Contagion Option

by Don Pendleton

  “It’s okay,” Bolan cut her off. “Just be ready.”

  Marrick swallowed. “I am.”

  She looked at the van and the pickup truck. Men sat in the back of the pickup, and she knew that they had guns, hidden out of sight. They drew closer, and as much as she wanted to rest her finger on the trigger, it would just lead to an inadvertent discharge.

  “You only touch the trigger when you’re ready to kill or destroy your target” was a command burned into her mind when she was at the FBI academy. And when it came time to pull the trigger, she’d put the Aimpoint sight to use, pulling the sling taut against her shoulder to brace the autoweapon. A flash suppressor rode on the barrel, because the six-inch tube left a lot of rifle powder unused, turning the thing into a blazing flamethrower at close range. In the dark, without the flash-hider, she’d be blinded and burned by her own muzzle-blast.

  Finally, at fifty yards, the van suddenly lurched to life, tearing off like a rocket at the sedan.

  Bolan stomped on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder of the road, turning Marrick’s side of the car away from the charging vehicle. A cone of brilliant blue-white light stabbed down into the windshield of the van for a moment as the helicopter pilot swung the aircraft into range.

  Momentarily dazzled, the van’s driver swerved wildly, trying to control the vehicle. Bolan shoved the muzzle of the Krinkov through the driver’s window and held down the trigger. The sedan finally sluiced to a stop.

  “Get out!” he bellowed, audible even over the roar of the stubby assault rifle.

  Marrick threw open the door and rolled to the desert floor. She picked up the OA-93 and sighted on the pickup swooping behind the van, also blinded and dazzled by the helicopter’s spotlight. She framed the pickup in the ring of the Aimpoint sight and held down the trigger. The first two-thirds of her burst was on target, but recoil eventually wrenched her muzzle off target, bullets sizzling into the air above the enemy vehicle. She charged as rifles chattered, kicking up dirt and sand behind her.

  Bolan launched from the driver’s seat, fanning the pickup with his Soviet SMG. Rifle bullets, robbed of power and velocity by a short barrel, still chopped ferociously into the flesh of hapless gunmen as Grimaldi swung the Little Bird around.

  Two figures dropped into view from above, machine pistols chattering from behind the van. Gunmen disgorging from the back scrambled, firing wildly, unable to track the two plummeting figures.

  Marrick swung her weapon around, reloading swiftly. She wasn’t going to let them kill Graham or Reader. She targeted a pair of mercenaries with her Aimpoint and pulled the trigger, stitching the would-be killers with a salvo of slugs. The short burst was much more controllable, everything flying on the level. She rode out the recoil, still pushing hard against the sling. She tapped off a quick follow-up blast to destroy the van’s windshield as a gunman got out on the passenger side. He scrambled wildly away from the battle.

  Bolan was still occupied by the gunners in the pickup, reloading and hosing them down with precision bursts as some of the enemy riflemen had taken cover behind the vehicle’s heavy frame.

  A wind flared up and something dropped into the cab of the pickup. Moments later, the flash-bang that Grimaldi had dropped from the helicopter detonated. Gunmen wailed, eyes and ears burning from the thunderclap and brilliant light loosed by the grenade. One staggered into the open, and Bolan switched the Krinkov to single shot, tagging the man through the shoulder. He went down, clutching the wounded limb, weapon long forgotten.

  One prisoner accounted for. But the man who had been in the passenger seat of the van looked like a much better prize.

  Marrick ran after the enemy mercenary in a broken-field pattern, chasing him down. She was tempted to shoot the man in the legs, but she knew the rifle rounds might sever arteries and kill the guy. Instead, she pushed harder, running like hell. She spotted motion out of the corner of her eye; it was Stan Reader rushing to help her.

  Reader’s long, slender legs helped him pass her, the bony limbs moving like the tines of a pendulum. One part of Marrick’s mind remembered the odd gait as originating in Reader’s cross-country skiing. He was remarkably fast.

  Reader launched himself, spearing the runner in the back with his shoulder and bowling them both over. The man’s hat was torn from his head, a scrub of fiery-red hair on his skull. Marrick continued her charge, seeing Reader knocked aside by the tough little redhead. She leveled her weapon at him.

  “Hold it!” she bellowed.

  The man twisted, pulling Reader in front of him, and the slim scientist hammered the terrorist in the face, bouncing his red crew cut off the desert floor. The terrorist jolted and heaved Reader aside, and Marrick let the OA-93 hang on its sling, diving onto the would-be assassin.

  A punch slammed into her gut, knocking the wind from her, but Reader tangled his arm around the scrappy little fighter, pinning him long enough for Marrick to snap her knee into his groin. He howled in pain, then lunged, biting Marrick on the cheek, fingers digging through her long brown hair and into her scalp.

  “Fucking little animal!” Marrick shouted, hammering her knee into his testicles. Reader hammered his fist into the base of the mercenary’s neck, and his teeth let go of her face. Reader lopped his long arms around the man’s neck and pulled him away from Marrick, and she punched him under the solar plexus.

  The assailant’s breath exploded from his lungs and he gasped as Reader squeezed his neck tightly. The scientist’s long arms had enough leverage to drive the man into unconsciousness, and he let go just as the man went limp.

  Marrick stood back and aimed the OA-93 at him again.

  “Thanks,” she panted.

  They looked back. Bolan and Graham were rounding up the few survivors of the ambush party.

  “You’re dead meat…” a voice croaked on the ground.

  Marrick whirled, seeing the redhead hold up a .45, aimed at Reader. She charged, using the machine pistol as a bat against the big pistol. They needed this guy alive.

  The muzzle-flash burned across her eyes and the world went black.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They rushed Rachel Marrick into the infirmary at Hill Air Force base, Reader holding a dampened strip of his shirt to her eyes. Graham struggled to keep up as Grimaldi and Bolan hung back at the entrance of the medical bay. Medics swarmed around Marrick, and needed to pull Reader away from her eyes so they could examine her. Reader himself had to pry Graham from her side, and the two friends walked back toward Grimaldi and Bolan.

  Through it all, Marrick’s mouth was a tight line of determination. She didn’t cry out, and breathed deeply and evenly, struggling to maintain her control.

  “God…” Graham whispered, looking at the doctors and nurses working on her.

  “She took the muzzle-blast across both eyes,” Reader whispered. “She…was protecting me and protecting him.”

  Graham’s eyes watered as he stood like a statue, watching in silent impotence.

  “Kirby, these are good people, some of the best-trained doctors in the U.S. Air Force. She’ll be okay,” Reader promised. “Kirby…”

  Graham turned toward him, but he was silent.

  “Kirby, I’m sorry. She should have let him shoot me. My armor could have taken it. We could have taken him…”

  Graham shook his head and turned, walking away.

  Reader glanced to Bolan and Grimaldi, both men ashen and silent. “I should have held on to him. I shouldn’t have fallen for him playing possum. I—”

  Bolan rested a hand on the scientist’s shoulder. “You didn’t do this to her.”

  “But I could have restrained him, or done something,” Reader murmured. “Or patted him down for weapons.”

  “Anyone could have made that kind of a mistake,” Bolan soothed. “Stop beating yourself up.”

  Reader looked Bolan in the eyes. “Striker, Kirby means more to me than anything else in the world. He’s my best friend. And Rachel…she means the world
to him.”

  The slender man looked away. “And now, she’s blind. Because I fucked up.”

  Reader took a seat and folded himself over his knees, burying his face in his crossed arms.

  SHOCK TRIED TO OPEN HIS EYES, but they had been taped shut, all gummy and sticky as duct tape struggled to keep his lids closed. He couldn’t smell anything, and the center of his face hurt like hell. Something salty trickled into his mouth, but a rag pulled tight at the corners of his lips kept him from speaking.

  The room sounded quiet, and he struggled to move. Plastic riot cuffs dug into his wrists. He remembered how they felt when the Military Intelligence Criminal Investigation Division took him prisoner. His fingertips tingled as the blood supply was pinched off. He tried to twist free, when a big hand slapped the center of his chest and held him down.

  The duct tape came off his eyes, and Shock felt as if his eyebrows had been torn out by the roots. Adhesive made his eyelids itch and when he blinked, it took an effort to open his eyes again. His skin felt raw where the tape had ripped off the top layer.

  When his vision focused, he was looking at two sets of cold blue eyes. He recognized Kirby Graham as the one leaning on his chest, dangling a strip of tape with hair and skin matted to its sticky side. The other one was a tall man with black hair and weathered, tan features. This new stranger matched the description of the mysterious interloper that Stevens had warned about. Shock tried to swallow, but the gag kept him from closing his lips or moving his tongue.

  “We gagged you like this because I broke your nose. If we blocked your mouth any other way, you couldn’t breathe. Normally, for blinding my girl, I wouldn’t mind if you suffocated, but we need some answers, punk,” Graham snarled.

  Shock glanced to the black-haired stranger.

  “Don’t look to me for any mercy,” Bolan told him. “You signed your death sentence a dozen times over. Murder. Rape. Helping Stevens kill millions more.”

  Shock’s eyes widened.

  “Yeah, we know about Stevens, punk,” Graham said. Then a fist like a sledgehammer smacked Shock on the breastbone. Pain stabbed through the mercenary and he tried to cough around his gag.

  “Ahl tawk,” Shock garbled. “Ahl tawk.”

  “Oh, you’re going to talk, pal,” Graham returned. “But first I’m going to have a little fun.”

  Stan Reader stepped into view, screwing a drill bit into a power tool. He gave the drill’s trigger a squeeze and it whirled. “I would advise not thrashing too much. If I go even a fraction of an inch too deep, I could destroy the language center of your brain.”

  Shock thrashed wildly in the chair, wailing gibberish that even without the rag would have proven unintelligible. They were going to drill a hole in his skull.

  “Relax. I’ll open up a small aperture, and then attach an electrode directly to your brain so that we can determine if you’re telling the truth,” Reader explained.

  Bolan held up the PDA with an EKG lead plugged into it.

  “The software’s new, and up until now, I really haven’t had the opportunity to engage in human experimentation,” Reader continued as Shock sobbed and warbled around the gag. Tears flowed down the terrorist’s cheeks and he sawed at the gag stuck in his mouth, trying to cut it and spit it out. “Please, sir. Stop making such a fuss. I’m trying to concentrate. You wouldn’t want me to lobotomize you, would you?”

  Shock’s head whipped around wildly. “Ahl tawk bah dabbit! Ahl tawk bah dabbit! Dobe dill bye kull!”

  Reader and Graham looked at Bolan.

  “I’d really like to try out the brain lead, sir,” Reader offered.

  Bolan flicked open a wicked knife and grabbed the loop of the gag. Bolan’s blade scraped Shock’s cheek, drawing blood, and in a heartbeat, the redhead could talk clearly again.

  “I’ll talk, dammit! Don’t drill my skull, you freak!” Shock wailed, his voice shrill with terror.

  “Do it fast,” Bolan snarled. “Before I get bored and let Reader play Dr. Frankenstein.”

  Shock spilled his guts, confessing as fast as he could, giving details of the operation.

  Finally, after it was all done, Shock looked up into the muzzle of Graham’s .45. The terrorist nodded. “Make it quick.”

  Graham flicked on the safety, then stuffed the gun into its holster. “You don’t deserve quick, asshole.”

  Shock looked on, dumbfounded.

  Graham managed a smirk. “But don’t worry, Seth Rubinstein. When you get to jail for your murder of a pretty little blond girl, I’m sure your Aryan Nation co-prisoners will make your life a living hell.”

  “But my name is Houllihan…”

  “You know that. I know that. But the Justice Department computers and Utah Department of Corrections,” Bolan explained. “They’re under a different assumption.”

  Shock’s head hung.

  Graham squeezed Shock’s jaw. “Enjoy the rest of your hellish life.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Shock trembling.

  READER JOGGED to catch up with Graham and rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “Kirby…”

  Graham stopped.

  “Kirby, I’m sorry I screwed—”

  Graham shook his head. “No, you didn’t. Rachel’s hardheaded. She wanted to help. She wanted to be involved, and to catch the scumbags responsible for killing the cop and wounding others.”

  “But I convinced Striker to bring her along and I didn’t stop Shock,” Reader said, confused.

  “The two of you let your guard down when you saw we had wrapped up with the others,” Graham replied. “And if you didn’t convince Striker, then she’d have found some way. And she wasn’t killed or hurt because of the plan. She was hurt because of a simple lapse of attention and judgment. It happens to everyone. It happened to us in the gang’s apartment.”

  “It happened to me. I’ve been caught napping at every step of this investigation,” Reader said.

  “Shut up, Stretch,” Graham said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re the one who spotted Shock and his team clearing out of the bank. You’re the one who noticed the electromagnet that wiped out the bank’s memory. You’re the one who doubted that the team who committed the robbery was even a local gang of street toughs.”

  Reader looked down.

  “Remember when you were tutoring me? I kept messing up lessons. But you had patience with me, going over it again and again until I finally got them right on my own. You didn’t hand me my good grades or take any tests for me. You showed me how I could break things down the way I could figure ’em out,” Graham stated.

  “Yes,” Reader answered. “But if I make mistakes here, people die.”

  “They didn’t at the bank. We survived Shock’s firebombing. And Rachel will live, and if her eyes recover, it’s because you’re the one who had the bright idea to slap a wet cloth on her eyes to keep them irrigated and cool,” Graham said. “You heard what the doctor said. A third-degree burn to her right eye, and a lesser burn to the other.”

  Reader nodded.

  Graham managed a weak smile. “You’re helping us out. You located the bad guys. You took out two of them when we dropped from the helicopter. And you helped to take that slimy little punk Shock alive. Stop beating yourself up, because I need you to keep that brain of yours in this game. We survived this long, got this far, thanks to your efforts.”

  Reader sighed. “I’ve just been feeling useless…”

  “So’ve I. Let’s make up for it and put some boot to ass,” Graham told him.

  Reader glanced back as Bolan eventually caught up with them. His tanned, craggy face had a slight grin on it.

  “Feeling all right now?” Bolan asked them.

  “Could be better,” Graham admitted. “But we’re finished thumbing our guilt glands. Pity party’s over until we can afford to get all sobby and sloppy.”

  Bolan nodded. “That’s always the best plan.”

  “Speaking of plans,�
�� Reader said. “What’s our next stop?”

  “I want to take a look at Dugway. Knowing how Stevens operates, he’ll have infiltrators on the scene already,” Bolan explained. “Their takeover of the facility and their attempt to breach any of the bioweapon storage areas might not be done by force.”

  Reader frowned. “So we’re going to go to a place that could be crawling with saboteurs and assassins, and possibly spur them into prematurely setting off their plan.”

  “If it goes off before the winds change, then Salt Lake City will be spared,” Bolan said. “A warm front is due to pass through the area from the south in about forty hours.”

  “So we’ll be picking up winds that will push everything into the city within the next two days,” Graham mused. “And if that happens…”

  “Better to get them going prematurely,” Reader replied.

  “Or not at all,” Bolan answered. “Trouble is, security at Dugway is tight.”

  “And we’re not going in the front door?” Graham asked.

  Bolan shook his head. “If we head in looking official, they’ll be spooked. I’d rather not have anyone at the proving grounds hurt or killed because we set off the conspirators.”

  “They know we’re in town,” Graham said. “And they know we took down Shock.”

  “And probably know we took him prisoner,” Bolan added.

  “But if we go in, in disguise…” Reader said. “Dugway is a multiservice station.”

  “And we can use any particular uniform. Once we get past the gate,” Bolan stated.

  “It’s going to be tight,” Graham mentioned.

  “We have an option?” Bolan asked.

  “Nope,” Graham replied.

  “Then let’s hit them,” Bolan said. “Give me your sizes, and I’ll requisition some uniforms. And by now, the doctors will have finished with Marrick. Check on her.”

  Reader and Graham looked at each other.

  “It’ll put your minds at ease,” Bolan told them.

  “Sure,” Graham said. He gave Reader a clap on the shoulder. “You want some privacy yourself.”

  Bolan gave a nod, acknowledging Graham’s observational skills.