“Crap.” Sara gave up on self-improvement.
Her hamstrings buzzed like a swarm of bees. She had no sense of time. Her growling stomach was no indication of lunchtime. Her vegetarian breakfast had consisted of a hard roll and an even harder piece of cheese. Dysentery was not going to be a problem in the foreseeable future. She could feel the temperature rising outside. Inside, the cabin was shrinking to the circumference of the sun’s asshole. Sara was sweating on top of sweat.
Worst of all, the children inside the bunkhouse needed her.
The antibiotics and ointments had arrived yesterday evening. The pills were in Ziploc bags instead of sealed bottles, but Gwen had assured Sara that they were the real thing.
Sara was not convinced.
This morning, she had expected to find that some if not most of the children had either stabilized or at least started to turn a corner. Her rounds had revealed otherwise. Benjamin was getting sicker. The oldest patient, a twelve-year-old girl, was showing new symptoms. The two four-year-olds were about the same. Only the two ten-year-olds and the one eleven-year-old were stabilized.
Was Gwen behind this?
At the Structure yesterday, the woman had proven that she would not waste her medical supplies if she felt the patient had no chance of recovery. Sara had stood helplessly by while Gwen had murdered a young man with her bare hands. The memory of the woman’s shoulders shaking as she pressed her weight into Tommy’s nose and mouth was etched into Sara’s brain. Her own hands could recall the coldness of his fingers when the life had finally, brutally, been pushed from his body.
But Adriel, Gwen’s youngest, was one of the sicker children. The infection in her left retina had spread to her right. The sound of her double pneumonia had taken on the quality of dried leaves. Sara could not think that Gwen would let her own daughter, no more than a baby, suffocate.
Then again, she had borne seven children with Dash. She knew everything that went on inside the Camp, seemed to be directing the cooking ladies and controlling the children and she certainly had made her disapproval of Sara well known.
Which meant that Sara should probably be more careful around her. Dash was a horrible person, but men tended to be horrible in predictable ways. A furious woman was capable of inflicting immense psychological damage, the kind that stuck around long after the wounds healed.
There was a loud click outside the door.
Not the key turning in the padlock. The greenhouse generator had cycled back on. Sara listened to muffled exhaust huffing out of the engine. The noise had lasted throughout the night. The amount of heat that thing gave off would not be easy to hide from a helicopter. Sara had to think that whatever was going on inside the greenhouse was reaching its conclusion.
She had to get inside that greenhouse.
Her thoughts fell into a familiar track as she considered all of the possible bad things that were taking place inside. This high up in the mountains, there were sure to be marijuana farms. The river provided enough water for hydroponic farming, but the generator would have been running non-stop for the grow lights, fans and humidity controllers. Besides, the greenhouse was on the small side. Given the amount of risk involved, there was not enough reward at that scale.
The more obvious explanation for the cloak and dagger was some kind of bomb-making factory. The Structure Tommy had fallen from was clearly meant to represent a building. What type of building was unknown. Two stories, at least. A balcony with a set of stairs running up the middle and splitting off to the left and right. Sara knew the men were running drills inside the Structure, that they were training for a mission and that they thought they were at war. So maybe Dash was planning a covert operation where they would sneak into this unknown building, plant several bombs, then sneak out and wait for the moment of destruction.
Which could possibly explain the Structure, but not the greenhouse and thermal tent, because you didn’t need a secluded, shielded glass house to process explosives. You hardly needed more than ten square feet. There were probably handfuls of people all over the world right now assembling suicide vests and building IEDs inside garages and apartments.
Michelle was the outlier. She was an infectious disease specialist. Dash had not kidnapped her at random. At the CDC, they studied the worst bugs known to man. And probably some bugs that were known only to a few men.
Or known to Michelle Spivey.
Plenty of nasty biological agents could be synthesized by an amateur chemist, but using them was a different matter. Storage, transportation, delivery—these were all logistical problems that made biological terrorism arduous if not impossible for non-governmental groups to successfully pull off. It was much cheaper to build a bomb or store up a supply of ammunition.
Dash had already proven that he knew how to build and detonate bombs. He had killed people at the hospital. Sara had seen his pleased reaction when the numbers came rolling in on the news.
Pleased, but not ecstatic.
Which meant she had made a giant circle back to the same question as yesterday: What was he planning?
Sara considered the characteristics she had gleaned about Dash. Primary among them was that Dash was a highly organized leader. The Camp had not appeared overnight. There was the feeling of a planned community about the place. The two separated areas. The greenhouse. The Structure. The readily available food. The way the women and men were dressed. The compliant obedience of the followers. The sense that rules were being followed.
Rules made by Dash.
He was clearly capable of strategizing and long-term planning, which was harder for most criminals to pull off than the average non-criminal would believe. Dash had also passed one of the biggest deterrents to male criminal behavior: turning thirty. Sara guessed he was in his mid-forties. He did not come across as well-educated, but he exhibited a type of intelligence that served a very specific purpose. You couldn’t persuade a group of people to give up modern life if you didn’t have a certain amount of emotional intelligence. All of which pointed to a very high level of arrogance. People didn’t believe in you unless you convinced them that you believed in yourself.
Sara tried to slot Gwen into the equation. She was loath to assign Lady Macbeth qualities to another woman, but there was something sinister about Gwen from the very beginning. Her complicity in the measles outbreak. The way she used Bible verses to scare her children. The callous disregard for life. Sara wasn’t even sure that Gwen was qualified to be a nurse. She was clearly willing to do Dash’s dirty work. All she had needed was a nod from her husband and as soon as his back was turned, Gwen was suffocating Tommy to death.
Sara could easily see someone like Gwen coaxing and cajoling Dash, pushing him toward even greater acts of terrorism. Whatever Dash was planning, Sara had no doubt that Gwen had approved every detail. Maybe even added some sadistic details of her own.
But, what?
Sara started pacing the cabin again, this time to work her brain instead of her glutes.
Post-9/11, explosions and bombs had not become ordinary in American life, but neither were they wholly unexpected. The shock value had diminished with each attack. Mass killings, shooting sprees, school shootings—all of these attacks still horrified Americans, but by the following week or month, they would resume their regular lives until news came of the next attack.
Sara could imagine that Dash was aware of the diminishing returns of these sudden acts of violence. Every time she tried to put herself inside his head, she came out thinking that what Dash really wanted to do more than anything else was to make a name for himself.
Which brought her back to Michelle.
Which brought her back to a biological attack.
If you wanted an agent that scared the shit out of people, anthrax, with its 90 percent mortality rate, was highly effective. The 2001 Amerithrax attack had paralyzed the postal service and parts of government. The spores could be aerosolized, but person-to-person transmittal was not going to happen. Also, bec
ause of the earlier attacks, finding a source bacterial strain was nearly impossible.
Botox was another option, but you’d need to raid every single plastic surgeon’s office in America, and then you’d still end up only having enough to kill a handful of people. And you would have to inject them individually, so—
Sara paced in a circle.
She mentally flipped through her basic how nature can murder you knowledge from medical school. Rickettsiaceae, Bunyaviridae, Marburg, Chlamydophila psittaci—all incredibly dangerous and all almost impossible to weaponize. Vaccines, antibiotics and quarantine procedures deprived most of these viruses and bacteria from infecting multitudes.
Dash would want multitudes.
There were so-called select agents such as ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, botulinim toxin, saxitoxin and myriad mycotoxins. But the possession, transfer and use of these organisms was heavily regulated by the Select Agent Program. Not that a regulatory body was necessary. Most of the toxins could be whipped up in the average kitchen. You didn’t need a secret greenhouse to cover your tracks. And you didn’t really need a sophisticated toxin to make a huge impact.
In 1984, a rogue faction of the Rajneeshee had easily synthesized enough Salmonella enterica Typhimurium to sicken over 750 people in the state of Oregon. In Chicago, in 1982, a still-unidentified poisoner had laced Tylenol capsules with potassium cyanide and forever altered the way medications were packaged.
Sara considered the Structure where Tommy had died. At least two stories tall. An open main floor, a balcony ringing the second floor. Stairs up the middle.
Could anthrax be inserted into an air conditioning unit?
If that was possible, someone would’ve tried it by now.
Legionellosis occurred naturally in fresh water.
Exposure was hit-or-miss, not person-to-person and the bacterium only had a 10 percent mortality rate.
“Crap,” Sara repeated.
Right back at the beginning again.
She had to stop pacing before her muscles cramped. She couldn’t do another lunge. She was out of lyrics except the one she couldn’t recall about the waitress working at the bar. Only Will could tell her the name of the song. She would hum it, and he would tell her that she couldn’t hum, and in the end, he would guess the song anyway.
Sara pressed her fingers into her eyes.
She could not let herself fall into another crying jag. She had passed the stage of longing for Will and had returned to worrying about him. Had he seen the heart she had left for him at the motel? Did he know about the code inside the medication list?
Tessa should be in Atlanta by now. Sara wanted her sister to hold Will. No one ever really held him. Sara wanted Tessa to tell him that everything was going to be okay. She wanted—needed—her mother to wrap Will into the family to protect him because with every passing hour, Sara found herself closer to accepting the fact that she was not going to make it home to any of them.
“Sir.” Lance was outside the cabin door. Sara heard him shuffle to his feet. She hadn’t known him to take a break in the last two days.
As usual, whatever Dash told him was too low for Sara to hear. His soft murmurs made her miss Will’s deep, masculine tone even more.
Lance said, “Understood, sir.”
Sara’s ears strained as she listened for the key sliding into the padlock. She was as anxious to go for a walk outside as her dogs were when Sara got home from work.
Finally, the padlock clicked. The door opened. Dash stood on the log that served as a step. His sling was crooked. His hand was too low. “Dr. Earnshaw, I’m about to take lunch with my family. My little girls have specifically requested your presence.”
Sara wanted to kiss each and every one of his daughters.
She pulled up her toga and stepped down into the sunlight. The sweat on her skin turned to steam in the heat. She had given up longing for fresh clothes. Right now, she’d settle on any part of her body being immersed in clean water.
Dash adjusted the sling. The strap had worn a spot on his neck. He said, “I’ve heard our children are not responding to your ministrations.”
“They’re not responding to the medications,” Sara told him. “Are you sure they’re legitimate? The black market isn’t always—”
“I appreciate your concern, Dr. Earnshaw. Our source wouldn’t sell us bogus goods.”
Our source.
Sara wondered if the source was Beau. If Beau was in custody. If Will knew that Sara was doing her damnedest to reach out to him.
“Whoa there,” Dash said.
Lance had stumbled. Sara did a double-take as he righted himself. Her sentry looked like he should be on his back. Pale complexion, heavy eyelids, shortened breaths. She had heard him running down to his makeshift toilet most of the night.
Sara continued her walk toward the clearing. Lance should really see a doctor. Dysentery killed around one hundred thousand people a year.
Dash said, “Gwen tells me that Adriel had a fitful night.”
“I’m worried that the children are developing a secondary issue. Some kind of virus or bacterial infection.” She ducked as Dash reached past her, but he was only pushing away a branch. “I’d like to check on them again.”
“I’ll make sure you have as much time in the bunkhouse as you need.”
“Thank you.” Sara heard her voice crack with gratitude. She cared about the children, but the thought of being freed from her cabin cell was elating. “Benjamin, especially, is not doing well.”
“Gwen would say suffer the children.”
Sara had seen proof that Gwen didn’t care who suffered, so long as it served Dash’s purpose.
He said, “If God does exist, and He knows about the suffering of our precious lambs, then He is no God that I would seek to know.”
Sara’s mother would’ve found it hilarious that Sara was on the other side of this argument. “God has given us the tools to help all of them, but they’re being denied access.”
He laughed. “Your feistiness is one of the reasons I like having you around, Dr. Earnshaw.”
Sara looked at the ground so that he would not see her eyes roll. She’d known he’d eventually get around to calling her feisty.
They had reached the clearing. She could feel the sun baking her bare shoulder. Women were tending pots over open fires because they were always cooking or boiling sheets and clothes and the endless number of cloth napkins. Gwen stood with her hands on her hips, barking orders to frightened-looking minions. Sara felt her stomach clench at the sight of her. If the woman really was a nurse, she would have known exactly what she was doing when she deprived Tommy of a peaceful end to his short life.
Dash said, “Dr. Earnshaw. You remember my lovely little ladies.”
The girls were already seated at one of the long, communal picnic tables. Sara ran through their names—Esther, Charity, Edna, Grace, Hannah and Joy of the Wary Eye.
Their manners were impeccable as they simultaneously offered, “Good afternoon, Dr. Earnshaw.”
Grace, the talkative one, excitedly scooted down the bench so that Sara could sit beside her. She practically trilled when her wish was granted. Sara stroked the girl’s wispy hair. She saw two small indentations in the skin of her forehead. Old chicken pox scars.
Dash said, “Thank you, sisters.”
The women from the fires had approached with the meal. Steak for Dash, bowls of stew for the girls, and a plate of cheese, crackers and fruit for Sara. Her stomach growled, but the thought of eating more cheese made her tongue feel thick in her mouth.
Grace asked, “Dr. Earnshaw, where did you meet your husband?”
“At the hospital where I worked.” Sara felt her lips part in surprise. She had answered the question without thinking, and she had answered it incorrectly. She had met Jeffrey at a high school football game.
She had met Will at the hospital.
“What were you wearing?” Grace asked.
“Uhm
,” Sara felt weepy again. She chewed a cracker to give herself time to recover. “At hospitals, doctors wear scrubs. Green pants and a matching shirt.”
“And a white coat,” Esther said. She’d remembered Sara’s description of the white coat ceremony from the day before.
“Yes,” Sara said. “And a white coat. And a stethoscope. And black rubber shoes because doctors stand around all day and our feet hurt.”
Grace steered the conversation back to her favorite topic. “Did you wear a wedding dress when you went to get married at the core house?”
“Courthouse,” Joy said, using the you stupid idiot tone that Sara had often adopted with own little sister. “It’s where the judge is. He can marry people.”
“Papa Martin’s going to the courthouse,” Edna said. She had a serious look on her face. “The judge is going to make it so that he won’t ever come back.”
Dash cleared his throat. He shook his head at Edna.
Sara made a mental note to drive herself crazy with that new factoid when she was locked up later. Martin Novak was the obvious proxy for Papa Martin. The bank robber was going to be sentenced at the courthouse in a few weeks. Sara knew from Faith’s grumblings that Novak had spent time with an anti-government group on the southern border. If Martin Novak was Gwen’s father, then her marriage to Dash would’ve conferred upon him an enormous amount of legitimacy. It also meant that Gwen would have been steeped in the racist ideology of the IPA for most of her life.
Grace sniffed to let everyone know her feelings were hurt. Her bottom lip rolled out. “I was only asking about her dress.”
Sara smoothed down Grace’s hair. She thought about Will’s favorite black dress. His pleased look every time she went to the effort of grooming and shaving and plucking and wearing heels for him.
The Last Widow: The latest new 2019 crime thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author Page 33