Carrion Virus (Book 2): The Athena Protocol

by M. W. Duncan

  “Identify your targets before firing,” Eric instructed. “There could be civilians lost in the forest. We need to clear the treeline before we make the facility. Spread out, and shout out anything you see.”

  Eric led his men onto the frozen landscape. His team spread into a single line, a space of ten to fifteen feet between each man. They all held their weapons ready. Each one had endured a spell in the city, battling the infected, and had returned unharmed. They knew what to expect, and that made each man even more prepared. He waved them forward. They moved in a controlled manner, keeping the line. The snow obscured his vision. He could make out the height of the trees ahead but little else.

  Holden had to be somewhere out there. Williamson had informed Eric the doctor would be free of the facility, and if they didn’t find him soon, he’d die.

  They pushed on through the drifts. Would the winter storms ever end? The first trees of the forest revealed themselves. Progress became easier, the snow lighter on the ground from the shelter the trees provided.

  From his ear piece, Richards transmitted, “Contact left.”

  “Hold the line,” replied Eric.

  He broke formation, and ran, taking long looping strides through the snow. Eric reached the outer most member of his team, who pointed directly before him. Among the trees, two figures, dark against the snow, made slow progress toward them. Eric raised his weapon anticipating nothing but trouble.

  “Be ready,” said Eric.

  “Always am,” said Richards.

  The snow made it impossible to identify the figures at that range. Eric was ready to drop the targets at the first indication of danger. They drew closer. One wore a thick winter coat, the other had hair untied and blowing in the wind. The figure in the coat revealed itself to be Dr. Holden. Eric lowered his weapon and raised his hand.

  “Secure the assets.”

  He raced toward the two. Holden leaned heavily on his companion, a pretty girl dressed in medical scrubs.

  “Doctor Holden, we’ve been expecting you.”

  Holden breathed hard, close to exhaustion. “And we’ve been expecting you. This is my companion, Jane.”

  “Is there anyone else?”

  Jane answered, “There’s been an outbreak at the facility, I don’t know who else got out. And we’re being followed.”

  “Black Aquila?”

  Jane shook her head. “No, another group, whoever is responsible for the exterior.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve got dogs.” Jane shivered almost uncontrollably, her skin painfully pale.

  “I’ll get you back to the chopper.”

  “You’re a good man, Eric,” wheezed Holden.

  Gunfire rang out in the forest. Eric instinctively pushed between the two positioning himself in the line of fire.

  “Get them back to the chopper, Richards!”

  Richards moved up, grasped Holden and Jane by the arms and they were gone.

  Eric sank to his knees, the snow freezing his kneecaps. His mission was never to eliminate the threats at the facility, only to extract Holden and his companion. There was no way to disengage from the new threat without taking losses.

  Eric’s team moved to deal with the new enemy. Figures, clad in winter camouflage moved between the trees. Sudden bursts of gunfire erupted, spraying snow around Eric. He dropped to this stomach, and returned fire.

  Eric fired short, controlled rounds. His men followed suit. If nothing else, they were keeping their enemy pinned down.

  Rounds whizzed past, striking the trees and snow. More intense now and more accurate. Eric fired again, emptying a magazine. A crimson cloud exploded from one of the white ghosts. It fell with an audible scream. Eric reloaded, slotting a fresh magazine into the weapon.

  His team, all now on their stomachs, crawled forward, elbows digging in and clawing. The fired as they moved. They were only a hundred-and-fifty feet away. He had no idea how many they faced. There was no real way to advance, if any of his men got to their feet, they would be picked off quickly. If they were to retreat, they risked being overrun.

  Eric patted down his tac vest and pulled three grenades from one of the pockets. He clicked the radio to transmit. “Grenades. Then we move up.”

  Eric pushed himself from his stomach to his feet. He pulled the pin from the first, and tossed it forward, into the trees where his quarry waited. A hail of firing came. Eric dropped back onto the snow. The explosion rocked the forest. A moment of calm fell. Confused shouts came from the far side. Another explosion, followed by another. Eric’s team lobbed their grenades, one after the other, the explosions booming one after the other, clouds of snow rising and falling. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Eric fired more rounds. He slipped his two remaining grenades back into his pocket.

  “Up and at them. Take them now!”

  Eric got to his feet. They fired as they advanced. Anything that moved became a target, even those that fled. Eric reached the first white ghost, dead in the snow, his chest and neck ripped open from the shrapnel of the grenades. Eric searched the man’s face, fearing that he would recognise him from the ranks of Black Aquila. Nothing. An unknown.

  They were armed with modern military small arms, AR-15s. No markings on their uniforms or any personal effects. The white ghosts were just that. Ghosts.

  Eric’s team shouted that the area was clear and secured. All enemies either dead or retreated. The mission objectives were met. Holden was safe and Eric’s team unhurt. They were lucky.

  “Eric, weapons have been collected. Should we press onto the facility?” asked Richards.

  A quiet descended on the forest. The battle lasted less than ten minutes but the noise was incredible. The pregnant silence, so full of mystery and potential, gave Eric an uneasy feeling. The facility, a secret Black Aquila research centre was someone else’s problem. Eric could have pressed on, rescued any other staff who may have fled, but that risked more lives and ensured an encounter with the infected.

  “We’ve got what we came for. Take the weapons and ammunition and head back.”

  A smile, perhaps one of relief passed over Richards’ face.

  “We’re done here.”

  His team stripped the dead of their weapons and ammunition. Williamson had a long arm and deep pockets but realistically he could not accumulate so many firearms. Not in Britain. Improvised security for the days to come.

  The team cleared away first. Eric stood alone with the dead. No infected here, only the dead. Perhaps there was a solution after all.

  Eric trudged back to the Chinook. It looked out of place against the white. Two of his team kept a perimeter, waving him toward them. He picked up the pace, kicking up snow as he ran. The engines powered up, the rotors turned creating a downdraft, throwing powdered snow into a whirlwind.

  Eric climbed aboard, closing the ramp behind. Holden sat on the far side of the hold, wrapped in a heavy blanket. Jane lay next to him, also wrapped in a blanket, slumped to the side, resting her head in the doctor’s lap.

  Holden’s face was ashen, drooping on one side. Fear or exhaustion. Eric gave him the thumbs up. The Chinook lifted up, the ground fell away. Two and a half hours and they would be back in Aberdeen.

  ***

  Like a bullet fired straight at a target Gemma made for Williamson’s suite at the airport hotel. A Black Aquila guard lounged in a chair in the corridor Williamson had taken for his own. Gemma held out her Black Aquila ID badge. He looked up from his battered paperback and waved her through.

  She knocked firmly twice then opened the doors without waiting for an invitation.

  Williamson’s feet were crossed on the coffee table, satellite phone in his hand, turning it around, over and over. He didn’t look up, perhaps lost in thought and not recognising an intrusion to the room.

  “Ben, it’s time you listen to what I have to say.”

  The phone stopped spinning.

  “Gemma I don’t know what you think—”

&nb
sp; “You were rude to me downstairs earlier. I’ve risked my life to go back out into the city to investigate, to get you the information you need. And when I finally find something you brush me off like I’m a nuisance. I’ll be heard, Ben. And now.”

  “You can’t just barge in here.”

  The owner of Black Aquila, astute businessman and former soldier, looked ready to erupt. Perhaps had she been one of his staff, he would have. Instead, he sniffed heavily, removed his feet from the coffee table and waved Gemma to the seat across from him. She pulled her knapsack onto her knees.

  “So,” said Williamson spreading his hands, “what must I hear?”

  “This.”

  Gemma undid the clasps of the knapsack, and pulled out the device. She placed it on the table.

  “And this is?”

  “I … I don’t know for sure, but this may have been the device that was used to create the original infection.”

  “It looks like a flask.” Williamson dropped the satellite phone and picked up the device.

  “The boy I brought back with me, George Reign, he worked at the club on Belmont Street, and he believes his work colleagues were some of the first to be infected, or at least fall ill. When they were cleaning the club this was found under one of the seats. Nobody thought much of it, other than George.”

  Williamson stroked his stubble-darkened chin.

  “This indicates a deliberate infection of a civilian population.”

  “If you’re correct.”

  “It’s always been the most likely origin. Or that’s what most academics studying this believe. You don’t seem shocked.”

  “Like you said, it was always the most likely outcome. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make this seem like something very ordinary, and it’s far from that.”

  “There’s something else, a rumour perhaps, nothing more. We weren’t able to substantiate.”

  “Go on.”

  “At the displacement centre, the one that was being opened up, the hotel, I heard that someone in the guise of a medic or doctor was injecting people. Whatever the injection was, it caused the sudden onset of the Carrion Virus.”

  Williamson returned the device to the table. “How credible do you find this to be?”

  Circumstances robbed her of the chance to fully investigate. “I think there’s truth to the accusation. A woman, in the early stages of the infection ranted about a medic injecting her family and the virus followed quickly after.”

  “Hardly grounds to make a decision.”

  “A credible theory, I would say.”

  Williamson nodded. “What happened at the displacement centre, you were lucky, yes?”

  “I was lucky. I escaped with a soldier and George. We made the short journey to the CAF outpost to raise the alarm. The soldier didn’t make it. We did. We were lucky.”

  “You put yourself at great risk, Gemma.”

  “You want to know why? I know the answer to all of this is out there in the city. We’re a few steps behind but we’re catching up fast.”

  “We’ll get the device to our labs, get it tested.”

  “So what now?” Gemma leaned back in her seat. “Where’s Eric?”

  “Eric is running an errand for me. Once he’s back we need to take stock of the situation.”

  Williamson’s gazed altered. It made her uncomfortable. She looked away.

  “I’m finding the number of people I can genuinely trust to be shrinking. Those I once thought to be most loyal have given me cause to think otherwise.”

  “Me? I’ve gone out of my way to bring you evidence, clues. Anything I’ve thought of value I’ve documented and catalogued.”

  Williamson tweaked his eyebrows.

  “I didn’t have to be here. I could have gotten out of the city, celebrated Christmas with my family and pretended all this was just a bloody nightmare. But I came here, to help you.”

  Williamson still watched her, but his expression softened. “Okay. Listen and listen well. Black Aquila isn’t just a security company. We have data experts and analysts, research and development facilities. Doctor Holden, you’ve heard me speak of him before, for his protection I moved him to a research station to continue his work on the Carrion Virus. Had he remained here, he would have been arrested for something he played no part in. I felt he was the most likely candidate to break the secrets of this outbreak. Elements of Black Aquila were not following orders. They introduced immoral research and kept the research teams locked up. Holden feared for his safety and that of the people in the facility. Eric was dispatched to bring him and a few others back. My initial report is that they have Holden and one other, but the facility suffered a catastrophic outbreak. We’ve dispatched a second team to bring the facility back to compliance. You’re probably asking yourself why I’m telling you all this, something that many of my inner circle may not know. The truth is you’re with us now, there’s no choice in that. You rise and you fall with us. Do you understand?”

  Gemma nodded. “Our fates are linked. If parts of your company aren’t reporting to you, then who are they reporting to?”

  Williamson looked out the window. “The Owls of Athena.”

  “The what of what?”

  He returned his gaze to Gemma. “The Owls of Athena. I suspect an unknown organisation has engineered this outbreak. I don’t know why, but we’re starting to understand how. They couldn’t do it without having assets in the government, in my company, and God knows where else.”

  “How did you become aware of them?”

  Williamson stood and moved slowly to the window, the one that faced out into the snow covered fields past the city limits. “That is a conversation for another time. Perhaps when Eric returns. Go back to your room. When Eric returns with Holden, I’ll have someone fetch you.”

  Williamson fell to silence. She gave the device a final look before leaving the room, then paused a moment on the other side of the door. The situation opened up new terrifying dimensions. A shadow agency, who deliberately infected a city in the United Kingdom, with resources to keep their actions secret? Gemma felt a panic threaten to rise. She wished she could pass the burden to someone more capable than herself. But that was an impossibility. Whatever happened now, Gemma’s fate was interlinked with that of the Carrion Virus. It would either fling her to new heights in her career, or it would bury her. She never thought her career might be built on the foundations of so many dead.

  Williamson is hiding something. It did not make sense how he would know of the existence of The Owls of Athena yet say nothing. What if he was part of the conspiracy? What if he merely tested the waters to see who he could trust going forward?

  Relax, girl, she thought. Wait and speak to Eric when he returns. He was someone who she could bounce thoughts off, without risk of betrayal. Where was Eric?

  ***

  Chapter Seven

  Time’s Winged Chariot

  For the first time, Ryan was allowed to leave The Owls’ Nest. Not alone. Hector Crispin escorted him. Ryan chose from his new array of clothing, all gifted. A dark suit, a white shirt and a bright tie. His shoes were shined to perfection. Ryan had arrived at The Nest dressed not unlike a pauper, but now looked very similar to Hector. He pulled at the collar, the high button annoying his neck. A third man joined them. Hector introduced him as Mr. Rennie. Steven, if he remembered rightly. Not a tall man, but well-built, with a knowing look of danger.

  Although allowed a measure of freedom, Tokyo was still a mystery to Ryan. Hector revealed little as to his motives, yet maintained the threat of tacit violence should Ryan not provide answers to his questions. Hector was amiable until presented with a piece of information that differed with his beliefs. Then the ranting tyrant appeared. Ryan decided he preferred the pleasant side of Hector Crispin and resolved to keep him as such.

  “Are you excited to get out and about the city, Ryan?”

  “Yes. It’ll be nice to be out for a while.” He wanted to ask where they were g
oing but knew better.

  “Regrettably my work keeps me indoors. Precious are the times I manage to schedule for myself. Shall we?”

  Mr. Rennie stepped before Hector and opened the glass doors. Ryan followed after. No car waited.

  “I find if you become over reliant on vehicles, you rob yourself of the ability to enjoy a simple walk.”

  Hector lead on, walking through the large car park toward the gate. The entire building was ringed by a high wall, looking like a castle’s curtain wall. They stepped out into the street, and into the bustle of Tokyo. Hector set a steady pace. Rennie walked behind at a respectful distance, yet close enough to act if anything untoward threatened.

  Floods of people walked in every direction, so much so that Ryan troubled to avoid colliding with pedestrians, until he found an eye for momentum and dodging. Cars clogged the streets. Ryan knew the scene, much like back home in Seattle, but the buildings were different, tinged with an Eastern flair. Bright billboards with overly smiley females selling products that Ryan could not make out covered much of the cityscape.

  “What do you think of our building, Ryan? Black and reaching to the sky. Modern and sleek. It certainly stands out from the surrounding architecture, don’t you think?”

  Ryan skipped to bring him in sync next to Hector. “It’s a fine building, Mr. Crispin.”

  “It was the prototype, the first. Your father had a hand in its design. Not an architect by trade, but he could turn his hand to many things and forge success.”

  He was? He could? Ryan’s father had been brought up in conversation frequently. Ryan was bursting with the need to ask so many questions. What could the man who remained much of a mystery have gotten himself involved in? Was he a part of the foundations of this group? Or was his academic brilliance key to ushering in the Carrion Virus? But asking questions was not appreciated.