“Brilliant.” He gave her an appreciative nod.
She paused to frown at him. Her arms were aching where she had them clasped behind her neck. “Were you aware that your grandfather’s lineage was extremely rare?”
He staggered before he locked his knees to steady himself. He said, “My family was hunted down by the old Imperial Russian eugenicists but they couldn’t have known. They didn’t have the technology.” He blinked feverishly at the trees before he asked, “Is your virus deadly?”
“At your age, probably.”
“I see,” he said with a smile and finished, “Let me show you how I deal with treachery. Come. Back to the van.”
Staggering and wobbling, he led the way to the van and gestured to the hooded people inside. “Drag Herr Professor out.”
“No!” Anika pleaded. “Take it out on me, not—”
One of the shooters lowered his MP5, reached into the van, and dragged out Schott, and ripped the hood from his head. Mark blinked against the morning sun, then panic contorted his face when he saw Zoakalski.
“Ah, Dr. Schott.” Zoakalski stepped forward, weaved on his feet. “We were grieved when Yang jerked you so rudely away from us. Please understand that we tried to get you back.”
Zoakalski slipped a worn blue Makarov from his pocket and took aim at Schott’s head. When Mark began to sob against his gag, Zoakalski said, “Be glad your death will be quick. As for your family…”
A bullet makes a distinct sound when it impacts a human skull. The loud snap-pop is simultaneous—a combination of breaking bone mixed with vacuum as the deforming bullet smashes a hollow through flesh. That hollow, called the temporary canal, slaps shut just as fast.
Anika heard when she unclasped her hands and pulled the heavy HK pistol from the holster. She’d clipped it to the neck of her overalls. At this range, she couldn’t miss.
Zoakalski’s head exploded with that sound, bits of brain, blood, and bone spattering in all directions.
Even as Zoakalski’s body slammed onto the pavement, his pistol clattering away, Skip was shouting, “Anika, no!”
She ignored him, pivoting at the waist; she shot the closest of Stephanie’s men with a single shot to the chest. Saw the bullet’s impact through the ripple in the man’s shirt.
The second was turning, bringing his submachine gun up. She triggered the HK as the front sight aligned with the top of his breastbone. Then fired again as he staggered backwards and toppled onto the howling Mark Schott.
In the process, Skip had stepped close. He wrenched the gun from Anika’s hand and shoved her rudely to the ground, shouting, “Stay there!”
Then he whirled, taking two fast shots at the van’s driver. The man slumped onto the wheel, then slipped sideways as he collapsed in the seat.
From the corner of Anika’s eye, she realized too late that Stephanie had crouched, her pistol in an isosceles grip. She was staring at Anika over the sights, rage in her eyes.
Skip started to bring the HK around.
Too late!
Oddly, the barrel dropped an instant before Stephanie triggered the gun. Anika heard the impact, felt the spatter of lead and copper when the bullet’s disintegrated on the pavement between her right knee and left foot. She saw the brass flung sideways. Stephanie’s blue eyes widened as her mouth gaped in disbelief. Then, Li artfully kicked her in the side of the head, toppling Stephanie onto her side.
As Stephanie struggled for air, Li grasped the knife protruding from Stephanie’s back. The way she flicked the blade back and forth, the keen edge slicing through lung, heart, and arteries, was quick, fast, and efficient.
Li withdrew the blade, carefully wiped it off on Stephanie’s clothes, and—still in a crouch—whirled on the balls of her feet, searching for other targets.
In a combat crouch, Skip covered Li with his HK. Anika grabbed up Zoakalski’s fallen Makarov, scrambled to her feet with her knees shaking. Bits of bullet stung where they’d ripped through her coveralls.
Skip ordered, “Anika, check on Maureen. But stay frosty.”
“On it.” As she started off, the Makarov ready, she heard Skip say to Li, “Nice work with Stephanie. Are we good?”
“We’re good, Skip. You can lower your weapon, I’m here to make a trade, nothing more,” Li replied, “That said, I’d better check on Fryung.” Li headed for the shop, striding behind Anika.
Chapter Ninety-Three
As Anika led Maureen out into the parking lot, Skip noted that she was white-faced and looked shocked as her glance went from one bleeding corpse to the next.
Skip pulled his knife, cut Schott’s bindings, then yanked the tape from his mouth. “You all right?”
Schott, who’d been weeping, finally gulped air, and said, “My… My family?”
“Safe.”
Skip spun around at the sound of a single-cylinder engine. Down the slope, on the winding drive, he could make out the KTM 450 as it was ridden away. Long black hair streamed out behind the figure at the bars.
“Figures.”
In his mind, he could imagine Mi Chan Li. She’d entered the shop, walked right past Fryung, then hurried out and found the KTM. The slope in front of the shop was open grass. She would have straddled the bike and coasted it down the hill. Only when she hit the road, did she turn on the key, shift to third or fourth, and let the clutch out to bump-start the bike.
“Skip?” Maureen called. “The flash drive! Damn it!”
Skip cursed. Down the long hill, Mi Chan Li caught another gear, and the KTM vanished among the houses.
Anika walked unsteadily, almost stumbling, the sunlight shining in her bright red hair. She had tears in her eyes. “It’s downloaded on the computer, so we still have it,” she said, then she bent double and vomited.
Skip called, “You okay?”
Anika shook her head. “No. And I don’t think I ever will be. I feel sick.”
“Hey, you did what you had to. If you hadn’t killed those men when you did, we’d all be dead.” Skip told her sympathetically.
Anika closed her eyes and took a breath, then shuddered as she exhaled and clamped her eyes shut against the tears. “You don’t get it. I proved that my model could be used to genetically target individuals.” Opening her eyes, she gave him a sober look. “The President of the United States with his Navajo ancestry? Any population with a unique genetic identity? Jews? Koi San bushmen? They’re now vulnerable. Don’t you see? I was the fracture event. Me.”
Epilogue
High in the Colorado Rockies, Skip sat at the Buffalo Bar’s antique bar and looked up at the ancient mirror. Through the open door, he could see Idaho Springs’ Main Street, where his BMW RT1250 canted on its side stand, the sun shining off the tank, fairing, saddlebags, and tour trunk. Three Harleys with short pipes made him wince as the big bikes prowled up the street. The too-loud exhausts were no-doubt shaking windows out of the historic buildings.
He tapped his bike key on the scarred wooden bar. Over the years, it had served generations of miners, tourists, locals, and countless motorcyclists like himself. The place was noted for great pizza and buffalo burgers.
He took another sip of his beer and rubbed the back of his neck. The sweet tremolo of tuned pipes caught his attention. He glanced out, seeing a lime-green BMW 1000RR pull up. The slim woman artfully backed the machine to the curb beside his BMW, deployed the side stand, and removed her helmet.
Skip gave her a grim smile as Mi Chan Li came walking in, flipping the wealth of black hair out of her racing jacket before she unzipped the cuffs and perched on the next stool.
“Nice place, Murphy.”
“I thought it would work. You got the flash drive?”
She reached into her pocket and placed it on the bar. “You got the transfer ready?”
Skip pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed “send” and when he heard Maureen’s voice, said, “Send it.”
Li was staring at her own phone, a slight frown lining her forehe
ad.
“Takes a while,” Skip told her and laid his phone on the polished wood.
“Not that long,” Li told him. She inspected the number in her Grand Cayman account, smiled, and tucked the phone into a jacket pocket, saying, “I enjoy doing business with you.”
“I wouldn’t wait too long to spend it. America’s flat broke.”
She ordered a Guinness, then asked, “Must have been an interesting time when you got back to DC.”
“Let’s just say we had a spirited debriefing. The Germans are taking Zoakalski’s compound apart. Once he was dead and harmless, you’d be surprised how fast his employees turned on him. They gave up Anika’s father in a heartbeat. Working through Interpol, Europe is dissecting Yang’s network. Turning over that information on his sex traffickers bought you a lot of goodwill.”
She gave a slim-shouldered shrug. “They paid well.”
“Is that all that motivates you?”
She gave him that familiar penetrating look and smiled. “Not all.”
“So…” he said, making conversation. “What’s next for you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He studied Li from the corner of his eye as her Guinness was placed on the bar.
She sipped and said, “I grew up in a different world than you did. Half way between Hong Kong and China. When I was recruited, I got to see all sides of China and, for a while, I was a true patriot.”
“What happened?”
“I endured while my superiors squandered one opportunity after another. As difficult as it is to believe, Xi Jinping’s bureaucracy is more corrupt and inefficient than yours. Initiative is rarely rewarded.”
“True.”
“How is Dr. French doing?”
“At home, in Wyoming, working on a model to halt the R1a virus that spreading around the world. The FBI has a wall of agents around her. No one wants her snatched again.”
“I assume the government is going to hire her to find ways to counteract her own model?”
“I’m sure they’ll try,” Skip replied with a grim smile.
“And Mark Schott?”
“Denise divorced him and took the boys.” Skip shook his head. “And I don’t know if he has the stomach to fix himself.”
Li pursed her lips. “Well… Men are weak creatures.”
He took another sip of his beer.
She ran her slim fingers down the sides of her glass. “So, what happened to Dr. Cole?”
“She’s back in New Mexico with that archaeologist, Stewart. He’s got her out in the desert somewhere, digging up pots and pueblos. I think that sort of thing heals her.”
For a time, they sat, sipping at their beers.
Then Skip said, “What no one can figure out is why Zoakalski would target the Y R1a variant when he had it himself. He must have known that his family around the world would eventually be infected. How could a man do something—”
Li laughed softly. “You Americans are so myopic.”
“How so?”
“Zoakalski was a Zionist at heart. He would never have threatened Ashkenazi men.”
Skip sipped his beer and gave her a sideways glance. The lights behind the bar glittered in the bottles on the top shelf. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you Americans are appallingly easy to mislead.” She cocked her head to give him a plastic smile. “Just because the virus started in Israel doesn’t mean it was the target.”
A cold feeling invaded the pit of his stomach. “It wasn’t?”
“All I’m saying is that the R1a haplogroup spans Eurasia, extending from Scandinavia and Central Europe to Southern Siberia. Lots of men fall into the R1a haplogroup.” She cocked her head and gave him a penetrating look. “But less than two percent of them are Han Chinese.”
If you liked this, you may enjoy: Dissolution
By W. Michael Gear
FROM WESTERN WORD-SLINGER AND ANTHROPOLOGIST W. MICHAEL GEAR, COMES AN ENTIRELY NEW TYPE OF WESTERN – A CONTEMPORARY APOCALYPTIC WESTERN.
* * *
For anthropology graduate student Sam Delgado, headed to the wilds of Wyoming, this is his last chance to save his graduate career. He and his urban classmates see this as the adventure of a lifetime: They are going to horse-pack in the wilderness to map and test a high-altitude archaeological site.
* * *
Until a cyber attack collapses the American banking system, and an already fractured nation descends into anarchy and chaos. All credit frozen, Sam and his archaeological field school is trapped in their high-altitude camp. With return to the East impossible, Sam, the woman he has come to love, and the rest of the students must rely on hard-bitten Wyoming ranchers for their very survival.
* * *
Guided only by an illusive Shoshone spirit helper, Sam will discover the meaning of self-sacrifice. Even at the cost of his life.
* * *
Haunting, provoking, frightening and prescient – in the end, all that stands between civilization and barbarism is one young man’s courage and belief in himself.
* * *
“Gear is a master when it comes to vividly described settings: you can smell the smoke, hear the wind in the trees, and feel the cold.”
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Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear
About The Authors
W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear are New York Times bestselling authors and nationally award-winning archaeologists. They have published 75 novels and over 200 non-fiction articles in the fields of archaeology, history, and bison conservation. In 2021, they received the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to western literature and were inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame. They live in beautiful Cody, Wyoming.
Fracture Event: An Espionage Disaster Thriller Page 29