by Julie Rowe
There was no reply for a minute. Two. Finally, two minutes and thirty eight seconds after her last text, a picture came through.
Nate sat on a concrete floor, his hair sticking up at weird angles. His face had that blank expression he always wore immediately after waking up and a goofy grin on his face. Were his eyes dilated? Yes, they were. They’d drugged him.
Another image arrived. No, it was a video.
She hit play.
“I’m fiiiine,” Nate said, slurring the last word. He waved a hand in a casual gesture, as if saying goodbye. The video ended after just six seconds.
Another text came in.
Get the sample before midnight or your brother is going to lose a body part.
Midnight? How unimaginative of them.
I don’t have access to any of the organisms here.
Yes you do, or the next video will feature your brother screaming.
She really hated whoever had her brother. Fine, but you better not hurt him.
Look at her trying to text tough.
Don’t try to give us a fake, either. We’ll know. We’re watching you.
They were watching? Her diaphragm squeezed so tight she couldn’t suck in any air at all. Did that mean they had access to the security cameras?
Crap. She was going to have to do it. And the worst part wasn’t that she was going to steal a sample—it was what it would do to Henry.
She sent the short video to both parents’ phones, along with the conversation she’d had with the kidnappers.
It took a while before her father answered. Go along with what they want. We’ll figure something out.
She went over the kidnapper’s messages and the video of her brother again.
Wait. He hadn’t waved bye-bye. He’d used one of the hand signals they’d created to communicate when they were at judo competition matches. Often they weren’t close enough to converse but wanted to communicate about an opponent. The one he’d made meant: Weak on the left side.
Well, this wasn’t a judo match, and she had no idea what weak on the left side might mean. Unless…he saw a way to escape.
Idiot. Their parents had ensured their offspring could defend themselves against most unarmed attacks. Nate had also taken some military training, because his work sometimes sent him to places where safety was a foreign concept, but he wasn’t a soldier. These people had killed over and over again. The prospect of murdering one physicist wasn’t going to make them think twice.
Damn it, her brother was going to try to escape, but would probably get himself killed instead.
She had to hurry.
The lab was empty of people now, and Henry was still asleep. It was go time.
Mind made up, Ruby left the bathroom and headed for the elevator that would take her down to the level-four lab. Henry hadn’t shown her the way, but she’d seen the layout of the facility in the security office, so getting there wasn’t a problem.
The problem was getting into the lab.
She was pretty sure Henry had added her retina scan and palm print to the security system by now, so she should have the proper clearance to enter it. If he hadn’t, she just had to pray a huge alarm wasn’t going to go off.
The elevator door opened, and she stepped out into a dark hallway lit by only a couple of overhead lights. As she walked toward the first decontamination room, all the lights came on.
Great. There would be no mistaking her for anyone else on the security cameras.
Ruby put her chin on the retina scanner and activated the device. A bright light blinded her. Two seconds later, the door slid open.
Instead of triumph, terror flooded her with the feeling of a thousand ants crawling over her skin. Until this moment, stealing the sample had been a mental exercise. It was real now. She was doing it.
With shaking hands and breathing deep, to keep from freaking out, she entered the first decontamination room. It took longer than it should have to remove her clothes, shower, then enter a second change room to put on the one-use-only clean suit and booties. The shaking had progressed into the kind of jerky movement usually associated with zombies. Her body and mind trying desperately not to do what she must.
She stood naked in front of the protective suit she had to put on.
Similar to a hazmat suit, it had a hose attached to the back pushing fresh air into the suit. The positive air pressure inside was enough to keep anything from getting in. The boots she stepped into and secured to the legs of her suit were too big, and the gloves were bulky.
How did anyone work with these things on?
She looked down at herself. White suit and boots with black gloves. “I look like a partially burned marshmallow.”
How much time had all this taken? There was a digital clock on the wall. Nearly twenty minutes.
She choked back a sob.
This wasn’t going to work. She was going to get caught. Her brother was going to die.
“Stop sniveling and do it,” she said to herself. “If you don’t, they’ll kill Nate.”
After taking in a couple of deep breaths, she walked to the four liquid nitrogen–only freezers.
She opened the one containing the smallpox and searched for the correct storage slot. It was there, just like it was supposed to be, along with 138 other biological samples.
The vial was so small. About the size of her pinkie finger. Huh. She really could put it in her bra.
No. No, she couldn’t do it. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people would die.
She very carefully put it back.
Her brother would die if she didn’t do this. She reached out, then hesitated. Did she truly have no choice?
Her mind conjured up the images of millions of people infected with smallpox. All the bodies in body bags piled in heaps and being buried in massive mass graves.
The image of her brother, his body riddled with bullet holes and blood, fought for air time in her head.
There was really only one choice she could make.
She plucked out the vial, double-checked the label, then closed the freezer. She turned, half expecting to see Henry standing behind her, but the room was empty. Relief stole some of the energy out of her muscles, and she had to force herself to keep moving.
She stood under the disinfectant spray, the vial clutched in her fist until her suit was thoroughly washed clean. The sample went inside a clean rubber glove as she went through the disinfectant process, then she opened the door leading to the hallway and elevator.
Arms crossed over his chest, Henry stood in the doorway, his face a mask of rage and disgust.
Rage and disgust aimed at her.
Ice froze her in place. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.
Nausea rose in a hot, bitter wave and threatened to hijack her entire body. She fought it down with several convulsive swallows, her muscles so tense her bones threatened to break.
She was dead.
Her brother was dead.
Henry advanced—one step, two.
She backed up. Going around him was impossible—he took up too much space in the doorway. She had no doubt he’d squish her flat as a tank rolling over an ant hill.
Only after the door swung shut did he speak.
“What. The. Fuck.” The words came out of his mouth like bullets out of a gun. Each one physically rocked her back as pain blossomed across her chest.
What was there to say? She’d betrayed everything she believed in when she’d grabbed that vial. Her actions weren’t defensible. Not really. Anyone else would insist there was no negotiating with terrorists. They played with no rules of engagement.
“Why?” he barked out.
“D-do-does it matter?” Her whole body was short-circuiting, including her mouth. “I d-did it.”
Hi
s face got so red she was afraid he was going to have a stroke. “What did you take?”
She held out the vial. There was no pretending she didn’t have it.
He looked at it sitting on her palm, wrapped in a single latex glove, and rolled his eyes. “You just walked out with it, just like this?”
“How else was I going t-to d-do it?” Her teeth chattered, and she clenched her jaw to stop it. “I didn’t see any obvious means of removing it any other way.”
His lip curled. “We have a procedure for removing any of the samples from level four. A long, involved, meticulous procedure.” Every word rumbled and snapped with a growing snarl. “Sound, secure, and safe. And you just grabbed a sample and walked out? Are you trying to kill yourself?”
He snatched the vial off her hand, turned it over, pulled the latex taut so he could read the label.
He stared at it for several seconds. When he looked up, she flinched at the accusation in his eyes, gasped, and stepped back into the nearest locker.
He put the vial down very carefully in an adjacent locker then took a step toward her.
She tried to slide away, but he grabbed her by the arms and halted all chance of escape.
“What…the hell…are you doing?” His voice was so very, very quiet.
His gaze scalded her, and she had to push the words past a constricted throat. “I wa-was going to change the name on it.”
“To what?” It was almost a whisper, but the power, the lethal danger behind it made her skin prickle so hard it was a painful buzz.
She managed to wheeze out, “The…other one.”
“The other one?” he asked in that scary, scary voice she’d never heard from him before today. “You mean the one that could probably wipe the human race off the planet? The smallpox other one? Because this is cowpox, and it doesn’t kill people.”
Seriously? She was trying to make the best of a bad situation, and she didn’t think tricking the people who had taken her brother was against any rules. “Well, I couldn’t give them what they actually asked for, could I? If I did that, we’d all die, not just my brother.”
Henry blinked, and the scary guy disappeared for a second.
She slapped a hand over her mouth. Oh no.
Henry had ruined her perfect, desperate, last-minute plan. Take a virus related to smallpox, but not smallpox. Switch the labels, and maybe free her brother before the terrorists figured it out.
“Your brother?” he asked pleasantly. It was a lie, that calm, agreeable tone. And it scared her just as much as angry Henry did.
“The FAFO kidnapped him late yesterday,” she blurted out, the words coming so fast they stumbled over each other. “They’ve been texting me threats and photos of him ever since.”
His face got red again, and he sucked in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he bellowed.
She flinched, but her back was against the locker and there really wasn’t anywhere else to go. “Because they said they’d know if I told anyone,” she yelled back. “They’ve always known too much, so I went along with it, hoping to give myself or Nate time to figure out a way to beat them or escape or something that didn’t include dying or Nate losing any fingers or…or testicles.”
“You believe I’m working with those assholes?” he said, his lips drawn back in disgust.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She threw her hands in the air. “What if you told someone else who is, or they told someone who is? I couldn’t take that chance.”
He glared at her, his chest heaving like he’d run a long-distance race. “So, you thought you’d just hand them this.” He pointed at the vial. “And you and your brother would walk away free and clear?” He leaned close to her so fast she banged her head against the cold metal behind her when he got right in her face. “They kill everyone who’s outlived their usefulness. They’d have shot you both in the head.” He tapped her temple with one finger. “Dead.”
She’d never seen him like this, vibrating with anger, frustration, and…there was something else, an emotion that didn’t quite fit. It wasn’t disgust, like she first thought. No, it was deeper, more primal…fear.
Chapter Eight
5:25 p.m.
Nathan yawned and tried to roll over, causing the handcuffs he wore to jingle softly. He ended up in much the same position he’d been in for the last couple of hours, curled up in a ball. He hadn’t had much sleep, and what he could get hadn’t been comfortable, but some was better than none. The people who took him weren’t too concerned for his comfort, but at least they’d left him alone while he’d rested on the cold concrete floor of his makeshift jail.
It was a small room in a basement, but the echoes told him he wasn’t in a house. The space was bigger, like an apartment building or a unit of condos. Someone had started some renovation work on the place, because he could see a couple of piles of old baseboards with nails sticking out of them, several partially used cans of paint, and an assortment of industrial cleaners crowding one wall.
Covered in rust, dust, and dirt, the collection of cans, bottles, and wood looked like it had been there for years. The scent of mold mixed with caustic cleaning solutions irritated his nose and throat. The containers were sweating, their contents slowly seeping out and into the open. It was only a matter of time before the chemicals interacted with each other and started a fire.
A situation he could help along, though it might get him killed or help him escape.
They had him handcuffed to a large metal ring partially embedded in the floor. He’d been an exemplary captive—hadn’t whined, begged, or called anyone names. He hadn’t made any demands or tried to make conversation with any of the men who grabbed him. He deliberately avoided eye contact and kept his emotional responses dull. As if he were terrified and traumatized.
One of the men, a short, compact guy with bronze skin, dark hair, and a beard, asked him what he did for MML. So he haltingly explained some of the problems that had to be overcome if anyone from Earth was going to get to Mars. Some were fuel issues, some were technology issues, some were people issues. Some psychologists postulated the only people who could manage the trip would need to be, at least partially…bonkers. Nate became more and more agitated as he talked until he was gesturing wildly and nearly yelling. A man pushed over the edge.
At that point, his interrogator had walked away.
A lot of people did that to him, usually after their eyes glazed over out of sheer boredom or because they had no idea what he was talking about. In this case, he was pretty sure he’d succeeded in convincing the guy he was more than a little bonkers himself.
The army intelligence and CIA guys he’d worked with said it made him a valuable asset, because people discounted him. No one suspected the genius who spoke math rather than English most of the time might actually be paying attention. Since he’d been a teenager, his absentmindedness had become well-known to everyone who knew him. And since people left him alone more often because of it, he’d kept up the charade. Now it was like an old, comfortable sweater he could put on or take off at will.
The assholes who’d kidnapped him had chosen their hideout, clubhouse, or whatever they called it badly, because he’d managed to pick up a narrow finishing nail from the floor during his earlier rambling explanation. He’d learned how to pick locks from one of his buddies in auto shop class at school when he was fourteen. All he needed was a minute or two alone and he could slither out through one of the narrow basement windows.
They were too small for most people, and while he was tall, six four, he was also lanky and lean. He’d get out.
His sister’s life depended on it.
Scratch that, everyone’s life depended on it. He’d run into some stupid people in his life, but never anyone this dumb before.
They wanted her to steal a sample of smallpox so they could reintroduce it to the world and pretty muc
h kill everyone off.
And she’d do it to save him. Even though they’d probably both die in the pandemic that followed.
So, he lay, balled up in a half doze, while the guy who’d taken his picture argued with another dude in Arabic. Both of them were fluent, but one spoke it with an American accent while the other sounded like he was from Afghanistan or Pakistan. Nate wasn’t fluent in Arabic, but he knew enough to know the guy from Asia talked about explosives like they were his bread and butter.
How did a guy like that get into the States?
After a minute, they left the room together, still arguing. There were two other guys, but he’d only seen them from a distance. Not close enough to make out faces, but oddly, they both wore suits like they enjoyed it.
Suits were for getting married or getting buried. Nate’s grandpa had always said anyone who liked wearing a suit was in the business of one or the other, sometimes both.
Nate sat up, hunching over like he was frightened and in pain, so his body shielded what his hands were doing.
He used the nail to pick the locks on the handcuffs then took them off carefully so they didn’t make any noise. Moving quietly to the pile of junk, he poured a large amount of one of the cleaning products over the pile of old baseboards. He grabbed a different solution and poured that over the same saturated boards. The wood began to smoke, the combination of liquids reacting with each other in a way that caused a lot of heat and unhealthy gases. It would only take a minute or two before it ignited.
He rushed across the room and managed to get one of the windows open without making too much noise then hoisted himself up and through the gap. His pants got caught on something, but he jerked hard, tearing the fabric, and managed to free himself.
A second after he pulled his bare feet out, a shout from inside had him moving away from the opening and flattening himself against the siding. He slid along the wall, moving away from the window, hoping they wouldn’t be able to see him.
The shout was followed by others, along with a lot of coughing and the crackle of flames.
The wood had caught on fire. The chemicals would burn very hot for several minutes, which meant the ceiling was likely going to catch fire, too.