“This will go worldwide within minutes. You sure you want to lie?”
“We have to. If we say what it really is, we’ll have all kinds of morons out on the streets monster hunting like they’re playing some stupid video game. We can always feign ignorance later.”
“You’re 100% sure? They will wake the president on this one.” The woman’s voice sounded conciliatory.
Don laughed. “I’m afraid he’s going to be awake for a while.” He clicked off and took a deep breath. If he was wrong, he’d be in the deepest shit of his life, but he wasn’t wrong. All he needed to do was think of Chubby Rain.
Captain Campo approached, the expression on his face so grim Don almost felt for the guy. “What now?” he asked.
“We’re quarantining the entire area so we can keep this contained.”
“So I assume a cyclone isn’t on its way? And the multi-car pileup on 95 wasn’t an accident?”
Don said nothing.
Pale light crept across the sky as Miami woke up, and the reality of Don’s orders took hold. “You ever hear of a guy named Teapot? Local ride dealer?”
Campo’s eyebrows rose. “No. But if he does business here, one of my men should know of him.”
“Get his home address. I need to go see him.”
Campo nodded and left to go give more orders.
Don wandered over to the van and jumped in back. Computer monitors, a gun rack, and other equipment filled the interior. All five of his men worked feverously at terminals, bringing a cage down over southern Florida. The Navy and Coast Guard would control the sea and ports. The Air Force would control the skies. Troops would be brought in to create a barricade to the north, and eventually, the Army, National Guard, and Marines would occupy the streets. An operation of this size was well beyond anything Don had been involved in before, and there were bound to be mistakes. He hoped none of the people who escaped quarantine… and there would be a few… were infected.
What he needed was a sample of the pathogen. The ride pills he’d recovered from the Redco house were being analyzed, but he was skeptical of the drug being the cause. In his experience, when something looked too good to be true, it usually was.
A knock echoed through the van and Don swung open a rear door. Campo stood there.
“I’ve got Teapot’s address,” he said.
The sun peeked its head over the rim of the world.
It was 5:21AM.
Chapter Four
The Everglades are a mosaic of marshes, weed-filled lakes, cypress stands, hardwood hammocks, bay heads, and endless fields of sawgrass. Willow heads like the one Maureen and company had just paddled through are filled with water during the wet season, and the mangrove trees pierced the surface of the still water like giant dried spiders. The Glades are a massive drain, and the depth of the water fluctuates as the seasons change. Besides Mother Nature, the natural ebb and flow has been dramatically altered by man. One thousand seventy-four miles of canals, seven hundred and twenty miles of levees, eighteen major pumping stations, and two hundred and fifty manmade water control channels made the Everglades of 2015 a computer-controlled ecosystem almost as artificial as Disney World, two hundred miles to the north.
A dragonfly sat on the tip of Tim’s paddle as he rested, and a faint breeze redolent of rotting peat brushed it away. He looked to the sky, pushed his hat off his head, and wet his face with water from the stream. He looked miserable, and Maureen smiled. Then she frowned. What did she hope to find out here? How would this trip change their situation? No matter what happened out here, they would still have to go home. Back to their house, and with that would come all the bad memories. She was scared, and she hated the feeling.
“Wow,” Tim said, and he stopped paddling, and waited for her.
Crocodiles were everywhere, and insects and birds competed to see which could make more noise. Maureen recalled an article which claimed forty-five species of mosquitoes inhabit the Glades, and she was sure she’d been bitten by all of them already. That same article said during the dry season the water disappeared, and in many places, one could walk on the hard-packed peat between the spreading crowns of the trees. Then the insects became bearable, and the crocs retreated to their holes.
The stream narrowed, and a thick patch of undergrowth with wide green leaves rose just above the water, and tall stems topped with purple flowers blocked their way. The expedition had cut through them, breaking many stems and pounding the flowers and leaves with their awkward paddle strokes. A green carpet with white water lilies stretched into the trees as they came free of the stream into a pond choked with sawgrass.
They were about halfway across the pond when the sky darkened, and cold rain lashed them. Maureen paddled hard, and arrived first at the closest hardwood hammock, where she waited under the cover of a pond apple tree for the isolated storm to pass. The tree was short and swollen, its trunk tapering abruptly, and disappearing into a spray of contorted limbs above. Crowds of air plants and ferns grew on many of the tree branches, providing excellent cover. Maureen reached up and picked a yellowish piece of fruit. She knew from experience it wasn’t a true apple, but it was edible. She stowed it, and adjusted her foot pegs as she waited.
One by one, her fellow travelers arrived. Raul first, and then several others Maureen had barely met. Tim limped in second to last, not counting Hawk. Only an older woman named Sheryl took longer. Hawk threw his head back and tried to catch rain in his mouth as he stroked backward to stay behind Sheryl. The rain came in torrents, and no one spoke as they huddled beneath the tree. Even the animals took shelter, but as fast as the storm had appeared, it tapered to drizzle.
Conrad pushed off first. He looked uncomfortable in his kayak, and over corrected to every tilt and roll of the boat. Bungeed to the deck before him was a collapsible cooler and a spare paddle, and behind a pack and tent. Most of the kayaks were similarly outfitted. Lilly followed him out into the flow of the stream, her smile so wide Maureen couldn’t help but wonder if she was on another kind of ride. The others left, and Maureen tried to remember their names as they paddled away.
Raul went next, followed by his wife, Wendy, and then went Saura and Ping. She hadn’t spoken to any of them, other than to say hello when they’d been introduced. They were already a foursome, as they were similar in age, married, and based on the smiles on their faces, Maureen deduced life hadn’t knocked any of them on their ass yet. Then came the swinging singles, Sheryl and Geoff. Sheryl was pushing seventy, but still looked sixty, and Geoff was younger, but not by much. Both had lost their spouses recently, and were hoping an adventure would provide them with a way to carry on. They both spilled their stories to her while they were waiting for Hawk to arrive at the launch site, and they both seemed to relax once they counted her as a friend. Nurses attract older people like honey attracts ants.
A mist-like drizzle was still coming down. Maureen and Tim waited until the others were gone, then pushed away from the hardwood hammock, leaving Hawk, who had informed everyone that he was always in last position so he didn’t lose anybody. A huge rainbow crossed the stream as sunlight broke through the cloud cover, and the storm moved on and broke apart. When it reached Cape Sabel, it would be nothing but a few clouds.
“These very waters we now paddle came all the way from Orlando via the Kissimmee River,” Hawk said. Maureen had heard him tell the others the same thing several times. Their guide was a paradox of features: he had a bandanna decorated with peace signs wrapped around his head, but he wore a confederate flag T-shirt. He was clean-shaven like a banker, but his arms were tattooed with images of dragons, superheroes, and historical figures like Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan. Hawk said the arm tats told the story of his life. He sported an old six-shooter in a shoulder holster, and there was a rifle strapped to his front deck.
They paddled through the thick sawgrass as best they could. There was a grumble to Maureen’s right that sounded like a growl and duck quack blended. Grass snapped and
cracked as something worked its way toward them. A gator dropped from its perch atop a mound of weeds into the shallow canal the paddlers had created, and she went cold. It was a big boy, ten plus feet. It turned to look at her, then bent its head to look at Tim.
“Be still,” Hawk said. “Get out your camera.”
“My camera.” Maureen’s voice was shrill.
“Yeah. He probably won’t attack,” Hawk said.
Maureen’s head swiveled and Hawk lifted his rifle. “Shoot it,” she said.
“Can’t shoot crocs or I’d have the rangers on my ass. How could they possibility catch me, you might ask?” Hawk pointed the rifle in the air and fired. The croc dove back into the water and disappeared. “They use animal tag information, guide data, cameras, conservation reports, autopsies, and an array of sensors and other monitoring devices which are all around the Glades and track everything from bird migration to human intervention. Savvy?”
The water got deeper, and the grass gave way to swamp punctuated with hardwood hammocks ranging in size from a few feet around, to half a mile wide. Ponds packed with grass and stands of splash pine separated some of the bigger islands, but there were large sections that were a labyrinth of tiny hammocks packed with mangrove trees and dense weeds. This was where Maureen would have some fun with Hawk.
For a few minutes, the entire party was together on the lake, and Hawk took the opportunity to give a speech about the snowy egret, and explain how it looked like a heavy metal version of an American egret. “They used to fly around thick as gnats, and now you have to search for them to see one,” he said.
Maureen enjoyed when the guide shared information about local wildlife. Seeing native animals was a big part of why she loved the outdoors. She also felt the urge to ask questions because that had been so ingrained in her while in school that she still needed to prove she was paying attention. It didn’t take much to see Hawk wasn’t a question kind of guy, so she kept to herself. She had considered heading out into the swampy wilderness alone with only a guide map, but Tim had drawn the line there, and he’d been right. She’d already be lost. Hawk gave exact directions, and he instructed the lead party to stop if they were unsure which way to go.
“We’re going to head into that patch of mangrove there. There are a hundred ways through, so don’t sweat it, and feel free to take the path less traveled. It all dumps out into a big lake to the east. Wait there for me,” said Hawk. “Oh, and keep an eye out for the wildlife we spoke about. And don’t get out of your boats. For any reason.” No one said anything. “Go then,” he said, and sat back.
The fab-four darted forward, leaving Conrad and Lilly trailing behind. Sheryl and Geoff paddled together, and that left Tim, Maureen, and Hawk.
“How come you’re always last, Hughs?” Hawk said.
Maureen and Tim both turned. “Sorry?” Maureen said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Why are you always last?”
Maureen chuckled, and pushed off into the trees.
“Man, you got your hands full there, huh?” Hawk said.
Tim didn’t answer.
Maureen paddled through the mangroves, and around small hardwood hammocks. Frogs, snakes, turtles, raccoons, small crocs, egrets, herons, pelicans, and many other birds she couldn’t identify fought for supremacy across the lush landscape. A light breeze brought the scent of rot and low tide. Insects filled the air, but Maureen and Tim had applied bug spray, and that helped. She didn’t like putting the chemicals on her skin, or breathing the fumes, but the birds and insects carried thousands of diseases. While extolling the virtues of bug spray, Hawk had told them that sixty-six percent of all black vultures in South Florida tested positive for encephalitis, and the forty-five species of mosquitoes had tested at seventy-one percent. As a nurse, she understood how scary those numbers were.
Maureen rested her paddle on the kayak’s gunnel, and rubbed her eyes as Tim caught up. They’d just passed through the maze of hardwood stands, and she’d managed to get behind Hawk. After his twenty-minute speech about he how he had to be the last person in the chain, Maureen had no choice but to teach the man a lesson. She figured people didn’t do that to Hawk often.
She’d backtracked several times, causing Hawk to guess which way they’d gone at least once, and they’d slipped behind him.
Now she was second-guessing her decision to mess with Hawk. She took her job and the safety of others while in her care just as seriously as he did, if not more so. Yes, he’d broken her shoes a little, but nothing more than lighthearted banter.
She let her hands dangle in the refreshing water, and took a deep breath. Was her passive-aggressive behavior toward Tim leaking onto Hawk?
Hawk waited at the edge of the lake, and as they grew close, he shook his head. Tim glided by Maureen, and she fell into last position. She let Tim get way ahead, and then she stroked hard.
“Why’d you do that?” Hawk asked. She could tell he was pissed. “I’m responsible for you when you’re out here whether you like it or not.” Maureen darted past him out toward the center of lake. “You hear me? At all? Anything getting through?”
“Easy, canary,” Tim said.
Maureen’s paddle froze mid-stroke. Had Tim just called Hawk a canary?
There was an awkward silence, and then Hawk laughed. “Okay, hotshot. We’ll see what you look like in three days, when the sawgrass is done slicing you up, and your back is broken from sleeping on the ground, and every muscle in your yuppie body aches with the pain of your entire life,” he said.
“Wow. That was good,” Conrad said. “How long you been saying that?”
“Twenty years,” Hawk said.
A screeching sound made Maureen jump. The supply barge that Hawk towed rubbed against a dead tree branch sticking from the water. In addition to the personal gear stowed on the kayaks, Hawk towed an aluminum boat filled with food, drink, and other supplies that would allow them to live in the wild for three nights and four days. The noise had died down a little, and again, Maureen was struck with the notion that she heard no planes, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard one.
“Are we out of the Miami airport’s flight path?” she asked.
“A bit. What are you worrying on now?” Hawk said. He pulled up next to her and looked genuinely interested.
Tim maneuvered his boat between them, and asked, “Can we stop there for lunch? We’ve been paddling almost five hours, and my stomach is rumbling.”
“No, my young little ass. I know it looks like a beach, but that’s where the gators sun themselves. Not a good place to break out food. We’ll stop there,” Hawk said. He pointed toward an island that was so big they could only see half of it. Its southern tip disappeared around a bend into a spray of grass.
They eased the kayaks onto the shore, and lifted themselves out, stretching muscles and cracking joints. Maureen checked her watch and was surprised to see it was already 10:47AM.
The sun was baking off the moisture, and she practically swam through the thick, moist air. A path led into the trees, and Hawk said there was a nice spot to rest in the center of the island. “You can explore a bit while I get the grub ready,” he said, pulling the tarp off the supply boat.
Maureen and Tim headed down the path, watching for snakes and spiders. Cypress trees dotted the edge of the island, but as they went deeper the cypress gave way to oak, saw palmetto, and gumbo-limbo trees. The shade felt nice, and there were fewer insects. They were alone, the soothing sounds of the forest putting their minds at ease. The fab-four had gone ahead of them on the path, but they were nowhere to be seen.
A scream pierced the stillness. Maureen looked to Tim, who shrugged. Maureen thought it was a woman, maybe Sheryl, and without discussion, they both lurched back into motion, running back down the path the way they’d come.
They got about halfway back to the kayaks when they found the finger. The bloody digit lay in the center of the path, tendons and muscle hanging out one end like stuffing from a dec
apitated teddy bear. Drops of blood trailed down the path. Maureen stopped short, and Tim almost ran into her. She was used to gore, Tim wasn’t. He dry heaved, spittle leaking from his mouth, eyes bulging from his head. “What the hell?” he said.
There was yelling and screaming off in the trees, and Maureen sighed. “What the hell indeed.”
Chapter Five
Don rode shotgun again as they made their way across town to drop-in on Teapot, but he was under no illusions. Teapot sold to the end user, which meant he resided on the bottom of what Don hoped was a short pyramid. The city was quiet, but there were people out and about—gas stations, convenience stores, and the like just getting the news that they were to lock their doors and stay inside.
He tried not to think about what was happening across the United States at that moment. Thousands were being deployed, many of whom would live in tents for the duration of the operation. The quarantine stretched through the Everglades and down to the keys, and both areas would be hard to patrol.
It reminded Don of his first mission as a Navy SEAL. He’d been sitting around drinking beer with some mates, off duty, when the call came. His unit deployed in three hours, with no briefing, and no operation-specific training. He’d lived in a tent on the edge of a lake in a country he didn’t know the name of for six months. Each day, he’d be ordered to free dive in the lake and report anything suspicious, but he wasn’t told what they were looking for. He and his unit were briefed when they left and ordered to erase the mission from their collective memory. Don learned later that Agent Massie had been at that lake, but they wouldn’t meet until years later.
They passed rows upon rows of houses as they cut through West Miami. Motive. Don was an investigator, so the cogs and gears of his brain were powered by motives. As in there must be one. What possible gain would someone hope to get by destroying a city? Perhaps the world. Terrorists? Enemies of the west? Extremists? A wacky dude like in the Bond movies who’d been rejected on South Beach? None of it made any sense.
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