by Bradley West
“We can’t drive that truck into Marin,” Sal said to Carla. “Jaime contacted a Marine Corps friend in the Mission District who owns an auto repair garage. He’ll hide it there and we’ll pick him up later tonight. You and I will drive to Melvin’s. He’s a new member of our team and will hide your four friends and you. You all stay there overnight while Melvin and I collect Jaime—”
“I’m coming back to Marin to look after Travis,” Carla interrupted.
“That works too. Melvin has a vehicle he left on Nob Hill. We’ll see if it’s still there on the way to my house. We’ll need your help to figure out how to locate the kidnappers. Once we free Steph and Tyson, we’re headed out. The country’s disintegrating by the day.”
“We need to leave,” Jaime said. “Our captives have been off their phones for up to two hours and they’re ringing more and more often. Someone may come at any time. And while we’re at it, you need to lose your phone, Carla. As soon as you’re reported missing, they’ll be tracking you.”
“Oh, crap. How will I contact Travis?”
“I have a spare burner at the house,” Sal said. “You’ll be connected in no-time. But before Jaime destroys it, you’d better message your Livermore colleagues to do the same thing.”
Carla complied and then handed her phone to Jaime, a thousand bucks of beautiful iPhone crushed under a boot before he picked through the parts and returned her SIM card.
As Sal and Carla drove off, Carla realized they were in Pat’s new car. “Oh my God,” she said. “I forgot that Aunt Pat’s seriously hurt. That’s just horrible.”
“When I left, she was semiconscious and sedated, but well looked-after. We’ll head home to check on Pat and Travis. Tomorrow, we go all-out to find Steph and Tyson.”
* * * * *
Travis’ call to Arkar had been just as hard as he’d expected, and they’d both wept over Maung’s death. That had been hours ago, but the conversation had left him exhausted and without appetite. He looked with skepticism at the array of horse pills on the bedside table: better than nothing, but perhaps not by much. He kept drinking, careful to distinguish between the water jug and the chamber pot.
He sat up in the sofa bed with two almost empty trash bags on the floor next to him. Barb had found a musty tarp in the garage that he’d spread over his lap to protect the bedcovers. He extracted one bloody curio after another for inspection before he deposited it into either the wastebasket or onto the side table for cleaning and further scrutiny. Maung’s TOPS knife was intact and would make an apt memento for his son Schway, twelve years old and his father’s spitting image. His head throbbed behind the stitches holding his forehead together. What was worse was his guts: He had an infection, and his belly was too tender to the touch. Another abdominal spasm caused him to drop Maung’s ring finger with the gold wedding band still intact. When he bent his head to search for it, the pain behind his eyes nearly knocked him out. He had to lean back and squeeze his eyelids shut. The recharged phone on the table buzzed and he groped for it without looking. “Hello?”
“Travis, it’s Carla. I’m with Sal on our way to you. My phone’s been destroyed because Livermore will be after us. You need to do the same thing, but Sal has spares for us. Everyone’s fine and we collected the equipment and chems too. How are you?”
“That’s great news.” The pain in his abdomen surged. He gritted his teeth to avoid crying out, but a low grunt escaped him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have an infected hole in my guts. I’ll need different antibiotics.”
“Oh, shit. Tell me what you need, and Sal and I will pick it up on the way back.”
“Cipro would be good; Augmentin didn’t cut it.” His forehead and palms were clammy, and the pain radiated into his chest. He didn’t have to look to know that the wound was septic. “I’ll ask Barb for a painkiller and rest up. Goodbye.” The phone fell out of his hand. With the last of his strength, he clanged a salad spoon off the crystal jug.
Barb found the unconscious man burning with fever, a dismantled Blackberry on his chest. She also found a dismembered finger on the floor and vomited into her hands. Still, she’d be damned if she’d summon the ICU nurse against the wishes of her overlord Sal Maggio and doubly damned if she took antibiotics from Greg and fed them to this mercenary who had usurped Jaime’s authority.
* * * * *
Katerina closed her eyes and soothed herself with thoughts of chopping up that goddamn crying baby. She was exhausted, and she decided to hold off on finishing the equipment array until tomorrow. She nodded to Shuckies, who was sitting outside the Maggio woman’s room, and navigated the hallways by penlight. She found Rolf and Fraser in the teacher’s lounge. The two were in a heated discussion and she second-guessed the decision to swallow only a half of an Oxy 80 on the walk back.
“We need redundancy in every system,” Muller said. “That’s why you have to write down the website URLs, passwords and chatroom logins and forward the email correspondence to me.”
Burns looked up Katerina as she entered. “What about her? She hasn’t explained how she’s organizing the science lab to extract plasma and antibodies, has she?”
“It’s not the same, Fraser,” Katerina said. “If what I did was easy, getting my doctorate wouldn’t have taken three years. What’s the harm in writing a few things down? After all, two days ago you were almost dead, and for that matter you don’t look too well even now.”
Burns knew they were conspiring against him, probing for weaknesses. He had to convince them that he had plenty of energy, but in truth he was exhausted. “You’re both focused on the wrong thing. I have one firm sale and two probables, each for fifty thousand dollars’ worth of Bitcoins. I just doubled the price on the website. When can we ship the first dose?”
“Where’s it headed?” Muller asked.
“Manhattan, a private residence. The news reported that all flights within the continental U.S. are under military control. Do you have any military aviation contacts?”
“You have three days to firm up the logistics,” Muller said. “If we can’t figure out how to ship to fucking New York City, we’re out of business before we’ve begun.”
* * * * *
Smiley Shuckies picked up the baby and tried to calm him down, but he just squirmed and cried harder. He walked back and unlocked the door. Stephanie was seated at the desk reading The Grapes of Wrath. She broke into a broad smile as she accepted her precious child.
“Thank you so much.” She turned away and began to breastfeed. Shuckies looked on awkwardly, realizing that her skinny frame wasn’t producing enough milk. He needed to pour more calories into this woman.
“Can you bring diapers and wipes over? He needs changing.”
“If Muller comes by, I’m in deep shit. I’ll bring one diaper over and you can change him. In fifteen minutes, he goes back and I’m off duty. I’ll keep Horne away from you tonight. Don’t make me regret this.” He headed for the door.
Once more she quelled her urge to flee. Her knuckles were purple, her right knee was tender from Horne’s broken teeth, and the school’s exits were wired with explosives. Besides, thanks to the library staff, she knew where she was: McClatchy High School, Oakland, CA was stamped in blue ink on the flyleaf of Steinbeck’s Nobel effort. What she needed was access to a phone or the internet, and Smiley was her only option.
* * * * *
Melvin’s home was less than ten miles away on the 101, but the freeway held the highest likelihood of cops. A bloodstained pickup truck, a shot-up black man and four lab workers perched on discarded Day-Glo decontamination suits didn’t present a good look no matter what a detective in San Rafael had written down. Melvin directed Robert down a succession of residential streets until they ran out of options outside San Elroy. There Melvin opted for San Mateo Boulevard and up South Linden Avenue.
Melvin had reminded Robert twice to treat red lights like a yellow flag at the Indy 500: Proceed with caution but do n
ot stop. Nevertheless, the Nebraskan reverted to habit as the light changed while Melvin concentrated on flexing his right hand and forearm to restore the range of motion.
Robert’s “Oh, shit!” boosted Melvin out of his reverie. In front of the stopped pickup and illuminated by the headlights stood a large black man with a shotgun aimed at the windshield. A rap on the driver’s window was mirrored by one on the passenger’s side next to Melvin: Two more gunmen demanded their attention.
“Out of the fucking truck!” the man with the shotgun bellowed.
“Do you want your machine gun?” Tien asked from the backseat. “It’s on the floor.”
Melvin was tired of always playing the hard man, but even more fed up with being threatened by bullies. All the four people in his care wanted was food and shelter, yet these thugs would take the vehicle, and maybe much more as well. He spoke in a low voice. “After I shoot, hit the high beams, run over that asshole and don’t stop for nothing.”
Without waiting for a reply, Melvin unlocked the door. As the lock disengaged with a thunk, the eager brigand grabbed the door handle with his left hand while he covered Melvin with his right. Melvin kicked the inside of the door into the man’s gun and shot him in the chest. The recoil reverberated up Melvin’s arm and concentrated on his broken shoulder. Shouts of terror came from the Livermore lab rats.
Robert flipped on the high beams, floored it and struck the lead man just as he fired the twenty-gauge shotgun. A few pellets cracked the windshield, but nothing penetrated as the bulk of the birdshot ricocheted or missed high. From the cries coming from beneath the pickup and its sluggish movement, the shotgun-wielder’s body was jammed into one of the wheel wells. The F150 dragged him through the street too slowly to outpace the driver’s side shooter. “Turn right and floor it,” Melvin said as a pistol shot broke the rear window and more rounds thudded into the truck. The pickup leaped ahead once it shook itself free of the mangled body. They were two hundred yards away before Robert heeded Melvin’s commands to stop.
Melvin looked back and didn’t see any lights, cops or carjackers. “How is everyone?” he asked, relieved that his flock had escaped a near miss. He didn’t know what hurt more, his holed ear or his shoulder, but he felt good anyway.
“I’m fine,” Robert said in a voice that was half an octave higher than usual.
“Oh no!” Tien exclaimed. “Flora!”
Robert switched on the overhead dome light and spun around to look. Tina buried her face in her hands as sobs shook her shoulders.
“She’s dead,” Tien said. “A bullet hit her in the head.”
“Are you sure?” Melvin asked. “Check for a pulse.”
“There’s blood everywhere and a big wound in the back of her head,” Tina said. “She’s dead.”
“Get going,” Melvin said. “We’re almost there. Turn off the high beams.” Robert moved off and Melvin killed the interior light as Tien and Tina wept in the dark.
With great mental focus, Melvin concentrated until the pain in his shoulder diminished to a manageable level. Interspersed with street directions issued to Robert, Melvin recited Ezekiel 25:17 in his head: And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
They reached Melvin’s street without further drama. Robert and Tien helped Melvin out of the cab and into his tiny two-bedroom home, then retrieved the weapons, decontamination suits and Flora’s bag from the truck. They were all shattered by the death of pretty Flora Liu. Crushing her phone alongside their own signified the irreversibility of the past half hour’s events.
Melvin addressed his flock. “With the virus and all, we can’t give your friend a Christian burial. We will offer our prayers and then drive the pickup a few streets over before we set it on fire. Cremation is better than to leave her for the animals. You seen what happens to bodies left outside.”
“Can’t we bury her in the backyard?” Tien asked.
“I don’t have a shovel, and the neighbors would hear. It’s not possible.” His tone was harsh, but his anger was directed at himself and not his congregation.
“It’s not ideal, but we don’t have any options,” said Tina, the most senior of the three. “Do what Melvin says. While you’re away, I’ll look at his shoulder and leg wounds.”
Melvin said. “I have burners for everyone in my footlocker, but they’ll need to be charged up. We’ll email everyone the new numbers.”
* * * * *
By accident rather than design, Sal and Carla had ended up driving on South Linden as well. He saw a few people gathered around each of the two bodies in the street. Probably more Covid-20 casualties. Surprisingly, some bystanders weren’t wearing facemasks. Unconsciously, he had slowed down to rubberneck when Carla warned him that they had guns. He sped off and ran several lights. Closer to Melvin’s, they saw a plume of thick smoke and heard an explosion as a gas tank erupted. They pulled down a street full of tiny post–Korean War houses on small fenced-in lots. Uncollected trash was piled high and rats darted among the shadows. Melvin’s house had a fresh coat of paint and was in better repair than his neighbors’.
Ten minutes later, they’d heard the story of Flora’s death. Carla’s reaction wasn’t tears, but anger. Innocent people like Tyler, Stephanie and Flora suffered and even died while the Crandalls, Overmeyers and Hollands of the world lied and prospered. The strong preyed upon the weak even more cruelly in a crisis. She vowed that she wouldn’t be one of the sheep.
Melvin turned out to be a prepper, though he bristled at Sal’s use of that word, associating it with white supremacists. His pantry was filled with a collection of bottled water, candles, canned tuna, white rice, peanut butter and special crackers with shelf lives measured in decades. Robert logged onto the internet through Melvin’s old desktop and offered to contact everyone’s families to let them know what had happened.
Sal looked at Dr. Francisco’s bloody gloves and discarded bandages, leftovers from cleaning Melvin’s wound and setting his broken shoulder. He looked at Carla’s exhausted colleagues, faces rent with anguish, and made a command decision. “After we free my family from the abductors, we’re leaving for Canada. I own a large property in northern British Columbia, and there’s room for you and your families if you want to come with us. If you have vehicles, we have spare weapons, and we’ll travel together for safety. I’ll provide food for the first winter and then we farm, raise animals and live off the land. The alternative is to stay here and take your chances.”
“Jaime will drive the truck north to BC with the equipment we loaded this afternoon,” Carla said. “If you join us, I’ll be able to produce enough vaccine for maybe thirty people. Uncle Sal, how many in our group?”
“I uninvited everyone but immediate family, so maybe a dozen. If we stick together, we can survive the plague and the chaos. I don’t need an answer right away but think about it.” Sal turned to Melvin and added, “We could use a man like you too.”
Melvin was touched. Last night he’d broken this man’s wife’s head, and today he was inviting him to move to Canada? This was one fucked-up world, that was for sure. He nodded in gratitude, a lump in his throat.
Once they were done eating, Sal and Melvin climbed into the Audi's front, both men armed with handguns. Carla and Tina sat in the back, two M-4s propped between them. The first stop was Nob Hill, ten miles as the crow flew, but twenty miles via side streets. There were a couple of corners with loiterers about, but Sal didn’t let the needle drop below fifty mph except on turns, and no one made a move to stop them. The street barriers and restricted traffic flows of the last night were unchanged in rich man’s San Francisco. Melvin’s stolen blue Tahoe was where he’d left it because he’d unwittingly parked a half-block from the district police station. At this point, the sight of a police station didn’t faze them even under lockdown conditions. Everyone was drained and didn’t give a damn about law enforcement, such as it still e
xisted.
Melvin swore he could drive fine, and with minimal assistance climbed into the stolen Tahoe and followed Sal into the Mission District. Jaime was holed up in his former USMC colleague’s repair facility. The Juarez Marine stepped out when they rolled up into the alley, and within seconds they were on their various ways, Melvin to his home with Jaime’s delivery truck’s keys in his pocket while Sal’s coterie headed northwest to Marin.
“Your friend needs special antibiotics at a minimum,” Tina said to Carla, “and probably another round of surgery. Can we stop by an ER and I’ll fill the scripts?”
Sal and Jaime both snorted at the absurdity of that suggestion. “I guess they’ve had you locked up for quite a while,” Sal said.
“The hospitals are overrun by Covid-20 patients,” Carla explained. “They aren’t disbursing any drugs either. There might not even be any staff on duty. Everyone’s either dead or fled.”
“Let’s head back to Marin,” Jaime said. “I know where we can buy meds tonight.”
In the distance, Sal heard fireworks and saw red flashes on the horizon. What the fuck? Only then did he realize that Bastille Day was Tuesday, and the Bay Area French expats must have sponsored a midnight firework display for an early celebration.
chapter thirty-one
BLOODY GATE
Tuesday, July 14: Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Kentfield and Oakland, California, after midnight and into morning
Sal was of two minds about the Golden Gate Bridge. Yesterday they had aborted when Travis saw a gauntlet of police vehicles. That argued for the long way around San Pablo Bay and an approach from the less-patrolled north. On the other hand, Travis’ wounds required urgent medical attention and thanks to Cruz’s letter, Sal had breezed through the checkpoint this afternoon. Sal still had one of the detective’s phony notes, but he also had a large Hispanic man with a dirty head bandage and two fugitive scientists holding automatic rifles in the backseat. A look at the fuel gauge settled it: less than a quarter tank. If it looked bad, he’d bail out, but then they’d have to find gas and that would be a tall order.