“Hoo-fuckin’-yah, LT.”
Cooper grinned. He could hear the SEALs taking position in the truck bed—woe to anyone who tried to stop this truck. It bristled with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. “Clear the road boys. We ain’t stopping till we hit Chula!”
Cooper shifted the truck into gear and floored the gas pedal. The engine whined like a turbine and the truck hopped the curb and headed into the darkness. Cooper used his helmet’s night-vision mode and left the headlights off. No sense in making things any easier for the little bastards…
They raced a block north, past the NKor checkpoint and turned east on Island. Five blocks east, Cooper spotted what looked like a river of darkness on either side of Island Avenue.
“There’s the 5. Turn here at 17th and the on-ramp should be a block south,” said Jax.
“You think that’s a good idea? I’ll bet my left nut there’s a roadblock waiting for us,” said Clutch. “We should take side streets and avoid the interstate.”
Cooper thought for a second and slowed their approach. Everything else about the mission had been compromised. Taking I-5 north had been part of an evacuation plan should things go wrong. He realized Clutch was right—the NKors probably had a roadblock at the on-ramp to I-5 just south of them.
Fuck.
They raced down Island, their decision fast approaching at the dark 17th St. intersection. If they stayed safe, and followed side streets like Clutch suggested, it would be noon before they reached Chula Vista.
He checked the fuel gage. Half a tank. With over a half a ton of SEAL meat in the back, there was no way they’d make it. This had to be fast or it wasn’t going to happen.
“Not enough fuel for side streets. We got one shot at this—fast or dead,” Cooper said. “We’re going to have to take the 5. But we’re going to make our own on-ramp. Hold on back there!”
Hearing no further objections, he made a tire-chirping turn south on 17th. He looked left and saw a white, nondescript building hugging the road. Next to it, behind a black wrought-iron fence, a row of houses lined the interstate. He just needed one—there. Cooper spun the wheel to the left and goosed the gas. He heard someone shout in surprise as they crashed through a gate, flinging metal and sparks up and over the roof of the big utility truck. The driveway to the small house was empty—exactly what Cooper needed. The chain-link fence at the far end of the driveway collapsed like so much tissue paper as the CALTRANS truck barreled through.
Cooper felt his ass lift off the driver’s seat as the front wheels cut through the air. “Hang on!” he shouted. The truck slammed back to earth halfway down the embankment that bordered I-5. A bush appeared in front of them, then vanished in an explosion of leaves and branches. The truck lifted up into the air again as it crashed through the final barrier of vegetation and concrete curbs. Tires squealed and SEALs hooted in the back, turning the radio net into a garbled mash of laughter. They were hightailing it down I-5, heading south.
Cooper dropped the hammer and watched the speedometer climb. She’s no sports car, but at least it’s faster than that damn Chinese APC. The freeway was littered with cars, but it wasn’t as congested as L.A. had been. There was plenty of room to maneuver.
“I got a roadblock, top of the ramp, your two o’clock,” called out Juice. “Two NKor trucks—”
Sparky’s rifle thundered from the back. “One truck.”
“Quick—gimme me your thumper,” said Swede. He took Cooper’s M79 grenade launcher and popped a 40mm round out the window at the road block. They blew through the edge of the explosion without stopping.
“Ramp’s clear—looks like there was just a few of ‘em,” reported Clutch from the back.
“Jesus, look at all the cars…” muttered the rookie, Maughan.
“Lot of ‘em got bodies in ‘em…” Charlie said softly. “Flu must’ve hit ‘em hard.”
The scene reminded him of the bus ride after their escape from All Saint’s Memorial. Brenda had stood behind him on the bus and touched his shoulder. He clenched his teeth. Focus on the road, dammit.
“Looks clear up ahead…” observed Clutch.
“Well, it probably won’t stay that way for long,” Cooper growled. “Everybody stay frosty.”
CHAPTER 30
Denver, Colorado.
Emergency National Reserve Operations Center.
The Cave.
BRENDA GLARED AT THE latest test results. Petty Officer Michael Holliday: 41 years old and in the physical condition of a man half his age—yet he struggled to live, despite all the medication and antivirals they had pumped into him.
For a brief moment, Holliday’s face was Derek’s. She looked at the other tent-covered bed in the room, cocooning her brother. He was infected with the mutated strain of the virus. She looked down at Holliday. Just like you.
No matter what they tried—even treatments that had seemed to work on those infected with the original strain—it just wasn’t good enough. She had never felt so completely helpless in her professional career as she did at that moment. Boatner’s new serum—admittedly, the earliest trial run—seemed to be less than useless. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but she knew it was more than this—more than nothing.
As she stood there staring at the chart, willing the test results to change, she felt gooseflesh break out over her arms and legs and her breath caught in her throat.
It’s shifted. There’s no denying it now.
She looked back to the test results on her clipboard and tried to reason her way out of the nightmare. No. It can’t be. Not yet. That’s too fast—even for this thing. Even The Pandemic took a whole month and a half before it changed. Brenda flipped to the next page and scanned the report. It had been less than a month since Patient Zero arrived at a hospital back in California. Definitely too fast.
Is it, though?
She reviewed Holliday’s lab work for the tenth time. It listed treatment after treatment, tried and failed. Each one should have been enough to trigger some sort of response from his immune system that would have at least slowed the virus down. Each treatment had instead produced barely detectable results. The SEAL continued to worsen.
So did Derek.
She looked toward her brother’s incubation tent again. His lungs were filling with fluid faster than the nurses could clear them and the skin around his fingertips was changing color. Cyanosis was starting to set in, so they pumped oxygen into his system—but it was never enough. She felt her own heart rate begin to climb as she began to realize what might well be in store for the future.
She glanced around the critical care infirmary. Holliday was in isolation in a secluded corner of the large room, surrounded by a plastic tent to avoid cross-contamination. Two of the other patients nearby showed the first signs of a remarkable recovery. That was something at least—they had come in with Derek.
Two others had already died—they were Derek’s men as well. One, a man named Donovan, had been riddled with buckshot before transport from Kentucky. There was little they could do for him but ease his pain.
She frowned. Only two men had survived infection so far—a fifty-percent survival rate after treatment. The virus was spiraling out of control. Boatner’s new batch of modified antivirals—tweaked with Huntley’s blood—wouldn’t be ready to test for a few more hours.
Brenda looked at her brother again. At least he was unconscious—he wouldn’t be screaming incoherently about the fate of his men any more. The nurses had told her how bad Derek had been when they brought him in. They’d immediately sedated him and now he slept fitfully with a mouth full of tubes. Until he was stronger, he didn’t need to know that only two members of his squad had survived.
She ignored the thought in the back of her head that taunted her. It’s shifted, that’s why the newest serum is only 50% effective. It’s shifted.
She balled her fist and counted to twenty. It’s shifted.
Brenda closed her eyes for a moment inside her helmet
ed bio-suit and wished she could pinch the bridge of her nose. We just need a little more time…
She glanced at the clock on the far side of the room. It had been two days now since Cooper and his team had left on their mission. Two days since anyone had heard from them. General Daniels had of course not been privy to the mission details, but his rank carried enough clout that he discovered HQ had lost all contact with the SEALs after they had exited their aircraft.
She shuddered as she remembered laying on his chest in the lab, both of them spent and sweaty. Cooper had not been able to tell her much about the mission, other than to detail the terrifying descent they’d have to make. When he’d described the feelings of free-fall during a HAHO jump, she wondered why anyone in their right mind would do it.
She sighed and replaced the clipboard on Holliday’s bed. She imagined free-fall felt something like what she was going through—a hollowness in your stomach with your insides queasy and the fear that any second you’d black out and never wake up.
Brenda decided she probably ought to discuss officially confirming the antigen shift with Maurice. First, she needed to leave the infirmary and go through decontamination. She stood in the decon shower, thinking about Cooper.
She stretched her arms wide so the harsh chemical bath could cleanse any virus spoor from her suit. A smile threatened to curl up the corner of her mouth. Seeing her suit’s wide sleeves made her think of Cooper in his HAHO suit, soaring high over Death Valley like a giant, heavily-armed, flying squirrel.
When the final rinse cycle was complete, the red light in the shower blinked and turned green. A fan started up and began to pump hot air into the room to dry the chemicals on her suit. An extra layer of protection. The process was like peeling an onion in reverse. Adding more and more layers of protection to ensure the safety of the doctors, staff, and everyone who lived and sheltered in the Cave.
Brenda removed her suit and hung it on the wall under a handwritten sign that read ‘Alston’. She stood in her damp scrubs and sighed as she stretched her back. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and scratched that itch behind her ear with another sigh.
Maurice was waiting for her when she exited the changing room. “We’ve got more reports in from Georgia,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper. “The fatality rate is increasing exactly as you predicted.” He handed her a sheet of paper.
It’s shifting…
Brenda frowned. He almost looked excited. It was no wonder she never fully understood the man. He was a genius, no doubt, but she never grasped the utter fascination—obsession, really—with the virus…
To her, the damn thing was an enemy. Something to be identified, targeted, and destroyed. Nothing more. It killed people and that made her mad, so she hunted it. One day she would destroy it—end of story.
She read the report and felt her chest tighten. The numbers were staggering. “Are these accurate?” she breathed.
Maurice adjusted his glasses. “Yes. The damn thing has definitely shifted. Look here,” he said as he handed over two more sheets of paper. “This is from a contact of mine who just resurfaced in southern Tennessee. And this is from our man in Brikston…well, it was the last one before Chad and those Rangers decided to get into a firefight with the local police.” Maurice shook his head, “I can’t for the life of me figure that out yet.”
She could feel the moisture begin to build in the corner of her eyes. Derek was the last shred of family she could hold on to thanks to The Pandemic. He was in the early stages, to be sure, but soon enough he’d be just as bad off as Holliday.
Maurice waited impatiently, watching her every move. “Brenda, are you okay?”
Am I okay? She looked up at him. Are you serious? “Yes,” she said. “I’m just…” She glanced down at the pages again in order to forestall any more comments.
The reports matched. The infection rates were on the increase—nearly every person that had been exposed to the virus in these areas became infected. “Infection rate” was listed as 87%. Her eyes skimmed the numbers until she found the highlighted block that read: “Fatality rate”. It was 36% in Tennessee, 44% in Kentucky.
“I think we’re looking at ground zero,” Maurice said.
Brenda looked up from the papers and stared at him. His words echoed her own thoughts so well that she couldn’t be sure if she had spoken them or not.
“I can see you’ve already come to that conclusion as well.”
Brenda nodded. “This is beyond bad. It matches the numbers I gave to the President—but that was just a hypothesis—”
Maurice grunted and they continued walking toward the main lab.
“We need to know what’s going on topside,” observed Brenda. Numbers could only tell you so much. They needed patient data—they needed communication with other doctors. She needed to walk around in the sun and see what the hell was going on with her own eyes. She needed a window.
I need to get out of this cave.
“I was on my way to speak with Chad and get his impression of conditions in Brikston. I read in the report we lost another Ranger this morning. That’s two to the virus and one to injury now.” He paused, a pained expression on his face. “Oh—I’m sorry.”
Brenda shook her head in order to clear the nascent tears in her eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said stiffly. “The best thing we can do right now is find a serum that works.” She sniffed and started walking, gratified that Maurice was professional enough to let it pass and fall in step.
“Agreed,” he said and cleared his throat before moving on: “We need to officially confirm the shift as soon as possible and warn the Europeans. Those cases in Germany and Spain—they could be carrying the shifted strain.” He thought for a moment. “No, we have to assume they are.”
Brenda thought back to her brother in the Crit-Care ward. Deep down, she had known this would happen. Without suits, what did they expect? The chances of infection were astronomical.
She froze when Maurice opened the exam room hatch and they saw 13 standing next to Huntley, holding his hand. Brenda was surprised to see the woman out of her suit already but took Maurice’s causal reaction to mean she had been approved to exit quarantine.
They looked like a couple. Brenda glanced at Maurice. He watched the two test subjects with a slight smile on his face a moment before putting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat.
Huntley looked up and smiled when he saw Maurice. “Dr. Boatner! Come look!”
Brenda had already spotted it—the cuts and bruises on 13’s neck and arms were gone. Only a few slight pink marks remained as evidence of her surviving a plane crash. She leaned on her injured leg and smiled sweetly.
There was something about 13 that just didn’t feel right. Brenda stepped forward and began to examine the leg. She looked up at 13’s angelic face and frowned. “You heal pretty fast.”
13 shrugged. “I’ve always healed fast.”
“You look lovely, my dear, as always,” said Maurice. His smile faded and he turned somber. “Leaving aside your remarkable ability to heal, we’ve come to discuss something with you—both of you.”
“Oh?” asked 13. Brenda noticed the change in the younger woman’s voice and how she inched closer to Huntley, almost protectively. That was interesting.
“Yes. Unfortunately, our data indicates that the virus is mutating faster than anyone predicted. As part of our report to the World Health Organization, we need to know what you saw in Kentucky—give us as much detail as you can provide.” He sat down on a stool and produced a pen from his coat, then pulled a yellow legal pad out of a nearby workstation drawer and began transcribing their observations.
As Huntley and 13 relayed their experiences, what they saw, smelled, and felt, Brenda thought of Cooper. He was out there, cut off from command, surrounded by enemy forces—possibly sick himself.
Derek, however, was in no less danger in the infirmary. He had access to the best treatment possible. Brenda hoped that would be enough—at l
east until they could work up an effective serum.
She leaned against the workstation next to Huntley’s exam table. She couldn’t fathom the thought of losing both of them—everything rested on their young shoulders.
“—as I expected,” Maurice said as he shoved his hands in his lab coat pockets.
Brenda folded her arms. “How soon can we adjust the serum for these new numbers?”
Maurice glanced at Huntley. “We’ll need a fresh sample batch, but I think we can work something up tonight—first thing tomorrow at the latest.” He looked at Huntley. “Are you up for this, Chad? We’ll need a double.”
Brenda watched as 13 squeezed Huntley’s hand. He flashed a brave smile at the blonde and replied, “Yeah, let’s do this.”
“Very good. Brenda, would you mind? I need to brief the President on what we’ve learned here.”
“No problem.”
She tried to ignore Huntley and 13 as they whispered to each other. Huntley took no notice as she slipped the needle into his arm. He was the perfect patient: quiet and calm. He held still when she needed him to and knew how to hold his arm to maximize blood flow into the collection tubes. Sadness washed over her. How many times had this young man been drained to make it second nature to him?
She idly tapped one of the collection vials as it filled with his warm, super-immune blood. Why did God choose you two to be so special? She looks like a movie star and heals like a superhero. He’s immune to every disease known to man. She glanced at the happy couple. Wow. Think of what kind of kids you two would have…
Before she could carry that thought any further, Huntley looked at her. “So, Doctor—”
She flashed a well-practiced bedside smile. “Brenda, please.”
Huntley smiled back. She could see why 13 like him so much. “Brenda.” He lifted his arm and peered at the dangling IV tubing. “Do you really think you’re on to something with this?”
The Shift: Book II of the Wildfire Saga Page 36