The Enigma Strain (Techno Thriller Science Fiction Best Sellers): Military Science Fiction Technothriller (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 1)

by Nick Thacker

  Stephens staggered backward, nearly losing his balance. He seemed dizzy, but remained standing. Then he looked up sharply. He started to laugh as he withdrew something from his coat pocket.

  The small glass cylinder was filled with a liquid of some sort, and a large hypodermic needle glinted in the fluorescent light of the lab room.

  Without warning, Stephens shoved the syringe into his arm.

  His eyes fell backwards into his head, but rolled forward again a few seconds later. He sniffed, then spoke. “As I said, Harvey, it’s too late. America is not united enough to save itself. It doesn’t matter now, whether you find your bomb or not.” Suddenly his mouth began to leak saliva, foaming around the edges. “I would leave, if I were you,” he continued. “This is a highly concentrated specimen of the strain, and I estimate there is less than a minute before I become contagious.”

  Julie winced as the virus visibly tore through the man’s body, ripping it apart from the inside out. She also winced at the meaning behind the man’s words.

  Highly concentrated specimen.

  Ben lunged forward, throwing Stephens’ body back against the far wall. Even with the virus destroying the man’s body, he still didn’t fall.

  “We’re immune, Stephens,” Ben said. “Remember?” He pulled the sleeve of his left arm up and held it up to Stephens’ face. “You took too long. The virus has already died out of our systems, and we’re now immunized to it. And Dr. Fischer —” Ben nodded toward the professor. “He’s been immune, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Julie watched the exchange, piecing everything together. She thought through Stephens’ explanations; she considered the specific words he’d used.

  “Ben…” she tried to coax him backward, but Ben wasn’t listening.

  “You led us here, to our deaths, for what? For your amusement?”

  Stephens was smiling again, and he reached back into his pocket. “No,” he whispered.

  Ben frowned.

  “It was an experiment. My experiment. I told them no one would be able to figure it out, and that it was an embarrassment on our part to accomplish something so miraculous and not have the satisfaction of watching it unfold. Up close.”

  “So you let us figure it out?” Ben asked.

  “There will be nothing left,” he said. “America will be a barren wasteland, Harvey. The end is justified, but what about the means? What about my reward, knowing that my role has been fulfilled?” The man’s voice began rising, his face showing more and more emotion. “I was groomed — born — for this role,” he continued. “And I must get the satisfaction of knowing it was foolproof. I had to finish it here, to watch you die, just like the rest will.”

  Julie’s eyes widened as Stephens’ hand came out of his coat.

  “And no one is immune from death,” Stephens said, holding a gun up to Ben’s chest. He flicked off the safety, staring into Ben’s eyes the entire time. “You’ve performed your role admirably, Mr. Bennett. Now let me perform mine.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  Julie felt her body being pushed aside as a dark form rushed past her. She stared, helpless, as Ben’s body flew sideways toward the tables in the center of the room. She screamed, sprinting at Stephens as he aimed the second shot directly at her.

  She collided with Stephens headfirst, sending her forehead into the man’s sternum. She felt his lungs expand rapidly, involuntarily gasping for air. She kept moving forward, now back on her feet. She ran full-speed through the man’s slender body, lifting it off the floor and smashing it into the wall. Glass vials and beakers, along with a stack of neatly filed papers, exploded from their location along the back table and down onto the hard floor. The sound of breaking glass and chaos almost blocked out the sound of her own screaming.

  Almost.

  She reared back with her fists and pummeled Stephens, who was lying haphazardly across the table. She aimed for the same spot Ben had hit him earlier — just below his eye where a gaping wound was forming. She punched, again and again, and he eventually stopped moving.

  She took a step back, breathing heavily. Julie noticed that her coworker’s skin had begun to rise, as if he’d been filled with water like a balloon. She knew that the virus had moved completely through his body, but she was astonished at how quickly he’d reacted to it.

  There must have been a very heavy concentration of the virus inside that vial. The realization terrified her.

  Purplish welts had formed on his exposed skin, both from the virus and the bruising he’d received from Julie and Ben. She watched as his skin changed hue from a purplish tint to a lighter red, and finally noticed that his breathing had stopped. She waited another few moments and then checked his vitals.

  Dead.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  BEN HEARD JULIE SAY HIS name from somewhere behind him.

  “Ben…” it was forceful, yet hesitant. A warning.

  Still, he moved forward. He hadn’t felt emotions like these for over a decade, ever since his dad had been taken.

  “You led us here, to our deaths, for what? For your amusement?” he asked the questions pointedly, as if he already knew the answer. Did he?

  Stephens smiled. “No. It was an experiment. My experiment. I told them no one would be able to figure it out, and that it was an embarrassment on our part to accomplish something so miraculous and not have the satisfaction of watching it unfold. Up close.”

  Ben asked the next question carefully. He wanted to get closer, to try to subdue Stephens. “So you let us figure it out?” He took a step forward. Careful. He treated the situation like his many encounters with wild animals. Don’t approach directly when possible, but don’t move too quickly.

  Another step.

  Stephens kept talking, but Ben had already tuned him out. He was focusing on the hunt, trying to sneak his way into Stephens’ personal space. He knew Stephens wasn’t an animal, but that was to Ben’s benefit. Stephens was acting emotionally, based not on animal instinct but human perception. Ben could rely on a slower reaction time from him because of that.

  But as he planned his move, he caught sight of Stephens’ arm. It swung upward, cradling a weapon.

  “You’ve performed your role admirably, Mr. Bennett,” he heard Stephens say. “Now let me perform mine.”

  Ben tried to lunge forward, but he couldn’t get his mind to form the directions to send out to his body. It was happening slowly, as if he were watching a movie in slow motion. He felt his feet move, slowly at first, then more quickly.

  But not quickly enough.

  He’d never make it to Stephens in time. The gun rose a little more, now pointing at Ben’s chest.

  He thought he saw the muzzle of the pistol flash, a small bristle of fire lancing from its barrel, but his vision suddenly went white. He felt something, too, a crashing pain that hit him from his side, knocking him off of his feet.

  He was flying. Blinded and in pain, but he knew the sensation of vertigo. He tried to reach his arms out to stop the fall, but he had no idea if his arms had registered the order or not.

  Then he heard the explosion from the gun. It was louder than he thought it would be — he’d always been on the sending end of a gun barrel. It deafened him.

  Blind, in pain, and now deaf.

  And still falling.

  When he hit the ground, he felt another pain similar to the first. It started on his arm and shoulder, then his hip and leg.

  This can’t be right.

  It was a point-blank shot — how could Stephens have missed? He should have felt something in his chest.

  Right?

  He tried to blink, trying to convince his senses to return.

  Nothing but pain.

  Still, it was a dull pain — throbbing, but manageable. What happened?

  He breathed, now realizing he’d been holding his breath. His lungs struggled with the weight, trying to push it off of him.

  Why was there a weight on top of him?


  He began to see. First the lights of the lab creeped into his vision, then a darker shadow.

  A man’s face.

  Malcolm Fischer’s face.

  He gasped, pushing upward with his throbbing hands. The weight was the man’s body, and Ben used all his might to heave it up and off of him. He struggled for a few seconds until Malcolm fell to the side, freeing Ben.

  Ben sat up, blinking.

  When his vision fully returned, he saw Malcolm’s body lying next to his, upside down, in a crimson pool of blood.

  No…

  He reached out and felt behind the professor’s neck.

  Come on, he willed. Wake up.

  But then he saw the professor’s brown coat, wrapped around the older man. A small hole was leaking blood, almost dead-center in the man’s back.

  The exit wound.

  He heard sobbing and looked up. Julie was standing over him, tears falling from her face.

  “B — Ben,” she muttered. “I thought you…”

  Her voice trailed off as she finally saw Malcolm lying next to him.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “He — he saved you.”

  Ben just nodded. “Where’s Stephens?” Anger flashed behind his eyes, and he stood. He saw the man immediately, lying across a table against the wall, unmoving.

  She pointed to her coworker’s body. “I — I attacked him, but I think the virus had already done its job.”

  Again, Ben nodded. He gently stepped over Malcolm’s body and reached Julie, pulling her close. She began to sob, trying to talk. He wrapped a hand around the back of her head and slowly pushed her face forward, onto his shoulder. He stroked her hair, letting her cry.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  THE TRUCK BOUNCED OVER ANOTHER pothole in the dirt road. Julie was again in the passenger seat, staring out the window. Every few seconds, she sniffed, holding back tears that she knew would eventually come.

  They’d left the lab a mess — two dead bodies, one extremely contagious, and both bleeding onto the white tiled floor. Ben had held her for a minute, slowly rocking her as they both waited in silence.

  Waited for nothing.

  No help would come, and she now felt the true realization of Stephens’ double-crossing.

  It had hit her hard, that first moment she understood.

  They were alone.

  As they stood there, she thought about the mess of it all. But as chaotic as it was, it was flawless. The execution of it, from the initial blast to the spreading virus, down to Stephens’ own arrogant desire to watch it unfold from a front-row seat.

  He’d told them everything. It was cryptic and difficult to understand, at best, but it was complete.

  He’d wanted it that way — to watch them suffer through the pain of searching, only to see their helpless eyes as he unleashed his weapon.

  His final move.

  Checkmate.

  She looked at Ben as he drove. “I can’t believe he knew, Ben. The whole time.”

  Ben nodded slowly. She saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped the wheel. “I know,” he said softly. “But there’s still something I don’t understand. The syringe — why’d he do it? I mean, inject himself with the stuff? He could have just shot us.”

  “No, that’s just it.” She frowned. “I figured it out right before he tried to shoot you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Ben — he’s the endgame. He’s the final piece.”

  “I know. He orchestrated the whole thing, and —”

  “No, Ben — he is part of the bomb.”

  Ben frowned, but quickly his eyes grew wide. “He’s…”

  “Stephens had to make sure he was in the park because he is supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle. Remember what happened when the first bomb went off? It sent a payload of the virus into the air, which contaminated a lot of the area. But this second bomb can’t carry that payload — it’ll be too big. And if it’s going to go off anywhere around that caldera —”

  “Then the eruption from the volcano beneath us will more than eradicate the strain.”

  “Right,” she said. “A bomb too small won’t destroy the underground structure enough to cause an eruption, but a bomb too big will just incinerate the payload.”

  “So,” Ben said, thinking aloud. “To make sure you get both the volcanic eruption and the virus to be spread, you have to place the viral payload far enough away from the initial blast that it’s safe from that explosion, but close enough to the caldera that the resulting eruption will send the payload into the atmosphere.

  “And Stephens is the viral payload.”

  Julie sighed. “Like I said, he’s part of the bomb.”

  “Then I need to find that bomb,” Ben said, “and you need to get out of the park.” He pushed the accelerator to the floor, and the truck swerved, barely missing a deep hole in the road.

  She looked over at him. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I’m not letting you get anywhere near that eruption.”

  Julie stiffened her jaw, annoyed.

  “Ben, listen to yourself,” she said. “You’re not making any sense. You explained it to me, remember? If that bomb goes off, it starts a chain reaction. There’s no place in two hundred miles that’s safe.”

  Ben shrugged. “Still —”

  “No, Ben. Stop. Forget it. Where are you going to drop me off? Ten miles from here? Twenty? How much time are you going to waste trying to get me away from the blast zone? And how long do you think you have before the bomb actually goes off?”

  Ben started to answer, but instead turned the radio on. The news report was already in progress, and he turned up the volume. It was a computerized message, reading a pre-written response.

  “…Local police and SWAT teams on high-alert for riot activity, including looting. Please stay indoors, and remain out of contact with anyone outside of immediate family. Contaminated areas include as a southern border Las Cruces, New Mexico. Western border, Kansas City. Eastern border Reno, Nevada. CDC and FEMA have prepared quarantine stations at many metropolitan areas. Please visit www…”

  He turned the volume down again as Julie spoke.

  “It’s not true,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The report. The CDC can’t mobilize that many quarantines that fast. They’re just not set up for it. And FEMA… There’s just no way.”

  “At least they’re doing something,” Ben said.

  “What? What could they possibly be doing?” Julie asked, her voice growing emotional. “Stephens kept me in the dark the entire time, and he murdered the man who’s supposed to be at the front of this thing, keeping the investigation moving forward.”

  “Okay, well what do you want to do, then?” Ben asked. He slowed the truck.

  Julie thought for a moment. “We’re it, Ben. We’re the only people close enough to do anything about it. We’ve got to find that bomb, and fast. And don’t get any ideas about ditching me on the side of the road somewhere.”

  Ben looked at her for a minute, considering the offer. He nodded, then sped up again.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “HOW MANY POTHOLES ARE ON these roads?” Julie asked. “I’m seriously thinking about getting out and walking.”

  Ben smiled, for a moment forgetting the massive predicament they were in. “You know, you’ve got a fantastic ability to ignore the present circumstances and joke around.”

  She shot him a look. “You think I’m joking?” She made a show of readjusting herself on her seat, wincing in mock pain.

  “Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “I’m trying to stay off the larger park roads — it should be abandoned, but we can’t be too careful. Just hang on;, the lake’s coming up in a few minutes.”

  She groaned, but didn’t argue. Instead, she opened her laptop and connected to the wireless internet tethered from her cellphone. For a few minutes, she checked for new emails, updates on the spreading virus, and sent a few emails
up the chain of command at the CDC. They both knew it was a long shot, as the CDC was already doing everything they could to stop the spread of the virus, and their ability to provide research support had been extremely stifled by Stephens’ work before. After a few minutes of clicking around, she closed the computer.

  “Try calling again?” Ben asked.

  “There’s no point,” she replied. “Anyone there is already deployed at a waypoint or helping with disaster relief. We need to get to an actual location, then —”

  “Julie, we’ve talked about this,” Ben said. “We can’t risk it. Like you just said, most of your teams are going to have already been deployed, or will be. And we don’t have the time to drive all the way there.”

  “I know, I know,” Julie said, exasperated. “It’s just… frustrating. I feel so helpless. I’ve always been the person to rush in, take charge, you know?”

  Ben smiled from the side of his mouth. “I do know. And what we’re trying to do out here is much more helpful than just driving to a CDC branch and talking to the office staff. There’s nothing that needs to happen back there yet. Let’s get this bomb taken care of, and we can go from there.”

  “But how do we even know where the bomb is?”

  “It’s under the lake,” Ben answered, his voice confident. As he said the words, a sign flew past on the right side of the road with the words “Yellowstone Lake - 1 Mile” printed on it.

  “Ben, Livingston’s already checked there. Remember? He sent a team of geologists and excavators through most of the caves in the region, and found that tunnel. If there was something there, he would have —”

  “Julie, Livingston didn’t tell you that.”

  “He did! He called, and —” she suddenly remembered what Ben was hinting at.

  Livingston hadn’t called — Stephens had.

  She bolted upright in the seat. “Stephens called, not Livingston. He only said Livingston had sent the team in, and he didn’t have any reason to be communicating with Livingston, which means…” She thought for a moment. “Which means he was lying. Ben, if he was lying, we could be heading in the wrong direction.”