Arnold shook his head. “I warned against that. It would leave us too shorthanded here in the event of an attack.”
“Yes, and we considered your input carefully, Arnold,” said Elliot. “The problem is that with the weather changing, we might not be able to get teams out to the other locations if we wait to ensure the first is successful. The risk of the vaccine not getting distributed outweighs the risk of our being attacked.”
“It’s a mistake,” Arnold growled.
“I completely agree that it’s not an optimal solution, but given the choices, it’s the best one we have,” Elliot said.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then we’ll have to manage. But we’ve heard reports that the virus has taken a severe toll east of the Mississippi, and it’s virulent. It’s a small miracle that it hasn’t spread any further, but our luck won’t hold indefinitely.”
“What do you think has kept it from spreading?” Lucas asked, genuinely curious.
Elliot ran his fingers through his hair. “Near as I’ve been able to figure, it’s because it incapacitates its victims before they can make it very far. If there were still cars and planes, we’d all be dead, but because traveling is so difficult, carriers likely only make it a few miles before they fall by the wayside.”
Lucas nodded. “Makes sense.”
“The problem is that with all viruses, there will be an occasional host who’s asymptomatic and who will infect anyone they come across without being aware of it.”
“Like the little girl?” Arnold asked.
Elliot shook his head. “Eve is a rarity – she’s not a carrier, but she’s got antibodies in her blood that make her immune, just as we all do now, thanks to the vaccine. No, what I’m referring to is someone who doesn’t have any symptoms and is otherwise apparently healthy, yet is contagious. That person would be, quite literally, a messenger of death, wholly unaware they’re spreading the plague.” Elliot paused. “We’re going to send three six-man teams to each hub. That’s the most promising approach. Then weather won’t be a risk. We’ve worked far too hard to let snow stop us from saving the human race.”
“Besides, once the vaccine is out there, we’ll be that much safer – any reason for trying to destroy us will have been eliminated,” Michael said. “We’ll no longer be a target.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. You don’t think Magnus’s group is going to want revenge?” Arnold snapped.
“Maybe. But it took them years to locate us. Now we’re further away, and they have a thousand fewer men. Most importantly, their leader’s dead, which proved that coming after us was the worst thing he could have done,” Michael countered.
Elliot held up a hand to silence the debate. “How we’re going to distribute it isn’t the question. We’re here to make a final determination of who goes.”
After a half hour of vigorous debate, they’d decided on the teams – Lucas and Sierra, Colt, Arnold, and two of his top surviving fighters would travel to Oklahoma, over Arnold’s objections at being forced to leave the compound.
“I’m responsible for security. I can’t do much from the road, can I?” Arnold had argued.
“You’ve fortified our perimeter admirably, Arnold,” Elliot countered. “But this is too important for us to send anyone but our best on every team.”
When the meeting broke up, Arnold was still visibly agitated at the way things had gone. Lucas accompanied him outside, where he glared at Michael as the younger man departed with Elliot.
Arnold turned to Lucas and spoke quietly. “I can’t believe he still listens to Michael after all the screwups during the attack.”
“It’s not a terrible approach, Arnold. I can see why they decided on it. And Michael did take the first bullet and prove the vaccine.”
“But why send me? You can take care of yourself. There’s no reason for me to leave.”
“I think Elliot wants to make sure we have the best chance of success.”
Arnold gazed off to the mountains and then leaned toward Lucas. “Don’t look now, but you’ve got incoming. Too late to take cover,” he said in a joking tone.
Lucas followed his stare to where Sierra was approaching with Eve. Arnold moved away as Sierra made for Lucas.
“Well?” she asked.
“We leave in two days.”
Eve’s eyes widened. “We do?”
Sierra knelt by the little girl. “No, honey. Lucas and I have to run an errand. We’ll be gone for a few weeks.”
“You do? Both of you?” she asked, her tone fearful.
Sierra nodded. “Yes.”
“But why? Are you coming back?”
“Oh, Eve, of course we are. It’s something we have to do. Grown-up stuff. But we’re absolutely coming back. You couldn’t keep us away from you.”
Lucas held out his hand. “Come on, Eve. Tango needs a brushing, and he likes it when you help.”
Eve took his hand, her fingers tiny in his. Sierra grabbed her other and they walked with her down the street, past homes where the occupants were hammering and sawing and salting meat in preparation for the first snowfall, which the crisp air foretold would be sooner than later. When they reached the house, where Tango and Nugget roamed the large lot, Eve seemed calmer, now resigned to the situation.
“Go get the brush,” Lucas said, and when Eve had gone in search of it, he looked to Sierra. “No telling how long we’ll be gone.”
“I know. But to a child, a couple of weeks is abstract. It could mean anything. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. I already talked to Ruby and Terry. They’ll take care of her like she’s their own.”
Ruby had selected a house with Terry a few blocks away, and the pilot had done an admirable job of fixing it up, with Ruby providing the feminine touches. Lucas glanced at the work he’d done on theirs – bricks mortared five feet high along all exterior walls to provide protection in the event of shooting, steel plates he’d scrounged from a wrecking yard installed over the windows to create gun ports – and nodded. It might not have been pretty, but if anyone came for them, it would be hard to take the place without a fight.
Eve came scurrying back with the brush and Lucas snicked from the corner of his mouth. Tango trotted over and stood by while Lucas took the brush from her and went to work, Sierra watching with a smile.
“Nugget’s next, right?” Eve asked, eyeing the mare.
“Of course. Can’t do one without the other.”
“I’ll miss them,” she said, looking at her feet.
Sierra neared and placed a hand on her head, smoothing her hair. “We’ll all miss you, Eve. But you’ll be with Ruby. She’ll take care of everything.”
Eve brightened somewhat. “I like Ruby.”
“Then it’s official. In two days, you’ll camp out at their place and we’ll be back before you know it.”
Worry clouded her small face again. “But what about Ellie? She can’t stay here alone. Who will take care of her?”
“Oh, honey,” said Sierra, kneeling down to look her in the eyes. “We wouldn’t forget Ellie! You’ll take her with you, of course. You know how she likes rooting around in Ruby’s backyard for fallen crabapples. You guys will have a great time together, and we’ll be back before you know it.”
Lucas continued brushing, hearing Sierra’s glib words, but his stomach twisted at the reality of their situation. It was six hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies to Tulsa, which even under the best of circumstances would take several weeks – and if they ran into trouble, possibly much longer, depending on what kind it was. A lame horse, an attack by scavengers, bad weather, anything unexpected…
And that was just to Tulsa. From there, they’d split off and head to Mississippi, where they’d try to confirm that her son, Tim, was either dead or alive. Which would take yet more time and was in Crew territory, increasing their risk exponentially.
Sierra viewed the world unrealistically, he thought. Or at least hadn’t thought through exactly h
ow long their trek was likely to take. With travel time, they’d be lucky if they made it back by Christmas, assuming they could negotiate the passes in the heavy snow the area regularly saw.
Lucas snuck a look at Sierra out of the corner of his eye, taking in her bronzed skin and earnest expression, and banished the doubt nagging in his gut.
Too late to back out now. He was knee deep in the swamp, and the only way out was following through on his promise to her.
For better or worse.
Chapter 13
Houston, Texas
Snake accompanied his retinue to the university hospital entrance, where Whitely and his entourage from Lubbock had organized a test of the newly developed Crew vaccine on a group sequestered in an isolation chamber. They strode down the dark halls to the stairwell that led to the basement, where Whitely greeted them with a troubled expression.
“Well?” Snake demanded.
“As you know, we exposed twenty test subjects to the virus yesterday after giving them the vaccine last week. Two of them experienced mild side effects after the shot, but that was expected in at least some cases.”
“What side effects?”
“Chills, fever, muscle soreness, somnolence.”
Snake didn’t understand the last term, but shrugged it off as though it didn’t matter. He wasn’t a medical expert, having never made it past ninth grade and having stopped paying attention since sixth, but he didn’t need to be – he was the head of the most powerful group in the region.
“So what’s the result? Cut to the chase,” Snake snapped.
“You can have a look yourself.”
Whitely led him to a window, where twenty men and women were locked in a large room. Fifteen of them were huddled on one side of the room, and five were on cots as far from the rest as they could be placed. Snake’s eyes narrowed as he took in the five, who were soaked in bodily fluids and laboring for breath.
He pointed at a woman who wasn’t moving. Her face was cyanotic, and her hands had curled into claws. “She’s dead.”
Whitely nodded. “The other four will be soon enough.”
“Seventy-five percent success isn’t a success.”
Whitely didn’t budge. “I know.”
“You’ve been directing this show for almost, how long, a year? And this is what you have to show for it?”
“Over a year. But I’m not a scientist. I’m in charge of security and of making sure the staff has whatever it needs. Magnus never intended me to direct the medical side of the project. I’m an engineer, not a doctor or a microbiologist.”
“Who’s heading up this effort?”
“Gabriel Kovaks. He replaced the traitor Magnus executed before…before he left.”
“I want to see him.”
“He’s in Lubbock. He couldn’t come. He’s still working on the vaccine, trying to figure out what’s gone wrong.”
Snake’s eyes narrowed to slits, and the tattoos on his face writhed like snakes. “Smart man. If he was here, I’d have him executed.”
Whitely didn’t respond for a long moment. “The problem is we don’t have anyone more qualified, so if you do, the project’s over.”
“Project? You mean the string of failures is over, don’t you? What has been accomplished, exactly, other than wasting a ton of time and resources?” Snake blurted.
“Magnus was told–”
Snake took a step closer to Whitely. “Magnus is dead. I’m in charge. You have something to say, you say it to me.”
Whitely swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing. “He was told that with this virus and our capabilities, there was no guarantee of success. That it was a long shot. Nothing about that has changed. The researchers are doing the best they can, but it may be impossible to develop a vaccine with a higher efficacy rate than what we’ve got now.”
“He believed that the Shangri-La team would create one that worked, and that would screw us. Why was his belief wrong?”
Whitely’s tone hardened. “We have no way of knowing whether that’s true or not. Until theirs surfaces – no, make that if it ever does – it’s conjecture, not fact. They’d have to know something we don’t to make a better vaccine.”
“They have the girl. The Apaches told us that much.”
“Which may or may not matter. We’re still not sure why she was of such importance. Jacob – the scientist who Magnus executed – never explained her relevance satisfactorily. She’s a question mark.”
Snake spat on the concrete floor. “This is a failure. I don’t need to watch the rest die to know that. Nobody in their right mind would use this vaccine, with a one in four chance of dying.”
Whitely shook his head. “Not necessarily. If the odds are a hundred percent of dying without it…”
Snake turned away. The meeting was over. “It’s not good enough. We both know that. Don’t piss me off trying to blow smoke, or you’ll never make it back to Lubbock.”
Whitely waited until Snake and his guards had left before he resumed breathing. When the Crew leader had vacated the building, he moved to the technicians in the room adjacent to the experiment chamber and broke the news.
“Snake isn’t happy. Let’s watch them for another twenty-four hours to see if more get sick. Then shut it down and burn the bodies.”
“What about the survivors?” a young tech asked.
“There won’t be any. Nobody can leave that room alive. Poison their water tomorrow and then dispose of them. We can’t afford any leaks on the result of the experiments.”
The tech blanched but nodded, as did his companions. They understood what they’d signed up for – most against their will, but that was immaterial. They knew the job would involve distasteful outcomes. It went with the territory of live experimentation.
The test subjects had all been taken from the civilian population of Houston at random. They’d been singled out as troublemakers by Crew informants, and it had been as good a way as any to silence opposition. Whether in a public execution or a secret lab, they were all dead anyway – it was simply a question of timing.
This way, their passing would at least serve a useful purpose.
Whitely eyed the techs and then grunted. “I’m heading back to Lubbock to break the news. Marshall, you’re in charge of cleaning this mess up. And I remind everyone – one word about this to anyone and the penalty will be swift and final. So keep your thoughts to yourselves.”
Whitely didn’t wait for a response and spun on his heel toward the door. The technicians weren’t important, and he suspected there was a better than fifty percent chance that he would never see them again. Snake had seemed dangerously unstable beneath his veneer of relative calm, even more so than the last times he’d encountered the man, and Whitely had seen the telltale signs of chronic meth use in his eyes and the sallow color of his skin, as well as the barely controlled tics and unconscious fidgeting and scratching. He could easily decide that the team needed to be taught a lesson, and Whitely wanted to be well away from Houston if Snake lashed out.
Whitely had survived Magnus, who was a hothead and unpredictably violent; but compared to Snake, the former leader had been the essence of patience and reason. Snake was obviously on a collision course with disaster if he kept on the road he was on, and Whitely wanted no part of the inevitable flameout that would be the reward for his addictions.
So Whitely would return to Lubbock without announcing his departure, and deal with any consequences from afar.
Chapter 14
Clouds gathered overhead as Lucas led Tango and Nugget on foot through the early morning fog to Ruby’s house, where Sierra was standing outside hugging Eve close as the little girl struggled to put a brave face on her distress at seeing the two people she was closest to in the world ride away. She looked up at the sound of the horses approaching and broke away from Sierra, surprising Lucas when she threw her arms around his waist and sobbed.
He stopped midstride, unsure of how to react, and then
Eve stepped away and fixed him with her piercing blue eyes.
“Promise me you’ll come back,” she said with precision beyond her years. “Both of you. Promise.”
“Don’t worry, Eve. We’ll be back,” he said.
“Then promise,” she pressed.
He glanced at Sierra, who nodded once, her eyebrows raised. He turned back to Eve and tried a smile.
She wasn’t buying it.
He sighed and knelt in front of her. “I promise.”
Eve pointed to Sierra. “And promise you’ll keep her safe.”
“You drive a hard bargain. You been getting lessons from Duke?”
“Promise,” she insisted.
“Okay. I promise I’ll keep Sierra safe and that we’ll come back. And I’ll do the same for Tango and Nugget. Throw them in for no extra charge. Satisfied?”
Eve visibly relaxed. “Okay.”
“Behave yourself with Ruby, you hear? I don’t want any reports of misbehavior,” he warned.
“I’m always good,” Eve said.
“I suppose you are. But I had to say it.”
Ruby emerged from her front door and seemed to float toward them through the fog. “I thought I heard a ruckus out here. Why, look at how pretty you are this morning, Eve! I swear you get bigger every day. And thank you for bringing Ellie.”
Sierra gave Ruby a kiss on the cheek in farewell. “Take good care of her,” she whispered to the older woman.
“I intend to spoil her relentlessly. You won’t recognize her when you get back.”
“Thanks, Ruby,” Lucas said, handing Sierra Nugget’s reins.
Ruby looked him up and down. “It’s time?”
“That it is.”
“Good luck.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Don’t worry about her. Terry and I will see that she gets three squares and proper beatings.”
Eve’s eyes widened, and Ruby smiled. “I’m kidding.”
The Day After Never (Book 4): Retribution Page 7