“Expecting me?” she said.
“No. Everyone’s up,” said Larsen. “We’re hiking out of here in a few minutes. Don’t worry, we were going to swing by to say goodbye.”
“Yeah. Sure,” she said, smiling. “Hiking? I thought all of you had a ride out of here with David’s father?”
“We do. His dad is caravanning up with a few neighbors. They’ll be here in about two hours,” said Larsen, checking his watch.
“So why hike anywhere?”
“Call me paranoid, but I don’t want to be here that long,” said Larsen. “If they tracked Smith’s convoy—who knows.”
“He disabled all of that,” said Hale.
“I’m still taking a little walk this morning,” said Larsen. “Put some distance between me and this place. What brings you out our way?”
“We have some unexpected guests arriving at any minute,” said Hale.
“Spoken by anyone else under these circumstances—those words would terrify me,” said Larsen. “I’m surprised they got out that fast.”
“Me too,” said Hale, looking over his shoulder. “I think that might be them.”
Larsen turned to face two rapidly approaching vehicles.
“You guys having a party without me?” said David, appearing among the trees next to her.
“Sort of,” said Larsen, nodding at the vehicles. “We’re waiting for some guests to arrive.”
“How’s your son doing?” said Hale.
“He’s still sleeping,” said David. “This is a kid that can sleep until noon after doing nothing all day. After yesterday, I don’t expect him to open his eyes until about nine tonight.”
“Wave some pizza under his nose,” said Hale. “I bet that’ll do the trick.”
“I’d kill for some pizza right now,” said Larsen.
A silver Suburban and a well-worn, soft-top Jeep Wrangler rapidly approached from the south.
“Let me guess,” said David. “Chang and his new friends.”
Hale cocked her head. “Nice guess. How?”
“Just a feeling.”
They stepped out of the road as the vehicles arrived and came to a sudden stop next to them. Chang smiled at her through the Suburban’s rear passenger window, but didn’t open his door. She recognized the Suburban’s driver as one of the operatives that had carried medical supplies into the infirmary, but she couldn’t identify the others through the tinted glass.
Two men armed with submachine guns got out of the Jeep and took up a position facing the way they had come. Chang opened his door and stepped onto the road, followed closely by the driver. She caught a glimpse of the operative in the backseat next to Chang, recognizing her as the other operative she’d seen in the infirmary. She looked just as serious with her helmet off. The group’s leader was already out of the front seat, crossing in front of the Suburban.
“We need to make this fast,” he said. “Dr. Hale. Rich. It’s a pleasure meeting you.”
“Likewise,” said Hale, turning to Chang. “This is like a small miracle.”
“More like a big miracle,” said Larsen.
“We had a little outside help,” said Rich, glancing toward the two men watching the road. “Where’s Scott?”
“About fifty yards down the road,” said Hale. “Same distance into the forest. I have some people waiting for you. You need to get him to a hospital. I got the bleeding under control, but I don’t know what else is wrong. It’s a deep stab wound.”
“He’s still in good hands,” said Rich. “Thank you for taking care of him, given the circumstances.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “This is what I do. Doesn’t matter who he is or how he got here.”
Rich glanced furtively at Larsen, who stood next to her.
“What?” said Hale.
“They didn’t tell you,” said Rich.
“Tell me what?” she insisted.
“You did the right thing,” said Larsen. “Even David would agree.”
“Barely,” said David. “But, yes.”
“What are you talking about?” said Hale.
“I took Chang—”
“Kidnapped,” said David.
“Rescued,” said the driver, staring them down.
“Whatever,” said Rich. “When they taxied back with a busted plane, I grabbed Chang and took off. I honestly didn’t think any of you would make it back to NevoTech alive—even with Scott’s help. In my mind, he signed up for a suicide mission.”
“But you let him go anyway,” said Larsen.
“I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought it would jeopardize our chances of getting out with Chang,” said Rich. “It was his choice.”
“I would have treated him the same, regardless of the circumstances,” said Hale. “That’s what I do. Part of the oath I took as a doctor.”
“Which is why I thanked you,” said Rich. “Don’t ever stray from that path. It leads to dark places.”
“Very dark,” said Rich’s driver. “We need to load up our guy and get out of here before that darkness catches up with us.”
Who the hell were these people? The driver got back in the Suburban and drove down the road slowly, stopping when her two nurses stepped out of the forest and waved him down.
“Joshua is okay?” said Chang.
“One hundred percent—asleep,” said David.
Chang nodded, his eyes tearing up. “I can’t describe how helpless I felt when they dragged me off. I knew it was the right decision, but I felt like I had killed all of you.”
“What?” said David. “No. That’s not how any of us felt. It was a heated moment, but bringing you back to NevoTech would have been the wrong decision. Rich saw it clearly. I get the feeling he’s made a lot of similar calls in his career. We survived out of sheer, unforeseen luck. Seriously. Rich made the right call.”
“And it all worked out,” said Larsen. “Not sure how, but here we are.”
“And here we go,” said Rich, glancing at the stretcher being loaded into the back of the Suburban.
“I thought we’d have more time,” said Hale. “I need to tell you something. I think it could be important to your research.”
“My research is pretty much dead,” said Chang.
“Maybe not,” said Hale. “The vaccine you developed may have post-symptomatic efficacy.”
“I doubt it. Even the high-dose, intravenous administration of potent antiviral drugs barely makes a difference in the mortality rate once a patient shows the symptoms of herpes simplex encephalitis. And that’s when doctors catch the symptoms extremely early.”
“But you haven’t conducted clinical trials for post-symptomatic efficacy,” she said. “Right?”
“No. That’s not the market NevoTech wanted to pursue,” said Chang. “Wait. Have you seen someone’s symptoms regress? I thought everyone inside NevoTech was asymptomatic. Checked every four hours.”
She nodded. “Someone slipped through the cracks.”
“Who?” said Chang.
“Me.”
“You’re infected?” said Larsen.
“I started running a fever late in the morning,” said Hale. “It reached one hundred and two at one point, and I started to have headaches. I was going to report myself, but within a few hours of taking two of Dr. Chang’s pills, I felt considerably better. I’m not running a fever now.”
Chang stared at her, slowly shaking his head. “That’s—that’s incredible. The implications…”
“Are huge,” said Rich.
“Game changing,” said Chang. “I mean, this could be used to save lives right now. They could treat mild to moderately impaired patients before the virus consumed them. It would definitely save lives in the future.”
“Can they make enough of it that quickly?” said David.
“NevoTech can’t,” said Chang. “But I know someone who can. Greenberg.”
“Greenberg?” said Rich.
“He said they had massive production facilit
ies just waiting to produce any kind of biological warfare vaccines the government could license from private industry.”
“Who’s they?” said Hale.
“The military,” said Chang. “Greenberg works for the Department of Defense. Bioweapons Defense Division.”
“Worked,” said Rich.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Chang. “Not until we can prove that the vaccine can do what Dr. Hale suggests.”
“Then use me to test the theory,” said Hale. “Can’t you run some kind of lab tests on me?”
“Yes. Would you be willing to come with us? Is that okay?” he said, looking at Rich.
“As long as she’s not contagious, and she volunteers,” said Rich. “I’m done kidnapping—for today.”
“I volunteer,” said Hale. “Dr. Owens and a few other hospital staff have things under control.”
“Don’t you have someone coming to pick you up?” said David.
“No, actually, I don’t. I hadn’t made any arrangements. My parents are on vacation in Costa Rica,” said Hale.
“You’re kidding,” said David.
“Not kidding,” said Hale. “Good timing, too. They live in St. Louis.”
Chang didn’t look overly excited by that statement, and she knew why. If they hadn’t left at least a week ago, it was possible they could be infected.
“They’ve been gone for three weeks. Thirtieth-anniversary trip,” she said.
“That’s really good timing,” said Chang.
“Then that’s it,” said Rich. “You’re coming with us. The rest of you are good?”
“Are you offering a ride?” said David.
“How many do you have?”
“Seven. We were just about to hike out of here,” said David. “My dad’s a few hours out.”
“How far were you planning on walking?” said Rich.
“A few miles,” said David. “We just wanted to—you know.”
“Put some distance between yourself and this very tempting government target?” said Rich.
“Something like that.”
“I can take two in the Jeep and two more inside the Suburban,” said Rich. “The rest will have to split up between the two vehicles and stand on the running boards. I’ll take you down to Rushville. It’s about three miles south. We came through there on the way out. Pretty quiet. I’m headed east after that.”
“As long as you’re headed away from Indianapolis,” said David. “Count us in.”
“I need to say goodbye to Dr. Owens and a few others,” said Hale. “I hate to leave them here like this.”
“Half of the people are gone already. The rest will be gone by noon,” said Larsen. “You’re not cutting out that early. They’ll survive without you.”
Larsen was right. Everything was on autopilot at this point. Scott was their most critical patient, and he was coming with them. Barring any driving delays, everyone hiding in the forest would be on the road by lunch. Her work was done here. She had a different mission now. Not really new. Just bigger. Instead of saving one life at a time, she had a chance to save thousands. She took a step toward the Suburban in the distance, stumbling on her clogs.
“First stop is a new pair of shoes,” she said over her shoulder, laughing with the rest of them.
Chapter 56
Karyn Archer sat in front of a curved flat-screen monitor, sifting through the last of her prioritized electronic reports. Incident Zone One-Four had gone quiet from her perspective. KILL BOX protocols had cleared all of her intelligence sources from the city. All she saw now was unimportant clutter tagged by overeager military and law enforcement commanders at the quarantine boundaries. Reports that barely met the relevancy parameters set by program analysts. The CHASE agents assigned to her incident zone were either dead or vanished. Based on what they’d found over the past twenty-four hours at three of the four target locations, she was pretty sure they were all dead. There was no way to know for certain—but she’d taken steps to feel good about the assumption.
At 2:05 a.m., she requested two precision-guided, one-thousand-pound bombs. The “colonel” offered, so she took him up on it. Ragan’s CTAB hadn’t moved from Chang’s apartment for close to six hours at that point. Archer guessed they had decided to stay put for the night. Routine aerial reconnaissance taken at 3:11 a.m. indicated that Chang’s apartment building was a pile of smoldering rubble. Hopefully, Ragan’s team was at the bottom of it.
The only outlier was Eric Larsen. Three members of his team had been found dead at Chang’s house, inside a reinforced “safe room.” Their deaths could only be described as utterly bizarre. Forensically, the three appear to have shot each other. Circumstantially, it looked like Larsen had shot them and deserted. She’d liked that version better and forwarded it to her superiors. If Larsen ever showed up, she’d have carte blanche to bring him in—or drop a one-thousand-pound bomb from a circling stealth bomber on his head. She’d be happy either way.
Then there was Chang. Somehow he’d managed to run the gauntlet and disappear. That was the truly bad news. Chang was the real mission. Cleaning up the CHASE mess was just a side job. Archer was stuck here until Chang was confirmed dead or captured. And if he showed up on the evening news, she could expect a few one-thousand-pound bombs to drop on her own head.
She was about to get up to find a cup of coffee, when a red-flagged report hit her message box. What the fuck? Archer reread the contents of the message. The report was over five hours old! She picked up her phone and dialed a prefix that rang in the adjacent hangar.
“I thought we were done,” said Ecker, sounding half asleep.
“All teams out the door in three minutes,” said Archer.
“Three minutes? What the hell is going on?”
“Larsen’s still out there.”
The End
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Work by Steven Konkoly
The Zulu Virus Chronicles—Bioweapons/post-apocalyptic thrillers
“Something sinister has arrived in America’s heartland. Within 24 hours, complete strangers, from different walks of life will be forced to join together to survive the living nightmare that has been unleashed.”
Hot Zone (Book 1)
Kill Box (Book 2)
Fractured State Series—Near-future black ops thriller
“2035. A sinister conspiracy unravels. A state on the verge of secession. A man on the run with his family.”
Fractured State (Book 1)
Rogue State (Book 2)
The Perseid Collapse Series—Post-apocalyptic/dystopian thrillers
“2019. Six years after the Jakarta Pandemic, life is back to normal for Alex Fletcher and most Americans. Not for long.”
The Jakarta Pandemic (Prequel)
The Perseid Collapse (Book 1)
Event Horizon (Book 2)
Point of Crisis (Book 3)
Dispatches (Book 4)
The Black Flagged Series—Black Ops/Political thrillers
“Daniel Petrovich, the most lethal operative created by the Department of Defense’s Black Flag Program, protects a secret buried in the deepest vaults of the Pentagon. A secret that is about to unravel his life.”
Black Flagged Alpha (Book 1)
Black Flagged Redux (Book 2)
Black Flagged Apex (Book 3)
Black Flagged Vektor (Book 4)
Black Flagged Omega (Book 5)
JET BLACK (Novella)
Wayward Pines Kindle World:
GENESIS (Compilation of novellas set in Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines story)
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Steven Konkoly, KILL BOX: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller (The Zulu Virus Chronicles Book 2)
KILL BOX: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller (The Zulu Virus Chronicles Book 2) Page 28
