Sector C

by Phoenix Sullivan

  P H O E N I X

  S U L L I V A N

  STEEL MAGNOLIA PRESS

  SECTOR C …

  A rise in stroke-like cases has CDC analyst Mike Shafer on alert. Patients in every demographic in the Great Plains area, from toddlers to healthy adults to the elderly, are succumbing to rapid deterioration – and death.

  Veterinarian Donna Bailey, meanwhile, is dealing with an outbreak of her own. It looks like mad cow disease. But to be affecting so many species? Impossible.

  Whatever it is, it’s spreading. Fast.

  As state and federal agencies race to contain the growing threats, Mike and Donna’s searches for Patient Zero intersect at a big-game compound in a remote corner of North Dakota. There they find their answer buried in a secret thought extinct for 10,000 years. A secret entrepreneur Walt Thurman will kill to protect.

  But even if Mike and Donna can escape the compound with the secret of Sector C, it may already be too late.

  Because after today, extinct no longer means forever.

  /////

  Ripped from today’s research and tomorrow’s headlines, SECTOR C is a near-future medical mystery / ecothriller fans of Michael Crichton and Daniel Kalla are sure to enjoy.

  /////

  “Settle in for a satisfying mystery that plays out through clues dropped into story lines you know must somehow be connected but you’re not sure how. Halfway through, you and the two main characters learn what the answer to the mystery is, then the MCs are off running for their lives, only to maybe be saved by – oh, now that would be telling!”

  “Solid mystery in the beginning, fun thrills at the end.”

  “With such a wild hypothesis at its core, the action in this book could have been ramped up right out of the realm of believability. A restrained hand makes the crisis not only plausible, you’ll be watching the news certain that it’s inevitable.”

  “Don’t expect a pulse-pounding adventure beginning to end. But brain-pounding? If there was an ‘intelligent thriller’ category, SECTOR C would be in the top 10. It’s one ah-ha moment after another.”

  CHAPTER 1

  VIKRAM SHANKAR SQUINTED DOWN the long metal barrel. Framed squarely in the sight, not two hundred feet away, the white tiger sat on its haunches, its lower jaw drooping, ribs rippling under a mat of chocolate-striped fur.

  A sweet shot.

  Vikram’s right finger closed over the trigger. He inhaled slowly, deliberately. Too seasoned a hunter to let the thrill overcome judgment, he took his time, savoring the anticipation.

  The nasal whounk-ing of a snow goose flying overhead pricked the big cat’s ears, and the heavy-set head swung toward the sound. With pounding heart, Vikram exhaled.

  The sight bead wavered. He glanced down, and realized his left arm had begun to tremble.

  Hell. Not now.

  He willed his arm still, but it jerked — wide — then jerked again. The barrel danced in front of him.

  Something — whether the movement or some slight sound Vikram made — drew the cat’s attention. It rolled into a crouch, facing Vikram’s blind. Sunlight bouncing off the snow caught its blue eyes and they glistened like tanzanite as it peered into the camouflage.

  The rifle steadied as Vikram’s muscle spasms quieted. Again he sighted down the barrel, waiting for another clean shot. As long as his arm cooperated, he could outwait the cat. And with two hundred thousand dollars on the line if he missed the kill, he could wait a very long time.

  After a moment, the tiger, apparently satisfied no threat lurked behind the blind, rose, turned and padded across the snow. A slight drag to its hind leg appeared to be its only imperfection. One that wouldn’t matter once it was mounted. What mattered now was bringing it down with one swift shot.

  A small veer and the cat presented perfectly. Vikram squeezed the trigger.

  “Shit!” His left arm jerked the barrel aside just as the bullet lunged from its chamber. He was already setting up a second shot even as the tiger stumbled. A streak of blood bloomed across its shoulder. When the cat recovered two steps later, Vikram knew for certain the first bullet had only grazed it.

  He tried to sight again, but again his left arm went out of control, this time slipping entirely off the barrel and flailing wildly.

  “No!” His cry followed the retreating cat as it leapt through the snow.

  The tiger arrowed toward the far end of the pen where the fence jutted rudely. It hurled itself up, but the timbers, slanting sharply inward to prevent it from gaining a purchase, were too high to clear. It snarled as its heavy body fell back to the ground.

  From the iron-barred blind, Vikram watched the cat — his cat — and cursed.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE WIRY KEEPER MONITORING the hunt flipped open his phone. “Got a wounded tiger in Sector B.”

  “Need help?” came a prompt reply.

  “Nah.” The keeper, Lim Chiou, watched the cat pacing the fence line. “I’ll tranq it and see what Mr. Shankar wants to do.” Hunters missed shots. Not frequently, but it happened. Lim didn’t think Mr. Shankar was the type of man who would want to shoot a tranquilized animal, but he had paid for the kill. Others had taken that cheap shot and then talked up the hunt at dinner, never admitting the circumstances of the actual kill. Many of the hunters here ran multi-billion-dollar companies and failure in any form — including just the appearance of failure — was not an option.

  Lim grabbed the rifle leaning against the watchtower wall, scooped up three loaded darts and headed out. The iron gate swung closed behind him. He didn’t bother to bolt it. Not only was the tiger at the opposite end of the pen, but Lim counted heavily on the experience he’d gained in the Army Marksmanship Unit during active duty a half-dozen years ago. It had been a long time since he’d missed a shot of any kind.

  He pushed his palm out toward the blind where Vikram still sat, cursing his arm, the cat and anything else that came to mind. “Stay there until he’s down. It may take a few minutes once he’s hit.” Gripping the rifle comfortably, Lim walked out a few hundred feet, stopping within easy range of the pacing cat, where he loaded a dart into the gun.

  The tiger edged away from Lim, following the fence. Putting the rifle to his shoulder, the keeper took aim, then fired, looking for the dart to embed itself in the cat’s muscular flank.

  Instead, the dart nosed into the snow several yards short of its target.

  “What the —” Lim stared at the dart, grimacing at the naked cartridge. A quick scan of the white ground turned up its bright red tailpiece about 40 feet away. Darts didn’t often fail, but even tailpieces from the best manufacturers were known to occasionally break apart from the hypodermics they were supposed to be guiding.

  This, Lim decided, was setting up to be a perfect storm.

  Agitated, the cat bounded across the pen, leaping at the fence, looking for a weakness, a break. It hit the unlatched gate and the timbers bounced on their hinges.

  For a tantalizing moment, a sliver of an opening appeared.

  Lim grabbed another dart to load.

  In the blind, safe behind stout bars that kept hunter and prey apart, Vikram swore in frustration. Knowing the cat was beyond the range of his rifle, he raised the stock to his shoulder anyway, drew in a steadying breath and sighted.

  The big cat swatted at the gate, causing it to bounce again. This time the cat hooked a paw through the narrow space that appeared between the gate and the fence. Then it froze, holding the gate partially open, unsure what to do next.

  In the center of the pen, a rifle cracked. A single bullet ricocheted against the gate’s iron frame and fell harmlessly away. Startled, the tiger flinched, snatching back its outstretched leg. A claw caught in the frame, dragging the gate open along the arc of its retreating pa
w.

  Without hesitation, it shouldered past the gate and sprang beyond it. A heavy dart flew after the fleeing cat, catching on the edge of the gate that swung closed behind it.

  By the time Lim hit the gate at a run with his third dart loaded, the white tiger had disappeared into the Dakota hills.

  CHAPTER 3

  “FIND ANYTHING?”

  In the trophy-filled den that passed as one of Triple E Enterprise’s executive offices, Lim studied the man who was facing him asking the question. For a board chairman and CEO whose company had just lost a two hundred thousand dollar tiger, Walt Thurman didn’t seem half as pissed as Lim expected. He shook his head. “The dogs followed it most of the day, but I don’t think that tiger wants to be caught.”

  “You said Shankar had wounded it?”

  “Yeah, but not badly enough to slow it down.”

  “He missed his shot, he said, because he ‘got the shakes’. Something he had the last time he hunted here. What do you know about that?”

  “Can’t say I noticed — or didn’t notice — anything about Mr. Shankar the last few times he’s been here. That’s been three, I think. But this time —” Lim paused, trying to judge what Thurman was looking for and what information might set him off. It was pretty easy for him to figure out what the animals in his care needed and how they would react in any given circumstance. But a corporate executive was another beast entirely.

  “— this time he was having muscle tremors. Like the elephants. And I’ve had to remind him about tour days. Even where to pick up supplies.”

  The shift in Walt Thurman was nearly imperceptible — a slight slump to his shoulders, a slight sag to the muscles in his face — but Lim was a close observer of nature, human and otherwise.

  “Is there something we should know, Mr. Thurman? Mr. Shankar isn’t the only client we’ve had lately who seems a little … off.”

  Lim didn’t need any special skills to identify the next change in Thurman: defense posture. “Most of our clients have been with us a few years now. They’re Type A’s. And Type A’s age faster — aches, pains, even senility are catching up with them. It’s not anything more than that with Shankar. What I don’t want is him spreading innuendo that Triple E has or may have anything to do with his current medical problems. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly, sir. What is it you want me to do?”

  “Kill him, of course.”

  Lim stared blankly at the CEO, trying to process the unexpected order.

  Thurman threw the keeper a half-grin and slapped him on the back. “You do know I’m joking?”

  “Sure,” Lim lied with a shaky laugh.

  “I want to sweeten Shankar’s pot. Give him a reason to keep his allegiance with us. I’ve already agreed to reimburse half his fee for today’s hunt. Now let’s give him a special pass into Sector C. I know he’s still one hunt short of membership, but I’m willing to give him that free ride if it keeps him quiet. If he doesn’t have the money, we’ll work out a deal. What I want from you is to be sure he’s ready. We can’t afford screw-ups like today’s over in C.” Thurman absently reached out and stroked the soft cheek fur of the red wolf — forever baying at a forgotten moon — that stood beside his desk.

  “Keep your friends close, Mr. Chiou. That’s the lesson from today’s business world. Triple E survives solely on the experience we provide our clients. Without their goodwill — and their discretion — we’d all be out of jobs. Remember that.”

  “Yes sir. How far out do you want me to schedule Mr. Shankar’s return trip?”

  “Make it six months.”

  “And the tiger? It’s bound to find the ranches.”

  “Any way it can be tracked back to us?”

  Lim shook his head. “Only if we show up to claim it. It has our tattoo, of course. But the tattoo is only traceable if we publicize our branding system.”

  “If you can catch it in the next few days, fine; otherwise, let it go. We don’t have the men available to go traipsing after an animal we may or may not find. And we’re certainly not going to hire outside help.”

  “There’s something maybe you should know, sir.” Lim took a deep breath, reluctant to voice it considering Thurman’s earlier reaction. The CEO had been clearly agitated even if he had tried to pass it off with a laugh. “The tiger’s showing some of the same symptoms as the other animals — in its hind leg and jaw especially.”

  “If that tiger starts killing cattle, some rancher’s going to find it. It’ll be trapped or shot soon enough. It’ll make the local headlines and be a curiosity for awhile, then it’ll be forgotten. It’s a genetically weak animal. They all are. It’s been a known risk from the beginning. But we’re working to turn that. Sound stock will keep this company in business.” With that, Thurman circled his desk and took a seat, a not-so-subtle indicator to Lim the meeting was concluded.

  The keeper debated pressing the issue. Every animal, humans included, had a tolerance point. Push them beyond and the consequences could turn dangerous fast. But sometimes there were questions that had to be asked.

  “Then your concerns about Mr. Shankar’s condition —”

  “— totally unrelated.”

  The clip in the CEO’s voice told Lim he was prodding too close. Still … “And the other clients? Or the workers who’ve had to quit? They’re also unrelated?”

  Thurman’s face was cold. “The breeding program has some genetic flaws. But they’re just that: genetic. Someone with Down’s Syndrome may pass that trait on to their children, but their caregivers aren’t going to suddenly see a drop in IQ just because they associate together. Speculation like yours is what we’re trying to avoid. Dissemination of false assumptions. Don’t find red flags where the evidence simply doesn’t support them. Are we clear?”

  At face value, Thurman’s words seemed reasonable to Lim, but the man’s delivery was too emphatic, like he was trying too hard to be persuasive. There were two truths there to be sorted through; that much was clear to Lim. Only not today. The keeper had been very categorically dismissed. And Lim knew when the wisest course of action was to back away from a cornered beast.

  CHAPTER 4

  GAYLE BALDRIDGE YAWNED AND SCROLLED through her Pad-L, hoping to find an unanswered message that could distract her from her meeting. It was always hard for her to understand thick accents, and the current speaker had obviously never lived in the States nor been through any accent neutralization classes. Listening to English words filtered through his Japanese phonemes and stress-less pronunciations was giving her a headache. Nor did jet lag and the lunch she’d just come back from help her concentration.

  She checked the time: 1:42. Only eighteen more minutes before the next speaker. She glanced at the printed schedule on the table to remind herself what the topic would be: Capitalizing on Acquisition Assets to Strengthen Sell-in for Existing Accounts. At least that was a subject she had mild interest in, assuming the speaker brought something new to the conversation. Otherwise, she already had a pretty good handle on what her accounts wanted and expected from their relationships with RouterNet Technologies.

  The Pad-L vibrated in her hand. Still awake? the message on the screen asked. She smiled across at the sender, a sales colleague from the UK sitting a couple of chairs away. Am I that obvious? she tapped back.

  Fraid so. But look around. Everyone is on the verge.

  Thank God no one dimmed the lights. Else snooze-fest.

  Do u know the speaker?

  CEO of one of our cable vendors, I think. Here to drum biz. Never used them in my deals.

  Me either. But RNT’s pushing consistency in the supply chain.

  Long as I get my margins, I don’t care who we use. Do you know if —

  A distressed murmur rumbled through the auditorium. Reflexively, Gayle’s head snapped up as she looked around for the cause. Her colleagues’ attention quickly pointed her to the podium. Two people from the audience were taking the steps two at a time to get ons
tage, but it was the speaker that had elicited the collective gasp.

  The man slumped against the lectern, his body twitching. For a panicked moment, Gayle thought maybe the man had been electrocuted, but as the Samaritans from the audience laid him down, she realized he must be having some type of seizure. She could clearly hear the drumming of his heels as his shoes thumped against the dais. More people swarmed the stage with good intentions, though there was little anyone could do but wait out the episode.

  After a couple of minutes, the seizures subsided. Two of the men onstage helped the CEO to stand, supporting the clearly disoriented man between them as they exited stage right.