Pathogen Protocol (Anghazi Book 2)

by Darren Beyer

  “I guess we are the something else,” The man nodded. “They are after you.” Jans leaned against the wall. “I’m Jans.”

  “I know.” He looked at Mandi. “You are Mandisa Nkosi.” His face softened. “I am Hatim.”

  Just as Mandi was about to pose some questions, a clunk at the door had Hatim scrambling on all fours to retrieve Mandi’s pistol from the floor. As the heavy door began to slide open, Hatim removed the pistol’s magazine, checked the number of remaining rounds, and slammed it back into place. The opening widened, and Hatim raised the weapon.

  White light streamed through, causing them all to shield their eyes. Now fully open, the door ground to a stop. Hatim stood, leaning to either side to get a vantage of what awaited. But one tentative step forward was all he took before a large man appeared in the doorway.

  “Mister Jans Mikel.” Governor Ennis stepped out of the light and into the chamber. “Yes, I know who you are. I warned you when you arrived that you should just turn around and leave.”

  One of Ennis’s security detail appeared beside him, weapon at the ready, and whispered something in the governor’s ear. Ennis looked over his shoulder, then turned back toward Jans and sighed.

  “Now we find ourselves in an awkward situation. The question is, what am I to do about it?”

  Distant footfalls echoed from down the tunnel behind them. Mandi twisted back to look, and shared worried glances with the others.

  Ennis cocked his head at the three of them. “What am I to do?”

  Mandi held her breath as Scarface and his partner crept by her hiding place under the floor grates. Scarface was in front, his whisper gun aimed ahead like an extension of his right arm. Behind him, his partner brandished his own weapon, deftly adjusting it to cover the angles Scarface wasn’t.

  As they turned the final corner, they stiffened. Governor Ennis stood alone in their path.

  “Governor.” Scarface scanned the room. “Where are they?”

  Mandi brought her ear close to the grate so she could eavesdrop and gain at least some vantage to see by.

  “I promised to give you some latitude when you arrived two weeks ago,” Ennis said, looking stern. “I didn’t agree to let you fuck up my station and kill whomever you please.”

  “You’ve been compensated,” Scarface replied. His partner slid from behind him and starting peering down the access tubes.

  “Not enough,” Ennis said. “Not for all this. Your little exercise is over.”

  From the doorway behind Ennis came yells of alarm and the clicks and ratchets of weapons being raised. Scarface smiled. His men had come around from the other side.

  “You have, what? Two, three of your security detail out there?” he said.

  Ennis didn’t respond.

  “I hate to break it to you, but four of us against however many of you isn’t a fair fight—on your end.”

  “That may be, but this is my station, and my word goes.” Ennis’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact, and carried no emotion. “If any of my people get so much as a scratch, you’re never leaving this rock.”

  “Miller!” Scarface called to one of his men outside the door.

  “Yo!”

  “Anyone get by you?”

  “Negative.”

  Scarface’s partner clicked his tongue twice to get his attention. He reached to the base of one of the access pipes, wiped it with two fingers, and held them up for show. They were bloodied.

  “Where does that pipe go, Ennis?”

  “These are utility conduits to the surrounding mining complexes,” Ennis said. “That one leads to facility three. It’s about two klicks, and there’s only one way out. I’ll throw you one more bone, then our business will be concluded. We’re under the main airlock. There’s a rover parked inside it. You can take it to the mining complex and get what you’re here for. But then you’ll get the fuck off my moon.”

  Scarface narrowed his eyes. “They could double back. I’m leaving one of my men here.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll leave three.”

  Scarface scowled, then nodded to his partner before leaving through the open door. Ennis turned to watched him go, then called to his men.

  “Get someone down here to clean this mess up.”

  The airlock alarm sounded from above, indicating Scarface’s imminent departure. Ennis accessed his comm and muttered quietly into it. Mandi strained to hear, but the drone of the station’s systems made it impossible to make out any of the conversation. Finally, Ennis turned to the man Scarface had left behind.

  “Your boss is a piece of shit,” Ennis said with a piercing stare. “Don’t count me rude, but I’m going to leave your pleasant company and clean up the rest of the mess you left me with.”

  He turned and left the chamber.

  A few seconds later, a deafening bang filled the room, and Scarface’s man slumped to the floor. Ennis reentered the chamber, smoking pistol in hand. He fired three more shots into the man’s chest.

  “You can come out now,” he yelled, tossing the pistol to the floor.

  Mandi pressed her hands against the grate above her head, lifting it and pushing it aside. As she stood from her hiding place underneath the tangle of pipes that ran through the subfloor, her gaze fell on the dead body, and she gasped. Two other floor grates lifted, and Jans and Hatim stood from their own hideaways.

  One of Ennis’s men helped Mandi up, and it was Ennis himself who pulled Jans, still struggling with his wounded leg. Jans steadied himself, stood tall, then looked Ennis in the eye with an air of confidence.

  “What now?”

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” Ennis said, “and you can’t go to the spaceport. Once they realize you’re not at the other end of that tube, and when they can’t get ahold of this asshole”— he gestured at the dead body—“that’ll be the first place they’ll go. I have a few emergency launch capsules hidden nearby. You can take OLIVER. He’ll guide you to one of them, then you can rendezvous with your ship, if it’s still there. That is where my assistance ends.” He turned to leave. “You’d better get going.”

  “Wait,” Jans called after him. “Why are you helping us?”

  “There’s a war coming, Mister Mikel.” Ennis paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Out here, isolated from humanity, I need to… trade favors. I do what I must in order to keep this base in existence. I knew it was you the moment you arrived.”

  “We figured that part out.”

  Ennis smiled. “If I had simply turned you over, I think I would have found many of those favors drying up. We’re like Switzerland out here. I can push the edges of neutrality, but that would have gone over the line. This way, I’ve earned another favor, and I keep others intact. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even live to pay up.” Ennis exited through the doorway. “Farewell, Mister Mikel,” he called back. “And good luck. I think you’ll need it.”

  Chapter 28: Eridani

  The dim, temporary lighting created a tapestry of shadows that gave the makeshift sick ward an aura more befitting a morgue. Dozens of cots held ashen, coughing, sniffling patients, and a few nurses, masked and covered head to toe in medical scrubs, walked among them, checking vital signs, administering fluids, and tending to their needs.

  Similarly clad, Erik walked to a nearby patient and looked at her chart. She was in bad shape, clearly weakened, but she would survive. He lifted her arm and looked at the ouroboros tattoo painted upon it.

  Karis walked up behind Erik. “The virus is highly contagious,” she said. “It should spread well enough to suit our plans.”

  “And its virulence?”

  “It is close to expectations. We’ve lost two subjects out of forty.”

  Erik dropped the woman’s arm and turned to face Karis. “Acceptable losses. When will they be ready for release?”

  Karis moved the woman’s arm back under her bedsheet. “We are cycling candidates through, so they can be ready at any time.”

  Her comm chimed, and s
he looked upward and away from him, her eyes scanning back and forth as she read an incoming message.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry for the distraction, but the jump pod traffic just arrived. We have confirmation from Earth. Both Pan Asian and Eastern Bloc have agreed to provide the requested plutonium. They are moving it into orbit for transfer.”

  Erik let slip a smile. “Move ships to receive. Then transfer it to Alnair for installation in our devices. I will send approval to release the reciprocal hyperium shipments.”

  “There is one other item of note.” Erik narrowed his eyes.

  “We received flash traffic from Alpha Team at Ouricsen.”

  Anxiety—a failing of a weak, human mind—pulled at him, and he felt his stomach clench. “And?”

  “The message reads: ‘Echoes here. Mikel and Nkosi. Apprehending.’”

  Another emotion began forming: baleful glee. Erik would normally push the emotion away; after all, emotions clouded judgment, and with him, they now also carried the added effect of physical sickness. But this news felt too good to reject—too right to fight against. So he released his restraints and let the emotion flood his body—then doubled over next to the woman in the cot, fighting the intense pain and nausea.

  “Mister Hallerson—”

  “No!” Erik screamed. He pounded the cot, eliciting a pained groan from the patient and startled looks from nurses and patients alike. “I will savor this.”

  He pulled off his mask, ripped away his comm’s earpiece, and took in gulps of air. Again he slammed his fist into the cot, cutting himself on the metal frame. Rage now grew within him, intensifying the pain. He fell to all fours, heaving and clenching his fists as he fought to regain hold of his emotions. The more he fought, the more intense the sensations became—but still he fought, until finally the pain and nausea grew too strong to overcome. With a violent heave, he vomited onto the floor. Again, and again, and again. His body physically rejected his emotions, until he had nothing left to expel. Rolling onto his side, he curled into a ball. Consciousness left him, his abdominal muscles still spasming, drool running from the corner of his mouth.

  Erik woke in his own room. His mouth was dry, and his abdominal muscles felt as if they’d been pulled to pieces. He stood slowly, rubbing his sore hand as he looked for his comm. It was in pieces on his desk, next to his holo screen. He picked up the earpiece and handheld unit, looked at their broken casings, then tossed them into the trash before turning on his holo screen to access his account.

  Two hours had passed since Karis had given him the news about Mikel and the Nkosi woman— two hours during which he should have released the hyperium shipments to the Asians and Russians. He quickly formulated the messages and sent them off. A litany of other messages awaited his attention. He scanned them, looking for those of greatest importance. When he spotted one from the Pathogen facility, he immediately opened it.

  The face of his head of security for the location appeared. “Mister Hallerson, our passive sensors detected an intermittent low-altitude signal. It is not strong enough to be anything of size. At first we thought it was ghost return of some sort, but it happened three times. Per your direction, we did not go active, and I am contacting you to report the incident. End message.”

  The time of the message showed it to be more than an hour old. Erik ground his jaw, then called Karis through his holo screen.

  “Yes, Mister Hallerson.”

  “I need a helo pilot and security team on helipad four in fifteen minutes.”

  Chapter 29: Eridani

  Rays from the Eridanian sun cut through the clear morning sky, bathing the hills and peaks surrounding the valley in vivid white light, creating a dramatic contrast against the deep blue of the sky. Still on the downslope of the western ridge, Grae had no view of the valley floor. The last of the terrain had been the most difficult, steep to the point of near impassibility. Grae’s chest hurt from the exertion of the climb and from taking in deep breaths of the thin mountain air.

  Looking over his shoulder, at first he struggled to find Ivey following him up the shadowed hillside, well camouflaged in her SCoUT suit among the low scrub and thin pine-like trees, but then he found her. She was less than twenty meters back, struggling to dodge the large, prickly needles; the SCoUT suits proved inadequate protection when you ran into one at just the wrong angle. As if to drive the point home, Ivey brushed her shoulder against a branch and immediately jerked it back. When she looked upward toward Grae, he flashed a questioning thumbs-up. She nodded and returned the sign. Grae checked the sling of his rifle then tackled the last few meters to the top.

  Even through the SCoUT suit’s visor, the bright morning sun forced Grae to cover his eyes. The eastern face down to the valley floor was every bit as steep as the one they’d just climbed. To either side it grew steeper still, transitioning into nearly vertical walls flanking the flat terrain. This was more of a canyon than a valley—an ideal location for concealing a base.

  A kilometer away, against the southern wall, the sunlight had just begun to illuminate a clearing cut among the prickly pines and a cave carved into the cliff side. A boxcar-sized piece of equipment was nestled within, sprouting cables that fed a series of portable hab modules. Two water pipes connected it to an artificial pond created by a manmade dam.

  Behind Grae, the sound of falling rocks preceded Ivey’s arrival. “A little help?” she said.

  Grae turned to see her struggling to get a grip at the top of the climb. He held out his hand and pulled her up. When she caught sight of the complex below, she retrieved a pair of binocs from her hip pocket and scanned the scene.

  “That’s a cooling pond, and—Jesus, is that a portable fusion generator? What the hell is that doing here?”

  “I would presume it’s providing power.”

  Ivey lowered the binocs, cocked her head, and glared. Through sheer force of will, Grae maintained a straight face.

  She returned the binoculars to her eyes. “You could power half of New Reyk with that thing. Overkill doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “They must be planning an expansion.”

  A quiet flutter drew Grae’s attention down the canyon. Unslinging his rifle, he set the scope to maximum zoom. Nothing was yet in view, but the flutter grew louder, and was soon accompanied by the whine of turbine engines echoing off the steep canyon walls. Seconds later, two tiny black shapes rounded the bend at the far end of the canyon. Grae centered it in the crosshairs and went to full zoom. He immediately recognized the squat shape of a cargo carrier and its four ducted fan engines. Something large dangled underneath.

  “TSI cargo carrier.”

  Lying next to him, Ivey strained to see through her binocs. “Looks like a dot to me.”

  “Two dots. It’s carrying something big.”

  Connected by cables fore and aft, the cargo swayed to the side as the oversized helo made the final turn toward the facility. Short of the landing zone, it slowed to a stop above the reactor cooling pond. Wash from its engines turned the surface to a froth and whipped the surrounding vegetation with gale-force winds. It hovered for a few seconds before slowly moving forward to take up position above the facility. Then it turned, oriented the container so it aligned with others already on the ground, and dropped taglines from opposite corners. Four people on the ground ran to the lines to help guide the container down, and two others directed the operation from a nearby rooftop.

  Suddenly, a motion alert flashed on the heads-up display in Grae’s helmet. Following the direction indicator, Grae swung his rifle back toward the open end of the valley. Another aircraft had just turned the corner. It was small. Even at full zoom, Grae couldn’t tell if it was military or civilian. It was coming in fast and banked as it followed the contour of the terrain. As it drew closer, its silhouette identified it as a corporate helo, but the pilot flew like military.

  The cargo carrier, having detached its payload, was outbound when the helo drop
ped toward the complex’s helipad in an animated flare, then stabilized in a low hover before settling on the ground. As the engines began their wind-down, the rear passenger door flew open, and a man stepped out. He was dressed in commercial security gear, with an assault rifle slung across his chest, and looked far too full of himself. He epitomized everything Grae detested about contract soldiery. Behind him, another man exited, his long blond hair flapping in the downwash of the helo’s spinning fan blades. A chill of recognition started at the base of Grae’s neck and ran down his back.

  “It can’t be,” Grae whispered. “I killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy at the helo.” Grae felt anger growing. “It was him—him and Andrews. But I killed him. He was cut to ribbons, bleeding out on the tarmac.”

  “Jesus, that’s the guy? Hallerson?”

  “Yes.” Grae spat the word. “And if he’s here…” Grae’s anger threatened to turn to rage. He took a deep breath through his nose to steady himself. “Andrews and Hallerson—they did everything, to me, Jans… Mandi.”

  Grae checked the range at the top right of the scope. 1083.3 meters. Centering the reticle on Erik, he slid his thumb to the target lock. A thin green outline surrounded Erik as he moved away from the helo. Wind was three kilometers per hour from the left, and point four from behind. Elevation 207.0 meters. Relative velocity 5.3 kilometers per hour. The scope automatically adjusted to compensate. The target-leading function was not predictive enough for his tastes, so Grae flipped it off then checked the scope’s level and adjusted accordingly. One deep breath in… a long breath out… Grae’s heartbeat grew in his chest. Index finger to the trigger, and squeeze…