by Louise Voss
She won’t be able to see me from where she’s standing, Kate thought. But if she starts to come down the slope, I’m dead.
Unless …
She reached into her pocket for Simone’s pistol. It wasn’t there.
Her stomach lurched and she looked down. There it was – lying in the stream, an inch below the rippling water, gleaming like a black stone. It was only a few feet away, but if she stepped across to get it she would expose herself to the woman above.
She went down on her knees, wishing she could bury herself in the dirt. She couldn’t hear Brandi. Had she gone? She didn’t dare breathe. Instead, she counted: one, two, three, four, deciding that if she reached twenty she would risk it, she would creep across to the stream and retrieve the gun. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. She braced herself. Fifteen, sixteen …
‘Well,’ Brandi said. ‘Look who it is.’
49
Harley shook Paul awake, his hand on his shoulder.
‘Uh. Kate …?’ Paul’s eyes were glued shut with sleep and his back and neck ached from where he’d slept sitting up in the passenger seat, his chin on his chest. Outside the car, the moon was full and bright and a chorus of cicadas throbbed in the background.
‘Sorry, Paul. I’m your less attractive partner.’ He handed Paul a polystyrene cup of steaming, flavourless coffee that Johnston, the prison guard, had fetched for him while they waited. ‘But I’ve got good news – clearance for Diaz to be released has just come through. Johnston’s bringing him out now.’
‘Finally! Thought we’d have to hang around here for ever.’ Paul sipped the coffee. He needed to pee, badly. ‘Have you heard anything about Kate? Have they found her?’
‘No – not yet.’
They had agreed that their first priority should be to get Diaz working on the vaccine, rather than joining in the search for Kate and Junko. Not that Paul felt up to doing much of anything right now. It was as if something nasty had crawled into his mouth while he slept and made a nest in his throat. He swallowed and it hurt, and his nose felt bunged up. His head throbbed.
‘You OK?’ Harley asked, eyebrows scrunched with concern.
‘Yeah.’ Just tiredness. Please let it just be tiredness. ‘Feeling like crap after a night in this luxury accommodation.’
Harley smiled then looked over his shoulder. ‘Here comes our man.’
Half an hour later, the three of them were sitting in a diner. They were the only customers. They had driven past half a dozen closed diners and restaurants and a deserted McDonald’s Drive-Thru before finding this place. The sole member of staff, who Paul guessed must be the proprietor, appeared to be trying to carry on as if everything was normal.
‘None of my staff turned up this morning,’ he said before taking their orders. ‘None of my regulars neither. But life goes on, huh? What can I get you folks?’
Diaz, who was close to drooling as he perused the menu, ordered the biggest breakfast available. Harley opted for granola and yoghurt. The only thing Paul wanted was a decent cup of coffee. He was feeling increasingly rough as the morning went on. But he tried to ignore it, to focus.
‘Tell us about Mangold,’ Harley said as they waited for their food. That had been Diaz’s second demand: that they take him to see Mangold. Paul had almost punched the air – this old man knew where Charles Mangold was. He had been following the right trail.
‘Down to business. I like that.’ Diaz laughed and clapped his hands as the proprietor put their drinks on the table. ‘You already know, I assume, that Mangold and I worked together at Medi-Lab? We were partners. But when the company got closed down, Mangold put all the blame on me. He said I had been solely responsible for conducting the research. That I was the one who had breached bio-security protocols and let the virus escape from the lab. All bullshit. But Mangold was the man with the money, the reputation, the connections. Not some Mexican lab-monkey like me. So when they needed a scapegoat, naturally they targeted me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Paul said.
Diaz leaned forward. ‘There were things in that lab … valuable research. Knowledge. Things that the US Government wanted to get hold of.’ He tapped the side of his nose.
Paul looked at Harley, expecting him to scoff at this, to refute the conspiracy theories, but instead he nodded.
His voice shaky, Paul said, ‘Including Watoto and its cure?’
Diaz grinned. ‘No, no – that was our secret. Project Hadza. There were other viruses, a whole cocktail bar of designer diseases. We were breaking new ground all the time. We were the best.’
Paul felt himself go cold inside. This would have been around the time that Gaunt was running the labs at the Cold Research Unit, using it as a cover for his secret experiments with deadly viruses – research that had been financed by Mangold. The CRU and Medi-Lab were almost like twin labs, one on each side of the Atlantic. And now Diaz was saying that the US Government had been involved in a cover-up.
‘So … what? They hired Mangold and put all the blame on you?’
‘Exactly,’ Diaz nodded, pointing a gnarled finger. ‘And they sent me away so I couldn’t talk about it. That’s why they gave me such a long sentence.’
‘Mangold was working for the Government?’ Harley said.
Paul turned to him. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know that already.’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
Paul stared at him. He didn’t know who, or what, to believe.
‘Do you want to hear the rest of it, or are you going to keep sniping at each other all day?’ snapped Diaz. He paused to make sure he had their undivided attention, then continued: ‘I didn’t hear from or about Mangold for several years. Then, out of the blue, he called me. Asking for help.’
The diner’s proprietor came over with their food. The benefits of being the only customers: hyper-fast service.
‘Help?’ Harley asked. ‘With what?’
Diaz savoured a mouthful of egg, served sunny side up. ‘This is the best meal I’ve had in years. You’ve no idea—’
Impatient, Paul tapped the table with his fork. Kate was out there, in danger, maybe even dead already – please, God, don’t let that be true – and this old man was more interested in his breakfast.
‘OK, OK. Mangold was experimenting with a virus, something called Pyrovirus. And it had gone wrong – he had contracted it himself, and he had no vaccine. He was so desperate that he called me, begging for my assistance. Of course, I told him to fuck off.’
‘But he survived?’ Paul asked.
‘Yes. But the rest of his family – his wife, his daughter – caught it and died. All except his granddaughter.’
‘And what was her name?’ asked Paul.
Diaz took another mouthful of his breakfast. He didn’t answer straight away.
‘Watoto broke out on an Indian reservation, didn’t it? That’s where Mangold will have unleashed it, knowing that visitors to the casino would catch it and spread it far and wide. I checked on a map after I first heard about the outbreak: that reservation is very close to the town where Mangold’s daughter Tara lived, a place called Feverfew. It can’t be a coincidence. That must be where Mangold is living.’
They rose to leave, Harley paying the bill on the way out.
‘You didn’t tell us the granddaughter’s name, the one who survived,’ Paul said.
‘Oh – didn’t I? Pretty little thing, she was, when she was a kid. Her name was Angelica.’
50
Brandi stood at the top of the bank, looking down at Kate, a smile on her lips and a gun in her hand.
‘Nice try, Doctor. But Sekhmet is waiting for you.’ She gestured with the gun. ‘Come on.’
Kate glanced back at the stream. Could she grab the gun before Brandi shot her? And would it even be working now?
‘What the fuck are you waiting for? Get back up here now or I’ll sacrifice you right here myself.’
‘Angelica wouldn’t like that,’ Kate said. ‘Neither wou
ld the Goddess. She’d be displeased with you.’
Brandi’s face twisted with anger and she pointed the gun at Kate’s head.
‘How dare you speak about—’
She didn’t finish the sentence. Kate watched with shock as Brandi tumbled down the bank and landed beside her.
Sticking from her back was a hunting knife.
‘I didn’t enjoy that,’ Simone said, skipping down the bank as steadily as a mountain goat. She had a bruise on her forehead from where Kate had hit her with the gun. She noticed Kate looking at it. ‘You didn’t hit me very hard. I was out for ten minutes. When I got back to the house the old man had woken Angelica up but she couldn’t understand what in hell he was raving about. Then she saw me and I had to pretend to collapse, to buy you more time.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Ain’t no thing. I liked Brandi. She was cool, y’know?’ Simone gazed at the dead woman, lying face down in the stream, her hair snaking like weeds on the surface of the water. She crouched to pick the gun out of the water. ‘I think you’ve fucked this piece.’
‘Sorry,’ Kate said quietly, unable to take her eyes off Brandi’s corpse. So much death. And she was still in danger.
‘I need to get you the fuck outta here,’ Simone said. ‘Before Angelica and Preeti find us.’
Kate hesitated. ‘There are only two of them now. Why don’t we stand and fight?’
Simone looked at her like she was crazy. ‘You and me take on Angelica? Uh-uh. Sorry, honey, but you’re too much of a liability, and she’s ex-CIA, she can handle weapons like you wouldn’t believe. I need to get you outta here. Follow me. And try not to fall on your ass.’
She led Kate up the bank, checking back over her shoulder every few seconds.
Kate heard voices. ‘Oh my God, they’re coming.’
Simone grabbed her hand. ‘Quick.’
She led Kate into a thick patch of trees, ducking and weaving in order to avoid the branches and keep as quiet as possible. Kate followed suit. She heard a cry of dismay from behind her and realised Angelica and Preeti had found Brandi. Simone paused and looked back.
‘Shit. I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to outrun them.’ She looked around, in search of inspiration. ‘OK, follow me, we’re gonna double back.’
‘What?’
‘Just do as I say. And keep moving.’
They took a turn to the left, struggled through more thick undergrowth before hitting a path. Simone broke into a run, Kate following, adrenaline giving her speed. She couldn’t hear Angelica or Preeti but expected them to burst out of the trees at any moment. They kept running until Kate’s lungs burned and her legs ached. Sweat soaked her back and dripped into her eyes. But she kept going.
Simone veered off to the left, leading them back in the general direction of the ranch. They crossed the stream at a point where it was only a foot wide, but Kate was so tired that she almost slipped in her wet shoes, and barely avoided falling in again.
‘I need to rest,’ she panted.
‘You want them to catch us? Come on, Kate. You got a son, yeah? You wanna see him again?’
Yes, yes, I do. More than anything, Kate thought, and sheer determination kept her going, back through the trees until, eventually, they were in the open again, on the lawn that ran down to the ranch.
‘Keep a lookout for the old guy,’ Simone said.
They jogged towards the house. There was no one in sight.
Kate didn’t understand why they were going back to the ranch – surely that was the least safe place of all. Maybe they were going to get weapons. Or call the police. But then she realised Simone was leading her to the stables. They stopped outside the stable door and Simone pulled it open, disappearing inside after saying, ‘Wait here.’
A long five minutes later – during which Kate pictured her own death at gunpoint many times – she reappeared, leading a beautiful chestnut horse with a white blaze on his nose, and white fetlocks. The horse eyed Kate dismissively.
‘This is Egypt,’ Simone said. ‘She was Cindy’s horse.’ A darkness crossed Simone’s face and Kate had a horrible feeling that Simone was about to change her mind and exact revenge for the awful death Kate had condemned Cindy to.
Instead, she said, ‘You know how to ride, don’t you?’
51
Heather opened her eyes and was hit by a wave of pain like an electric drill grinding into her skull. It was dark and it took her a moment to remember where she was; then it came back to her and she pushed herself on to all fours, the motion causing a lurch of sickness and a second blast of white-hot pain.
She wiped the vomit from her chin and let herself breathe for a few moments, feeling the pain, riding a third wave as it pulsed through her body. It was like surfing; you just had to take control, harness the power. Take the pain and make somebody else pay.
Those bitches.
The motherfuckers who had attacked her and stolen her car.
The whole damned world.
She pushed herself to her feet, staggered, closed her eyes and found her centre of gravity. After the attackers had left her for dead, she had lain unconscious for a long time – she didn’t know how long. At one point she had awoken and, like a wounded coyote, crawled into the nearest building, an abandoned warehouse.
Now it was dark outside, and she surveyed the spot where her SUV had stood. Long gone, along with the two bitches, the hot daughter and the once-hot mother. Had the gangbangers taken them, or had they got away? Hopefully they were already dead.
She wandered for a while, disoriented and hungry. She came across a locked up grocery store and smashed her way in, liberating a large bottle of Sprite and a pack of smokes, along with a couple of Snickers bars that she stuffed greedily into her face. There were flies buzzing around and she realised that the mom and pop who ran this place might not have deserted it. Curious, she checked upstairs and, sure enough, there they were – in bed together, stiff, cold and surrounded by used Kleenex.
In their tiny kitchen, she found a lovely new knife with a six-inch blade. She tested it on her forefinger and sucked the blood.
A thought struck her and, back downstairs, she checked under the counter. Yes. As she had hoped, there was a baseball bat, kept to deter robbers. The first weapon she’d ever used, back when she was eleven and her little sister’s cat had peed on her bed, the last time it had ever peed anywhere.
Now all she needed was a car.
Leaving the store, with the bat held over her shoulder, she spotted a beautiful car across the street, a white Porsche Cayman, with the hood up. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat and a man in his thirties bent over the engine, a look of blank incomprehension on his face. The woman in the car – a glossy, rich-looking bitch – kept sticking her head out the window and talking to the guy, which made his face contort with irritation. Heather strode over.
‘Problem?’ she said, as she reached the car.
The guy, who Heather vaguely recognised, looked her up and down – a dismissive look she had been on the receiving end of her whole life. ‘We’re good, thanks.’
Heather pulled a face and leaned under the hood, pressing her shoulder against the guy’s. ‘Doesn’t look too good to me.’
She could see the problem – a loose cable. Elementary stuff, but this guy was probably used to getting his ass wiped for him. She clucked her tongue. ‘Shit, looks pretty fucked to me.’
‘Really?’ He turned his face towards her. He was interested in what she had to say now.
A whining voice came from the car. ‘Ryan, what’s going on? I feel sick.’
‘Chill, babe,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to fix the goddamn car. Piece of shit. Should have stuck with the Lamborghini.’
Heather smiled to herself. This was going to feel good. She pointed to the cable. ‘Check this out.’
As Ryan scrutinised it blankly, she stood upright, swiftly pulled away the metal support arm and yanked down on the hood with all her conside
rable strength.
It smashed on the back of Ryan’s neck, breaking it. His body jerked like someone had shoved a thousand volts up his ass, then went still. Heather lifted the hood just enough to pull him out, his head flopping like a rag doll’s as she chucked him to the ground, then casually plugged the loose cable back in
‘What the hell?’ the woman in the passenger seat screeched. She pressed the button to wind up the window but the engine was off. Heather grabbed her by her perfect hair, pulled her head through the window and whipped her newly-procured knife out of her back pocket.
‘Please,’ whined the woman. ‘I have money. I can give you anything. I’m famous.’
Heather was not in a good mood. She had been left for dead by those gangbanger motherfuckers, she’d lost the bitches, Paul freaking Wilson was way ahead of her and someone had jacked her car. Forgetting her own role in the spread of the virus, she blamed Los Angeles. She had always hated this fucking city, with its New Age crap, its endless influx of pretty little things, the bullshit movies, even the fucking roads. And this whinging, rich, privileged princess – whoever the fuck she was, pop star, model, actress, what-the-fuck-ever – represented at this very moment the whole stinking city.
Saying ‘I’m famous’ was not the smartest move ever.
Heather opened the door and dragged the princess out by her blonde hair, throwing her to the ground. The bitch lay on her back, staring up at Heather, who stood astride her, thumping the baseball bat against her open palm.
‘Take off your clothes,’ Heather commanded.
‘What?’
‘Why do dumb sluts like you always do that? I tell them to do something and they say “What?” Take off your clothes. All of them. Let me see those famous tits of yours.’
As this scene unfolded, both women became aware of a group of young men appear from round the corner, six of them, holding back, watching. Baseball caps, shades, menacing scowls. They didn’t look like they were on their way home from Sunday School.