by Louise Voss
‘What am I looking for?’ she asked Junko.
‘Something you have seen many times, I think,’ the Japanese woman replied. ‘But it was a mystery to you. Or a ghost. You mentioned it in your paper.’
‘The ghost?’
‘Yes. Remember, in your paper, you said that sometimes when studying the virus you thought you could see a trace of something that didn’t belong, like a ghost flickering in and out of sight. You thought perhaps it was a contamination.’
Kate stared back into the microscope: the virus was so tiny that a million of them could fit on the head of a pin. But it taunted her. Had done for years. She hardly dared to feel excited or optimistic. Could Junko have really found the key to beating this killer?
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I—’ She stopped. ‘What was that?’
They both stared towards the door.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kate. ‘But it sounded like a gunshot.’
29
Angelica turned the door handle and slipped silently into the room. The virologist called Chip lay in the bed, his mouth open. He was snoring. Angelica looked at the picture of the rather ugly woman on the bedside cabinet, wiry hair and a weak chin. She was probably relieved to be enjoying some peaceful nights.
She held the barrel of her gun an inch from Chip’s forehead and fired, the suppressor rendering the shot silent as his brains and fragments of skull splattered the headboard. Chip was one of the lucky ones. Didn’t most people want to die peacefully in their sleep?
Simone entered William’s room. Dadi Angelica had explained at some length what this guy did – he was an epidemiologist, whatever the hell that was – but Simone hadn’t really been listening.
All she knew and cared about was that it was her mission to end him.
He was curled up in a foetal position, his face scrunched up with anxiety. Bad dream.
She folded a stick of chewing gum into her mouth. She felt like an angel of mercy, come to rid him of his nightmares.
She tapped him on the forehead with the tip of her gun, just hard enough to wake him, to bring him out of his bad dream. The moment he opened his eyes, she shot him in the face.
Kolosine was awake in his room. He had been in the lab until late, working in solitude in his own workspace in the corner, slamming freezer doors, rattling tubes and cursing loudly, partly out of sheer frustration, but also because he didn’t want anyone near him. He lay on his bed and chewed the inside of his cheek, tasting the coppery blood and trying to force his brain to work, to make connections, to do its goddamn job.
He had been so sure Maddox’s blood held the answer. So confident that, unknown to everyone else, it was his only shot. Once that had failed he’d felt like a rock singer who, when facing a difficult crowd, pulls out his greatest hit, his sure-fire crowd-pleaser … only for it to be greeted with silence.
Now what were they going to do? None of the other halfwits in this place had a snowball’s chance of finding a cure – not that loser Chip, not the Japanese chick, whose chance of success was nearly as small as her tits, and certainly not that waste-of-space Kate Maddox, who had been pursuing a cure for Watoto longer than the Redskins had been trying to win another Superbowl.
He pulled the quilt up over his head, wishing he’d brought Jenny with him. Her warm twenty-three-year-old body and mouth would have provided some comfort in these dark days. Suddenly, an image of his mom flashed into his head, washing away the naked postgrad. He hadn’t seen his mom since last Thanksgiving, when they’d quarrelled as usual about the grandchildren he had yet to produce.
Well, guess what, Mom? The way things are going, nobody is gonna have any freaking grandchildren to look forward to.
His eyes filled with sudden, unexpected tears. What the hell was wrong with him? He was debating whether to reach for his secret stash of whisky when he heard a click. It sounded like someone coming into his room.
He stuck his head above the quilt, realising as he did so that he was hoping to see Dr Maddox slipping into his room, maybe in a lab coat with nothing underneath, and she would let the lab coat slide off her shoulders before climbing on top of him.
But it was a different woman, dressed in black leather, gorgeous but terrifying. She was pointing a gun in his direction, hesitating just long enough for him to scream before she shot him in the head and his brain switched off for ever.
Agent McCarthy’s eyes snapped open. He had heard a scream. It sounded like it had come from a nearby room. The bedside clock told him it was 0.43.
As he flicked on the lamp and swung his legs out of bed, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, undershirt and shorts straining to contain his bulk. Damn, he was out of shape. When all this was over, he was going on a diet.
His holster was hanging from the back of a chair. He grabbed his gun and stuck his head out of the door just in time to see a figure coming out of the room two doors down – Kolosine’s room. It was a woman with long black hair, clad head to toe in leather. She had her back to him, but he could see she was carrying a gun. Before she could turn, he ducked back into his room, suddenly aware of his heart pounding in his chest.
Grabbing the pillow from his bed, he pushed the door open swiftly with his foot and stuck the pillow out into the corridor, knowing that if the woman was there she would fire at the sudden movement. But no shot came.
He peered out. The hallway was empty.
Closing the door quietly behind him, gun down by his side, McCarthy tiptoed along the landing, wishing he was lighter on his feet and wondering what the fuck was going on. He peered into Kolosine’s room.
‘Holy—’
He didn’t care for the head scientist. But seeing him with a bullet hole in his forehead made his insides flip. He pressed his back against the open door, concealing himself inside Kolosine’s room. He looked out. No movement; no noise either. As quietly as he could, McCarthy exited the room and moved along the hall. He passed another door and looked in. One of the scientists – Chip – with his face obliterated. And in the room next to his, the housekeeper, Adoncia, also dead. He paused at the corner that led to the stairs: one flight up were the other bedrooms; the labs were one flight below. Where was Thompson? He was supposed to be on night duty, keeping an eye on the CCTV, but the lazy bastard had probably fallen asleep. And what about the other guards?
Holding his gun against his chest, he stepped out from the corner wall.
Nothing.
He tried to process what he knew. A black-clad woman. Who the hell was she? So far, they had got nowhere in their attempts to find out who had blown the hotel to shit. Now it looked like the hunt was over. The terrorists had come to them.
But he had no idea how many of them there were in the building. If it was one woman, he could handle that. More, and his priority should be to raise the alarm. Kolosine’s office, with the only goddamn phone in this freaking place, and the only means of contacting the outside world since the internet went down, was on the floor below. That’s where he needed to head.
Except Kate was upstairs.
He paused. Kate’s bedroom was on the floor above. Plus Junko. Were they already dead? The possibility made him feel sick. Over the last few days he had bonded with both of them, especially Dr Maddox. Should he go up first, check they were OK and, if so, get them into a safe place?
The dilemma paralysed him for a moment, then he made his decision. The priority had to be to raise the alarm. As he crept towards the stairwell, his eye fell upon the fire alarm on the wall. He could set it off, alert anyone who was in the building – but it would alert the intruder or intruders too; better to maintain the element of surprise. He didn’t get why the assassin hadn’t come to his room. But he wasn’t going to bitch about it.
He dashed down the first flight of stairs, then crouched and pointed his gun down the second flight. Still no sign of anybody. He descended the remaining stairs and walked as quietly as he could along the hallway, passing the security room. He wen
t inside. Slumped over the desk, beneath a bank of blank CCTV screens, was Agent Thompson.
‘Nick?’
McCarthy tugged on his colleague’s shoulder, and Thompson’s head rolled back. His throat had been slashed. Blood pooled on the floor around him, dripping from the chair, oozing into the instrument panel on which the dead agent rested.
McCarthy gagged. An image flashed through his mind of Thompson with his wife and kids, laughing together at a fundraising event last Christmas. Shock and sadness were quickly replaced by fury, a quiet anger that rose up through his body, made him want revenge, caused him to picture himself putting a bullet into the motherfucker who had done this.
He pressed a button on the control panel, switching the CCTV back on. The screens lit up, and he leaned forward, barely breathing, for a better look.
There were two people in the lab, standing over a microscope, apparently oblivious to what else was happening in the building. They were wearing bio-suits, so he struggled at first to make out who it was. But then one of them turned to face the camera and he saw that it was Kate. He needed to get out of here, raise the alarm, then get straight to the lab.
As he turned to go, his eye fell upon the next screen. It showed a woman walking cautiously along a hallway.
Shit, it was this hallway.
As he reacted, instinctively raising his gun, the woman stepped into the doorway. Her eyes widened when she saw him and he fired first, hitting her square in the chest, waiting for the blood to bloom and fountain around him. But there was no blood. She must be wearing a Kevlar vest. She began to fall, winded, pulling the trigger of her own gun on her way down, a fluke shot that entered McCarthy’s right ear and exited the back of his head. The world folded in on him in a nanosecond.
‘That sounded like a gunshot,’ Kate said.
Junko’s face, behind the plastic screen of her helmet, had gone pale. ‘Are you … sure?’
Kate nodded. ‘Definitely.’
‘What shall we do?’ Junko asked nervously.
‘There’s a back exit, isn’t there? The one they brought Officer Buckley through.’
Junko nodded eagerly. ‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Let’s go out, wait, see if we can find McCarthy or Thompson … find out what the hell is going on.’
To reach the exit, they had to go through the small room in which Officer Marshall Buckley had died. The room had been cleaned out now, the body sealed and shipped out by air to be added to the piles of corpses awaiting cremation.
She could almost feel Buckley’s presence as they hurried to the door. She pushed down the metal handle.
‘Oh, shit.’ Of course, it was locked. Why had she been expecting anything different? She looked for a set of keys, but they were nowhere to be found.
‘I’m scared, Kate. What if it’s the terrorists – the people who bombed the hotel?’
‘It’s OK.’ She might have given Junko a hug had they not been wearing these stupid suits. ‘Look, maybe it’s nothing to worry about.’ She forced a laugh. ‘Might have been McCarthy dropping his gun or something. I wouldn’t put it past him.’
Junko didn’t look convinced.
‘Listen, Kate, I need to tell you about what I found, with the virus, just in case … in case I die and you survive.’
‘Junko, don’t be—’
They both turned at the same time. They had heard another bang. Not a gunshot this time, but a door slamming, metal on metal. And the faint sound of voices, getting closer. Somebody was coming.
30
Paul rented a car from a place on the edge of town and drove it to the diner where Rosie worked. He parked up and went to sit on a wooden bench outside, waiting for Rosie to finish her late shift. Through the window he could see that Lucy was with her, and he smiled as he watched them working together. Rosie must have sensed someone watching her, because she looked up. Maybe it was a trick of the light through the glass, but he could have sworn she blushed, before tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear and attending to a customer.
He was hit by a vision of Rosie naked, her limbs entwined with his, her soft breasts pressed against his chest, her thighs parting as she looked into his eyes and gasped his name as he pushed into her …
Kate’s face swam into his vision and he felt a stab of guilt. But surely it was natural to find other women attractive. Humans were not meant to be monogamous … He shook his head, disgusted with himself. It was Kate he wanted. Kate he loved.
Like he’d told her, Rosie was helping him with the search for Mangold, that was all.
Half an hour later, at midnight, Rosie and Lucy emerged into the balmy night air.
‘Evening, Mr Craig,’ smiled Lucy, though some of her usual sparkle was missing. Worried about her friends in LA, Paul guessed.
‘What’s up?’ Rosie asked. ‘Something happened?’
Paul looked at Lucy, who put her hands up. ‘OK, I get the hint. I’ll wait in the car.’ She held her palm out for the keys.
When she’d gone, Rosie sat down on the bench next to Paul. ‘I went back to see Jon,’ he said. He had decided not to tell her that Watton had asked him to return. ‘I had some more questions I needed to ask him.’
‘Oh, Paul, I hope you haven’t made him more sick.’
‘He was fine. Keen to talk, in fact. And I found out some interesting stuff.’
He recounted most of what Watton had told him, omitting any mention of her dad.
‘So what now?’ Rosie asked, when he’d finished.
‘I’ve rented a car and I’m going to head to LA, to talk to this Dr Diaz. Want to come?’ He looked right at her, a laugh in his voice to let her know that he was joking, much as he would have liked to have her company for a while longer.
She grinned back at him. ‘Sure, nothing I’d like better than to hang out with a bunch of cons.’ The grin died and she looked towards the car where her daughter was waiting for her. ‘No, Paul, I need to be around for Lucy. She’s freaking out about this virus. Anyway, you’ll never get permission to visit a prison that close to LA, not with the outbreak! They’ll be desperate to keep everybody out, stop it getting in and infecting the inmates. If I were you I’d call them up before you drive all the way over there to be told “no visitors”.’
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘What will I do without you?’
She inclined her head, and he noticed the precise angle her lips curled upwards when she was flattered. ‘Come back soon and tell me how you got on?’ she suggested, looking at him hopefully.
‘You bet.’
‘Do you need to go right away? Why not come over and have lunch with us tomorrow? Or stay over tonight, if you like. It’s late. Our sofabed is real comfortable.’ The words came out in a rush and she couldn’t meet his eye.
‘I … I’d love to, but I need to drop by the hotel to pick up my stuff. I want to get going.’
‘OK. If you’re sure. But …’ She looked into his eyes and he felt warm and cold at the same time. ‘You’d be welcome to stay.’
There was a long, long pause. Paul reached out and touched Rosie’s cheek.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I would really love to … but I’d better not. Thanks again, for everything.’
31
As arranged, the women briefly regrouped after the first killing spree.
‘Are you hurt, Sister Cindy?’ Angelica asked, concerned. Cindy was clutching her side and gasping.
‘Took a hit,’ she said. ‘But when I was in the security room I got a good look at the screen. There are two
women in the lab. A white woman and what looked like an Asian.’
Angelica smiled. ‘Perfect.’
Simone rolled her shoulders and snapped her gum.
The heels of their leather boots clacked on the floor as all three strode towards the lab.
Angelica raised a hand to halt them. She readied her gun and prepared to open the door. At last, she was going to come face to face with the famous Dr Maddox.
She reached out and took Junko’s gloved hand as the women approached. All three were beautiful. One was black, the other two white: a blonde and a brunette. The blonde one walked slightly ahead of the others; the body language and the way the other two looked at her told Kate this was the leader. The brunette appeared to be in pain, walking unsteadily and pressing her hand against her ribcage.
The three came to a halt in front of the antechamber, then the blonde nodded to the black woman, who tried the door. But Kate had locked it. The black woman rolled her eyes, then pulled a gun from a holster on her thigh and shot the glass panel in the door. Fragments of glass bounced off Kate and Junko’s suits.
The blonde gestured for them to exit the room.
Kate hesitated, and the blonde said to the black woman, ‘Sister Simone …’
Simone – Sister Simone? – reached through the broken window, undid the lock and entered, pointing her gun at Junko’s face. She grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her towards the door. Kate had no choice but to follow.
The blonde mimed removing their helmets, then sighed impatiently as they both hesitated again, Junko eyeing the microscopes, beneath which the virus waited to be studied.
‘Take them off,’ she shouted.
Their helmets hit the floor. ‘That’s better,’ said the blonde. ‘Now take the suits off. Quickly.’
Both scientists obeyed, though Kate didn’t understand why they were being asked to do this. Did these women think the suits would slow down a bullet? Or were they planning to take them somewhere and didn’t want them to be impeded by the suits?
The blonde addressed Kate coolly: ‘Dr Maddox.’
Kate shivered. This woman knew her name. That couldn’t be good news.
