“Just be ready when we call for you,” Dom said. “Stream any new findings at once over satellite comms, okay?”
Lauren nodded as she left. “Aye aye, Captain,” she said over her shoulder.
“Think she can actually do it?” Miguel asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Like I said, if someone’s going to find something on the Oni Agent, it’ll be Lauren.” If she couldn’t, Meredith’s connections and name-dropping the Amanojaku Project might not be sufficient. He hated flying into a mission as ill-prepared as this, but the reports of the Oni Agent’s spread meant they didn’t have time for luxuries like prolonged intelligence gathering and analysis. Action was more valuable than deliberation.
“And why do we have to stay aboard?” Jenna said, motioning to herself, Glenn, and Andris. “I’d rather be out there with you guys.”
“I appreciate it, but someone has to keep an eye out on the ship,” Dom said. “Glenn, we need you to stick around in case Amir talks again. You’re the only one who can communicate with the guy. If he has anything that might help us bridge a relationship with Fort Detrick, I want that information.”
“Understood,” Glenn said, folding his arms across his considerable chest. “If I can’t be there to protect you, you’ll keep an eye on our captain, won’t you, Renee?”
She grinned. “You know it. Plus, we’ll be streaming everything on shore back to Samantha and Chao, so if you guys miss us, you can see what we’re up to.”
“Right,” Dom said, “as long as it doesn’t distract you from your duties here. But I am glad you’re here, because there is something worrying me.”
Thomas nodded. Dom had already discussed these concerns with the man since the second-in-command would also be staying aboard during this mission.
“Being so close to shore, there’s a real possibility we’ll see survivors desperate for protection,” Dom said. “Hell, we might even see Skulls trying to get aboard the Huntress. I don’t want to tell you to ignore these people, but use caution. We all know what happened to Scott. He came aboard, an injured Hunter, and over the course of his brief stay in the isolation ward, he turned into one of those things. If we offer to protect everyone we see, we run the risk of inviting an outbreak on the ship.”
“If we lose the ship, we lose the mission.” Thomas took his traditional unlit stress cigar from the corner of his mouth. “We won’t fail you, Dom.”
“Understood, Captain. We’ll be vigilant,” Andris said, his Eastern European accent slightly tilting his words.
“Great. I don’t want to waste much more time, so can we have the bird in the air in thirty?”
Despite the short turnaround from meeting to mission, the Hunters gave no signs of trepidation. Frank gave him a thumbs-up. “Consider it done.”
“Hunters, ready?”
Miguel, Renee, and Hector responded in unison. “Aye aye, Captain.”
“Grab your gear,” Dom said. “Standard mission ops, plus any other weapons you can carry on your person. We’ve already got the AW109 equipped with emergency supplies.”
The three left for the armory with Adam, along with the Hunters who would stay aboard.
“I’ve seen the streams, I’ve heard the reports, and I’ve got to admit, I’m worried,” Thomas said. “Just a little bit.”
“I’m scared for you,” Dom said. “All aboard the ship unsupervised. Me leaving you in charge. Dangerous situation.” He forced a smile that quickly faded. “Take care of everyone while I’m gone.”
“You know I’d be happy to go with. We’ve gone on missions together before, and the Huntress didn’t sink.”
“I know, but I wouldn’t want to risk your life too,” Dom said. He knew the implications of his statement and what he had planned rang clear to Thomas. “If anything happens to me—”
“It won’t,” Thomas finished.
“If anything does, you take care of her.”
“Don’t want to hear you talk like that, Captain.” Thomas jabbed a finger at Dom. “You’re coming back in one piece, or so help me God, I’ll hunt you down and put you back together myself.”
Dom stood. When Thomas followed suit, Dom clasped the man’s hand. “I know you would. Just to save your ass, I plan on coming back alive along with everyone else on the chopper.” He then gestured toward Thomas’s cigar. “When I get back, maybe we’ll share one of those and two fingers of Scotch in celebration of a job well done, eh?”
He left the mess hall and headed toward the armory, wondering if he could indeed make good on his word. For everybody’s sake aboard the ship, for those headed to Detrick with him, and for his daughters, he would do everything in his power to keep his promise.
A few minutes later, Dom was stuffing extra magazines into his tactical vest and slinging the SCAR-H’s strap over his shoulder. He secured his NVGs to his helmet with a click.
The others counted their magazines and holstered their weapons. Hunters staying aboard helped pack extra ammunition, body armor plates, breaching charges, and grenades for Renee, Hector, Adam, and Miguel. Chao had also fitted a blade attachment to Miguel’s prosthetic. By making a fist and twisting his wrist, Miguel could activate the retractable blade, and he practiced with it now.
When the team was ready to go, they took the metal stairs to the helipad. Gusts of air batted at them as the AW109’s blades spun.
Frank waved at them from the cockpit, his voice echoing in Dom’s helmet comm link. “Today’s flight will take us from the Huntress to Fort Detrick. On our way, we’ll be making a layover in Frederick. Due to the short flight duration, beverage service will be suspended.”
Dom ducked instinctively as he led the team to the open doors in the side of the helicopter.
Once they all hopped aboard and secured their harnesses, the chopper shuddered and lifted into the air.
“Expect plenty of turbulence,” Frank said. “And as always, no smoking. Except for the captain’s smoking good looks.”
“Awful, man. Just awful.” Miguel rolled his eyes.
The Huntress grew smaller as the chopper climbed vertically. On the helipad, a small gathering of the ship’s crew waved them off before the helicopter tilted forward and sped toward the dark shore.
Normally, Annapolis would be a collage of bright lights from shop fronts, houses, and restaurants. Now it was mostly dark, lost in the shadows of the night like the rest of the Chesapeake Bay, except for the fires burning across the marina. Smoke plumed against the dark-purple sky, obscuring their view farther along the horizon.
Several ships drifted in the bay, some with red and green navigation lights to announce their presence. Smaller sailing crafts bobbed between them, their cabins glowing against the black waves. Dom figured they must’ve been people seeking the protection of the sea, fleeing from the horrors on land. The yachts and other boats unable to make it out of the bay either burned or were jammed in a mass of sea craft near the marina’s entrance.
The chopper’s blades thumped in the air, cutting over the city. The Hunters, Adam, and Frank didn’t say a word as they surveyed the scene below them.
A couple of bright flashes illuminated a patch of the historic brick road near the center of Annapolis. Shapes moved in the darkness.
More flashes. Gunfire.
Someone ran into the street. Other figures pounced on the person. Skulls, Dom thought. More poured from the neighboring alleys like ants swarming an injured insect.
Dom turned to Miguel and caught his eyes—a moment of realization passing over both of them. Things were about to get ugly, and Dom suddenly wasn’t sure how well he could actually protect his Hunters.
-25-
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead in the medical bay. While Scott and Amir both lay still under medical sedation in the isolation room, Lauren skimmed through the tissue samples they’d fixed to glass microscope slides and stained. Each was taken from Brett Fielding, Scott Ashworth, or Amir’s wounds.
“Let me get this straight,” P
eter said, lifting his eyes from the microscope. “Dom wants us to identify the Oni Agent and try to find a cure by the time they reach Detrick.”
“Right.” Lauren rotated one of the histological microscope slides they’d made of the mineralized tissue from Scott’s wound. “At least they’re landing in Frederick to pick up Meredith before going to the base.”
“That gives us, what, another hour?”
“You can take a lot of images on the microscope in one hour,” Lauren said with a grin.
“Yeah, but it’d help if we knew what we were looking for.”
Lauren deposited a slide on the microscope and pressed her face to the eyepiece. The scope illuminated bright-red splotches within the tissue. “Check this out.”
“This is an Alizarin red stain, right?” Peter asked, taking his turn with the scope.
“Right. All the positive red staining shows calcium compounds.” Lauren switched to another slide taken from Scott’s tissue samples at a later time. “This one shows a much more uniform area of positive calcium staining.”
“So the mineralized tissue is growing and calcifying.”
Lauren nodded and placed the slides back in their spots in a plastic box filled with other samples. “Let’s go over this one more time. I want to make sure we haven’t missed something. What are all the possible causes of tissue calcification you know of?”
Peter held up a finger. “First, infections causing inflammation or an immune response.”
“So maybe the Oni Agent causes a significant immune response that leads to the calcified tissue. Still, that response would normally take days to weeks before you’d get calcified tissue formation. Not minutes and hours.”
Peter pointed to the incubator where they kept their experimental cell cultures. “Plus, there were no macrophages or other immune cells in our cell cultures to cause this spontaneous calcification.”
“Very true.” Lauren leaned against one of the lab benches. “All we added to the mineralized tissue sample was basic cell media.”
“Which ended up causing the calcified tissues to spread spontaneously and quickly.”
Lauren took out one of the cell culture dishes. Normally a vibrant pink, the liquid was tinged a pale yellow. “See the color change? There’s something in these calcified formations using up all the cell media nutrients and filling the culture dish with metabolic waste products.”
“Which indicates there’s a high likelihood something’s growing in there that we can’t see,” Peter said. “That all harkens back to the coral idea. But what or where are the polyps making the coral structure?”
“My guess is bacteria. They’re usually the culprits in cell culture. They can turn a nice dish of pink media to stinking yellow in a matter of hours.” Lauren placed the culture back in the incubator and shut the door. “But we haven’t found any visible signs of bacteria.”
“None I’ve been able to confirm with microscopy, at least.” Peter pulled up images on a computer monitor. Several different pictures displayed various tissue samples. “The Gram staining didn’t show anything. No Gram-positive or -negative bacteria.
“Not to mention, we found the presence of genetic material during the sequencing results,” Peter added. “Since there was DNA, it has to be something alive.”
“Or a virus,” Lauren corrected. “Still, we didn’t find any genetic matches for the DNA present in the tissue.”
“So maybe it’s some strange virus, invading any remaining immune and inflammatory cells in the sample.”
“Yet the antibiotics somehow slowed the progress of the Oni Agent. Obviously, antibiotics wouldn’t have any effect on a viral agent.” Lauren froze. “We’re missing something.”
“You think the DNA we found is just an artifact from the samples we took? Nothing more than just remnants of inflammatory cells reacting to the Oni Agent?”
“I don’t buy it. There were practically no cells left in those culture dishes for a virus to replicate in.” Lauren’s mind spun, pressured by Dom’s demands and the sheer power of the Oni Agent. If the reports of the rapid and uncontrolled spread were true, then the answer wouldn’t be something obvious. She needed to think outside the box. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is such a thing as Gram-indeterminate bacteria,” she said. “There might be something there, but we aren’t using the right techniques to analyze it.”
“We need to go back and look at the genetic sequencing results,” Peter said.
“I’m not sure that’ll help. We didn’t find any matches with any identified contagions the first time, which means we’re looking at something radically different, something virtually non-existent in the scientific literature.”
Peter lifted his shoulders in a gesture of defeat.
A sudden idea sprung to life in Lauren, and she recalled something from a paper she’d read published by the National Academy of Sciences’ journal, PNAS. “You ever get a kidney stone?”
Peter cringed. “God, thankfully no. Painful enough just thinking about it.” He raised a brow in question. “You think the calcified tissue we’re seeing is somehow related to kidney stone formation?”
Lauren jumped to the computer terminal and prayed they still had satellite internet access to live servers somewhere. She searched for the paper and found it. “See? It proposes a potential mechanism for calcification.”
Peter squinted. “Nanobacteria.”
“It’s a wild idea, and if I recall correctly, the scientific community’s still divided on whether these things are actually alive or not. Some researchers posit they aren’t bacteria at all.” Lauren shrugged. “But the antibiotics seemed to have some effect on their growth, or at least the calcifications, so maybe that’s what we’re dealing with.”
Peter began sifting through other papers and medical literature. “Says here nanobacteria are responsible for using calcium and phosphate to form hydroxyapatite.”
“Exactly. The same mineral found in bone and teeth.” The images from the video streams of Skulls aboard the oil rig filtered through Lauren’s mind. She felt more and more certain they’d found the missing link. “Might explain what happened to the people Dom and the Hunters dealt with, huh?”
“I’m not sure about this,” Peter said. “There’s so much unknown about nanobacteria.” He gestured to a paper he’d pulled up on the monitor. “This claims something alive couldn’t possibly even be as small as nanobacteria. A living cell is supposed to be two hundred nanometers in diameter, but this other paper says nanobacteria are reported to be on the scale of eighty nanometers.”
“Like I said, there’s some disagreement, but what we have here might indeed be nanobacteria large enough to thrive. That might explain the government’s slow response to the outbreak. I doubt the CDC is prepared for an epidemic caused by a pathogen they didn’t even know existed.”
Peter paced the narrow lab. “So what if it is nanobacteria? How do we treat it?”
Lauren folded her arms across her chest and chewed her bottom lip. The momentary elation of identifying a possible culprit for the Oni Agent burst like a fatal aneurysm. She sank into a chair, the energy draining out of her.
“And even if we can buy the bone-like formations in the Skulls, how does the presence of nanobacteria explain the neurological and psychological changes?” He threw out a hand, gesturing toward Scott. “How did nanobacteria turn him into a would-be killer?”
Lauren had no answers. The burden of stopping a worldwide epidemic became too real, too heavy for her to bear. She pressed her palms to her eyes.
“We’re screwed,” Peter said. “The best information we’ve uncovered is that we might be dealing with the microscopic equivalent of the Loch Ness monster.”
Cursing inwardly, Lauren wondered if he was right. The despair at not finding an answer to the questions Dom had left her with loomed larger with each passing second.
She took a slow breath.
Think outside of the box, she reminded herself. Outside of the lab.
She closed her eyes and thought back to everything she knew about the Oni Agent. Everything Dom’s team had uncovered on the ship.
Then her eyes shot open, hope reigning once again. A new idea, a new link. “I’ve got to speak with Chao and Samantha.”
She stood to leave, Peter still staring at her with an open mouth. As she reached the door, Divya burst in with Sean McConnelly, the epidemiologist. The woman’s normally healthy nut-brown face was awash in pallor, and Sean appeared no less worried. In her hands, she held a pale-blue biohazard suit. “From what we know, the Oni Agent is transmissible through blood contact with the bony tissues on those Skulls, right?”
Before Lauren or Peter could confirm it, Divya threw the biohazard suit on a lab bench. She stretched it out and pointed at the chest area. There were three small holes torn through it.
“This wasn’t Scott, Brett, or Miguel’s suit,” Lauren said, rattling off the names of the only Hunters she’d known whose suits had been compromised.
“No, I already incinerated those,” Divya said. “Sean and I hung the rest of the cleaned and sterilized suits back up for later.” She patted the suit. “Almost by accident, I found this one. Someone’s suit was punctured, and they didn’t even know it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the result of Skull contact, though,” Peter said. “Could’ve snagged it on a piece of equipment or shrapnel during the gunfight.”
“Maybe.” Lauren probed at the three holes. “But if it wasn’t, we could have someone on board infected with a trace amount of the Oni Agent. And without help, they could turn into one of those Skulls.”
Sean’s eyes widened. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Gather up all the onboard crew,” Lauren said. “And let’s get ahold of Dom, too. One of the Hunters is a ticking time bomb.”
-26-
Maggie whined with her tail between her legs. She wedged herself between the nearby dresser and bedroom wall.
The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) Page 20