Carl glanced at Palmer, confused. “Doctor, this is a goddamned hospital! Are you telling me you don’t have blood here?”
“We tried that hours ago, but the virus is so virulent it compromised the new blood almost instantly. She is so weak her body cannot withstand that kind of shock. We nearly killed her.” The doctor took a deep breath. “She needs blood from someone who has been cured.”
Carl said, “I’ve been cured, Doctor, and so has Agent Palmer.”
“Her blood type is B-positive, so we need a B or O donor.”
“I’m B-positive,” Carl said.
The doctor looked at Palmer, who shook her head. “I’m A-negative.”
Dr. Stirling said, “I’d need a minimum of four more people to provide enough blood for her transfusion, and there just aren’t any other survivors we can get blood from. At least, not within the hour or so she has remaining.”
“Four people? How much does she need?”
“Sir, she needs a total transfusion.”
“How much?”
“Five quarts. You don’t have enough.”
“How can I possibly not have enough? I’m almost twice her size. There’s no way she has more blood in her body than I do!”
“Sir, you only have five quarts in your body, and she needs five quarts, maybe more. If I take forty percent of your blood you’ll go into a coma from which you may never wake up. If I take fifty percent of your blood, you will die.”
“Doctor, my life isn’t worth shit now anyway. At least, my death can save her life. No one will hold you responsible.”
“I’m sorry, I cannot. I took an oath—”
Carl held up his hand. “Doctor, this girl cannot die. Am. I. Clear?”
Dr. Stirling nodded, glanced at Agent Palmer, then nodded again. “Come with me.”
Five minutes later, Carl lay on a second bed that had been wheeled into Melissa’s room. He gazed to his left as the doctors and techs stuck him with needles and affixed tubes to the needles. The tubes led into a high-tech machine, which he assumed was the pump meant to drain him. More tubes led from the machine into Melissa’s arm. Bags of clear fluid and red plasma hung on racks beside Carl’s bed, though the doctor said there was no way they could replenish his evacuated blood fast enough. He would die.
A wash of emotions flooded through him at the pitiful sight of the dying girl. He felt his heart tearing. Her skin held a dreadful gray tint and her skin sagged on her face. She had numerous IV tubes in her arms and a clear oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth. He could hear her labored breath rasping in and out of her chest.
Dr. Stirling leaned over his bed. “The amount of blood we need to stabilize her will kill you, Mr. Johnson.” She hesitated. “Do you understand what you are volunteering for?”
“I understand.”
Stirling regarded him for a moment, then she nodded at the tech. The young man turned on the machine and it began a low hum. Carl didn’t feel anything, but he imagined he could sense his life draining away.
“Carl,” said a distant voice. It sounded like Agent Palmer, but he couldn’t be sure. “Can you hear me?”
He found it extremely hard to concentrate on the voice. He managed to open his eyes, but his lids were very heavy. He smiled at the voice.
“Nancy,” he said with a heavy slurred voice. “Promise me you’ll bury me with my son.”
“I promise.”
A shadow leaned over him and eclipsed the ceiling lights, and he felt her warm lips against his—or maybe he just imagined that she was kissing him—but he couldn’t find the strength to kiss her back. He just purred contentedly and drifted away. At first, he saw darkness consuming him, then he saw a light.
Then he saw his son’s face smiling at him. Mark visited him one final time. The young man was proud of him, proud of his sacrifice.
Chapter 66
Five Days Later
Las Cruces, NM
In spite of all the bad things he’d done, he ended up in heaven. It had to be that place because Mark was there, and the young man wasn’t dying as he had been all the other times Carl saw him in his recurring nightmare. Carl hugged his son for a long time, then held onto Mark’s hand.
“I love you so much, Mark, and I’ve missed you terribly.”
“I’ve missed you too, Pops. See you soon. Love you!” he said cheerfully.
Then he turned away, leaving Carl stunned with surprise. He watched his son leave, but he wasn’t just walking away. He was fading away, slowly losing substance until Carl could see through his body.
“Wait, Mark. Where are you going? I just found you again.”
Mark just waved.
“No, Mark. Don’t go.”
Carl opened his eyes and saw his outstretched left hand reaching for the ceiling. The lights were bright, but that’s not what made his eyes water. His son had slipped away again. He brought his hand down and covered his face. He moaned.
“Oh, God. What have I done?”
He tried to bring his right hand to his face also, but discovered that a real person was holding it. He lay on his back on a hospital bed and rolled his head to the right. It was Shirley Mallory.
“You saved me, Carl. You saved my daughter. You saved the country.”
Carl took a deep breath. The country didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and tried to hold onto the remnant of his waking vision. “He was right here, Shirley. I saw him. I saw Mark. This time, he was smiling at me. He was happy, not dying.”
The president held his hand between both of hers, and they shared a quiet moment together. He gently freed his hand, threw back the white sheet, and rolled upright, ending with his legs hanging off the side of the bed. He took several deep breaths to collect himself, then he looked at President Mallory sitting on a chair beside his bed.
“He’s really gone.”
“I know, Carl,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
He nodded and looked up as Doctor Stirling entered the room. The president stood. She wore a cream-colored skirt suit over a dark blue blouse. A modest string of pearls adorned her neck.
“Good morning, Madam President,” Dr. Stirling said. “Mr. Johnson, how do you feel?”
“I’m alive,” he said. “That tells me Melissa Mallory still lives and that you didn’t have to drain me dry to make that happen.”
The doctor nodded. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Sista, I’m never going to be fine.”
The doctor regarded him quietly for a moment, then said, “Miss Mallory is alive and recovering nicely. Over the past five days, we kept you sedated and fed intravenously while we harvested just enough of your blood—two quarts to begin with and then a quart every few hours—to keep her out of critical condition until we could find enough compatible cured donors to supply the quantity of blood needed for her transfusion. Now that you’re awake, I’d like to have my people run some blood tests on you. I’d like to keep you here for observation and rest for a few days.”
“Negative on the extended stay. Where are my clothes?”
The doctor pointed toward the cabinet by the door, then nodded respectfully to President Mallory and left. Carl retrieved his tactical clothes and slid the pants on under his hospital gown, then finished dressing.
“How many people did we lose, Shirley?”
“A fourth of my cabinet, the Senate, and the House died from the initial Phase One culling of the contagion. About the same percentage of my security detail died, along with the flight crews of Marine One and Air Force One. The outbreak was fairly well contained back east. Walter Breen’s plan there was successful. Out here, we lost a lot more.”
President Mallory paused for a moment, and Carl knew she’d been briefed on his use—his release—of the airborne virus.
“Just over eight hundred have died throughout New Mexico. Another nine hundred perished in Mexico, not including the Triad’s laboratory staff. Slightly less than six hundred have died in small outbreaks throughout South America
and Europe from travelers that departed the airport from Mexico City.”
He nodded. “What about our people?”
“We took some hits at home, Carl. Special Agent Cummings and her daughter are fine. Mr. Garcia lost his wife and child. Then he took his own life. Anita Chapman lost one of her twin girls. Aaron…” Her voice broke a bit. “They killed him. They burned the operations house down with him in it.”
“How long were you two together?”
“A long time.” She looked away and her voice wavered. “A very long time.”
An awkward silence filled the room. “I killed a lot of people with the contagion,” Carl said as he tucked in his black T-shirt.
“Yes, you did. We were within an hour of losing control of an epidemic that would have killed billions. It would have destroyed entire nations and crippled our own. You took an enormous gamble, Carl.”
“It was no gamble, Shirley.” He turned to face her. “When I released the airborne virus, I didn’t think Breen would back down. I thought I’d be dead.” He took a deep breath. “Walter Breen wanted to rule the world, but I fully intended to leave him with nothing to rule.”
The president narrowed her eyes. “But why would you do that, knowing your actions would have destroyed the world?”
“Because those fuckers got my son killed, Shirley. Because they used a sixteen-year-old child, your daughter, as a weapon of war.” Carl paused. “Because you are the good guy, and Walter Breen is the bad guy.” He glared at her. “In my world, the good guys win…or nobody does. End of story.”
She nodded. “You sacrificed your life for my daughter. Twice. I won’t forget that.”
“It’s what we do for our kids. We give everything we have, if we’re able. We die if we need to.”
“I have a press conference in a few minutes. I’m going to announce my resignation.” She looked at him for a moment, then glanced away. “As I promised, I’m going to apologize to you publicly for my part in Mark’s death. I’m going to clear your name.”
Carl shook his head. “No, Madam President, that doesn’t fit into my plans. I require you to remain president. We have work to do.”
Mallory seemed genuinely surprised. Her eyebrows lifted and she said, “Excuse me? You require?”
“You owe me, Shirley. As you said, I saved your daughter twice. You can feel sorry for yourself later.”
“Be careful, Carl.”
“Maybe I have to remind you of the part where you’re the good guy, Shirley. The bad guys still live, and they have to pay for what they’ve done. I need your help with that.”
Carl was silent as he and President Mallory regarded each other. She held his gaze, but then she faltered and looked away.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Carl.” With a shake of her head, she said, “But I can’t.” She turned and reached for the door lever.
“Shirley,” he called. She stopped, but did not turn around. “I had Mr. Garcia send a small team of mercs to Virginia to get Aaron when he indicated his facility had been compromised. He’s safe and he’s probably cured by now, but the bad guys don’t know that.”
She glanced over her shoulder and he saw a spectrum of emotion wash over her countenance. She turned and stepped close to him. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her right pocket and handed it to him.
“Agent Palmer said you would take this path.” President Mallory paused a moment, and Carl saw both sadness and determination in her eyes. “The media is blaming this whole virus attack on the American Terrorist, and the public needs a target to hate. They won’t believe a splinter element of their own government was to blame. If I don’t fix this for you now, I won’t be able to intervene in the future.”
“Madam President, the American Terrorist needs no apology.” He paused for a moment, then added, “But your country needs you, Shirley. As president. These people did what they did to you, me, and the country because they thought there would be no consequences.”
Shirley Mallory nodded. “Walter Breen and his people are missing. Do what you do, Mr. Johnson. Find them and make them pay.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
ESCALATE!
(American Terrorist 3)
a thriller
Jeffrey Poston
Lomas & Turner Press
ESCALATE! (American Terrorist 3)
By Jeffrey Poston
Copyright © 2018 by Jeffrey Poston, Lomas & Turner Press
For more about this author please visit
http://www.JeffreyPostonBooks.com
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Editing by Debra L Hartmann, The Pro Book Editor
Cover art and design by Lara Joe A Sater
Interior design by IAPS.rocks
Main category—Fiction>Thrillers
Other category—Thriller>Thrillers>Espionage
Prologue
“President Shirley Mallory must die! That is nonnegotiable.”
The speaker sat in the darkness of an underground concrete bunker facing another man across a small conference room table. His name was Grainger Koll, though very few members of even the inner circle of Atlas leadership knew his identity.
The only light in the room emanated from the large high-definition monitor on the wall. A three-dimensional wire-frame representation of the Greek Titan, Atlas, rotated on a light blue background on the screen, the figure’s muscular body supporting the globe on his broad shoulders. Both men listened to the voices debating over the heavily encrypted comm channel. The encryption was designed to prevent America’s NSA keyword searchers from matching voices to known personnel files. Other voices on the comm channel argued the pros and cons of that statement as if it were not a command.
Finally, someone said, “We should at least give President Mallory one last chance to rejoin Atlas. She is valuable, and we need her.”
“No, we need control of the US government!” Grainger said. “Mallory knew the price of her betrayal. No one has ever been given a second chance. She dies. Any questions?”
Another voice added, “We’ve tried that twice.”
The second man in the darkened room, Hollis Koll, said, “Rainman tried that twice, and he messed it up twice.”
“Enough!” Grainger said, and all debate instantly ceased. “The president will die, but first the American Terrorist must be neutralized. We cannot take the chance that he will interfere again.”
“I agree,” Hollis replied. “Carl Johnson is on a killing spree in Mexico. For eight months he’s been like a hound with a scent. He will not stop until he finds us. And it appears he is now in an active partnership with the president, and she is providing him with intel, logistics support, and government assets.”
A woman’s voice, a rarity in the inner circle of Atlas, floated from the speaker grill on the conference table. “He is resilient and resourceful, so another tactical operation against Johnson is unlikely to be effective.”
“I agree,” Grainger said. “That’s why we have a multipronged operation set to begin tomorrow. We believe he is going back to Mexico to terminate the last surviving member of the Triad. We have men on-site waitin
g for him.”
“And if he survives?”
“We have four more ops in motion against him. After he is neutralized, the president will die.”
His brother nodded in the deep shadow. “Then Operation Atlas will commence.”
Grainger Koll paused for a moment as if the silence itself reinforced the import of his next words. “No one turns their back on Atlas, not even the president of the United States. She rejected our agenda, so she must pay with her life.”
Chapter 1
“Hey, mister, are you American?”
Carl Johnson, known to the world as the American Terrorist, pivoted in the shadows and found the owner of the tiny voice. Clearly, the boy already knew he was American because he addressed Carl in English. The boy looked about eight and was dressed in a tattered T-shirt and canvas pants. What looked like a lamp cord served as his belt. He was barefoot and stood in the doorway of a cheap high-mountain cabin.
Carl nodded. “I am.”
“Are you gonna kill somebody?” The boy looked past Carl to the walled homestead across the rural road.
Carl nodded and said, “Mmm-hmmm.”
“Have you ever seen people die?” the boy said.
Carl gazed across the road at his target. He was getting ready to do exactly that in a few minutes…watch people die.
“I have.” He glanced back at the boy. “Have you?”
The boy shook his head and said, “What does it feel like?”
The question surprised Carl, partly because of the content of the question and partly because the question came from such a young person. There was barely ten feet between the boy’s adobe ramshackle house and the next, and the area where they stood was shrouded in dark shadow compared to the bright sunlight of the late afternoon.
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 67