by Bradley West
He snapped one night when he overheard two first-tour contractors joke that he didn’t talk about his past because the closest he’d come to combat was when he’d sat too close to the speakers with “Bullet the Blue Sky” up loud. A demonstration of resolve was in order. They’d received intel earlier that day about a warehouse that contained Qaddafi-era chemical weapons, location to be revealed once Uncle Sam paid up. Muller decided on a more direct approach. Rather than negotiate another fee over mid-morning tea with the old Berber, he rounded up his men and kicked in their erstwhile ally’s safehouse door at oh-dark-thirty. In short order, they disarmed the shitbags and trussed them up in the basement boiler room.
Most of the thugs had seen this movie before and dismissed it as a bluff. Muller’s favorite bit came next: Each of the seven in turn was hung by his wrists from meat hooks in the basement. He donned a welder’s mask and fired up a cutting torch. Even through the gags, the men’s screams were audible for a block as he slow-cooked them by turn, never stopping even after his squad had corroborated the location. When the tough guy leader whimpered his last, Muller downed tools and said, “Get rid of the mess. We mount up in fifteen. Fuck the nuclear-bio-chem gear: We hit the warehouse by surprise and if we screw up, it’s a metric ton of sarin up our asses.”
That night proved a watershed: The whispers and snarky jokes stopped. The local headmen started to come to him, and they no longer made him sit on his ass for hours while they smoked, spoke without translation, and otherwise jerked him around. No, friend and foe alike knew that Rolf Muller was the real deal, and they treated him with the respect and fear he deserved.
He sat up and ripped the mask off his eyes. “Goddammit, Melvin! Shut that kid up, or Katerina will drain his blood tonight!”
Melvin was seated at the table, unsuccessfully feeding a bottle to a fussy baby. He looked at Muller in surprise, stood up and walked Tyson out of the bright lights and into the warehouse. He had no idea what had set that blond bastard off, but to talk about taking a baby’s blood was sick-ass shit. It was worse than unchristian: It was downright satanic.
Melvin believed in God and had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior. He’d attended the Third Avenue Baptist Church of Detroit until he enlisted after high school. He hadn’t been inside a church since, but he still considered himself a Christian. As Melvin did a lap around the SUV in the warehouse, he feared for his eternal soul. That man and that woman were evil: He felt it and Tyson felt it too. Without being conscious of his actions he heard himself pray aloud. “Our Father, who art in Heaven . . .”
* * * * *
Carla typed into Signal the list of chemical components and equipment required for a mobile lab. She also noted the two Bay Area wholesalers that should hold stock. “If you can’t find me, Dr. Tina Francisco or Robert Nedd can make the adjuvant. Don’t trust Harriet Holland,” she concluded.
Then she half-closed the blinds, the signal that she would climb into the medical garbage after six o’clock on Monday night. Travis had told her that he’d observe the window at five minutes before the hour, every hour, and she should adjust the curtains as close to the deadline as possible. It was 6:51 and she’d been gone from the staff canteen and break room for twenty minutes. Security would start looking for her in the bathrooms and widen the search from there. She stared at the Ride Out trailer just one hundred yards away: The parking lot might have well as been guarded by hungry timberwolves for all the chance she’d have of making it across with the National Guard swarming. She left her small office for the sanctuary of Dr. Pond’s corner abode with the comfy sofa.
* * * * *
Sal had slept badly. He didn’t like secrets and Tyson’s odds were fading by the hour. He’d also had a blow-up with Jaime on the deck last night. Ostensibly, Jaime was supposed to run him through the pistol fundamentals again: safety, stance, grip, sight picture, trigger control, loading and unloading, clearing malfunctions and basic marksmanship. Instead they’d argued about Jaime’s misinterpretation of Plato.
“That’s not how we operate,” Sal had insisted, “either on the way to Canada or once we’re there. If we don’t stand up for the weak, we’re no better than animals. You like to read philosophy. Look up Thomas Hobbes’ take on the state of nature where life is ‘Nasty, brutish and short.’ Tomorrow I’ll give the foodbank boxes to one of our neighbors. We won’t eat anything seized at gunpoint.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You ever watch children scoop water out of a muddy puddle with a dead dog in it, shit streaming down their legs as they drink? What did the Yazidis or the Kurds do to deserve that treatment? Nothing. In 2014 the Iraq army ran away, and ISIS killed or enslaved the non-Sunnis. The best months of my life were spent hunting down those ISIS fuckers and executing them. These days may come soon to the U.S. You want to see the future, try The Road by Cormac McCarthy.”
Sal had read The Road, and if there was a bleaker book in existence, he wasn’t aware of it. Rather than argue more, he’d gone to bed. Now he was awake, anything but rested and he had an email from Travis. He read it and left to find Jaime. Pat was still asleep with that peculiar array of bruises on her upper arms visible even in the half-light.
Former USMC Sergeant Gonzalez was drinking coffee when Sal found him leaning against the railing. As always when he was alone, his thoughts had drifted back to Iraq. In West Mosul, Jaime and two-dozen Kurds had fought house-to-house—sometimes hand-to-hand—to wrest the city from ISIS. The Kurds suffered fifty percent casualties. Devout Muslims, they dispensed mercy and savagery in equal measure. There were no hostage exchanges because neither side took prisoners. Jaime’s performance in the campaign led him right back to the front lines with a promotion to the Marine Air-Ground Crisis Response Unit. For this second deployment, he was stationed in northern Syria, where his team supported Delta in north Syria and their local allies this time were the Syrian Democratic Forces.
When his four-year contract was up in 2019, Jaime surprised his comrades and himself when he mustered out. All that death had stolen much of his humanity, and he knew that this was his last chance to break his combat addiction. If all he wanted was to shoot deserving people, he could go back to Juarez and work as a sicario for his uncles. The pay and pussy were better than he’d find in the USMC, or even as an Agency contractor.
The adjustment to civilian life had proved challenging. He’d fought with his aimless mother in Los Angeles, and to escape her harangues, accepted the invitation of an ex-Jarhead to work in a San Fran auto repair shop. It turned out Johnny Gratton repaired cars by day, but at night he stripped stolen rides for parts. After three weeks, Jaime left the chop shop and found work at a garden supply center in Marin where Barb had picked him up last Halloween. The romance blossomed and by January he had moved into her tiny home in Greenbrae. Six months later and he was fending off the apocalypse with his potential father-in-law.
Sal said, “About last night—”
“You were right. I fought with the Kurds and the SDF to give their families a shot at better lives, not to be the most vicious dog in the junkyard. I shouldn’t have taken the cartons: I could have killed someone over what, two dozen boxes of Rice-a-Roni and canned vegetables?”
“Don’t forget the expired palm oil.” Sal smiled and sipped his coffee. “I’m glad I found you because something’s come up. I just received an email from Travis. Carla is under house arrest and will try to escape Monday night. She’s set her team up and they know how to make Nancy’s drug. Travis emailed the list of equipment and chemicals she’ll need to produce it from the road, plus the two likely suppliers. His take is that we can either try to buy the equipment tomorrow when they re-open or break in tonight and steal it.”
“Why even ask me? You’ll just buy it off them, right? I already heard the ‘Thou shalt not steal’ sermon.”
Sal laughed. “Maybe. I’ll need to speak with Travis first, but this is more complicated than jumping the food handout line. Once Carla’s team specifies the equipme
nt they need, the government will confiscate as much of it as possible. I’m concerned that even trying to buy the items on her list will ring alarm bells, and maybe even hurt her chances of escape. Anyway, let’s see what he says.”
Travis picked up on the first ring. “What have you decided?”
“I’m here with Jaime and I’ve briefed him. Normally I’d offer two or three times the price when they open tomorrow.”
“Except that the chems and gadgets may not be for sale at any price if Uncle Sam decides they’re strategic.”
“Precisely.”
“I’ll research the alarm systems on the two supply houses Carla listed. If it’s feasible to pull a smash-and-grab, I’ll hit one later tonight with Arkar and Maung. I’ll call you before we launch.”
“I agree. What do I owe you?”
“Carla told me on the drive back from Marin that you’ll lead a convoy to Canada.”
“That’s right. We leave once Carla’s free. You want in?”
“She’s asked me to pack a bag and join her, so with your approval, I’m aboard. I’d like to add Maung, his wife and two kids, and Arkar, his wife and their child. After I smuggle Carla out Monday night, Ride Out Security will be defunct and there’ll be nothing for them here. They’re superb soldiers and loyal. The only negative is they get tipsy on Buddhist holidays.”
“Do they have transportation, and can they leave on short notice? If so, no problem.”
“They have wheels. You sure you don’t care about seven Burmese Buddhists roaming around your farm?”
“Happy to have them,” Sal said.
“Let me do my homework. I’ll be in touch later in the day.” Travis hung up.
Sal turned to Jaime. “Travis wants to include those men from Niven Park in the 3M, and I agreed. Having them in the convoy makes me feel better about us staying back to look for Tyson.”
“I wish you would have talked to me first,” Jaime said. “I made a list of VFW friends who we could have taken instead.” He turned in a huff and walked inside, leaving the older man perplexed.
* * * * *
Jaime fumed at the kitchen table. It was bad enough that Sal fawned over that old-timer, but unilaterally inviting his Burmese flunkies to Canada? Did they even speak English? None of the Maggios had even met them. Though it was true that the Burmese were good marksmen, that skillset didn’t necessarily . . . oh, who was he kidding? That’s precisely what the convoy needed: A pair of first-class shooters who had their shit squared away. He was just angry because Sal had forgotten he’d asked him for candidates, and doubly mad because he’d been slow to follow up. Now that opportunity was likely gone, and he was getting crowded out by the former SEAL.
An incoming text message shifted his focus: The Novato PD had cleared his pickup and weapons for collection. Their ballistics tests confirmed that he’d shot the rogue Black Ice gunman Len MacWilliams in the shoulder, while the fatal shot was from a different weapon. Jaime’s story that a person or persons unknown had come to their assistance couldn’t be disproven and the police had put his charges on hold. They’d emailed him a lockdown road permit to print and display inside his windshield, plus a map to the impoundment yard.
A half-hour later, Barb was driving him in almost nonexistent traffic. Emergency roadcrews collected the injured or dead and cleared stranded vehicles off the road. When they hit the 101 North, Barb dropped the pretense that she gave a shit about his petty grievances against Ryder. While he paused to dip snuff, she pounced. “What gives you and my father the right to decide what the rest of us do? Steph and Greg won’t leave without Tyson. If they don’t go, then I stay too. Mom’s furious with Dad and I doubt she’ll leave.”
He knew from her tone that sex was off the table until further notice, so there was no downside to being honest. “Quit being a child. The world is falling apart. Every hospital in Northern California is full, and five thousand people died in San Francisco yesterday. They’re dumping the corpses in the ocean and soon they’ll just be leaving them to rot. This isn’t about Tyson; it’s about staying alive.”
“That’s easy for you to say: He’s not your nephew. If we tell my sister to leave her baby to die, what kind of people does this make us?”
“Sal and I are the ones staying behind to look for Tyson, and we may die. We accept that possibility because we want the people we love to have a chance to live. If Greg and Steph want to stay behind, that’s their decision, but it won’t do Tyson any good. And you’re no use here either. This is the real world, not a feminist fundraiser.”
“The Marines twisted your mind. The whole world isn’t Mosul.” Barb stared straight ahead, but he knew his words had hit home.
That’s right, this new world is going to make Mosul look like Disneyland. But Jaime needed a ride to the police impoundment, so he swallowed the remark. Barb blinked back tears and drove worse than usual. A man in a hazmat suit let him into the police lot once he showed the email. Jaime was happy the truck ran since Barb had long since departed. He swung back to the police station and after another twenty minutes of form-filling, reclaimed his MR556A1 rifle and Berretta M9A1.
chapter twenty
CONFRONTATIONS
Sunday, July 12: Kentfield, Livermore, and Oakland, California, day
Steph fed Greg in the spare bedroom. Sal heard Jaime and Barb leave. Pat busied herself in the kitchen, clattering the plates more than necessary. She hadn’t spoken to Sal since his comments last night. He walked in and cleared his throat. “I’m likely to be busy later today and tonight. When the quarantine lifts, maybe you can—”
“The quarantine lifts at noon for two hours.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Small talk over, she unburdened herself. “How can you even suggest that Tyson might be dead? Do you know that Stephanie cried for hours after you said that?”
“We need to be realistic. What’s the point of abducting someone if you don’t ask for anything? No one’s contacted the burner and no one has seen Tyson since he was taken. The odds stack up no matter how hard you pray. Add to it the coronavirus, and the police and FBI are in-then-out . . . it’s the only sensible conclusion.”
“I can’t believe you’d say these things.” Pat dabbed her tears with a handkerchief.
“Look, we haven’t given up. Jaime and I will stay behind with money and the cure. If the kidnappers contact us, we’ll get Tyson back. That’s likely to be this week, but every day we stay behind, the odds decline that we can make it to Canada at all, much less uninfected. As soon as the motorhomes arrive, the girls and you have to head north.”
Stephanie appeared behind Sal in the kitchen, walked to the sink and re-rinsed and dried off the plates her mother had just finished with. Meanwhile, the dishwasher sat empty and ignored.
“How’s Greg?” Pat asked.
“His leg is healing but his heart is broken, like mine. We’ll stay until we find Tyson.”
“How’s he going to find Tyson from his bed?” Sal asked. “And you’re hardly in better shape. Go to Canada and let us handle this.”
“Oh, and you’re some big hero,” Stephanie said. “I saw Jaime trying to teach you how to shoot last night. You’re pathetic. Greg and I don’t want you anywhere near Tyson after the kidnappers call, is that understood?”
* * * * *
Dr. Pond was sufficiently senior to be spared the ignominy of a surveillance camera in his office, so Carla was able to sleep in peace on his couch for four glorious hours. Her watch alarm told her she had twenty minutes to return to the bowels of the Biosafety Level 4–rated lab.
Only a small group of research facilities nationwide were authorized to handle live versions of the highest-risk pathogens like Ebola, MERS, Marburg and now SARS-CoV-3, aka Covid-20. Still, Carla had been based at this off-the-books laboratory within the Livermore Labs complex since 2018. Despite her youth, her straight-A undergrad and grad work, and distinguished years with Predict, a USAID program established in 2009 to find and t
hrottle unknown viruses, had caught the eye of Dr. Pond. Carla’s team was the most experienced within the BSL-4 lab, and she was its undisputed brightest light. She counted on that reputation to keep her out of the federal pen in Dublin, California if the NSA cracked her Signal message to Travis.
She had almost suited up when Holland entered in an agitated state. “Where the hell have you been? I sent half the security detail out looking for you.”
“I signed out of the fish tank just after six and logged a noon return time. I showered and slept. Why, what happened?”
“Overmeyer asked for you by name, and no one could find you. The president wants to know how long it will take to produce the first ten thousand doses for the Immortals program.”
Carla shrugged. “You know we have no idea until we’ve mixed and tested the first small batches. If it works in animals, next we recruit volunteers, and run large-scale double-blind Stage 3 human trials—”
“The president is worried about the health of her cabinet and other key political leaders and officials. We’ll demonstrate its efficacy on one hundred infected volunteers. If it works, we’ll go straight into production. How fast can your team document the requirements for production of ten thousand doses?”
“If each dose is between five to ten CCLs, we’ll need fifty to one hundred liters. At our present capacity, that’s ten to twenty batches. Call it two to four weeks to produce it all in house. But we can generate the first batch this week, more than enough to produce the hundred doses you need for the volunteers. Within another week, we’ll know if it works. We’ll then release the formula and process flow, and the FDA can compel Big Pharma to make 896MX on a scaled-up basis. Within a month of a successful trial, the healthcare system could deliver millions of doses a day. It won’t save everybody, but it’s a start.”
“That’s still too slow,” Holland objected. “The president won’t wait, and I can’t wait either. Her instructions to Overmeyer were explicit: The first ten thousand doses have to be in Washington within ten days. I’m to provide you with the people and equipment to hit that target.”
