by Ronie Kendig
Ram came up on his left, indicated the tent with a scowl.
Tox nodded. “Command, we have a medical isolation unit in Blue Three.”
“Move!” Rodriguez said. “Get around it and stop that vehicle, Wraith!”
Tox stalked in that direction carrying a mammoth-sized bad feeling—and Command was ignoring it. What was he walking the men into?
“Death breathes here,” Chiji muttered.
“Don’t.” Tox focused on the target. “I don’t need that stuff right now.”
Shouts and shots peppered the chaos.
“Wraith Actual! Hostiles on the north side. Repeat. North side,” Maangi reported as the booming crack of his sniper rifle echoed.
Tox pivoted and raced back with MacI. As they came around the tent-and-wood structure, two men darted out. Advancing, Tox fired and nailed the first guy. Then the second, who threw himself back into the tent.
Thermals would be perfect about now. Tox sidestepped, angling in front of the flaps where the man had vanished. Blood smeared the plastic. Knew he’d tagged the guy.
MacI was there, reaching for the flap to give Tox a clean line of sight inside. Cell slid up behind him. Tox nodded.
MacI whipped it open.
Tox rushed in to the left, pieing his weapon to the right as he moved. His line of sight crossed MacI’s, who’d gone to the right and pied left. They traced the walls and came together in the middle, scanning tables and equipment.
Empty. Where was the hostile?
The main hub contained rows of tables and trays holding shards of history and archaeological equipment. Straight ahead, beyond a tarp-like divider, a chambered environment lurked. His gut twisted as he negotiated a tangle of lockers, metal tables, and a grease board with a map to pass through the heavy divide. He waited to get his bearings, noting an opaque tarp covering an entrance on the right. Dark. As if it led underground.
He came around the corner of a shoulder-high stack of crates and found a body laid out. Tox nudged the man with his boot. When he didn’t respond, Tox slowly crouched, never taking his eyes off the environment, and touched the guy’s neck.
“Got another one over here,” Ram said.
Too many bodies. What went down before they arrived? “This wasn’t just artifacts.” Tox slid his gaze to the multi-chambered area. “That’s a decontamination tent.” And beyond it. “There are people in there.”
“Quarantine,” Ram muttered.
“Can you smell it?” Chiji’s voice, serene and smooth, whispered to their fears. “Death.”
Weapon at the ready and eyes out, Ram worked his way over to Tox. Held out his phone. Tox glanced at the screen which held one name: Tzivia. He frowned at his friend. “She’s here?”
Ram nodded.
Where?
Grunts and thuds erupted from the dark cave behind the flap. Pivoting, Tox snapped up his weapon and readied himself.
A man burst through the plastic, pulling it down and tangling himself in the tarp. When he saw the team, he shouted and raised a weapon at them. Chiji whacked the guy across the head with his Glock.
Movement in the cave. Tox swung his weapon and SureFire torch at it.
Tzivia appeared like a specter, rushing and frantic.
MacIver sprinted toward her.
Boom!
Fire and dirt vomited from the cave.
15
— Day 8 —
Jebel al-Lawz
Tox twisted away from the explosion and dove toward safety. A wave of heat washed over him. Tiny needles of fire prickled the back of his neck and hands. He hit the ground hard, head cracking against a table. He waited for the backdraft or a secondary explosion or falling debris, then shoved to his feet.
“Tzivia!” Ram threw himself at the collapsed entrance, digging into the rubble.
Memories flooded Tox. Of Kafr al-Ayn. Of the tunnel collapsing on him. Of suffocating. Fading into the darkness. Then the man showing up in the fire.
“Dig!” Ram shouted.
The command yanked Tox out of the past. He grabbed loose debris. At his side within seconds, Chiji and Cell worked like crazy to clear the opening. “Wait.” Tox looked around. “Where’s MacIver?”
“Boot,” Ram snapped, nodding to a man’s black tactical boot sticking out of the rubble.
“Wraith! Report!” came Rodriguez’s urgent demand.
“There’s been an explosion,” Tox panted out as he hurled a piece of lumber to the side. “An archaeologist and one team member trapped inside.” He knew to keep names off the comms.
“What about the isolation chamber?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Foot!” Ram resumed digging.
So did Tox. Urgency sped through his veins, knowing her time was limited. If she didn’t have air . . . if she had internal injuries . . . “We need medevac!”
“Already en route,” Major General Rodriguez said, his voice preternaturally calm. “Wraith Actual, we need to know the condition of the containment unit.”
Ram pushed to his feet, inching back. He motioned to a large rock, and Tox bent in and hoisted it free. He cringed, calculating the thing had to have been right over Tzivia’s back. She could have spinal damage.
“Wraith—report.”
“Digging the archaeologist—”
“The containment area. Now!” Rodriguez shouted. “Is it intact?”
Tox hesitated. Tzivia’s leg moved. His heart leapt in his chest. Ram saw it, too. Then dug harder, faster. Chiji and Cell were in on the action, trying to extricate MacIver, but he looked lower. Under Tzivia.
“Tzivia,” Ram shouted, “hang on!”
She couldn’t die. Not here. She’d miraculously survived Kafr al-Ayn. Tox hoisted rocks again, refusing to let her die now.
Rock seemed to rumble. Her legs shifted. The dirt fell away as her arm broke through.
“Don’t let her move,” Ram ordered. “Tzivia—don’t move. Stay still.” One wrong shift and she could permanently paralyze herself. Ram brushed her face clear. She blinked. Then coughed. “Does anything hurt?”
She groaned then coughed again. “Everything.” Blood trickled down her temple and left nostril. Despite her brother’s order, she came upright.
“Easy, easy!”
“Hey.”
The gruff voice at Tox’s shoulder made him look back, still moving rock to reach MacIver.
Thor stood over him, motioning him to the side. “Command needs you.”
“We have a man down. They can wait!” Tox went back to work. A large section lay over MacI’s torso and head. “Heave!” he groaned, working in tandem with the Chiji and Cell to hoist the massive chunk.
Finally, the rock slid away. “Get him out!”
MacI was dragged clear of the rubble. Someone uttered an oath.
Tox glanced down and winced. MacIver’s head lay at an odd angle. His eyes open but lifeless. Mouth trickling blood. The cave-in had broken his neck. Crushed him.
“Augh!” Tox growled, turning away. Rubbing his face. He took a few steadying but angry breaths. Keyed his mic. “Man down.”
“Wraith Actual, visual confirmation on the integrity of that isolation chamber is imperative.”
Disbelief choked him. “Repeat man down—MacIver’s . . . gone.”
“Understood but get to that chamber!”
Disgusted, Tox tapped Cell on the shoulder and headed for the double-walled, double-chambered containment area. But he didn’t need a close inspection. “Command, first wall of left front chamber with zippable door has been ripped from the supports.”
“What about the inner wall? There—there are two inner walls,” another voice asked. That sounded like Almstedt. “One belonging to the decontamination chamber, another to the secondary chamber with the patients. Are they intact?”
“Do we need hazmat suits?” Cell whispered as they inched into the first chamber.
“Wrong question,” Tox said. “Command, what’s going on here?”
“Forge
t the decontamination chamber,” Rodriguez barked into the conversation. “What about the last wall, the one that separates the isolation area from decontamination?”
“I’ll check it out, but how about you tell me what we just walked into?” Treading a fine line between life and death had never been so obvious as Tox stepped over the plastic tarp and poles to examine the double walls on the far side. He carefully traced each seam, corner, and zippered area. “Visual inspection reveals no holes or tears.”
A slap against his arm made him look at Cell, who held a pencil through the wall of the first chamber. Then through the second.
Tox bit back a curse. “Decontamination chamber may have been compromised. Small hole, size of a bean.” He angled so his body cam recorded the hole.
“Son of a blister,” Cell muttered. “The bodies . . .”
Tox’s gaze hit the row of cots. Large growths on the neck. Blood seeped from blackened appendages. But— “They’ve been shot.” Disbelief rattled him as he looked from one body to another. All the same. All with a single entry wound to the head. “They killed the victims.”
Tox and Cell shared a look and stepped back, but it was too late. They had already been exposed.
“Until hazmat clears the area.”
“But there isn’t a hazmat team here, sir.”
“Hazmat is en route. ETA forty mikes,” Rodriguez said. “Secure the scene. Nobody leaves.”
“What are we dealing with?” Tox’s heart jammed between his ribs. “What have you sent us into?”
“Worry about that—”
“I’m standing in front of a compromised isolation chamber. What am I exposed to?”
But there wasn’t an answer. The comms had gone silent. Tox tugged out his earpiece and released the oath he’d swallowed several times since landing in country.
“It’s a plague.”
He turned, surprised to see a dusty Tzivia with duct tape in hand, looking annoyed. She wedged past him and patched the holes in the isolation chamber. A temporary fix that did little to reassure anyone.
She turned and met his gaze. “Tox?” Her eyes widened. Lips parted. “You’re . . . alive.”
Tox glanced down, embarrassed for some reason.
“That’s what we all said,” Cell groused.
Three years vanished. Tox remembered the last time he saw her. Their “picnic date.” Hurt in those brown eyes as he said good-bye.
Ram hovered, touching her temple. She swatted his hand away. “I’m fine.” Hair askew and dusty, Tzivia had more fire than all the women he’d met combined.
They didn’t have time for a reunion. Tox stepped closer. “What kind of plague?”
She blinked. Frowned. “Uh . . . unknown.” Her finger flicked toward the man in a white lab coat on the ground. “Dr. Ellison said it was a cross between the septicemic plague and the Black Death.”
A new Black Death?
****
“The patients . . .” Tzivia walked to the chamber, trying to shake loose the shock that gripped her—both over the murder of the infected and the fact that Tox Russell hadn’t died three years ago. “But . . .”
“Someone had to be in that chamber to execute them.” Tox sounded haunted.
Her head bobbed almost of its own volition, then an idea infused her. Tzivia hurried to her work area. She powered up the main computer. “We’ve been recording since patient zero,” she said, hammering on the keys. “If the shooter didn’t suit up . . .” She accessed the video surveillance of the room and pulled up the last hour of footage. “Okay.”
With Ram and Tox hovering, Tzivia fast-forwarded the video. Watched the entire scene play out as a man stepped into view and hesitated, head down, before the decontamination bay. “Please tell me you put on a suit,” she whispered, watching, waiting.
“Can’t see his face,” Ram said.
“Is there another camera?” Tox asked.
“No, be grateful we have this one.” Her pulse slowed in disbelief as the man moved forward, toward the door. “No, the suit. Pick up the suit!” Her breath whooshed out as he lifted one of the suits hanging on a rack and donned it. He entered the decontamination bay, then the isolation area. “At least he was smart enough to guarantee his own safety, which means he’s not spreading this sickness.”
The gunshot happened silently. But the burst of red that erupted around the victim’s head shoved Tzivia back. She clapped a hand over her mouth, watching as he moved to the next bed. Aimed. Fired. Horror gripped her. The tiny explosions were silent but startling.
A warm hand came to her shoulder. She looked up, surprised to find Tox there. His eyes asked if she was okay. Sighing, she glanced back to the feed.
“He’s like a freakin’ robot. No feelings,” Cell said.
“Is that Tanin?” Maangi asked.
Removing his hand from her shoulder, Tox bent closer. “Could be.”
Tzivia couldn’t fight the tears. It was a mercy, if she were honest. “By shooting them, he stopped their pain.” But it was still murder. “I heard those shots—trapped in the tunnel, when they forced me to retrieve the censer.” She brushed her dirt-clumped hair from her face. Her eyes burned. Exhaustion and defeat tugged at her, pulling her to the ground. She leaned against the crates.
On the video, the man turned and headed out of the chamber. This time, the camera caught his face.
“Bingo!” Tox tapped the screen. “It’s our guy.”
Tzivia didn’t care if they had found their guy. Her friend . . . Grief tore at her as her gaze fell on Noel’s body. She lifted a lab coat from his table and covered his body, his face. She didn’t want to keep seeing those eyes staring at her. And Dr. Ellison—shot. Hiding in the tunnel had saved her life from—
She spun. Thought back to standing in the tunnel. The man lunging out after tossing the grenade. “I chased him back up the tunnel. He—” She stalled. Glanced to her left. Then right. She got up and searched the other side of the crates.
Ram reached for her. “What’s wrong?”
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The guy who tried to blow me up in that tunnel! Did he get away?”
Tox shifted, his hand swinging to a corner and pointing. But he hesitated. “He landed right there. Chiji knocked him out.” He traced a path around the sorting tent.
Ram went to the medical area. “He’s not here. Why were you even in the tunnel?”
“I tried to hide the last artifact we found—a censer. But he forced me to give it to him in the cave.” She nodded to Dr. Ellison’s body and her gaze again fell on Noel, remembering . . . “He—he said something . . .”
“The doctor?”
“No, the man who shot him.” She motioned to her ear. “His head was scarred.”
“Definitely Tanin,” Tox said.
She flicked him a look, the name meaning nothing and her thoughts tangled up in the memory. “He said something about a message—or no, Reynolds or someone sent his thanks.” She looked at the men, thoughts clearing. “Dr. Ellison called someone yesterday. It was the man who killed those people. Had to be—because they showed up today demanding the censer. That’s the only way your Tanin could’ve known what we’d found. Dr. Ellison told him it was here.”
Ram moved in front of her. “You found it?”
Tzivia met her brother’s gaze with a half smile. “We found three. Two were stolen before these guys showed up. Now they’re all gone, except the fourth.”
“Miktereths.” Understanding tumbled into confusion. “But you said a fourth—”
“Aaron’s censer.” She smirked. “I found it a week after the first three were discovered.” She tried to tamp down her excitement, remembering people, friends, were dead. “It’d been buried apart from the others with a leaf of the Aleppo Codex.”
“The Codex?” Ram’s question pitched with excitement. He looked out of the tent, and she knew he was visualizing the mountain in the distance, the scorched summit. Moses. “The
n this . . . ”
Raising her gaze to the ceiling of the tent, she shrugged. “It seems to be.”
“Seems to be what?” Cell asked.
“Though bathed in controversy,” Tzivia began, “it seems we’ve proven this area is where the Israelites of the Bible encamped before entering the Promised Land.” She ran her hand through her hair, digging out the knots with a grimace. “But my brother believes also in the curses, plagues, and power of an almighty God. He clings to fanciful tales.”
“It’s no tale. It was in a scroll.”
“What was?”
“The story that the three censers were swallowed up,” Ram explained. “And that when Aaron presented an offering, the plagues were checked. But if those censers were found . . .”
“It’s absurd, Ram!”
“And yet, we stand here where four miktereths were unearthed and now a plague has struck.”
“Cell, Thor, Maangi, secure the site,” Tox ordered, in command as always. A tall black man remained behind Tox like a shadow as the others filed out. Tox liked being in charge and didn’t talk much. He’d been that way three years ago when they’d met, and apparently still was. However, there was a change. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Maangi. The cut.” Ram pointed their combat medic toward her.
He wouldn’t let it go, so Tzivia hiked herself up onto a table.
“How did you find it?” Ram asked.
She watched the soldier sling a med kit off his shoulder and onto the table beside her. “First week onsite, the ground caved in and revealed an underground spring.”
The medic dabbed her forehead with a cool liquid, cleaning the wound, and she detected the distinct odor of peroxide.
“From that, we found another level to the walls. We were afraid the rest would give way, so we reinforced the tunnel”—she nodded to the caved-in area—“for safe passage. When we did that, we found it! An entire people group there. Chaotically arrayed,” she whispered. The excitement thrumming through her veins was mirrored in Ram’s hazel eyes.
Her brother said, “‘ . . . and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households.’”