The Death Trilogy (Book 2): The Death: Eradicate

by John W. Vance

  “A man runs the town, I don’t know his name, but he goes by the name the magistrate.”

  “The magistrate? Hmm, I wonder who that is?”

  “He asked me to do it. He knew everything about you.”

  Horton folded his arms and tapped his fingers on his mouth.

  “Now please give them the antidote,” she begged.

  “Lori, do you believe in consequences?”

  “Give them the antidote. I told you where and who I got the poison from.”

  “Who is this magistrate person? Tell me, tell me everything you know.”

  “I already did.”

  “Turn on the light.”

  Mueller flipped the switch again.

  The scene in the room horrified her; she needed it to stop. “I don’t know his name, I swear, but he knows you. He used to be in the Order.”

  This shocked Horton. He leaned over her and asked, “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know, I never heard it, he only went by the magistrate.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Um, he’s tall, dark hair, lean.”

  “That can be many people. Did he have something unique about him?”

  Lori struggled to answer his question. She had given up on protecting Pine Bluffs and the magistrate; all she wanted now was to save her family. “I know, he spoke very proper, like he was from the last century, seemed like old proper.”

  That was the clue he needed. He knew who it was.

  “Now help my family,” she pleaded. “I told you everything I know.”

  “Lori, you’re a fool. There is no antidote for polonium. There’s nothing I can do, but I will honor my word and have you join them, all of them.” Horton’s inhumane behavior knew no end. He grabbed her by the neck, turned her head to the right and said, “Say goodbye to your entire family!”

  “Ahhh!” Lori screamed when she saw the small bloody form on the floor near David. At first she had thought it nothing but a collection of blood and feces, but upon his insisting she focus on it, she knew exactly what it was, her unborn baby.

  “Oh my God, no, no, no!” she screamed. With all her strength she tried to free herself, but the restraints were too strong.

  With his grip still on her neck, he turned her head towards his and said, “This is what happens when you mess with the chancellor!”

  She spat at him and barked, “You’ll get yours, you son of a bitch. You will burn in hell; that I promise.”

  “You’re powerless against me,” he taunted her.

  “I didn’t tell you everything; I didn’t tell you that the second part of our plan was to blast you and this place to hell. While you’re busy torturing me, you’re not paying attention to what else is happening. This place will be nothing but a cinder by tomorrow and you along with it.”

  He grabbed her face and screamed, “You like to run your mouth.”

  “Right now a nuclear bomb sits, hidden, but soon it will go off and you will die when it does.”

  A thought crossed his mind that she was bluffing, but then he remembered Calvin. If there was a man who was smart enough to get polonium-210, then he could get a nuclear weapon.

  “Where’s this weapon?” he asked.

  “You can torture me all you want; I don’t know where it is. That was kept from me on purpose.”

  He pushed her face away and grunted.

  The brutal show had even affected Mueller, who was purposely not looking.

  “Doctor, give her the rest of that tainted whiskey and put her in with her beloved family. When you’re done with that, grab the new virus, the Lazarus antidote and meet me topside at the helicopter pad,” Horton ordered and walked away.

  “Sir, what about patient zero?”

  “You’ve gotten what you need from her, correct?”

  Mueller nodded.

  “Kill her.”

  As he walked the corridors back to his residence, Horton thought about the evening’s events. Every word he had uttered tonight came from the heart, specifically the one about not crossing him.

  Wiping out Lori and her family brought him great joy. After she embarrassed him, he could not put her and the thought of getting back at her out of his mind. Tonight also gave him greater confidence that he could be successful against his enemies.

  Digging into his khaki pants, he pulled out his mobile phone and dialed a number. A voice suddenly appeared on the other end. “Wendell, listen carefully. Gather your family and meet me at the helicopter pad. We’re leaving immediately; there’s no time to discuss it.”

  Travis stood in the bright elevator carriage and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had his rifle slung and his pistol holstered. Running around like a madman was not the way he thought he should go now; drawing attention to oneself would not work.

  The elevator shuddered and stopped, a bell rang and the doors opened. Ahead of him was a long hallway with several doors that entered onto it. At the very end was a large reinforced metal door. Beyond that door sat the brig and hopefully Lori. What was noticeably missing at the door was a guard.

  He stepped out and hesitated for a moment. “Where is everyone?” he asked under his breath.

  A loudspeaker in the ceiling crackled to life. “Attention, attention all personnel. Code Red. Mandatory evacuations are underway. Repeat, mandatory evacuations are underway. Report to your nearest unit commander or supervisor for further instructions.”

  “That’s where they are,” he said out loud. He brought the M4 rifle to his shoulder and steadied it with his stump and moved down the hall. If anyone at all stepped out of one of those doors, he would put a round in them. No more talking or negotiation, this was now about killing and moving.

  His radio boomed, “Priddy, this is Martin! Over.”

  Travis jumped for a nanosecond but kept proceeding. He had no time to talk and couldn’t handle his rifle and respond anyway, the difficulties of having only one hand.

  “Priddy, this is Martin. Come in! Over.”

  Travis reached the door; he lowered his rifle and tried the handle. With a loud click the handle moved right and the latch freed; it was unlocked.

  “Priddy, Lori is not in the brig. She is in the lab. Come now!”

  Travis’s heart skipped a beat. He let go of the cold steel handle and grabbed the radio. “Where are you?”

  “Lab.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Too difficult to explain; go back to where I dropped you. Follow the parking structure down to the bottom. I’ll meet you there, and hurry! Over.”

  Travis didn’t respond. He raced as hard as his legs would take him to the elevator. After waiting what seemed like an eternity for the elevator car, the door chimed and opened, but now it wasn’t empty. On board were two DHS guards, fully dressed in their black uniforms and masks.

  Not expecting to run directly into anyone and not knowing if he would be their target, Travis broke leather and pulled out his pistol. He shot the man on the right in the face.

  The other guard raised his H&K MP5, but Travis rushed him.

  With his left elbow he jabbed the man in the throat and pinned him against the wall of the elevator. He jammed his pistol under the man’s chin and pulled the trigger.

  Parts of the man’s skull, brains and Kevlar helmet erupted onto the ceiling.

  Pulling his arm away, Travis let gravity take over, and the man dropped straight down.

  Adjusting himself, he turned around, exhaled deeply, hit the desired button and said, “This is going to be a long night.”

  Charleston, South Carolina

  The shockwave from the blast was intense; it hit Tess and Devin like a sledgehammer.

  The explosive force from the tank had exceeded what was necessary for the effect.

  Dazed from the enormity of the blast, they pulled themselves up and headed towards the creek to begin phase two.

  In the Humvee, Devin couldn’t stop laughing.

  “What the hell is so funny?�
�� Tess chided.

  “That back there was crazy. I mean, c’mon, were you expecting that? I think we’re lucky to be alive.”

  “No, I wasn’t expecting that. I think I almost had a heart attack.”

  “If that doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know what will.”

  Tess drove hard, making each turn without slowing down. The last thing they wanted was to run into any of Renfield’s men. They wanted to make their introduction on their terms.

  Without any encounters and moving as swiftly as the darkness would allow, they parked the Humvee at a small boat dock.

  “Let’s check our gear quickly,” Tess said.

  Devin took inventory of his equipment. He patted his tactical vest and felt for the grenades and extra rifle and pistol magazines. He hadn’t used his pistol and knew it was in condition one, ready to fire, his rifle was the same. “You good to go?”

  Tess was tense, but that was normal for her. She never displayed nervousness overtly, but if she were ever honest, she’d admit to being scared. “All good, let’s go through the names of the kids one more time,” she said and began to call off each name.

  She’d say a name and he’d recite it, trying to burn it into his mind. They had been lucky enough to have gotten photos from the boys, but they knew the reality of finding them all was difficult if not outright impossible. Their long conversations and planning had settled on just bringing home any child they encountered.

  Devin reached out and felt her chest.

  She swatted him away and stepped back. “Just because we kissed doesn’t give you the right to grab my boobs.”

  “No, no, I was making sure you had your trauma plate in.”

  “I took it out. It’s too big for me, uncomfortable.”

  “Please put it in.”

  “I hate it.”

  “For me.”

  “No.”

  “Then do it for the kids.”

  “C’mon, let’s go,” she said, brushing him off and walking briskly towards the boats.

  He jogged up beside her and was about to talk when she stopped.

  “Just wait, one sec.” She turned around and went back to the Humvee.

  He could hear her digging and talking to herself. Thirty seconds later she ran back. “Okay, I’m good. Let’s do this.”

  “What did you forget?”

  “Ah, nothing,” she answered, then punched him in the arm.

  As was typical in their relationship, she took control and he let her.

  He sat at the bow, keeping watch as best he could in the darkness as she slowly navigated the creek.

  With the tank on fire, it added a second glow to the northeastern sky. The hoots and hollering of a joyous and boisterous group were now replaced with yelling and screaming mixed with sounds of heavy equipment, men running, and vehicles driving to and fro.

  She pulled the small boat right up on the shore.

  Devin jumped out and pulled it farther and tied off the bow to a large tree. The second boat floated behind the first one, tied to the aft.

  They hustled through the thick brush and uneven terrain for fifty feet before reaching the southwestern corner of the shipyard.

  The ship sat moored not three hundred feet in front of them. Massive floodlights shined on the black hulking sides, and all the lights on board were on. More sounds of people coming and going with urgency, no doubt in response to their explosion. The music that had been blasting was gone; the events for the evening were put on hold, no doubt making some of Renfield’s men unhappy.

  Devin and Tess each had a pair of bolt cutters and were quickly clipping away at the chain-link fence. In no time, they had cut an opening five feet tall and four feet wide.

  Just before they slipped through, Devin stopped her. “Remember we said we’d check in before we went ahead with this?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “This is that time. Once we go through there, we may not come back. That’s the hornets’ nest right there,” he said, pointing to the ship.

  “I know.”

  “So we’re a go? I’m a go, are you?”

  “Well, if you’re a go, then I’m with you,” she replied.

  He hugged her one last time.

  She returned his embrace and said, “Let’s hope we run into the queen bee, because I’m gonna squash him.”

  Denver International Airport

  Martin and Gomez were waiting at the very end of the underground parking lot next to a parked white van.

  Travis sprinted up to them, his chest heaving and sweat pouring off his flush face. “Where is she?”

  “Down in the lab,” Martin said.

  “Why didn’t you bring her up?” Travis asked, looking in the van. “Who’s that?”

  “That’s our package, patient zero,” Martin said. “Listen, man, you don’t want to go down there.”

  “What do you mean? Is she dead?” Travis asked. A look of panic gripped his face.

  Martin looked at Gomez, but neither answered.

  “Take me to her, now!” Travis urged.

  Martin touched his arm and said, “Look, man, it’s not good. I’m sure you don’t want to see her this way.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? Take me there now, and if you won’t, tell me how to get there!”

  The loudspeaker sounded again, repeating the base-wide mandatory evacuation notice.

  “You have fifteen minutes, tops; if you’re not back here, we have to leave you. The bomb has been set; it goes off in forty-five minutes. We’re pushing it by waiting for you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Fuck it, I’ll go with you. Gomez, you got this. If we’re not back in fifteen, go,” Martin ordered, then took off for a door twenty feet away.

  Travis was on his heels. “I thought we had a bird?”

  “Not anymore, just us and that Ford Econoline,” Martin replied.

  They burst into the stairwell, and swiftly they ran down the concrete stairs, skipping several at a time. At the bottom they stopped at a door.

  “On the other side of the door is a hallway, goes left or right. We’re going left, straight down, end of hall and into another set of stairs, then down two more flights.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Travis said as he opened the door, peered both ways and bolted out.

  As they ran, Martin looked at his watch. Almost three minutes had gone by. They’d reach the lab in two more. They had only five minutes in the lab, no more.

  Martin’s timing was correct; at the five-minute mark they had reached the entrance to the lab. Bodies lay strewn and twisted on the floor; the massive steel door was nothing more than a charred piece of metal.

  “Your calling card, I imagine,” Travis joked.

  “Army strong.”

  Stepping over bodies, debris, broken glass and equipment, Travis surveyed the laboratory. “Where is she?”

  Martin pushed by him towards the hall. He stopped just before the second window and put his arm out.

  “Why are you stopping me?”

  “One last time, are you sure you want to see?”

  Travis pushed his arm and Martin aside and walked up to the window. He looked in and was horrified by what he saw.

  Lori had managed to gather her entire family together, including the fetus, around her.

  Eric’s head was resting on her lap, with David leaning against her and the baby in her arms, wrapped in a bloody cloth taken from her hospital gown.

  The handle of the door wouldn’t budge. Travis frantically tried, and when he couldn’t get it to budge, he pushed hard against the door. “Help me!” he ordered Martin.

  Martin was no good; he felt sorry for her and him. He had gone through the same exercise Travis was going through when he first discovered her. It was hard for him, and he knew it would be almost impossible for Travis to come to grips with the reality of the situation.

  Travis found a chair and began to slam it against the glass, but to no avai
l. Each hit produced the same result, the chair just bounced off the inches-thick safety glass.

  Lori saw Travis. Tears again began to flow from her face. There stood the man she should have been with many years before but never allowed herself to see. In her last moments she had total clarity. While her life had been full of successes, she had never truly loved. Yes, there was the love of her children, but she had never fully known the love of an equal, someone she could share her life with. The moments she and Travis shared, especially the weeks after her escape, had given her a glimpse of a man that would have been that love. Now it was too late, a life squandered on things that now she didn’t think of. All she wanted now was to have her family back and to be in Travis’s arms. So much time wasted, she thought, on such trivial things. Things she thought then brought happiness but didn’t. She remembered an old saying that referenced the truly important things in life, and none of them included money or material items. People…people and the positive and loving relationships with them equaled happiness.

  As she watched Travis bang away on the glass and door, she was saddened that not until now did she have the full understanding of what the world meant. She asked herself why God played tricks on people and only opened their eyes at the end, but she knew that wasn’t true. God had given her the message a long time ago; she had just refused to take it to heart. Was she responsible for all of the carnage around her? No, she thought, but she did own the parts in her life where her actions and reactions resulted in others’ pain. She was sorry for that, but looking at how David reacted to her just before he died told her he had forgiven her.

  She gently placed Eric’s lifeless head on the floor and with all the care she could muster laid her dead baby in his arms. She stood and staggered to the window.

  Outside, Travis was still attempting to get in, but every attempt was futile.

  The glass was cold to her touch. She laid her hand fully out and spread her fingers.

  He stopped and put his hand on the glass where hers was.

  “I’m not sure you can hear me, but stop, there’s no use!” she yelled.

  Travis could hear her faintly. He replied, “I’ll get you out, okay, just give me a minute.”