Sanctuary

by Courtney McPhail

  Elaine Haney had been an analyst in counter terrorism and he had worked closely with her for years. She had been one of the best, joining them fresh out of college and quickly climbing in the agents’ respect. She had not only excelled at her job, she was a nice woman who brought a smile and kindness into a very cold and heartless job.

  “You heard Harold,” Angela called out. “How many?”

  “Two dozen,” Malcolm said.

  “What colour were they?” Harold asked.

  “One dozen red, one dozen white.”

  The rifle was pulled back from the railing and Elaine started down the ladder while the other figure moved to join her. “My name is Special Agent Angela Sheppard.”

  He remembered that name and when the woman moved into the light, he recognized her face. She was older now, her face narrower though she still had her plump apple cheeks. Her wide set eyes were still the same light blue that he remembered from her pictures.

  “The Director is your uncle. I remember the picture the Director had on his desk of you winning your first debate tournament,” Malcolm said. “Is he here?”

  Before she could answer, the door behind him opened and a man appeared, but it wasn’t the Director. He had short black hair, dark skin and was dressed all in black. He had his hands in the air and he stepped into the room to reveal Claudia behind him, her gun pointed at his back.

  “We found him following you,” Claudia said. “Took his gun.”

  “He’s one of ours,” Angela called out. “Special Agent Nasir Haddad.”

  “You can let him go,” Malcolm told Claudia. “Where’s Veronica?”

  Claudia nodded her chin to the French doors and she appeared behind Banks.

  “Guess we should make introductions,” Malcolm said, waving his people inside.

  Claudia handed over the gun she had shoved in her waistband to Nasir. “Sorry for holding you at gunpoint. No hard feelings, I hope. My name is Claudia, by the way.”

  Nasir took the gun from her and smiled.

  “No hard feelings at all,” he replied in a clipped British accent. “I’m impressed that you could get the jump on me.”

  “She’s good at that,” Malcolm told him. “Retired Special Agent Malcolm Evans. That’s Corporal Mendez, Private Banks and Veronica Alpert.”

  Malcolm waited for Angela and Elaine to join them on the main floor before he began his questions again.

  “Are there any more people here?”

  “This is it,” Angela replied with a small frown. “Me, Elaine, Nas and Harold.”

  “The Director?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t heard from him since we left Langley. I was hoping he would be here when we arrived but we were the first. We thought we might be the only ones until now.”

  “It’ll be nice to have some new faces around here,” Elaine said. “It’s been just the five of us since Pennsylvania.”

  Malcolm smiled. “I’m glad you’re excited about new faces because we’ve got thirteen more waiting out on boats.”

  “Are any of them part of Omega?” Angela asked with a hopeful smile.

  Her eagerness had him hesitating to answer. He knew that when he said no, she would be disappointed. He also knew that disappointment could lead to a knee jerk reaction to fall back on the old world protocol. She could easily say that people required the proper clearance to be here and that would lead to a fight. He was tired of fighting and he didn’t want to fight someone he had known when she was a child.

  “No, they aren’t part of Omega,” he said. “They’re family.”

  Disappointment did flash across Angela’s face but she quickly replaced it with a smile. “Good, family is what all of us need right now. Let’s go get them.”

  The last of the weight that had been on his shoulders slipped away and he had the sudden urge to cry. They were here and the others were coming to join them. He’d promised them that he would bring them there and he’d finally done it.

  He hung back as the others left the lodge. He needed a moment to get himself together and wipe away the tears he couldn’t seem to hold back. Angela was the last one to head to the door and she paused to wait for him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. He nodded, managing to croak out a laugh through his dry throat.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. “Just having a moment here.”

  Angela gave him a sympathetic smile. “I understand but we should go and get the rest of your group over here.”

  She was right and so he gave a final swipe at his eyes and followed her outside to join the others.

  “That’s the clinic,” Angela told them, pointing at the smaller building as they passed it. “There’s also a lab and a satellite for communications.”

  “Have you heard anything?” Malcolm asked and Angela looked to Elaine.

  “Nothing government,” she replied. “All the secure channels are silent. There are civilians on the public channels. The fly-over states seem to be doing the best.”

  “Makes sense, less people out there.” He looked back to the lodge and the lighted windows that were still visible through the trees. “Are you guys running on a generator?”

  Angela shook her head. “Solar power. My uncle spent years preparing this place and he wanted it to be completely self-sustaining.”

  “We’ve also got a greenhouse, an orchard and a pantry and freezer full of enough food to last twenty five people a year.”

  “The Director was always thorough,” Malcolm said. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “He also named this place aptly,” Angela said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Sanctuary.”

  She was right, it was an apt name. One word to encompass all that this place had meant to his group. This had been what they had been searching for, what they fought for, some of them even giving their lives for the promise of it and now here they were.

  He only prayed that the island would continue to live up to its name. He had promised everyone that he would get them here but that was only half of it. He had also promised that they would be safe to build a life here. He had fulfilled half the bargain and now it was time to deliver on the rest.

  PART 3

  Subject File # 742

  Administrator: Are you ready for this?

  Subject: Do I have a choice?

  Malcolm stood in the main doorway of the lodge, listening to the soft sounds of snoring from the people sprawled out on the floor.

  The excitement of setting foot on the island had been high for everyone when they had docked at the boathouse. Though the dark night didn’t give them much of a view of the island as they walked to the lodge, it hadn’t dimmed anyone’s spirits. They had oohed and awwed at the sight of electricity in the lodge and Angela’s quick rundown of the various amenities available on the island.

  Still, it hadn’t been long before the excitement had worn off and exhaustion took its place. The day had been a long one and the children were the first to nod off. Elaine had offered to show them to the cabins but Malcolm had declined. They would stay here in the lodge, together, at least for the first night.

  His group had readily agreed with him. He knew that they weren’t quite ready to believe this place was safe enough for them to separate. He didn’t blame them because he felt the same.

  It was why he had insisted on maintaining a watch outside the lodge throughout the rest of the night. They couldn’t afford to let their guard down yet, not while they still didn’t know the lay of the land.

  He was also pretty sure there was no way he could sleep yet.

  The others might be tired after getting here but he was energized. A million thoughts and ideas were running through his head, the least of which was the massive potential in the small slice of the island he had already seen. He was itching for the sun to come up so he could get a feel for the place.

  The snap of a twig caught his attention and he turned around to see Angela and Nas walking up to the l
odge. When everyone had decided to go to bed, they had left with Elaine and Harold to go to their cabins but apparently that hadn’t lasted long.

  “I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk and found Nas,” Angela said when they reached the steps up to the deck. “We figured we could keep you company on watch.”

  “You guys showing up is the most excitement we’ve had in weeks,” Nas said as they climbed the stairs to join him on the deck. “Not that I’m complaining about the quiet. It was a relief after what we went through to get here.”

  Malcolm was curious to hear their stories and he gestured to the Adirondack chairs on the deck. The three of them settled into them and Malcolm was impressed that despite the hard surface of the chair, it was quite comfortable.

  “So, tell me what happened.”

  Angela was the one to speak first.

  “It was standard procedure when the outbreak started. It was only when the CDC identified that the virus was man-made that the Agency was brought in. As far as our records showed, there was nothing about a biological attack in any chatter we had picked up so we had to run it back and find patient zero.”

  “It was all hands on deck at Langley as we worked through all of our intelligence. We were finally able to trace it back to the points of origin.”

  Malcolm frowned. “Points? As in there was more than one?”

  Nas nodded. “Dulles, JFK, Logan, O’Hare, LAX and Miami International. They had managed to aerosolize the virus and released it in the international terminals.”

  Malcolm cursed. No wonder the virus had spread as fast as it had. The number of people that would have been exposed in those airports was astronomical and ensured the virus went global.

  “Do we know who was involved?” he asked.

  “Surveillance gave us suspects and we picked up one of them,” Angela said. “I interrogated him. Aaron Johnson. Born and raised in Philadelphia. It was a domestic attack.”

  “How the hell did a domestic terror cell manage to manufacture a virus like this, let alone weaponize it?”

  “That’s what we were working on when things started to fall apart,” Angela said. “The suspect was just transport. He gave up the name of the guy who had recruited him. We took that name to my uncle but by that time a national state of emergency had been called. Word from the Pentagon was the military had closed all bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan and had ordered napalming in Los Angeles and Chicago. It all happened so fast after that.”

  “We had a team in New York trying to track down another suspect but last we heard from them the jets were sweeping in and that was it,” Nas said, shaking his head.

  Christ, what an awful way to go.

  “We knew it was bad when my uncle ordered Elaine to put the Omega Protocol into effect,” Angela said. “He told us to gather up all the members in Langley and head north. He had been summoned to the DHS and he said he’d meet up with us later.”

  Angela trailed off, obviously thinking of the last time she had spoken to her uncle.

  It had to be hard on her. Malcolm remembered years ago when he had been working at the CIA and Sheppard had gotten the news that his brother and wife had been killed in a car accident. They had left behind their little girl and Sheppard had stepped up to raise her. Malcolm knew it hadn’t been easy for the man to balance his job and his niece but he done it without complaint. In fact, he had been immensely proud of her and had regaled anyone who would listen with stories of Angela’s accomplishments.

  Malcolm distinctly remembered the pictures of her posing with her various awards and honours from school. They had held prominent real estate on the Director’s desk for years. It had shown a softer side of the man in charge of national security and Malcolm had admired the Director for letting that side show.

  Nas had picked up on Angela’s sullen mood and took up telling the rest of the story for her.

  “There were twelve of us who left Langley but it wasn’t long before we ran into a military blockade. They stopped us and even with our credentials, they refused to let us through. Saunders, one of the older agents, demanded to speak with their CO but they refused which didn’t sit well with him.”

  “I remember Saunders,” Malcolm said, the memory of a no-nonsense Texan built like a brick shithouse, coming back to him. “He wouldn’t be used to his orders being ignored.”

  Nas managed a sad smile. “Definitely not. He got angry and words were exchanged. Then, without any warning, the soldiers opened fire on his vehicle.”

  Malcolm wished he could say he was surprised but he had seen and heard enough out there to know that it was expected.

  “We were in the other two vehicles and were able to get out of there. The three of us, plus Joan, Glen, Phillip, Stan and Figgins.”

  “We lost Joan, Stan and Figgins outside Pittsburgh when we were ambushed by a group who stole our supplies,” Angela said, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. “After that we decided the roads were too dangerous to travel much longer. We made a beeline for Lake Erie and decided we’d sail up the Detroit River to the island. It didn’t help. We were at a marina outside Sandusky when a group of infected set in on us. They killed Phillip before we could get out of there.”

  Angela’s eyes were haunted as she relived their escape in her mind.

  “What about Glen? What happened to him?”

  Nas frowned. “He got bit at the marina. We decided to bring him with us. He was able to step foot on the island before the infection took him.”

  “I’m sorry for the people you lost,” Malcolm said. “We lost our own along the way too. It was a hard road.”

  Nas nodded his thanks. “We had hoped to find others here but we were the first. That was a month ago tomorrow and you are the first we’ve seen come out this way.”

  “How bad is it out there?” Angela asked.

  “Bad,” Malcolm said. “At least as far as I could tell. We stuck to the back roads as much as we could. We ran into a few not so friendly groups too.”

  It was a bit of an understatement but he didn’t feel like rehashing the details right now. They shouldn’t be dwelling on what had happened. They were here now and they needed to focus on the future.

  “The people who came with me might be the last of the good ones.”

  “They are quite a mix of people,” Nas commented. “You said they are civilians?”

  Malcolm nodded. “But they aren’t useless. Quinton is a surgeon, Lorraine a nurse. We’ve got a mechanic, a teacher. They also know how to fight and how to survive.”

  “They’d have to, to have made it this far,” Nas said. “We need people like that. Don’t get me wrong, this place is great but there is a lot of work to be done to make it better.”

  Malcolm looked at the lodge. He could tell by the age and wear that it wasn’t something that Sheppard had built for the Omega. Not only was that clear by how long the building had been here, he knew that Sheppard would have built something more utilitarian given the opportunity.

  “What was this place originally?” he asked.

  “It was a lake resort,” Angela said. “My uncle bought it when the original owners put it up for sale. He figured it would be less conspicuous to convert this place into what he needed than to buy an undeveloped island and build from scratch.”

  “He converted over to solar power,” Malcolm said, repeating Angela’s earlier statement. “What else did he do?”

  “The lodge had a large cellar so he turned it into a fallout shelter,” Angela said. “Reinforced, radiation-damping walls, separate ventilation system, and water storage. The clinic used to be the staff dorms and the resort’s laundry was in the basement. He converted the basement into a lab.”

  “A lab?” Malcolm asked. “What for?”

  “My understanding is that this particular location was designed for a biological warfare or pandemic scenario,” Angela explained. “He wanted us to have the means to work on stopping whatever was hurting people. It’s why Harold came with us.
He was R&D at Langley.”

  “You’re working on a cure?”

  “Harold is,” Nas said. “Spends most of his time down the lab, he’s there now. Spends more nights down there than he does in our cabin.”

  A spark of hope came to life inside him and he immediately wanted to stomp it out. Hoping for a cure was too big of a dream. Even thinking it made him feel like he was taunting fate to take everything away as punishment for hoping for more than he should.

  “You think he has a chance?” he asked and Nas shrugged.

  “As good as anyone left I think. I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to tell him not to try. I’d rather someone try and fail than not try at all.”

  Malcolm found himself leaving that little spark to keep burning. On the road he had told himself not to hope for too much but maybe now that they were here, he could let himself hope big.

  “Well, I can’t promise any of the people I brought here with me are going to cure the infection but they are hard workers. They’ll do whatever is needed to make this place thrive. Getting here is what kept them going on the road. They want to make this place work.”

  “Frankly, I’m glad to have some civilians here,” Nas said. “The whole point of the Omega was to preserve the old world and to be the starting point for the rebuild. If we don’t house civilians that need it, what’s the point? We can’t rebuild without them. If we did, we’d end up with another Langley. This should be a home, not a base of operations.”

  “My uncle would agree,” Angela said. “The members of the Omega were only the first wave. Once the island was secured, he intended to have us go out and find civilians to bring back in the second wave.”

  “He shared his plans with you?” Malcolm asked.

  She shook her head. “No, he kept them to himself, sticking to protocol, but there is an office in the lodge. It still looks like it is set-up for the resort business, ledgers and inventory that would match a hotel but we found a large safe. Same combination he used for his home safe. It was filled with files about the Omega Protocol. He wrote out a five year plan.”