by Bradley West
* * * * *
Eric Long and his random rover consulted the sentry inside the clinic’s double doors. “Firehouse, second floor, middle window. The window’s open and there’s a sniper rifle on a table pointed at us,” the agitated watchman said.
Their leader pulled out his binos and glassed the open window as the setting sun backlit the objective, reducing visibility. He increased the magnification and concentrated. “It’s not a rifle, it’s a machinegun. I can see the ammo box below it. There’s at least one man in there moving around too.”
“What do we do?” the sentry asked.
“I’ll stay here and cover the entrance. You two go out the north door and head up three blocks until you’re out of sight. Swing around the back of the building and take them out. Once I hear gunfire, I’ll watch that window. If you’ve cleared the station, flash one short, one long, and one short. If I hear continuous gunfire or anyone shouts out, keep your heads down while I light ’em up. I’ll alert everyone who’s within radio range to expect the Californians to attack.”
* * * * *
Jaime and Travis scuttled between and around vehicles in the parking lot, occasionally crawling. For Jaime, it was no big deal, but Travis labored to keep up, in part because of the extra gear strapped to his back. They agreed on the target window Travis would try to open to let Jaime in unobserved. The retired SEAL split off to work his way to the loading area at the southeast corner.
The hardened steel shackle on the loading dock padlock yielded to the firehouse’s bolt cutters. As Travis opened the door labeled Medical Waste: No Unauthorized Entry, a rush of fetid air greeted him with the stench penetrating the hazmat suit’s air filter. Travis shut the door, switched on his Maglite and stepped gingerly on the debris-strewn floor. Red-colored polybags bulged everywhere, a few of them leaking. There were boxes and plastic sheets galore, and rodents scurried on the periphery. All Travis needed was a madman with a chainsaw and he’d have his own slasher movie soundstage. Waste disposal hadn’t taken place in days, and the closer Travis got to the entrance, the more the boxes and bags piled up. He couldn’t physically move some of the stacks, so he crawled over them. The gap between his first and second toes hurt, but from what he didn’t know. The heat inside the double boilersuit was intense and sweat poured off his forehead into eyes he couldn’t wipe.
After ten minutes of toil, Travis reached the steel exit door and found it locked. The hinges were on his side, which was something, but there was a deadbolt keylock above the doorknob. Even if he picked the two locks, there could still be a slide bolt on the other side barring the way for all Travis knew. Until now, the fire department’s hooligan tool cable-tied to his plastic-wrapped M-4 had been a pain. Now it was his best friend, and twenty minutes later he’d knocked the three hinges out of the doorjamb and eased open the heavy door. He slid into the hallway and placed the door back into its frame. He had to get into a room where he could remove the outer hazmat suit and lace up his boots. He pulled out the walkie-talkie, powered it up, and clicked the handset twice. “Feet wet. Feet wet.” Two clicks came in reply: Jaime had heard him and knew he was inside.
His left foot hurt like a sonofabitch as he worked his way into the main corridor. An office door opened and a man’s face appeared. Out came the Glock, ready to rumble.
* * * * *
Hugh Vargo remained unconscious with a high fever while a hazmat-suited Derek assembled a bundle of road flares, multi-colored wires, a car battery, a cell phone set in countdown mode, and orange-wrapped two-pound bricks of long-life prepper cheese masquerading as plastic explosive. Hugh awakened suffering from terrible thirst, but the water wasn’t within reach and he had paracord looped around his neck and tied off on the headboard. Before fleeing the sick man’s room, Derek's last act was to hand-letter a placard and pin it to Vargo’s flannel shirt. Vargo clawed at the restraint but couldn’t slip under it. Exhausted and delirious, his head fell back on the pillow and he groaned in frustration.
* * * * *
The 3M caravan was on the road well south of Gardnerville-Minden. Yonten and Derek led the way in the big rig with a sick John Gratton and the trussed-up Boy Scout as the sole occupants of the forty-foot trailer. Barb, Steph, Tyson, Zarni, Kyaw, and Schway rode in the green Forza; Erinn was at the wheel of the blue Horizon with Tina, Sal and Pat aboard; and Greg drove the white whale with Tom riding shotgun. They’d violated Sal’s recommendation to group occupants by prior proximity, opting instead to bunch their firepower at either end of the convoy. As they’d departed the DOT maintenance facility, Tom used their only walkie-talkie to alert Melvin that they had left for “the Oasis.” They’d maintained radio silence ever since and the cellular networks were down.
Tina fretted over the percolating PCR tests in progress, wincing every time the big RV hit a bump or a pothole on the poorly maintained road. The 3M had gambled much in return for a surprise departure, and she prayed with all her being that this boldness wouldn’t lead to more infections.
It wasn’t until they were ten miles south of town that Greg and Tom spotted the headlights gaining on them. As per prior arrangement, they flashed their high beams and each vehicle in the convoy did the same to alert the one in front. Anyone pulling abreast or driving erratically would find themselves under fire. Greg coasted down to sixty mph (100 kph) and cut his lights to allow them to disperse their last three spike strips. A quarter-mile later, he and Tom exchanged a high-five when the side mirrors showed one vehicle rolling over in a shower of sparks. Its companion truck pulled over. Once again, the 3M convoy was alone, but with a top speed of eighty-five mph, they wouldn’t be that way forever. Their decoys would give Travis and his men the best chance of success, but at an unknown cost to themselves. The state route was deathly empty, with only burned-out vehicles, feral dogs and the odd long bone to remind them that Covid-20 was king of this road too.
* * * * *
Travis recognized Dr. Amrat and spared the pediatrician a bullet. All the fevered Amrat saw was someone in a red hazmat suit with a pistol pointed at his face. Travis hastened over and backed him through the door of the self-quarantine room. Three other infected men lay on towels spread on the floor. “Where are our two scientists?” he asked.
“Why? They’re working and when they finish my uninfected people will drive them back to the maintenance station.”
“That might be what they told you, but Carla and Tien made a distress call over an hour ago. I’m here to get them out.”
“They’re inside the cancer laboratory. Follow the signs in the hallway pointing towards Oncology.”
“Where are the centrifuges set up?”
“Farther down the same hallway in the OB-GYN unit, also in a small lab. I can draw you a map on the whiteboard,” Amrat said.
“Where’s the uninterruptible power supply room?” Travis asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then where’s the HVAC room? Put that on your map as well.”
Travis stripped off his outer layer while the doctor sketched out the floorplan. He found a random scalpel blade buried between his big and second toes, in so far that he could only feel the back with his fingertip. Meanwhile, the crease between his toes oozed. He stood up and found the foot bore weight but running would be a bastard. Fuck it, he couldn’t run for shit anyway. He sat back down, unbagged his jump boots and laced them up.
A minute later, Travis hobbled down the hallway at high speed, having committed Amrat’s map to memory. His left sock slid inside his boot as he walked.
* * * * *
Arkar hadn’t slept more than three straight hours in the two days since his best friend Maung was killed by a boobytrap. It wasn’t so much the fatigue that dulled his responses, but the deep ennui in the aftermath of the IED. Under normal circumstances, the two State Line men wouldn’t have made it over the threshold before Arkar took care of them with his knifework. The intruders hadn’t seen him seated in the darkness only meters away because they were hel
lbent on climbing the staircase to take out Melvin. Alertness restored, Arkar assessed the threats and concluded he couldn’t eliminate the interlopers noiselessly. His brief didn’t involve taking prisoners, so he shot each man twice in the back of the head. Arkar yelled up, “Two dead! I check outside.” He put on his night-vision goggles and powered them up as he dragged the KIAs away from the landing area.
Across the street, Long had recruited another patroller and briefed him to expect gunplay. Sure enough, four gunshots rang out in rapid succession. “If our men are safe, they’ll flash a light three times out that window,” Long said. “For Chrissakes, don’t shoot.” The seconds dragged on and a minute passed. In desperation, Long tried to raise the men on his walkie-talkie and heard nothing back. “That’s not good. You need to go back and warn the others that we’ve engaged. Secure both scientists and unplug that jammer so we can use our handsets. I’ll call for reinforcements and check out the firehouse.”
“Yessir.” The man turned and ran down the hallway.
With a days-old bullet wound in his right soldier and arm in a sling, it took Melvin several minutes to pack up the machinegun and ammo boxes and make the first trip downstairs to load the SUV. While he was at it, he stripped the dead militiamen of their weapons and radios. Not having shot them himself didn’t make it any easier—more families would grieve and children would grow up fatherless. Back upstairs, the luminous dial on his watch displayed 21:29: twelve minutes early. Travis’ plan was in pieces with shots fired and the med center’s lights still on, negating their night-vision advantage. Presumably, the cavalry would be on the way and Arkar and he needed to reposition. Melvin peered across the street one last time and through his nogs saw a man on all fours with a long weapon. His first instinct was to shoot him, but he remembered his pact with the Almighty and instead fired three pistol rounds several feet high. The man flattened out, too terrified to move. Good, that should hold him long enough for us to leave.
With a days-old bullet wound in his right soldier and arm in a sling, it took Melvin several minutes to pack up the machinegun and ammo boxes and make the first trip downstairs to load the SUV. While he was at it, he stripped the dead militiamen of their weapons and radios. Not having shot them himself didn’t make it any easier—more families would grieve and children would grow up fatherless. Back upstairs, the luminous dial on his watch displayed 21:29: twelve minutes early. Travis’ plan was in pieces with shots fired and the med center’s lights still on, negating their night-vision advantage. Presumably, the cavalry would be on the way and Arkar and he needed to reposition. Melvin peered across the street one last time and through his nogs saw a man on all fours with a long weapon. His first instinct was to shoot him, but he remembered his pact with the Almighty and instead fired three pistol rounds several feet high. The man flattened out, too terrified to move. Good, that should hold him long enough for us to leave.
* * * * *
Back at the Nevada DOT compound, a neat hole cut in the chain link fence and a half-hour’s careful stalk brought two nervous militiamen to where the RVs and the interlopers used to be, fresh tracks and food litter evidence of recent occupation of the largest maintenance shed. The men separated and conducted a cursory search as they figured Hugh was long gone too.
With a shout, one man captured his companion’s attention. “Over here! He’s in here.” As the flashlight played around the room more slowly, the discoverer realized the predicament. “They left him wired to explode with a message on his chest.” In the yellow beam he read aloud, “We will disarm the bomb once you free our people.’” Further play of the light showed a sleeping, fevered man with the characteristic Covid-20 blotches on his face and forehead. “Goddamnit, we have to call Karen. She won’t be happy that her husband’s got the bug and has a bomb around his neck.”
* * * * *
Travis covered the windowpane with duct tape and broke out the glass with the butt of his M-4. Jaime scrambled in with agility the older man envied. “I know where Carla and Tien are,” Travis said. “Dr. Amrat’s down with the virus, but he drew a map. The HVAC room is in the southeast corner, across the building, and the labs are on the way. We can move together and figure out the lay of the land.” he checked his watch. “Lights out or not, Melvin opens up in five minutes. That’ll bring the rats to us.”
Jaime followed behind, wondering what the old man had done in the past forty minutes to cause him to limp so badly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jailbreak
Thursday, July 16, 2020: Douglas County, Nevada; Berkeley, California; before midnight
Three hours prior, Carla had joined the two last-minute replacements in the OB-GYN lab and locked the door to keep the local militia from interfering with or contaminating their workspace. She didn’t have to be Mary Jane Watson to know that her personal Spider-Man and her sister’s boyfriend Jaime would soon be on the scene. Carla needed to move swiftly to prevent further violence once they arrived.
Amrat’s last-minute assistants on the convalescent plasma curation project impressed Carla. Kyle was a grad student in microbiology at UN Reno and knew his way around precision equipment. Jeanie was a first-year med student at UNLV who took notes and operated the camera. Both of them realized the situation’s gravity and obeyed Carla’s directions to a T. Carla had enough confidence in them to let Kyle run the Dark Cure’s completion sequence on his own up to the three-quarters mark, freeing her early.
“Jeanie, wrap up the filming. That memory card is invaluable. Remember to make copies and upload it to YouTube.” The rangy med student gave Carla a mock salute: she’d heard the command twice already.
“Kyle, once Jeanie and I leave, lock the door and don’t open it until you finish filtering and sampling to ensure an even antibody disbursement. If all goes according to plan, Hugh Vargo will pass on the completion sequence instructions within a few hours.”
“Understood. Thanks for everything. Where are you two going?”
“I’m not certain, but it needs to be far away from this lab because my people are coming for my partner and me, and they’ll use force if there’s resistance. Don’t come out no matter what you hear through the door unless it’s Hugh’s or my voice.” Kyle nodded in acknowledgment.
Carla motioned to Jeanie and the two women stepped outside. Carla heard the satisfying thunk as Kyle shot the deadbolt home behind them. Two militiamen turned the corner and surprised the two women in hazmat suits. Both men raised their pistols. “Hands! Let me see hands!” Carla and Jeanie complied.
“Jeanie is on your side and she recorded how to make the cure for Covid-20,” Carla said. “You need to take her and the camera offsite and guard them.”
“Our instructions are to bring you both to our leader,” said the larger of the two gunmen. “He’s up that way. Get moving.”
“Take me, but let her go,” Carla insisted. “That recording will save millions of lives if you upload it onto the internet. My people have no interest in her, but if she’s caught in the crossfire and you lose the process, everyone left in Gardnerville could die.”
The larger man nodded, persuaded by Carla’s impassioned plea. “Rod, no harm in taking this skinny drink of water to Karen and let her decide on next steps.”
Jeanie wasn’t a professional marketer and had never learned the first rule of sales: Once the customer offers to buy, shut up. “I’m Jeanie Peterson, Blake and Darlene’s daughter. I’m a rising second-year med student at UNLV and what Dr. Maggio’s telling you is correct. I need to get the recording and instructions out of this building before it becomes a warzone.”
“A warzone? We’re already under attack. Your so-called friends murdered two of our men across the street not thirty minutes ago. You two stay with us. Shut up and move out.”
Tien had finished the decoy vaccines and secreted the authentic batch behind the air conditioning grill high on the wall. The Vietnamese American heard Carla’s distinctive tone through the door but couldn’t make out
her words. After the sounds of conversation faded, Tien eased open the door and saw two guards, Carla, and one other prisoner headed up the hallway. He looked up and down and didn’t see anyone else. He did, however, notice a box on the hallway floor bristling with antennas that looked like a Wi-Fi router had mated with a squid. Whatever it was, it signaled ill intent. He hustled over and unplugged the jammer, then picked it up and carried it back into the Oncology Lab.
Safely back in his room, he tried his walkie-talkie and found it worked. “This is Tien. Anyone online? Over.”
“Tien, it’s Travis. How are you? Where are you?”
“Central hallway in the Oncology Lab. Carla was nearby, but a minute ago two guards marched her and a lab assistant toward the main entrance to meet ‘Karen,’ whoever that is. Over.”
“How were they armed?”
“I only saw their backs, but I didn’t see rifles.”
“Jaime and I are inside the building. I’m coming to you now. Are you able to leave?”
“Yes, I’m done. I left my ID badge on an orange lanyard hanging from the doorknob where I am. I locked myself in with a signal-jamming contraption that I unplugged just before I called you. Over.”
“Jaime will cut the power any minute. Be ready to move out at the sound of my voice. Stay inside if there’s gunfire. I need to find Melvin and Arkar. Give me two minutes and then plug that jammer back in and leave it. Over.”