“Morning, Rachel,” Bobbi said several minutes later.
Ash glanced up. Another woman had entered the kitchen—Rachel, presumably. She was shorter and leaner than Bobbi, and had long silver-streaked blonde hair that was pulled back into a ponytail.
“How about a cup of coffee?” Rachel asked.
“You got it.”
While Bobbi filled a mug, Rachel walked over to Ash’s table.
“Mind if I sit with you?” she asked him.
“Not at all.”
She smiled, took the chair opposite his, then held out her hand. “I’m Rachel Hamilton.”
They shook.
“You’re Matt’s wife?”
She laughed. “Hardly. I’m his sister.”
“Sorry. When Pax told me this place was yours and Matt’s, I just assumed…”
“Don’t be sorry. A lot of people make that same mistake.”
Bobbi came over, set the mug in front of Rachel, then glanced at Ash. “And how’s your breakfast?”
“It’s good. Thank you.”
“If either of you need anything, just holler.” With that, she headed back to the prep table where she’d been cutting up vegetables.
Rachel took a sip of her coffee then said, “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” he said. “I appreciate you letting me spend another night here.”
“We’ve got the beds. Someone might as well use them.”
“You do have a lot of space, but I’ve only seen a handful of people.”
“It’s an ebb-and-flow kind of thing around here. Sometimes the ranch is packed, and sometimes it feels like just Matt and me.”
“Pax tells me that this is a cattle ranch.”
She took another sip, then shrugged. “Yeah, we have cattle.”
Like Pax, she seemed hesitant to get into the business of the ranch.
“I hear you told Matt you’re intending to leave us this morning,” she said as he put a piece of sausage in his mouth.
He shrugged.
“I’m sure you have a lot of things to do,” she went on. “Starting with trying to find out what happened to your family. If I were you, it would be the first thing I’d want to do.” She paused. “But before you go, there are a few things you need to know.”
“What?” he said.
“You finish your breakfast first, then we can talk.”
He swallowed the sausage, then pushed his plate away. “I’m finished now.”
THE ROOM SHE led him to was on the second floor near Matt’s office. It was a conference room decorated to keep with the mountain-lodge feel of the place—big pine table, wooden handcrafted chairs, and a fireplace at the far end. There was also a large television hanging on the wall that was currently off.
Ash hadn’t even sat down yet when the door opened again, and Matt and Pax walked in.
“Morning, Captain,” Matt said. “Trust you slept well.”
“I did. Thank you.”
Pax gave Ash a nod.
“Where’s Billy?” Matt asked.
Pax seemed to take this as his cue. He picked up the phone on a cabinet under the TV and punched in a number.
“Why don’t we sit?” Rachel suggested.
While Matt went around to the other side of the table, Rachel took the chair next to the one Ash sat in.
“So what’s this all about?” Ash asked.
Before anyone could answer, the door opened and Billy rushed in.
“Sorry,” he said. He made his way around to sit with Matt, and placed the notebook he was carrying on the table.
Pax hung up the phone the moment Billy entered, and took the chair next to Rachel.
Matt looked around at everyone, then focused his attention on Ash. “I’ll come right to it. We think it would be a mistake for you to leave right now.”
“If I want to leave, I’ll leave,” Ash said, suddenly wary. “You already said you wouldn’t try to stop me.”
“And we won’t,” Matt told him. “But I’m hoping what we have to say will convince you to stay.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Ash asked, “So what is it you have to say?”
Matt considered him for a moment before saying, “What happened to the families at Barker Flats didn’t occur simply by chance.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Ash said. “It was an attack. Some terrorist organization trying to stir up fear.”
Matt hesitated, then stood up. He began walking toward the far end of the room. “How well did you know your neighbors?”
“My neighbors? Not well. We’d just transferred in.”
Matt stopped near the center of the table. “Hadn’t everyone just transferred in?”
“Well, yes. The base had been closed for a while, and we were there to get it up and running again.”
Matt touched a finger to the table. Instantly, a wooden flap rose and disappeared into the surface edgewise, revealing a control panel underneath.
“You’re going to want to turn around,” Matt said. He hit a button and the TV came to life.
Ash shifted his chair so he could see the screen. Rachel and Pax did the same. The image remained black for a moment, then a picture of a family cut in.
“Do you recognize them?” Matt asked.
“That’s Manny…Captain Diaz and his wife. Carol, I think. I don’t remember their kids’ names.”
“They lived next to you, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
As Ash stared at the picture, he remembered the scream he’d heard that night while he and Brandon were being led away. It was Carol, wasn’t it? And now, if what Matt told him was true, Carol and Manny and their kids were all dead.
The picture changed to one of a man and woman.
“Lieutenant Cross and his wife,” Ash said without prompting. The Crosses lived on the other side of them.
Another picture, a couple and a teenage boy.
“The Parsons, I believe.” He looked at Matt. “What’s the point of all this?”
Matt nodded at the screen. More pictures came up. This time there was no pause for Ash to identify them, but he recognized the faces of many of those he’d seen around the base.
The last image was a collage of all the photos.
“These are the sixteen families that you lived with, the ones that were exposed to the same disease as you and your family. They all have something very important in common.”
“You’ve already told me they’re dead.”
“There’s something else.”
The picture of the Diaz family replaced the collage.
“Manny Diaz,” Matt said. “His father died when he was seventeen, and his mother a month after he received his commission. He was an only child. Carol Diaz, maiden name Yeager. Mother died when she was eleven, father two years later. She was an only child.”
The picture of the Diaz family was replaced by one showing the Crosses.
“Martin Cross. Parents killed in a car accident when he was a freshman in college. He was an only child. Emily Cross, maiden name Vernon. Adopted by an older couple, both of whom died of natural causes within one year of each other while Emily was in high school. She was their only child.”
Matt continued to go through the pictures, telling the basically same story every time. The final picture was one that hadn’t been shown before.
“Daniel Ash. Parents died in an auto accident when he was twenty. Not an only child, but his brother Jeff sustained brain damage in the accident and lives in a nursing home. Ellen Ash, maiden name Walker. Mother died of cancer when she was—”
“Stop,” Ash whispered. “Please.”
The screen went black, and the room fell quiet.
After a few moments, Rachel put a hand on Ash’s arm. “We know this isn’t easy. But we needed to show you the truth.”
“The truth of what?” he asked, shaking her off. “That everyone I used to live around lost their parents? It happens. It’s probably not as unusual as it sounds.”
Ash gritted his teeth. “I have someone.”
“You do,” Rachel said. “But I think you understand the point Matt is getting at.”
He shot her a look, then let out a breath as his gaze fell to the table. “Okay. Fine. So we were all isolated. So what?”
“So that makes all of you the perfect test subjects,” Matt said.
“Test subjects?”
“If any of you died, it would be fairly easy to cover that up, don’t you think?”
“Wait. Are you trying to tell me what happened at Barker Flats was done to us on purpose as a test?”
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.”
Sixteen
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 a
lert 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.
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 1: Books 1 - 3 (Sick, Exit 9, & Pale Horse) Page 8