Matt looked at him, saying nothing.

“That’s ridiculous,” Ash said.

Matt changed the picture on the screen. Now, instead of a photo, there was an online news article.

“This appeared on a local Ann Arbor, Michigan, news website five days ago,” Matt explained.

LOCAL MAN, WIFE DIE IN HOUSE FIRE

First Lieutenant Martin Cross and his wife Emily were killed tragically last night in a fire that consumed their home. Army investigators at the base in South Korea where they lived believe the fire was started by faulty wiring, though an investigation is ongoing.

“South Korea?” Ash said.

Matt brought up two more articles, both for families that had been at Barker Flats. Their deaths were being called accidents, too. One family was said to have died in a car accident in Germany, while the other apparently had been caught in a storm while on a fishing trip off the Philippine coast.

“These are the only articles that have appeared so far, but we have no doubt that within the next three to four weeks, the rest of your neighbors will get their obituaries, too.”

“This isn’t possible. Someone’s playing a game here.” Ash shook his head at the screen. “These aren’t real.”

“They’re very real. If you want, I’ll take you to a computer and you can search whatever site you’d like.” When Ash didn’t say anything, Matt hit another button. “Do you recognize this man?”

Ash looked back at the screen. The photo that was now displayed was a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and didn’t look happy. It had obviously been cropped from a larger picture and blown up.

Ash’s first thought was that he’d never seen the man before, but there was just the hint of recognition—something in the man’s expression—that made him unsure.

“I…don’t think so,” he said.

“Not at Barker Flats?” Matt asked. “Maybe in the distance or in passing?”

Ash studied the photo again, but nothing new came to him. “I just don’t know. Who is he?”

“His name is Dr. Nathaniel Karp. He’s the man who infected your family.”

 

 

16

 

Jimmy was DOA when the ambulance arrived at the Sage Springs Hospital emergency room. The drive from the camping area at the dunes took nearly an hour, but Jimmy would have died even if the hospital had been right next door. Still, the two doctors who were on duty that night, Dr. Fisher and Dr. Morse, made a valiant attempt to bring him back, but to no avail.

Sage Springs boasted a population of only 12,347. And while the hospital was the best medical facility within a seventy-five-mile radius, it was by no means a top-of-the-line operation. That meant the staff it employed, while dedicated, often consisted of doctors and technicians who had graduated at the lower ends of their classes.

Drs. Fisher and Morse were no exceptions. That, of course, didn’t mean they lacked the skills to do their jobs. They were intelligent, caring men who, on that night, made a critical mistake.

The assumption they made, based on the information radioed to them from the ambulance, was that the incoming patient was suffering from either a severe case of the flu or pneumonia. Unsure of how contagious the patient might be, they had ordered all staff that would come in contact with him to wear masks and gloves at all times. They couldn’t have known it, but the bug was airborne and able to infect new hosts through eyes, ears, and any other entry point to the body, such as a cut. This was unforeseeable, and not their mistake.

Their mistake came once they’d pronounced Jimmy dead. Seeing how his body had been ravaged by the disease, and hearing from the ambulance attendants that others at the campground had reported Jimmy and his friends appeared fine earlier in the day should have made them realize something unusual was up. If they had recognized that, they could have immediately declared a quarantine on the entire hospital and limited the deaths to just those in the building.

But when the declaration finally came, it was several hours too late, and the town of Sage Springs paid a heavy price.

• • •

Dr. Karp was shaken from his sleep at 5:26 a.m.

Standing beside his bed was Major Ross, the man who served as his military liaison.

“There’s a problem,” the major said. “We’re set up in Conference Room D. Be there in five minutes.”

“What is it?” Dr. Karp asked.

But the major had already walked out of the room.

The doctor pushed himself out of bed, swearing under his breath. Ross had never given him an order before. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship. But an order was certainly what it had sounded like, and Karp didn’t like it.

Just to remind the major who was in charge, he let seven minutes pass before stepping into the conference room. Given that Ross had said “We’re set up,” Karp expected more than just the major waiting inside, but no one else was there.

“What’s going on that you couldn’t tell me in my room?” the doctor asked.

“Dr. Karp?” The voice came out of a speaker in the middle of the table. The doctor immediately recognized it as belonging to the Project Eden Director of Preparation (DOP).

“Sir, I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I didn’t realize you were involved in this meeting. Major Ross gave me no information.”

“Because Major Ross has no information,” the DOP explained. “He was merely doing exactly what I told him to do.”

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Dr. Karp said, “Of course,” then took a seat a couple of chairs away from Ross.

“Major, have you been able to reach Mr. Shell yet?” the DOP asked.

“He’s on hold, sir. I can connect him now, if you’d like.”

“Please.”

Ross leaned forward and pushed a couple of buttons on the conference phone. “Mr. Shell, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Director, we’re all present,” the major said.

In the silence that followed, Karp wondered if the major had accidentally disconnected the DOP, but then the man’s scratchy voice came out of the speaker again.

“At 6:22 p.m. Pacific Time last night, park rangers serving the Mesquite Dunes Recreational Area responded to a call from a camper concerned that someone using the campground had overdosed on drugs. The party in question was seen stumbling through his campsite before collapsing onto the ground. As a precaution, an ambulance was dispatched to the scene. The rangers arrived first, though. What they found was not a camper who had OD’d, but rather one camper who appeared to be very sick, and three others who were lying in their tent, dead.

“The surviving man was rushed to the hospital in Sage Springs, but died before reaching the facility. At 2:37 a.m., two of the nurses on duty started to become ill. A check of the other eighteen people in the building revealed that all but three were experiencing similar symptoms. These included headaches, body aches, and a general sense of exhaustion. One of the nurses had been on duty when the dead man arrived in the ambulance. She was smart enough to put two and two together, and immediately made calls to her county health department and the Center for Disease Control.

“I received a copy of the alert the CDC put out thirty minutes ago. This is not a public alert, and no media has been notified as of yet. CDC officials are on their way to the scene. In the meantime, the hospital has put itself under quarantine.”

The doctor frowned at the speakerphone. “What are you trying to suggest, sir? That this illness has something to do with us? That’s not possible.”

Silence again, then, “The gas station where your man Ellison was found and eliminated is only thirty miles from the campground at Mesquite Dunes.”

That gave the doctor pause. “Still,” Dr. Karp finally said. “Mr. Shell’s team burned the body and the car he’d been in. There’s no way he could have been the source.” Then a terrible thought hit him. “Unless he talked to someone first. But I find it hard to believe he would have done that.”

“There is another way,” the DOP said.

“What?” Karp asked, not seeing what it could be.

“One of the victims at the campsite was a man named Len Craddock.” The DOP let the name hang out there as if it should mean something to the doctor.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“I do,” Mr. Shell said through the speaker, a hint of dread in his voice. “He’s the person who discovered the body of the gas station attendant.”

Dr. Karp could feel the skin tighten across his arms. The station attendant had been killed because he’d witnessed what was done to Ellison. His death had been made to look like a robbery and having someone find his body had been part of the plan.

“But it’s my understanding that precautions were taken,” the doctor said. “The car and the body were removed. There was nothing there to infect him.”

“Records indicate that the call Craddock made to the police was placed through a pay phone outside the station,” the DOP told them. “The only other call on that phone that day happened minutes before Mr. Shell’s team arrived on scene.”

“Oh, dear God,” Karp said.

“Mr. Shell?” the DOP asked.

Shell took a moment before he spoke. “There was obviously an oversight, sir. I will deal with it.”

“Yes, you will. You will also help ensure this does not spread. Dr. Karp, Major Ross, you, too, if necessary.”

“Perhaps it would be best for an immediate quarantine zone to be set up,” Major Ross suggested.

Dr. Karp frowned. “I’m not sure if that—”

“What?” the DOP asked. “Necessary? It’s an excellent suggestion, Major. Our people are already on it. We cannot afford mistakes. The only way we will succeed is to control events, not have them control us.”

“Sir, if I may ask,” Shell said. “Has anyone tried to trace the number Ellison called?”

“Why?”

“It could help in locating Captain Ash. Given this new development, I think it’s even more critical that we bring him in. He can link this outbreak to Barker Flats. And while a connection from that to Bluebird would be impossible, it could raise concerns and interfere with some of our future work, creating unnecessary delays.”

“Yes, Mr. Shell. We have discussed that here. In addition to helping with the outbreak, you need to continue hunting for Ash. Any additional men you need, please request from your department head and they’ll be immediately assigned to you. As for the phone number, it was to a disposable phone purchased in Milwaukee, and no longer seems to be in service.”

The doctor was relieved. He’d dodged a bullet with the outbreak, since most of the blame seemed to be falling on Mr. Shell. He was still vulnerable on the Ash issue, but there was a way he might be able to improve that situation, too.

“Director? I have an idea about how we might be able to flush out Captain Ash.”

 

 

17

 

Ash pushed himself out of his chair and moved over to the monitor, his eyes firmly affixed on the image of Dr. Karp.

In rapid succession, he asked, “Is he some kind of spy? Who does he work for? Does the Army know?”

“Dr. Karp is an American citizen,” Matt explained. “Until three years ago, he worked for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He was then transferred to a classified assignment. That assignment eventually brought him to Barker Flats.”

Ash looked at Matt, confused. “Are you trying to say that the U.S. Government did this to my family?”

“We’re saying that Dr. Karp and the people he’s involved with did this to your family.”

“But you just said he works for the Army.”

Matt paused, then said, “The Army pays him a salary, yes.”

“So you are saying the Army did this to us. There’s no way I’m going to believe that.”

“The Army didn’t do this to you.”

Ash stared across the table. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Captain,” Rachel said, her voice soft. “You have unfortunately found yourself in a situation that is much, much larger than you can imagine. We have been…following this for many years, and sometimes it’s too much for even us to grasp.”

“Oh,” Ash said, taking a step back from the table. “Oh, I get it. You’re one of those conspiracy groups, aren’t you? What is this? Some kind of indoctrination? Trying to recruit me? Well, thanks for your help, but it’s time for me to leave.”

He turned for the door.

“If you’d stayed in your cell in California, you’d be dead now,” Matt said. “That much you can’t deny. We got you out. We saved your life. The least you could do is give us a few minutes to hear us out.”

“I think I’ve already heard enough.”

Matt started to speak again, but Rachel silenced him with a look as she stood up and moved between Ash and the door.

“Captain, I understand your doubts and concerns. You are free to go, of course. But we don’t think that would be wise.”

“And staying here would be? With a bunch of crazies?”

She studied him for a second. “Just give me one moment.”

She walked over to a cabinet along the wall. From Ash’s angle he could see the envelope he’d brought from the desert sitting on the shelf inside. But if that’s what Rachel was retrieving, she didn’t get a chance to pull it out.

As she bent down, the door suddenly thrust open, and a man Ash hadn’t seen before rushed in.

“PCN,” he said quickly.

Matt touched the controls, and the television switched from the image of Dr. Karp to the Prime Cable News network. A Breaking News banner was running across the bottom of the screen, while the rest was taken up by a female anchor at the network’s New York studios.

“…confirm twenty-two deaths at this point. Roadblocks have been set up around the town, and no one is being allowed in or out.” The image changed to a shot of a desert highway. Parked across the road about fifty feet from the camera’s position were several military vehicles and a couple highway patrol cars. In the distance beyond them was what appeared to be the edge of a town.

“Residents of Sage Springs have been advised to remain in their homes until otherwise instructed. We’re told that a first-response CDC team is on scene now, and that more medical personnel are en route. To repeat, there has been a report of a severe outbreak of what looks like a deadly version of the flu in the town of Sage Springs, California.” The anchor put her hand to her ear. “All right. We have Tamara Costello now just outside the roadblock. Tamara, can you tell us what’s going on there at this moment?”

The voice changed but the picture remained the same. “Catherine, we have just been asked to tell anyone who has been in the vicinity of Sage Springs or the Mesquite Dunes Recreational Area in the past twenty-four hours to call a special hotline the California Department of Health has set up. I believe that number should be on the screen now.”

As if she were running the control room, the Breaking News banner was replaced by a new graphic that read Crisis in the Desert on one side, and had a phone number on the other.

“Though there has been no official announcement,” the reporter went on, “speculation, confirmed by unofficial sources, is that this is not some naturally occurring outbreak, but has been caused by the deliberate release of a virus. One source I talked to believes this is a terrorist attack.”

“Tamara, if it is a terrorist attack, why was it done in such an underpopulated area?” the anchor asked.

“Our viewers might be surprised to learn, Catherine, that this part of California boasts a lot of military installations such as Fort Irwin, the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, and, closer to Los Angeles, Edwards Air Force Base. There was a report of an explosion two nights ago at a small military facility less than a hundred miles from here that we are checking out. I should stress, though, that event remains unconfirmed, and any connections to the outbreak are unknown at this point.”

“Tamara, I understand officials are looking for someone in particular. Is that correct?”

The guy who’d come running into the conference room suddenly said, “Here it is.”

“Yes, Catherine. That’s correct.”

Ash stared at the television, stunned, as the image of the desert was replaced by a photo of him.

“Daniel Ash is believed to be a carrier of the virus, though apparently immune himself. We’re told that if anyone sees him they should call the hotline or their local authorities, but should not, under any circumstances, approach him.”

“Is there any indication that Ash is one of the people responsible for releasing the virus in the first place?” the anchor asked.

“No one is saying that, at least not officially. They are only saying he is a person of interest and—”

Matt turned the TV off.

“Thanks, Jordan,” he said to the man who’d come running in. “Record it.”

“Already going.”

Jordan left.

Ash gazed at the blank screen, numb. A person of interest?

Rachel put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

He continued to look at the TV a moment longer, then turned to her. “I…I should turn myself in.”

“That’s the last thing you need to do.”

Suddenly realizing her hand was still on his shoulder, he pulled back. “What if they’re right, and I am contagious? What if I’ve infected all of you? Oh, God! And those people who helped me get out of there, drove me here, they could be sick already.”

Billy leaned forward. “The incubation rate and course for this particular virus is extremely quick. From infection to death—anywhere from eight to twenty-four hours. The point is, Captain, if you were a latter-day Typhoid Mary, most of us would already be dead, and the rest dying.” He looked around. “Everyone looks pretty healthy to me.”

“How do you know that? How can you possibly know anything about this…this virus?”

“The only way we could have gotten you out of that facility was if we had someone on the inside,” Matt said. “The truth is, the only reason we even knew about you was because of him. The same person was also able to feed us information about the virus.”

The size of the rabbit hole Ash had fallen into was cavernous. If he were to believe they had a man on the inside, it would mean he had to accept the idea that what had been done to his family and his neighbors was perpetrated by this Dr. Karp, an Army employee, and that all the families had been moved to Barker Flats specifically for the purpose of testing this virus. It was ridiculous. Completely unbelievable. Yet, if he didn’t believe there was a man on the inside, then how did they get him out?

Finally, he said, “If you did have someone there, how did he let this happen? How could he stand by and watch all those people die? My family? Our neighbors?”

“He wasn’t aware there was going to be a live test until it was too late,” Matt said. “But don’t read too much into that. Even if he had known, he couldn’t have done anything anyway. He would have been killed, and stopped nothing. At least this way he was able to get you out before he died.”

“Died?” Ash said, surprised. Then he remembered. “The guy who stayed behind so we could get away. The one who got caught in the explosion—he was your inside man.”

“Yes. But the explosion didn’t get him. He fled before it was set off, so he could get us one last report. Only…” Matt paused. “He said he was sick, and that he didn’t have long. The phone he called from was thirty miles from…from Sage Springs.”

Ash’s eyes widened. “The outbreak. He’s responsible?”

“It would seem so.”

“Then I must be contagious,” Ash said. “How else could he have gotten infected?”

Billy shifted in his chair. “Your immunity was of great interest to those running the test. The entire time you were in that cell, they were bombarding you with the virus, trying to see if it could break through your system.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. Our man reported that when the power came back on in the building, the system spraying the virus into your cell started up again, and the bug leaked into the main corridor.”

Ash finally sat back down, the weight of everything too much.

“Under the circumstances,” Matt said, “I think we’re going to have to insist you stay.”

“You mean you will stop me.”

“No. But we won’t help you either. And we’re a long way from anywhere out here.”

Rachel took her seat beside Ash, shifting her body so they were facing each other. “You’re a fugitive now, Captain, and the whole country knows it. Within twenty-four hours, they will finger you as one of those responsible. I guarantee it. You won’t be able to go anywhere without someone recognizing you. You won’t be able to talk to anyone. Here, you’re safe.”

“I don’t care about my safety. I only care about making those who did this to my family pay.”

“That’s a goal we would be more than happy to help you achieve,” she said. “But you can’t just blunder off and think you’ll be able to deal with this on your own. Information is power, and at the moment, there’s a lot going on that you don’t understand.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You’ll help me understand?”

“We’ll give you what you need,” she said.

He looked at the others, and they all nodded.

“Okay. I’ll stay for now. But the minute you deny me anything I think I need to know, I’m gone.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“Then let’s get started,” he said.

Rachel exchanged a look with Matt, then focused once more on Ash. “The first thing you need to know is about your children.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “What about them?”

“They’re alive.”

 

 

18

 

Tamara Costello was getting frustrated. The only new information she’d been able to find was that a food truck would be serving lunch about a mile back along the highway. Not very broadcast-worthy stuff.

Without anything new, her network, and all the other twenty-four-hour news channels, would just keep playing the same crap over and over, eventually venturing into areas of wild conjecture. It’s what always happened, and even though she was a part of the system, she hated that. This was supposed to be the age of information, not recycled garbage.

That’s why, after she completed her update with the brain-dead Catherine Minor at 11:10 a.m., she found a quiet spot and called her brother in San Francisco.

“Look at you getting all that air time,” he said as soon as he answered.

She couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve been watching?”

“Riveted. So, really, how bad is it?”

“No way to know for sure. They’ve got the whole town blocked off. I’ve tried to call people who live there, but all I get are busy signals. Even the cell towers are down. Thank God for my sat phone.” The network gave all its field reporters satellite phones in case they found themselves in areas that weren’t covered by mobile phone companies despite those fancy maps they were always bragging about.

“The whole town? Man, it must be bad. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.”

She snickered and shook her head. “What are you? Ten?”

“Seriously, Tam. Think about it. Something so small you can’t even see can kill you just like that.”

She thought she heard his fingers snap. “Look, Gavin,” she said, trying to get back on track. “I was wondering if you could do a little research for me.”

“Ha! I knew that’s why you called. You want to know more about the flu? The town? Give me five minutes and I can pull together enough info to fill up an entire hour.”

While Tamara had chosen a life in the spotlight, Gavin preferred one that was more private, and spent most of his time in his apartment doing freelance software programming.

“No. The network can find that stuff out on its own. I’m interested in this Daniel Ash guy.”

“The man the CDC’s looking for?”

“Yeah. Who is he? Why is he important? Where are some of the places he’d go? If you can actually find him, I’ll owe you big for the rest of the year. An exclusive interview would be incredible.”

“From a distance, though.”

“What?”

“From a distance. I mean, if he’s infected, you don’t want to get anywhere near him.”

“Right. From a distance.” She paused. “Think you can dig up a phone number?”

“If he’s got one, I’ll find it,” Gavin said.

“And anything else you can learn?”

“Sure, sis. I’m waiting to hear back from a client, so I’ve got some time.”

“Thanks, Gavin. You’re my secret weapon.”

• • •

Gavin Costello hung up with his sister then sat back down at his desk. Most of his non-computer geek friends were surprised by his setup. They expected multiple monitors, couple of high-end tower computers, and peripheral hard drives and gadgets stacked to the ceiling. What he really had was a 13-inch PC laptop and a backup hard drive that ran automatically in the background over his Wi-Fi network. This gave him mobility on those rare occasions he worked away from his apartment.

Deciding to go the easy route first, he pulled up his current favorite search engine and typed in the name Daniel Ash. Not surprisingly, there was more than one. From the picture he’d seen on TV, the Ash his sister was looking for couldn’t have been more than thirty-four or thirty-five, so that helped eliminate several of the possibilities. Then he tried to see if any of the remaining had a California connection. Two did, but the picture on the Facebook page that one of the links led to was definitely not the guy. The other lived clear up in Eureka and appeared to own a plumbing business. What would he be doing in the middle of the desert involved in a flu outbreak?

Gavin heard his sister’s voice from his TV. The screen was placed so that all he had to do was swivel his chair around to see it. It looked like she’d moved to the opposite side of the highway, but what she was saying was pretty much the same thing she’d been saying most of the morning. Still, it always gave him a kick to see her work.

He grabbed his cell phone and typed in a text:

Maybe you should report from the middle of the road next time. HA!

He sent it to her, muted the TV, then returned to his computer.

Five minutes later, as he was still trying to narrow things down, his phone rang. Expecting his sister again, he answered the call without looking. “Hey.”

Though the line sounded open, no one said anything.

“Tammy?”

Still nothing. He looked at the display. Blocked.

“Who is this?” he asked.

A click, and the line went dead.

“Whatever, man.” He dropped his phone on the table and returned his attention to his laptop, all but forgetting about the call.

Forty minutes later, he hit pay dirt.

It was a picture of a group of Army officers in a Fayetteville, North Carolina, newspaper from a few years earlier. The officers were from nearby Fort Bragg and had given a presentation to the local high school. One of the men in the photo was identified as Lieutenant Daniel Ash, and the more Gavin looked at him, the more he was sure it was the same guy in the photo shown on PCN.

“Nice,” he said, congratulating himself.

Several minutes later, he located information indicating that prior to being stationed at Fort Bragg, the lieutenant had spent a short time at Fort Irwin outside Barstow, California—less than sixty miles from Sage Springs. Where Ash had gone after Fort Bragg, Gavin wasn’t able to discover yet. Still, he knew Tammy would want to hear what he’d learned so far.

He grabbed his phone to call her, but for some reason he didn’t have a signal.

“What the hell?”

He always had a signal at home. It was one of the reasons he’d picked this apartment. In his business, he couldn’t afford to live in a cellular dead zone.

He decided to copy the links into an email and send them to her. He wasn’t sure if she could retrieve email on her sat phone, but she’d get it at some point. A split second after he hit SEND, he got an error message telling him his cable modem was not currently connected to the Internet.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Now he was really annoyed. He glanced at his TV. With the exception of a blue box across the center of the screen that read Channel Currently Unavailable, the screen had gone black. Apparently, the whole cable system, or at least the part that came into his building, was out of commission.

Just his luck that both it and his cell phone would go out at the same time. Maybe they were tied together somehow. A massive communications glitch. That should make the news. Well, if anyone was still getting a signal so they could watch it.

He set the email to send as soon as the connection returned, and got up to grab a soda out of his refrigerator. As he was deciding whether he wanted to make a sandwich to go with his Dr. Pepper, someone knocked on his door.

He was barely out of the kitchen when whoever it was pounded again, more urgent this time.

“Just a minute,” he yelled.

He looked through the security peephole in his door, but the person outside seemed to be covering it up. Had to be Dustin. He was always doing asshole things like that.

“Hilarious,” Gavin said loud enough so Dustin could hear him. Donning a reproachful smirk, he opened the door. “What the hell are you bothering me for at this—”

“Not a word.”

It wasn’t Dustin. It was a man holding a gun pointed at Gavin’s face.

“Sure,” Gavin said, then realized he’d broken the rule and added, “Sorry.”

The man stepped toward him, backing Gavin into the room. There were two others behind him, both big like the first man, wearing similar dark suits, and also armed.

Once everyone was inside, the last man in shut the door.

“Anyone else here?” the first guy asked.

“No,” Gavin said, shaking his head vigorously from side to side. “Just me.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying.” Gavin’s voice cracked a little, and he could feel his hands shaking at his side.

The two other men headed into the hallway that led back to the bedroom. They were only gone about thirty seconds before they reappeared.

“Clear,” one of them said, then stepped carefully into the kitchen with his partner.

There was another “clear” and they both returned.

“Your name’s Gavin Costello?” the first guy asked.

“Yes.”

The man touched a Bluetooth headset mounted on his ear. “We’re secure. You can release the building.” He looked at Gavin, then nodded toward the desk. “That your only computer?”

“What? Uh, no. I have a Dell in my closet.”

“Is the laptop the only computer you use?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. You want it? It’s all yours.”

Who the hell were these guys? If they were trying to rob him, they were the best-dressed home invaders in history. Whoever they were, though, if they just wanted his computer, great. They could take it and their guns and leave.

The main guy glanced at the other men. “Grab it.”

The slightly smaller of the two took the laptop from the desk. “Phone,” he said, then raised Gavin’s cell into the air so the others could see it.

“Bring it,” the main guy said. “That your only phone, Gavin?”

“Yeah. Yeah, only one. I don’t even have a landline.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

Gavin tried not to show his relief. They’d be gone in just a second. And he was going to be okay.

But then the man grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the door. “You, too.”

“What? Why me? What do you need me for? You got my computer. You’ll get good money for that.”

“No more talking or I pull the trigger.”

The man said this so matter-of-factly that Gavin bit his lip to keep from saying anything.

• • •

The main guy said, “We’re secure. You can release the building.”

Five seconds later, two doors down the hall, Mrs. McFadden’s cable came back on.

Good thing, too. One of the local stations showed reruns of Perry Mason every day at noon, and she hadn’t missed an episode in over a year. The moment the TV signal had gone out, she’d tried calling the cable company, but there’d been something wrong with her phone, too. Now all was right with the world again, and Perry would be on in just a few minutes to embarrass that stuck-up Hamilton Burger like he always did.

Of the eighteen other apartments in the building, there was only one additional person home, a man named Frank Bushnell. He worked graveyard dispatch for the police so he was sound asleep. The outage passed without him ever knowing anything was wrong.

In apartment 11, Gavin Costello’s apartment, as soon as the cable kicked back in, the laptop’s Wi-Fi reconnected with the Internet. While the main guy was telling one of his associates to grab the computer, the email program was going through its normal cycle. This time, after confirming that it was once more connected to the cyber world beyond Gavin’s walls, it sent off the single message waiting in the queue, finishing its operation just seconds before the associate slammed the screen shut.

• • •

A few hundred miles southeast, Tamara Costello’s sat phone pinged with an incoming email. At that moment, though, Tamara was on camera and didn’t hear it arrive.

 

 

19

 

The moment Rachel said that Josie and Brandon were still alive, Ash’s vision went gray.

In his mind, he could hear Josie’s cry, and feel how cold she’d been as he tried to keep her warm. He could even sense Brandon’s fear as they were being led out of the house at Barker Flats.

But most of all, he could remember the numbness, the horror, the disbelief, and the total devastation he’d felt when the voice in the ceiling had told him his children were dead.

When he finally regained his senses, he was on the ground, one leg tucked under him, with no idea how he’d gotten there. Rachel was kneeling on one side, while Pax was doing the same on the other.

“Are you telling me the truth?” he whispered.

“Let’s get you back in your seat,” Rachel said.

She and Pax lifted him to his feet and helped him into the chair.

While they were doing this, Matt walked over to the cabinet and pulled out the tape-covered envelope. From inside, he removed a folded legal-size envelope and a thumb drive. He handed the envelope to Rachel, and took the drive over to the control panel.

“We’ve already watched these,” Matt said. “They might not be easy to look at, but you need to see them, too.”

He stuck the drive into a port and hit several buttons.

The television screen was black for a moment, then gray, then…

A room, not too dissimilar from Ash’s cell at Barker Flats. Only this room had a door that was open, and a window that Ash got the sense didn’t look to the outside. The shot was from up high and angled down.

Lying on the bed was Brandon.

Ash couldn’t help but lean forward. Here was his son. He hadn’t seen Brandon’s face since they had been separated. He remembered now what he told his son at that moment. “Go with them. It’ll be okay. You’ll see me in just a bit.”

He’d believed it then, because that’s what they had told him. But it wasn’t true, so the last thing he had told his son was a lie.

“I made some time notations on the back of the envelope,” Matt said to Rachel.

Ash could hear her flip the envelope over, but he didn’t look. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the screen.

“Oh-six twenty-seven,” Rachel said.

The image started scrolling quickly forward, then slowed back to real time.

“This is six-thirty in the morning, just a few hours after you were both brought in,” Matt explained.

Brandon looked like he was asleep. Suddenly the door pushed all the way open, and someone in a biosafe suit came in. The person knelt down next to the bed and put something on Brandon’s forehead.

A few moments later, a voice said, “Temp, ninety-eight point five.”

Ash thought back. Six-thirty meant he’d been in his cell for at least four hours. By that point, he’d already been told that Josie was dead. But Brandon? He didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t think so.

“Next,” Matt said.

Rachel read off another time code. “Ten twelve.”

That, Ash knew, was definitely after when he’d been told about his son. No way it was later than that.

Once more the picture raced forward before resuming normal speed. The time stamp in the lower left read 10:12. The boy in the bed was still Brandon. And he was very much alive.

“Stop,” Ash said.

Matt hit pause.

“Skip ahead.”

“How far?”

“Nowhere in particular. Just let it run.”

Ash just wanted to see Brandon move, Brandon alive, Brandon definitely there longer than the voice had led him to believe. One hour, two hours, three, four. It was all the same, all revealing the lie he’d been told.

“Stop,” he finally said. “Is there video of Josie?”

“There is.”

“Show it to me.”

Her footage was more painful to watch. She was still ill. But she wasn’t dead. Ash made Matt speed through the footage like he had with Brandon’s, this time not stopping until Josie sat up.

“Play it,” Ash said quickly.

The image snapped to normal time. Josie had a hand on the wall, steadying herself.

“Hello? Hello?” she said. “Where am I?”

Dear God, he never thought he’d hear her voice again.

He could feel the tears gathering in his eyes, and the breath quivering in his lungs. But he sucked in deeply and forced himself to remain under control.

Matt turned the video off.

“What are you doing?” Ash said.

“I’ll give you the drive and have a computer set up in your room. You can watch as much as you want there. But if I were you, I wouldn’t. There’s nothing else that will mean anything. The most important thing was for you to see that they’re still alive.”

Ash glanced at the envelope in front of Rachel. “You said you had different times marked. There must be something you thought I should see.”

“Moments, only. Things I thought might help convince you. But you don’t need convincing.”

Ash hesitated, then asked, “Were they told anything about me?”

Matt looked at him for a moment. “Yes. At first they were told you were sick, then later that you had died.” He paused. “I can show you that if you really want.”

A spike of pain shot through Ash’s heart. His children, how they must be suffering thinking both of their parents were dead.

He shook his head. He would have to watch at some point, but he wasn’t sure he could take it right now. It was enough to know they were alive, that they had survived the mysterious illness that had apparently taken everyone else around them. That he would be able to—

His head whipped around, his eyes finding Matt. “They survived the disease, but…but the explosion!”

“No,” Matt said quickly, shaking his head. “They weren’t there. They were moved as soon as your daughter could travel, two days after they took you in.”

“Moved where?”

“Some place where they…”

“Where they what?”

Matt glanced at Billy, so Ash did the same.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

Billy cleared his throat. “Captain, you have an immunity to this particular virus. They’ve been looking for someone like you. What happened at Barker Flats isn’t the first time some variant of this virus has been tested. But we’re pretty sure you and your children are the first to survive. It’s obvious you’ve passed your immunity on to them. We think they are…running tests on your kids. Using them to pinpoint this immunity.”

A mix of anger and horror flashed in Ash’s eyes. “Tests?”

“Mostly with their blood, would be my guess,” Billy said in his nonchalant way.

“The good news,” Rachel said, jumping in, “is that it means they’ll want to keep Josie and Brandon alive.”

“I need to find them,” Ash said, pushing himself up. “I need to go now. I have to get them back.”

Rachel touched his arm. “If you go now, you won’t get within a hundred miles of them. Your face is all over the television. You’ll be caught, then all three of you will be lost.”

Clenching his teeth, he said, “I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

“We’re not asking you to do nothing.” Matt walked down the table until he was directly across from Ash. “We’re asking you to let us help you get them back.”

Ash was almost shaking now, his anger at those who had taken Josie and Brandon growing with each second. “How can you help me?”

Rachel smiled. “Let us show you.”

 

 

20

 

Hector Mendez arrived home at ten a.m. He lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of Victorville, California. The place had belonged to his mother, but she’d been dead for three years so it had been his since then.

That had also been around the time he and Lucy finally went their separate ways. It was his fault, and he knew it. He’d been a long-distance trucker when they were together, away from home for weeks at a time. He’d made some big stink about this being who he was and how he wasn’t going to change. But staying home by herself wasn’t who Lucy was either.

The irony, of course, was that not long after she left him, he gave up the long-distance work, and took a local trucking job for a regional bakery that had him home every day just about the time everyone else was going to their jobs.

His daily route started at midnight and took him from Victorville through Barstow, up to Sage Springs, around to Trona, then Ridgecrest, Johannesburg, Adelanto and finally home. His employer supplied mostly hotels, a few restaurants, and a couple of hospitals.

As was his habit, he and a few of the other drivers had breakfast at the local diner and then he’d driven home. Once there, he had his usual pre-sleep beer, watched one of the shows he’d recorded the night before, and went to bed.

He woke at three p.m., two hours earlier than usual. The reason was simple. He’d coughed himself awake. He headed into the kitchen where he hocked up what was in his throat, spit it into the sink, then got a glass of water.

Great, he thought as he chugged the liquid down. He hated being sick.

He decided to take a couple of cold tablets, the non-drowsy type since he’d have to be up and moving around in a few hours, and went back to bed.

When his boss called at 12:10 a.m. to find out why he was late, the ringing of his phone reached his ears but his mind barely registered it. Thirty minutes later, when Karl, a friend who also drove for the bakery, knocked on his door, he didn’t hear anything at all.

Hector was dead.

• • •

Tamara Costello didn’t see the email from her brother until after lunch. She wasn’t used to checking for them on her sat phone. Ninety-nine percent of the time she relied on her smartphone for email. But finally she noticed the tiny icon glowing dully on her display, indicating she’d received something.

She’d actually become annoyed with Gavin. She’d been trying to call him, but kept going straight to his voice mail. The email, however, more than made up for his lack of communication.

Daniel Ash was in the Army. Could it be that this was some kind of military accident, and not an act of terrorism like officials were starting to characterize it? She couldn’t help but make the connection to the still unconfirmed report of an explosion at a military installation two nights ago. Had that been an Army base? It was something to check.

She had another live spot coming up in one minute. She tried her brother one more time, wanting to see if he’d learned anything more. Voice mail.

“Dammit, Gavin. Where the hell are you?” she said.

“Tamara, thirty seconds,” her producer, Joe, announced.

While she did consider trying to get independent confirmation on Gavin’s information, the thought passed so quickly through her mind it was almost like she hadn’t had it at all. The several times she’d relied on her brother in the past, his information had always proven to be accurate. And there was no question that the Ash in the picture from one of the links Gavin sent was the same man in the photo authorities had given to the media.

As she got into position, Joe checked the mic clipped to her shirt. The moment he stepped away, she looked at the camera.

“How’s this?” she asked.

Bobby, the cameraman, kept his eye on the viewfinder and gave her the thumbs up.

“Okay, we’re coming up,” Joe told her.

As she put her earpiece back in, she could suddenly hear Greg Roberts in the studio. He’d taken over anchor duties from Catherine a half hour earlier. Tamara took a deep breath, put the appropriate concerned look on her face, then gave Joe and Bobby a nod.

She was ready.

• • •

“…that time until the CDC was notified,” the PCN anchor said. The graphic at the bottom of the screen identified him as Greg Roberts. “The situation seems to have settled into a kind of wait-and-see. We should learn more at the next press conference scheduled for two hours from now.” He paused. “Okay, we’re going to go back out to our reporter on the scene, Tamara Costello. Tamara, how’s the mood there?”

Dr. Karp frowned at his television. Mood? Where do they get these people?

The picture switched to the same desert shot beside the roadblock the network had been using most of the morning. Centered in the frame was Tamara Costello, their on-scene reporter.

“The high level of tension we noticed when we first arrived at the western roadblock has become more of a simmer as we await word of what’s actually happening in town,” she said.
“I’ve talked to several members of the highway patrol who are manning this post with a squad of Army personnel, and I can truthfully say no one has any more information concerning the residents of Sage Springs than we do here.”

The image on the screen split in two, with a shot of the in-studio anchor on the left, and Tamara in the desert on the right. “There’s been a report that at least twenty-five people have died in town,” Greg said, “and somewhere between seventy-five and one hundred are feared infected.”

“We heard that, too, Greg. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to confirm any numbers. I can say that twenty minutes ago, a convoy of vehicles, mostly Suburbans, passed through the roadblock and headed into town at high speed.” As she spoke, footage of the caravan replaced the two talking heads. There were five vehicles altogether, their windows blacked out. “Our producer, Tim, heard from someone on the roadblock that these were part of a CDC team here to help the situation.”

The picture switched back to the double shot.

“Are there any concerns that the virus could reach where you are currently situated?”

Dr. Karp rolled his eyes. Ten miles away through a warm desert? His skills were excellent, but they weren’t that excellent.

“Greg, we’ve been told that our position is completely safe. In fact, one of the officials who stopped here earlier made a point to say that even if the roadblock were just a mile out from the town, there would still be no problem. A source has told me that the extra distance gives the authorities enough room to spot anyone crazy enough to try and sneak into or out of Sage Springs. As we already know, two people have attempted this and have been arrested.”

“Thanks, Tamara. We’ll check back with you—”

“I do have one piece of new information that I can share with you, Greg. It concerns the man authorities have deemed a person of interest.”

Dr. Karp leaned forward. Beside him, Major Ross did the same.

“Daniel Ash?”

“Yes. According to my information, Ash is either in or was in the U.S. Army. We know that three and a half years ago he was a lieutenant at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and before that, he was stationed at Fort Irwin, which is less than eighty miles from Sage Springs.”

“How the hell did she learn that?” Major Ross said.

Greg, the anchor, looked equally surprised by this new information. “That’s certainly something we haven’t heard yet. Is there more?”

“That’s all I have at the moment, Greg, but as soon as I know anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Tamara. You and your crew be careful out there.”

“We will, Greg. Thank you.”

As the image switched to a one-shot of the anchor, Ross picked up the remote and hit MUTE. He then quickly punched a number into the conference-room phone, making sure the speaker was engaged.

One ring, then, “Yes?”

“Were you watching that?” Ross asked.

“If you’re talking about the Costello woman, then yes, I saw it,” Shell said.

“How the hell did she find that out?”

“Apparently her brother sent her the information in an email.”

“Her brother? I thought you had her brother.”

“We do. We only learned twenty minutes ago that the email had gone out before we were able to fully secure his equipment.”

“Twenty minutes ago? You could have stopped her then!”

Shell was silent for a moment. “There was no reason to. The information was going to come out eventually. It’s not going to do any harm.”

Dr. Karp, who’d been content to let the other two fight it out, finally said, “I think we can use this to our advantage.”

Major Ross glanced at him doubtfully. “You want to explain that?”

“We’ve already been putting the pressure on Captain Ash. A little more can only help. I say we identify him as a mole. People will already be thinking that’s a possibility anyway.”

“So change him from a person of interest into a suspect,” Shell said, the hint of a smile in his voice.

“Not a suspect,” the doctor said. “The suspect.”

It would either flush Ash out or get him killed. Either way, he wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

 

 

21

 

The one thing Ash was very good at was going all in when he decided on a course of action. The only goal he had in his life now was getting his children back. Rachel, Matt, and the others described a plan that, even a few hours earlier, he would have found crazy. But not only was his face plastered all over television, it was now being openly speculated that he was responsible for the virus outbreak, exactly as Rachel had predicted.

Give it another day and he would be branded a terrorist, something they were all convinced would occur. And when it did, not only would he be in danger of being arrested if anyone recognized him, there was a good chance some “concerned citizen” would try to kill him.

If he was going to save his kids, the Ash he saw every morning in the mirror had to go.

“Watch your step,” Matt said as he opened a door that led down into the basement of the Lodge—the name that apparently everyone called the ranch’s main building.

Matt went down first, with Ash following and Billy bringing up the rear. When they reached the bottom, Ash saw that the space was mainly being used for storage.

Matt headed straight to the south wall, stopping in front of a clear spot between two shelving units. For several seconds, he didn’t move. Ash looked over at Billy, his eyebrow raised in question, but Billy was looking at the wall, too.

A sudden thunk caused Ash to look back around. Nothing had changed as far as he could see. Then Matt reached out and pushed on the wall. A door-shaped panel of stone moved inward, and a light in the space beyond came on.

Matt started to go through the opening, but Ash hesitated. “You’re not going to lock me in down there, are you?” He’d had his fill of confinement.

Matt paused. “Absolutely not. Besides this, there are two other ways out—one that exits in the dormitory where your room is, and another in the ruins of an old barn in the trees. We’ll show you both, and I promise no doors will be locked behind you.”

The two men watched Ash until he nodded and said, “Okay.”

Stepping through the door, Ash found himself in a five-foot-by-five-foot room. As soon as Billy closed the secret panel, Matt put his hand on the wall. A small square section surrounding his palm lit up for several seconds. As soon as it went dark, the wall to their right slid open, revealing a set of stairs.

These were at least double the length of the ones that led down from the first floor into the regular basement. When the trio reached the bottom, Matt palmed the wall again, and a door popped open.

The only thing about this new level that said basement to Ash was the lack of windows. Otherwise, he thought it was very much like a high-tech military facility. There was a long central corridor running down the middle, with rooms and other hallways leading off to the sides.

“How big is this place?” he asked.

“The footprint’s about twice as large as the Lodge,” Matt explained as they walked down the corridor. “We can comfortably house fifty people down here for several months, if necessary. There are actually two more levels below this, but both are smaller and used only for storage.” He pointed to the left, down an intersecting hallway. “There’s a firing range down there, and our armory. That room…” He pointed at a door just head. “That’s the IT room, where all our servers and other computer equipment live.” He nodded at another hallway. “We have a small cafeteria down there, and several dorm rooms just on the other side of it.”

“I thought bomb shelters went out with the fifties.”

Matt glanced at him. “There are a lot more things to be scared of than just bombs.”

“Like what?”

“Like viruses that get out of control,” Billy said.

“Or, more importantly, the people behind them,” Matt added. “Here we are.”

He opened a set of double doors, then ushered Ash in. Billy’s examination room upstairs was nothing compared to the full-on operating room they’d just entered.

Billy pushed past both of them, heading straight for a sink against the wall. “There’s a shower and some gowns back there,” he said to Ash, pointing at a door in the far corner. “When you’re done, come back here and I’ll throw a couple ideas at you.”

Ten minutes later, they were all standing in front of a computer screen on a counter not far from the surgery table.

“If we had time, I’d do a lot more, but for now we need to achieve the biggest change we can with the minimum amount of downtime for you. Now, this is what I was—”

“I don’t care what you do,” Ash said.

“Don’t you want to have some say?”

“I just want my kids back.”

No one said anything for a moment.

Matt gave Ash’s shoulder a pat. “I’ll choose for him.”

Billy looked at Ash, silently asking if that was okay, but Ash said nothing.

The ranch’s doctor shrugged. “All right, then. Let’s mark you up.”

• • •

Rachel was sitting next to Ash’s bed when he woke, a book in her lap. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

His whole head throbbed. “I’m fine. What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“Evening, or…or morning.”

“Evening. You haven’t been out that long.”

It had been two p.m. when the surgery began, so he’d been unconscious for seven hours. He tried to touch his face, but it seemed to be covered in bandages.

“You’re a mess right now,” she said. “But in a couple of months it’ll all look normal to you.”

He tried to push himself up, but couldn’t. “I can’t…wait a couple of…months.”

“Of course not. We talked about that, remember?”

Did we? Maybe.

“Two days only, and we’ll use that time to get you as prepared as possible.”

Two days also seemed like too long. But what choice did he have? Without the new face, there was no chance he would ever even get close to his kids.

“Do you want to go back to sleep? Or get started?”

“Get started,” he said, his voice still weak.

“Excellent.” She picked up a folder that was on the stand by his bed. “Who are you?”

He squinted at her. “What?”

“You can’t be Captain Daniel Ash anymore, so who are you?”

Now he understood what she meant. A false name. “I don’t care. Anything. John Smith.”

“I think we can do better than that. Besides, you’re not just choosing for yourself, you’re choosing for your kids, too.”

He started to shake his head, but it only made it pound harder. He gave it a few seconds, then said, “Once people know what happened…we can go…back. Be ourselves again.”

She gave him a sad, knowing smile. “I tell you what. Why don’t we just pretend it’s important for right now? Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Sure. Whatever,” he replied, thinking he’d just choose the first name that came to mind. “How about—”

She touched his hand, stopping him. “I have some choices for you.” She opened the folder. “Tell me which one of these grabs you. Tyler Wright, Harold Boyce, Adam Cooper, William Keys, or Samuel Hunter. Anything stand out?”

He honestly didn’t care at all. “The third one,” he said.

“Adam Cooper?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He was silent for a moment. “Because I like the number three.”

She raised an eyebrow, then laughed softly to herself. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged, rifled through the papers in the folder, and pulled one out. “All right, Mr. Cooper. Let’s see exactly who you are.”

 

 

22

 

Karl Trainer could have just let it go, but he wasn’t that kind of friend. Besides, his route took him near Hector Mendez’s house anyway, so stopping for a quick check to see why his friend hadn’t shown up for work wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

When he got there, the first thing he noticed was Hector’s car still parked out front. He’d been hoping that maybe they’d just missed each other on the highway, and Hector was already at the warehouse. Of course, it could have been that his friend was having car troubles and had gotten one of his neighbors to drive him in. That would definitely explain why he was late.

Sure, that had to be it.

Karl almost drove off, but, hell, he was here anyway. Might as well check. He went up to the door and knocked.

No answer.

“See? Not home,” he said to himself.

As he took a step off the porch to head back to his rig, the nape of his neck began to tingle.

“Dammit,” he said.

His wife called it his whodoo-voodoo. He’d get it every once in a while, a feeling that something wasn’t right. The feeling itself wasn’t always right, either. Still, there were enough times it was that he’d learned not to completely ignore it.

With an exasperated sigh, he decided to have a look around.

He’d been to Hector’s enough times that he knew its layout. Contrary to most of the houses he’d lived in, the living room in Hector’s place was in the back. Up front were the spare bedroom and the kitchen.

He skipped the window to the spare bedroom because he knew Hector only used it to store his mom’s old stuff, and glanced into the kitchen. There was nothing unusual there. An empty beer bottle on the counter, but what house didn’t have one of those now and then?

Hector’s place was far enough out of town that he didn’t need a fence. So Karl simply moved around the house and looked through the sliding glass door into the living room.

Nobody there. Nothing out of the ordinary. But that damn tingle wouldn’t go away.

He moved along the back to the window that looked in on Hector’s bedroom. The shade was pulled down, but the window was open about four inches so air could get inside.

“Hector?” he called through the gap.

Silence.

“He’s not here,” he said, trying to convince the tingle this was one of those times it was wrong. But it just kept burning away back there, in no apparent hurry to leave.

The screen over the window was loose, so it was a simple matter to pull it out a few inches, slip his hand behind it, and move the shade out of the way so he could take a look.

The room was dark, full of shadows, but the glow from the clock radio on the nightstand was bright enough that Karl could see someone lying on the bed. By the guy’s shape, Karl was all but positive it was his friend.

“Hector, is that you? Buddy, what are you doing? It’s after midnight. Hector. Hector! Wake up.”

Hector didn’t even twitch.

Karl’s first thought was that his friend had had a heart attack. Hector did love his greasy burgers so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise.

“Goddammit. I swear if you’re dead, I’m going to be pissed!”

Not knowing what else to do, Karl pulled the screen all the way off, pushed the window out of the way, and climbed through the opening. There was a dresser just on the other side, and as much as he tried to be careful, he ended up knocking a few things onto the floor before his feet reached the carpet.

“Sorry,” he said automatically.

Hector was lying on his side, facing away from him, so Karl moved around the bed, flicking on the bedroom light as he passed the switch.

It was Hector all right.

Karl put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and was surprised at how cold Hector felt.

“You okay, man?” he said, shaking him.

He touched his friend’s neck, searching for a pulse. But there was nothing.

“Oh, God.”

He was too late. Hector had already passed. As he started to pull his hand back, he noticed a whole pile of tissues, half on the bed, half on the floor below it. Without even thinking about it, he leaned down to take a closer look, then suddenly stopped himself and took a step back.

The previous night had been his off night, which meant he’d gone to bed a lot earlier and gotten up around noon. While he’d been sitting around the living room, flipping through the channels on the TV, he couldn’t help but get sucked into the news about the deadly flu outbreak in Sage Springs. Some of the reporters were saying that so far anyone who caught the disease had died. By the evening, after his wife had come home and they were watching the news together, the reports gave the impression that the situation was under control.

But here was Hector, dead from what looked like the flu to Karl. And didn’t Hector’s route take him through Sage Springs?

He stumbled back further, falling to the floor, his hand touching something moist. Quickly, he pushed himself back to his feet, not taking the time to see what it was.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”

Facing the bed as if he expected Hector to rise out of it and attack him, he moved back to the window and scrambled outside.

There, he doubled over and rubbed his face as he tried to catch his breath. After several seconds, he stood up, knowing he had to get out of there. He raced to his truck and reached up to open the door. That’s when he saw it. The damp spot on the side of his hand. Water or…

…mucus. Hector’s snot.

Instantly he thought about the moist spot he’d touched when he fell.

Eyes wide in panic, he dropped to the ground and wiped his hand against the asphalt, but he knew it was already too late. He’d rubbed his hand across his face. It could have gotten in his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Hell, chances were he’d been infected the moment he stepped into the room.

“Unofficial sources have told me that, so far, no one who has caught this flu has survived.”

I’m a dead man.

Karl’s mother had been a saint, at least to him. She’d been the nicest, kindest person he’d ever known. “Just doing what’s right,” she’d say. “Don’t know how to live any other way.” Karl had learned from her example and tried to live that way, too. He was a good son, then later a good husband, and a good friend, as was evident by his trip to check on Hector.

Kneeling there beside his truck, he knew there was only one right thing he could do now.

He made three phone calls as he drove away. The first was to 911, reporting Hector’s death and warning them that it appeared to be related to the Sage Springs flu. The second was to work, telling them that Hector was sick and would be staying home, in case they were thinking about sending someone else out to check on him. He didn’t mention his own plans, that he wouldn’t be finishing his route, or, in fact, wouldn’t even be starting it.

The third call was to his wife’s cell phone. At that time of night, she would have turned it off, knowing if he were going to call, he’d use their landline. But he didn’t want to talk to her. He just wanted to tell her he loved her one last time, so he said it to her voice mail, then turned off his phone and shoved it under his seat.

After that, he drove into the desert, away from the highway, and down a side road he was pretty sure no one would be on for several days. After he parked, he found a couple scraps of paper in the glove compartment and wrote two identical notes:

DEATH FLU VICTIM INSIDE

DO NOT OPEN DOORS

CALL CDC

He then put them on the windows of both doors, and settled in.

If he were still feeling okay by noon the next day, he’d drive back into town and take whatever punishment the company decided to give him.

But punishment was unnecessary. Karl Trainer never did drive back into town.

• • •

Unlike Karl, the three guys who’d had breakfast with Hector—Luis Chavez, Diego Ortega, and Al Rangel—were not blessed with the foreknowledge of what happened to them. So the virus that was believed to be contained in the small town of Sage Springs gained more and more of a foothold in Victorville with every person the three men came into contact with. This included, but was not limited to: the waitress and hostess at Kerry’s Diner where they’d eaten, the customers at Ralph’s supermarket between 11:41 a.m. and 12:03 p.m., Al Rangel’s neighbor Charlie Fisher, and their respective spouses.

The disease then spread further through the eastern part of the city, clinging onto new hosts wherever it could. It was only by pure chance that none of those touched were heading over the hill into San Bernardino or Riverside or Orange County or Los Angeles. If that had happened, things could have gotten a whole lot worse.

Once again, Karl proved to be a hero. His call to 911 about Hector led to the entire town being shut down before sunrise, and the quarantine zone being expanded to a roughly triangular area that went from Victorville in the West, to China Lake in the North, to Barstow in the East.

When the calls of more sick and dead started coming in, at least it didn’t catch anyone by surprise. And by luck and the quick work of the National Guard, the Victorville branch of the outbreak ran its course without spreading further.

Unfortunately, health officials in Victorville weren’t the only ones who started receiving calls.

 

 

23

 

When Ash woke the morning after his surgery, the pain in his head had become more of a throb—a huge, pounding throb. Pax was asleep in a chair in the corner. Apparently he’d been given the late shift.

Carefully, Ash swung his legs off the bed, then walked, painful step after painful step, to the bathroom. When he finally came back out, Pax was awake.

“I’d have helped you if you needed it,” Pax said, getting out of his chair.

“I didn’t need it. Where are my clothes?”

“You should lie down. Take it easy.”

“Where…are they?”

Pax frowned and shook his head. “I’ll get ‘em.” He opened the closet next to the bathroom, pulled out a set of clean clothes, and laid them on the bed. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

It took Ash fifteen minutes to get dressed. When he walked out of the room, he found Pax leaning against the wall in the hallway. “Looks like you’ll live,” Pax said, giving Ash the once-over. “Come on. Everyone’s in the cafeteria.”

Ash knew he wasn’t a pretty sight. He’d taken a look at himself in the mirror, not because he was curious, but because he wanted to remember what the people who’d done this to his family had forced him to do. He wanted to remember the bandages, and the swollen face, and the bruises. He wanted to remember it all.

The cafeteria was more like a wide spot in the corridor than a room to itself. There were four long tables and, at the back, a counter that opened into a kitchen.

Matt, Rachel, and Billy were sitting together at one of the tables, while a woman Ash hadn’t met before was sitting at the next one over, alone. She had coffee-colored skin and long, black hair. After a moment, he realized she might very well be the woman he’d seen doing shoulder exercises outside the day before.

In front of the tables was a TV on a cart. As soon as Ash and Pax walked up, Matt muted the volume, and the others got up and walked over to greet them. Everyone, that was, except the unknown woman.

“You should still be lying down,” Billy reprimanded Ash.

“I think he looks fine,” Rachel said. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” Ash told them. “But I’m not going to spend the day in bed.”

Billy moved in close, examining the bandages and touching Ash’s face. Twice, Ash winced.

“I can give you something for the pain,” Billy offered.

“No.”

Matt smiled. “You look fine to me. Well, except for your face. Come. Sit down.”

As Ash took a seat, he glanced at the TV. They’d been watching the news.

“What happened while I was out?”

Rachel said, “Daniel Ash is officially a suspected terrorist.”

He took a breath, trying to keep his anger in check, then nodded. “Just like you said.”

On the screen, there was a shot of the desert. It was flat and brown and looked very much like the desert he’d seen on TV the previous day, and the desert he’d lived in for a month or so before…it happened.

The only difference today, though, was that instead of a steady shot, the picture was wildly jumping around. In the upper corner was a small graphic that read Earlier Today.

“What’s going on?” he asked, nodding at the screen.

Matt grabbed the remote and deactivated the mute.

Out of the speaker came the sounds of pounding feet, cloth rubbing against cloth, heavy breathing, and wind whipping across a microphone. Whoever was carrying the camera was running.

“Watch out! Bobby, Bobby. Watch out!” a female voice said.

The camera tilted quickly to the ground, revealing an offset crack in the asphalt. The cameraman seemed to take a hop step, then the image moved back up.

“This way,” the woman said.

As the lens turned to the left, the back of a young woman came into view. She glanced over her shoulder at the camera. It was the reporter Ash had watched on TV the day before.

“Just carry it, Bobby. You’re going to fall otherwise.”

The picture swung wildly for a few seconds, catching sky, then ground, then feet, before stabilizing at a lower angle. The girl was still in the picture, running just a few feet ahead. Visible now beyond her was a military helicopter. As the image moved a bit to the right, Ash realized there wasn’t just one helicopter, but several.

The woman looked back again, this time her gaze moving well beyond the camera. “Joe! Hurry up!”

There were uniformed soldiers standing outside the open doors of the helicopter. As soon as the reporter got there, one of the soldiers grabbed her arm and helped her up.

“All the way in, ma’am. All the way in,” he ordered.

When the cameraman got there, the procedure was repeated. Once more the image became chaotic, then settled back down and angled out the door the cameraman had just come through.

There were several dozen people running through the desert toward the helicopters. In the distance, Ash could see cars and media vans parked along the highway, and the same large military trucks that had been blocking the road since the previous day.

Seven people seemed to be heading for the cameraman’s helicopter. One of the soldiers took a few steps toward them.

“Only room for four more! Only four!” he yelled, holding up four fingers. He then pointed at the three people farthest away. “You, you, and you! Over there!” He directed them to a neighboring helicopter, but none of the three changed course. “No more room here! You’re over there!”

The four who were okayed to get on reached the helicopter and climbed aboard.

“Glad you could join us,” the reporter said to one of the men. Ash guessed he was probably the Joe she’d been yelling to earlier.

The other three were still coming, so the soldier who had been trying to redirect them got between them and the helicopter, then moved the rifle that had been slung over his shoulder into his hands. He wasn’t exactly pointing it at them, but he was making it clear he could.

“No. Room. Here. That one!” He tilted his head at the other aircraft.

This time the three stragglers got the message.

The soldier and his buddy who’d been outside with him jumped through the door, then yelled up front, “We’re good to go.”

Almost immediately the helicopter lifted off. There was a final bird’s-eye shot of the desert, with Sage Springs laid out in the distance, then the image on the screen switched to the anchor in the studio.

“Those startling images were taken by cameraman Bobby Lion. With him was PCN reporter Tamara Costello and their producer Joe Canavo. The video was shot earlier this morning as they were evacuated out of the expanded quarantine zone that now stretches over a large portion of the Mojave Desert in Eastern California. As a reminder, if you are watching us from within the quarantine zone, you are asked to stay in your homes until further advised and avoid contact with anyone other than those who are already in your home with you.”

“It’s spread?” Ash asked.

“Several cases reported in Victorville this morning,” Billy said. “That’s just northeast of L.A. They’re also calling it the Sage Flu now.”

“My God.”

“You’ll want to watch this,” Rachel said, still looking at the TV.

“…alert for this man.” The anchor had been replaced by the same picture of Ash the networks had already been showing. “Daniel Ash, a captain in the U.S. Army, is now thought to be behind this terrorist attack. His motives are unknown at this time, but sources do tell us he’d been showing signs of instability since returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. As we learned earlier this morning, this tragedy was made worse by the discovery that Ash apparently killed his own family prior to releasing the lethal virus.”

The image changed to a picture of Ash with Ellen, Josie and Brandon.

All Ash could do was stare at the screen. Any doubts he may have had about what Matt and the others had told him—gone. Completely.

“That’s enough,” he finally said, then stood up. “I want to get to work.”

“Sure,” Matt said. “But why don’t we get you some breakfast first?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re going to need to eat something,” Billy said.

“I said I’m not hungry. So what’s next?”

Matt shared a look with Rachel, then glanced at Pax. “Weapons?”

“Sounds good to me,” Pax said. He rose to his feet and smiled at Ash. “How about a little target practice?”

“Lead the way.”

• • •

The door Pax stopped in front of not only had two deadbolts, but also a thumbprint-recognition screen that released steel rods holding the door in place from above and below. Inside was the armory. Weapons hung on all the walls, while more were stored on shelves.

“Most of these never get used,” Pax explained. “They’re here more for education, so we’re familiar with anything we might come up against.”

“Are you guys like some sort of militia? Is that what this is?”

Pax was silent for a moment. “That’s really a hard question to answer. I guess in some people’s minds we might be called that. But our purpose isn’t to create our own little country, or take on the government, per se. But you should really talk to Matt about that. He’s the explainer. Me, I’d just mess it up.” He flashed a quick smile. “When was the last time you fired a handgun?”

“I don’t know. Four or five months ago.”

“How good are you?”

“Good enough. Better with a rifle.”

“Probably gonna want to avoid rifles for a while,” Pax said. “If that butt’s in your shoulder and it kicks off and hits you in the face, you will not be happy. Of course, you could have the same problem with a pistol if you can’t control the recoil.” He smiled again. “Break your nose all over again. That’s not my idea of fun.”

“Don’t worry. I can control the recoil.”

“Thought you could.” Pax smiled. “How about a little pistol refresher? Sound good to you?”

“Sure.”

Hanging on one wall were at least a hundred different handguns.

“The Army issue you an M9?” Pax asked.

“Yeah.”

“I could pull down one of those, if you like, but I prefer one of these three here.” Pax removed three pistols from the wall.

“I’m not married to the M9, so if you’ve got something better, great.”

Near the door were two floor-to-ceiling cabinets.

“Here,” Pax said, handing the guns to Ash.

With his hands free, Pax pulled a couple boxes of ammunition out of one of the cabinets. He then motioned Ash back into the hallway, and led him to the door on the opposite wall.

“Right in here,” he said as he unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Ash could sense the depth of the room even before Pax flipped on the lights and revealed a space that moved out from the door for at least fifty yards. Not too far in was a row of narrow dividers, and tracks along the ceiling that ran the length of the room. A classic indoor firing range.

Pax set the boxes of bullets on the shelf of the middle divider, then took the guns back. “As you might have noticed, we’ve got three compacts here, all nine millimeter like your old M9.” He set two of the guns down, then held up the third. “This one’s a Smith & Wesson M&P Compact. Twelve rounds plus one in the chamber. Trigger pull at six and a half pounds.” He put it down, and picked up the next one. “Glock 19. Fifteen rounds standard. Five and a half pounds on the trigger pull.” He replaced it with the last. “And this one’s the SIG SAUER P229. It holds thirteen rounds. Single-action trigger pull at four-point-four pounds. So, which would you like to try first?”

Ash decided to take them in order, starting with the Smith & Wesson. Although he had no problem controlling the kick, he could feel the first few shots all the way up his arms and into his head. Once he got going, though, the pain became more background noise than anything else.

Next he went to the Glock, then the SIG. After he took the last shot, Pax said, “So?”

Ash looked at the gun in his hand. “I like the feel of this one.”

“Good choice. One of my favorites. Of course, I’m partial to all three of them, so you couldn’t go wrong whichever way you went. You want to shoot some more?”

“Yes.” Ash popped the mag out and handed it to Pax. “I’d like to tighten up my groupings.”

With Pax’s help, by the time Ash had polished off the last round in the second box of ammo, his groupings at fifty feet could be covered by a dollar bill.

“It’s a good start,” Pax said.

“Get another box.”

Pax looked at him, surprised. “Don’t want to take a break?”

Ash released the mag into his hand. “No.”

As he plowed through the third box of bullets, he pictured the face of Dr. Karp on the target.

This time, his groupings were much better.

 

 

24

 

The members of the media who’d been covering the roadblock at Sage Springs were flown to Fort Irwin Army base outside Barstow, California. Technically, they were still in the quarantine zone, but so far there had been no known cases in Barstow or on the base.

There, Tamara was able to learn that contingents of soldiers had been sent east on I-40 and northeast on I-15 to turn back motorists coming in from Arizona and Las Vegas. She’d also had an interesting, off-the-record conversation with one soldier who’d said the roadblocks had already dealt with several irate drivers insisting that they didn’t have time to drive all the way to the I-10 to get to L.A. so they should be let through. Many promised to “keep their windows rolled up” and “not make any stops,” while a couple of people had even gotten out of their cars and tried to physically intimidate the highway patrol officers who were handling most of the problems. Needless to say, those individuals had been arrested and taken east to a jail just on the other side of the Nevada border.

Even having learned all that, Tamara was frustrated. The Army was not allowing them to go anywhere. It was like the media were prisoners on the base, stuck with whatever news the Army decided to give them.

To add to her annoyance, her brother still hadn’t gotten back to her. He’d given her that great lead then poof—disappeared. She’d just tried to call him again, but when she got his voice mail once more, she’d hung up and called her parents.

“Tammy, please tell me everything’s fine,” her mother said. The last time Tamara could call them had been the previous day right after the news broke. “We’ve been glued to the TV every second we’ve been awake. They keep showing that part where you and your friends are running to the helicopters. I wish they’d stop that. It nearly gives me a heart attack every time.”

“Mom, just turn it off when it comes on,” Tamara said. “Or just switch to another channel.”

“I couldn’t do that. Your ratings.”

Tamara’s mom had it in her mind that every single household was monitored and counted in a network’s ratings. Even if that were true, PCN’s ratings wouldn’t have suffered from the temporary loss of one viewer. Especially not now, when Tamara was sure that if a TV was on somewhere, it was tuned to one of the news channels.

“Mom, have you heard from Gavin?”

“No, dear. But you know your brother. He gets tunnel vision. Probably working on a project.”

Tamara frowned. He did get tunnel vision at times, but he’d never let her down like this before. “Okay. Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Tammy?” her dad said. He’d obviously been listening in on the other line. “Have you talked to your boss? They need to get you out of there. You’re right in the middle of everything.”

“I’m a news correspondent, Dad. I’m always in the middle of things. Besides, everything’s fine here. The closest outbreak is at least fifty miles away.”

“But you never know, sweetie. The sooner you get out of there, the better your mother and I are going to feel.”

“Don’t worry so much. I’ll be fine.” She noticed Joe trying to wave her over to where the majority of the media was hanging out. “Look, I’ve got to go. I love you.”

“We love you, too,” her mother said.

“Very much,” her dad added.

“Okay. Bye.”

She hung up, then hurried over to her producer. “What’s up?”

“Just got off the phone with Irene,” he whispered. Irene was their boss in New York. “She says they’ve been negotiating with the Army to get us taken out to the I-15 roadblock.”

“That’s great!”

“What’s great?” Peter Chavez, a reporter with one of the wire services, turned and asked.

“Uh, nothing, Peter,” Joe said, then smiled. “Just…telling Tammy about what I’m getting my wife for her birthday.”

Peter didn’t look convinced. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tamara said, trying to cover her mistake. “He’s taking her to Paris. Isn’t that cool?”

Peter frowned. “Guess salaries are nicer over there at Generic Cable News.”

“I guess they are,” Joe replied. He then grabbed Tamara’s arm and moved her away from the crowd. “What an ass.”

“When will we know about going to the roadblock?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure. Soon, I hope.”

Not too far away, a TV had been set up under a canopy so that people with nothing to do could watch. The screen suddenly filled with some jumpy, low-quality video, catching Tamara’s eye.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Joe looked over and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Quickly they both made their way to the back of the group watching the television.

“Bobby,” Tamara said, noticing her cameraman a couple people ahead of her.

When he turned, she motioned for him to join them in the back.

As soon as he moved in beside her, she asked, “What is that?”

“Somebody just uploaded it to the Internet,” he said. “Some sort of skirmish at a roadblock just east of Tehachapi.”

Tehachapi was west of the town of Mojave, which was in the quarantine zone, and east of Bakersfield, which was not.

The footage looked like it had been shot on a camera phone. There were several dozen people pushing and shoving. Most were civilians, but there were a few people in uniforms, too.

This went on for several seconds, then a face flashed across the screen that caused Tamara to jerk back, startled.

It was Gavin, or someone who sure looked a hell of a lot like him. She pushed her way through the crowd so she could get closer to the screen.

Whoever was holding the camera seemed to be moving slightly away from the crowd. She could see the whole mob now, pushing and shoving at each other. She tried to find the guy who looked like Gavin, but didn’t see him.

A voice cut over the video, distorted by the poor quality of the camera’s microphone.

“Most of these guys…I think have family…in the…zone.” The speaker’s voice was punctuated by deep breaths. “They want to get in…but…the soldiers are…trying to push them…back. It looks like some…people are getting through.”

The shot zoomed in on a small group that was trying to go around the end of the roadblock while the soldiers were busy with the larger crowd. Suddenly several members of the big group saw what was happening and took off after the others, no doubt hoping that they, too, could get through. The trickle became a stream, then a river.

At the edge of the pack, two soldiers went down. As soon as their colleagues saw this, they opened fire.

“Oh, my God!” someone standing near Tamara yelled out as civilians started falling to the ground.

But Tamara couldn’t even speak. She had seen Gavin again. He was wearing one of the shirts she’d given him for Christmas. And when the chaos was at its height, it looked very much like a bullet had hit him, too. Only unlike the others, he hadn’t fallen away from the roadblock, but toward it, like he’d been shot from the other direction. And then there was the look on his face a moment before he went down, a look of disorientation and confusion.

Like he had no idea what he was doing there in the first place.

The pressure in her head built until she could almost take it no more. How she didn’t scream, she had no idea.

• • •

There was another conference call at noon. Since this one had been arranged ahead of time, they were connected via video chat. Though both Dr. Karp and Major Ross were at the Marin County location, each was in his own office. Shell was in a hotel room somewhere near the quarantine zone, and the Director of Preparation was at Bluebird. Of course the DOP’s feed was blacked out. The project’s number one guideline was that the members of the Bluebird Directorate were to remain anonymous.

“Dr. Karp, do you have the latest statistics on the outbreak?” the DOP asked.

The doctor leaned forward a few inches. “I talked to our source at the CDC five minutes ago, so the numbers I’m about to give you are as up to date as possible. Dead—three hundred and twenty-one. Currently infected—five hundred and seventeen. This information, of course, has not been released to the public yet. But I doubt they will be getting any—”

“That’s enough for the moment,” the DOP said, cutting him off. “Mr. Shell, your update, please.”

“Yes, sir,” Shell said, adjusting himself in his chair. “On the quarantine front, state and military officials have a pretty good handle on containment for the majority of the population. Fortunately, the outbreak occurred in an open and underpopulated area.”

“It was not fortunate, Mr. Shell,” Dr. Karp broke in. “It was by design. Why do you think we chose Barker Flats in the first place?”

“Thank you, doctor,” the DOP said. “Mr. Shell, please continue.”

Shell took a loud, annoyed breath, then said, “As you know, our strategy is one of plugging the holes the official response can’t handle. With your help, Director, I have my main team using Fort Irwin in Barstow as its base. Thank you for making that happen.” He paused, but the DOP said nothing. “I, uh, also have a team set up at a private airfield north of Victorville. Using thermal satellite imagery, we have been able to track in real time individuals who’ve tried to get out of the zone over the open desert. So far there have been twenty-eight attempts, and my people have stopped all of them.” There was no need for him to say what stopping meant. They all knew he was tasked with removing problems, not jailing them.

“Do you have any idea how many of those were actually infected?”

“Obviously, we wouldn’t be able to know that without proper tests, but I can say with confidence that six showed outward signs of KV-27a infection. My teams continue to monitor the intel, and are ready to move on any new escape attempts at a moment’s notice.”

“It’s critical that no one gets out,” the DOP said.

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Please continue.”

“Yes, sir. There was the matter of the reporter’s brother.”

“Yes. Gavin Costello. A mistake to pick him up in the first place.”

Shell looked uncomfortable. “Yes, sir. Things were a little fluid at that point, and there was no telling what he might dig up for his sister.”

“Mr. Shell, I’m not fond of glossing over mistakes. There was nothing for him to dig up that would have harmed us. It was a mistake from the beginning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Karp kept his expression neutral, but inside he was laughing as Shell squirmed.

“Continue your report.”

“Concerning Gavin Costello. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just let him go, especially given his sister’s high-profile job. Elimination was the only answer. We started spreading a rumor among people who were stranded in the Bakersfield area that the roadblock east of Tehachapi was going to be opened. When they arrived and found that it was still closed and would remain so, with the prodding of some of my men scattered within the group, they rioted. As soon as the military opened fire, one of my men eliminated Mr. Costello. When he is finally identified, his presence can easily be explained as concern for his sister.”

“And Ash?” the DOP asked.

“As you know we traced the original car to a parking garage at a casino in Nevada. I then gave a team instructions to trace the paths of every car that left that garage in the following four hours.”

Shell’s face was replaced by a thermal satellite image. Along the left side was a busy freeway running basically from bottom to top. It was covered with dozens of bright, warm blobs indicating vehicles.

“Please notice the spot near the midpoint of the picture. This is the most likely candidate.”

The spot in question was down an empty road that led off from the freeway. It was faint, but definitely warmer than the surrounding area.

“We were able to trace this car from the casino to this point. The heat signature you are looking at was generated by a person sitting inside a car. When it arrived here, there were two people, one up front, and one lying in the back. The driver got out, walked to the road, and was picked up three minutes later.” He then explained how the person in back got out, and eventually took a seat up front. He showed another picture. In this one, a larger vehicle was parked next to the smaller one. “The man transferred to the new vehicle and they left.”

“Were you able to follow it, too?” the DOP asked.

Shell hesitated. “We were able to follow them south for about twenty minutes. But we experienced a transmission problem that took us off line for an hour. In that gap, we lost them.”

“So you’re no closer to finding him now than you were earlier.”

“We are very hopeful that Dr. Karp’s suggestion of exposing Ash through the media will work,” Shell said, surprising Karp with his implied praise. “At the very least, it will be a long time before he can ever show his face again. Which means he’ll be unable to cause us any problems.”

“We don’t want that to be a reason for you to stop looking, though,” the DOP said.

“Of course not. It’s a top priority.”

“Have we figured out yet who was behind his escape?”

“By the level of organization involved, I think we’re dealing with the same people who aided Lauren Scott last year.”

Lauren Scott? The doctor hadn’t thought of her in a while.

“Thank you, Mr. Shell. You and Major Ross are excused.”

“Yes, sir,” Major Ross said.

“Thank you, sir,” Mr. Shell replied.

A moment later, Connection Terminated appeared where both of their faces had been.

“Dr. Karp,” the DOP said.

The doctor straightened in his chair. “Yes, sir?”

“First, progress on the vaccine?”

“As I’ve stated before, these things take time, but we feel like we’re getting very close now.”

“And the problem with the different reactions between the sexes?”

“We’re confident that we’ll have that solved shortly.”

“Good. See that it is,” the DOP said. “Now, about the virus. I do not want Mr. Shell privy to any of the…safeguards. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the doctor said, a bit unsure. “May I ask why, sir?”

There was no response for a moment, then, “Let’s just say that your virus is not the only thing that’s being tested.”

Before Dr. Karp could say anything else, the black screen that represented the Director of Preparation was suddenly replaced by the words Connection Terminated.

 

 

25

 

The orderly was glad that they’d finally decided to room his two patients together. It had decidedly improved both their spirits, and made keeping an eye on them easier for him.

He watched them in the monitor, talking to each other.

The boy was sitting on his sister’s bed. He usually did that. The girl, while markedly improved, was still taking her time fully recovering. She tired easily, and still wasn’t eating enough to remove the IV from her arm.

The orderly turned up the volume so he could hear.

“…mise?” the boy asked.

“Of course.”

“Then I promise, too.”

She held out her arms and he fell into them, letting her hug him tight.

A few tears rolled down the boy’s face, but the orderly could see that he was attempting to be strong, attempting to be an adult years before he should even think about it.

“If they try,” the boy said, “I won’t let them.”

“I won’t let them, either,” his sister told him. “We only have each other now, so we have to stick together.”

The boy nodded. Several moments passed, then he said, “Do you really think there’s a heaven?”

She stroked his head. “Yes, of course.”

“So Mom and Dad are there? Thinking about us?”

“I think they’re thinking about us as much as we’re thinking about them.”

“I’m thinking about them all the time.”

“Exact—”

The orderly turned the sound down, wishing he had done so sooner.

• • •

Paul Unger and Nick Regan were half-brothers and best friends. Paul was a year older than Nick, and though he had an on-again, off-again relationship with his birth father, he really considered Nick’s dad his, too.

While they lived in Randsburg, California, Paul and Nick attended high school twenty-five miles away in Ridgecrest. That meant they had to get up earlier every morning than most people in town so they could catch the bus.

The morning of the quarantine, their mom, as she always did, flipped on the TV to catch the news while they ate breakfast. Even at that early hour, the quarantine had already been enlarged.

“Sarge!” their mom had yelled. “Sarge, quick! You have to see this.”

Their dad—Nick’s biological and Paul’s chosen—rushed into the kitchen, pulling a robe over the gym shorts and T-shirt he usually slept in.

“What is it?”

She turned up the television, and the four of them watched with growing horror as the news reported the expanding outbreak and the new quarantine zone. When a map showing the actual boundary lines of the zone appeared on the screen, the true realization of their situation hit home.

“That’s us, Dad,” Nick said. “We’re in the zone.”

On the screen, the anchor said, “The CDC is asking all those in the Sage Flu quarantine zone to remain in their homes, and to avoid contact with anyone else. If you have questions, or are in need of medications, medical attention, or do not have enough food in your house, an 800 number has been set up to provide assistance.” The promised number appeared on the screen.

Nick smiled. “I guess this means the bus isn’t coming.”

“Even if it does, you’re not getting on it,” his mother said, taking him more seriously than he meant.

Paul glanced at his stepdad. “The people who are sick are a long way away from here. Why are they making us stay inside?”

Sarge had come into marriage and family after spending twenty years in the Army, so he was a bit older father than most of the kids had. He was also a bit more experienced, having traveled the world and worked in, among other places, several base hospitals. So although Sarge didn’t have a medical degree, Paul knew his stepdad might actually know the answer, or at least have an educated guess.

But if he did, he kept it to himself, because he only said, “They’re probably just being cautious.”

In a way, that answer scared Paul more than something concrete would have.

With little else to do, they, like most of the people in the zone, stayed indoors glued to the television. So they were all sitting in the living room in the early afternoon when the video of the Tehachapi roadblock riot was played. As soon as it ended, Sarge picked up the remote and turned the TV off.

The others looked at each other, confused, then Nick said, “Dad?”

Sarge stared at the television screen, saying nothing.

“Dad, what is it?”

After another moment, Sarge took a deep breath, then looked around at his family.

“Boys, can you give your mother and me a moment, please?”

“Why?” Paul asked. “What is it?”

“Please,” Sarge said again.

“Sure,” Nick said, standing. “Sure. No problem. Come on, Paul.”

Paul hesitated a second, looking at Sarge, then rose and followed his brother into the hallway that led to their shared bedroom. Nick was going to head all the way back, but as soon as they were out of their parents’ sight, Paul grabbed his brother’s arm, put a finger to his own lips and said, “Shhhh.” He pulled Nick down to the floor, and they crawled back to the open end of the hallway to listen.

“You can’t know that,” their mother said, sounding scared.

“Vonda, this is going to get worse before it gets better, maybe a lot worse. They want us to stay in our homes, but we’re still sitting ducks here. The only way we can insure the boys don’t get sick is to get them out of here, out of this zone.”

“They’re shooting people who were trying to get in. They won’t even think twice about doing the same to someone trying to get out.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, and I think I might know a way.”

“What way are you talking about?” she asked.

“Better if I tell them at the same time.”

“I don’t know. I’d rather they just stay here.”

“Sweetheart, we can’t argue about this. It’s our boys’ lives we’re talking about. If they stay here, I think there’s a good chance they’re going to die.”

There was silence for a moment, then, “Okay.”

Sarge suddenly raised his voice. “Boys?”

Paul motioned for Nick to crawl back down the hallway with him.

“Boys! Come back out here!”

Once they reached the door to their room, Paul said, “What?”

“Come out here,” Sarge said. “Your mother and I need to talk to you.”

A few seconds later, they were all sitting around the living room.

“I think the news people aren’t telling us everything,” Sarge began. “My guess is they probably haven’t even been told themselves. Here’s the thing. I think this illness is a lot worse than they’re making it out to be. The reason we’re in the zone now is because someone who was sick must have passed through this area at some point. That means there’s a chance someone right here in town is infected, maybe more than one.” He looked down at his hands for a second, then back at the boys. “The bottom line is, you can’t stay here. If you do, you might die. Part of our jobs as parents is doing everything we can to keep our kids alive. So I want you two to get out of the quarantine area.”

“What about you and Mom?” Nick asked. “You’re coming with us, right?”

“My hip would never make it,” Sarge said. It was something that had bothered him for years. “And your mother…”

He seemed unable to finish, so their mom said, “I’d only slow you down.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Nick argued.

But they all knew she would. Their mom had put on some weight over the years. Not enough to be called fat, but enough to make her winded after a long walk.

“She’s staying with me,” Sarge said. “That’s not open for discussion.”

He pushed himself out of his recliner and went over to the desk in the corner. He searched through several of the drawers before he found what he was looking for and came back.

It turned out to be a map of Eastern California. He unfolded it and spread it out on the coffee table.

“You’ll take your dirt bikes. We’ll top off the gas from the tank in the car. Then you’ll head out this way.” He drew a path east across the map, toward Nevada.

“There’s no road there,” Nick said.

“I think that’s the point,” Paul told him.

“They’ll be expecting people to head west or south,” Sarge said. “That’s where the cities are. And you can’t go north because China Lake’s right up there. The Navy will have that whole area blocked off. They’ll never think anyone would go east.” He tapped the map. “When you get past this point, you’ll be out of the zone. Get on the first road you see, and keep going into Nevada. When you get there, keep a low profile, and don’t let anyone know where you’re from.”

“I’ll put some food together,” their mom said, already heading toward the kitchen. “You can carry it in one of your backpacks.”

“You’ll need some money,” Sarge said. “I got about five hundred dollars stashed away. I’ll give that to you. But I don’t know how long you’re going to be out there on your own, so make it last.”

“We will,” Paul said.

Nick stared at his brother. “We’re really going to do this? We’re going to leave them?”

“Yes. You are,” Sarge said before Paul could reply. “Now go get changed. You’re going to need some warm clothes. The nights still get cold.” As they headed toward the back, he added, “And bring your sleeping bags.”

• • •

Sarge decided they should wait until just after sunset to leave. When the time finally came, the boys rolled their dirt bikes out of the garage. Paul’s was an old Honda, while Nick’s was an even older Yamaha, both 125s. Each boy was wearing two T-shirts, a sweater, a jacket, a pair of jeans, and long johns.

“Promise me you won’t ride without your helmets,” their mother said.

“We won’t,” Paul told her.

“And you’ll call us once you’re out.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Though they were carrying their cell phones, chances were they wouldn’t have a signal out in the middle of the desert. But even if they did, Sarge told them not to use the phones until they were out of the zone, in case someone could track them.

Nick and Paul both hugged their mom.

“Remember, walk your bikes through town,” Sarge said. “Don’t start ‘em up until you reach the other side of the highway. Better if nobody knows you’ve gone.”

“Yes, sir,” Paul said.

Sarge shook hands with his sons. “You guys take care of each other. Now, get a move on it.”

Their house was on the western edge of town. The boys walked their bikes to the street, turned and gave their parents a long, final wave before heading east.

Randsburg was deathly quiet as they moved through town. It wasn’t a big place to begin with, but there was usually someone outside at this time of the evening. But if not for the lights in several of the windows, it would have seemed like the place was deserted.

As they neared the western end, Paul said, “I need to make a stop first.”

Nick looked at him for a moment, then his eyes widened in understanding. He shook his head. “Dad said no stops.”

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving without telling her goodbye.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Then keep going, and I’ll catch up to you.”

Nick stopped. “I’m not going without you.”

“And I’m not going without talking to her,” Paul said, halting beside him.

They stared at each other for several seconds, then Nick said, “Fine. But make it quick, okay?”

Paul smiled, and started pushing his bike again. “Sure. No problem.”

As they walked up to Lisa Jennings’s house, Paul sent her a text telling her to come outside, but not to tell anyone. Less than sixty seconds later, the kitchen door opened and she stepped out.

As soon as she saw Paul, she ran over and threw her arms around him.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

“We all are,” Paul told her.

They held each other for a few minutes, kissing a couple times, but mostly hugging. Finally, she noticed that Nick was there, too, then she saw the motorcycles and her face scrunched in confusion.

“What are you guys doing with your motorcycles? You heard everyone’s supposed to stay home, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Paul said. “We know.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Come on. We got to go,” Nick said.

“Go where?” Lisa asked.

Paul glanced at Nick.

Nick shook his head, then leaned toward his brother and whispered, “Dad doesn’t want anyone to know we left, remember?”

“She won’t tell,” Paul said, not bothering to lower his voice.

“Tell what?” Lisa asked.

Paul hesitated only a moment before he spilled the whole plan to her. If he couldn’t trust Lisa, whom could he trust?

As soon as he finished, she said, “I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“As dangerous as hanging around here waiting for the Sage Flu to get me?”

Nick stood silently by his bike, saying nothing, but the look on his face clearly showed he didn’t think Lisa coming along was a good idea.

“What about your parents?” Paul asked.

“Dad’s not even here. Got stuck in L.A. when this thing happened.” She tilted her head toward the house. “Mom doesn’t have to go to work at the motel tonight, so she’s been drunk off her ass all day. Finally passed out thirty minutes ago. She won’t notice.” She looked over at Nick. “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to die.”

Nick frowned, but then he nodded and said, “Okay.”

Five minutes later, as the three of them were walking down the road toward the highway, Lisa’s mother, still passed out on the couch, coughed.

 

 

26

 

Ash woke thirty minutes before dawn. In the bathroom, he peeled off most of the bandages that covered his head. His face was still swollen, though much less so than it had been the previous day. Bruises still encircled his eyes and covered his cheeks. Those, he knew, would be with him long after the swelling disappeared.

He studied himself in the mirror, trying to figure out what he would look like once trauma caused by the surgery had passed, but his imagination failed him. He’d have two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth. Ultimately, that was all that was important.

After shooting practice the previous day, Pax had given him an extensive tour of the subterranean facility, and set him up with access to the computer room and the well-equipped gym.

The gym was where he headed as he exited his room at 5:45 a.m.

He was surprised to find someone else already there. It was the woman from the day before, the one he’d seen in the cafeteria but hadn’t met yet.

She’d been doing stomach crunches as he walked in, but the second she heard him her head whipped around like he’d scared her.

“Sorry,” he said. He took a few steps in her direction. “I’m Ash.”

As she got off the bench, he thought she was going to walk over and shake his hand, but instead, she headed quickly to the wall, made her way around him in as wide an arc as she could, then exited the room without saying a word.

He stared after her, confused, but ultimately she wasn’t important. There was work to do.

He had to be selective in what exercises he did so he wouldn’t rupture the stitches that seemed to cover his head, but he was still able to get in a good workout.

After a shower, he went back to the firing range and spent two hours working with the SIG. His groupings had gotten to the point where they were consistent from set to set.

His next stop was the cafeteria for breakfast. Bobbi was in the kitchen, apparently on temporary assignment from upstairs. She made him an omelet with bacon and toast on the side. As he was finishing up, Pax arrived, holding a sweatshirt in his hand.

“Just took a look at your work on the range,” Pax said. “We’re going to have to offer you a place on our target shooting team.”

Ash glanced at him, then returned his attention to his food.

“Bobbi, you got some more eggs back there?” Pax called out.

“You already had your breakfast upstairs,” she told him.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not still hungry.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to cook for you again, either.”

Pax made a sour face toward the kitchen. “It’s not like I have time to eat anymore anyway.” He looked at Ash’s plate. “You done?”

“Why? You want this?”

There was still half a piece of uneaten toast, but Pax shook his head.

“No. I need to take you up to see Matt.”

As they walked toward the stairs, Pax handed the sweatshirt to Ash. “Put this on.”

The sweatshirt was zip-up style with a hood. Ash figured it must be a little cold topside, so he did as Pax instructed.

“Hood, too,” Pax told him.

“Why?”

“In case anyone’s watching.”

“Watching?”

“You’d be surprised how good surveillance is these days. Can see right through a window from miles away.”

“That sounds a little paranoid.”

“Welcome to our world.”

At Matt’s office, Pax opened the door for Ash, but didn’t go inside with him.

Matt was the only one there, sitting at his desk and writing something in a hardbound notebook.

He looked up. “You’re looking better today.”

“Not as good as I’d like,” Ash said.

“I can understand that. Have a seat.”

Matt wrote something else in the notebook, then closed it and leaned back, considering Ash.

“What?” Ash asked. “Has something happened?”

Two quiet seconds passed. “The guy who helped you get out of Barker Flats wasn’t our only inside source.” He paused, then put his forearms on the desk and leaned forward. “We got a message this morning from another one of our people that appears to indicate time might be getting short for your kids.”

“What was the message?” Ash asked quickly.

“The number four.”

Ash furrowed his brow.

“It’s simple code,” Matt went on. “It means danger.”

“Can you find out what kind of danger?”

“It doesn’t work that way. This was all he was in a position to tell us.”

“At the very least, can he give us their location?

Matt was silent for a moment. “We’re pretty sure we already know where they are.”

“What? You know?”

“You’ll leave in three hours.”

Pushing his chair back and standing, Ash said, “I need to leave now!”

“That’s as soon as our plane can get back here. If you leave now, you’d still get there quicker if you wait. I know it’s not easy, but we can use the time to finish prepping you as best we can.”

Matt pressed a button on his desk phone.

There was a single ring, then Rachel’s voice said, “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Bring her in.” He hung up, then looked back at Ash. “Sit down. Please. I promise you we’re doing everything we can.”

It took all of Ash’s effort to lower himself into the seat. Moments after he did, the door opened, and Rachel and the girl from the gym entered.

The girl’s long black hair had been pulled into a ponytail when she’d been working out, but now, except for a strand she twisted nervously in her fingers, it hung free over her shoulders.

Rachel had a hand on the woman’s back, urging her across the room. As they neared, Ash stood. Instantly, the woman took a quick step back.

“It’s all right, Chloe,” Rachel said. “We’ve already talked about this. He’s not one of them.”

One of what? Ash wanted to ask, but he held it in, not wanting to scare the woman again.

Finally, Chloe gave Rachel a nod.

“Good,” Rachel said in a calm voice. “Chloe, this is…” She stopped and looked at Ash. “What do you want to be called? Adam? Cooper?”

“Ash, if it’s all right by you,” he said.

She smirked. “Your call.” To Chloe, she said, “His name is Adam Cooper, but he apparently goes by Ash. Ash, this is Chloe White.”

“Hello,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle.

Chloe cringed a bit, but didn’t retreat. “Hi.” There was a momentary lull, then she said, “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chloe motioned at Rachel and Matt. “They say you’re in the Army.”

“Yes…well, I don’t know now. Maybe.”

“Some of them are in the Army. Not a lot, but some.”

Ash looked her in the eyes. “I’ve only been in the Army. Nothing else.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

She nodded to herself several times. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I just…I don’t want to…go back, you know?”

“Go back where?” Ash asked.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about it. Please don’t make me think about it.”

“Come on, Chloe,” Rachel said quickly. “There are a few things we need to take care of before you leave.”

Chloe allowed herself to be led back to the door. Once there, she turned to Ash and said, “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry. I’m not…I’m not always like this.”

As soon as she and Rachel were gone, Ash looked at Matt. “What was that all about?”

“She’ll be going with you.”

“Her? Why?”

“She’s your guide.”

Ash stared at him. “Did you not just see her?”

“She’s the only one familiar with the facility your children are in.”

Ash glanced back at the door. “This girl can really help me?”

“Yes. She can.” Matt paused. “You need to understand that these people did something to her while she was with them. She used to be strong, uncompromising, but they broke her before we could get to her. Piece by piece she’s putting it back together, but it’s slow. Most of her life…well, let’s just say that it’s like she’s starting out again. Sometimes she slips. Maybe we shouldn’t have told her you were in the Army, but it was better it came out now than later. She’ll be okay.”

“If she’s taking me to where these people are, isn’t there a danger she’ll slip again?”

Matt hesitated. “Perhaps. But you were a surprise to her, an unknown. She already knows what to expect where you’re both going.”

“Are any of the rest of you coming?”

“I wish we could. This…outbreak has stretched our resources. We’re already working with a skeleton crew here. If any of us leaves, it’ll make it all that more difficult to support the rest of our organization, and many are in just as much danger as you will be.”

Ash couldn’t help but frown. “I’m having a hard time understanding just what your purpose is.”

“Do you want to know? Because we’ll tell you if you do. It’s pretty heavy stuff, though.” He paused, thoughtful for a moment. “Your children are your goal right now. Anything we tell you will only distract from that. It’s your choice.”

Several silent seconds went by.

Matt was right. Until Josie and Brandon were with him, Ash didn’t need anything else clouding up his mind.

“Tell me about where they’re keeping my kids.”

 

 

27

 

The desert was tricky, even more so in the moonless night with their headlamps off. But Paul, with Lisa sitting behind him, and Nick didn’t have much of a choice. The only thing they could do was keep their speed down, and hope they didn’t hit any of the random holes and ruts too hard.

At midnight, they found a small canyon and stopped. About fifty feet in was a rock overhang, so they decided to use it as shelter and get a few hours of sleep.

Because none of them thought to set an alarm on their cell phone, those few hours turned into almost seven. By the time Paul opened his eyes, the sky was blue, and the warmth of the early spring day had already pushed back the cold of the night.

“Ah, crap!” he yelled, then nudged Lisa, who was sharing his sleeping bag with him. “Hey, baby, we got to get up.”

She groaned, but didn’t open her eyes.

“Come on, Lisa. It’s already late.”

“Just a little longer,” she said, her voice low and raspy.

He gave her a kiss. “One minute. That’s it.”

“You’re so generous.”

He crawled out of the bag without unzipping it, then scrambled over to where Nick was sleeping and shook his shoulder.

“Time to get up.”

Nick tried to turn away from him.

“Come on, Nick. We overslept.”

His brother opened one eye halfway. “It’s morning already?”

“We should have been gone four hours ago,” Paul told him.

Nick grunted and rolled onto his back.

Now that Paul knew the other two were basically up, he went over to his backpack, took out one of the sandwiches his mom had made, then all but inhaled it. Since their water was limited, he was careful to drink only a few ounces.

Nick and Lisa were both sitting up now, neither looking particularly eager to get going.

“Come on,” Paul said. “We’ve got to move!”

“All right, all right,” Nick said. “I’m up.”

He unzipped his sleeping bag and rolled out.

“Me, too,” Lisa said.

“I don’t want to stop for a while,” Paul told them, “so eat something. I’m going to go see if I can get above the rim and figure out where we are.”

Nick gave him a halfhearted wave of acknowledgment, then held out a hand to help Lisa out of her bag.

Paul scanned the canyon. Near the back he saw that part of the wall had crumbled down, creating a difficult but not impossible ramp to the top. He jogged over and carefully climbed up the slope.

He was just nearing the top when a rhythmic noise began, echoing through the canyon. He looked around, trying to spot the source, but though it kept getting louder and louder, he couldn’t see anything that might be causing it.

Nick stepped out from under the overhang, looked up at Paul, then lifted his shoulders and held out his hands, silently asking what was making the noise. Paul, having no answer, repeated the gesture back.

He was about ten feet from the top of the ramp, and thought maybe he could see whatever it was from up there. But the moment he started to climb again, two helicopters streaked low across the sky just beyond the edge of the canyon. As soon as they passed the open end, they turned and descended to the ground.

There was no question in Paul’s mind why they were here.

“Hide!” he yelled down at Lisa and Nick.

There was no way they could hear him above the whirl of the helicopters, but they’d obviously had the same thought. They began running through the canyon toward the crumbled ramp.

Paul looked quickly around, then slipped into a crack between two large clumps of dirt, keeping his head elevated just enough so he could see over the top.

Six men piled out of the helicopters, three from each, and began running into the canyon. Paul wasn’t sure what was scarier: their rifles, or the full bio-protective suits they were wearing.

He looked down the ramp for Lisa and his brother, but it was too uneven, so while he could hear them scrambling on the slope, he couldn’t see them.

Two of the armed men stopped near the bikes by the overhang, while the other four continued toward the back of the canyon.

“Stop!” one of them yelled, his voice distorted by his suit.

Paul heard Lisa and Nick stop climbing, and knew they’d been caught.

Dammit! Sarge was not going to be happy.

He watched the men, expecting them to move in and herd Lisa and Nick away, but instead, two of them raised their rifles.

No! No! No! They’ve stopped! They’ve stopped!

Paul started to open his mouth to yell exactly that, but before the words could even reach his lips, the men fired. The double boom ricocheted off the canyon walls, but what Paul didn’t hear was more upsetting. Neither Lisa nor his brother yelled out.

As the men lowered their guns, Paul felt as if the earth had just swallowed him up. He watched all four men walk over to the ramp, then pass out of his line of sight. He could hear them moving around and talking quietly amongst themselves. When they reappeared on the canyon floor, two had Nick slung between them, and two had Lisa.

His brother.

His girlfriend.

Both of them clearly dead.

Paul stared down at them, hardly able to process what he was seeing.

No one was going to believe this. No one would ever believe helicopters had found them in the middle of the desert and—

His hand snapped down to his pants pocket, and he pulled out his cell phone. He turned it on, and worried for a moment the people would disappear before it started up. But he was in luck, if you could call it that. They set the bodies down near the base of the ramp, while one of the two who’d stayed near the motorcycles ran back to the helicopters. The man returned a few moments later with a clump of black plastic.

As soon as Paul’s phone was ready, he accessed the camera, flipped it to movie mode, and began recording.

The man with the plastic gave half to the guys standing near Lisa, and the other half to the ones next to Nick. As they unfolded their pieces, Paul realized they were bags—body bags—just like ones he’d seen in some of the Military Channel documentaries Sarge liked to watch.

He had zero doubt this had been a killing operation from the beginning. There had been absolutely no intention of simply bringing any of them in. Why else would they have the bags with them?

“That’s my brother, and my girlfriend,” he whispered next to the camera, hoping that the suits the people below were wearing would make it hard for them to hear anything. “Those…those men shot them. We weren’t doing anything, but they shot them.” He opened his mouth to say more, but decided he’d already pressed his luck enough.

Once the bodies were sealed up, the men started carrying them out of the canyon. They all stopped for a moment near the motorcycles and seemed to have a quick conference. When they were through, the two men not carrying the bodies picked up the backpacks and sleeping bags, and carried them to the helicopters.

As soon as everything was aboard, the helicopters rose into the air and flew off in the direction from which they’d come, the thumping of the blades fading until silence descended on the canyon.

Paul didn’t move. There was a part of his mind that said if he stayed right there, none of this had really happened. That pretty soon Nick and Lisa would walk up the ramp looking for him. It would all be fine. They’d get on the bikes and get the hell out of there.

But there were no footsteps, no voices, no nothing, because the girl he loved and his brother were dead.

That’s when Paul lost it.

It was ten minutes before he finally pulled himself together, his face streaked with tears, and climbed out of his hiding spot. The first thing he did was crawl the rest of the way up to the ridge of the canyon.

There, he looked everywhere to make sure the helicopters had really gone. There wasn’t a speck anywhere, not even a cloud. Just blue, empty sky. The wrong sky for the kind of day it had turned out to be.

He hurried down the ramp, pausing for only a brief second as he passed the spot where Nick and Lisa had been killed. What blood he could see looked like dark stains against the dirt. It was…unreal.

When he reached the canyon floor, he ran to the overhang, wanting to get under the cover of the rock. It had occurred to him that the only way the men in the helicopters had known they were there was if he, Nick, and Lisa had been spotted from above. There must have been planes circling around that he and Nick hadn’t noticed. He was going to have to expose himself eventually, but, for the moment, he wanted them to think no one else was there.

Thank God the bikes had been too bulky to put on the helicopters. He would never make it if he had to walk out, but the bikes gave him a chance.

Using a hose off of the engine on Nick’s bike, he siphoned the remaining gas from Nick’s tank into his to give himself the best chance for escape.

His first inclination was to wait until dark, hoping that would make it harder to spot him. But the problem with that was the same problem they’d had the previous night. He would have to keep his speed down so he didn’t kill himself. If he left now, in broad daylight, he could race through the desert and that might be the difference between survival and a bullet in his head.

A bullet.

The rifles. The echo of the shots. The lack of any screams.

He shook himself. He couldn’t think about that right now. He needed to go. He needed to get out. No one would know what happened to Nick and Lisa if he didn’t.

He wheeled his bike to the edge of the overhang, then took a last look back at the earthen ramp where his girlfriend and his brother had died. Unconsciously, he touched the cell phone in his pocket, making sure it was secured. He couldn’t lose that, no matter what.

He pulled on his helmet and hopped on the bike. There was no reason to stay any longer.

With a sudden roar, the motorcycle shot out of the canyon and into the desert.

• • •

Before the sun came up that morning, the Army finally caved to media pressure, and flew several people back to the roadblock outside Sage Springs. These were the people who had driven their particular network’s vans to the location before the quarantine had gone wide. They were now allowed to drive the vans back to Fort Irwin under the escort of four Army Humvees and three helicopters flying above. Each had a soldier equipped with a radio riding inside with the driver. No one was to get out of their vehicle, and they were to stop only if the escorts stopped, too. If there were any problems, the soldier with them would radio it in.

Since the roads were empty, they made it back to Fort Irwin just after sunrise.

Tamara and Joe were both up and waiting when Bobby parked the PCN van in their newly assigned spot.

“Were you able to get any shots?” Joe asked as the cameraman climbed out.

Bobby gave him a quick shake of the head, then motioned to the other side of the van with his eyes. There, the soldier who had ridden with him was getting out. With an expression that conveyed tolerance at best, the soldier waved to Bobby and said, “Have a good day, Mr. Lion.”

Bobby smiled broadly. “You, too.” As soon as the soldier walked away, the smile disappeared. “I told him I just wanted to get a couple of shots from inside the van, but he made it very clear that we were only there to drive. Hell, he wouldn’t even let me get in back to check the equipment before we left.”

Tamara knew Joe had been hoping to get the shots, but, personally, she didn’t care. Her mind was on something else.

“Can we check now?” she said.

Both men looked hesitant.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Joe asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Come on,” Bobby said.

He led them around the van to the side door, then opened it up. Not only was the van used to haul equipment, but it was also a mobile editing facility, allowing them to put stories together, record voiceovers, and transmit everything back to the network. Via their uplink, they also had a speedy Internet connection.

Using this, Bobby accessed the website where the footage from the incident at the Tehachapi roadblock had been uploaded. He clicked around for a bit, then said, “Found it.”

He downloaded the video and transferred it into the editing software.

Before hitting PLAY, he looked back at Tamara. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said quickly. “Play it.”

Together they watched the video all the way through. Tamara had told Bobby and Joe what she believed she saw, but had said nothing to anyone else. Every time the network replayed the video, she had watched it, pointing out to them the man she was sure was her brother.

Bobby and Joe tried to reassure her by saying things like “you can’t tell for sure,” and “the resolution isn’t the best so you could have made a mistake,” and “why would he even be there?”

As sure as she was, she wanted to believe them, so she had stared at the video every time it came on, but every time she came to the same conclusion. It was Gavin.

The reason she couldn’t be absolutely positive, though, was that she had no control over what she was watching. She hadn’t been able to stop it or start it or reverse it. She had to watch it all the way through, then wait until the network decided to show it again. But now that the truck was here, she had access to the equipment that would allow her to take a better look.

“Go back to the part right before he’s shot, and hold it,” she said.

Bobby scrolled back, then hit pause. The problem with video, especially lower resolution video, was that the clarity of the picture came from the motion. A single frame often looked blurry, with less detail. Such was the case here. The man she was sure was her brother wasn’t much more than an indistinct human figure when paused on the screen.

“Can you go back a second or two,” she said, “then scroll back and forth through this section until I tell you to stop?”

“Sure,” Bobby replied.

He took it back to where the man in question turned in the direction of the camera, then he started moving forward through the footage at half speed. They had just passed the point where they’d originally paused when she said, “Stop.”

The image on the screen froze again.

“You see that?” She pointed at the man’s left arm.

“It’s an arm,” Joe said.

“On the arm. Those dots.” There were three dark spots visible on the exposed underside.

“That could just be digital noise,” Bobby said.

She pointed again. “Gavin has a tattoo on the inside of his left arm. One big dot, and two smaller. He was on the swim team in high school. It’s the molecule model for water.”

The two men looked at the screen again. Bobby then played that portion back and forth a couple of times. It was clear the dots were not digital artifacts, but were indeed on the man’s arm.

“Jesus,” Bobby said.

A tear began rolling down Tamara’s cheek. There was no denying it now—Gavin was the one who’d been shot.

“Play it ahead some,” she said. “Let’s see if we can figure out who did this to him.”

Bobby moved the video forward.

In all the times Tamara had watched it at normal speed, she had been unable to spot anyone who might have shot her brother. Her fear was that slowing the footage down wouldn’t change that.

“Wait, wait,” Joe said. “Play that last part back.”

“What did you see?” Tamara asked. Whatever it was, she had missed it.

“It may have been nothing.”

Bobby played the segment again, this time going super slow.

“There,” Joe said. “That guy.”

He was pointing at a man behind Gavin. The guy’s eyes were clearly fixed on Tamara’s brother. Something bright popped into view near the man’s waist for just a couple of frames, then the man disappeared behind Gavin. Two seconds later in real time, Gavin would be shot.

“What was that?” Tamara asked, referring to the bright spot.

“Gun, I think,” Bobby said.

“Then that’s him.”

Bobby froze the video. “This is right before your brother gets shot.”

“The man’s barely on screen,” Joe said. “No wonder we didn’t notice him before.”

The video didn’t actually show the man shooting Gavin, but it was clear to all three of them he had.

The question for Tamara now was, what was she going to do about it?

 

 

28

 

The plane arrived two and a half hours later, landing on a private airstrip on ranch land about a half-mile from the Lodge. It was a Gulfstream G250 business jet, outfitted for four passengers plus crew. After it was checked and refueled, Matt led Ash and Chloe aboard.

The main cabin was separated from the cockpit, so while Ash knew the flight crew was up front, he had no idea who they were. The cabin itself boasted four comfortable-looking leather chairs. The forward two had tables in front of them, while the back two did not. Chloe immediately went for one in the back, while Ash chose a seat up front, tucking the messenger bag that now served as his suitcase under it.

Ash was cleaned up as best as possible, but still looked like he’d been in a major accident. Rachel had cut his hair so it was now a uniform quarter-inch all the way around. She then did a quick bleach job making it and his eyebrows about three shades lighter than they’d been. The final touch had been contact lenses that changed the color of his eyes from blue to brown. He had two extra pairs in his bag as backups.

One thing was for sure: No one who used to know him would recognize him now.

“Pax will fly out with you, but this is as far as I go,” Matt said, holding out his hand. “You’re a good man, Ash. Get them back.”

As Ash shook with him, he said, “Thanks for all the help you’ve given me.”

“I’ve posted a message for our person on the inside, telling him you and Chloe are coming. He might get it, he might not. Even if he does, he might not be able to do anything to help, but…well, I’m sure he’ll try.” He paused. “Pax will give you a number to memorize. Any time you get in trouble, you call that, now or in the future, and we’ll do what we can to help.” Matt smiled, then glanced toward the back of the plane. “Chloe, good to see you again. Stay safe.”

“No such thing,” she said.

She was calmer than any of the other times Ash had seen her, but he could still sense a cloud of nervous tension hovering around her.

“The window shades will be automatically lowered before takeoff,” Matt told him. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, but we have certain procedures we need to stand by.”

Ash shrugged. He didn’t really care where Matt and Rachel’s ranch was. He was focused on his destination. On his children.

Matt hung in the doorway as if he had something more he wanted to say, but he finally just gave Ash a nod and got out.

When Pax climbed in a few minutes later, he was carrying two cases—one a normal-sized briefcase, and the other a metal-sided container that could have easily fit a small microwave oven inside. He stored the metal container in a cabinet up front, then put the briefcase on the seat next to Ash. After securing the outer door, he gave the entrance to the cockpit a double tap and returned to his seat.

“Hold this,” he said, handing the briefcase to Ash.

As he buckled himself in, a low hum filled the cabin, and hard plastic shades lowered over the windows. To compensate for the loss of sunlight, the interior lights brightened.

Pax leaned over to take the case back, but then stopped. “Might as well do this now.”

Outside, the dull roar of the engines grew in intensity.

“Open it up,” Pax said.

The plane started rolling down the runway. It was slow at first, but quickly picked up speed. There was no taxiing here, just get on and go.

Ash popped the latches on the briefcase and flipped it open. Inside was a padded envelope and two file folders.

As Ash removed the envelope, the vibration caused by the runway suddenly ceased, and like that, they were in the air. He leaned back for a moment as their angle of ascent increased.

A year earlier, he had taken his family to a small amusement park in Virginia. The park had one of those rides where you were basically in a box that went up and down and side to side, but didn’t really go anywhere. The sense of travel was conveyed by the combination of the movement and a video that played on a front screen. While they’d been on the ride, something had gone wrong with the projection system, and for several seconds they only had the walls to look at while the box kept jumping around.

Taking off with the windows closed reminded him of that.

As soon as they were settled into a comfortable climb, Ash opened the envelope and emptied the contents into the briefcase. The thing that stood out first was a small stack of cash. He quickly thumbed through it. Three grand. With the money he already had, that made five thousand total. Not exactly a windfall these days, but it definitely could come in handy.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You run out, you call us. We can get you more.”

Not that Ash was looking for an answer, but he wondered for the umpteenth time who these people really were.

“I’ll…I’ll pay you back.”

“No need.”

Ash didn’t argue, but he wasn’t conceding the point, either.

He looked back into the briefcase. The other two items from the envelope were a piece of paper and a wallet. He picked up the wallet first. Inside were three credit cards, a membership card for AAA, and a Florida driver’s license, all under the name Adam Cooper.

“The credit cards are all good,” Pax said. “But use each only once. If I were you, I’d avoid using any of them at all. Cards leave trails.”

Ash thumbed out the license and looked at the picture. It could have been him, or it could have been someone else entirely.

“We had to do a bit of fancy Photoshop work on that,” Pax said. “But it’ll pass for now. When that new face of yours settles in, you can get a real picture taken.”

Ash put the license back, then picked up the piece of paper.

“Why is this here?” he asked. It was the pink slip for a 2009 Honda Accord.

“You don’t want to walk everywhere, do you?” Pax asked. “It’ll be waiting when we land. Registration will hold up even if you get pulled over.”

Ash stared at the cash and the cards and pink slip. “What do you guys want from me? You can’t be giving me all this for free.”