“Really? That was quick.”
“I guess the end of the world means the end of red tape.”
Kane placed the two plates at the dinner table, pulled out Isabelle’s chair, pushing it in for her as she sat down, then poured her coffee.
“How do you take it?”
“Black. You?”
“Never touch the stuff unless I’m undercover.” He pointed at the glass of water by his plate. “That or Diet Coke for me.”
“Really? Haven’t met many law enforcement or military types that didn’t devour the stuff.”
Kane sat down across from her, dipping a wedge of toast in his egg yolk, then taking a bite. Isabelle had to admit she didn’t normally partake in breakfast beyond coffee, but she was famished, and after all his hard work, she wanted to make him feel like it was appreciated. She aped him, dipping her toast in the perfectly made to order egg.
“I’ve never been into hot drinks. Tea, coffee, hot chocolate. Nada. The colder the better. I don’t even like red wine—”
“Get out!” she said, pointing at the door.
“But I do like white, if it’s cold.”
“Okay, you can stay.” She sipped her coffee. “Must be tough on missions.”
“Can be, but you learn to tolerate it.”
Isabelle found herself devouring the meal, her stomach overcoming its lack of experience in eating this type of food. She knew her thighs might regret it later, but her lips were loving it. She glanced at Kane’s plate and made a conscious effort to slow down.
“I wonder what they found?” she said as she sipped her coffee. “I’ve never had to deal with a bomb before. What could they find?”
“Well, they’ll probably know what type of explosive, what form it was in before detonation, where it was located, how it was triggered, and what type of trigger it was. All these combined can sometimes narrow it down to a particular bomb maker. If we’re really lucky we may get something identifying, but that’s highly unlikely unless the guy is so cocky he doesn’t care. There’s some like that; they figure either they won’t live long enough for it to matter, or they think they’re untouchable. Those are usually government sponsored or former government.”
“Let’s hope we get lucky. Maybe we can find the bomber and who hired him. Then maybe they’ve got a cure for this damned thing.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
VoyageCenters of America, Gause Blvd, Slidell, Louisiana
Dr. Katherine Best jumped down from the truck she was in, the white paint and bright blue lettering setting it apart from most of the vehicles in the massive parking lot. That and the fact it was accompanied by half a dozen similarly painted vehicles.
She must have made quite the sight for those milling about the parking lot. She found the best way to deal with these situations was to walk with purpose to wherever she needed to go, but in this case, it was right into the thick of the restaurant which if the number of rigs were any indication, was jam packed, probably with truckers stranded due to the quarantine of their destination.
Several squad cars from the local police stood nearby, they having been notified in case there might be trouble. And sitting out of sight down the road were three transports full of National Guard troops in hazmat suits if needed.
She hoped it wouldn’t get ugly, but scared people tended to panic, and this crowd had access to big, heavy, nearly unstoppable vehicles.
That have been crisscrossing this country for possibly ten days, carrying a deadly pandemic.
She waved to what appeared to be the senior officer on the scene as he sauntered over, bold as brass.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.
“I am, Dr. Katherine Best, CDC.”
“Wrong. I’m in charge. This is my jurisdiction, and I’ll say what does and doesn’t go on around here. Clear?”
“Very.” She pulled her phone from one of the many pockets in her hazmat suit, the portable air unit on her back cramping her style slightly. She selected a number from her contacts list and dialed, waiting a moment.
“This is Dr. Katherine Best, CDC. I need some red tape cut. Is he available?”
“One moment, Doctor.”
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Secretary. I have an officer”—she leaned over to him—“I didn’t get your name?”
“Umm, Deputy Bryant.”
“A Deputy Bryant who doesn’t seem to understand the situation.”
“Put him on.”
She handed the phone to the now nervous Deputy. A short conversation, mostly one sided, the side she could hear merely a string of ‘yes, sir’s and ‘I understand, sir’s, then finally a much paler Deputy Bryant handed the phone back.
She placed it to her ear, the sound slightly muffled through the material.
“Sir?”
“Everything should be good now.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Anytime.”
The call ended, the Secretary of Homeland Security she was sure having a full plate on a day like today. She turned to Deputy Bryant.
“Now that we understand the pecking order, I’ll need your men to block the roads and stay outside in case we need crowd control. No one enters or leaves this parking lot. You can accompany me inside.”
“Inside?”
“Inside.”
He eyeballed her suit.
“Can I get one of those?”
She shook her head.
“Sorry, probably already too late.”
She waved as if tossing a line, indicating the gathered mass of CDC personnel should move forward. As they approached the building, the civilians parted way, some scurrying toward their vehicles. She glanced over her shoulders and saw the squad cars being positioned to block anybody from leaving, but just seeing some of the people running toward their vehicles told her this was going to hell quickly.
They entered the building, Deputy Bryant opening the door for her. She stepped inside and a silence swept the room, the entire packed restaurant turning toward her and her team, frozen in time.
No avoiding this.
She stepped forward, holding her hands up in front of her to calm them.
“My name is Dr. Katherine Best from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no need to panic; we’re just here on a routine inspection. Don’t let our outfits scare you, they’re for your protection as much as ours. We’re just going to take some samples, inspect your bathrooms, then leave. Continue enjoying your meals, we aren’t the food inspectors!”
She tried to insert as much of a jovial tone as she could, but she wasn’t sure it was working. Now the best thing to do would be to ignore them, and move on with their business. She pointed to two techs, lowering her voice.
“You two take samples from the front door all the way to the bathroom. Quickly, quietly, then return to the vehicles. The sooner these people aren’t looking at hazmat suits, the better.”
The two techs nodded.
“Bathrooms?” she asked the Deputy.
“This way, Doctor.”
Deputy Bryant led them down a short hall where it split in two. To the left was the women’s bathroom, the right men’s.
“I’ll get you to empty it out, Deputy.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
He disappeared for a few minutes and several confused souls exited, and were even more confused when greeted by a bunch of hazmat suit wearing scientists. The deputy reappeared.
“One guy refuses to leave. Says he won’t until he’s done.”
“Fine.” Katherine pushed the door open, waving her team in with her. She pushed each of the stall doors until she found the locked one. She turned to her team. “Start taking samples of everything. We’re pretty sure this flesh eating disease will be on a toilet seat, so start with those. I can’t believe how quickly it ate through the last guy’s testicles. I’ve never seen that before.”
There was a yelp on the other side of the door, the sound of to
ilet paper being put to use and a flush as the man burst out the door, pulling up his jeans. The look on his face was priceless—sheer terror. She was certain if she had said something about it eating an arm or leg off, it wouldn’t have got a reaction. But mention the boys, and men immediately panic. Even on the battlefield, when she had done a stint in Iraq on an exchange program, the first question out of most of the guys who had wounds “down there” was about the wellbeing of their most favorite body part.
“What should I do? What’s this testicle eating disease?”
“Don’t worry about it. If you feel any itchiness, see your doctor. Now please leave us to do our job.”
The man rushed out, hands unwashed, but with the antiviral possibly spreading from this room, it was probably better. Her team was quick and efficient. There was no time to waste, surfaces quickly swabbed and vacuumed to her satisfaction. She exited the bathroom, and found Deputy Bryant with a large man in a wife beater t-shirt.
“Doctor, this is the day manager, Jimmy Dupuis.”
“Mr. Dupuis. Can you tell me if anything unusual has happened around here in the past few weeks? Anybody here that shouldn’t have been? Any unexplained occurrences? Equipment show up unexpectedly? Anything?”
Dupuis shook his head.
“Nothing that I can think of. We have our share of fights and whatnot, but it’s a truck stop, so that’s to be expected, especially after the quarantine. People are sleeping in their trucks, getting on each other’s nerves. We don’t even bother calling the cops, we just send them outside until they tire themselves out.”
“Any repairs lately? Any servicing?”
“We had an appliance guy in a week ago to fix the fryer, but that’s it.”
“Nothing else. Nothing in the bathroom area? Nothing dealing with air conditioning, heating, cooling?”
“Oh shit, that’s right! We had an HVAC guy come in about two weeks ago, can’t remember which day. Said he was doing some warranty repair. I didn’t pay much attention after he said that there was no charge, the manufacturer was paying for it.”
“Where did he go?”
“The roof I think, then the utility closet.”
“Where’s that?”
Dupuis jerked his thumb at a door beside the men’s bathroom.
“Right there.”
“Can you let us in?”
“Sure.” Dupuis fished a bunch of keys from his pocket, flipped through until he found the right one, then unlocked the door. Reaching in he turned on the light, then stepped back. “Help yourselves.”
“Thanks.”
Katherine entered the dark and dank room. It was mostly concrete, loaded with piping along the wall adjacent to the men’s washroom, and along the ceiling. On the opposite side were electrical panels, but no signs of any heating and cooling equipment.
“And he came in here?” she asked as she walked in deeper.
“Yes.”
“Any idea why?”
But as she asked her question she came to a stop, it answered. Sitting tucked in between two large pipes was a cylinder exactly like that found at the Superdome. Her heart pounded in excitement at having found the source, and terror at what it meant.
“Doctor!”
She spun toward the door to see one of her techs pushing his way through.
“There’s a problem outside! You better come! Quick!”
She pointed at the cylinder and looked at her team.
“This is it. Find out what it’s connected to, quarantine it, then we’ll have to quarantine the entire restaurant,” she said as she pushed her way through the throng. Shouting from within the restaurant and from outside greeted her as she made her way to the door. The customers seemed to be surging toward the windows to see whatever it was that was happening outside.
She pushed through the doors to the parking lot and stopped in her tracks.
Oh shit!
An eighteen wheeler fuel truck was roaring toward the two cop cars blocking one of the exits. The officers were waving desperately for him to stop, but the crazed expression Katherine caught through his side view mirror told her everything she needed to know.
He was not going to stop.
She grabbed her cellphone from her pocket and dialed Colonel Jackson’s number.
“This is Dr. Best, we’ve found the source of the second antiviral, it’s the truck stop. I’m ordering this place quarantined, but we’ve got a semi running the blockade.”
“We’re on our way.”
Gunshots rang out but it was too late, the officers at the blockade too busy running for their lives to hit the broadside of a barn, diving into the ditch on either side of the exit as the rig smashed into the two patrol cars, sending them spinning out of the way to either side. Katherine’s hand darted up, covering her mouth through her hazmat suit in shock as she saw one of the cars roll into the ditch where two of the officers had jumped to get clear.
She began to run toward the ditch as the semi, seemingly undeterred by the two vehicles it had just shoved away, continued forward, crossing a strip of grass separating Frontage Road from the highway, then another to get into the northbound lane before making the sharp left turn onto the highway, all the time gaining speed. As she reached the ditch she breathed a sigh of relief to see the two officers emerging from it, covered in mud but unscathed.
She looked down the road and saw the troop carriers rushing toward them. How they would be able to help, she had no clue. The rig was huge, and had sliced through the two cop cars as if they hadn’t been there. And unless they could get in front of him, she couldn’t see what they could do to stop him. Shots would just be hitting the rear of the semi. They might take a few tires out, but that would only slow him down.
They need something bigger!
She wondered if the National Guard had tanks and reasoned they probably did, but doubted any were handy.
Her head whipped back toward the troop carriers as she heard something she couldn’t quite make out. She pressed her hazmat suit against her ear in an attempt to hear just a little better. As she watched the troop carriers rapidly close the distance she saw something behind them, mostly blocked by the trucks.
What is that?
Then the sound became clear and suddenly two helicopters burst overtop of the troop carriers, rushing down the road at what seemed an impossible speed. Within seconds they whipped past her and after the semi, splitting to either side of the escaping vehicle then getting in front of it.
She could hear something being said over a loudspeaker, but couldn’t make it out. It didn’t seem to be persuasive as the rig continued to accelerate. They had to realize they were dealing with a panicked individual. There would be no reasoning with him.
Shots belched from the front of one of the choppers, tearing up the pavement in front of the truck, and again, no affect. The same chopper lowered itself in the middle of the road, boldly initiating a game of chicken that she immediately knew wouldn’t turn out well. She began to step toward the action, but stopped, realizing it was too far away and there was nothing she could do. The rig continued to accelerate directly toward the helicopter.
Move!
But they didn’t, instead simply hanging there in midair, daring the driver to hit them.
“Move!” she screamed.
Suddenly the chopper broke to the right, its cannon opening fire at the same time, but it was too late. The top of the semi caught the tail rotor, the sound of shredding metal as the blade fought back was soon overwhelmed with the tearing and creaking of metal as the rotor was snapped off, sending the chopper spinning into the fields to the left of its slayer.
The chopper hit hard, tilting to its side, the main blades ripping into the field, then breaking off. It seemed like minutes, but it was only seconds, and in those precious seconds the two occupants of the chopper managed to jump out, sprinting in opposite directions as soon as the rotors stopped. She lost sight of one of them, but saw the second running directly toward her
as an explosion rocked the entire area, a fireball ripping skyward, knocking the soldier to the ground as the shockwave overtook him.
As quickly as the explosion had expanded, it contracted again, and through the thick of the smoke she saw the semi continuing forward, the second chopper now well ahead of it, hovering to the side of the road.
Suddenly its cannons opened up, tearing apart the rig, then as if to compete with what had just happened to the chopper, its load of fuel was hit. She didn’t know what hit her first. The heat from the massive fireball, the horrifying screech of hell opening in front of her, or the shockwave that knocked them all off their feet.
It didn’t matter.
As she picked herself up she could see the rig had continued forward a short distance, then off the road and into the ditch. There was no way the driver had survived the explosion, even if the bullets hadn’t already killed him. The chopper circled its kill then turned its attention to the wreck of the first chopper as a troop carrier arrived. She stood watching in shock as the occupants of the first chopper, apparently alive and uninjured, waved to their comrades.
Shouting all around her had her shift her focus to the activity at the truck stop. Troops were pouring out of the carriers, setting up road blocks and a perimeter, sealing in the occupants of the truck stop, and hopefully preventing any more of the horror of what she just witnessed.
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
“Tell us everything you know about Scott Fowler.”
The question apparently came as a shock to Dr. Kapp, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead as his eyes opened wide. Morrison hadn’t even given the man a chance to sit down, the question fired as soon as he walked through the door.
Leroux, already sitting, said nothing. Instead he simply acknowledged the man with a nod as Morrison pointed to a chair Sherrie had occupied the last time Leroux had been there.
He preferred the previous view.
“Fowler?” Kapp dropped into the seat with a wince. “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
Leroux watched the man wince again as he crossed his legs. Leroux immediately thought arthritis or some sort of joint problem as Kapp was far his senior, but nowhere near old enough to be put out to pasture as some Leroux’s age might think should happen.
Containment Failure (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #2) Page 18