With a chuckle, Elias brought up the rear. Soon, Tillie stopped and began clutching at her backpack, trying to remove it. As the strap slid over her wounded arm, she involuntarily jerked from the flash of pain, causing her to lose balance. As she began to fall, Sweezea's arm snaked forward and he grabbed her, pulling her back. "Next time, ask for help," he grunted, lifting the pack from her and setting it on the ledge.
Tillie hurriedly bent over and pulled open the straps on the pack, mumbling, "Thanks," as she took out a long coil of rope.
In the reflected light from their flashlights, Sweezea looked at questioningly at Elias, who commented dryly, "She isn't much on asking for help."
The sergeant glanced at Tillie for a moment, looked back at Elias, and said, "I can relate." He picked up the coil of rope she had unpacked, as she closed the flap on her pack. "What now?"
Standing, she directed her flashlight on the concrete wall above their heads, where a shiny eyebolt was embedded. "Tie it to that." She was already slipping back into the backpack, carefully avoiding the bandage on her arm.
Elias, seeing the eyebolt, said to Tillie, "I suppose you brought a rotary hammer down here, along with some two-part epoxy, and put that in yourself."
She looked at him with a half grin. "Yes…well, no, not really. Actually, not at all. It was already there."
Elias laughed at the evolution of her answer and shook his head. "Tillie, I'm already impressed. You don't need to make things up."
"Hey, it never hurts to embellish a bit."
Sweezea, as he tied off the end of the rope, asked, "By the way, if the outlet below us is flush with the wall, how did you ever find it?"
"She had a set of plans for the place," Elias supplied.
"You did?"
"Yep. But that isn't how I found it. As I was exploring, I saw the eyebolt. I wanted to rappel down to the bottom anyway, so I thought I'd use it. I was pretty surprised when I pushed off and swung out, lowering myself. On my second rappel, instead of my feet hitting a solid wall, I flew right into the opening. I was curious, so I followed it to the end. That's how I saw the steel grate. Later, I got back to my pad and found the opening on the plans. I haven't been back to it in a long time, at least four or five years."
She took hold of the rope from Sweezea and dropped it down the side. Turning her back to the open pit, she tugged hard on the rope and arranged it around her torso.
"You don't need to check my knots."
"Yes, I do."
"Fine. Check them."
After three more hard tugs, all of which were purely gratuitous, she stepped back so that she was perched on the edge of the lip, her weight resting on her toes. "See you down there."
Flexing her knees, Tillie pushed away from the ledge as she payed out some rope, lowering herself. Elias and Sweezea leaned over, watching her descent. It took her three rappels this time, as she disappeared into the face of the sheer wall.
From below, they heard her voice. "Next!" The single word echoed around the dark reservoir.
Sweezea looked at Elias and muttered, "Don't tell her I said this, but she's kind of cool."
"THANKS." Tillie's voice came up from below.
Not responding to her, he said, "You go next. I'll come down last."
"Actually, Tim, I was thinking one of us should stay up here. I'm not one hundred percent certain that we've taken care of all the bad guys, and I would hate to be in that pipe while somebody came by and untied the rope."
"Good point, Doc."
"So you go ahead. I'll stay here."
"Huh-uh. If I'm down there alone with her, I might just strangle her."
"YEAH, TRY IT!"
"Hell, maybe I'll untie the damn thing now."
"HEY!"
The two men shared a silent laugh.
"All right, I'll go," Elias gave in. He moved to the rope, looped it around himself, and descended. Within seconds he was standing beside Tillie. In the indirect light of their flashlights, Elias thought that he saw a fleeting look of relief on her face as he joined her. He chose not to comment.
The outflow pipe was a box culvert nearly eight feet high and square. Since no storm during the life of Aegis had exceeded the capacity of the reservoir, there was no sand or silt on the bottom. Wordlessly, they began the journey.
Both flashlights had fresh batteries and were more than bright enough to illuminate the way. They walked without talking for several minutes.
The tomblike atmosphere of the tunnel caused Elias to speak in a hushed voice. "I'm guessing we are past the perimeter of Aegis."
"Probably."
"And you said the opening was about four hundred yards farther than that?"
"Yes. Give or take."
Because of the straightness of the culvert and the almost perfectly square shape, there was no reason for shadows ahead. Yet Elias saw something dark on the upper lid about fifty yards in front of them.
Stopping, he asked, "What's that?"
Tillie, who had paused with him, strained to look forward and said, "Don't know. It looks like the top of the tunnel is stained or crusted."
"That doesn't make any sense. Let's check it out."
They again moved forward, and when the two of them were nearer, they could see that the dark ceiling was not smooth and flat, as it had been. It was now heavily textured. They could also make out the floor of the culvert and saw that it, too, was no longer the light color of concrete, but was mottled with darkness.
"Looks like some kind of sludge," Tillie whispered, slowing her pace.
Apparently as a reaction to the sound of her voice, hundreds of tiny red dots appeared in the glow from their lights.
"Bats!" Elias said.
"Bats?"
"I'm guessing fruit bats, thousands of them. They like to sleep under bridges during the day. I think they've decided to call this culvert home."
"Yuck! If they all sleep hanging from the ceiling, what's that on the floor?"
"Guano. Bat dung."
"Poop! We're supposed to walk through bat poop?"
Elias moved forward several more paces, sweeping his light around. "If we're going to get out of here and can't clear the other exit, I don't see what choice we have."
"You said fruit bats, right?"
"Yes. Or maybe brown bats."
"What do they eat?"
"Bugs or plants."
"So they won't bite us?"
"Usually, no."
"Usually?"
"There are always two other possibilities. The first is that some of them are rabid. In which case, yes, they would bite us."
"And we'd get rabies?"
"Well, yes."
"Lovely! And what wonderful surprise do you have behind door number two?"
"That they aren't fruit bats. They could be vampire bats."
"Vampire bats!" she exclaimed a bit too loudly.
In reaction, they both heard a vague, leathery, rubbing, scuffling sound commence from the ceiling ahead as the disturbed bats stirred and squirmed. Elias held up a single finger in front of his lips and Tillie bit her bottom lip, not taking her eyes off the culvert ahead.
Whispering, she asked, "Is there any way to tell?"
"I'm sure there is, if I were a chiropterologist. I think that's what a bat expert is called. Either way, I can't tell the difference."
"Great. I vote for going back."
He looked at Tillie. This was the first time she had displayed any fear or timidity, and it surprised him. "They weren't here the last time you came through?"
"Oh, God, no. If they were, I wouldn't have made it to the grate."
"They do go out and forage after dark, but I'd hate to lose any more time."
"Any other ideas?"
"One." Elias turned back the way they had come. Tillie followed very closely. After they had retraced their steps approximately a hundred yards back, he turned around to face the bats, shouldered the AK-47 he had brought with him, and fired one round. The result was instantan
eous. The culvert ahead filled with a brown, tangled cloud of flying bats, startled by the thunderous crash in their normally silent lair. Panicked and slamming into each other in mid-flight, instinctively traveling in the direction away from the crash, they receded.
Their ears filled with the cacophonous sound of flapping wings, Elias and Tillie moved cautiously forward, following the retreating bats as they escaped through the passageway and out into the desert.
"OH, GROSS!" Tillie yelped as her shoes sunk into the thick, gummy substance coating the floor, trying her best to ignore the slurping, sucking noise made as she lifted each foot.
"I will never touch these shoes again."
Elias laughed and trudged on. "Make sure you don't drop anything."
"If I do, it stays. Whatever it is."
She was stepping carefully in the slime, trying to make certain that her feet did not slip out from underneath her.
Partially to satisfy his curiosity and partially to distract her, Elias asked, "I guess you knew Sweezea and Crabill before now?"
"Uh-huh. And Hutson. Tim, Jay, and Mike have been a part of our secret club for quite a while."
"I could have used all of you when I ran the agency. So, just you, Wilson, and those three, or are there any others?"
"Only the five of us. Six, if we count you."
"Thanks."
"I didn't say we were."
"Sorry."
She stopped in the muck and turned to look at him. "Elias, I'm teasing you. Okay? You can be a member anytime you want. And Leah, too. I like her."
He smiled at her. "Thanks. I think we'd better keep moving."
Leah was resting on the floor several feet from Faulk. She was still weakened by the two years of captivity and torture. Neither had said a word to the other since Elias had departed with Tillie and Sweezea. Wilson and Hutson were doing the best they could in their efforts to clear the debris from the exit. Crabill had taken Krietzmann to Madison so that his concussion could be treated.
Remembering something from earlier, Leah asked him, "Faulk, why the bombs?"
Before he could reply, Faulk's phone, which was tucked into her shirt pocket, rang and vibrated. She pulled it out and looked at the display, which showed the name "Kennerley." Jumping up, she ran to him and shoved the muzzle of her rifle against his temple. "I'm going to press the button. You're going to say ‘Faulk,' and that's it. One extra word and you die."
She did not wait for him to respond. Her thumb jammed down the green button, and she held the phone near his mouth. He obediently said, "Faulk."
Pulling the phone away from him, she put it to her ear and listened, walking away.
"Director, this is Kennerley. We have a major problem." The man on the phone sounded anxious, on the verge of hysteria. "It looks as though one of the other lab technicians was infected last night. She left the lab and went home before she became symptomatic. She must have gotten an extremely small dose and it took longer to incubate."
He was speaking rapidly. It almost seemed that he was not even pausing for breath.
"She's dead. Several police and paramedics are dead. The pathogen is out in the general public. I don't know if it mutated to a form immune to the vaccine or what happened, but it seems that everybody dies, whether vaccinated or not. We had two inoculated doctors on staff at Walter Reed…they're gone. At least half the staff there is gone. It's spreading like wildfire. I don't know what to do. Director…Director…what the hell should I do?"
Leah moved the phone closer to her mouth. "Kennerley, this is Leah Charon. I'll tell you what to do."
Elias and Tillie had progressed beyond the section of the culvert called home by the bats, and could see the dim illumination of twilight as a small square beyond the limit of their lights. As they drew closer to the end of the drainage culvert, the concrete floor had become increasingly coated with a thicker and rippled layer of dust, which had been carried in and deposited by the sometimes vicious winds of the desert.
Over the reverberations of their footsteps scraping on the gritty powder, Elias' ears picked out a different sound, a sound which triggered an immediate response in the primitive portion of his brain. He froze in place, his arm lashing out and grabbing Tillie's. She could sense that this was not the moment to question him.
At the instant their steps ceased, the vague warning became distinct and unmistakable. He had become so fixated on the approaching opening at the end of the drain that he had neglected to look downward in quite some time. Shining the light down now, he saw that they were standing in the midst of a nest of diamondback rattlesnakes.
It was impossible to estimate their number, as they were interwoven and coiled together, in an attempt to retain their body heat during the impending night. But he was fairly sure that he could count at least thirty in their pathway. Tillie's only reaction, when she saw them in his light, was a sharp intake of breath. Several of the snakes, reacting to their arrival, were coiled in a strike position, tails elevated and vibrating, shaking the brittle keratin rattles so quickly that they were nothing but a blur.
Slowly, Tillie brought the shotgun around, aiming it in the general direction in front of them. Elias, still gripping her arm, took one step back, pulling her with him. Then another step. Followed by a third. He shined his light on the floor behind to make certain that they had not passed any snakes on their way to this point. Seeing none, he turned and began retracing his steps, with Tillie only a pace behind.
After they had moved a safe distance, she said, "Those were definitely not there either, the last time I was here."
"I assumed that."
"How can we get past them?"
"Short of systematically shooting all of them, burning them out, or waiting until tomorrow morning in the hope that it might get warm enough for them to leave, I can't think of a thing."
As Elias neared the corner of the heavily damaged corridor where the grenade had exploded earlier, he expected to hear the reciprocating saw and the sounds of people tearing away the obstruction at the exit. Instead he heard silence. Concerned, he held up a hand to stop Tillie and Sweezea, who were following behind him. His rifle ready, he cautiously approached the intersection and peered around. His first sight was Leah, Wilson, Crabill, and Hutson huddled across the hallway from the shrapnel-ridden door to the utility room. Faulk was not in sight, and there did not appear to be any sort of threat.
Elias stepped out into the open. "What's going on?"
Leah, hearing his voice, whirled around and ran to him. "Elias!"
He met her halfway and she threw her arms around him, holding him tightly. The change in her demeanor since he had seen her last was dramatic.
His face buried against her neck, he murmured, "Leah, what's wrong?"
She lingered pressed to him for a few more seconds before stepping back. Now that she was closer, he could see that she had been crying. This aspect of her personality had always been a fascinating dichotomy to Elias. He had witnessed tears from her many times in their relationship, but always during a sentimental movie, or as she read a particularly moving book. Occasionally, if he surprised her with an unexpected and thoughtful gift, she would struggle not to cry, usually failing miserably. But in the field, in the midst of intense pressure and horrific events, she was never one to give in to this emotion. The sight of it now worried him even more.
Clearly unsure of her own voice, Leah waited a minute before she began to speak. Tillie, Hutson, Crabill, Wilson, and Sweezea had moved closer to them. "There was a call from one of Faulk's people. The pathogen is out early."
"Oh, my God! How?"
"After I heard what this Kennerley had to say, I questioned Faulk and got a few more details. Apparently, there was a lab accident either earlier today or last night. Faulk knew that a technician was dead. But he thinks the microbe is still contained inside the sealed lab. When Kennerley called a few minutes ago and he thought he was reporting to F
aulk, he said that another technician was dead. Somehow the other technician had gone all the way home before she died. Kennerley was frantic…desperate…but from what I could tell, everyone who has come close to her is either dead or dying, and it is spreading fast."
Elias took in the information, his mind spinning in an attempt to assimilate it all. "So an accident released it several hours early. I don't understand why Faulk's man was panicking. I'm sure his people would have already received the vaccine."
She delivered the final piece of news, although clearly not wanting to speak the words. "He had. Supposedly, so had the two lab technicians."
"But…." Elias stopped, his mind was suddenly hammered by the flash of comprehension. "The vaccine doesn't work."
"Right."
"How could that be? They must have tested it."
"They did, several times on several groups of subjects. The monsters tested it on every race, age group, lifestyle type, you name it. It protected the subjects with a one-hundred-percent success rate."
Elias stood frozen as his mind processed the variables, the options, the alternatives, sifting through each for a possible solution. Hitting only a blank wall, he slowly drew a deep breath. "So it's over. For all of us. Faulk and his group have killed everyone on Earth."
His eyes moved from one member of the group to another. Crabill and Hutson were despondent. Tillie and Sweezea, furious. Only Wilson seemed not to be reacting to the situation, his face calm, his eyes focused on some faraway vista. Elias decided that the mathematician had entered into the comforting realm of denial.
He turned back to Leah. "Where did it start?"
"D.C."
"And from what Faulk said earlier, one release point is enough to take care of the whole planet."
Leah nodded in agreement. "I can't imagine that Kennerley wouldn't have notified the others that there was a problem and cancelled the rest of the releases."
"I don't know what good it will do, but we do have Faulk's phone. We should tell someone."
"Again, who?" Leah asked flatly. "According to Faulk, most of the leaders are in on this. I thought we owed it to Benjamin, since he was the only one who tried to help you, but when I called him, all of the circuits were busy. I sent a text message, but I have no way of knowing if he got it. There hasn't been a reply."
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