Outbreak

by Davis Bunn

  Theo was not going to let his brother down.

  twenty-six

  Cruz tracked the team containing his target back from the university to the Fairview compound. He liked this location for the hit. And something more. Thirty minutes after he arrived, Cruz was certain there was a second team out there.

  He came upon a series of tells, small signs a professional hunter could read. Cruz thought there were at least three on the other team, possibly as many as five. One woman. He scouted the entire perimeter but did not find them.

  More curious than that was the target’s own security detail.

  As in, he didn’t have one.

  These days, all his targets were well guarded. Otherwise there was no need for someone charging his sort of prices. Not being able to identify any security was troubling. Cruz hated such confusing elements.

  He used the day’s remaining light to circle the compound, then slipped back to his car and drove into the gathering night. Once he was back on 74 heading west, he used his new burner phone to call his contact and ask, “Did your group send in a second team?”

  The client was a man Cruz did not know. But he had been referred by the attorney who vetted all his jobs. Cruz only worked for clients who had been filtered through the Houston attorney. The client had a flat voice, neither high nor low, and finished each word with a sandpapered rasp. “Is that a joke?”

  “Do I sound like a joker to you? Maybe I’ve been cloned off the worst of the Batman spin-offs, a total waste of Jack Nicholson’s time?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay. Say I believe you.”

  “I don’t care whether you believe—”

  “There is a second team on the ground. And they’re good.”

  Silence followed, then Cruz’s contact said, “Please tell me you’re not suffering from an attack of the heebie-jeebies.”

  “I don’t know what those are.”

  “Last-minute nerves. Come on, man.”

  “I know what you meant. I’m telling you, I’ve never had them.”

  “So . . .”

  “Somebody else wants your guy dead.”

  The contact grunted. Or coughed. “I would imagine a lot of people feel that way just now.”

  “Just so we’re clear,” Cruz went on, “I get full payment no matter who takes out the professor.”

  “Dead is dead,” his contact agreed. “Anything else?”

  “Just one. What should I do about this other team?”

  The contact thought it over. “It would help to know who sent them. My group is supposed to be lead on this.”

  Which meant asking one of the other hunters some questions. And that would require a close-order kill. “The information will cost you double.”

  “Of course it will,” the contact replied. “You won’t forget the most important detail?”

  “The clock is ticking,” Cruz said.

  “Good hunting.”

  Cruz cut the connection and reached to the floor behind his seat. He unzipped his pack and pulled out a Benchmade hunting knife with the serrated carbon-steel blade. He set it in his lap and searched the pack a second time. He did not need to take his eyes off the highway as he fit the leather strop to his left forearm. Back when he first started off, Cruz had gained a reputation for his speed and grace in the close-order kill. He unsnapped the latch, drew the knife from its sheath, and began stropping the blade. He had always found the movement relaxing. By the time he approached the Asheville turnoff, the blade was razor-sharp and Cruz had worked out his next move.

  twenty-seven

  Their discussion paused while Avery’s girls returned and attacked their meal like two-legged carnivores. Claudia then allowed them another half hour to play by the pool with their motorized sailboat. Their cries punctuated the gathering night. Avery’s steaks were near perfect. When they finished, Theo joined the others in cleaning up. The kitchen was an astonishment. Kenny’s appliances all carried brand names Theo had never heard of. There were three dishwashers—one in the main kitchen area, two more in what Harper called the butler’s pantry. They made coffee and carried their mugs back out to the veranda. When they were settled, Theo said to Avery, “Now tell us what you plan on doing next.”

  Avery had clearly been expecting the question, as his response was both instant and measured. Like he had prepped for a coming lecture. “As I said before, vaccinations have been the pharmaceutical industry’s ugly stepsister. As a result, no real improvements were made to the production process for years. When your brother bought the company, his aim was to redesign the entire structure from the bottom up.”

  Theo liked how the night surrounded them. It even felt as if the kids had their own role in this, reminding him that they were involved in something extremely urgent. They represented all the vulnerable people out beyond their softly lit world.

  “The one part of the process over which Kenneth has no control is human trials,” Avery went on. “The process is incredibly complex. And expensive. Bringing a new drug to market costs on average over a quarter of a billion dollars. More than half of this cost comes in the human-trial phase.”

  “It’s stupid,” Claudia said, “the bureaucratic nightmare they have to endure when introducing a new drug to the FDA.”

  Avery said, “But there’s a group of us working in immunology who think a significant outbreak will change all that. One that’s soon to come.”

  “Makes sense,” Della agreed. “If millions of people are threatened, the population won’t allow the bureaucrats to slow things down.”

  “Bishop Industries was secretly preparing for this event,” Avery said. “I’m part of that group.”

  “You’re leading it,” Claudia corrected.

  “Kenneth directs it.”

  “From his penthouse office,” Claudia said. “You’re his frontline general.”

  Theo loved how the two of them looked at each other, long and deep and brilliant enough to defy the night. Then Claudia rose and said, “Time to put the monsters to bed. Somebody take notes and tell me everything when I get back.”

  Avery watched his wife and daughters as he said, “Kenneth intends his company to lead a new approach to vaccinations. Strip away everything to do with the old system that slows things down. We call it ‘Outbreak Response Team’ or ORT. From the identification of a new disease to full production of a vaccine to eradication. Design a process that reduces the time factor. No longer taking years. Or months. But instead making it available in a matter of days, weeks at most.”

  Theo appreciated how he could settle back and let the others carry the discussion forward. It was his favorite part of being a teacher, offering up a concept to a group of intelligent and eager young adults and then moving into the background. Granting them room to find their own way.

  Avery said, “Until recently the standard practice was to study the virus or bacteria and identify the characteristics that define the human infection. Once that was achieved, a vaccine was designed around the microbe or virus, but in a way that didn’t make the patient sick. Some component of the virus or bacteria was isolated—one that didn’t actually cause a serious infection. The body develops antigens, and these fight off the infection. This was referred to as a ‘non-live vaccine.’ Then the next time the body is exposed to the bug, the immune system is well primed. It responds immediately because the vaccine has identified the infection as an enemy.”

  Avery pushed himself from the chair and started pacing along the veranda’s edge. His silhouette cut a moving target from the lights lining the neighboring hills. “Bishop is in the process of developing an entirely new system. We call it ‘Platform Technology.’ The aim is to insert the DNA protein from a disease directly into this new viral platform. We completely erase the standard practice. We take the disease, we identify the pathogens, we develop a vaccine at the genetic level, and then we attack.”

  Della said what Theo was thinking. “You haven’t j
ust been working on this. You’ve done it, haven’t you?”

  “The platform is basically worked up, yes. But it wasn’t ready. It had to become miniaturized. Small enough to take to where the disease was spreading. Which meant building a new system for working at the genetic level. A complete functioning lab that could be brought to wherever the disease first appears. Then prepare the new antigen system and ship that back for the production process.”

  Theo realized, “That’s what you lost in Senegal. That’s what got you so upset. It wasn’t the samples. It was the lab.”

  “Our only lab. It’s gone. Blown up.” Avery stopped pacing and stood there watching them. Waiting.

  Theo found himself caught by the scientist’s unspoken message. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? To Asheville.”

  Avery smiled but remained silent. Clearly liking how Theo was there with him.

  “You’re down here to keep the Feds from interfering with your team building a new setup while you hunt for the germ.”

  “Genetic structure,” Avery corrected.

  “Whatever,” Theo said. “Man, am I ever glad you’re on board.”

  twenty-eight

  Cruz enjoyed a leisurely dinner and arrived back at the target’s residence just after ten that night. The estate’s western wall fronted a steep slope covered by old-growth forest. Cruz found a broad oak with three low branches, almost like a ladder. It was set well back from the perimeter fence. Ahead of his perch and slightly to his left was a better station, a large elm whose branches formed a canopy about forty feet wide. That was the ideal location. But it was also where Cruz had earlier spotted small boot prints, probably belonging to a woman. Which was why he had ended up here, hidden among the branches of the oak. He still had not actually spotted the other shooter team. But his spider sense kept whispering to him.

  Cruz had barely settled when the target and a dark-skinned woman emerged from the house. He watched in amazement as they seated themselves on the veranda. Just taking in the night, like the two of them had decided to make the job easier. The veranda was rimmed by lights set into the stones that cut the pair into tight lines and shadows. If the professor had placed a target at head height, the shot could not have been easier.

  Cruz unzipped his rifle pack and extracted the Zeiss night scope. He took fifteen minutes doing a careful sweep of the perimeter. By the time he replaced the night scope, Cruz was certain the professor had no security personnel on duty.

  It had been years since the last time Cruz had been sent after a target who left himself totally open. Why pay his sort of rates to take out a sitting duck? A local hitter could drive out, do this guy, and save the client a cool quarter mil.

  But a job was a job.

  Another woman emerged from the house and seated herself with the pair. The night was so quiet he could hear the three of them chatting up there on the veranda. He wondered if they had even bothered to turn on the alarm system. He had spotted the motion sensors during his first foray. The way they sat there, totally absorbed in whatever they were talking about, left him fairly certain they didn’t have a clue.

  Cruz unzipped his padded case the rest of the way and extracted the rifle. He had a dozen or more of them to pick from. But this was his preferred model for midrange jobs. The AP4 was made by Panther Arms, a compact version of the long-range .308 model. It had twice the punch of the M4, with incredible accuracy and a full-clip weight of just eleven pounds. He fitted the Leupold scope into its frame and tightened the bolts, then slipped a waxed bullet into the chamber.

  There was always an exquisite intensity to the moment before a kill. Time slowed. The world held a crystal precision so tight and intense that he could freeze-frame the bats chasing insects in the lights rimming his target. He drew out the silencer and screwed it into the rifle’s snout.

  Then, as he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, he heard it.

  A branch cracked off to his left. Slightly farther away from the perimeter wall. Cruz froze with the rifle halfway into position. He did not search with his eyes. The shadows behind him were impenetrable.

  Slowly, silently, he unbolted the Leupold and slipped it into his belt. Reaching behind him to his pack, he pulled out the night scope again. While it was possible that some night creature was on the hunt, the crack had carried the sound of heavy weight. Which meant either a bear had come down from the highlands or . . .

  He heard a second distinct noise.

  The dry brush to his right shuffled quietly. It was the sound of a professional moving into position. They did not have the talent or patience to shift positions as silently as Cruz. But still.

  Scarcely breathing, he slipped the rifle over his shoulder. He left the night scope in place. The pack went over his other shoulder. Then he climbed down, a quick descent that landed him in a crouch at the base of the oak, his rifle up and swinging back in front of him. Cruz stayed like that, tracking in every direction for a full ten minutes. The sounds did not come again. He had to assume at least two other shooters were in position. Whoever they were, Cruz was not about to try to take them both out. The fact that they were separated by at least fifty yards meant a second tracker could attack while he was dealing with the first. Not to mention alerting the primary target.

  Cruz trotted back to the fire road where he’d left his ride. He released the brake and rolled downhill a good hundred yards before starting the car.

  He loathed the idea of somebody else taking out his target. But Cruz was a pro, and pros did not make decisions on the basis of pride.

  Like the client said. Dead was dead.

  twenty-nine

  It seemed as though Theo’s head had scarcely touched the pillow before he was awakened by a light tapping sound. When he did not respond, the tapping grew louder and more insistent. “Coming,” he called.

  Theo slipped into his trousers and drew back the door drapes. The sliding glass door overlooked a patio of reddish Mexican tiles. The pool’s lights reflected off Della’s worried face. Harper and Avery stood one step behind her. Theo slid the door open. “What is it?”

  “Kenny’s on television.” Della slipped past him and grabbed the remote control next to the TV. She kept talking as she waited for the image to appear. “I was working on my story and had the television on as background noise. I do that sometimes. It reminds me of the audience I’m after . . . Here he is.”

  The cable news channel showed the announcer seated behind an angled desk, forming tight segments where guests now sat, all of them partially aimed at the camera. The announcer was a man in his forties with prematurely gray hair and a tight, cynical gaze. His voice was New England nasal and pushy. Theo always switched the channel as soon as he spotted the announcer’s face. The man said, “We have time for one more question. Irma Shaw?”

  The woman seated next to him was angry. “I’m still waiting to hear how he intends to answer for the opioid crisis he and his profiteering company helped create.”

  “Sounds reasonable. Kenneth, your response?”

  “I’ve answered her questions twice now—”

  “Not to my satisfaction, you haven’t,” she snapped.

  “If I put on a hair shirt and whipped my way down the Eastern Seaboard, you still wouldn’t be satisfied.”

  “No, but I’d be mightily pleased by the sight.”

  Perhaps it was Kenny’s haggard image. Or the way he winced at the woman’s acid tongue. But Theo found himself hurting for his brother. Kenny’s appearance on the show had clearly cost him dearly. And yet there he sat, struggling to make himself heard. Kenny’s voice held a ragged edge as he said, “The real question you need to be asking is, why am I here? Why haven’t I hidden myself behind layers of attorneys and guards? There is only one answer to that. I have information so critical, so time sensitive that I am forced to put up with this nonsense to be granted a national audience.”

  “This is hardly nonsense.”

  “A new viral outbreak is growing as we speak. If we
don’t prepare for it, we could be facing a pandemic worse than the influenza crisis of 1918. We need—”

  “And that’s all we have time for tonight.” The camera shifted back to the announcer. But behind him, the television audience could still see Kenny talking into a dead microphone. “Many thanks to tonight’s guests, Dr. Irma Shaw and Kenneth Bishop. This is The Midnight Hot Seat signing off.”

  thirty

  Cruz woke up as usual the hour before dawn. He had never needed much sleep. The habit had saved him from several dreadful ends as a kid, when his mom had hooked up with guys who scalded their awful home with danger. He had not thought of those bad times in years.

  When he had first started off as a free agent, nightmares from those times had leaked through his tight armor, waking him in hard sweats. Being out on his own had been a difficult but necessary shift, and he had never regretted the move. The gang was history. If he had stayed with them, he’d either be in jail or dead by now. Going it alone was his only way forward. The early nightmares had simply been part of that shift.

  Normally, Cruz rose while it was still dark, fixed a pot of green tea, and began his sunrise salute. It was a term from eastern combat techniques. Salute the sun with motions that started in calm cadence and gradually grew faster and more violent. By the time he finished, Cruz spun out webs of sweat and fury. The motions were called katas, stylized one-man battles. But Cruz could not do them now, and his body ached from the energy he had to keep hidden. Which was why his memories had leaked out.

  The sun rose and the camp woke around him. Cruz stayed as he was, pretending to sleep. His hammock was slung between two trees just off the camp’s main trail. He kept his face turned toward the people passing by, giving everyone a clear view. He had to assume the other hunters had done the job. Yet he couldn’t leave the region until the kill was confirmed. Which meant establishing an alibi noted by all the passing campers. Even when his fake beard itched and his body jerked from recollections that kept pushing out like steam from a kettle shrilling to be taken off the fire.