by A. G. Riddle
Desmond got pretty good at sizing a man up, knew who would be trouble, who would run, and when they should run. He developed a sort of sixth sense about whether he needed the beer bottle or the pool cue he was holding, or if his fists would do. He didn’t like fighting with a knife, but he learned to take them from others. They had a few run-ins with the law, but Orville always had a good story and a few hundred dollars for the bar owner to cover the damage. Desmond nearly always had a bruised rib, a smashed finger, a broken knuckle, a black eye, or a healing cut; pain became commonplace to him, and so did their weird life, living by Orville’s twisted code.
In the hotels, they drank and listened to songs by Robert Earl Keen, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Johnny Cash until dawn. They sobered up a few days before their next job, and didn’t take a drink while they were working. It was too dangerous. That was part of the code too.
Desmond finally understood why his uncle had hated him so much when he’d first arrived. This was the life that Desmond had kept the man from, and Orville was finally getting back to it. That made him happy, and Desmond got some relief at home. They even went hunting together every now and then.
The weeks he worked became almost therapeutic. When they were on the rigs, it was almost non-stop action, some of it dangerous. It was hard work, the kind that kept you from thinking too much. When he was working, he didn’t think about his family, or Charlotte, or Agnes, or anything else. When he was off work, the whiskey and beer made the thoughts go away. It was the only thing that worked—except for books. That became his life: the rigs, drinking, and reading.
His graduation in the spring of 1995 was a non-event for him. His life changed very little—except now he no longer had to take the tests. Other kids were going off to college or to Oklahoma City to get a job, or they started working full-time with their family. Desmond wanted desperately to escape, to start fresh somewhere. But he needed money to do that, so he began saving every penny he could. By January of 1996, the dented coffee can he kept in his mattress held $2,685. It was the sum total of every dollar to his name, and he was about to spend it on a device he hoped would change his life—and allow him to leave Oklahoma and the rigs behind for good.
Chapter 48
There were always two people outside Desmond’s cell: one working the laptop with the slide show, asking questions, another typing and filming him.
He had concluded that enlisting the help of one of the interrogators was his only chance of escape. The cell was well designed and constructed; brute force wouldn’t free him. His first step was developing a profile of the captor he would turn. He had set about searching for any weaknesses or strongly held beliefs he could exploit, but thus far, his attempts to extract such information had fallen on deaf ears. He sensed Conner’s hand in prohibiting the interrogators from speaking with him. None of them ever answered his personal questions. In fact, they became nervous when he addressed them personally—more nervous than they already were. And with each failed attempt, he felt his chances of escape slipping away.
He had taken note of several terms that had struck him as vaguely familiar: “Do you remember the Zeno Society?” they had asked.
“No.”
“The Order of Citium?”
He lied again. He did know the term, but he didn’t know how or what it meant.
Meals were delivered periodically, and Desmond ate them with little concern. If his captors wanted to drug him, they could use the gas and then administer anything they wanted. And he needed to eat. He fell into a pattern: exercise, eat, answer questions, sleep, repeat. He lost all concept of time.
At some point, they began playing music, apparently hoping that would spur a memory. Desmond recognized the songs: “American Remains,” “Highwayman,” “Silver Stallion,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “The Road Goes On Forever,” “Angels Love Bad Men,” and, playing currently, “The Last Cowboy Song.” The songs were performed by a band called The Highwaymen, a quartet consisting of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Desmond could see their faces on the cover of an old cassette tape, one that he had played many times. The songs reminded him of Orville, but he would never tell Conner that.
He knew one thing for certain: Conner had started the outbreak. And if he was capable of that, he was capable of anything. If Conner needed something, Desmond would deny him. He would resist—until the very end.
The ship’s server room was deep below decks, and the command center was adjacent. Four guards sat at a folding table playing cards just outside the main door. They rose as Conner approached, and opened the hatch for him.
Conner had never been in the server command center. It was impressive. Flat panel screens ran from the long desk to the ceiling. Charts and graphs he didn’t recognize updated in real time. A few showed temperature readings. Progress bars crept toward 100%. On one screen, a TV show played Battlestar Galactica. The high-tech command center certainly reminded him of a spaceship, although one flown by slobs. Crunched cans of Red Bull and Mountain Dew littered the floor. Empty wrappers from microwavable snacks curled up and stuck together like ticker tape after a parade. Piles of cracker crumbs ringed the keyboards.
Four faces turned in unison to stare at Conner: a skinny Asian woman with dark greasy hair hanging past her shoulders, two overweight white guys who could have been twins, and an Indian man, a little older and much skinnier.
The Indian man stood, a puzzled look on his face. “Sir?”
“I need a programmer.”
“Ah.” He hesitated, then pointed at a hatch at the back of the room. “They’re in there, sir.”
“You’re not programmers?”
“No, sir. Sys and network admins.”
Conner surveyed the pigsty again. This pack of slobs is keeping all our information organized?
He shook his head. “Right. Carry on.”
“Sir… You might want to knock.”
Conner wondered what that meant. But he took their advice, rapping loudly at the hatch three times. No response.
He glanced back at the Indian sys admin, who merely shrugged as if saying, I guess you’ve got to go in.
Conner opened the hatch and peered inside. The cramped space made the server monitoring room look like a biocontainment clean room. Papers, wrappers, cans, and porno magazines covered the floor. Three guys in their twenties sat hunched over their laptops, headphones on, typing furiously, lines of white text on black screens in front of them. Every few seconds one of them would curse and lean back or throw his hands up. It was like a weird human whack-a-mole exhibit.
“Hey!” Conner shouted.
Headphones came off. Annoyed faces turned to him.
The closest programmer, a kid with dark hair and an Eastern European accent, said, “What the hell, dude?”
“I need you to hack something for me.”
“Can’t. Working on CDC.”
“Forget the CDC. I’ll take care of it. This is a priority.”
Another programmer spoke. “Look, talk to the bridge, man. They call the shots. And shut the door.”
“Listen to me, man. I give the bridge their orders. I call the shots. Don’t make me prove it.”
All three paused, eyes wide. “Oh,” the Eastern European guy said. “Uh, okay. What are we hacking?”
“Someone’s brain.”
In the situation room outside the ship’s bridge, an analyst handed Conner a report; it was still warm from the printer.
“The infection has hit the tipping point.”
“Good,” Conner said, scanning the figures.
“There’s something else. Alpha Site reports that southern Somalia is crawling with drone flyovers. They’re concerned the US will find the farm soon.”
“Fine. Transfer Shaw and the other woman here tonight.”
“We’ve suggested that. They want more money.”
Conner rolled his eyes. “Fine. Pay ’em.”
It didn’t matter.
Money would be irrelevant in a matter of days.
Chapter 49
Peyton’s most recent escape attempt had been her best, but it had also resulted in her jailers being more cautious with her. The black-clad soldier now used a wooden stick to push the Styrofoam tray across the ground, past the bars, and into her cell. A car battery sat just out of reach; its cables ran to the closest metal bar, which buzzed with electricity.
She was starving. She wanted to resist eating, but she couldn’t hold out any longer. She crawled across the ground and began eating.
A few minutes later, Peyton slumped forward, out cold. The soldier disconnected the car battery, opened the cell, and hoisted the skinny woman up. She was a lot fiercer than she looked. They were glad to be getting rid of her.
Chapter 50
After the call with Elliott, Millen had presented his offer to the three villagers. Halima translated and talked mostly with the older woman, Dhamiria. They occasionally conversed with the six-year-old boy, Tian, as well.
Millen tried to imagine what the request was like for them. They had seen their family and friends die in a matter of days, and were left all alone. Now they were being asked to travel to a foreign land, where they’d be subjects in medical experiments—guinea pigs to find a cure. It must be terrifying, he thought.
Halima turned to Millen. “You are sure you’ll find a cure?”
“No. I’m not sure. But there’s a chance. I can’t promise you anything, but you three may be the key to saving a lot of people’s lives.”
“We will be free to come back here—you will return us when you are done?”
“You have my word.”
“We will come with you, Doctor.”
“Call me Millen.”
It was midday when Millen and the villagers arrived in Mandera. The Japanese SUV creaked on the red dusty road, and the four of them stared at the deserted town in silence. Mandera was a chilling shell of the place Millen had seen just days before.
When the team had first arrived, kids had interrupted their soccer games as the convoy passed, or rushed to the streets to get a glimpse of the visitors. Villagers carting produce and herding livestock had clogged the thoroughfare. Now there was not a soul in sight. The buildings, both new and ramshackle, lay empty. To Millen, it felt like a ghost town from America’s West—an African version of Dodge City. A boom town gone bust. But a different kind of boom had gone off in Mandera: a biological bomb, perhaps more deadly than any the world had ever witnessed before.
Millen expected the city’s, and possibly the region’s, last survivors to be concentrated at the hospital. But he found the tent complex empty and disheveled. Someone had raided every thing of use. The food, and every last medical supply box, was gone. Some water remained, likely because it was too heavy to carry.
“We’ll run out of food before the transport gets here,” Millen said. “The soldiers only left me a little.”
“We’ll search the town,” Halima said. “We’ve become good at scavenging.”
Millen got the PPE out of the back of the truck and began donning it.
Halima pointed at the hospital. “You’re going in there?”
“Yeah. It’s my job.”
The halls of the hospital were lined with empty buckets, bottles, and boxes that had once held medical supplies. The debris was stacked in tumbling heaps, with only a narrow walkway between them, like a mountain pass had been carved in the piles of used medical waste. Millen stepped carefully through the halls, mindful not to snag the suit or step on a needle. A mistake could be deadly.
In the large open room where Hannah had taken the samples, he found rows of dead bodies. Some held wooden crosses at their chests, their eyes closed. Others stared upward, glassy-eyed, at ceilings fans that sat idle. At the back of the room, body bags were stacked against the wall, a black plastic staircase of human death that led nowhere. Flies swarmed.
There were no unopened or unused medical supplies. No uneaten MREs. The room told the story of a medical mission slowly losing its battle against disease. They had bagged and burned the bodies for as long as they could, then had focused on the ones they hoped would survive. And then they had pulled out.
Millen was certain he would find no survivors here. Or food.
He wandered the halls after that, peering into the patient rooms, being thorough, looking for any clues or observations he could take back to Atlanta. He found only dead bodies, all with the same hemorrhaging, jaundiced eyes, and signs of severe dehydration.
Suddenly, he heard a rustling. Just down the hall from him, boxes fell to the floor. He raced toward the noise, moving as fast as he could in the bulky suit. At an open doorway, he peered in.
Empty.
Something darted from beneath a rolling cart. It dashed toward him, between his legs, and out into the hall.
Millen stepped back and turned quickly. A bat-eared fox. The sight of the animal filled him with excitement. He’d read about them before the deployment, but had never seen one. He would have loved to have seen it up close. The small fox fed mostly on termites and other insects—spiders, ants, and millipedes in particular—but also occasionally ate fungi or small animals. They hunted not by sight or smell, but sound, their large ears helping them locate even the smallest insects on the sprawling savannas of Africa. They were mostly monogamous, and the male, not the female, took the lead with caring for their young.
Another bat-eared fox emerged from the room, followed by another. That made sense; they were highly social animals that typically hunted in packs.
Behind him, Millen heard a door creak open. To his shock, an African man stood there, leaning against the door frame. He was weak, barely alive. But for the first time since Millen had entered the hospital, a living set of human eyes stared back at him.
The survivor tried to take a step, but his legs were unsteady. Millen was at his side in seconds, offering his hand to steady the man.
“I’m Millen Thomas. With the CDC.”
The middle-aged African surveyed Millen’s face through the suit’s helmet. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Elim Kibet.”
Millen knew the name. “You’re the physician in charge here.”
Elim smiled weakly. “Was the physician in charge here. I’m just a patient now.”
“I think you might be the last one.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Let’s get you back to bed,” Millen said.
“No. Thank you, but I need to walk. My fever broke this morning. And I’ve been in that room too long. In bed too long. I need to use my muscles before I lose them.”
For the next thirty minutes, Millen helped Elim pace around the hospital. The older physician looked into the patient rooms as they passed. At the large open room, he paused for a long time, his bloodshot eyes filling with water.
Millen couldn’t imagine what it was like for the physician—being trapped in the place where he had worked, where he had saved lives and done so much good. A prisoner inside his own failing body, barely able to walk, unable to escape from a deserted, post-apocalyptic realm. Millen wondered how he would react if he were trapped alone inside the CDC building in Atlanta, the outside world having fallen apart. It was a nightmare. But the horror of this place hadn’t broken the Kenyan doctor’s will to live. Millen was glad.
For the most part, they walked in silence. Elim gasped for breath as he put one staggering leg in front of the other. Millen held him as best he could. It was a furnace inside the suit, and sweat poured down Millen’s face. He couldn’t wait to take it off, but he wouldn’t leave the man’s side, not until he was finished.
When Elim was too weak to proceed, Millen helped him back to his room and into bed.
“It’s amazing how quickly the muscles atrophy,” Elim said. “If disease doesn’t kill you, lying in bed will.”
Millen nodded.
Elim motioned to the cart. “There’s food there. Take some.”
“Thank you, but some people
with me are scouring the town. We’ll be fine.”
“The rest of your team is here as well?”
“No. They’re gone. Our camp was raided while I was away. Most of my team was killed, along with the Kenyan soldiers assigned to protect us. Two of my team members were abducted.”
Elim exhaled heavily. “I’m sorry. Disasters are an opportunity for the worst of humanity. And the best.”
A pause, then Elim asked, “Were you close to your colleagues?”
Millen hesitated. “I’ve only been working with them for six months. But I was getting closer to one in particular. My…” he grasped for the right word, settled on, “roommate.”
Elim smiled. “Does your roommate have a name?”
“Hannah Watson.” Not knowing what else to say, Millen described her briefly. Talking about her actually helped; he didn’t realize before then how hard it was to think about her—or to even say her name.
Elim thought for a moment. “Yes. I remember her. She took the samples when you were here last. Very thorough.”
Millen smiled. “Yes. She’s very thorough.” He grew quiet. “They shot her when they invaded the camp. She was one of the ones who was abducted. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”
Elim spoke slowly. “I’ve recently learned the value of something I’ve never had much use for: faith. Last night, I thought I would never leave this room. Have faith and patience, Dr. Thomas. Time works miracles. We must have the courage to wait for them.”