by Bradley West
“I don’t have enough healthy technicians to follow your instructions.”
“Amrat, one person can extract the antibodies. You just need to ensure your workspaces are spotless and follow my instructions.”
“I went through them and they appear to be incomplete.”
“I withheld the last portion to make certain your side didn’t violate our agreement and hold on to either the vaccines or us. I’ve written everything down, taped a walk-through and left both items with our leader. My people will pass the instructions across on our way out of town.”
“That may be true, but I’m sick and can’t do the lab tasks. Can’t you stay until it’s finished? No one here means you any harm.”
“That’s not possible. Find two healthy people and put them in hazmat suits. At least one with a science background and one to record.”
“We have two lab cameras hidden in your room. I don’t have any extras.”
“We found them,” Carla said. “I’ll bring one over when I’m done.”
“The three people I counted on are sick and I’m running a fever as well. I don’t know if I can find any other volunteers. You’re our only hope.”
“What’s your temperature?”
“It’s 103˚ (39.4C). I can barely stand.” The pediatrician coughed.
“Give me ten minutes and I’ll be over with a GoPro,” she said. “Meet me outside the centrifuge room with your suited-up volunteers.”
“I’ll do my best,” Amrat said and coughed again.
Inside the room, Tien was on the walkie-talkie. “The locals are down with Covid and can’t make their own Dark Cure. Carla agreed to help, but she’ll end up infected if she goes into that room. You have to stop her!”
“Jesus Christ! Stall her. We’re on our way,” said Travis.
Tien clicked off and saw Carla closing fast. “What have you done?” she asked. “Give me that handset!”
CHAPTER NINE
Rising Tensions
Thursday, July 16, 2020: Douglas County, Nevada; Berkeley, California; twilight into night
Karen Vargo walked next door into the deputy principal’s office where her captive husband’s deputy Eric Long and his men whiteboarded their planned maintenance compound assault and med center security posts.
“The scientist’s assistant just put out an SOS,” she said. “Dr. Carrot Top has agreed to demonstrate the Dark Cure process in front of two of our people, one to learn it and the other to film it. Her assistant thinks she’ll catch Covid-20 and asked their goons to stop her. Send your men to the med center right away and make sure she gets to the centrifuge room and stays there.”
“I’m confused,” Long said. “Ten minutes ago, we were planning to kidnap them and now we’re guarding them?”
“Amrat and I spoke five minutes ago. The science teachers and technicians he’d lined up to work on the centrifuges are running high fevers and he is too. He thinks they all have Covid-20. Anyone going into that tiny room after they’ve been there for hours faces a high viral load even if they’re in a decontamination suit. He’ll find a place for his people to quarantine in the med center. He said that the woman’s confident she can produce enough Dark Cure for us to bootstrap a county-wide inoculation program.”
“Carla will risk her life to help us?” Long asked. “That doesn’t sound like bad faith.”
“For all I know she’s Mother Teresa,” Karen said. “But I don’t trust her or her carpetbagger friends. My guess is that they try to keep it all. Keep her in that room at all costs.”
“I got it,” Long said. “Do we send anyone to the DOT complex for Hugh?”
“Send two men and tell them to do the best they can without getting shot. The SOS call should prompt the Californians to pump their best men into the med center. You need to get cracking: Take ten and spread them out. As soon as the redhead’s in with the centrifuges and our volunteers, take control and seal it off. The sheriff found a wireless jammer in his storeroom that works on walkie-talkies out to one hundred and thirty feet. Plug it in midway between the two rooms and they’ll lose their comms. As long as your men on the building perimeter are forty-five yards (40m) away, they should still be able to use their radios.”
“That’s useful, but they may stop work if they can’t speak with their people outside.” As he spoke, Long stuffed ceramic plates into his bulletproof vest shell while other volunteers gunned up.
“It’s a calculated risk, but they’re scientists trying to save lives. So long as we leave them alone and they don’t know what’s happening outside, I think they’ll keep working.”
“Fair enough. Where’s that magic jammer?”
“The sheriff will be back any minute,” Karen said. “Now listen up. Once you secure the med center, we’ll tell the carpetbaggers they’ll get their people back unharmed once they’ve completed the work. Carla keeps one-third of the Dark Cure treatments, which gives her a reason not to sabotage the mix. The Chinese fellow has every incentive to keep making the vaccines since he thinks his group will keep them all. Once they’re done, we’ll stop jamming their comms and they’ll figure out the new lay of the land soon enough. They’ll drive off to another town to make more of the Dark Cure from their survivors’ blood. All in all, it’s a win-win.”
“Once we jam those walkie-talkie signals, they’ll launch a rescue operation,” Long said. “Depending on how well they’re armed, ten men might not be enough to hold the building.”
“Try as best you can to get Hugh back,” Karen said. “Otherwise, we’ll end up in another prisoner exchange and lose some of our leverage.”
“If we send in only two men, there’s a good chance either Hugh or they’ll get shot if we make a full-scale assault.”
“Everyone has to be prepared sacrifice for the cause. We need those Covid treatments more than I need my husband back.”
* * * * *
Travis’ SEAL and DEA experiences, plus his more recent MH370 and deep state adventures, had seen him overcome daunting odds while barely elevating his heartbeat. Maybe it was age, a litany of wounds, or he just cared too much, but his hands shook as he called out to Jaime: “Tien called. Carla’s moving to a Covid-20–contaminated room to show the locals how to make the Dark Cure. He thinks she’s a goner if she goes in there. I have to stop her. I’ll take Arkar, and the rest of you follow when you’re ready.”
“I guess that’s the end of ‘Let’s see if Carla’s approach works,’ ” Jaime said.
Travis gave him a look. “Take Melvin and the machinegun for extra support. We’ll monitor the radio traffic and come as soon as we can.”
Travis’ walkie-talkie buzzed and Carla came on the line. “I know Tien just called. Before you say anything, hear me out. Tien and I already made a trial vaccine batch. It looks good and we’ll take one each.”
“Johnny Gratton’s down with Covid-20,” Travis said.
“He should recover if we can get him the vaccine,” Carla said. “Tien knows the process and will mix and heat the chemicals to create the rest of the batch. It’ll take three hours to kickstart the centrifuges and the other separation and filtration devices. One of Amrat’s people will tape everything so they can do it themselves next time. Then we leave.”
“I trust you know what you’re doing: A lot of lives depend on it. Be safe.” Travis clicked off and turned to Jaime. “If they don’t think we’re coming in hard right away, we gain an edge. As for Carla, we’re past the debate stage.”
“You know that as soon as you roll out the gate, their man across the street will call it in,” Jaime said. “Give me five minutes while you jock up and brief Melvin and Arkar, and I’ll pay the Boy Scout a visit.”
“That would help get us on target sooner,” Travis said. “Tie-tie him in place but strip him of his keys and radio. Aim for the 3M to roll out of here before 22:00, come what may. Let’s put Johnny, Vargo, and anyone else who’s positive in the back of the semi and use that as our quarantine vehicle. We can’t
afford to contaminate the others.”
“You need to get moving, old man, if you’re going to rescue your girlfriend. You know these crackers will be all over the med center.”
“I don’t think they’ll see what hit them once we put the night-vision optics to work. Sure you’ll be all right?”
“We’ve got Johnny’s motion detectors deployed, plus I have Derek, Tom, and Yonten. All of them can shoot and we have more than three thousand rounds of 5.56. If it comes down to it, we’ll make the Alamo look like a picnic.”
The grim mental picture worsened Travis’ mood. “Just don’t kill anyone unnecessarily. We don’t want Vargo anyway. If they come for him, delay them up as long as you can without endangering our people, but eventually just let him walk. The State Liners don’t know he’s got the plague. Depending on his condition, that may take them out of the fight before they even reach the med center. If no one comes before you drive off, leave Vargo behind. By then we’ll either have Carla and Tien back or we’ll be shooting it out. Ask Sal and see what he thinks. I have to run.” The former SEAL hustled off in search of Arkar and Melvin.
* * * * *
Carla and Tien injected one another with 896MX and swiftly re-zipped their hazmat suits. “You heard Travis,” she said. “He’s not panicking. I’m headed over to see Amrat and meet his volunteers. Which of the GoPros has the most charge?”
Tien handed her a compact video camera, a spare 32GB SanDisk card and a folded piece of paper: Travis will come for you. Stay in the room and work until one of us gives the all-clear. If they come in, trade the GoPro chip for your freedom. The extra SanDisk card is a decoy.
Carla looked at her diminutive colleague with new respect: Tien wrote almost as fast as he thought. “Lock the door after me. If they try to break in, threaten to destroy the vaccine if they don’t stay away. It’s no good to anyone if you don’t finish it properly.”
* * * * *
The five-flight climb back up to Room 638 had dampened Muller’s ebullience. He dropped his various foodstuffs and paraphernalia on the combination desktop and counter, waking Burns. “There’s a battery-powered eggbeater in one of those bags. That’s the best I could do. Maybe you can use a fork or spoon to mash rice or noodles and suck the goo up a straw. I also have a tub of protein powder you can mix with water so you won’t starve.”
“Thanks . . . saw . . . bikes . . . near . . . by.”
“You did? Point out where.” Muller walked to the window, followed by the slower-moving Burns. “Damn my eyes. Not far at all. Let’s eat and we’ll check it out. I bought you an old cop gun, a .38 Special snub nose. It cost two thousand including a box of rounds. Money isn’t worth shit anymore and I had to spend almost twenty grand on a car, two guns, a couple days’ worth of food, plus your fucking eggbeater.”
“What . . . do . . . we . . . do . . . Kat . . . er . . . eena?”
“We fucking kill Norris and his bikers, take the Dark Cure and Katerina, and go after the Maggios.”
“Too . . . early . . . for . . . Cure . . .” Burns gave up trying to speak, wrote his message down and passed it across to Muller.
Muller’s surprise showed. “We have $350,000 in confirmed sales including $100,000 in Bitcoin already? Hot damn! I take your point that if she started today, she said it’d take a full day to process a pint of blood. That means we hit them tomorrow before they move.”
“No . . . make . . . deal . . . we . . . do . . . sales . . . split.”
“What? Norris left me to die at that high school after we’d already had an arrangement, and now you want to trust him not to fuck us?”
“Let . . . me . . . try . . . first.”
“Knock yourself out, but before you go over there let me have the passwords because you’re not coming back once they realize you survived Covid-20.”
Burns’ moderate enthusiasm for venturing into the night with an olive branch dissipated as Muller’s points sank in. He opted to stay put.
* * * * *
Katerina knew her drugs well enough to leave the Adderall in her purse. The last pills had quit on her hours ago and she’d sleepwalked through her attempts to restart the Dark Cure’s plasma separation process that had been interrupted when the Maggios attacked the night before. Lacking Carla’s lab credentials and short a dozen hours of sleep plunged a delicate situation into a crisis. The net result was that the first eight ounces of Stephanie’s plasma failed to convert. The math no longer worked, not when Norris and his men numbered sixteen, plus her, and she needed additional doses to sell. She was furious and tired beyond tears, but she had enough self-discipline to realize she needed to get out of the lab and try it again tomorrow with a clear head. She double-checked to confirm that the fridge thermostat read 36˚F (2C), then locked the door and looked for Norris.
Norris’ day had gone better. Specs, the Souls’ IT help desk on wheels, had downloaded a Tor browser and walked the Big Boss through the navigational basics. Among Norris’ dark web revelations was that the price of illicit drugs had collapsed so long as you collected in person. Delivery charges exceeded the cost of the blow, weed or Molly. That set the old gears turning and he’d sent a few of the boys out to make buys. Norris had worked his way through Pirate Bay and was perusing Cyber Souk for additional Bay Area supplies. Bitcoin was another thing altogether, though an hour’s detour laid out the advantages of unhackable, blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. It also alerted him to the scams when marketplace owners stole customers’ Bitcoins and the downside of forgetting one’s password and losing access forever. Katerina tapped on the door earlier than he’d expected, but maybe the mad pixie wanted a rut before dinner and back to the lab.
She didn’t mince words. “I’m exhausted and stressed out and could use a good fuck.”
Norris was out of his chair in a flash. “I might know someone who can help,” he said.
She kicked off her shoes and was halfway out of her decontamination suit when they embraced and kissed hungrily. She felt him stiffen and reached for his prick when he broke off their kiss and grabbed her wrist. “We’ve got all night, but there’s something you need to do first. I’ve got a laptop over here hooked up to Tor. Talk me through how you know the Brit’s dead? His body wasn’t at the high school when we collected your lab equipment earlier.”
“He had Covid bad. Rolf had destroyed Burns’ knee so he could barely walk. If he’d escaped on foot, we’d have seen him.” She pulled her suit back up over her shoulders: foreplay wasn’t on the boss’ mind.
“The cops left Muller’s two stiffs, so why didn’t they leave Burns’ corpse too?”
Norris’ persistence ruined Katerina’s contrived mood and she tried and failed to pry herself free. “Why are you so interested?” she asked.
“Because a thousand people viewed your advertisement in Pirate Bay and the sponsor ‘LifeSaver’ checked his private message mailbox two hours ago. Either Burns is alive, or someone has his login details. I’m wondering what your role is in all this?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My business is figuring out how to beat thieves at their own game. What would stop you and Burns from using us to get rid of Muller and provide protection while you created the Cure and siphoned off, say, half the dosages to sell on the side? I’m played for a fool and earn just a fraction of what we agreed, or maybe nothing at all.”
Katerina squirmed again and he tightened his grip. “You’re hurting me,” she said.
“Yeah, well you’re insulting my intelligence, and that’s a dumb fucking thing to do.”
* * * * *
Long deployed his ten men as best he could at the med center, placing one at each entry point, four to rove the interior, and one as a static sentry midway between the two batching rooms. He would bounce among them with a walkie-talkie and his semi-automatic rifle. He’d served one tour in Iraq, but twelve months behind a desk in Baghdad’s Green Zone hadn’t turned him into Rambo. He scheduled comms checks every fifteen minutes
with the men on the doors and told the rovers that they were on their own within the jammed zone. Everyone wore reflective yellow insignia on their vests, but they had only enough night-vision goggles for the rovers. Challenge people they didn’t recognize with “What were Jim Bridger’s wives’ names?” and anyone not answering “Emma” and/or “Cora” was a hostile. It wasn’t much of a plan, but all Long-the-Elder had asked for was a clear shot at the man who had put a bullet into Kelvin, the family’s shining light.
The inner guard was the town’s junkyard owner, Pick. He and Long made their way to the hallway connecting the science labs. Pick was preparing to plug in the jamming device, the size of a 1970s compact cassette player but bristling with antennae, when Tien poked his head into the corridor. “What are you doing?” the orange-clad spaceman asked the two strangers.
“We’re here to protect you and your friend while you work,” Long said.
Alerted by the noise, Carla appeared at the end of the hallway, forty feet away. “We don’t need your protection,” she said. “We work better alone.”
While the two State Liners stared at Carla, Tien retreated inside, locked the door, and switched on the walkie-talkie. “Travis!” he hissed. “Break down! Break down!”
Carla followed his cue, retreated into the centrifuge room, and locked herself in with Amrat’s two helpers.
Long had heard enough. “Plug it in and turn it on,” he commanded. The jammer hummed to life, blanketing the 400–500 MHz range of the UHF spectrum and filling the available channels with white noise. Tien’s walkie-talkie spewed static.
On the other end, Travis and Jaime heard Tien’s call for help. Across the street from the maintenance station, Jaime had neglected to turn off his unit and alerted the State Line forward observer. The young man saw the USMC veteran come at him and tried to speak over his radio, but the taser’s twelve hundred volts froze the words in his throat. Jaime had the Boy Scout gagged, zip-tied, and in a closet within a minute. He got on his own walkie-talkie. “You heard that?” he asked Travis.