Two men armed with submachine guns got out of the Jeep and took up a position facing the way they had come. Chang opened his door and stepped onto the road, followed closely by the driver. She caught a glimpse of the operative in the backseat next to Chang, recognizing her as the other operative she’d seen in the infirmary. She looked just as serious with her helmet off. The group’s leader was already out of the front seat, crossing in front of the Suburban.
“We need to make this fast,” he said. “Dr. Hale. Rich. It’s a pleasure meeting you.”
“Likewise,” said Hale, turning to Chang. “This is like a small miracle.”
“More like a big miracle,” said Larsen.
“We had a little outside help,” said Rich, glancing toward the two men watching the road. “Where’s Scott?”
“About fifty yards down the road,” said Hale. “Same distance into the forest. I have some people waiting for you. You need to get him to a hospital. I got the bleeding under control, but I don’t know what else is wrong. It’s a deep stab wound.”
“He’s still in good hands,” said Rich. “Thank you for taking care of him, given the circumstances.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “This is what I do. Doesn’t matter who he is or how he got here.”
Rich glanced furtively at Larsen, who stood next to her.
“What?” said Hale.
“They didn’t tell you,” said Rich.
“Tell me what?” she insisted.
“You did the right thing,” said Larsen. “Even David would agree.”
“Barely,” said David. “But, yes.”
“What are you talking about?” said Hale.
“I took Chang—”
“Kidnapped,” said David.
“Rescued,” said the driver, staring them down.
“Whatever,” said Rich. “When they taxied back with a busted plane, I grabbed Chang and took off. I honestly didn’t think any of you would make it back to NevoTech alive—even with Scott’s help. In my mind, he signed up for a suicide mission.”
“But you let him go anyway,” said Larsen.
“I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought it would jeopardize our chances of getting out with Chang,” said Rich. “It was his choice.”
“I would have treated him the same, regardless of the circumstances,” said Hale. “That’s what I do. Part of the oath I took as a doctor.”
“Which is why I thanked you,” said Rich. “Don’t ever stray from that path. It leads to dark places.”
“Very dark,” said Rich’s driver. “We need to load up our guy and get out of here before that darkness catches up with us.”
Who the hell were these people? The driver got back in the Suburban and drove down the road slowly, stopping when her two nurses stepped out of the forest and waved him down.
“Joshua is okay?” said Chang.
“One hundred percent—asleep,” said David.
Chang nodded, his eyes tearing up. “I can’t describe how helpless I felt when they dragged me off. I knew it was the right decision, but I felt like I had killed all of you.”
“What?” said David. “No. That’s not how any of us felt. It was a heated moment, but bringing you back to NevoTech would have been the wrong decision. Rich saw it clearly. I get the feeling he’s made a lot of similar calls in his career. We survived out of sheer, unforeseen luck. Seriously. Rich made the right call.”
“And it all worked out,” said Larsen. “Not sure how, but here we are.”
“And here we go,” said Rich, glancing at the stretcher being loaded into the back of the Suburban.
“I thought we’d have more time,” said Hale. “I need to tell you something. I think it could be important to your research.”
“My research is pretty much dead,” said Chang.
“Maybe not,” said Hale. “The vaccine you developed may have post-symptomatic efficacy.”
“I doubt it. Even the high-dose, intravenous administration of potent antiviral drugs barely makes a difference in the mortality rate once a patient shows the symptoms of herpes simplex encephalitis. And that’s when doctors catch the symptoms extremely early.”
“But you haven’t conducted clinical trials for post-symptomatic efficacy,” she said. “Right?”
“No. That’s not the market NevoTech wanted to pursue,” said Chang. “Wait. Have you seen someone’s symptoms regress? I thought everyone inside NevoTech was asymptomatic. Checked every four hours.”
She nodded. “Someone slipped through the cracks.”
“Who?” said Chang.
“Me.”
“You’re infected?” said Larsen.
“I started running a fever late in the morning,” said Hale. “It reached one hundred and two at one point, and I started to have headaches. I was going to report myself, but within a few hours of taking two of Dr. Chang’s pills, I felt considerably better. I’m not running a fever now.”
Chang stared at her, slowly shaking his head. “That’s—that’s incredible. The implications…”
“Are huge,” said Rich.
“Game changing,” said Chang. “I mean, this could be used to save lives right now. They could treat mild to moderately impaired patients before the virus consumed them. It would definitely save lives in the future.”
“Can they make enough of it that quickly?” said David.
“NevoTech can’t,” said Chang. “But I know someone who can. Greenberg.”
“Greenberg?” said Rich.
“He said they had massive production facilities just waiting to produce any kind of biological warfare vaccines the government could license from private industry.”
“Who’s they?” said Hale.
“The military,” said Chang. “Greenberg works for the Department of Defense. Bioweapons Defense Division.”
“Worked,” said Rich.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Chang. “Not until we can prove that the vaccine can do what Dr. Hale suggests.”
“Then use me to test the theory,” said Hale. “Can’t you run some kind of lab tests on me?”
“Yes. Would you be willing to come with us? Is that okay?” he said, looking at Rich.
“As long as she’s not contagious, and she volunteers,” said Rich. “I’m done kidnapping—for today.”
“I volunteer,” said Hale. “Dr. Owens and a few other hospital staff have things under control.”
“Don’t you have someone coming to pick you up?” said David.
“No, actually, I don’t. I hadn’t made any arrangements. My parents are on vacation in Costa Rica,” said Hale.
“You’re kidding,” said David.
“Not kidding,” said Hale. “Good timing, too. They live in St. Louis.”
Chang didn’t look overly excited by that statement, and she knew why. If they hadn’t left at least a week ago, it was possible they could be infected.
“They’ve been gone for three weeks. Thirtieth-anniversary trip,” she said.
“That’s really good timing,” said Chang.
“Then that’s it,” said Rich. “You’re coming with us. The rest of you are good?”
“Are you offering a ride?” said David.
“How many do you have?”
“Seven. We were just about to hike out of here,” said David. “My dad’s a few hours out.”
“How far were you planning on walking?” said Rich.
“A few miles,” said David. “We just wanted to—you know.”
“Put some distance between yourself and this very tempting government target?” said Rich.
“Something like that.”
“I can take two in the Jeep and two more inside the Suburban,” said Rich. “The rest will have to split up between the two vehicles and stand on the running boards. I’ll take you down to Rushville. It’s about three miles south. We came through there on the way out. Pretty quiet. I’m headed east after that.”
“As long as you’re headed away
from Indianapolis,” said David. “Count us in.”
“I need to say goodbye to Dr. Owens and a few others,” said Hale. “I hate to leave them here like this.”
“Half of the people are gone already. The rest will be gone by noon,” said Larsen. “You’re not cutting out that early. They’ll survive without you.”
Larsen was right. Everything was on autopilot at this point. Scott was their most critical patient, and he was coming with them. Barring any driving delays, everyone hiding in the forest would be on the road by lunch. Her work was done here. She had a different mission now. Not really new. Just bigger. Instead of saving one life at a time, she had a chance to save thousands. She took a step toward the Suburban in the distance, stumbling on her clogs.
“First stop is a new pair of shoes,” she said over her shoulder, laughing with the rest of them.
Chapter 56
Karyn Archer sat in front of a curved flat-screen monitor, sifting through the last of her prioritized electronic reports. Incident Zone One-Four had gone quiet from her perspective. KILL BOX protocols had cleared all of her intelligence sources from the city. All she saw now was unimportant clutter tagged by overeager military and law enforcement commanders at the quarantine boundaries. Reports that barely met the relevancy parameters set by program analysts. The CHASE agents assigned to her incident zone were either dead or vanished. Based on what they’d found over the past twenty-four hours at three of the four target locations, she was pretty sure they were all dead. There was no way to know for certain—but she’d taken steps to feel good about the assumption.
At 2:05 a.m., she requested two precision-guided, one-thousand-pound bombs. The “colonel” offered, so she took him up on it. Ragan’s CTAB hadn’t moved from Chang’s apartment for close to six hours at that point. Archer guessed they had decided to stay put for the night. Routine aerial reconnaissance taken at 3:11 a.m. indicated that Chang’s apartment building was a pile of smoldering rubble. Hopefully, Ragan’s team was at the bottom of it.
The only outlier was Eric Larsen. Three members of his team had been found dead at Chang’s house, inside a reinforced “safe room.” Their deaths could only be described as utterly bizarre. Forensically, the three appear to have shot each other. Circumstantially, it looked like Larsen had shot them and deserted. She’d liked that version better and forwarded it to her superiors. If Larsen ever showed up, she’d have carte blanche to bring him in—or drop a one-thousand-pound bomb from a circling stealth bomber on his head. She’d be happy either way.
Then there was Chang. Somehow he’d managed to run the gauntlet and disappear. That was the truly bad news. Chang was the real mission. Cleaning up the CHASE mess was just a side job. Archer was stuck here until Chang was confirmed dead or captured. And if he showed up on the evening news, she could expect a few one-thousand-pound bombs to drop on her own head.
She was about to get up to find a cup of coffee, when a red-flagged report hit her message box. What the fuck? Archer reread the contents of the message. The report was over five hours old! She picked up her phone and dialed a prefix that rang in the adjacent hangar.
“I thought we were done,” said Ecker, sounding half asleep.
“All teams out the door in three minutes,” said Archer.
“Three minutes? What the hell is going on?”
“Larsen’s still out there.”
Turn the page to read book 3 in the series:
FIRE STORM
Go back to Contents
FIRE STORM
BOOK THREE in THE ZULU VIRUS CHRONICLES
A Novel by
Dedication
To my family. Still the heart and soul of my writing—and everything else. I couldn’t do this without their tireless support, love and patience.
About FIRE STORM
When I said that the end of KILL BOX left The Zulu Virus Chronicles wide open for follow on novels, I wasn’t kidding. I had several choices to explore. Revisit a city under siege? Follow Dr. Chang and his shadowy new allies back to the East Coast? Take a trip with Eric Larsen to find his family in Colorado? Maybe rewind a day or so and tell the story from one of the conspirator’s points of view? I had too many choices, which is why I decided to merge a few of them into single story that brings a few of them to closure.
I had originally intended to write a shorter story, so I could write more of them and get them to you faster—but as usual, “this one” got away from me. They all get away from me somehow.
I can’t wait to hear what you think about FIRE STORM. I almost guarantee you can’t guess where this story will take you. After slogging through an infected city with these characters for two books, I figured you could use a break from fighting crazies. Don’t worry. I didn’t say you’d get a break from the pace of action and suspense established in the first two books. Just a little different.
Enjoy and Happy Reading!
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Chapter 1
David Olson stood rigid on the Jeep Wrangler’s passenger running board, clinging tightly to the roof rack support bar. The vehicle barreled down the uneven road—way faster than Rich had promised. He glanced under the aluminum basket bolted to the roof rack and made eye contact with Larsen, who appeared equally uncomfortable with the ride. Joshua stood on the Jeep’s rear bumper, holding the back rim of the cargo basket—an excited look on his face. At least someone was having fun.
David still couldn’t process the sheer insanity of their escape from the quarantine zone. By all rights, they should be dead. Torn to pieces by the infected population. Their destiny had changed the moment Major Smith had decided to disobey orders and evacuate the civilians he’d been ordered to leave behind. The staff at the hospital. The refugees at NevoTech. David and his son. They all owed this second chance to a damn fine soldier, which wasn’t an easy thing for a Marine to admit.
Smith wasn’t the only one who had disobeyed orders, ultimately saving lives. Larsen refused his instructions to kill Chang, losing his entire team as a result, and giving Rich’s people a chance to expose the outbreak as a state-sponsored bioweapon. Possibly even find a cure to slow or stop it altogether.
The more he thought about it, disobeying orders had done more good over the past twenty-four hours than bad. Even David had played a part in all of this. If he hadn’t left the Westfield Police Department to take care of Joshua, everything might have turned out differently for Larsen and Chang that first night. They certainly couldn’t have stolen Chang’s plane without his help. It was all kind of mind-boggling. The hundreds of decisions that led to this moment. To seeing his son alive, a smile on his face. All worth it.
The vehicle slowed as the first evidence of Rushville appeared in the distance. Two billboards. One for a fast-food restaurant. The other for a walk-in clinic. The clinic had undoubtedly seen its share of virus victims. The town was close enough to Indianapolis that a substantial percentage of its population likely commuted to the capital for work, bringing the insidious virus back with them.
Rushville resembled the typical town found on the outer periphery of Indianapolis, larger than most of its neighboring townships due to its fortuitous placement on one of the main roads leading east into Ohio, but still little more than a rural farm town. Late last night, they’d passed through its quaint and surprisingly quiet downtown area, which was marked by several early twentieth-century limestone buildings—most of them occupied by local shops and banks. David had spotted a modest, three-story hospital on the northern end of town, before the dark cornfields of Indiana swallowed their convoy.
The street entrance to the hospital had been blocked by two HUMVEEs with turret-mounted machine guns. He imagined every medical facility within a hundred miles of Indianapolis was guarded by the military. A police cruiser had been parked closer to the hospital entrance, its emergency lighting flashing red and blue against the f
ront of the building. How did Rushville’s small police force deal with the infected that had erratically emerged from the homes clustered around Main Street? He didn’t want to know. He vividly remembered the difficulties he’d faced as a police officer in Westfield, trying to hold back the tide of insanity unleashed by the virus. In less than two hours, he’d be on his way to Evansville, where the chances of running into one of the infected should be right around zero.
The Jeep eased into the opposing lane and came to a stop at the edge of a vast cornfield, roughly fifty yards from the two billboards. The signs would make an easy landmark for his dad’s convoy, and the cornfield could hide them from passing traffic while they waited. Not that he expected much traffic. Aside from a few farmhouses and double-wides, they hadn’t passed much of anything worth visiting on the short trip toward Rushville.
David wondered if they had stopped too soon. He really wanted to put more distance between his son and the makeshift refugee camp. It wouldn’t take the “powers that be” long to figure out Major Smith had violated his orders. If the wrong set of eyes put the pieces together, this middle-of-nowhere stretch of country road could get really busy—really quickly.
He hopped onto the pavement and scanned the road ahead. Nothing but horizon and distant low-rise buildings. Rushville was still out of sight. The Suburban stopped next to him, the rear driver’s side window already lowered. Through the window, he saw that Jack and Emma Harper had already squeezed out the door on the other side of the SUV.
“Thanks for the lift to the end of the block,” said David, putting his hand on the door.
Rich cocked his head with a grin. “After all I’ve done for you, that’s the thanks I get?”
“More like after all that you’ve done to me.”
The Zulu Virus Chronicles Boxset (Books 1-3) Page 61