“Always the pessimist, Jo.”
“If you aren’t a pessimist in this world, my friend, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
He chuckles. “Then why fight at all?”
“For those rare moments when I’m wrong.”
*
Thank God the HEPA mask and plastic glasses hide most of my face because I can’t fully contain my horror when I set eyes on my once mighty fiancée. It could be the overhead UV lights or all the tubes and machines attached to him, but though it’s only been a little over half a day since I last saw him, Jem’s deterioration terrifies me. He’s always been thin but now he’s almost emaciated. His skin has a yellowish tint and the dark circles under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks are black as coal. Hours. It’s only been hours.
“Jem?”
“Joanna?” he croaks before coughing. That wet hack he endures almost brings tears to my eyes. I shut them down. I shut all emotion down and close an iron door on it. He needs me strong. Fierce. Capable. I rush over to the water pitcher beside him and pour. He takes the water which thank God helps. “Th-Thank you.”
I pull up a chair to his bedside. “Are they treating you for that?”
He nods yes. “I’m going for a procedure to aspirate my lungs in an hour. It will drain the fluid and mucous that keeps building up.”
My fear momentarily crashes against the iron. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be able to breathe, that’s all that matters.” He reaches for my gloved hand, and we lock our fingers together. God I wish I could touch him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Danforth and Dr. Westfield took my threat about pulling funding seriously. Cut some red tape for me.”
“Bullied your way in, huh?”
“I’d burn this place down if that’s what it took.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he says, squeezing my hand again with the strength of a newborn.
“They don’t know that. I’m only a puppy dog around you, my love.” I pause. “Besides, you won’t be in here much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
I wish he could see me smile behind the mask. “We got him.”
“Him?”
“The mastermind. Better, we’re zeroing in on a cure. A Dr. Sharpesh has developed an adenovirus that kills adenoviruses. He just landed in town. He’s on his way to the command center now to kill this fucker.”
“That’s…amazing. Who-Who—”
“Bennett Stone.”
Jem stares at me, bloody eyes zeroing in on my own. “Really?”
“Really. You were right about him. He’s…” I shiver. “He’s gonna pay for what he’s done to you. To us.”
“Just be careful. Don’t do anything crazy.”
“Me? Crazy? Perish the thought,” I quip. I press our hands to the only part of me exposed, my cheekbone. “What about Austen Castle?”
“What about it?” he rasps.
“Where we’ll get married. We didn’t talk about it the first time around, but I know you. You want a big to-do. White gown, flowers, chocolate fountain. After this I think you’ve earned a damn chocolate fountain, no?”
“I do love chocolate,” he whispers.
“Then I think Austen Castle is perfect, no? We had our first semi-date there. Remember? The labyrinth?”
“How could I forget? I fell in love with you in that labyrinth,” he whispers.
“‘No matter how many twists, how many turns, as long as you solider through as long as you don’t give into despair, you’ll always reach your destination.’ You taught me that.”
“I think the Castle is perfect,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to—” he coughs.
And coughs. And coughs until he cannot breathe. Until his face becomes red. He can’t breathe. Shit. I pour more water but now he’s doubled over, hacking out green then red tinged mucous on the floor. Oh, God. The nurses and doctor are stuck in the UV compartment for a minute, a minute where all I can do is pat his back and tell him everything will be all right even though he’s not getting air. For every ten seconds he takes one shallow breath, only to expel that hard won gasp with more agony. Oh, God. Oh, God. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless in my life. When the staff finally hurry into the room, he hasn’t taken a breath in thirty seconds and the blood he’s coughing up spreads like ink spots on the sheets. I back away in horror as the doctor and nurses take over, lowering the gurney while a nurse wheels over a machine. “Ms. Fallon, leave now!” the doctor orders. Jem grips the bed as they stick a tube down his throat and vacuum out his lungs. I have to turn away before the iron inside shatters, and I lose my fucking mind. “Now, Miss Fallon!”
I’m walking away without realizing it. I’m ripping off my mask as the UV lights kill the virus on me so I can breathe after this deed is done. He’ll be fine. They’ll fix him. This is the best hospital in the country. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. When the airtight door finally opens onto the next room, I rip off all my protective gear and step into the hallway. I have to sit down and put my head between my legs to stave off another panic attack. He was fine hours ago. “He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine,” I keep repeating in time to my jittering leg. I can’t sit for too long. When I’m sure I’m not going to pass out, I begin pacing the hall. He’ll be fine. He will. When I hear the door swish open about five minutes later and the doctors and nurse step out, I run toward them. “Is he okay? Is he—”
“We drained the fluid, but we’re pushing up the surgery.”
“Okay. Good. Great.”
“Ms. Fallon, this surgery is merely a stop-gap. Dr. Ambrose’s lung, kidney, and liver functions are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Dialysis may be required and—”
“Listen, I’m going to assume you know what he is and what his body is normally capable of. Right now there is a team working on an experimental cure, a virus that will attack and destroy the one inside him. We just need time. Do you understand, doctor? I have his power of attorney. You have my permission to do anything, and I mean anything to keep him alive. And you will do just that or I will make it my life’s mission to have your license to practice revoked. You won’t be able to sell tongue depressors.”
“There’s no need for threats,” the doctor snaps.
“I’m not threatening, I’m promising. Now, can I see him?”
“No. He’s getting prepped for transport to surgery. He shouldn’t be talking anyway. You never should have gone in there in the first place. We have rules for a reason. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient to attend to.”
The doctor spins around and starts back to the ward. Okay, that was stupid of me. I shouldn’t have lost my temper and threatened him. Now he may never let me in again. Hell, maybe I shouldn’t go in. I made everything worse. What can I do? I have to…I fall back into a chair and use all my willpower to stop the tears. The iron trap’s cracked. Some tears stream out, and I wipe them away. I will not crumble. I will not shatter. So I get up and walk away. I’m no good here. I’ll fall apart again if I stay. I locate a nurse, tell him to call me the moment Jem’s out of surgery, and run out of this wretched hospital as if it were about to explode. Again.
To clear my head and work off the tension, I walk the ten blocks back to the penthouse. A bad idea. Every other person coughs. I cringe each time. From now on Justin isn’t leaving the penthouse again without a HEPA mask on. None of them should. I’m not even sure I should return home in case my clothes or something infect my friend. Hell, a large part of me just wants to run away. Hop on a plane and ride out the apocalypse on a beach alone with a bottle of Jack. I don’t want this responsibility. Because if we fail…I’ll never be able to live with myself. I won’t want to live period.
The walk does bring my tension level down enough I’m no longer trembling, at least from the adrenaline. I am frozen to the core. Justin sits in the living room, phone to his ear when I enter. Hard at work. “…someone’s breaking the encryptions now. When he’s done, I’ll p
arse sections out. There’s so much data already. You just handle what I sent. We’re looking for a facility west of Galilee and any medical data on the virus itself. That’s the priority. Contact us if you find anything. Bye.” He turns to me. “Hi. How is he?”
“Coughing up blood and in surgery.”
“Fuck.”
I join him on the couch. “Tell me you have good news.”
“The second SIM card and laptop are both encrypted. We have people on it, but it may take a few hours. I’m organizing packets of data for the others to review of what we do have. Good news is Lionheart checked in. The Sharpesh family is settling into the safe house and the doctor has joined the research team at Our Lady. Olympia’s guarding him.”
“Bennett’s gonna hear about that soon. When he wakes.”
“Still asleep. His hotel phone rang a few times and he didn’t answer.”
“Did you gain access to the hotel’s phone system?”
“I did. And I’ve already checked both incoming and outgoing. Two numbers, both unlisted, but one is local. That number’s billing address is the Motoneslly office in New Urbana.”
“So a dead end.”
“Not entirely,” Justin says with a grin. “I did find the cell tower the second call came from.” He pulls up a map of Poplarville, the suburb west of Galilee, with a gray circle covering a ten mile radius. “I’d bet my life our lab is somewhere in that circle.”
We kind of are. “We can’t narrow it down?”
“No. Sorry.”
“No, this is good. We cross-reference this area with the shipping forms and what we got from the unencrypted Stone files.”
“Judging from this map, half the area is residential with strip malls, a quarter warehouses, and a quarter undeveloped.”
“They’d want privacy so residential, even a shutdown strip mall, is out. Cuts it in half.”
“I could run that in an hour. I’ll suit up”
As he rises from the couch, I say, “Wear the HEPA mask. Don’t take any chances.”
“Yes, Aunt Lucy.”
“Bite me, rich boy.”
His chuckle carries on as he walks to the hallway. And I’ll be here with the paperwork. He absolutely has the better job. I barely have time to retrieve the printed photos from my phone from the printer when he returns in gray sweats that cover the majority of his white and black costume. “I’ve linked my comms to the computer. The list of emails is up already and the packets assembled. There’s only a few more to send.”
“I can handle it.”
He picks up the HEPA mask on the coffee table. “No doubt about that. Be back in an hour and a half.”
“Be careful,” I call as he leaves.
I fall back on the couch and sigh. We’ve gone from the whole world to five square miles. Almost worth having that asshole’s tongue down my throat. First, I send out the remainder of the packets to the supers before digging into the data myself. Anything with medical jargon I forward to Dr. Sharpesh. I’m not smart enough to know what’s important. The rest mostly consists of spread sheets. I quit my job to avoid having to stare at these things and here I am being bored to death again. At least now I’m suffering for something more important than a bottom line.
So far he’s spent thirty billion on this project yet recouped half that with Motoneslly and Goliath selling the companies they no longer needed. Blackwater alone netted fifty million. That’ll buy a lot of mercenaries. The prison break mercs probably came from another company bought and sold, Red Reaver Enterprises, an elite mercenary company in England. Sold six months ago. Probably at least sixteen employees short. Motoneslly loved buying and selling biotechs as well. Seven in total. My guess they’d buy up the company for their research, and when they got the needed information, they sold. You build one part here, another somewhere else, soon enough you’ve got yourself an atomic bomb with no one the wiser.
“Guardian, copy,” Justin says over my headset.
“Guardian here.”
“One possible. 17654 Feige Ave. Seeing a lot of security.”
“Stand by.” I plug in the address. “Owned by Carl Slater Holdings. Name’s not familiar. Stand by.” A few minutes later, “Not on the spreadsheets. Slater is a developer in Poplarville. I’m staring at a pic of him winning an award from the Chamber of Commerce. Stone wouldn’t rent.”
“Something’s going on here.”
“What kind of cars do you see?”
“Uh, SUVs, Escalades, a Hummer.”
“Probably drugs then. Ryder stole a fleet car. It follows all the people at the lab are driving them. And guess who owns the fleet service?”
“Goliath.”
“A subsidiary, yep.” I hear a phone faintly ring in my other ear. “Stand by. Stone’s getting another call.” I pull up the tracer program. “Same number as before, but…not the same cell tower.” It’s from the one near his hotel. Shit.
Over the bug, I hear a knock on the hotel door. Then a few seconds, another pound. Bennett groans. Another pound. “C-Coming,” Bennett says. A few more seconds I hear him say, “W-What? What are you doing here?” he asks groggily.
“We’ve been trying to reach you for two hours, sir,” a British man says.
“I-I must have fallen asleep. I—”
“Sir,” the Brit exclaims, scared.
“I-I need to sit down.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The drug hasn’t had time to wear off. “Knight, Stone woke up. I think we’ve been compromised.”
“Wh-Where’s…her? Uh…Joanna. Fallon?” Stone asks.
“Sir, I think you need a doctor.”
Shit. “Yeah, we’ve been compromised.”
“Guardian, pack up and get out of there,” Justin commands.
Yeah. I unplug Doris Jr. and hurry to the bedroom for my suitcase. “Sir, I’m calling a doctor. I think you’ve been drugged,” the Brit says over my computer.
“N-No,” Stone says. “H-Help me…safe.”
I throw what little I’ve unpacked back inside the suitcase. “Guardian?” Justin asks.
“He’s checking the safe. Where should we meet?” I hustle into Jem’s office for the secret stash.
“It’s all here,” Bennett says over my headset. “I…”
“Sir!” the Brit shouts.
Guns, Taser, code breakers, everything I returned to him before I left for Independence. I grab as much as I can fit into the satchel. “I’m fine,” Bennett says. “I don’t need a doctor. Why are you here? What happened?”
“Dr. Sharpesh has gone off the grid,” the Brit says. “Vanished. We had someone on his house, but they snuck past him.”
“Joanna,” Bennett says before chuckling. Damn straight asshole. I close the satchel. “Duncan, we’ve been compromised.”
“Then why haven’t the authorities—”
“I don’t know,” he snaps. “She’s up to something. Maybe she just suspects…we’re leaving. Don’t say another word. Come with me.”
Fuck. “Knight, he’s ditching the hotel. The cell will be next. We need to find that facility right fucking now before he burns it down or something.” I throw our cell phones, the papers, all our evidence into the satchel. “You keep searching. I’m on my way to Poplarville.”
“I’m parked at Maple Park,” Justin says. “Meet you there in half an hour. Be safe.”
“Guardian out.” I unplug the headset and power down Doris. We need to—
My cell phone rings, and I jerk in shock. My trembling hands remove it from my purse. Bennett. I don’t know what to do. Pretend? No. I throw the phone back in my purse. I need a plan before we talk.
Suitcase, satchel, purse, and computer bag secured, I flee yet another apartment. I am getting so goddamn sick of being on the defense. I get into the elevator. We probably now have all of an hour before all the evidence, the facility, the cure is gone. Once again all we have is what we’ve got now. If we don’t get those files unencrypted, we’re fucked.
; The elevator door opens, and I hurry through the lobby past Paul, one of the doormen. “I need a taxi.”
He takes some bags and follows me outside. “Leaving again, ma’am?”
“Yeah. To the airport,” I lie.
A taxi waiting down the street pulls up. We throw my bags in the trunk before I climb in. “Maple Park in Poplarville.”
The taxi drives off. Okay, I need a plan. I need—
The taxi turns the corner before coming to a full stop.
“Excuse—”
I barely have time to register it as a man climbs into the back with me. One word screams out: DANGER. Shit. I reach into my purse for my gun, but not fast enough. The moment I look away, something sharp pierces my skin. There isn’t even time to cry out before the world turns black.
Gotta give the devil his due. He got me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Gods and Monsters
A sharp stab against the crook of my arm suddenly brings me back to the land of the living. Whatever they pump inside me this time makes my whole body jolt as if stuck by a live wire. My eyes fly open, and my legs kick, but the rest of me tries to move with no luck. It takes a second for me to realize I’m zip-tied to a chair and another to remember this fact should frighten me. As should the huge man, easily 6”4’ and two hundred fifty pounds in front of me holding a needle. “She’s awake, sir,” says the man with a familiar British accent.
My tormentor steps aside, and without the need for my addled brain to process his largess, I can take in my surroundings. Just a boring, ordinary medium sized office. The last time I was held hostage it was in a shipping boat miles from land strapped to a giant bomb. There may be no ship and no bomb this time but my kidnapper is no less dangerous. Bennett Stone stands a few feet away at the cheap desk, staring over the shoulders of two men tapping away at their respective computers, one of which looks familiar. Doris Jr. Fuck.
“Get her some water, Duncan,” Bennett says, never taking his eyes off Doris’ monitor.
The henchmen obeys, walking over to the water pitcher by the bank of surveillance monitors. Over the screens I see people hustling down hallways in Hazmat suits pushing boxes. More in labs packing up equipment or at computers. A warehouse with huge metal tanks and more people in Hazmat suits packing up smaller cylinders. Screens and screens with empty gurneys. Swiveling views of an empty field surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and a parking lot with sedans and vans getting loaded with boxes and equipment. I’m here. The facility. Not how I wanted to find it. I—shit. I press down on my ring finger, activating the tracer under my skin before Duncan returns with my water. Please God, still work. He pours it into my mouth with such little grace I choke. Bennett gazes up from Doris, mouth opening a little in concern. “Easy, Duncan. Don’t drown her.”
The Galilee Falls Trilogy (Book 3): Fall of Heroes Page 28