Five Roads To Texas | Book 11 | Reciprocity [Sidney's Way 3]

by Parker, Brian

  “Was. I was a scientist, man. Look around you…” He paused, then laughed. “Okay, okay. Not around you here in my apartment where my fine ass lady keeps everything spotlessly cleaned. I mean the city. Look outside. This place is barely staying afloat. Fuck, man. We had to make peace with the gangbangers so we could stop killing each other. Do you know how much that hurt Phil’s pride to have to do that?”

  “Lots,” the brute interjected.

  “Thank you, Phil,” Jefferson continued. “Look, Colonel Whatever—”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Sure,” the leader said, not missing a beat. “This place isn’t going to help the military find a vaccine. We are barely surviving. Those first three or four months after the city was abandoned by the government were horrible. Horrible. You have no idea of the things that happened here. But we came through and we’re scraping by with maybe two or three percent of Manhattan’s pre-virus population. There’s commerce now. People have learned to grow vegetables in the parks and we protect the gardens twenty-four-seven—and not from the squirrels either. There’s none of those little fuckers left.”

  Jefferson adjusted himself in his seat. “We’re trying, man. We’re really trying to survive here. There’s evidence that the infected are dying off, so all we have to do is outlive them and then we can try starting over. Until then, we don’t have time for scientific bullshit games, playing ‘what-if’ about a bunch of people with natural immunity to the virus.”

  “It’s not a what-if game, Jefferson,” Grady said, his voice hoarse and gravelly from disuse during the man’s diatribe.

  “Really, Secret Agent Man? One.” He held up a long, bony brown finger. “There’s no scientists left. Two.” A second finger joined the first. “We don’t know anyone who’s immune and I sure as hell ain’t risking any of my peoples’ lives to find out if they are.”

  Grady released the pistol grip on his weapon, allowing it to fall on the cross-body sling he’d made from paracord. Then he pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal the crisscrossed network of scars on his arm. “I’m immune,” he stated. “In fact, I was experimented on and I’ve been bitten, hell, I don’t know, a hundred times? I don’t really remember how many. Even though I’m immune, it still gives you a nasty infection that messes with your head.”

  “Experimented on?” Jefferson stood back up and walked cautiously toward Grady, who kept his sleeve up.

  “Yeah. You guessed it when you were researching the virus. It is manmade. I was captured when my team tried to stop the virus from getting out of an Iranian facility in Brazil—” Grady’s voice faltered. The memory of the loss of his team hit him like a punch in the gut. He still didn’t remember much about his time in captivity, but the moments leading up to it… “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.

  “What?” Jefferson asked.

  “Ah, I…” Grady remembered seeing Taavi at the airstrip in Brazil. He’d been the one who captured him with a net, caged him like some fucking animal to be poked and prodded endlessly. “Ah, I just had a memory that hit me about all of this shit,” he admitted.

  “So, it turns out that I’m immune. They tried everything they could to infect me, but nothing worked. Then, they…changed what they were doing and started doing different experiments.”

  “What kind of experiments, man?” Jefferson asked, clearly interested in Grady’s story.

  Jake cleared his throat when Grady didn’t say anything. “Ahem. So, they did something to Grady. We think they were trying to create a vaccine for their military or…or something.”

  “Something?” Jefferson asked skeptically. “You’re really only going to give me that they did ‘something’ to him?”

  “Did you know that there are Iranian troops in America right now?” Jake asked, changing tactics. “And we’ve heard intel on the radio that there are North Koreans on the West Coast too. Can you believe that shit?”

  Jefferson stepped back and rolled his wrist. “And whatever they did to this guy and the fact that there are bad guys on the West Coast is connected, how?”

  “They turned me into some type of pariah to the infected,” Grady said, coming back to himself. “If I walk into a crowd of them now, they scatter—well, at least they get out of my way and don’t attack me. It’s—”

  “Bullshit,” Jefferson spat.

  “It’s true,” Murphy replied. “I didn’t believe it either until I saw it with my own eyes. I’ve seen it happen a few times on our trip here from Texas. Grady escaped from the Iranians about a month ago, which means they experimented on him for over a year. We think they were trying to come up with some way to keep their troops safe from the infected while they were here in the States doing…whatever their ultimate endgame is. We still don’t know why they’re here.”

  “That’s a completely batshit crazy story, man,” Jefferson stated, turning slightly toward where the two guards stood waiting. “Can you guys give me a minute?”

  “Boss, I don’t—”

  “Can it, Phil,” Jefferson chastised. He tapped the pistol in its holster on his hip. “I’m good.”

  Despite the grumbling, the two men bustled out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. When they were gone, Jefferson pointed at the dining room table. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, where are my manners. Please have a seat.”

  “Uh—”

  “No, no. You can’t sit on the couch, Beth would strangle me. You guys are filthy.”

  He waited until the three men had sat in the wooden chairs around the table. “So, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  “What do you mean?” Jake asked.

  Jefferson glanced quickly at the front door before continuing. “I didn’t kill those scientists at CU, man. I went to work late one day and found a bunch of my colleagues dead in the lab. Tweakers had killed them while they were looking for their score. It was a fucking research lab. There weren’t any drugs in there, man.”

  He shook his head forlornly. “After that, I stopped going in. Stopped the research on the virus and joined the other five million New Yorkers trapped here away from the mainland, just trying to stay alive. When the Burroughs started to sort themselves into different groups, I stayed in Manhattan with my girlfriend, Beth. We needed strong leadership, and I stepped into the role. I made up the story about being a ruthless asshole who killed his coworkers because they called me names and suggested they should infect me. Since taking on the role of mayor, I’ve had to do a lot of terrible things for the greater good of my people, but I don’t regret any of them.”

  Jefferson looked up from the table at the men across from him. “The lab is still there. If you’re truly immune or repellant to the creatures, then I want to get a look at your blood and tissue samples.”

  Grady smiled and leaned back. “I knew coming here would pay off.”

  Jackson Jefferson shook his head. “I said I’d look at your samples and try to see what they did. Anything further than that and you’re on your own. I can’t guarantee any type of breakthrough or—”

  “We’ll take it, Jefferson,” Grady interrupted. “We know it’s a long shot. First thing we’ve got to do is to kick the goddamned Iranians and Norks out of America, then we need to figure out how to stop the infection from spreading. This country is doomed if we can’t figure out a way to allow people outside of the refugee camps to start farming, like you’ve done here.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse,” Jake grunted. “We tried to keep them safe and to have enough food, but four million people crammed into a small area was impossible.”

  Jefferson shook his head slowly. “You don’t have to tell me that, man.” He pointed out the window and said, “It’s too late to go up to the labs today. Our treaty with the gangbangers only covers the daytime. We get the day and the promise that they don’t mess with our gardens, they get the night to scavenge for food in the empty apartment complexes and neighborhoods, do whatever they want to anyone they find outside after da
rk.”

  “That’s—”

  “Ridiculous, I know,” Jefferson agreed with Murphy’s unspoken statement. “But it’s all we’ve got.” He smiled and rubbed his stomach as he leaned back. “For now, I can have Beth warm up the stew we had for lunch and you guys can tell me the whole story of what’s going on over on the mainland.”

  Grady’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He hadn’t eaten since they broke camp this morning, before stumbling upon the marketplace. He glanced around the apartment. It was spacious by New York standards, but he was already longing for the wide open expanse of the countryside.

  Oh, and there was that whole murderous fucking asshole Taavi issue that he needed to take care of.

  16

  * * *

  LIBERAL, KANSAS

  MARCH 7TH

  Sidney looked through the scope, squinting her other eye as she did so. The movement felt like it split open the nearly-frozen skin on her cheek. The weather was much warmer than it had been over the long winter, but the wind was a killer. She and Mark had been outside for the better part of fifty hours and the cold was taking its toll on her body.

  “What do you see?” Mark asked. He was pressed close against her, facing the opposite direction. Sidney moved her rifle slowly, scanning the area in front of them before answering.

  “Looks like a small camp. Five or six buildings, plus a few vehicles. They’ve got barbed wire ringing the entire thing and there are dead infected all around it.”

  The camp in front of them was small, nothing more than a combat outpost for the Iranian Army. It looked like it was possibly a resupply area for convoys or maybe a secure space for patrols if they got in trouble with the infected and needed a place to run. Given the hordelike nature of the infected, it made sense for them to establish that sort of protection as they pushed farther from the main base of operations at the airfield—or at wherever the bulk of the Iranians were. Her group had been operating on the assumption that they were at the airfield, but in reality, they had no idea. The army could have moved into town for all she knew.

  “That place is gonna smell awesome once summer hits,” Mark mumbled.

  The infected were vile, disgusting creatures. Their unwashed skin was covered in feces and open sores. Even in the dead of winter, Sidney could smell one of them coming if she was downwind from it. She hadn’t been in Kansas over the summer yet, but the girls talked about the brutal heat without air conditioning. She couldn’t even imagine what the infected would smell like then.

  “So, we can either try to go all Rambo and shoot the place up—”

  “There’s only two of us,” Mark reminded her.

  “Or,” Sidney continued her train of thought before the kid interrupted her. “We can be smart and let the infected do the job for us.”

  “Let’s go with option two.”

  “Yeah. I only see one guard, but that doesn’t mean much.”

  “One guard for a big perimeter doesn’t seem right.”

  “You’re correct,” Sidney agreed. “But that’s all I see. He’s up on top of one of the buildings, keeping an eye on the surrounding area. I think—” She adjusted her view once more. “I think that they’re relying on that barbed wire stuff to be their main defense. There are literally dozens of dead infected dangling from it, so they get caught in that and somebody goes out to kill it quietly before it calls in more of them.”

  Mark adjusted himself on the ground, temporarily breaking the contact between them and allowing the cold to rush in. “Makes sense, I guess.”

  Sidney grimaced. All the two of them were doing was guessing about everything. They weren’t soldiers. The scene before them could have been some sort of elaborate ruse to lure them in. She just didn’t know. The only thing she knew was that she needed to keep the Iranians as far away from her family as possible.

  “Okay. I think I’ve got a plan for how we can get the infected inside.”

  “You gonna share it with me?”

  She turned, lifting herself up on one elbow and breaking contact between them once more. “Yeah. I’m just coming up with this as I go.”

  “Sorry,” Mark apologized. “I’m just cold and tired.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.” Sidney sighed. The kid should be in his junior year of high school, not out here in the cold hunting down foreigners. She needed to remember that and cut him some slack. “Here, turn around. I want you to see what I’m talking about.”

  Sidney watched the guard carefully through the rifle’s scope. During her observation, she’d seen six or seven different men in the camp. It was difficult to tell exactly how many because they moved about in ones and twos, carrying boxes or going from building to building. She hoped it was just that many and not more.

  The guard seemed to be committed to stopping the infected from getting into the base, not performing the job of a true lookout. He focused his attention on the ground surrounding the camp’s perimeter, but disregarded adjacent rooftops. Why would he? The infected couldn’t really climb, so most of the time, they weren’t on the second floor of buildings unless they’d been trapped there when they turned. It worked out well for her and Mark, though, as they watched from four rooftops away.

  “Alright. Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Sidney asked him. “I can do it instead of you.”

  “You’re a better shot than I am. But I’m faster than you.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sidney countered. “Remember the other day on the hunt when I beat you to the house?”

  “I was carrying a big ol’ machine gun. I’m way faster than you.”

  “I’m gonna remember that when this is all over. We’ll hold a race to see who’s faster.”

  “You’ve already lost, then.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m in your head,” the boy replied, grinning like the kid he was supposed to be, not the veteran partisan fighter that he’d become. “You’re already trying to prove it to me that you’re better. Admit it. You’re scared to compete against me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, dude. We’ll see. Until then, we need to clear out some of these invaders.”

  The grin disappeared, replaced by the hard mask of determination that he seemed to wear so often. “Right.”

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said.

  He held up the plastic explosive that he’d rolled out into a long, thick rope. It reminded her of the way the employees in those old mall pretzel shops rolled out the dough before twisting it into the iconic pretzel shape. Damn, she missed those things. Cinnamon sugar was the best.

  “Ah, okay,” she mumbled, refocusing her thoughts. “Good. That’ll get wrapped around the wire.” She thought for a moment about the next step that Jake had shown her. “Um, let’s see your blasting cap and wire.”

  Mark set the explosives aside and picked up a coiled roll of black wire. On one end, a two-inch silver blasting cap dangled. On the opposite end, the wire was split and he’d removed about an inch of the protective rubber coating to expose the bare wire inside.

  “You wrapped the wire—”

  “Yes,” he replied early. “I pushed in the bare wires through the end of the blasting cap and used a bunch of electrical tape to keep it secured. Just like you showed me.”

  “Good. Let me see your clacker.”

  He sighed and put his hand into his coat. A quick look of panic broke through his rough visage and he looked around the rooftop. She glanced to his left and saw the firing device next to his leg. She pointed at it and he picked it up.

  “That’s why we’re going through this inventory check.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Okay, put it in your pocket where it won’t fall out.” She waited for him to do so. “Last thing. You have your pistol?”

  He patted the drop-leg holster he wore with the pistol firmly seated inside it. She’d used the drop-leg holster initially, thinking it was kind of cool, but it was a pain in
the ass every time she needed to go to the bathroom, so she’d eventually opted for the traditional paddle holster to carry her backup weapon.

  “Only use it as a last resort,” Sidney directed.

  “Got it.” She noticed his snarky attitude was gone after he’d almost left the clacker on the rooftop.

  “You sure you’re ready? We can hold off.”

  “No. Night time is the best time. We both know that. The infected are more active and it’s more likely that the soldiers are tired and sleepy. We move forward with the plan.”

  She nodded, her movements casting shadows onto the rooftop in the moonlight. “Okay. I’m ready whenever you are.”

  Mark took a sip of water, then carefully set the bottle down. “I’m gonna pee when I go downstairs, then I’ll head directly over.”

  “You’ve gotta be fast,” she cautioned.

  “I will be.”

  “When you get to the corner of that building you’re gonna hide behind, I’ll take out the guard.” He nodded, but didn’t respond. “Good luck, Mark. Stay safe.”

  “If… If anything happens—”

  “Don’t,” she stopped him. “Just don’t.”

  “Tell Katie that she means a lot to me. Okay. Just promise me that.”

  “Nothing is going to happen. Mark, if you’re not up to this…”

  “No, I’m good to go. I just want to get it over with.”

  She smiled and reached out, taking the boy’s hand. She hadn’t known he and Katie were close in a romantic way. They were only a couple of years apart and spent a lot of time together, but they all did. That was one of the joys of cramming nine people into the small homes they occupied. There was almost no privacy for the two of them to be intimate. She wondered if he knew that Katie had been hooking up with the soldiers that stayed at Vern’s place. Was that only two or three weeks ago? Mark was such a sweet kid. She didn’t want to see him hurt.

  “Be safe, buddy. I’ve got your six.”

  He nodded again and gently pulled his hand away. “Okay, I’m going. Get that bastard before he sees me.”