As she strode away, Aaron allowed himself a redemptive smile. Then he caught her glance back at him with a knowing look, like she realized he hadn’t told her the whole story.
Maybe she suspected he smuggled a sample over from Florida. Yeah, he brought something a whole lot bigger. Moni was teeming with the specimens they needed. He couldn’t bring her into the lab without putting the university on federal lockdown. Even if he took just a vile of alien-infested blood, how’d he explain that to Nunez? A souvenir from a Florida tourist trap? Hardly. If he brought it here and mishandled a single drop, even one too small for the eye to see, all of El Paso would descend into chaos.
While Aaron sat at his workstation examining the latest observations from the federal database on alien research, he considered what he and Moni would gain from taking such risks. If Moni never returned to her physical self, if those soft lips he once kissed would forever remain scaly, she’d still exist inside that body. He’d love her in any form, protruding needles, sandpaper tongue, anything, as long as it’s the same Moni underneath.
Free of the infection, they could be together, traveling the country incognito and eventually settling into new lives. No more fear of a drop of her saliva or blood killing him.
No time for a honeymoon now. If the aliens indeed had another host, they’d wreck havoc upon the country. It would eventually circle back to them.
Moni was right. They couldn’t leave this mess they started. Deep down inside, as much as it hurt him, he knew they could have avoided this all together by incinerating her body, burning it to a crisp until even the microscopic invaders perished.
The world hung in the balance because she wanted to live, and because he couldn’t live without her.
Aaron would have a cure ready, no matter the cost. They would eliminate the infected hosts, and then he’d free her and eradicate the alien virus forever. He knew how far he needed to go, and what he might lose along the way.
After Nunez left her office and entered the bathroom, Aaron announced he needed a snack and made a vending machine run. For the first time, he was relieved that the grad student girls didn’t pay him a glance. On the way back, he slipped into Nunez’s office and rummaged through the open purse on her desk. He nabbed her lab ID card, with the after-hours door access strip on the back, and deposited it into his bag of chips. Within a minute, Aaron sat back at his station. He ate a few more chips, folded the bag in half and chucked it into his pack for later…but not too much later.
“What do you think he stole from her purse?” Cam Carter asked Nina Skillings as they watched the camera feed from the back of an FBI van disguised like a cable service vehicle. The night after the university ran Aaron’s social security number through the federal database, they made sure every square inch of that building was under surveillance. The bugs had such sensitive audio that she could hear the exiled surf rat scratch his balls.
“Unless he swiped her credit card so he can afford a decent haircut, I’d say it’s the lab access key,” Nina replied. “He wants to run some unobserved tests.”
Carter grinned at his protégé. Once she burned every ounce of Moni and dropped her boyfriend into solitary confinement, he might just recommend her as a full-fledged FBI agent.
“The question is, what’s he testing?” Carter asked. “If he’s in possession of infected material, he could fumble it and then we’ll have to blast this whole campus off the map.”
“Yeah, I don’t exactly trust his lab skills. I saw the grades on his transcript. If we’re counting on him to safely handle an alien virus that could kill millions, we’re seriously fucked.”
If Aaron had infected material, it wasn’t in his truck because the team swept it as soon as he left. They did find plenty of desert sand, on both the driver and passenger side.
“Whatever he’s doing here, it’s for Moni,” Nina said. “We tail him long enough and he’ll lead us straight to her.”
43
Brigadier General Alonso Colon maintained a steely face despite the numbness that disconnected his mind from his muscles. His soldiers saluted him as they marched by in perfect formation, and he habitually saluted back, all firm jaw line and no eye contact. His tear ducts burned. His stomach wrenched. He remembered the look on Louis Pierre’s face when he told him he’d stay behind in Florida. The SEAL had accepted the challenge eagerly, not knowing his team was badly outmatched.
Colon thought five SEALs could handle the mutant. He’d been wrong. The men he sent on the mission paid for it, not him. They didn’t question his orders. They followed them and, because of it, four of them had died and the lone survivor, Dobbs, may never walk straight again.
He stood at attention as he watched his TERU soldiers, the best from all four branches of the military, practice shooting in their new suits, a cross between body-shielding hazmat gear and desert camouflage uniforms. He nodded in approval as they peppered the target paper with bullets. The moment he turned with his back to them, Colon cringed. Every single one of those men would ride into the storm of battle for him. No matter what ungodly multitude of creatures awaited them out there, they’d face it because that’s what soldiers do. The responsibility fell on him not to hurl them into a deathtrap.
His team trained in Fort Bliss just outside of El Paso. The second-largest Army base in the nation at 1,700 square miles, it had plenty of room for TERU to set up shop, practicing tactics for fighting the infected without getting contaminated. They also based the science team there, having taking over the athletic field with tents connected by a maze of large tubing leading to decontamination stations. Situating it beside the sprawling Fort Bliss National Cemetery gave Colon an ominous feeling, not necessarily because of the endless rows of tombstones, but the many plots still available.
Those would be reserved for the lucky ones. Many of the aliens’ victims didn’t leave recoverable bodies.
Walking alone into a simple meeting room of folding chairs, Colon set up a video conference with Harry Trainer. Without exchanging pleasantries, he asked about the bodies of his four men.
The frazzled scientist simply shook his head. He spoke from inside a shack with diving photos all over the wall. “We got part of poor Pierre, but it’s not very pretty. A closed casket is best, unless you want people yacking at his funeral.”
“What about the other three men?” Colon asked.
“Given ol’ snaggletooth’s track record, I’d say they’re piles of bones.”
“Do you know their location in the caves?”
Secretary of Defense Arnold Stronge’s leathery face materialized on the split screen. “Ok, enough. I see where this is going.” He must have been eavesdropping since the call began. “We can’t burn resources on a recovery mission, not when millions of lives are at stake.”
“I understand the pressure you’re under, Mr. Secretary, but what am I supposed to tell their families?” Colon asked. “Your son, your husband, your father, he’s just gone. Remains couldn’t be found. You can read that over and over and still there’s no closure without a body.”
“Damn it, you don’t think I know how it feels to deliver the worst news possible?” Stronge said. “I’ve personally met widows and told them how heroic their husbands were, even when they were klutzes who drove themselves into a river. Just be creative and talk about their bravery.”
Colon couldn’t muster a response. Such creativity in public cover-ups had the populations of the Southwest and Florida unaware that they lived in ground zero for the next invasion, Colon thought. He asked Trainer for a briefing on the evidence found in the Peacock Springs caves.
“It’s an awful mess down there,” the scientist said in disgust. “The mutant shattered limestone formations, ones naturally sculpted over millions of years. The caves are littered with the remains of his victims and their tattered scuba gear. It’ll take countless years to restore the ecosystem the way it was. The longer we wait the more damage they’ll inflict.”
“What do you mean ‘they?’” asked Stronge, who wrinkled his nose as if he were listening to a rambling vagrant. “You said it was a single mutant. It’s sucking people into its watering hole but it’s not infecting them.”
“Not yet,” Trainer replied. “It’s got accomplices, teeny, tiny little iron-eating bastards. One particular section of the cave, a tunnel marked by infrared alien symbols, tested positive for the alien-manufactured strain of thiobacillus bacteria. Yeah, the nasty purple stuff.”
A frigid breeze rattled Colon’s bones. That was their calling card. Trainer explained that he didn’t find it in any other chamber, so they hadn’t spread far. From their stronghold, they could cast their infection over a vast area, from the rivers and drinking wells of the Florida Panhandle to Georgia streams to the Gulf of Mexico and down the peninsula into the Everglades.
“Once it finishes incubating and starts spreading, it’s almost impossible to contain,” the Lagoon Watcher said. “Massive swaths of our freshwater ecosystem will die. Endangered animals like manatees, reddish egrets, oystercatchers, gopher tortoises, this could be a fatal blow to those species and many others.”
“Uh huh,” Stronge said dismissively. “I appreciate your concern, oh noble steward of the forest. Now clear your green ass out of there. I hear the latest forecast in your parts calls for a rain of bunker busters.”
“Bunker busters? That’s an audaciously malicious plan,” said the Lagoon Watcher, the veins of his forehead swelling.
Those massive ordinances could penetrate 65 feet of solid rock, perhaps farther in Florida’s porous limestone. That would put most of the underground springs in range. Even the deeper tunnels would collapse under the pressure of a 3,300-pound powder keg detonating atop them.
“I thought you wanted to save Florida, not torch it,” the scientist said.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, saving it the only way possible,” the nation’s second-highest military leader said. “As you called it, if the alien gunk spreads, the state’s fucked. We’ve got to cut our losses, like severing an arm with gangrene to save the body.”
Trainer posted both hands along his hairline and stretched out his forehead as his eyes bulged. “Have you ever seen Peacock Springs? It’s not some mangled limb, it’s a national treasure. Its waters feed the entire Floridan Aquifer. If you blow 50 holes in it, you’ll disrupt the water flow for half the state.”
“The least populated half,” Stronge said. “Besides, I’m not planning anything so massive. I’m talking about a surgical strike.”
“If you drop a single bomb on this park, I’m off the team!” the Lagoon Watcher snapped. “And I’m going straight to the media. Let’s see what they think of you fishing in a watering hole with dynamite.”
Before the Secretary of Defense ordered Trainer arrested and shipped to Guantanamo, Colon cut in. “Mr. Secretary, while you have a sound plan, I’m not sure you fully appreciate the scale of the bombing operation that would be required to carry out your orders. Peacock Springs is over 700 acres. It has over six miles of documented underwater caves, and many offshoots that lead to other spring systems underneath populated areas. We have identified an area of infected water, but we have no way to pinpoint the mutant’s exact location.”
“So you’re saying we can’t blast a 700-acre hole in Florida without rattling a few country clubs and bingo halls? Crap.” Stronge let out a heavy sigh. It sounded like he wished the world were his sandbox full of toy soldiers where he could raze the landscape without consequences. “How about this? Our university research consortium just released a theory that heavily concentrated bleach should kill the bacteria in water. We can flush bleach into those caves like a dirty sink.”
Colon nodded at the prospect of a solution that didn’t involve sending more soldiers into dark caverns with that murderous beast. Trainer shook his finger, his body rejecting the idea before his mouth could spit out a reason.
“No, that won’t work on our mutant friend, and I’ll tell you why,” Trainer said. “During our encounter I bravely sliced off one of the monster’s tendrils. After analysis, I found that it’s not infected with the alien bacteria. It’s a flesh and blood human, albeit in highly mutated form. I suspect it has alien DNA infused with its genome, but it would require more sophisticated equipment than I have here to draw that conclusion.”
“So if I follow your logic, bleach won’t kill the mutant.” Colon punched his palm below the camera view as Trainer nodded.
Stronge gritted his teeth. “It sounds like we’re sending more SEALs down there, this time in bigger numbers. We can’t have our boys go unprepared, can we?”
Colon lowered his brow and rubbed his eyes. He could offer no defense.
Stronge explained that he’d send another regiment of SEALs to Peacock Springs – a team that specialized in underwater recovery. Colon couldn’t afford to send any men from his TERU squad in El Paso because they were needed on the Southwest front.
“What could possibly be worse in that dustbowl than what we encountered out here?” Trainer asked. “You’re not exactly in an ideal habitat for an aquatic species.”
Colon almost told him about the aliens harvesting victims in the desert, but Stronge had restricted the information to TERU members and their on-the-ground science team only. They didn’t need a public alarm, and the Lagoon Watcher had already threatened to sound one.
The way things were going, with the attacks getting bolder and closer to civilization, people would find out sooner rather than later. Colon only hoped they’d see the fighting on the news and not in their front yards.
44
Moni stood in the shade of the cave’s lip and beckoned little Ramona to follow and escape the smoldering sun and sand-whipping winds. The girl refused. Wearing fear all over her face, she whined, “No.”
Of course a six-year-old wouldn’t enter a pitch-black cave in the ashen mountainside. For most children, the imaginary creatures of the dark were reason enough. This child knew monsters were real, like the ones who killed her mother hours ago.
Ramona curled behind Moni’s portable solar generator, cooling off in its shadow. She asked Moni something in Spanish. Through a combination of tapping into her mind and the girl pointing at the generator, Moni understood the girl had asked her about the device. She showed how it charged her satellite phone. Then Moni folded up the solar panel and wheeled it into the cave.
The helicopters and drones would come their way soon searching for those who killed Ramona’s group. They likely wouldn’t find the possessed coyotes, but they could spot a solar panel flashing sunlight up at them and, perhaps, a couple people on foot on a mountainside over a dozen miles from the nearest road.
As Moni concealed her ATV beneath a camouflage tarp, she considered numbing the girl’s mind with a mental shock and carrying her inside. No, that would be a cop out. If she hoped to keep this girl alive, she must build trust. Treat her as a human would, not an alien. This is what she had trained for on the police force. But that had been before she risked infecting children with every touch. She couldn’t offer any comforting hugs.
Moni dug into her duffle bag and found the LED lantern. She handed it to Ramona and showed her the “ON” switch. A smile spread across the girl’s face as she admired the crystalline light tubes. She turned it on but the lantern’s glow got outshone by the intense sunrays. Moni strolled toward the cave and waved Ramona on. The girl followed eagerly.
When she finally got inside, Ramona’s wide eyes fixated on the light beams cast upon the walls and ceiling. Good thing she missed the jumbled mess in the chamber, as Moni hadn’t expected to return with company. Seeing through a wider spectrum of light than the girl, Moni saw that the tarp remained secure over the tub of toxic water. She’d left her gear scattered about. Organizing her rocky quarters would have made them feel too much like home.
If Aaron ever paid a visit, she might tidy it up for him.
The girl said something in Spanish. Moni did
n’t understand, but she felt the pangs of hunger and thirst inside the girl’s mind. She checked her nourishment supplies for something suitable for a human. Gasoline, no way. Iron supplement pills, not so appetizing. Protein bars, only in a pinch. Water bottles, good. Aaron’s favorite beef jerky, at least it wouldn’t kill her.
With the dried meat and drink in hand, Moni turned toward the lantern. The girl wasn’t there. She’d left it on the ground and went exploring a pile of Moni’s gear. If she could speak, Moni would have shouted at her to stop. Instead, Moni approached her from behind. Ramona winced and jerked around with a shotgun in her hands.
Instinct kicking in, Moni raised her hands. The weapon was about as tall as Ramona, yet her little fingers found the trigger surprisingly quickly. This girl hadn’t grown up around only dolls and streaming video like most kids in this country. Tapping into her mind, Moni saw Ramona remembering how her grandfather shot at bad men when they had tried robbing his store. The image of the grandfather’s blood-soaked chest flashed through Moni’s head.
God, what this poor child has been through. Her mother took her to the United States to escape the violence, and look what she found.
Moni planted the suggestion to drop the shotgun into the girl’s head. A potent emotion inside the child overpowered Moni’s prodding.
Ramona had lost the last person she depended on. That gun in her hands, even if she didn’t really know how to use it, offered her the only protection she could find. She didn’t wield it like a weapon. It was more like a comfort blanket.
At least, that’s the theory Moni bought into when she reached for the barrel.
Sweat beaded down the girl’s forehead as she held the weapon firmly. Moni gently wrapped her hands around the barrel of the shotgun and tried lifting it out of the girl’s hands. Ramona’s rigid grip melted away.
Silence the Living (Mute Book 2) Page 23
