Waters answered for Monroe, "You didn't tell them, did you?"
"They don't need to know. It would just give them cold feet."
"Yes, yes, of course. The commitment to the great cause might waver if they knew we had encountered a military presence on Tioga. I am wondering if they truly comprehend what is coming, Terrance. I'm afraid they might not fully believe that this project is on the verge of reaching completion. This is no longer an academic exercise or some kind of fantasy."
"You just keep up your end," Monroe said defensively. "They are on board. We've received funding, manpower, and all manner of materials. There's no reason to believe they are going to back out now."
"No, I suppose not. But Terrance, what if they decide to change the arrangement? Exactly how well can we trust our security services here? Are you sure they are true believers, or will they swoop in and steal away the monster I've created so as to use it on their own terms for political — not environmental — reasons?"
Again a long pause before Monroe communicated, "Just finish up the tests. I want answers when I land."
"Yes, Terrance." Again Waters rolled his eyes, and when he set the phone down he let out a soft chuckle and spoke to himself, "Idealism can be rather charming, even if it is misplaced."
"Sir," the Asian guard called to the doctor, "we might have a problem."
Waters hobbled over to the security console, where he stopped and leaned heavily on his cane. The guard pointed to one of the monitors. The video feed showed Major Gant — armed — moving out from a side hall and into one of the larger corridors.
"We could lower the containment bulkheads in that part of the complex and trap him," the guard offered as his hand reached for a row of big black levers.
"No, no," Waters smiled. "He is near the specimen containment area. Have a few of the men come at him from either direction and we will pin him in there. Don't sound the alarm; if he knows we're on to him he'll panic and try and hide. We want him in the open."
Waters turned to leave, thought, and then said, "I'm going over to supervise his recapture. You might want to send a patrol to check out test chamber fifteen and the interrogation room. I'm guessing you'll find a couple of bodies in one or the other. But keep it quiet. No need to worry the whole base over this. We'll have Major Gant under control momentarily."
* * *
Thom crept along the main passage, staying close to the wall, with his eye open for security cameras. Most were on swivel bases, allowing for the camera to pan but also creating blind spots directly beneath those mounts.
He did his best to bounce from one to another and hoped human nature — inattentiveness or distraction on the part of the guards assigned to watch those feeds — would help conceal his movements, although he knew his escape could not remain secret for much longer.
The hall rounded to his left and straightened out, where, after a few yards, a wide horizontal door labeled "specimen containment" drew his attention. He had noted the door on their way in. Still, that room held little interest for him. Thom wanted to find a communications center or something similar, not a warehouse of fungal zombies.
However, his decision on where to go next was made for him as the thump-thump-thump of marching boots approached from behind, just around the curve of the hall he had just navigated. At the same moment, the wide horizontal door to the specimen containment room opened and a middle-aged man in a lab coat reading off a clipboard stepped out.
Gant's instincts kicked in. He rushed the scientist, punching him square in the jaw; the bone there shattered but the tech did not feel any pain because he immediately lost consciousness. His body did not hit the floor, however, as Thom grabbed it and hauled him back inside the specimen room, where he found and pushed a red button. To his relief, the door slid shut just as those marching boots rounded the corner. Gant could not hear whether they had kept on marching, but he had the distinct feeling that the guards might have halted outside the room.
When the bulkhead did not immediately open again, Thom relaxed — a little — and took stock of his new surroundings.
Again, white was the predominant color inside the specimen containment room, but the doors lining the two long walls were a soft red and included small observation windows. It did not surprise Thom to see those doors labeled with numbers running from one through thirty with even numbers along one wall, odd on the other.
Two rows of three pillars each helped support the ceiling, where fluorescent lights offered a sterile illumination from behind frosted glass panels. The entire rectangular chamber stretched nearly forty yards from front to back and was half that distance wide.
About a third of the way back stood a raised platform with a semicircular console sporting lines and columns of buttons and switches. Thom figured those buttons and switches controlled the numbered portals.
In addition, at the other end of the chamber was a half-wall divider separating the bulk of the room from an area cluttered with counters, cabinets, and examination tables. The walls there were not quite as bright; Gant could see blotches and stains where splashes of blood had been mopped and scrubbed away. He did not want to imagine exactly what horrors had occurred in that corner of this nightmare.
The smell did not help with his growing feeling of dread: a moist, muddy odor like rot in a jungle hovered over the area and competed with the aroma of cleaning alcohol for his olfactory attention.
With the Makarov pistol in one hand, he walked around the room in a nervous pace. The feeling of dread did not go away. In fact, it increased. He wondered if he was something like a mouse in a maze who now realized that finding the cheese would not be a good idea.
He approached cell number one. The window there looked in upon a dimly lit area where Gant saw three former-people standing nearly as still as mannequins, until they saw his peering eyes. When they noticed his movement at the window, the trio shuffled forward.
Gant saw that one had lost half of its original left arm, but the parasitic organism had grown a bundle of thick white cords into something approximating what the body had lost, albeit thinner and hanging loose, resembling more a twist of white wiring than flesh.
Each of the specimens in cell one lacked all but the barest shreds of clothing, suggesting they might be rather old. Their skin had decayed and run, revealing bones and rib cages.
As scary as they were, there was also something very sad about them. Thom remembered that these bodies had once belonged to human beings, and while the people who had once lived there were now gone, the cadavers were memories of lives.
He had spent the last day treating the creatures as "hostiles" and viewing them from a distance through the prism of a tactical problem in need of solving.Yet these had been people once. With families and friends, jobs, hobbies, favorite foods, lost loves, hopes, dreams, and regrets. Waters and Monroe had stolen all that and subjected those poor souls to unspeakable horrors in the process. The fact that those two madmen tried to justify such high-tech savagery in the name of a noble cause made him all the more angry.
His heart beat a little faster and his eyes narrowed. At that moment Thom Gant decided that, if given the opportunity, he would kill everyone involved with this project. They would receive no more mercy than they had showed Agent Costa or the people of Tioga Island.
He stepped away from cell one, skipped over cell three, and next looked in on cell five. As he approached the observation window he noticed that above each of the doors hung a nozzle attached to a network of silver piping. It reminded him of either a sprinkler or a halon system, although the positioning made him think it had more to do with the prisoners in the cells than with combating fire.
Behind door number five he found an even more unusual creature mixed in among a group of four typical examples.
On the floor behind the other zombies, Gant saw a bundle covered in what first looked to be a spider web. As he stared inside his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting and he realized he saw a person curled in the corn
er; what had once been a young woman.
Her mouth was open incredibly wide, to the extent that the jaw had clearly broken. From that mouth sprouted dozens — hundreds — of string-like lines that had crept out like ivy and encased the cadaver in fungal roots. It did not appear to react in any way to his presence, and Gant had the distinct impression that it was immobilized, perhaps giving up the ability to move in order to transform into some kind of nest. He did not know enough about fungus or zombies to figure out what it was up to, only that it seemed even more grotesque than the others.
After a moment the four specimens that could move crowded out his view as they rushed to the window, pressing against it in the hope of pushing through and claiming another victim.
Thom stepped away and decided to cross over to the even-numbered chambers. However, he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed a security camera hanging from the ceiling just as it swiveled around and focused directly on him.
A split second later the main door opened, revealing that, yes, the group of marching boots that had sent him seeking shelter inside the specimen containment room had, in fact, stopped outside the door and waited.
Six guards rushed in brandishing AKMs. Gant fired blindly but focused more on retreat, first weaving behind one of the support pillars then sprinting for the half-wall divider at the rear of the chamber. Bullets chased him all the way. He felt one clip his shoulder, tearing away a piece of his uniform, while another hit the short wall just as he dove over.
He stuck the Makarov pistol out from cover and squeezed the trigger twice, acutely aware that his ammunition was very limited.
In response, a blast of automatic gunfire flew over his head but then stopped as Waters called out, "Major Gant! I'll give you ten seconds to come out with your hands up. I still have a variety of tests for you to endure."
The major lay on the floor and crawled to the end of the divider wall to peek around. He saw six guards positioned behind pillars, against the walls, and kneeling. Behind them he saw the raised control panel and further back the open bulkhead door leading to the main hallway.
Fortunately, Thom saw that that particular door was not the only way out. Behind him was another exit, this one nearly as long as a garage door and opening horizontally into the ceiling. However, he did not see a release button, suggesting that this particular entryway could be opened and shut only by the control console in the room or possibly the security station.
Waters stood brazenly at the forefront of the squad, wearing a big smile and nearly begging Gant to take a shot … and expose himself in the process. It occurred to Thom that Waters might be less interested in tests and more interested in eliminating him. If the guards knew he had killed two of their number, they might not be interested in taking him alive, either.
"Come out, Major."
"Tell you what, Doctor, why don't you come back here and collect me?"
Waters did not speak, but his guards did respond. More shots were fired at Gant's position, some hitting the wall, one actually punching all the way through and just missing his leg, most hitting the wall and the door behind, where a heavy metal cabinet suffered gunshot wounds and a tabletop took a direct hit, sending several vials of pharmaceuticals smashing to the floor.
On the other side of the large specimen containment chamber — past Dr. Waters and his goons, beyond the open door, down the corridor, and around the bend — walked Dr. Annabelle Stacy, having left behind the mysterious museum pieces in the storage area.
The sound of gunshots reached her ears. While she did not guess the commotion to be Major Gant's work, it provided something to hold on to in the face of indecision. Where to go? What to do next?
Simple. Follow the sounds of the firefight.
Dr. Stacy did just that.
22
Master Sergeant Franco leaned forward between the two pilots and took in the sight ahead. The first thing he noticed was a column of oily black smoke rising from the weather deck. The second thing he noticed was that the small freighter bore no markings. No name and no flag.
"That's gotta be Wells's boat," Franco said to the two pilots, his loud voice managing to carry over the constant thump and shudder of the chopper's twin rotors. "Take us in. And you," he tapped the copilot on the shoulder. "Radio back that we've got it in sight and are boarding."
He turned around and approached the men gathered in the passenger area of the Sea Knight.
Sal Galati sat with a sniper rifle over his back and a G36 in his hands, seemingly prepared for a variety of threats.
Dave Roberts — the hardened soldier with the boyish face — stood with one hand on a cargo strap and the other over his belly. His eyes were nearly half-closed and his complexion appeared a little pale, suggesting a bout of nausea.
Finally there was Archie Van Buren whose name and thick sideburns had earned him the sobriquet "Mr. President." Van Buren manned the .50 caliber side-door-mounted machine gun.
"We've got a target," Franco told the group. "Got some smoke on the deck and it ain't moving, so we're going in for a closer look."
"Say, Biggy, did you try radioing it?" Galati asked.
"Holy shit, Sal, what a great idea. I didn't think of that. Or maybe I did and they decided not to answer. Maybe we've been trying to radio them since we first picked up the contact."
Sal turned away from the sergeant and focused on the scope mounted on his G36.
Franco muttered, "ass hat," and then moved back between the two pilots as the Sea Knight banked, slowed, and descended toward the drifting freighter.
"Movement on the deck," one of the marine aviators said. "Damn, looks like two fires going."
The man was correct. Franco saw two distinct lines of flames, one to either side of the superstructure.
"You know, Sergeant," the copilot said, "it almost looks like those fires were intentionally set. Look," he said and pointed with one gloved hand. "Both burns are right by the stairs leading toward the bridge."
The other pilot added, "Yeah, um, looks like they poured something out of those barrels and lit it up. Jesus … are they trying to keep those other people away from the bridge?"
Franco tried to follow the men's words. He saw the fires and, yes, they looked like streams of liquid ignited right on the steps leading up toward the stern-mounted bridge and superstructure. In front of those fires was a mob of people standing about so placidly that they made him think of a crowd gathering for some kind of speech or maybe a concert.
"Well, yeah," Franco finally said. "I mean, no shit. That's kind of obvious, isn't it? Fucking marines. Just take us in. And lower the rear ramp so we can rope down there."
"Holy shit," the co-pilot pointed again. "That guy is — I mean — is he on fire? Shit, yeah."
One of the gathering crowd stepped too close to the flames and his clothing went up. Yet the burning man did not seem to react. He sort of stepped side to side, bumping into someone else before collapsing first to his knees and then facedown on the deck.
Franco slapped the pilot on the shoulder and ordered again, "Get us down there. Maybe drop us right on top of the bridge. Then do an orbit."
He turned around and moved to the rear once again, unaware that his constant shuffling back and forth and terse attitude made him seem anxious, no matter how hard he tried to come across as in control.
"Roberts, hook up the ropes. The two of us are dropping in. Mr. Prez, you cover us from the side. Ass hat," Franco said, looking directly at Galati, who, for all his boasts and brags, tended to go sheepish when in Biggy's crosshairs, "latch on to something and cover us from the ramp."
A minute later the rear cargo hatch opened to the sound of groaning hydraulics. A gust of wind brought the foul smell of burning fuel into the helicopter along with a puff of black smoke that caused Roberts to hack, although his airsickness probably contributed to the reaction.
Beyond the edge of the ramp and below waited the flat top of the mysterious freighter. The marine pilots managed to lo
wer the big chopper to within fifteen feet of the roof, expertly staying clear of an antenna tower and away from a small radar array.
Franco peered over the edge. The whirring helicopter blades pushed the smoke off, revealing the rusting paint of the superstructure's metallic roof.
Without looking away, Franco called back, "Okay, Roberts, let's get going."
"Right, Sarge," Roberts replied, sounding oddly muffled.
Curious, Biggy turned around to see the soldier's teenybopper face hidden behind a respirator mask.
"What the fuck?"
"Lots of smoke—"
"Pussy. Let's go."
But Franco stopped again as he saw Galati unsling his sniper rifle after attaching himself to a tether.
"Hey, ass hat, didn't you hear what Wells said? Don't you listen? He said head shots won't do the trick. If it's those walking dead things down there, then you need to blast the fuckers to pieces, like this," and Franco held aloft his USAS-12 automatic shotgun.
Sal paused, put aside the sniper rifle, and grabbed his G36, sacrificing precision for rate of fire.
Franco shook his head and lamented, "You guys are a bunch of dumb asses. Now Roberts, bring your little moon suit and let’s go."
The two men approached the rear of the chopper and the open hatch. Two ropes were attached overhead, one for each soldier. Franco and Roberts grabbed hold and pushed off the extended ramp, twisting somewhat as they descended with the friction of the thick rope acting as a brake.
Three seconds later their boots hit the roof of the small superstructure with a thud that echoed in the vibrating metal.
While the temperature on the freighter could not compare to that of the surface of Tioga Island these days, the burning fuel did create a wall of heat as well as smoke that rose up in front of the bridge and was carried off by the wind into the sky. However, the dual rotors of the Sea Knight pushed, twisted, and turned the black smoke, allowing Franco and Roberts a good look down at the crowd.
"Sarge, are you seeing this?" Roberts asked through his mask.
The Cannibal Virus Page 23