DARC Ops: The Complete Series

by Jamie Garrett

  Molly, meanwhile, was sprawled at the foot of the bed. Bren had given her free reign over the movie rental screen, free reign to charge Sam with as many animated features as her little heart desired. But despite the candy and a new stuffed animal picked up in the lobby, despite all the shows she’d blown through, and having a queen-size bed all to herself to watch them from, she was absolutely, and quite understandably, fucked up. If anything, the movies helped Bren and Sam not hear her every little sad sniffle. Her groans, her restless rolling around. Sitting up, lying down, rolling on her side, and then the other side, kicking around, and then sometimes even breaking down into hysterics so that Bren would have to leave her call and come over and do her best to head off the meltdown with another of their long, rocking embraces.

  Through all of this, Sam was stationed in front of his computer. Working with the guys back in Washington, he had requested and just recently received an edited video file containing all of the news footage from the attack. Someone had stitched together a highlight reel of all of it, from a dozen different media outlets, as well as the latest uploads of independent footage on YouTube and social media sites. He started with the independent stuff first, all of it raw and unfiltered. What he saw was goddamn horrific. Several videos were shot during the height of the attack, shaky footage of a swarming mass of people rushing away from the courthouse. In these clips he felt certain, several times, that he’d spotted Clara, her slow but steady, almost dignified jog alongside a mad rush of people. It was her gait that he picked up on, even her running gait, which he’d never actually seen before. The way her shoulders and arms moved. For clothing, he called Bren over to verify what looked to be her gray pantsuit. But still, he couldn’t get a clear shot of her face. The shots were either too blurry or shaky for that. But at least he felt closer to an answer. Closer to Clara.

  He saw her. Probably. And at least, in that specific moment in time, she was alive and escaping.

  So where the hell did she end up?

  “Any luck with the hospitals?” Sam asked a momentarily phone-less Bren.

  “I only just started,” she said, putting the receiver back to her ear. “I’ve completely given up on the friends and family.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “Her friends and family?”

  “They okay?”

  “Well, they feel better that we’re looking into it. But, yeah. They’re upset.”

  “How are you doing?”

  She shrugged, dialing another number from a phone book. “I’m upset.”

  Sam glanced over to Molly. She had fallen asleep. And good for her. The girl had been through enough, and cried enough to be utterly exhausted. Sam could see it even before she passed out, that dull, lost look on her face. It was as if someone had slipped her a sedative.

  Sam, on the other hand, was still riding a wave of adrenaline since the very beginning, since hearing about the news in the shower. How could things have gotten so fucked up so quickly? He’d gone from a having a nice, hot shower while thinking about Clara—and thinking about them together in the shower, to this.

  At least they had something to work from now. He had, or so he thought, identified Clara in the courtyard. Which meant that she had either fled unscathed, or collapsed and had been carted off by one of the ambulances out front. He might have even walked by her ambulance in the very beginning.

  He went back to his videos, the news broadcasts, speeding up the playback and scanning closely for any shots of ambulances loading. Across the room Bren was talking with someone at another hospital, asking about what kind of system had been set up for loved ones in case patients came in without ID. And then, in a suddenly agitated voice, asking why nothing had been set up yet. And then in a more apologetic tone, “Of course, I know, I know you’re busy. I know. It’s an emergency.”

  The biggest hurdle in finding Clara, if she had ended up unconscious at a hospital, was that she very likely had no ID on her. And assuming how rushed and flooded the hospitals were, even before this crisis, it could be a long wait until all of the unconscious and ID-less survivors were accounted for.

  There could be Jane Does, too. Bodies. Perhaps many of them. Clara couldn’t be a Jane Doe. Sam couldn’t let that happen.

  Right at the same time Bren hung up the phone with her usual, “Fuck,” Sam caught it. His heart leapt with the chance, the possibility . . .

  Yes! A quick flicker of Clara. Her face this time. He rewound and played the frames back slower this time, and he saw her.

  He definitely saw her!

  “Bren! We got it!”

  It was a quick shot of Clara being loaded into an ambulance. And Sam would have jumped for joy, as he was planning, until it was clear that she was in trouble. Clara was moving, her hands flapping about slowly. But her eyes were closed, her face sickly green. Though at least, for that time being, she was alive. He’d hold off the celebration until he saw her in person, and when he saw that she was okay.

  Bren had rushed to Sam’s side, hunching over his shoulder. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God!”

  Sam read out loud the name on the side of the ambulance. “First Response Ambulance Services. And I got an ambulance number. FR423. We got it!”

  Bren was already backing away toward her phone. “You want me to call it in?”

  “The hospital? Which one?”

  “No,” she said, already flipping through the phone book. “First Response. I’ll call the company.”

  Sam looked over at Molly again, who, despite the noise and the half celebration, was still in deep sleep. Her movie played on softly in the background. Sam hoped that when she woke up, they could give her some good news.

  “Fuck,” Bren said. “They’re busy. I keep getting the signal.”

  “Their switchboard must be getting fried.”

  “Should I call the hospitals again? See if they have drop-off records with the ambulance number?”

  Sam reached for his phone. “I doubt they’ll have the number.” He pulled up Tansy’s name in his contacts and sent the call. “Don’t worry. I know someone who can figure this out.”

  13

  Clara

  She was in court, typing her own testimony. She was both a speaker and a recorder. Witness and stenographer. Alive and dead.

  The good news was that she had friends in the jury box, friends and family looking on with placid, if not bored expressions. They had come in like this every day for the last year, listening, noting, judging. There were also people in strange uniforms. She didn’t like them as much. They would walk into court with very serious, very fixed glares, brooding all the time with their instruments. They had all these instruments and tools, the metal glistening under the lights whenever they entered the court.

  Sometimes they would turn the lights out. And then it would be a funeral. A small wooden casket on the prosecution’s table surrounded by bouquets of white lilies.

  There was never anything to say or type at the funeral. She would try, and then the judge would appear, a light in the darkness. The judge was just a light. It grew brighter.

  “Clara . . .”

  It grew a little brighter.

  “Clara, come on . . .”

  It grew.

  “It’s me.”

  The light was the whole room. It was everything. She couldn’t see anything but the light.

  “Mommy? . . . Mommy, wake up.”

  She was in the room. Molly was in the room. Where was she?

  The room was dark again. Oh, God, so dark. Her family and friends were gone, the chairs in the court sitting alone and scattered, some pushed over to their side. What the hell had happened in here, and how had she missed it? Her family. She had to find them. Make sure they were safe.

  Clara tried to move, to take a step, just a single step. Nothing. She had to move. She had to get up from her desk and find her family. But God, it was dark, and she was all alone.

  Was it night? Was that it, was she dreaming? She h
ad to open her eyes. Then the dark would go away.

  The effort seemed impossible, the goal insurmountable, but eventually she felt her eyelids flutter.

  “Clara? Clara, that’s it. Come back to me . . .”

  There was that voice again. She didn’t know who it belonged to, but it was warm. Safe. She saw a flash of a face. Dark hair, warm eyes. Someone was touching her, brushing fingers along her cheek.

  “Baby, can you hear me?”

  Exhausted, her eyes slid shut again. She was back in the darkness again, but this time she didn’t mind. The voice would protect her, keep her safe, until the light came back again. Then she’d be able to see again, and find her way out of here.

  14

  Clara

  Clara smiled again and it hurt her lips. They were dry and cracked. Pretty much every part of her body hurt, except her heart. That part was buzzing warmly with happiness. With love. No matter what else happened, her heart was content. She had her girl by her side, Molly’s smile beaming down on her. She hadn’t stopped smiling since Clara opened her eyes. And she had Sam, standing at the foot of her hospital bed, grinning and admiring from afar, a look of amusement on his face as he watched her and Molly. Somehow they had all wound up together, even Bren, the three of them being there just as Clara opened her eyes from the deepest and darkest sleep she’d ever had.

  But she still felt that sleep. Even now. It lingered on, worse than a sleeping pill hangover. Something still had hold of her, of the back of her brain. She could feel its tight grasp, its pressure. She could still feel the heavy fog. At times, she could even see it. It would come seeping into the room, sometimes getting thick and sleepy and she would doze off again. Then she would open her eyes and there would be a new set of faces looking down at her. Strangers. Nurses and doctors. They were nice and fine and all. And they likely saved her from whatever had happened back at the courthouse. But they weren’t her people.

  For now, Clara was fighting to stay awake. She wanted to stay with her people.

  “Do you think you need another nap?”

  Clara looked over to find Bren at her usual spot, in a chair next to the bed with a happy Molly on her lap.

  “You should probably sleep if you feel like it,” Bren said. “The doctor said it would help you recover.”

  Clara sat up a little, cleared her throat, and said “No.” Her voice felt and sounded a little strange. A little rough, foreign.

  Bren smiled. “No?”

  She cleared her throat again. “No, I can sleep when you guys leave.”

  “What if we don’t ever leave?” asked Molly. She was twirling her finger in her hair just like usual. Clara was glad to see how tough and unaffected she seemed through all of it.

  Clara smiled, her cracked lips feeling fine now. “If you don’t ever leave, then that means you’ll miss school.”

  “Aaaand?”

  “And if you miss school, you’ll be grounded.”

  “Awww . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Molly. We’ll take care of you,” Sam said. He walked around from the foot of the bed, joining Clara at the other side of the bed. “Don’t you want to go swimming?”

  Clara turned her head to see Molly nodding emphatically.

  “That’s right,” Bren said, turning to Clara and talking quieter. “I’ll find a store downtown and pick up a swimsuit. I don’t care how overpriced it is.” She laughed. “I’m not driving all the way home and all the way back.”

  “What pool?” Clara asked.

  “Mine,” Sam said. “Well, the hotel’s.”

  “We were there the whole day,” Bren said. “The Grand Marias. Molly got to abuse the movie rental channel while we tracked you down. And now that she’s feeling better, she wants to abuse the pool. Isn’t that right? She won’t stop talking about it.”

  Molly held her fists together in the air and cried, “Cannon Balllll!”

  They all laughed at the surprisingly good-spirited child It was amazing how quickly Molly had rebounded, now she was sure her mom would be okay. Clara felt more relieved than ever. Sure, there had probably been a few rough spots early on. Clara imagined there were quite a few of those . . . God bless her friends for taking care of things. Taking care of Molly. And now, her.

  Clara looked away from her little shining star for a moment, looking back to Sam. Behind his light smile, concern was lurking. There must have been so much he hadn’t yet told her about what happened that morning. Clara had questions of her own. But she was okay with enjoying the moment.

  “Ohhh, I see you’ve got some visitors.” It was the high and sing-songy voice of a nurse. She walked in holding a clipboard, tapping a pen against it and saying, “We were hoping someone would come around and claim you.”

  “Yeah,” Clara said, clearing her throat again. “Lost and found, huh?”

  “That’s correct, Jane Doe Number Forty.”

  Gosh . . . Had there really been forty unidentified victims? Just at this hospital alone?

  The nurse scratched something out at the top of her clipboard and said, “I mean, Clara Miles.” And then she wrote something else in its place.

  Sam had been smiling down at Clara the whole time. “And just like that,” he said. “Back from dead.”

  15

  Sam

  It was nice to see Molly in better spirits. She had gone from struggling to comprehend what had happened, to probably just wondering—as she swam laps in the pool—how long Mommy would be sick for. From biological terror attack, to the common flu. It amazed Sam to see how mentally rugged children could be. How they could shrug things off with so little effort, a sleepwalk compared to the neuroticisms which came with maturity.

  Before leaving the Grand Marais, Sam swung by the pool one last time to give Bren a key card to a room of her and Molly’s own. A seventeenth-floor double-queen suite—with what he’d presumed would be a sorely needed mini bar. More snacks for Molly, and perhaps some liquid stress relief for good ol’ Bren. Sam had come to like her very much, and was consistently amazed at not only how good of a friend she’d been to Clara, but how authentically bonded she and Molly were. Without Bren—and with Molly’s grandparents all the way in Chicago—it was hard to imagine how the little girl would have gotten through it. Her “sitter” was certainly well worth the hundred dollars, although Bren deserved a heck of a raise today, on top of however many extra nights she’d like to stay at the luxury hotel and however many bottles of Dom Perignon she’d like to polish off while there.

  The hotel was also a quick drive from the hospital. Sam had raced back, hoping to catch another window of consciousness from Clara. She had been drifting in and out all day, partly from the fatigue of her body waging war against the virus, and partly from the medication she’d been receiving ’round the clock. But it was good that she was sleeping. He was glad she was resting. Short little naps were a lot better than one long, final one.

  Though it would be nice to see her once more before visiting hours ended for the day, it would be even nicer to have some alone time, or as alone as one could get in a heavily monitored care unit in the hospital. There would be opportunities for other types of alone time, in other, more private settings, and in more comfortable beds. Once she was feeling better, the possibilities were endless.

  This was only the start, a rocky one, but a start to those big changes he’d been waiting for all his life. A reason to get out of the ruts of academia, the bog of Washington. Although he’d enjoyed working for Jackson, D.C. was really a nasty, despicable place.

  New Orleans, on the other hand, was nasty in an entirely different way. An authentic, even fun way. And although it had its downsides, its rough and dangerous edges, at least New Orleans never lied about itself. He thought about his new town while standing in the hospital elevator, wondering about the possibility of his staying on a more permanent basis.

  It would be mostly done for Clara and Molly. He couldn’t kid himself about that. But he had already established a little
social group in New Orleans. His good friend Dave was here. He’d potentially made another good friend in Bren. And he’d also potentially joined a family with Clara and Molly.

  Sam thought about that word, family, as he stepped off the elevator. It was a big jump, and probably presuming a little too much about his and Clara’s relationship. But this event with the attack seemed to have sped things up in his mind. In his heart, too. And now, with Clara recovering so speedily, maybe they could ride the wave of momentum. They had been riding it a little recklessly, perhaps. But after the attack, where lives could have been lost, and possibilities snuffed out prematurely, he was willing to take some risks.

  “You really sure I can’t go in there?”

  The nurse had physically stationed herself between him and the door. “Yes, Mr. Hyde. I’m very sure.”

  “She’s sleeping?”

  “Quite peacefully, as long as there’s no more visitors.”

  “And she’s still doing well?”

  The nurse smiled, still not moving an inch from the door. “As long as she gets her rest, yes. Hours open up again tomorrow at nine a.m.”

  Damn. It would be a long night. Sam backed away from the door and from the professionally stubborn nurse. “You sure I can’t spend the night outside her room?”

  “In the hallway?”