by Dirk Patton
5
Having a rifle slung over my shoulders, even if it had been made in Russia, made me feel a whole lot better. An added bonus was some lightweight body armor. It only took me ten minutes to figure out how to properly adjust it.
Armed and armored, I stepped out of the cramped room and moved to the elevator. A swipe of the keycard opened the doors, the broken knife blade that had been pinched between them falling to the hard floor when they slid apart. One foot over the car’s threshold and I stopped in thought, then backed out.
How long until the power failed? It hadn’t taken long in any city I’d been in and I didn’t like the idea of having to climb up a dark elevator shaft. Instead, I opened the adjacent unmarked door and looked at a long flight of concrete stairs that led up. Letting the door close quietly behind me, I paused and listened for close to a minute.
It was absolutely silent in the stairwell. So quiet I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I gave it another few seconds, then started up with the rifle ready. Just in case.
I was almost certain I was alone, but I hadn’t survived this long by being sloppy. Confidence is a good thing. Overconfidence, or relying on an assumption as opposed to factual knowledge, is a good way to get yourself killed. So, I moved quietly, aiming up and ahead as I climbed.
At the second level landing, I paused and pressed my ear to the heavy steel door. Even though it was the prudent thing to do, it was an exercise in futility. I wouldn’t have been able to hear anything from the other side that wasn’t at a decibel level equivalent to a mariachi band.
Stepping clear, I swiped the card and released the lock, cringing at the loud, metallic click. If there was anyone, or anything, on the other side, I just announced my presence. But there wasn’t a better way to do this, so I quit worrying about it and moved through the door.
A short corridor and gleaming elevator doors in the center. Around them, eight numbered doors. Apartments for low level officers and staff. These all had a traditional keyed lock in addition to a card reader, probably so security could enter easily if needed. Using the card, I entered each, thoroughly checking before moving on.
In every apartment, it was obvious the occupant had left in a hurry. Drawers and closet doors stood open. Articles of clothing had been left behind. Personal possessions, most of which looked like tourist junk acquired in Australia, had been abandoned. Whatever prompted the evacuation had been as sudden as it had seemed.
Before I left the floor, I propped open every door. It wasn’t a matter of if the power failed, it was a matter of when. The building very likely had a generator that would power the key card system, but I didn’t know that for a fact and wasn’t going to bet on it. I also wasn’t going to count on the locks releasing just because of a loss of power the way they had in Los Alamos. This way, even without electricity, I’d still be able to move freely throughout the building.
Wedging open the door into the stairwell, I headed up and repeated the process on each level. All that was different was the higher I went, the larger and fewer apartments there were per floor. And their interiors were more elegant. This trend continued until I reached the highest level the stairs accessed, directly beneath the penthouse where Barinov had lived. There were only two units here, each taking up half the floor.
Finished with my search, I stood in the hall near the elevator. Even though it had only been a couple of days, it seemed like a month ago that Dog, Rachel and I had sat in a briefing where the layout of the building was discussed. And I remembered that Barinov’s penthouse was only accessible by private elevator or stairwell. Leaving the doors blocked open, I headed down to the lobby to find the other set of stairs.
Back on the first floor, I bypassed the elevators and moved to another steel door. It opened to the card, revealing a set of plushly carpeted stairs and subdued wallpaper. I started to snort at the hubris of Barinov to make sure his emergency escape route was comfortable, then shook my head. This completely unnecessary display of power and wealth fit with everything I knew about the man.
There were no doors as I climbed, only blank walls. Finally, I reached a polished mahogany door, paused a beat and swiped the card. Stepping through into Barinov’s private residence, I was awestruck. Not by the obvious luxury, but the over the top, ostentatious display of wealth.
This wasn’t what you’d expect to find in even the finest homes or hotels in America. This was… well, I don’t really know what it was. Nothing was cheap, that was readily apparent. But everything was… tacky? Red carpet. Red and gold wallpaper. Massive crystal chandeliers. Outsized, overstuffed furniture upholstered in, you guessed it… red velvet. Except for the color scheme, this could have been something Elvis would have designed.
After a long moment, I shook my head. This didn’t matter. I didn’t need to allow myself to be distracted by the décor. I needed to make sure I was alone. Pulling myself back to the task at hand, I padded across the deep carpeting and methodically cleared the penthouse.
Satisfied I was alone, I wandered over to the north wall of the apartment, which was all sliding glass doors that opened onto a broad balcony. Fortunately, they were tightly closed, keeping the nerve agent out of the building. They also provided a breathtaking view of Sydney and the Harbour Bridge. The scene was only marred by multiple fires raging in different parts of the city.
A large telescope was positioned in the center of the wall of glass and I bent to peer through, curious to see what Barinov had been watching. Another tall building on my side of the Harbour. The view was blurry and I adjusted the focus, being very careful to not move the telescope off target.
When the image sharpened, I was looking through a window, into an apartment. A nude blonde woman stood with her back to me. She seemed to be looking down at the floor, her hands to her face as her head moved up and down. Was she crying?
I watched her, hoping she’d move or turn around. If she had survived in her apartment, maybe there were a lot of other people who had as well. Maybe the death toll wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.
The woman suddenly bent forward and I lost sight of her. Said a couple of choice words. I wanted to see her. Maybe signal with a flashlight to let her know she wasn’t alone.
It was uncomfortable, bending to look through the telescope that had been adjusted for a much shorter man, but I was curious and kept my eye glued to the scope. Hopeful. I was starting to think about giving up when she suddenly reappeared, only this time turned in profile. Her face and arms were slicked with blood as she raised some internal organ to her mouth and tore into it.
“Fuck me,” I mumbled, taking my eye away from the telescope.
The momentary hope I’d had for the citizens of Sydney was dashed. Feeling the hopelessness I’d experienced in Atlanta when this all started, I blew out a breath of frustration and headed for the stairs. I didn’t have an appetite, but knew I needed to eat. Things were quickly going from bad to worse and there was no guarantee where my next meal might come from.
6
The pantry, freezers and refrigerators in the kitchen were stuffed full. I’m a simple man when it comes to food and to me, steak with a fat baked potato is a culinary treat. Apparently, the Russians didn’t feel the same. I didn’t even know what half the stuff was as I pawed through.
Foie Gras? I didn’t even know how to properly pronounce it, let alone what the hell it was. Caviar, labeled in Cyrillic. I only figured out what it was when I came across a jar that had been labeled for export to the west and there was an English translation. Twisting the lid off, I took a sniff and quickly resealed it with a shudder. There were sauces with names I couldn’t hope to decipher. The list went on and on. I was starting to feel a little like the dumb country cousin who comes to visit family in the big city.
Before I gave up, I opened a refrigerator that had a shelf devoted to steaks. Grabbing a tenderloin that would probably have cost a couple hundred dollars in any steak house in America, I looked around until I found a grill.
As I opened the package of raw meat, I had to force myself to think about anything other than the infected woman I’d just seen through the telescope.
As soon as the steak hit the hot grill and I got my first smell of the cooking meat, all else was forgotten. While it sizzled away, I poked around, hoping to find a potato I could put in the microwave, but came up empty. It didn’t matter. I hadn’t had a steak in nearly a year. I was just fine with eating it by itself.
When it was ready, I headed out to the dining room. I’d just sat down when I looked across the lobby at the bar. Pausing, with knife and fork in hand, I debated the wisdom of having a beer with my meal. Normally, I wouldn’t touch alcohol in a hostile environment. Even the slightest impact on my reaction time to a threat could make the difference between life and death.
I was locked inside a secure building. I’d already verified I was alone. One beer wasn’t going to kill me.
“Fuck it,” I said without any more thought.
Hurrying to the bar so my steak didn’t cool off too much, I dug through until I found a cold bottle of a brand I vaguely recognized. Returning to the dining room, I took a long drink, then my first bite of dinner. It was absolutely the finest cut and most perfectly cooked I’d ever had. Or at least that’s how it seemed.
I was raising the next bite to my mouth when the lights flickered. Pausing, I reflexively looked up at the fixtures for a few seconds as if that would do anything. They stayed steady, so I returned to my meal and put the piece of meat in my mouth. The lights blinked again several times, then I was plunged into darkness.
Sitting there, I calmly chewed and started counting in my head. Before I reached ten, the power popped back on and I could hear a very faint bass rumble. A large generator. Another bite, then I hesitated. If I could hear the damn thing inside the building, how loud would it be outside? How many infected would be drawn to the noise?
I thought about that for a minute as I continued to work on the steak. Was it going to be a problem even if they did flood into the surrounding area in response? I wasn’t going anywhere until the nerve gas went inert and at about the same time, they should start dying off.
I had to keep reminding myself that these weren’t infected. They were simply victims of the chemical agent. That meant their bodies would give out after a couple of days. So, at best, I couldn’t leave the building for at least forty-eight hours.
“Let them come,” I said as I stuffed the last bite into my mouth.
Savoring the taste as long as I could, I drained the beer and sat back, feeling more satisfied than I had in a long time. And not just satisfied, but sleepy. A full belly was telling me it was time to go to bed. With a sigh, I thought about getting up and climbing the stairs, but couldn’t completely put the idea of being surrounded by infected out of my head.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Lumbering to my feet, I decided to try and find the generator controls. If I was going to sleep, there was no need to keep it running. All it would do…
I stopped in my tracks when a bad thought hit me. Would the infected die off? How did I know this was just nerve agent and wasn’t the same chemical/virus combination that had been released in the US? I was starting to get concerned when I remembered a critical piece of information.
Everyone in Australia had been vaccinated. It had been mandatory, so it didn’t matter if the virus had been released along with the gas. Letting out a breath of relief, I moved to the door that let out into the lobby, pausing and looking at the windows before showing myself. Clear. No throng of infected pressed against the glass. At least for the moment.
Heading for the security office to see if there was any way to control the generator, another thought spurred me to move faster. Both Katie and Martinez had shown remarkable healing properties after receiving the vaccine. Each had been shot. Wounds that should have been mortal.
Not only had they survived their injuries, but they’d bounced back in a matter of days. Was the vaccine going to protect these people against the damage the nerve agent would normally cause to their bodies? Pushing into the security office, I headed straight for a phone. I needed to talk to someone who might know the answer to the nightmare scenario I’d just come up with.
The phone had a dial tone, which after a moment’s thought, surprised me. I guess the communications system wasn’t dependent on the power company. Or maybe it had its own generator so it could continue to function in the midst of an outage. Either way, I was happy it was working.
After a moment’s thought, I dialed a number. It seemed to take an interminably long time before I heard a ring, but maybe that’s because I was impatient. Jessica answered, almost immediately.
“Hi, Chief.”
“Sir! Are you okay?”
“I’m good for the moment. Were you watching?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I saw. I didn’t realize it was Rachel until I talked to Lucas Martin.”
“You talked to him?” I asked in surprise.
“He called me shortly after you locked yourself in the building. He said he talked to you and he’s going after Rachel. The Russians went to a Royal Australian Air Force Base in Wagga Wagga to transfer to long range aircraft. The RAAF attacked. I’m still trying to spot her in the footage.”
I took a deep breath, hoping beyond hope that Lucas would somehow find a way to rescue Rachel. But at the moment, there was nothing I could do to help and I needed some information.
“Jessica, the two researchers that were in Seattle. They got moved to Hawaii. You know who I’m talking about?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
I could hear the curiosity in her voice.
“I need to talk to one of them. Joe Revard. Think you can track him down and get him on the phone?”
“And I thought you were going to ask me to do something difficult,” she said with a chuckle. “Hold on, sir.”
There was a click and I was left to listen to silence. For nearly ten minutes. That’s a long damn time when every fifteen seconds you question if the connection dropped. But Jessica finally came back on, wished me luck and transferred me.
“Stupid fucking white man,” Joe said by way of greeting when he picked up.
“Injun Joe,” I said, surprised at how good it was to hear his voice.
“What’s so urgent? I was getting the first sleep I’ve had in… well, I’m not sure how long.”
“Australia got gassed,” I said.
“I heard.”
“I’m in the middle of Sydney.”
There was a long stretch of silence.
“You have a way of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, don’t you? No, don’t answer that. You do. So, what do you need from me? You must be in a safe place if we’re talking on the phone.”
“I am. At least for the moment. But I got a question.”
I talked for a couple of minutes, laying out the scenario I was worried about and explaining why I was worried it was a valid concern.
“That’s not how vaccines work,” he said as soon as I was done.
“Okay, I know I don’t know shit about this, but doesn’t a vaccine train the body to resist a virus by basically causing a weak form of infection?”
“It’s not that simple,” Joe said. “In laymen’s terms, that’s mostly correct. But the vaccine isn’t going to affect the body like you’re thinking. There’s no way those two women could have survived simply because of the vaccine. Think about yourself. You received the vaccine and you’ve been injured. Did you heal any faster than normal?”
“I’m male. Maybe there’s a difference for the same reason the two genders are impacted differently. Besides, you didn’t see them, Joe. Both of them. Wounds healed in a day, not weeks. And Katie, who weighed maybe one-ten soaking wet was able to pull my big ass out of a river and drag me a long way uphill. I’m telling you, there’s gotta be something there.”
“I mean no disrespect, but didn’t your wife eventually turn? How do you know she received the
vaccine? How do you know what you’re describing wasn’t simply the early stages of infection?”
“She was at Tinker. Vaccination was mandatory for everyone. And she told me she got the shot.”
He was quiet for a long stretch.
“What about the other woman? Where is she?”
“Dead,” I answered, feeling renewed pain over the loss of Martinez.
“Okay,” he said slowly, thinking out loud. “I can come up with two theories off the top of my head. Your wife really wasn’t vaccinated and she lied to you, but the problem with that is this other woman who also healed so rapidly.”
“And my wife didn’t lie to me,” I growled, more upset than I should have been at his comment.
“I’ll accept that,” he said in a placating tone. “But the other possibility is much more dire than a wife fibbing to her husband.”
“And what would that be?”
“The vaccine isn’t as effective as we believed. But I have a hard time buying that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Are you aware of anyone, other than your wife, that turned after they received the vaccine? I’m not, and that’s something we’re continually monitoring.”
I took a deep breath before responding.
“So, you’re saying my wife lied to me? Why would she do that?”
“To keep you from worry? There’s no way to know. But we’re mixing apples and oranges. From a scientific standpoint, with the data available, it’s more likely than not that she was never vaccinated. So, let’s set her aside and get back to your question. Could the vaccine have strengthened the human body to the point it could survive the nerve agent. Tell me, how did this other woman die? Did she turn?”
“No,” I said, remembering the moment clearly. “A Russian shot her in the head.”
“And there was no indication that she was turning? Your supposition is based on how rapidly she healed?”