Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  Josh rode without breaking pace, disheartened. Until this point he had still clung to the hope that the tragedy in Cambridge would not be linked to him. But sending this many men to wait for his possible appearance could only mean that they knew where the blame for the Galleria lay. The damn backpack he’d dropped while fleeing must have led them to him, and the Handlers knew, ultimately, he’d come here.

  The Handlers … . That was the name he had given the emotionless men who appeared from time to time in his life and were never far away even when they didn’t. He knew none of them by name and in his younger years had viewed them as protectors. They always seemed to be there when he had a problem. He remembered walking home from high school one day when he was seven, remembered the beat-up Chevy that had pulled up, engine rattling. A creaky door thrown open on the passenger side. An ugly, unshaven man reaching over to grasp him. Josh had frozen, could smell the stink coming off the man as the soiled hand grazed his shirt.

  A car had hurdled atop the sidewalk behind the Chevy. A pair of men wearing suits had lunged out and stormed forward. One yanked Josh free of the tightening grasp. The other dragged the unshaven man from his car and kicked his legs out from under him. The man’s face broke his fall. That was all Josh saw before the other man brought him toward their car.

  It was then that he realized the frequent moving he and Harry had done was the Handlers’ doing. Their next move came almost immediately after the incident with the man in the Chevy. Josh heard the phrase “broken security” several times during the explanation.

  The Handlers had appeared less frequently as he grew older, seeming ultimately to disappear when he was enrolled at Stanford. All the same, he knew they were there. Maybe the janitor in the apartment building, or the graduate student living in the unit down the hall. He wanted to believe it was still for his protection but in truth had figured out it had probably never been. Watching him was all about control. If he stepped out of line or tried to run, they’d be on him.

  That lasted until medical school and then Harvard, when they’d tried to separate him from Harry Lime for good. No one had ever told Josh that Harry had been settled in Key West, and he never made any effort to disguise the fact that he had found out; in fact, he wanted them to know, and was sure they did soon enough. To flaunt it still more he had visited Harry over Christmas. But there’d been no contact since then, and Josh felt awful about that. He’d meant to call; he really had. But then his work constructing CLAIR started taking off and he couldn’t tear himself from the lab.

  He had done his utmost to keep CLAIR a secret from the Handlers, disguising the reason for his trips to both the Science Center and the Malinkrodt Laboratory. He doctored the logs to make it look as if he was working on something considerably more routine, and they had no reason to doubt him. If one had managed to follow him to the mall on Sunday, then that man would be dead now, the only one Josh didn’t feel bad for.

  What he needed to do at this point, though, was to get his life back together, and that started down here at Harry’s. He had found the bike unchained in front of the youth hostel down the street and figured riding it would give the Handlers a tougher time spotting him. Besides, everyone rode bikes in Key West, at least those who shied away from the pink or yellow mopeds that otherwise dominated the island. After passing Harry’s building, Josh kept peddling down South Street toward the traffic light at the intersection with Simonton, planning his next move.

  The presence of so many Handlers seemed to rule out any chance that Harry Lime was safe inside. They would have taken him away, so that Josh would have no ally nor any access to that ally’s legion of friends. A lump rose in his throat as the irrational fear that he would never see Harry again struck him. It was possible, after all, and the possibility was enough to fill him with fresh resolve. He took strange comfort in the presence of the second vial of CLAIR in the backpack that had never left his sight on the flight to Miami or during the bus ride to Key West.

  Of course, first he had to gain access to Harry’s apartment, and that was a significant task in itself, but one he was prepared for. What the Handlers might not have known was that the four units in each of the Southpark complex’s buildings had been built to be easily combined for the right buyer. A connecting door from the rear apartment on the first floor had been built into a closet, opening into a pantry just off the kitchen in Harry’s.

  He swung his bike down Alberta Street and then onto Washington, which paralleled South. As he’d hoped, he could see no men either posted on that street or watching the rear of Harry’s building. He pedaled back to the Washington Street Inn and abandoned the bike on the sidewalk. Then he ducked down an alley that separated the inn from Harry’s building. A fence formed the boundary and the pair of rotten slats were even looser than they’d been in December when Josh had visited. He slithered through and found himself on a six-foot grass strip between the fence and the apartment to the rear of Harry’s.

  One of the back windows was open, a screen in place. Josh thought he remembered that this particular apartment was rented on a seasonal basis. He could only hope the current tenants were absent as he worked the screen open and then hoisted himself up over the sill. Josh was no athlete but he was graceful enough to touch down lightly on the dhurrie rug covering a scuffed Spanish-tile floor. He caught his bearings and padded to the closet containing the door that led through to Harry’s pantry.

  The closet was open, and Josh pawed through a collection of coats and garment bags to reach the rear. Obviously no one had informed the current tenants what the summer weather was like in Key West. He squeezed behind the clutter and felt for the knob. Then he grasped the bolt holding the door into place. Sliding it free, he turned the knob and pulled gently. The door resisted at first, then gave with a scratchy rasp across the tile. He opened it enough to expose the rear side of the pantry and peered carefully forward to make sure no one was in the kitchen. Satisfied, he cleared the meager contents from the widest shelves and lowered his backpack through the resulting gap. Then he squeezed himself between the shelves and straightened up when he was fully inside the pantry.

  Josh’s heart was beating fast. His chest felt heavy. He was home, at least as close as he could come. Maybe it was the smell more than anything that confirmed Harry was gone, leftover pizza or day-old aftershave—all the things about Harry that Josh didn’t want to let go of. His feet felt heavy as he started forward, afraid of what might await him or, rather, what wouldn’t.

  He had reached the doorway leading to the kitchen when a voice from the living room made him freeze.

  “Anything?”

  “Nothing on our end,” came the raspy reply over what must have been a walkie-talkie.

  “I don’t think he’s coming.”

  “You don’t get paid to think. Just wait. You’re due to be rotated in twenty minutes’ time.”

  “I could use the sun.”

  Josh advanced through the kitchen, careful when he neared the wide breach that led to the apartment’s living room section. There was a dining area as well, but Harry had seen no use for anything besides a small kitchen table. Josh slipped past the opening for the counter the fax machine rested upon. He caught no glimpse of a Handler and could only hope the man would not decide to suddenly enter the kitchen.

  Josh reached the paperless fax and realized he had neglected to bring the screwdriver he needed to open it. No matter; Harry’s junk drawer would undoubtedly yield a Phillips head. He pulled it open slowly, the clutter inside making that task a struggle. Working as quietly as he could, he riffled through the mess and found a Phillips just behind a can of pepper spray, one of several Harry had always left all over the house for Josh just in case. He must have forgotten Josh hadn’t joined him on this move.

  Josh focused his attention on the fax machine and turned it over, exposing its rear. Then he started working the Phillips on the first of the small screws. In December Josh had asked Harry why he never bothered to load the machine
, and Harry’s response had centered around making people who wanted to send him things feel better. Harry didn’t care whether he saw the faxes or not; he never looked at the ones that came through anyway.

  Josh left the screws in a pile and removed the machine’s backing. Its innards were easily accessible and hardly cumbersome. Everything was solid state and identifiable for someone who’d had the back off before. Josh knew the purpose of each circuit, diode and chip, as well as their locations. He located the chip he was looking for and popped it out. He had a small Ziploc bag ready and sealed the chip inside.

  He was busy reattaching the fax machine’s back when the screwdriver slipped out of his hand. He tried to snatch it out of the air and nearly managed to pin it against the counter side. But it eluded him and hit the tile floor with a clang. A brief moment of total silence followed, panic rising as a lump in his throat. Then Josh heard the clatter of footsteps heading toward the kitchen. In a fraction of a second, he judged the distance to the pantry too great to manage in time. The first of a shadow had just scraped over the white kitchen tile when Josh returned his hand to the junk drawer and grasped the can of pepper spray thumb finding the nozzle.

  A man in a suit crossed into the kitchen in the same instant Josh lunged forward, compressing the pepper spray’s nozzle. He’d never fired it before and had no idea what to expect. The first thing that occurred to him was the power and focus of the reddish stream. The stuff came out in a surprisingly thick jet that struck the man right in the face. His hands clawed instantly for his eyes as he pirouetted across the tile floor, screaming. The Handler tried to extract the walkie-talkie from his belt and came out with a thin wallet instead which went flying toward the sink. He slammed his shoulder into a storage closet and reeled against the stove as the closet’s disturbed contents tumbled down.

  The man was really wailing now, his face gone beet red. Josh watched him struggling to find the living room as he stopped to retrieve the man’s wallet on his way back toward the pantry.

  He grabbed his backpack and squeezed it ahead of him between the shelves into the closet connecting the two apartments. He checked his pocket for the Ziploc bag containing the fax machine chip just to be sure and then hurried back to the open window that had allowed him access. He went through it too fast and fell hard to the ground. He rose, feeling the wind knocked out of him, and had to lean against the building to get it back. When his chest started working again, Josh pushed the broken slats aside to clear a path through the fence and started down the alley behind the Washington Street Inn.

  A green Ford Taurus screeched to a halt nearby. Josh spun and sped off in the other direction. A decaying steel fence blocked his route into the backyard of the nearest house and he hurled himself over it. He ran through that yard, then ducked under a hole in the fence on the other side. This yard had a six-foot wooden fence surrounding it on three sides. But the front gate was open a crack and Josh rushed through, finding himself on Washington Street.

  He sped toward a run-down motel that featured Casa Key West Vacation Rentals in its parking lot. These rentals included mopeds, which were lined up across the sidewalk for tourists and locals alike. Hopping on one of them for escape seemed like the best option until he saw another green Taurus tear past and then abruptly halt, shift gears and shoot backwards.

  Josh was running blindly now, his lungs on fire and the pounding in his head telling him to quit. But he thought of Harry, the Handlers coming to take him away, and found the rage he needed to keep going. He could hear at least one of the cars still roaring after him as he ran across a series of adjoining yards, through bushes and over fences. He emerged near a house that was little more than a shack; a pair of rusty jeeps resting on their rims were wedged in a driveway fronting Waddell Street. Perfectly green tennis courts lay directly ahead, enclosed by high iron fences denying him passage. If he had his bearings right, the beach was a mere block away, but the fence precluded a direct route to it even if he had wanted to head for the water.

  Hearing the now familiar rev of one of the Taurus’s engines, he ducked into the thick tangle of bushes and hedges that fronted the Coconut Beach Club. He felt as though he were in a jungle, in this case a jungle that ended at an underground parking garage he had no choice but to enter. He charged through the brightly lit concrete garage and emerged on the other side. Then the jungle was back and he gratefully accepted its cover as one Taurus zoomed by, followed almost immediately by another.

  He stopped to catch his breath and parted the bushes enough to see what lay ahead. The street ended at the intersection with Vernon and a small bar or restaurant called Louie’s Backyard. He couldn’t make out all of the sign, because a red truck was parked in the way. A man in a blue uniform toted an overstuffed white bag down a set of steps and hurled it into the truck’s rear, then retraced his steps inside.

  Josh watched two Tauruses crisscross before him on Waddell Street. He noted there were fewer people inside the cars, indicating that the bulk of the Handlers had taken up the chase on foot. They knew the general area he was confined to, which made it only a matter of time before they circled in and trapped him.

  He had to move now. But where?

  The man in the blue uniform emerged from Louie’s Backyard with another white bag which quickly joined the first in the rear of the truck. Overstuffed again, but with what? Josh’s eyes widened.

  Of course!

  He found himself moving before he had time to hesitate. A quick dash, three seconds at most, was all it took to reach the truck and dive into its back atop the laundry bags full of what must have been soiled tablecloths, uniforms and maybe bed linens from the nearby inn. The driver returned with one more bag before sliding the door shut, plunging Josh into darkness.

  The red laundry truck was already gone when the lead green Taurus made its next pass. Sinclair, the team leader riding inside, ordered a few more passes, but rapidly concluded that the boy had somehow slipped past them. Nonetheless, he had his team search for another half hour before calling Group Six.

  “Get me Colonel Fuchs,” he ordered. “Immediately.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Killebrew slid his wheelchair over to the LED screen containing the readout from the electron microscope. Working in isolation gear made the effort extremely cumbersome but he was starting to get accustomed to it. And if he wasn’t yet, he would be soon—this assignment promised to stretch over the course of several months, perhaps up to a year.

  Working for prolonged periods with Level 4 hot agents took a special kind of person. Claustrophobia was only one of several factors that kept even the most ambitious technicians from doing it for very long. The main drawback was the lack of motion. Sitting for hours at a time without pause was required, since breaking the work up meant going through decontamination procedures over and over again.

  Since he was wheelchair-bound anyway, sitting never bothered Killebrew. If anything, it was the only time the handicap he’d endured since being stricken with multiple sclerosis as a child seemed meaningless. He entered the world of viruses and bacteria and watched them swim about on the slides, immersing himself in the wild ride of motion he could no longer fathom for himself. The potential loss of the rest of his motor skills to another attack of MS made him cherish his work, made him appreciate the menial tasks everyone else took for granted as well as dismiss the risks of the dangerous ones everyone else feared.

  Identifying the killer organism from the Cambridgeside Galleria clearly fell into the latter category. All of the remains had been transferred to the high-tech containment facility the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintained inside Mount Jackson in the Ozark chain. So many bodies greatly strained the facility’s resources, especially considering the need to keep them in cold storage. They were at present stacked on specially constructed prefab gurneys five deep in the gymnasium-sized primary containment center.

  Killebrew’s job was to gain a complete grasp of every facet of the organism’s metastasi
s. Since this was medical science’s first experience with a genetically engineered programmed organic machine, the potential seemed limitless. For one thing, Killebrew’s work might yield breakthroughs in the area of cancer fighting and prevention. For another he might gain some insight into how to defend against the organism should humanity ever be faced with its release again.

  He started work on three bodies which had already been positively identified. He rotated among them, studying tissue samples from matching parts of each to determine how the organism metastasized inside a host and then spread. His next task would be to identify any mitigating factors toward an understanding of precisely how the organism responded to certain stimuli. How, for example, did such random factors as age, gender, size, blood chemistry and a host of other variables affect the disease once it invaded the body?

  Killebrew’s first step, of course, had been to isolate and identify the organism itself. It had taken the whole of his first day at Mount Jackson to complete that task, and a single cell of it was presently displayed on the screen, caught in all its glory by the electron microscope.

  “Particle of the organism,” he said into the microphone built into his helmet, “seems to possess nine different proteins—nine different molecules—that I am unable to identity. It has the genetic structure of a bacteria, similar in shape and behavior to the anthrax bacteria. This refutes the preliminary hypothesis that the organism was a hot virus that bled out its victims on a scale akin to but well beyond something like the Ebola strain.”

  He paused and collected his thoughts.