by Bradley West
“Don’t worry—they’re too greedy to take you captive. Norris will want at least the hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Bitcoin transferred to him as your good-faith gesture. I know the selfish prick from selling him guns, and I’ll wager he’ll also want to collect the next two-fifty from the three additional sales. When that’s happened, Norris will decide whether to torture the Tor information out of you and drain your blood. The worst case is he pays the midget and you one-twenty-five out of three-fifty.
“It’s possible, but not likely, that he’ll play fair. I’d show him a big sales pipeline and alternative sources of immune plasma. I’m assuming you’re smart enough to fake sales leads.” Muller could see that he was way ahead of Burns. “Think it through. We have all day to work out the details. I’ll either steal or buy another car and use that to pick you up after the meeting. As part of the deal, you agree that you and Norris stay away from one another unless it’s prearranged. That works in both of your favors. If he puts a tail on you, I’ll lose it.”
Muller returned to his bed to change his dressing. Later, he’d look through the data trove he’d siphoned off Burns’ PC. He’d have to figure out a way to get online without Burns and test drive the passwords and account numbers before he implemented the final solution.
Burns sat at the desk deep in thought. “I . . . got . . . it.” He began typing.
“Got what?” Muller asked.
Burns waved Muller over and the former CIA scorpion read over his shoulder:
4. Katerina is a thief. She will hide 1+ spare doses. OFFER HER MY SHARE OF MONEY FOR A DOSE. You and I split costs.
Burns thought for a moment. “You may be right, but if she doesn’t have it, we’re back to my plan.”
* * * * *
Norris tried the lab door and found it locked. “Open the goddamn door!” he shouted, rattling the knob for emphasis.
Specs hustled over. “Mike, no one comes in. She’s spinning the last of the immune woman’s blood after we spent two hours scrubbing down the equipment and cleaning the room. The little witch is OCD for sure.”
“What did she say when you reminded her she was the life of the party if she doesn’t deliver?”
“She’s a ballbuster, but focused. I’m filming every step and she’s explaining what she does. If we can get a real scientist, we won’t need her next time.”
“Take good notes and don’t miss anything because you’ve got the job. I’ll have someone bring lunch around noon. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Norris turned away with a smile. Katerina used sex as a ploy, but Specs batted for the other team. Norris kept that information tight—his crew might turn a blind eye on racial purity, but they would react badly to news of a Freddie Mercury in their midst.
Yesterday, Norris had aggregated the four hundred thousand dollars comprising the Souls’ net worth. His goal was to buy every Bay Area hard drug posted on the dark web, and he’d sent out eight men to collect product. Now they were almost out of cash, the Harleys ran on fumes and his crew was beat. The bikes were back in the stable and, other than a skeleton force standing guard, the boys had bagged out on various couches and lounges spread over multiple floors.
Earlier that morning, using his new Tor skills, Norris had advertised the same drugs at the pre-Covid-20 prices with the added benefit of free delivery within forty miles of the Bay Bridge. A hundred bucks in additional Bitcoin paid for delivery out to eighty miles, encompassing more than ten million people from Sacramento in the north to San Jose down south, Marin County to the west and Stockton to the east. The delivery and collection runs they would make later today would demonstrate proof of concept.
Normally, Norris would have paired his men up to keep them more honest. But with the plague rampant, he doubted any of the Souls would do a runner before they’d received an injection. Norris decided not to inoculate his best men tonight in one go. Instead, he’d make getting a shot contingent on producing twenty-five thousand in sales. When the bug finally hit, he’d have already covered his top performers and could sell the leftover shots for hundreds of thousands each. He’d dispatch the vulnerable B-Teamers to pursue the Maggios with a simple mission: find them and their Covid cures, or die trying.
There was also the Maggios’ female scientist who had the proper vaccine formula. She would be worth a fortune either making the vaccine or as a sale back to the feds. Add to the mix a fancy motorhome and the supplies a rich dude from Marin would load up with, and maybe this project was worth his attention after all.
As a last point of introspection, he’d misplayed Muller. The blonde tough guy had made much of his special ops ninja skills. This had made Rolfie easy to mock, particularly with his dyed hair and clichéd scar. But Muller did have impeccable sources of military weapons that the Souls couldn’t access short of raiding military stockpiles. Those offshore and onshore arms conduits meant Muller was still tight with dangerous people. He was also a tough SOB.
Leaving Muller unarmed on the street yesterday seemed a simple way to avoid a gunshot that might attract police. It also neatly sidestepped the question of that fucking bitch’s feelings for the man. Murdering Muller in front of his old lady might have made her less willing to batch the Covid cure properly. Perhaps she’d sabotaged the first half to remind him of their dependence. If so, it was a dangerous move on her part: no one blackmailed Mike Norris.
People thought being president of an outlaw biker club was the modern equivalent of being a pirate captain with whiskey, whores and gold doubloons aplenty. Some days it was more like being a small business owner and struggling to stay solvent. On that note, he had a hunch that the National Guard would have a fuel depot nearby that they could tap for gasoline. They’d need to check that out later today.
He turned his attention to the latest drug orders. Before he could finish logging on, Nails burst through the door. “Boss! There’s a cop in the underground lot and he’s putting Dirty Pete in cuffs!”
Norris grabbed the Benelli semi-auto shotgun and a box of double-aughts and followed his underling at a dead run. Another quiet day in the office shot to shit.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Oasis
Friday, July 17, 2020: Outside Winnemucca, Nevada; morning
A stern Tina Francisco segregated the returnees and administered PCR tests, putting a lid on the celebrations at the safe return of their people with vaccines in hand. Everyone received a vaccine and the majority staggered off to sleep. Tina changed dressings, administered medicines to the inbound crew, and extracted the razor blade from between Travis’ toes afterward. She wryly noted that she couldn’t give him any more antibiotics than he was already on. At this point, old Hopalong was either immune to staph, strep and sepsis, or he’d be dead by sunrise.
Off to the side with Carla and Jaime, the 3M’s Yoda sat on a folding chair wrapped in a blanket. Travis limped over to join their conversation. “We may not have enough food to last the winter once we reach Thunderdome with two more mouths,” Sal continued.
“Uncle Sal, it’s not like we added two people off the street,” Carla said. “Kyle’s a grad student in microbiology and Jeanie completed her first year of medical school. We’ll need professional skills like these and they don’t grow on trees.” She looked to Travis and Jaime for support.
“After my heart attack, I ceded power to Travis and we agreed we’d add new members only via unanimous vote. Yesterday, the 3M voted you leader but, unless I was mistaken, the other ground rules still apply.” Fatigue softened Sal’s voice.
“We see your point, but we supported Carla’s decision,” Travis said. “They were essential contributors to making the Dark Cure and helping us escape. Jaime?”
Jaime paused before replying. “I think we’ve done enough for those two. We rescued them from those nutjobs in charge of Gardnerville and gave them vaccines. I say we give them a little food and water and drop them off in the next town.”
“What about the new Silverado Jeanie st
ole?” Carla asked. “Does she keep that, or do we?”
“Fair point,” Jaime said. “The pickup’s essential. As long as they understand that the 3M owns all the vehicles, I guess they can stay.”
“Let me get this straight,” Sal said. “The 3M has a new membership rule, ‘Donate a car, receive a vaccine, and earn a fresh start in Canada’? Every new person reduces our chances of reaching Thunderdome intact. If 3M members quit or die, of course we replace them. Maybe we compromise and consider Kyle and Jeanie the first two on the waiting list. If so, the waiting list is closed.”
Carla threw up her hands. “Good enough for me. I’m exhausted. Travis, why don’t you and I share the Telluride since it can’t get any more infected than we’ve already made it?” Travis stood up to join her and they shuffled off. She leaned into his good shoulder and the old hound dog entertained notions of romance. That ended a dozen steps later when Carla said, “Tomorrow, we need to talk about the inappropriate things you said to me today.”
Travis’ heart took a tiny leap when Carla said, “Let me fold down the rear row. I think we can squeeze in side-by-side.” A little experimentation showed that they could make it work despite the tight fit . . . with Carla’s preferred intimacy position being back-to-back.
* * * * *
Carla slept badly while Tien and Travis snored, tossed and turned. She escaped out the back hatch around nine and saw that Tina had taped a hand-lettered “All Clear Carla” note to the window. Travis and Tien were similarly Covid-free based on the signage. Though that offered comfort, the real question was whether she’d accurately reconstituted Nancy Jacob’s remdesivir adjuvant 896MX. If she had, even those 3Mers with Covid-20 symptoms should recover and become immune. If not, they were dead people walking . . . unless she doubled up and everyone got a shot of the Dark Cure as well. That thought sent her mind down a gloomier path. A half-hour later, she’d showered in the green ’Bago, confirmed her glass cuts weren’t infected and ate a bit of breakfast.
Uncle Sal descended the steps like an old man and blinked in the bright desert sunshine. He grabbed a cup of coffee and shuffled over. “You look better. Sleep well?”
“For a few hours. Then I woke up thinking about the people I condemned to death and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“I didn’t hear the whole story last night. Can you talk me through it?” He listened carefully until Carla had finished. “It would be hypocritical to criticize your actions given that I put the 3M’s interests ahead of society’s or an individual’s. Our survival depends on mutual support based on shared values. It has to be all about the team, the team, the team. Taking the convalescent plasma with you was the prudent course, particularly since neither treatment is fully proven. But I don’t think revenge for what those people did should have factored into your decision. The pandemic has created the end-of-times scenario that popular culture fantasized about for decades. Without strong and fair government institutions, our civilization fell apart in record time. The Gardnerville-Minden residents behaved like they did because they want to live too. In a day or two, they’ll realize that you didn’t leave them Dark Cure on ice and we’ll need to be far away from here.”
“You think they’ll come after us?” Carla asked.
“Of course, they will. What choice do they have? Their only hope is to capture the Dark Cure or immune people to supply blood. They’ll also want the recording you made of the convalescent plasma extraction process. They’ve seen our RVs and will covet our supplies too. We’re a tempting target for anyone who spots us, particularly them.”
“We’re at least two hundred miles north. Locating us would be finding a needle in a haystack.”
Sal sighed. “How I wish that were so. I always planned on the caravan laying up by day and moving by night but didn’t consider that there might be pursuit. Until we reach the middle of Idaho, the land is flat and there are relatively few major roads. Add drones to the mix and it’s a coinflip whether they find us tomorrow or the day after if we stay put.”
“I should have left them the Dark Cure. I was angry and wasn’t thinking straight. I’m so very sorry.” Carla’s downcast mood brightened. “I have an idea. Let’s leave the doses in an ice chest and tell them where they can find it. That should calm them down.”
An unshaven Travis limped over with a large bottle of water and a handful of breakfast bars. “Mind if I crash the party?” Both Carla and Sal gestured for him to sit. Travis drank half the bottle in one go, then ripped the wrapper off a Clif bar and offered it around before inhaling the remainder.
“I told Sal we could leave the Dark Cure on ice hidden near the highway,” Carla said, “then tell them where to find it. That would take away a big part of their incentive to hunt us down.”
“Even if we give them the Dark Cure, they won’t forgive us for that ass-kicking,” Travis said. “All we’d be doing is revealing which road we took.”
“That’s fair. Should I wake everyone up and tell them we’re moving out?” Carla asked.
“Arkar also tested positive, joining Johnny and Erinn,” Sal said. “They need rest and Tina’s exhausted. If we leave in daylight, a drone will see us from miles away. Any town we pass through will figure us for easy pickings. We stay here under the nets and move out after sundown.
“Travis, we don’t have enough camo netting to cover the semi, so at a minimum we have to move it far away. Can you put together a team to leave it somewhere to the south where they’ll find it without giving away our location?”
“I could drive it back thirty or forty miles and leave it parked just within sight of I-80. Let me see if Jaime’s up for an adventure. I’ll check in on Melvin too. He lost the plot yesterday, but by last night’s long drive he had pulled his shit together.” Travis finished the water and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
As he walked toward the Silverado, Travis saw it was 9:40 yet the camp was a ghost town save for indefatigable Derek under the cooking tarp. Sal was right—the 3M crew wasn’t in shape to run hard until at least sundown.
* * * * *
Greg was somewhere on the Asperger spectrum, shy and emotionally withdrawn. However, the young attorney loved his wife and new son. He had found it incomprehensible that Steph had put Tyson and herself at risk yesterday morning by offering herself as a hostage. Since her return, Steph had been emotionally distant as she obsessed over Tyson’s sluggishness and reluctance to feed. The one topic Steph had been willing to engage in—seeking specialist care for her baby—loomed ever larger in Greg’s mind. Either they reversed course and headed to Las Vegas, or Tyson might be lost. Having received a vaccine, there wasn’t any health barrier to his traveling into a big city along with the immune duo. He suspected that Steph’s—and soon, his own—Covid-free status could prove to be a valuable bargaining chip for securing priority care for Tyson. He looked down at Steph’s troubled face as she slept, placing herself between Tyson and the edge of the bed. The little guy’s crown definitely was swollen. Tina had downplayed the significance when she’d taken her last look after midnight, but Greg saw the concern on her face. The need to leave was nonnegotiable; the only question was how. He left the RV to find Sal.
Sal heard Greg out and listed several objections. The most important new obstacle was Sal’s conviction that the State Line crew would be on the lookout and, should Greg and Steph drive south in any recognizable vehicle, the militia could take them. Greg sought to turn this threat into an opportunity. “Why don’t we drive the semi? It’s the one vehicle you don’t need. We should be Covid-free, so the contaminated trailer isn’t a concern. It has a huge fuel capacity, so we can take a big detour. If they catch us, we can explain that we need specialist medical care and ask them to leave us alone. After all, they already know Steph is a pacifist and Tyson’s just a baby.”
“If they take you hostage, that gives them leverage over our group they wouldn’t otherwise have. You can say it doesn’t matter to Steph or you if you die trying to save Tyson, but
it’s another matter when you force us to tell the kidnappers to kill you because we won’t give in to their demands. Pat and Barb would never agree to sacrifice you three for starters, and I doubt Carla would either. Our team would tear itself apart.”
Greg noted that his father-in-law hadn’t put himself in that camp. “That attitude effectively accepts your grandson’s death as a price for team unity. That’s hardly fair.”
“Look, you’ve been through hell and there’s no point in arguing if it’s what you and Steph want. Focus on the practical aspects, starting with acquiring a new vehicle. We’ll assume that you’re all Covid-immune and that means any abandoned car is fair game. Travis is organizing the disposal of the semi and he’ll leave shortly. We’ll load onto the semi a barrel with at least fifty gallons of gas and a siphon. On the way to the disposal site, pick out an older model car that doesn’t have an electronic ignition. Travis or Jaime will hotwire it and show you how to restart it by touching a pair of bare wires. Once you’re in the car, avoid people. If there’s too much traffic, pull off out of sight and wait until night before continuing.”
“Should we come back here to wait for sundown once we have the car?
“Not if you actually want to leave. Once Barb and Pat learn about your plan, they’ll do anything to stop you, including sabotaging your vehicle.”
“It’s less than five hundred miles to Vegas from here, a straight shot south on the 376 to Route 95. We’ll be far east of Gardnerville. Thirty gallons should be enough to go there and back if we steal something that gets decent mileage. An extra twenty gives us enough to chase the convoy north.”