“I’ll be there soon. Wait for me. Please.”
“What the fuck, Ben! You’re asking all these damn questions but you seem to know things that I didn’t tell you.”
“That’s my job.”
“I can’t believe this shit!”
“Don’t freak out.” This was a different Ben, all business. “I’ll explain everything when I see you. We are all just trying to help you, Jackson.”
“We? Don’t bother coming. I won’t be here.”
“Jackson, don’t do anything…”
It was a different Jackson too. “If anything happens to me, take care of Jax.” Jackson slammed the phone receiver back on the cradle.
“Get your stuff together,” he said to Jax. “We are getting the hell out of here. Now.”
Jackson pushed with all of his strength and broke through the leather restraints that had previously held him to the bed.
“What did Uncle Ben say? Hey! How did you do that?” Jax asked as it registered that his father just did the impossible. At least, it was impossible for a human.
Jackson ignored the questions, unsure himself how he broke through the leather straps. “He said nothing important.”
Jackson hopped out of the bed and pulled his bloody shirt out of the bag.
“That’s a lie,” Jax said as he stood close to his father, trying to get in his way as much as he could. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Nothing clean.” Jackson had the bloody shirt bunched up in his hands, contemplating. He pulled it over his head, expressing the agony he felt with every movement, trying his best to not look at his gray, dead looking skin that seemed to be covering more of his body. He pulled his jeans on.
“God, dad! You’re sick. You just need to let them help you. Why don’t you call mom?”
Jackson saw his phone plugged in to the wall. “We’ll call her from the road.” He put the phone, now fully charged, in his pocket.
“Why do we have to leave? This is a hospital, dad? They can give you everything you need here.”
“I don’t trust anyone here, except you and Jumper. Let’s just get out of here. Then we can call your mom. I promise. Get your stuff together.”
They stared at each other for a moment and Jax walked over to his bag. He stuffed his laptop into it, realizing his father was leaving with or without him. He didn’t want to let the man out of his sight. His GoPro had filmed everything that happened since the trip began and it was recording now.
Jackson put on his boots and picked up the locust habitat. He walked towards the door with Jumper and Jax by his side and his camo bag over his shoulder. Jax held Jumper’s leash and his dad’s hand in the other.
Just before they got to the door, the nurse entered. “Why are you dressed?” she asked alarmed. “Where are you going?”
“Leaving.”
“You can’t leave! They’re on their way to…” She stopped herself short.
“Who’s on their way? To do what?”
“Some specialists are coming by to take a look at your wound.”
“What kind of specialists?” Jackson asked as his grip on Jax’s hand tightened. Every concern was being validated.
“That’s not important. Let’s get you back in bed now.”
She put her hands on Jackson, trying to force him back into the bed, but he pushed her hands off.
“Not important? The hell it isn’t! Get out of my way!”
Jackson pushed the nurse into the hallway with his uncontrolled, freakish strength. He rushed past her with Jax and Jumper following close behind.
“Wait!” she begged as Jackson moved past her deeper into the semi-crowded hallway. “Stop! He’s leaving!” The nurse pointed at him as she yelled. Others there turned to watch the trio walk to the elevator. “Stop them!”
Jackson saw the doctor down the hall focus on him and move towards him, at first with a few firm, hesitated steps, and then running towards him with everything he had.
“Wait!” the doctor yelled seconds before he arrived at the elevator. He put his hand on Jackson’s shoulder from behind as Jackson repeatedly pushed the down arrow for the elevator to come. He turned and pushed the doctor with all of his strength, sending the doctor stumbling backwards ten feet away onto the all-white tile floor.
“Let’s go!” Jackson insisted to his son and arthritic dog and dragged them to the stairwell entrance.
Less than a minute later, they appeared in the lobby where Detective Chambers was talking to a security guard.
“Stop!” Detective Chambers yelled, now a few feet away from Jackson, who was coming closer.
Fast.
“You can’t leave!”
“Try and stop me,” Jackson challenged threateningly as he kept moving towards the exit.
A juggernaut.
Detective Chambers drew his revolver and ran to beat Jackson to the hospital exit. He pushed his hand into Jackson’s chest a few feet away from it.
Jackson placed the locust’s habitat on the ground. “Why can’t I leave? Huh? Why?”
“You’re sick. You need to stay here at the hospital and let them help you. Let’s get you back to your room now. Get you back into bed.”
Jackson turned around and took a step towards the elevator, conceding it seemed.
“That’s it, buddy,” Detective Chambers said, relieved.
Jackson then jumped into the air and delivered a spinning roundhouse kick to the detectives face. Detective Chambers dropped his gun and crashed to the floor. The security guard ran up to Jackson and took a swing, a right cross to his cheek. Jackson punched him hard in the neck, making him gasp for air, and put him in a headlock.
With a quick, firm twist, he snapped the suffocating guard’s neck.
His dead, limp body slid to the ground as others in the lobby screamed while Jackson calmly collected the locust habitat.
He moved like a machine.
He snatched his son using his other hand. “Let’s go,” he said to Jax, sounding like the stone cold killer he now was, and continued to the exit.
Detective Chambers rose to his feet as he picked up his revolver while looking at the security guard. He pointed it at Jackson, still dazed from the boot kick to his head.
Jackson turned around as he heard Detective Chambers cock the weapon. “Stop. Put your hands in the air. Now. Or I will shoot you.”
Jackson handed the habitat to Jax, who looked as though he was watching a mushroom cloud rise into the horizon. “Hold this.”
Jackson walked with his hands in the air towards the detective who demanded again that Jackson stop. Jackson could see himself ripping Detective Chambers apart with his bare hands. He wanted to — more than he wanted to breathe.
With a strange burst of speed, faster than a mortal human can move, he reached Detective Chambers, who had fired a round into Jackson’s right thigh. He had aimed for the fellow Marine’s chest, but his equilibrium was way off.
It didn’t slow Jackson, who grabbed the detective’s arm with one hand and his gun with the other. Jackson flipped the detective over his shoulder seven feet away into the chairs in the lobby. They scattered like bowling pins as more onlookers that walked into the hospital lobby gasped and did the same. Jax stood frozen near the exit in the lobby. Jumper barked incessantly until ordered to stop by his master.
“Let’s go,” Jackson said to his family as he brushed past them to the outside, but not until he picked up the detective’s gun and stuffed it into his waistband. He emerged through the sliding glass doors of the hospital main entrance. The truck was just a few feet away, in a parking space.
“Come on!” he yelled to Jax and Jumper who hadn’t moved, still inside. “Let’s go!”
They both took a few steps into the outside. “No! I’m not going anywhere with you! Neither is Jumper! I don’t know who you are anymore!”
“Come on, Jumper!” Jackson yelled as he opened the passenger door of the truck. Jumper panted with his tongue out and trotted to the
truck. He hopped in as Jackson opened the glove box and pulled the keys out.
“With or without you,” he said coldly to Jax as he limped back over to the driver’s side, feeling that bullet a little. “I love you, Jax” he then said to him, warmly, as if he decided at that moment that he would never see him again.
He slid into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and started up the truck. He backed out and pull twenty yards away as Jax stood in the parking lot crying, and in shock.
“Wait! Wait!” Jax begged as Jackson slammed on the brakes and flung open the passenger door. He looked in the mirrors to see Jax and a mob of people running towards the truck.
Jax jumped in the truck and it sped off just before the mob reached it, onto the interstate minutes later as the dark of night consumed Virginia, aside from intermittent flashes of lightning in the sky.
Chapter 39
“Ben,” Jamie said with tears glazing her eyes as she walked up to one of the two Black Hawk helicopters sitting on the tarmac at the Quantico Base, ready to fly into the angry sky above. Their blades were spinning at an idle, causing her long brown hair to blow behind her head.
It felt like a war was coming.
Ben was standing beside a collection of men in protective suits. They were all talking. One in particular seemed to be lecturing the others. Dr. Bigsby walked behind Jamie with Franco trailing behind him.
“Jamie,” Ben replied as he turned to face her. “So good to see you, love,” he said as he hugged her tightly. “How are you holding up?” he asked as he released, but kept her hands in his.
“Scared to death, Ben.” She looked helpless despite the smile she had for her family’s old friend.
“Me too. Franco,” Ben said as he shut down his own emotions and let go of Jamie’s left hands.
“Benjamin,” Franco said as they shook hands. “It’s been a while.”
“It has.”
“You two know each other?” Jamie asked.
Ben nodded. “We met at a conference years ago.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It was a blast.”
Ben nodded in agreement. “Remind me to tell you about your boss’s cannonball maneuver into the hotel pool off of the tiki bar roof when this is all over.”
Jamie smiled, though it faded just as quickly as it appeared. “I need information, Ben. How did he sound on the phone?”
“Appropriately cautious and distrusting of me and everyone at the hospital. I hated managing him, Jamie. My best friend. At least, I tried to. He wouldn’t have any of it. Hung up on me.”
“Where are they now? What stage is he in?”
After learning of their escape from the hospital, Jamie stared out of the window of that C12 wondering if they were below her.
Somewhere.
Ben could hear the anguish in her voice, see the worry in her face. Given his position with the World Health Organization, he had the highest level of clearance and was provided with up to the second intelligence with regard to anything and everything associated with the CFv1 growing epidemic, including the location of its most sought after victim. At least, they all believed he was, for more reasons than one.
The entire state of Maine police force was looking for him.
“Late stage,” Ben replied, his heavy heart pounding out of his chest.
Jamie hung her head. She knew what that meant, though she couldn’t quite process it, or wouldn’t.
“There’s a helicopter like these flying five hundred feet above them right now, following their journey down I-95 here in Virginia,” Ben continued.
“How’s he still driving? Doing anything.”
“I don’t know. Because he’s Jackson, I suppose. His incredible, amazing will.”
“Who are you?” Jamie guardedly asked one of the men dressed in a protective suit. He had left the gloves in his well-travelled, dark van. She eyed the skull and crossbones tattoo on his hand while he talked to Dr. Bigsby. They seemed to know each other.
“My name is Gus, ma’am,” he said respectfully, with deep sorrow exuding from his chiseled face. She could see that this man had lived a hard life. It was a skill of Jamie’s.
“CIA?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And you?” she asked another man that approached.
“Cavanagh.” He could tell that didn’t register with Jamie. “His boss,” he continued as he looked back toward Gus.
Hearing steps, she turned, stating, “General.” Jamie initially went to shake his hand, but he pulled her close for a hug. They had met many times before.
“I’m sorry we have to see each other again under these terms. It was much nicer last time.”
“Yes it was, director.”
“I believe we had lunch at that little sandwich shop down the street from the office.”
“I think you are right. Roast beef and cheddar on pumpernickel.”
“Good memory! With that delicious honey mustard sauce. Franco had two if I’m not mistaken.”
Jamie chuckled while Franco frowned. “That sounds right,” she said.
The two CIA agents looked befuddled at one another, not a time to talk about sandwiches. But then again, would there ever be another opportunity?
“I’ve been wanting to meet Jackson for quite some time. I regret it will be under these current circumstances. We are going to try to help him. It’s a priority for us. That’s why we are all here.”
“I appreciate that, general. What about Jax?” Jamie asked Ben. “Please tell me he is okay.”
“He doesn’t appear to be infected, but I don’t know if he will ever be the same. What he’s seen.”
“I know,” Jamie replied sharply, feeling less sappy among the powerful group she stood with. She exhaled. “What now?”
“We’re going to hitch a ride on these choppers and intercept the truck on the interstate. I’m sorry to hear about your father-in-law.”
Jamie just nodded, trying to stay professional when all she wanted to do was fall apart. “Then what? Blow them up with all those missiles?”
“No. They’ll all be taken – Jumper too - into custody, and turned over to the CDC.”
“You mean the CIA.”
Ben nodded halfheartedly.
Jamie’s voice quivered. “Are we certain Jackson’s infected?”
Ben nodded. “Unfortunately. There is no doubt.”
Jamie looked down to the ground and kicked some trash that blew near her black heeled shoes as tears welled up in her eyes. She pulled it together quickly and looked back up at Ben. “Can’t you save him, Ben? Please?” They held hands again, tears now collecting in both their eyes. “The way you did in Mogadishu?”
She was desperate.
Begging.
Ben said nothing as he tried hard to fight off the mass and variety of emotions that were torturing him. He could barely look her in the eye.
She knew the answer.
“They have to take Jax too?” Jamie continued. “Why?”
“You know as well as I do that they have to observe him.”
Jamie couldn’t argue as a doctor, but the mom in her wanted to. “I don’t see Jackson cooperating with any of this. What army will be there to bring my husband into custody?”
“No army. That’s why you’re here. You and I are going to talk him into giving up peacefully. That’s the plan, anyway.”
“Did he kill that security guard, Ben?” She’d heard the news about what went down at the hospital ten minutes before she arrived in Quantico. “What about that man in Maine?”
“He would never hurt anyone that wasn’t a threat.”
“You believe he did then?”
“He’s scared, Jamie. He’s not in his right mind. He’s a good man. That’s how he will always be remembered. That’s how I will always remember him. A hero.”
Jamie agreed with a head nod and wept. “He’s the best.” She buried her face into Ben’s chest and cried like a baby.
He raised her head up and stared in to those ‘magic blue eyes’, as his best friend Jackson Mills always referred to them. “We need to get him help. Now, if we have any chance of getting back the Jackson we know.”
Jamie wiped the tears away. “What the hell are we wasting time here for then?” she asked sternly as she rushed to the open door of the helicopter, and climbed in. “Let’s go get them!” she yelled above the ambient noise of the helicopters.
Ben followed as he twirled his finger in the air to alert the others of their departure.
The blades of the Black Hawks began to spin faster. Moments later, the two war machines lifted off the ground and headed south-southwest down the I-95 corridor at 159 knots.
Chapter 40
“What’s happening, mommy?” the seven-year-old boy asked his mother as he looked up at the sky at the fleet of camouflaged helicopters flying in formation overhead. He counted seventeen of them before he lost count.
“I don’t know,” she answered tearfully. She spun around, taking in the glowing light from fires in the distance, in every direction, no matter which way she looked. Smoke filled the country night air, as did an odor of burning flesh, though she lied to herself and her kids about that.
“Come on,” she demanded nervously. “Take your sister’s hand.”
They started to walk away from their barn, to their house across the pasture in mid-western Ohio. They held hands tightly, looking up periodically at the machines that crowded the night sky, high above the corn fields of their thirty-acre farm.
She looked back at the barn door as something started pounding on it violently from the inside, and then she quickly turned away.
They all knew it wasn’t the sick cow they had in there, which they had heard mooing non-stop from inside the barn for the last few minutes.
It was clearly afraid of something in the barn with it.
“Daddy!” the boy’s five-year-old sister cried as she stopped and turned around, refusing to take another step. “My daddy!” she yelled and cried as she reached out towards the barn, pulling away from her brother, who dug his boots in to the dirt to hang on to her.
And We All Fall (Book 1) Page 29