Gideon's Corpse

by Douglas Preston

  Three soldiers piled out of the now burning chopper and came at him, firing their M4s on full automatic, followed a moment later by Dart and Blaine. The bullets shredded the car he’d taken cover behind, spraying him with bits of glass and metal as he crouched, only the heavy engine block stopping the high-velocity rounds.

  And then the shooting stopped abruptly. He took a deep breath, rose to return fire, but realized it was a waste of ammo—they had veered away and were now out of range for a handgun. And they were no longer concerning themselves with him. Dart, Blaine, and the soldiers were piling into a Humvee, evidently the vehicle Blaine had arrived in. The doors slammed shut and the vehicle laid rubber, fishtailing out of the lot and heading for the long service road out of the base. The chopper was now leaning precariously, making a gruesome grinding sound, the rotors flapping, smoke billowing upward; a moment later it erupted in flames and, with a thump that made the air tremble, exploded in a ball of fire.

  Gideon shielded his face from the heat with a curse. They were getting away—getting away with the smallpox. He jumped up and pursued them, running past the burning chopper to the far end of the parking lot, pulling the trigger again and again in impotent frustration until the magazine was empty.

  Then he stopped and looked around, breathing hard. Blaine’s Jeep was parked in the rear lot, but if he ran back to get it the game would certainly be lost: Dart and Blaine would be so far ahead by that time he’d never catch them.

  The base’s main motor pool stood on the opposite side of the road, gate closed. He ran across the street, flung himself onto the fence, scrambled up it and dropped down the far side. A row of Humvees and another row of Jeeps were parked to his right; he ran to the first Humvee, glanced inside. No key. No key in the second or third Humvee, either. Running wildly now, he dashed over to the Jeeps. None of them had keys in the ignition.

  He turned left and right in desperation. On the other side of the motor pool were the larger military vehicles: a couple of M1 tanks, MRAPs, and several Stryker armored fighting vehicles, looking like huge, bristling tank turrets mounted on eight massive wheels. One of the Strykers had been moved into an open area and had apparently just been washed down with a hose. Gideon vaguely recalled seeing a mechanic working on the vehicle when he and Fordyce had arrived. Even as the thought occurred to him, the mechanic appeared, wrench in hand, leather holster flapping, running from a distant shed, staring at the burning helicopter. “What’s the hell’s going on?” he cried to Gideon.

  Gideon knocked the wrench from his hand, grabbed him by the collar, pushed the empty 9mm pistol into his face, and aimed him at the nearest Stryker. “What’s going on,” he said, “is we’re going to get into this vehicle and you’re going to drive it.”

  74

  THE MECHANIC OPENED the door. They climbed in the cave-like interior, the mechanic first, Gideon following with the gun. With the mechanic in the gunner’s seat, Gideon slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Give me your gun,” Gideon demanded.

  The mechanic opened his holster, passed over his sidearm.

  “Now give me the key.”

  The mechanic fumbled in his pocket and handed over the key. Gideon shoved it in the ignition, turned it. The Stryker immediately rumbled to life, the big diesel purring. Weapon trained on the mechanic, he quickly glanced over the instrumentation. It looked straightforward enough: before him was a steering wheel, shift, gas and brake pedals, no different from a truck. But these controls were surrounded by electronics and numerous flat-panel screens of unknown function.

  “You know how to operate this thing?” Gideon asked.

  “Fuck you,” said the soldier. He had evidently collected his wits and Gideon could see a combination of fear, anger, and growing defiance in his expression. He was young, skinny, with a whiffle-cut; no older than twenty. His name was JACKMAN and he carried the insignia of a specialist. But the most important information was written on his face: this was a loyal soldier who was not going to cave at the muzzle of a gun if it was against his country.

  With an effort Gideon forced himself to slow down, take a deep breath, push aside the fact that every minute that passed put Blaine and the smallpox farther away. He needed this man’s help—and he had one shot at getting it.

  “Specialist Jackman, I’m sorry about pulling a gun on you,” he said. “But we’re in an emergency situation. Those people who tried to take off in the chopper stole a deadly virus from USAMRIID. They’re terrorists. And they’re going to release it.”

  “They were soldiers,” said Jackman, defiantly.

  “Dressed as soldiers.”

  “So you say.”

  “Look,” said Gideon, “I’m with NEST.” He went to reach for his old ID but realized it was gone, lost at some point during the desperate chase. God, he had to do this fast. “Did you see that body on the tarmac over there?”

  Jackman nodded.

  “He was my partner. Special Agent Stone Fordyce. The bastards murdered him. They’ve stolen a vial of smallpox and are going to use it to start a war.”

  “I’m not buying your bullshit,” the specialist said.

  “You’ve got to believe me.”

  “No way. Take your best shot. I won’t help you.”

  Gideon felt close to despair. He tried to pull himself together. He told himself that this was a social engineering situation, no different from any other he’d encountered. It was just that the risks were infinitely greater this time around. It was a question of finding a way in, discovering how to reach this man. And doing it in seconds. He looked into the frightened but absolutely determined face.

  “No, you take your best shot.” He handed Jackman his 9mm, butt-first. “If you think I’m one of the good guys, help me. You think I’m one of the bad guys, take me out. It’s your decision now, not mine.”

  Jackman took the proffered weapon. His look turned to one of uncertainty, struggling with a strong sense of duty. He gave it a quick inspection, ejected the magazine. “Nice try. There’s no rounds in here.” He tossed the weapon aside.

  Son of a bitch.

  An uncertain silence fell. Gideon began to sweat. Then, in an almost impulsive movement, he passed the mechanic’s own handgun back to him. “Put it to my head,” he said.

  Jackman made a brusque movement, seizing Gideon in a hammerlock and pressing the gun against his temple.

  “Go ahead. Shoot me. Because I’m telling you right now: if they get away, I don’t want to live to see the result.”

  Jackman’s finger tightened visibly against the trigger. There was a long, ticking silence.

  “Did you hear me? They’re getting away. You’ve got to make up your mind—are you with me or against me?”

  “I…I…” Jackman hesitated, flummoxed.

  “Look at me, judge me, and damn it, make your decision.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes. One more hesitation—and then the face cleared, the decision made. He took the gun away, reholstered it. “All right. Shit. I’m with you.”

  Gideon peered out through the driver’s periscope. Then he jammed the gearshift of the Stryker forward and released the clutch. The vehicle lurched back and smashed into a Humvee, knocking the heavy vehicle back several yards.

  “No, no, the shift works the other way!” Jackman shouted.

  Gideon yanked it back and the vehicle lurched. He floored the accelerator but the Stryker only lumbered forward, gaining speed slowly because of its great weight.

  “Can’t this damn thing go any faster?” he cried.

  “We’ll never catch them,” said Jackman. “We can’t do more than sixty. A Humvee will do eighty, ninety.”

  For a moment, Gideon took his foot off the accelerator, almost freezing up in despair. They had too big a lead—it was useless. Then he remembered something.

  Pulling the map of the base out of his pocket—the one he’d been given at the front gate—he tossed it at Jackman. “Look at that. The base access road winds all
over the place. We can still cut them off if we head straight for the front gate.”

  “But there’s no road going straight to the front gate,” said Jackman.

  “With this thing, who the hell needs a road? Just point me toward the gate. We’ll take it cross-country. And when we get there, be ready to operate the weapons.”

  75

  GIDEON ACCELERATED THE Stryker across the long parking lot, past the burning helicopter, and hit the pavement, making fifty miles an hour, the vehicle’s eight wheels humming loudly on the service road.

  Jackman examined the tattered map. “Take a heading of a hundred ninety degrees. Here, use this.” He indicated an electronic compass on the dashboard.

  Gideon turned to one hundred ninety degrees south, the Stryker leaping the curb and churning across a wide expanse of grass, heading toward a line of trees.

  “What do we have for weapons?” Gideon called out.

  “Fifty-cal, Mk-9 automatic grenade launcher, smoke grenades.”

  “Can the Stryker cut through those trees?”

  “We’re going to find out,” said Jackman. “Shift into eight-wheel drive. That lever, there.”

  Gideon pulled the lever and accelerated for the trees, the diesel roaring. God, it was a powerful engine. The trees were spaced far apart, but not far enough. He steered toward an area of what looked like younger, thinner trees.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  The vehicle struck one, then another, slamming through them with a loud thwack as each tree snapped off at the base, the vehicle bucking and lurching, the engine roaring, trunks flying aside, leaves whirling. A minute later they broke into a grassy clearing.

  A red light glowed on a nearby flat panel and a flat, electronic voice sounded. “Warning, speed unsuitable for current terrain conditions. Adjusting tire pressure to compensate.”

  Gideon peered through the driver’s periscope. “Shit. There are some really big oaks ahead.”

  “Slow down, I’ll try to clear them with the grenade launcher.” Jackman pressed a series of switches, and the weapons system screen flickered to life. He peered intently through the gunner’s periscope. “Here goes.”

  There was a series of whooshes and, a moment later, an eruption of sound. The oaks disappeared in a wall of flame, dirt, leaves, and splinters. Even before the area had been fully cleared Gideon floored the accelerator again, the wheels spinning, and the Stryker lumbered forward, bucking over a mass of broken trunks, then plowing back in the forest, knocking down smaller trees on the far side: whap, whap, whap.

  They broke free of the woods with a final crash. Looming ahead, across a road, was a chain-link fence surrounding a residential neighborhood: neat rows of bungalows, driveways, cars, postage-stamp lawns covered with all the accoutrements of suburban living.

  “Oh shit,” Gideon murmured. At least nobody much was around, the families largely evacuated. He aimed the Stryker toward the path of least resistance. They hit the chain-link fence, peeling it up like a ribbon before tearing through. He careened across a backyard, pulverizing a jungle gym and sideswiping an aboveground pool, causing an eruption of water across the yard.

  “Jesus!” cried Jackman.

  Gideon kept the accelerator pinned to the floor, the massive vehicle slowly continuing to accelerate. Ahead, the street took a sharp right angle. “I can’t make the turn in time,” Gideon shouted. “Hold on!”

  A single-story bungalow lay directly before them: checked curtains hanging in the living room picture window, yellow flowers framing a beautifully kept lawn. Gideon realized he could not avoid the house entirely and aimed for the garage. They impacted with a terrific blow, the Stryker’s engine screaming as they knocked aside a pickup truck, then tore out the back wall of the garage, trailing wooden beams and wallboard and clouds of dust.

  “Warning,” came the electronic voice. “Speed unsuitable for current terrain conditions.”

  Looking through the periscope, Gideon could see people running out of the houses, shouting and gesturing at him and the trail of ruin he was leaving behind.

  “Sure you don’t want to go back?” Jackman asked through clenched teeth. “I think you missed something.”

  Pushing the vehicle forward, Gideon tore through another chain-link fence on the far side of the neighborhood. Beyond an empty parking lot, a grid of Quonset huts loomed ahead, the narrowest of alleys between each of them; Gideon headed for the broadest looking of the alleys, but it wasn’t quite broad enough. The Stryker chewed its way through, crumpling the walls on either side like so much tinfoil and knocking the flimsy huts off their cheap foundations.

  Bounding into an open area, they blew across a set of baseball diamonds, smashed through some cheap wooden bleachers, burst through a brick wall, and—quite abruptly—emerged onto the base’s golf course. As he worked the controls, Gideon remembered vaguely that a golf course was the first thing he’d seen on entering the base: they were almost at the entrance.

  He rode over a tee-off area and ground his way down the fairway, the few golfers out and about dropping their clubs and scattering like partridges. He crossed a narrow water hazard, boiled through the mud on the far side, and churned over a second green, sending huge divots and gouts of turf flying—and then, as they topped a rise, Gideon could make out, a quarter mile away, a cluster of buildings and a fence that marked the front gate.

  …And along the service road paralleling the golf course, speeding at right angles to them, was the Humvee carrying Blaine and Dart.

  “There they are!” Gideon cried. “Bust up the road ahead of them! But for God’s sake, don’t hit them or you’ll spread the virus!”

  Jackman was frantically working the remote weapons system. “Stop the vehicle so I can aim!”

  Gideon ground to a stop, gouging two huge, trench-like furrows in the fairway. Jackman peered through the commander’s periscope, adjusted some gauges, peered again. The Stryker rocked slightly as the grenades were launched, then percussive flashes went off ahead of the Humvee and the road in front of it erupted into the air, chunks of asphalt spinning skyward. The Humvee skidded to a stop, backed, turned, and started driving across the grass.

  “Again!” Gideon cried.

  Another shuddering series of explosions. But it was useless—the golf course was too broad, the Humvee had nearly limitless paths to the base exit.

  Gideon gunned the Stryker forward, peeling across the greensward. The Humvee was still outpacing the Stryker, on the verge of getting away.

  Ahead, Gideon could see a few panicked soldiers milling around the gate buildings, running this way and that. “Can you call the gate?” he yelled over the roar of the engine.

  “No phone.”

  Gideon thought quickly. “The smoke grenades! Cover them with smoke!”

  They plowed through a sand trap, attained another rise, and Jackman let loose. The canisters arced through the sky, bouncing ahead of the Humvee and erupting into enormous clouds of snow-white smoke. The wind was in their favor, rolling the smoke back over the vehicle. It immediately vanished.

  Gideon headed into the huge smoke bank. “Got any infrared on this baby?”

  “Turn on the DV, set it to thermal,” Jackman said from the gunner’s seat.

  Gideon stared at the banks of instrumentation. Jackman leaned over, hit one switch, then another, and one of the innumerable screens flickered into life. “That’s the Driver’s Video screen, set to thermal,” he said.

  “Nice,” said Gideon as he headed deeper into the smoke bank. “And there they are!”

  The Humvee was still off the road but much closer to them, moving blindly, edging from the fairway into the rough, heading for a line of trees.

  Gideon peered at the ghostly image on the videoscreen. “Shit. They’re going to crash.”

  “Let me handle it.” Jackman threw himself back into the gunner’s seat. A moment later the fifty-caliber machine gun erupted, firing remotely, kicking up divots of turf behind the Humvee.

>   “Careful, for God’s sake.” Gideon watched as Jackman walked the automatic fire up and across the back of the Humvee, shredding its tires. The car slewed sideways, then came to a shuddering halt.

  On the DV, Gideon saw the doors fly open. The three soldiers boiled out, crouching and firing their weapons blindly through the smoke. Then two more figures emerged—Blaine and Dart—and both began running toward the gate at top speed.

  “I’m going after them,” Gideon said. “Give me your weapon.”

  Gideon threw open the hatch of the Stryker and jumped out, suddenly enveloped in smoke. He could hear the soldiers firing blindly, stupidly, somewhere. He took off in the general direction he’d seen Blaine heading, running along the fairway and quickly emerging from the smoke. The soldiers had also found their way out and turned toward him, raking him with fire. He hit the ground at the same moment the fifty-caliber machine gun sounded from within the smoke; the three soldiers literally came apart in front of him.

  He jumped up again, continued running. Blaine was a hundred yards ahead, approaching the final green, but he was old and rapidly losing steam. Dart, younger and more fit, had pulled ahead and was leaving Blaine behind.

  As Gideon approached, Blaine turned and, wheezing heavily, pulled out his Peacemaker and fired, the shot kicking up the grass in front of Gideon. Still he ran; Blaine got off a second shot, which also missed as Gideon launched himself at the older man, tackling him at the knees. They fell heavily and Gideon grappled the revolver away from him, flinging it aside, pinning Blaine. He pulled out Jackman’s sidearm.