Reckless Creed

by Alex Kava

  So much of their conversation began with “When I get back home . . .” It was all they talked about. Dreaming about home helped them sleep despite the sounds of IEDs being tripped in the distance—beyond the wire. Getting back home kept them going. It was the secret treasure they held deep inside them that they would not allow the Taliban to take away. It was a rallying cry, a promise, and their one true inspiration to get up every morning.

  The only problem was that none of them realized when they returned home they would be different men. They’d be taking back with them nightmares filled with images they couldn’t share with their families. Some would bring back with them brain fevers, paranoia, tremors, and an aversion to loud noises. Nor did they ever anticipate what they might be going home without—limbs, fingers, an eye, half a soul.

  They weren’t prepared for the struggles that met them stateside. Many of them hadn’t learned a trade. Tanks, assault weapons, how to detect roadside bombs—these were skills no longer needed. But they had become ingrained into the fiber of their being.

  How do you shut off your survival instinct? How do you not flinch and dive for cover at the metallic crash behind you, even if it’s shopping carts being racked against each other in a supermarket parking lot? And forget about the Fourth of July. Jason’s first was spent curled into a ball deep inside his closet’s corner at the Segway House, waiting, praying for the explosions to please stop.

  Maybe it simply was impossible to go home again after you’d been to hell.

  Jason hadn’t experienced his black thoughts and gone through the ritual for a while. It’d been long enough ago that he couldn’t remember the last time. You’d think that’d be a sign of improvement, some measure that perhaps he wasn’t quite so screwed up.

  But tonight he was thinking about Tony, and he couldn’t believe his best friend had left him behind.

  35

  Jason kept the pill containers in his shaving kit. He used to keep the case hidden, but it wasn’t necessary now that he had a place of his own.

  All the tablets and capsules could fit into two or three containers, but he left them separated, each in its original bottle. It had become part of the ritual to spill them out, one container at a time. Each had its own separate pile, too. The assortment was his personal collection amassed over the months of hospitalization and rehab.

  The doctors had kept prescribing—in fact, they still kept prescribing. First was one painkiller, then another. When Jason mentioned trouble sleeping, they threw in a variety of sleeping pills.

  One doctor had asked him about depression. Jason had only shrugged at the time instead of saying, You think? Son of a bitch, I lost half my arm. Am I depressed? Hell yes.

  “Depression” didn’t seem like a strong enough term to even scratch the surface of what he was feeling. So another prescription was written.

  Post-traumatic stress was diagnosed next, along with an additional med.

  He and his buddies laughed about Jason’s “collection.” Because unlike his buddies, he refused to take any of the drugs. More times than not, they made him feel fuzzy-headed and nauseated. He couldn’t imagine all these pills being a remedy. But he could see them being a helpful alternative if and when he decided he was tired of living.

  So Jason stockpiled the pills.

  In the beginning their presence comforted him. When that wasn’t enough he started the ritual of bringing them out, spilling them into their individual piles as if he were assessing his arsenal.

  He had devised a cocktail of which ones to take and in what order to guarantee the most success. He figured out how many sleeping pills to take first before he took the most potent ones to ensure that he’d be too sleepy to change his mind and throw them up. Once when he was still living at Segway House, he was interrupted by someone knocking on his room’s door. He had just taken the sleeping pills and had to stash the rest away. By the time the person left, Jason was too sleepy to continue. He ended up sleeping for eighteen hours straight.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Jason glanced at the box with Tony’s belongings. Scout, his eight-month-old Lab, was stretched out on the floor beside it. Tony had taught the puppy to play fetch. Scout was destined to become an awesome scent detection dog, and the fact that he was treating the cardboard box like it was something he needed to guard and watch over made this harder.

  Jason felt like a fist was pressed against his chest, the pressure so real it was almost difficult to breathe. The puppy could smell his fetching partner. Jason had caught him glancing toward the sounds outside their trailer’s door as if he expected Tony to come knocking at any minute now.

  All of it only seemed to justify Jason’s ritual even more.

  “I can’t believe you left me behind, buddy.” Jason said it out loud, and Scout cocked his head. Sometimes he called the dog “buddy.” Jason was only adding to his confusion.

  Jason began opening the containers and spilling the pills onto this makeshift coffee table. One pile, then two. He had lined up the containers in order, following his self-devised cocktail recipe. This time he’d get it right.

  There was rhythm to Jason’s ritual. Blue pills, then yellow. He focused on their texture and shape and color. The rest of the world went away so that the only sound in his head was the constant counting. No more explosions. No more waking in the middle of the night and discovering that the nightmare of his arm being blown off was no dream but his new reality.

  He was so tuned in to what he was doing that he didn’t notice Scout had gotten up. The dog had come over to watch, mesmerized by this new game.

  Jason spilled another container onto the tabletop, and this time the round tablets rolled to the edge. Scout went to catch them.

  “No, stop it!”

  Jason shoved the dog away, surprised by his presence. Then he realized Scout might have gotten some of the pills and his stomach clinched.

  “Son of a bitch! Did you get one?”

  He grabbed the dog and pulled at his mouth.

  “Spit it out, goddammit.”

  He was frantic. Panic sent his fingers digging into Scout’s cheeks, desperately trying to hold the dog down with only half an arm.

  Jason’s breath chugged. His heart pounded in his ears. Then he heard the low whine, the soft cry of a frightened animal.

  He stopped. Saw the dog’s wide eyes. He pulled his fingers out of the dog’s mouth, and gently he pulled the frightened dog against his chest.

  “I’m so sorry, buddy. Dear God, I’m sorry, Scout. What the hell was I thinking?”

  He held him tight, petted him, and apologized over and over again as his eyes darted back across the table. Had the dog swallowed any of them?

  He counted the scattered tablets. He knew by heart how many he had of every pill. Two had fallen to the floor, and he added those to the total. Then he counted them again, all the while his mind reeling over how few could kill a puppy this size.

  What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking?

  He scratched Scout’s ear and continued to hold him, telling him what a good boy he was.

  Jason counted the pills a third time. He had to be certain. There was no second-guessing.

  They were all there. Scout would be okay.

  36

  OMAHA, NEBRASKA

  It was late by the time O’Dell got to her hotel. Both she and Rief were exhausted but agreed to keep each other up-to-date. The biologist had bagged and taken several of the dead birds but only after donning gloves and a surgical mask. She promised to have results as soon as possible, telling O’Dell that she would oversee them herself if necessary.

  O’Dell had been impressed with the woman. Even as the television news van swooped in, Rief remained composed. When the news reporter inquired about O’Dell, Rief simply made it appear as though she were a colleague, then took charge. The loca
ls were already used to Rief being their source. None of them questioned it further. Though O’Dell was captured in some of the video, she remained unnamed. She told Rief that she owed her one. And even more so since they ended up getting their dinner by picking up fast food and eating in the SUV as Rief drove them back to Omaha.

  Again, as was O’Dell’s routine, she didn’t unpack. Instead she turned on the television as she popped open a can of Diet Pepsi. It was too late to call Agent Alonzo. Hannah’s voice message from earlier in the day was a mix of good and bad news. The robins had not been infected, nor did they show any signs of disease. However, the young woman’s body may have been. The medical examiner said there was hemorrhaging in the lungs and also in the petechiae. He suspected she had been strangled and left in the river. There was no way of telling for certain because Agent Tabor had confiscated the body.

  Who the hell was this Agent Tabor?

  O’Dell didn’t like this. It sounded like someone was covering his tracks. If the girl was infected, why bother to kill her? And was Tabor part of the cover-up or was he helping contain the contamination?

  She made a quick note to call Agent Alonzo first thing. In his message he said he had some interesting information to tell her. She hoped that included who Tabor was and what authority he was working under.

  When Hannah had first told her about the robins and the young woman found in the river, O’Dell wondered if it was possible that there was a connection with what was happening in the Midwest. It seemed a bit far-fetched. Except that Tony Briggs was from Pensacola. She was having Agent Alonzo check to see if Tony and Izzy Donner knew each other or had crossed paths. If Alonzo had tracked down Tabor, O’Dell would ask him herself.

  She downloaded the e-mail attachments that Benjamin Platt had sent her, and though she was exhausted she pressed herself to take a look. The autopsy of Briggs reported pretty much what she already knew. She pulled up the photos, enlarging and examining them one by one. Nothing out of the ordinary. Front torso, back torso, close-ups of hands, feet, face . . . wait a minute.

  She clicked on the back torso. Across his lower back, right over his buttock, there was bruising—a straight line from his right to his left side.

  O’Dell scanned the autopsy report again. There was no mention that the body had hit anything on its way down. And he was found facedown.

  She zoomed in on the area. It was a line of bruising about two inches high and stretched clear across the back. Maybe he had done something earlier that day or prior to his trip to Chicago.

  Except that the color of the bruise looked recent. The ME noted that the bruise was premortem, but he made no attempt to explain it.

  Then she remembered the cast-iron railing on the balcony. It came to about her waist. She checked how tall Briggs was and guessed that the railing would come to about the small of his back. It made sense that it could be the culprit. But leaning backward would be an awkward way to throw yourself over a balcony.

  She pulled up Platt’s e-mail. He was finished with the room and handing it over to Detective Jacks. But if they accepted that Briggs had committed suicide, there wouldn’t be any investigation.

  O’Dell thought about the room again and how odd that it was so neat and tidy. Why would a man who was getting ready to jump to his death care about cleaning up beforehand? And if he did care, why leave the bloody sputum on the television screen and the wall?

  She looked at the photo again of Briggs’s lower back and decided she needed to call Jacks. They needed to get a CSU team to process the room. If her suspicions were correct, Tony Briggs might have been shoved over that balcony.

  37

  O’Dell was still going over the autopsy report when a text message from Benjamin Platt came through.

  CALL ME WHEN YOU HAVE A CHANCE.

  He answered on the second ring, “Maggie, where the hell are you?”

  “That wasn’t exactly the greeting I was expecting.”

  “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  She told him about the dead snow geese on the lake and then the redwing blackbirds falling out of the sky.

  “If Dr. Shaw is responsible, how and where could she have infected them? To my knowledge there’s not a DARPA research facility in that area,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t matter. The biologist I spent the day with says that Nebraska is just a stop before they move on to breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska, and the Arctic tundra. Snow geese winter in a number of southern states from Texas and Louisiana to Georgia and North Carolina.”

  “So it’s possible she infected them somehow before they started their spring migration.”

  “There’s more, Ben. A lot more.”

  O’Dell told him about her phone conversation with Hannah. About the robins that Agent Tabor believed were infected. She explained what the medical examiner had said about Izzy Donner. That she might have been infected with something. He couldn’t confirm his finding because Tabor and his team had confiscated Donner’s body.

  “Are you thinking this Donner girl may have been one of Shaw’s recruits?”

  “Possibly. I’m not sure. I’m trying to find if there’s a connection between her and Tony Briggs. Donner’s body was found in the Conecuh National Forest. That’s close to the Pensacola area. The medical examiner believes she may have been strangled.”

  “Why kill her? That doesn’t make sense,” Platt said. “If Shaw wants to infect as many people as possible—which looks like what Briggs was trying to do—then why kill her before she’s able to do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to think Briggs didn’t kill himself.”

  She explained about the bruise and her suspicion about the railing causing it.

  “We thought the young man you followed to O’Hare may have been with Briggs. What if he was there to make sure Briggs didn’t leave? What if Shaw has others to watch and make certain the virus carriers don’t survive?”

  “Or make sure they don’t end up in a hospital telling their story.”

  “So maybe it’s not so far-fetched? There must be others,” she said. “Have Roger and the CDC figured out how to find them?”

  “He’s convinced DHS there’s a large-scale threat. Charlie Wurth is putting together a multiorganizational task force with him in charge.”

  O’Dell had worked with Charlie before. He was deputy director at the Department of Homeland Security. She liked and respected him. Several years ago the two of them had been sent to investigate after two suicide bombers blew up themselves and parts of the Mall of America on Black Friday. Since then Charlie had been trying to lure her away from the FBI to come work for him.

  “I’m afraid we have a bigger problem on our hands than finding Dr. Clare Shaw,” Platt told her. “We need to find and stop her virus carriers before they infect more people.”

  “How can we do that if we don’t even know what cities they’re being deployed to? Or how many there might be? Ben, she can’t be doing this all on her own. She’d need someone helping her, recruiting the carriers and those who might be watching over them. For an operation this size, she needs someone with leverage.”

  In the silence that followed she sensed his frustration. And more importantly, he knew what she was implying.

  When the two of them were working to find the remains of the North Carolina research facility that had been buried in the mudslide, Platt had kept classified information from her. But it hadn’t just been O’Dell who had been kept in the dark. The director of DARPA, Colonel Abraham Hess, a friend and mentor to Platt, had kept even more classified information from Platt.

  Colonel Hess had gone a step further. He had sent a crew to secure the remnants of the facility, but a member of that crew had gone rogue, according to Hess, going way beyond his original instructions. Before it was all over, the man had attempted to kill O’Dell and Ryder Creed.

  In O�
��Dell’s search for Dr. Clare Shaw over the past five months, she continually wondered how it was possible for the scientist to simply disappear. Unless she’d had help.

  “Do you know an Agent Lawrence Tabor?”

  “No, and Maggie, I honestly don’t know anything. And if I knew anything that would help I’d certainly tell you. Listen, Wurth believes we need to concentrate on airports. And I agree with him.”

  “Airports?”

  “Tony Briggs didn’t get infected in Chicago.”

  She understood. And neither would the other carriers. She grabbed the notepad and started jotting down reminders.

  To Platt, she said, “Just like the snow geese and the blackbirds. They would have been infected somewhere else before they arrived in Nebraska.”

  “Yes. So where the hell is Shaw?”

  “There are a couple of military bases in Pensacola.”

  “No,” he interrupted her. “I can’t believe she could be working undetected at a military base. It’s not possible.”

  She stopped from telling him that military bases didn’t seem any less likely than government-funded research facilities or state universities.

  “Wurth thinks we can narrow it down to several airports,” Platt went on to say.

  “It’s still an overwhelming task,” she told him.

  “He asked Roger Bix and me to figure out a way to help his TSA agents so they could start screening for infected passengers, but most of the symptoms are the same as the common flu. Bix said the CDC might be able to come up with a swab test.”

  “A swab test? You mean like inside the mouth?”

  “Exactly. Then you dip the Q-tip into a solution. Sort of like a home pregnancy test. It turns a certain color if the sample is positive.”

  “They actually have something like that?”

  “They’ve been working on it, but they’d need to devise it for this particular virus strain.”