by Bear Grylls
As he reached out to cut the live link, Kammler paused.
‘Ah! I almost forgot . . . One last thing. William Jaeger – presumably you were expecting to find your wife and child on my island, were you not? Well, you can relax: they are indeed there. They have been enjoying my hospitality for quite some time. And it’s high time you were reunited with them.
‘Like you, of course, they are also infected. Unharmed, but infected all the same. We injected them several weeks ago. This is so you will be able to watch them die. I mean, I didn’t want you to die as one happy family. No, they must go first, so you can witness it at first hand. You’ll find them in a bamboo cage, tethered in the jungle. And feeling more than a little sick already, I believe.’
Kammler shrugged. ‘That’s it. Auf Wiedersehen, my friends. It only leaves me to say a final Wir sind die Zukunft.’
His teeth gleamed in a perfect smile. ‘We – my kind – we really are the future.’
83
A form struck out at Jaeger, driving a sharpened bamboo stake repeatedly towards his face. The figure whirled around, wielding the crude weapon like an ancient gladiator would a spear. It yelled curses. Cruel insults. The kind of words Jaeger had never imagined her capable of, not in his wildest dreams.
‘GET AWAY! KEEP AWAY! I’LL SLICE YOU UP, YOU . . . YOU EVIL BASTARD! TOUCH MY SON AND I’LL RIP YOUR BLACK HEART OUT!’
Jaeger shuddered. He could barely recognise the woman he loved; the one he’d spent the last three years searching for relentlessly.
Her hair was long and matted into thick clumps, like dreadlocks. Her features were haggard and drawn, her clothes hanging in dirty rags around her shoulders.
My God, how long had they kept her like this? Caged like an animal in the jungle.
He sank to his haunches before the crude bamboo structure, repeating the same phrase over and over, trying to reassure her.
‘It’s me. Will. Your husband. I’ve come for you, like I promised I would. I’m here.’
But each utterance was met only with another swing of the stave towards his tortured features.
To the rear of the cage Jaeger spied Luke’s emaciated form lying prone – presumably unconscious – as Ruth did all in her power to defend him from what she perceived to be her enemies.
The image broke his heart.
In spite of everything, he felt he loved her more now than he had ever thought possible, and especially for this spirited, desperate, frantic defence of their son. But had she lost her mind? Had the terrible incarceration and the virus broken her?
Jaeger couldn’t be sure. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and let her know that they were safe now. Or at least until the Gottvirus started to bite and to fry their very minds.
‘It’s me, Ruthy. It’s Will,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve been searching. I found you. I’ve come for you and for Luke. To take you home. You’re safe now . . .’
‘You bastard – you’re lying!’ Ruth shook her head violently, striking out again with the stake. ‘You’re that cruel bastard Jones . . . You’ve come here for my child . . .’ She swung the stake again, threateningly. ‘YOU TRY TAKING LUKE, I’LL . . .’
Jaeger reached out towards her, but as he did so he was reminded of how he must look, encased in the space suit and visor and the thick rubber gloves.
Of course. She’d have no idea who he was.
No way of recognising him at all.
Dressed like this, he could be any one of those who had tortured her. And the mask’s voice projection system meant that he was speaking like some kind of alien cyborg, so she wouldn’t even know his tones.
He reached up and pulled back his hood. Air gushed out of the suit, but Jaeger didn’t give a damn. He was infected. He had nothing left to lose. With feverish fingers he unstrapped the respirator and pulled that up and over his head.
He gazed at her. Beseechingly. ‘Ruth, it’s me. It really is me.’
She stared. Her grip on the bamboo stake seemed to falter. She shook her head disbelievingly, even as recognition flared in her eyes. Then she seemed to collapse in on herself, throwing her body at the cage door with the last of her energy, and letting out a piercing, strangled cry that cut Jaeger to the heart.
She reached for him, desperately, disbelievingly. Jaeger’s hands met hers. Fingers meshed through the bars. Heads came together, skin-close; hungry for a loving touch, for intimacy.
A figure moved beside Jaeger. It was Raff. As discreetly as he could, he undid the bolts that kept the cage fastened from the outside, then stepped back to give them their privacy.
Jaeger leaned inside and brought her out to him. He held her close, hugging her as tightly as he could, while trying not to cause any more pain to her bruised and battered form. As he did so, he could feel how hot she was, the fever of the infection coursing through her veins.
He held her as she shuddered and sobbed. She cried for what seemed like an age. As for Jaeger, he let the tears fall freely too.
As gently as he could, Raff retrieved Luke from the rear of the cage. Jaeger held his son’s emaciated form in one arm, with his other keeping Ruth from collapsing. The three of them sank slowly to their knees, Jaeger clutching tight to both of them.
Luke remained unresponsive and Jaeger laid him down, while Raff broke out their medical kit. As the big Maori bent over the boy’s unconscious form, Jaeger figured he could see tears in his eyes. Together they worked on treating Luke, as Ruth sobbed and talked.
‘There was this man, Jones . . . He was evil. Pure evil. What he said he was going to do to us . . . What he did to us . . . I thought you were him.’ She glanced around fearfully. ‘He’s not still here? Tell me he’s not here.’
‘There’s no one else here but us.’ Jaeger pulled her closer. ‘And no one’s going to hurt you. Trust me. No one’s going to hurt you ever again.’
84
The Wildcat helicopter clawed through the dawn skies, climbing fast.
Jaeger squatted on its cold steel floor at the head of a pair of stretchers, clutching the hands of his wife and son. They were both desperately ill. He wasn’t even certain if Ruth could recognise him still.
He could see a filmy, distant expression in her eyes now – the stage directly before it turned into the glazed stare of the walking dead; the kind of look he’d seen in the eyes of the monkeys, before he’d put them out of their misery.
He felt gripped by a terrible fatigue and dark sense of hopelessness; waves of exhaustion, mixed with a crushing sense of utter failure, washed over him.
Kammler had been one step ahead of them every inch of the way. He’d sucked them into his trap and spat them out again, like dead, dried husks. And to Jaeger he’d just delivered the ultimate in revenge, ensuring that his last days would be horrific beyond imagining.
Jaeger felt paralysed by grief. He was awash with it. Three long years searching for Ruth and Luke, and finally he had found them – but like this.
For the first time in his life, a terrible thought flashed through his mind: suicide. If he were forced to witness Ruth and Luke perish in such an unspeakable and nightmarish way, better to die with them, and at his own hand.
Jaeger resolved that was what he would do. If his wife and son were taken from him for a second time – and this time for ever – he would choose an early death. He’d put a bullet in his brain.
At least then he would rob Kammler of his ultimate victory.
It hadn’t taken him and his team long to make the decision to abandon Plague Island. They could have done nothing there: nothing for Ruth and Luke, or for each other, not to mention the wider human population.
Not that they were kidding themselves. There was no cure. Not for this; not for a five-thousand-year-old virus brought back from the dead. Everyone on that aircraft was as good as finished, along with the vast majority of planet earth’s human population.
Some forty-five minutes earlier the Wildcat had put down on the beach. Before boarding, each team member h
ad gone through the wet decon tent, sluicing down and discarding their suits, before dousing themselves with EnviroChem and scrubbing out the shards of glass.
Not that any of that could alter the fact of their own contamination.
As Kammler had told them, they were all now virus bombs. For the uninfected, their every breath spelled a potential death sentence.
That was why they’d chosen to keep their FM54 masks on. The respirators not only filtered the air they breathed in; with a DIY modification courtesy of Hiro Kamishi, they could also filter the air breathed out, so preventing them spreading the virus.
Kamishi’s bodge was rough and ready, and it came with its own risks, but it was the best they had. They’d each taped a particulate filter – similar to a basic surgical mask – over the respirator’s exhaust port. It created greater resistance, with the unfortunate result that the lungs were less able to exhale and void the virus.
Instead, the Gottvirus would pool in the confines of the respirator, so around eyes, mouth and nose. With that would come a greater risk of increased virus loading – in other words, accelerated infection – which could precipitate a rapid onrush of the symptoms. In short, in striving to not infect others, they risked doubly poisoning themselves.
But that didn’t particularly seem to matter, with all of humanity seemingly doomed.
Jaeger felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. It was Narov’s. He glanced up at her, a look of pained emptiness in his eyes, before flicking his gaze back to Ruth and to Luke.
‘We found them . . . But after everything, it’s all so bloody hopeless.’
Narov crouched beside him, her eyes – her striking, clear, ice-blue eyes – level with his now.
‘Maybe not.’ Her voice was tight with intensity. ‘How has Kammler got his virus out to the world? Think about it. He said that the virus has already been unleashed. “Even now it is making its way into the four corners of the world.” That means he has weaponised it. How did he achieve that?’
‘What does it matter? It’s out there. It’s in people’s blood.’ Jaeger swept his eyes across the forms of his wife and child. ‘It’s in their blood. Breeding. Taking them over. What does it matter how it’s spreading?’
Narov shook her head, her grip tightening on his shoulder. ‘Think about it. Plague Island was deserted, and not just of people. Every single monkey cage was empty. He’d emptied the place of primates. That’s how he sent the virus global – he exported it via those KRP shipments. Trust me. I’m sure of it. And those few animals that already showed signs of sickness – he let them loose in the jungle.
‘The Ratcatcher can trace those monkey export flights,’ Narov continued. ‘The monkeys may still be in quarantine. That won’t stop the virus completely, but if we can nuke the monkey houses, it may at least slow its spread.’
‘But what does it matter?’ Jaeger repeated. ‘Unless those aircraft are still in the air, and we can somehow stop them, the virus is already out there. Sure, it might buy us a little time. A few days. But without a cure, the outcome will still be the same.’
Narov’s expression darkened, her features seeming to collapse in on themselves. She had been grasping at that hope, yet in truth it was a chimera.
‘I hate losing,’ she muttered. She went as if to drag her hair into a ponytail – as if pulling herself together for action – before remembering she was still wearing the respirator. ‘We have to try. We have to. It is what we do, Jaeger.’
They did, but the question was how. Jaeger felt utterly defeated. With Ruth and Luke lying there beside him, being slowly consumed by the virus, he felt as if there was nothing left worth fighting for.
When the kidnappers had first ripped them away from him, he had failed to protect them. He’d clung to the hope of finding and rescuing them; of redemption. Yet now he had done so, he felt doubly impotent; utterly powerless.
‘Kammler – we cannot let him win.’ Narov’s fingers dug deeper into Jaeger’s flesh, where her hand still gripped his shoulder. ‘Where there is life, there is hope. Even a few days might make a difference.’
Jaeger glanced at Narov, blankly.
She gestured at Ruth and Luke, lying on the stretchers. ‘Where there is life there is still hope. You need to lead us. To take action. You, Jaeger. You. For me. For Ruth. For Luke. For every person who loves and laughs and breathes – take action, Jaeger. We go down fighting.’
Jaeger didn’t say a word. The world seemed to stop revolving, time itself standing still. Then, slowly, he squeezed Narov’s hand and raised himself to his feet. On legs that felt like jelly, he stumbled towards the cockpit. He spoke to the pilot, his words sounding cold and alien through the FM54’s voice-projection unit.
‘Raise me Miles on the Airlander.’
The pilot did as asked and handed over the radio handset.
‘It’s Jaeger. We’re inbound.’ His voice was steel. ‘We’re bringing in two stretcher cases – both infected. Kammler’s shipped his primates off the island. It’s via the monkeys that he’s spreading the virus. Get the Rat on to it. Trace the flights, find the monkey houses and nuke them.’
‘Understood,’ Miles replied. ‘I’m on it. Leave it with me.’
Jaeger turned to the Wildcat pilot. ‘We’ve got urgent casualties to deliver to the Airlander – so why not show me how fast this thing can go.’
The pilot pushed his throttles forward. As the Wildcat soared towards the heights, Jaeger felt a stirring in his spirits. Go down fighting.
They would fight this battle, and maybe they would lose, but as his scoutmaster used to say to him when he was a kid, quoting Baden-Powell, the scouting founder: ‘Never say die until you’re dead.’
They had a matter of weeks in which to save his family, and all of humankind.
85
Figures dashed hither and thither across the Airlander’s floodlit hold. Voices echoed, shouted orders reverberating off the smooth lines of the Taranis drones. Above it all, the harsh whine of the Wildcat’s rotors was quieting as the pilot prepared for turbine shutdown.
A medical team had taken over, and even now they were manoeuvring Ruth towards an Isovac 2004CN-PUR8C – a portable patient isolation unit. It consisted of a transparent plastic cylinder, with five hooped ribs inserted inside, the whole thing sitting on a wheeled stretcher.
Its purpose was to isolate patients who were infected with a Level 4 pathogen, while still allowing them to be cared for – and right now, Ruth and Luke were in urgent need of all the treatment they could get.
Tough rubber surgical gloves were built into the sides of the unit, so the medics could insert their hands and deal with the patient without any risk of contamination. It also came complete with an airlock, to allow medicines to be administered. Plus there was an ‘umbilical connection’ that enabled IV drips and oxygen to be fed to the patient.
Luke was already zipped tight into his unit, and hooked up to its umbilical, and Ruth was being lifted out of the Wildcat’s hold in preparation for her own entombment.
For Jaeger, this was the worst moment yet of what had been his darkest day. He felt as if he were losing his wife and child all over again, having only just found them.
He couldn’t get the terrible association out of his head – that for him, the PIUs were Ruth and Luke’s body bags. It was as if they had already been declared dead; or at least, beyond saving.
As he exited the chopper with the team carrying his wife’s semi-conscious form, he felt as if he were being sucked into a dark and swirling void.
He watched as Ruth was slid feet-first into the unit – like a bullet being slotted into a shotgun’s breech. Sooner or later, he would have to let go of her hand. Her unresponsive hand.
He held on until the last moment, his fingers twined around hers. And then, just as he was about to relinquish his grip, he sensed something. Had he imagined it, or was there a spasm of life – of consciousness – in his wife’s outstretched fingers?
Suddenly her eyes flicker
ed open. Jaeger gazed into them, an impossible spark of hope kindling in his heart. The near-zombie look was gone, and for an instant, his wife was back. He could read as much in her wild, sea-green eyes, which were once again flecked with their signature specks of gold.
Jaeger saw her gaze dart hither-and-thither, taking everything in. Understanding everything. Her lips moved. Jaeger moved nearer, so he could hear.
‘Come closer, my darling,’ she whispered.
He bent further, until his head was kissing-distance close to hers.
‘Find Kammler. Find his chosen,’ she murmured. There was a blaze of fire in her eyes. ‘Find those like himself that he inoculated . . .’
With that, the brief moment of lucidity seemed to be gone. Jaeger felt her fingers relax their grip, as her eyes fluttered shut again. He glanced at the medics and nodded, allowing them to slide her the rest of the way into the unit.
He stepped back as they zipped the coffin closed. At least for a moment there – a wonderful, precious moment – she had known him.
Jaeger’s mind was racing. Find Kammler and those he inoculated. Fucking genius, Ruth. He felt his heart start to race. Maybe – just maybe – here was the elusive spark of hope.
With a last look at his loved ones, Jaeger allowed them to be wheeled off towards the Airlander’s sickbay. Then he called together his team, and hurried towards the front of the airship.
They gathered on the flight deck. Jaeger dispensed with the niceties. Now was not the time. ‘Listen up. And listen good. Just for a few seconds there my wife was conscious. Remember, she’s been in Kammler’s lair for a very long time. She’s seen it all.’
He eyed the team, his gaze coming to rest upon the elderly Miles. ‘This is what she said: “Find Kammler. Find those like himself that he inoculated.” She’s got to mean that we could isolate a cure from them. But is that even possible? Is it doable, scientifically speaking?’