she wished.

  * * * * *

  In Muller’s mind, the outskirts of Weiser, Idaho, officially qualified as nowhere, though the street signs showed that the five motorcycles and the Ford were actually in the suburb of Feltham. None of the outriders had seen an RV. This lack of success normally would have caused the hoodlums to lose focus, but they didn’t want to contract a fatal disease, so they paid attention to Muller’s briefing.

  “It’s a good thing that we didn’t find any leads between Homedale and here. There are too many places they can hide in that area. Instead, it means that the RV is up Route 95. Elephant Man over there—” Muller gestured at Burns— “overheard Sal Maggio say that he was negotiating supplies and a resting spot with a renegade Mormon. The top of the panhandle outside Bonners Ferry has outlaw polygamists, and we think that’s where they’re headed. With few side roads to check out, we can ride hard up 95.”

  “I’m almost on fumes,” Kurt said. His brethren chimed in with a chorus of “Fuck yeah’s” and “Me, too’s.”

  Muller held his palm up to quell the rabble’s mutterings. “Dirty Pete ran down a back road not ten miles from here and spotted a man readying to fuel up an out-of-gas car sitting half inside an open barn door. He used the type of tethered hose you see in gas stations with aboveground gravity-fed tanks. Pete kept rolling so as to not arouse suspicion, but he thinks Farmer Brown has a gas tank lodged in the rafters. I say we check it out. If you remember not to smoke or put a .357 hollow point into the tank, I think we’ll be in business.”

  The team gassed up without mishap, draining what was left in the partially full tank. Burns demonstrated his weakness by pleading for the barn owner’s life, pointing out that none of them had seen a law officer all day. With phones out of order and the man’s vehicles dry, there wasn’t any need to shoot him.

  Muller figured it was more effort than it was worth to argue, and shot the farmer himself. It was four hundred miles to Bonners Ferry and he wanted to cover at least half that distance before they slept. Along the way, they’d look for RVs, gas, food and weapons. Anyone found alive, they’d question. “Questions?”

  “Is Norris gonna make it all the way to Bonner’s Ferry?” Boner asked. “That’s six hours flat-out and more like ten or twelve with stops.”

  “He’s a tough fucker and Katerina is keeping him pumped full of fluids and pain meds. He’ll last another day,” Muller said, hoping he was wrong. He enjoyed being in charge.

  Stenner kickstarted his bike and pulled out, black shoulder-length hair trailing behind as his brothers mounted up. Muller climbed behind the wheel, trusting neither Burns nor Katerina to drive.

  * * * * *

  Back in Spice Land’s command center doublewide trailer, Ryan was furious as he reacted to the news of Glenn and John’s gigantic cockup. “They escaped through the hole they’d cut in the fence? You missed at two hundred yards? I’ve seen you shoot the eye out of a pronghorn at four hundred. Between the two of you, you couldn’t even wing one trespasser?” Ryan knew they were lying, Shorty knew they were lying, and even Andrew knew they were lying.

  “I hadn’t zeroed my rife, Ryan. I’m sorry,” said Glenn, the older of the two. He was an ex-rodeo cowboy who might have absorbed one too many kicks to the head in his day. In his twilight years, he tolerated zero shit.

  “Given how fast they drove off, they won’t be back anytime soon, boss,” John added.

  “And you couldn’t even hit their fucking truck?”

  “Shorty told us only to fire if they were inside the compound,” John said. “It provides us with the ‘castle doctrine’ self-defense.”

  “Get your asses back to work,” Ryan said. “The next time you get the order to kill trespassers and you don’t have the stomach, let us know and I’ll send real men.”

  Glenn had taken enough guff from this self-styled tough guy who couldn’t even string razor wire. “Think about it. Those two will go back to town talking about how the bullets missed them by inches. If we’d a killed ’em, even if we’d a hid their truck and buried ’em, people would eventually come out here to look. This way, they’ll warn off the others.”

  Ryan couldn’t let it go. “You think about it. If Covid-20 keeps killing townies, they’ll be back and this time there’ll be more of them and they’ll be doing the shooting first. You remember who told you that when the lead flies.”

  Glenn adjusted his Stetson, tucked a pinch of Skoal into his cheek and hiked his worn denims with thumbs in the belt loops, every gesture signifying his contempt for this pissant. “I expect you’ll be in here hiding under the desk when it does.”

  “You’re fired!” Ryan bellowed. “Pack your shit and get the fuck off my property!” He turned and glared at Shorty and John as Glenn sauntered out. “Either of you two want to join him?” Neither man made a move. “Get out of here. Shorty, don’t forget to send men down to fix the fence.”

  “Already done. But maybe you want to reconsider on Glenn? He’s the best hand we got. How about you dock him a week’s pay instead? A pissed-off Glenn in town might do or say something that comes back and lands on us.”

  “Glenn Leerdon is sixty-six years old and should be in a nursing home. If he’s not gone in an hour, I’ll be looking for a new foreman, too.” Ryan clenched his fists and tensed his forearms, tri’s and bi’s. Before he’d listened to his brother and moved to this damned compound, he’d been ready to try for his purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu: He could handle any one of these country boys.

  * * * * *

  Steph stood vigil over Tyson’s tiny inert form as the CT scanner’s doughnut whirred, crackled and popped. From the control room, the technician and Dr. Almeida supervised the virtual slicing and dicing using a rotating X-Ray machine that revealed both bone and soft tissue features.

  One floor up and half a hospital away, Greg sat in the doctor’s office with a recalcitrant Matt. “I should receive one vaccine for arranging this appointment and a second one if you need anything else important. I’d say a private flight to northern Idaho qualifies as ‘important.’ I deserve two vaccines, not one.”

  Greg wasn’t loquacious, but he was a formidable contracts lawyer. “Let’s set aside the bad faith you displayed when you promised Dr. Almeida my wife’s and my blood as
part of her diagnostician’s fee. A reasonable person might conclude that you had forfeited your right to compensation when you made that offer behind our backs.”

  “Good luck finding a pilot,” Matt grumbled.

  “Do the math,” Greg replied. “We all agree that Dr. Almeida gets a shot and—”

  “Mona already got her shot.”

  “We felt that prudent in case something unexpected happened. That’s also why Steph took the cooler with her—to move it out of temptation’s way. Chartering a jet will cost us two doses, one for the owner and one for the pilot. That leaves the last dose for you, to be handed over once we’re safely on the ground and picked up by our friends.”

  “How about you allocate all three vaccines to me, and I arrange for transportation? If I can charter a flight for less, I’ll keep the difference. If it costs more, I’ll cover the shortfall.”

  “Dr. Almeida, Steph and I discussed all the options a short while ago. Mona says you’re resourceful and hardworking but prone to taking risks. She attributes this to your gambling addiction, which she observed when you dated. If you want a vaccine, you’d better find us two or three pilots we can choose from.”

  “Dating? I did that old spinster a favor. I—”

  “Continuing this discussion is pointless. If you don’t agree to our terms, we’ll revert to our original deal and you can keep my pickup worth thirty thousand.”

  “Your stolen pickup. You don’t think I didn’t check the papers in the glove box last night after you two were asleep? Who the hell is or was ‘Phil Rogers’?”

  “A three-day-old corpse I discovered outside Winnemucca. He won’t be missing his Sierra. The pickup has three-quarters of a tank, or used to before you siphoned off several gallons.”

  How could he know that? Ah, fuck it. “Okay, we’ll do it your way, but I get one-third of the Dark Cure profits.”