The Demon Plagues

by David VanDyke

  Spooky laughed. “Nothing your government is likely to do to us frightens me, Miss Alkina. I left Vietnam decades ago to cross a thousand miles of ocean in a leaky boat. After I survived that, I decided that nothing would stop me from doing what I believed in. Ever. Give it up. You’re outnumbered and outmatched. Accept that you’re a passenger and observer. If I don’t change my mind, I’ll still allow you the honor of turning that key and changing the world once again.”

  She pressed her lips together, looking at the Chief, and at Major Muzik and Gunnery Sergeant Repeth, who had quietly slipped into the control room as they conversed. She met each set of eyes in turn, looking for any sign they saw that their Colonel was slipping over the edge. She thought she caught a flicker of sympathy from Muzik. She narrowed her eyes at him, willing a connection, a signal; then she turned and stalked out of the room, to wait in her cabin with the door ajar.

  It opened a moment later with a knock and a cough. “Commander? It’s Major Muzik.”

  “Yes, Roger? Come in. Call me Ann, please.”

  “Uh, yeah…I just thought the Colonel was a little hard on you, that’s all. I’m not sure what’s got into him.”

  “I do.” She took a deep breath, reaching around him to push the cabin door shut. Her arm brushed his, wafting her delicate scent to his nostrils.

  His body responded without volition; his pulse climbed, his breathing deepened.

  She stepped back but not far, her face inches from his. She breathed, “He’s a Psycho.”

  Muzik’s jaw dropped, all carnal thoughts submerged. “Impossible,” he hissed. “He’s…he’s a legend, he’s been with us since the beginning, he’s passed all the tests…”

  “Then why are you trying to convince me? Why aren’t you running to him to report my accusation? Is it because you think I might be right?”

  Muzik slid around her to sit down on the bunk. “How can I believe that? Yeah, he’s hard and tough and cold as hell. He’s been a killer but he’s not like that anymore…”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Two years, almost three.”

  “Is that really long enough to know for sure?” She reached across the space between them to put her hand on his neck, tracing his jaw with her finger. “You think I’m cold: he’s colder. Really, my blood runs hot. Does his?”

  Muzik’s mind whirled with confusion, implications and the resurgent demands of his too-long celibate body. Reaching out to wrap his cabled hands around her slim waist he pulled her toward him, burying his face in her neck. He took what she offered in a sweet frenzy of athletic effort. There was nothing of affection in it, merely release of pent-up tension and a repudiation of the constant fear of death they all lived with.

  As soon as they had expended themselves, he grunted with the pain of one sting in his thigh, then another. He fell unconscious before he could see her pulling the trank gun’s needle from his flesh, failing to appreciate her ironic gift.

  After all, I could have tranked him a lot earlier. But then again, a hard man is good to find.

  -17-

  Later on in the hotel, Markis came out of the sauna shaking. He dressed slowly, in a mental funk that kept him from recognizing the strangeness of his own condition. Bettina immediately noticed something wrong.

  “Sir, you seem sick. Are you feeling well?”

  “I do feel a little…” With these words he collapsed in a dead faint.

  “Shit. All net all net, Chippendale is down, I say again, Chippendale is down.” She grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him toward the private elevator. “Bringing him up now.”

  Karl’s voice snapped over the secure link, “What do you mean, down? Report.”

  “I mean he looked sick and just collapsed. We’re in the elevator, coming up. Meet you there.”

  The doors to the Chairman’s floor opened to two of the team with weapons drawn. “Holster those; it’s some kind of sickness.”

  The two did, helping Loosher carry Markis to his room. Karl came pounding up as they laid him on his bed, and the four stared down at him.

  “What do we do now?” asked Robert Calhoun, one of the team members.

  “No idea. We never planned for a medical emergency. Hell, we’re Edens. Combat trauma treatment should be enough. Bettina, get the kit and put an NS IV in him stat.”

  In moments she had nutrient solution dripping into a vein. They all watched Markis helplessly for a few moments, until Karl made a decision.

  “Dammit, we have to call the Swiss. We need their doctors. Maybe they can keep him alive for long enough to fight it off, whatever it is.” He switched his radio frequency and called for Hartmann, the Swiss Foreign Ministry supervisor providing the outer layer of security in the hotel.

  As they waited, Calhoun asked, “What the hell could it be, Chief?”

  “I don’t know, but damn me for not saying something sooner, when he was sniffling. I think the UG slipped him something, either in the handshake or in the air.”

  “But none of us are sick.”

  “Then it had to be the handshake. I suspected something, I got the Prime Minister’s water glass in a plastic bag in my room…oh man, I screwed up big time.” Karl’s voice was bitter.

  “Come on, Chief, none of us was even suspicious. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Don’t tell me what not to do, Calhoun. If he dies, I’ll…”

  “Don’t give up yet, Chief,” said Bettina. “Here’s Hartmann.”

  The short Swiss man with the sharp eyes walked quickly into the room, taking in the scene. “He is a Plague carrier, no? How can he be ill?”

  “We don’t know. We have to take him to a hospital.”

  “I can have him taken to a biocontainment facility, not a hospital. I cannot expose anyone else to this. Half the populace Suisse is of Carriers. Perhaps the virus has finally mutated.”

  “What do you mean, finally?” Karl looked at Hartmann suspiciously.

  “It must happen sometime. Viruses mutate always. Just like the influenza pandemique. Mon Dieu, have you not read the literature?”

  “No, and I feel like a complete fool, but for the moment can you try to save his life?”

  “He does not seem to be in any particular danger.” Hartmann peeled back an eyelid, looking down his nose past his thin moustache. “It looks like the flu to me. His Plague will fight it off.”

  “The Canadians gave it to him!”

  “There is no proof of that. So I will tell you once again – I can take him to a facility, or we can wait and see what is happening here.”

  “Hey…” Karl reached across abruptly, grasping the smaller man by his uniform tunic. “Why are you speaking French words with your English? Switzerland speaks German.

  “Gott in Himmel, Die Schweiz has three official languages and I speak all of them plus English, do you know nothing? Now unhand me, you buffoon.”

  “Yes, let him go, Karl,” came a weak voice from the bed.

  Karl released the handful of uniform and dropped to his knees next to Markis. “Sir, how do you feel?”

  “Weak, but not that bad. Like the man said, the Plague should beat it, whatever it is. I could use some water. I’m burning up.”

  Karl put his hand on Markis’ forehead, feeling the furnace-like heat. “Well, you sure got something duking it out inside you, sir. Loosie, get some ice water. Hartmann, sorry about that, and thanks for your help.”

  Hartmann brushed himself off, sniffed contemptuously and stalked out.

  Three glasses of ice water and another IV bag of NS later, Markis was sitting up in bed. His eyes were puffy and red, bloodshot, his skin blotchy. There was a widening bruise around the IV site and his breathing came shallow. He called for a wastebasket and vomited up lunch.

  “I’m all right, really. Whatever it is, I’m beating it.”

  “Sure. Sir,” began Karl, “I was thinking that all went a little too smooth for the first high-level meeting of two enemy nations. If I may say so
, you are so used to everyone around you being polite, and reasonable, and agreeable that your hackles don’t rise when the enemy suddenly gets polite, and reasonable, and agreeable.”

  Markis nodded. “You think Portmanteaux was playing me somehow. I got that feeling too, Karl.”

  Rogett looked pained. “No, sir, that’s not it at all. That’s what he wants you to think – that it’s all politics and to keep you wondering and focused on whatever he’s trying to pull on you in the negotiations.”

  “So you’re not trying to tell me how to do my job?” Markis said archly. He sneezed. “Crap.”

  “No, sir, I’m trying to do mine. I think the only reason he was there at all was to shake your hand.”

  -18-

  Skull woke to the sound of cowbells before dawn. After checking the video to make sure the Chairman’s plane wasn’t being prepared for departure, he stepped outside the shed to relieve himself, then ate sparingly from his dwindling stores. The coffee was cold but it revived him. As morning broke he examined the ground below his hill.

  The two farmhouses showed activity, the routine of the agrarian – a milk cart with stainless steel cans pulled to a barn, hay loaded from shed to trailer, a tractor refueled from a standing tank. There was no way a kill team was at either of them; everything looked far too peaceful.

  He focused on the construction materials yard, with its trucks and its large tin-roofed shed. There was no activity at all that he could see until a man stepped into view to light a cigarette. He wore a watch cap and a clean, expensive-looking bush jacket; Skull recognized the model. The man took a long look around, and then stared in the direction of the airport less than a quarter mile away. A commercial turboprop took off, and the man followed the airplane with his gaze.

  Not exactly normal clothing for a worker at a construction materials business; an expensive jacket would not stay in such good shape for long. Not exactly normal behavior, either; he would expect a local worker to ignore the aircraft they saw by the dozens every day.

  Gotcha.

  He reset his optics for daytime, then took a reading with another toy he had purchased, a laser rangefinder. He read off 473 meters to the corner of the construction shed. He checked several points with his binoculars – the wind sock at this end of the airport, the tops of trees below him, smoke from the farmhouses – and estimated the wind at six knots from the northeast. Neither range nor wind would challenge the limits of his skills.

  More observation of the construction yard told him there were three men in the team. They stepped out to look over the ground, using binoculars and laser rangefinders of their own. He watched them select their firing position and clear the backblast area of anything burnable. The missile exhaust could ignite flammables on the ground, as it would be launched at a steep angle, sending flame and smoke driving downward.

  Skull made sure all of his optics remained deep in the shade of the interior of his own shed, to eliminate any chance of a reflection. Then he waited and watched.

  He couldn’t simply engage and kill them now. He had no way of knowing whether Markis was going to depart in hours or days. Someone would be checking on the kill team, by radio or perhaps physically. There might be a backup kill team in case this one was discovered. He had to do it right before, or during, the takeoff.

  On the other hand he didn’t see any sign of the Swiss security forces; this indicated that the Chairman wasn’t departing right away. They wouldn’t waste man-hours staking the ground out days in advance.

  Speak of the devil. Several marked paramilitary police cars and trucks drove into view, exiting off of the main road and deploying into the surrounding area. The Swiss spread out, sending a vehicle to each of the three widely separated structures and others taking positions at the intersections of the farm and access roads to control traffic.

  The kill team members scurried inside the shed as soon as they noticed the security forces. Skull wondered how they were going to put off the Swiss team assigned to the construction yard. It was going to be an interesting exercise in timing; the kill team had to hide, then either fool or neutralize the Swiss, buying themselves a minute or two before the other Swiss forces reacted as they exposed themselves in the open next to the metal-roofed shed to place themselves in position for the missile shot.recovery.

  -19-

  Alkina arranged the bunk linens hastily around the drugged soldier, hoping they looked natural. She would have very much liked to believe Muzik was on her side after one fling, but she couldn’t depend on it. She knew loyalties were skittish things when they intersected with emotions.

  Slipping the tranquilizer gun into her pocket, she retrieved her PW5, checking her watch. Repeth always took a shower at this time, like clockwork. She sneered within. These stupid grunts know nothing about tradecraft. Always vary your routine.

  In the head designated for the two females, she approached the steaming shower stall. She slid open the curtain just as Repeth was soaping up her hair with shampoo, her eyes tightly shut against the suds. The trank gun hissed. The Marine made a mewling sound, then slid slowly down the wet wall until she rested naked on the floor. Alkina turned off the water, threw a towel onto the unconscious woman, pulled the curtain and left.

  Slipping ghostlike through the corridors, she listened and watched, taking a roundabout way to the largest space on board, the gym-sized missile room. There she found the three technicians finishing up their labors.

  Tucking the weapon into the small of her back, she approached open-handed. “Almost done?” She put on her best smile, friendly, harmless.

  “All done except putting the access panels back on,” Doc said absentmindedly while the others worked. “The decryption modules cracked the warhead codes just like they said they would. Took quite a while. The targeting coordinates and detonation timing was easy compared to that. There, see? All done.”

  “Excellent.” She pulled out the firearm and shot all three in their abdomens with Needleshock before they could react, then tranked them to keep them under. Taking some spare cabling she hogtied them as well, dragging them one by one into the far corner of the room, behind the missile tubes.

  She thought she saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye. Taking cover, she moved slowly and silently behind the tall metal cylinders until she could slip out the hatch at the other end. It may have been nothing.

  Five down, two to go.

  In the missile room the shadow glided up to the auxiliary control firing station to insert a specially-configured memory module into the panel. One touch of the screen and the program inside executed, rewriting the targeting coordinates and the nuclear detonation parameters through the pathways prepared by the technicians. The figure paused by the bound technicians just long enough to drive a thin carbon fiber blade up under each one’s chin and into his brain. A quick wiggle and twist of the knife made certain they were completely, irrecoverably dead.

  Alkina was far forward in the boat up on the first deck, heading for the control room when a burst of gunfire cut her down. She jerked as the Needleshock rounds caused her muscles to lock, then turned and fired back spasmodically as she fell. Needles spattered down the passageway in both directions; the ones aimed at the Australian struck her again and again until she lay still, hammered into unconsciousness by electric shocks.

  Jill Repeth, still drenched, soapy and wearing nothing but her uniform trousers, stepped out of the cabin where she had waited in ambush, staggering over to stare down at Alkina. Her PW10 wavered over the fallen woman. Damn, it took a lot to put her down. Never shot a Plague carrier with these before. Never thought I’d have to. Not very effective.

  “Nice look, lass. Never thought I’d see such a lovely sight.” Bitzer leered from the door to the control room down the passageway.

  She snarled at him, swaying on her feet with the aftereffects of the drug. “Get a trank for her. She drugged me in the shower.”

  “Oh, aye, now there’s a vision, you two in the shower…all rig
ht, I’m going.”

  “And find the Colonel!”

  “The Colonel is here, Gunny. What happened? She assaulted you?” He stepped up quietly from behind her.

  “She tranked me in the shower. What the hell is going on, sir?”

  Spooky’s lips compressed. “Why don’t you get into uniform. Your nudity is pleasant but distracting. We will find out.” He pulled out a trank of his own and injected Alkina in the neck.

  “Right. Meet you in the control room in two, sir.” She bolted off to get on her uniform and gear. Two minutes later she arrived in full combat rig at the command center.

  -20-

  Markis swallowed painfully. “You think he passed something to me? Some kind of infection that can get past the Plague. We have to quarantine everyone…”

  “I don’t know, sir, I’m just a jumped-up grunt, but I don’t think so. None of us are sick. I think you got a big dose from the handshake, whatever was on the glove, but none of us did. It’s just like an invasion, you got a bunch of troops landed on your beach and you’re fighting to contain it, but all any of us got, if anything, is a few stragglers. The Plague is too strong for it.”

  “Not really the Plague, Karl. The Plague supercharges our bodies’ natural immune and healing systems. It’s just a common misconception that that Plague is running around inside of us like a security force. It's more like the power behind the security force.”

  “Whatever you say, sir, you’re the medical man. But in any case…none of us are sick.”

  “If I get better…we can’t prove anything. And if I die…we still couldn’t prove anything.” He groaned as a shuddering chill went through him.

  “Maybe I can. I got his water glass sealed in a bag. He touched it with his gloves.”

  Markis’ sweating face smiled weakly. “Dumb grunt, huh? That was a move worthy of one of Cassie’s people.”