The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “Don’t do anything,” Jeremiah said as he left at a run. “I’ll be right there.” He reached the grove in seconds, loping effortlessly over the terrain, working his way back toward the van between tree trunks, checking for booby traps, though the guy couldn’t have had time to put down anything very sophisticated. More sizzles told him their pursuer was still shooting at the van—obviously trying to destroy the shield. Movies often showed shields exploding when a Las-weapon fired at them continuously. But those were usually low-quality shields. Jeremiah had the best that money could buy.

  “I think he’s behind a tree off to the right,” Lendra said, her voice marginally calmer. “Still can’t see him.”

  Jeremiah reached the edge of the grove and peered through the silky hood that kept him invisible. The shield surrounding the van glowed orange, so it was still safe. Only when it reached a reddish hue would it be on the verge of collapse. Jeremiah studied the trees, searching for their pursuer. Then he spotted a Las-rifle’s red pulse—the highest power setting. It came from behind a tree several meters in front of him.

  “The shield’s glowing,” Lendra said, her voice quavering slightly.

  “It’ll be fine,” Jeremiah whispered. “Stay put.” He worked his way along the treeline to the left, hoping to get a view of the shooter, and finally spotted a swirl of movement; the man was wearing camos. A small rectangular box hung in the air at waist-high level: the man’s scatterer. Jeremiah changed the setting on his Las-rifle to low power, then fired a short blue pulse at the center of the swirl of movement, just above the scatterer. As the man dropped, his Las-rifle clattered to the ground. Jeremiah ran forward, picked up the man’s Las-rifle and tossed it toward his van, then felt along the bulky clothing until he found the camos’ hood and pulled it off.

  “I’ve got him,” Jeremiah said to Lendra as he reached inside the man’s camos, found the activation unit, switched it off and then broke it. He tore the man’s jacket along the left arm as he ripped off the scatterer and caught sight of a Semper Fi tattoo.

  The van door opened, a click audible over the hum of the van’s shield. When Jeremiah glanced toward the van, he saw the orange color of its shield fading as the energy from the man’s Las-rifle dispersed.

  “Who is he?” Lendra asked as she approached, her eyes on Jeremiah’s Las-rifle.

  “He’ll come to in a moment.” Jeremiah said. He pulled his scanner out of a pocket and checked carefully for biosigns. Apart from his, Lendra’s and the man’s, there were no signatures even close to human-sized. Jeremiah deactivated his camos and removed his hood.

  The man groaned, his eyes blinking slowly as he rolled onto his back. He squinted up at Jeremiah.

  “What’s your name,” Jeremiah asked him.

  The man’s eyes widened. He said, “I know you’re a killer. And you aren’t getting Devereaux.”

  A quiet hum sounded in the distance; a slight vibration tickled Jeremiah’s feet. “Get back in the van,” he said to Lendra. He shoved her in that direction as a red laser pulse sizzled by, narrowly missing him, striking a tree and sending up a plume of fire. Jeremiah threw himself at Lendra, pushing her to the ground as another red pulse sailed past. He said, “Stay down.”

  Then he sprinted back into the trees, cursing himself for his carelessness. He shouldn’t have assumed the guy was alone. He’d been too long out of the field.

  Another laser pulse sizzled, striking the tree he was using for shelter. A branch above him burst into flames with a roar. Over the din, he heard a rustling sound, turned to see the big ex-Marine lunging at him with a knife. Jeremiah tried to parry the blow with his Las-rifle but he was a fraction of a second too slow. The knife sliced into his forearm. He dropped his Las-rifle and grabbed the ex-Marine’s wrist tightly, saw the big man’s eyes suddenly narrow, and knew what was coming. As the ex-Marine drove the knife forward, Jeremiah resisted. But even as Jeremiah pushed back, the ex-Marine turned his wrist, applying all his strength to the weak point of Jeremiah’s thumb, pulling the knife back toward himself. It was an unbeatable move, the kind of move that works against even a prepared opponent, against even an enhanced human like Jeremiah, but it assumes the opponent will try to hang on. Jeremiah didn’t. In the instant he felt the pressure on his thumb, he pushed away hard, helping the ex-Marine pull the knife backward. At the same time, he reached over and grabbed the big man’s hair, yanking his whole body forward. The knife, razor sharp and traveling backward with all the force the attacker could muster, sliced through the ex-Marine’s abdomen.

  The man gasped in shock, then toppled, all the fight gone out of him.

  Jeremiah collected his Las-rifle again, rage building inside him at his own stupidity. He reactivated his camos and slid deeper into the trees, sprinting to his right. From a parked vehicle up the road, someone fired in his general direction. Red pulses hit the trees around him, setting more branches aflame. The guy was shooting at him over the hood of his car, activating a personal shield between pulses. Jeremiah kept moving to his right. He switched the power setting on his Las-rifle to high, waiting for the right opportunity. He needed to time his shot perfectly. He’d only have a split second to make the kill, while the enemy dropped his shield to fire at Jeremiah.

  Stepping from behind a tree, his Las-rifle aimed toward the car, Jeremiah serpentined forward, hoping to draw the man’s fire. Again Jeremiah experienced a kind of predatory joy, every muscle quivering with excitement, every sense hyperaware. He felt absolute confidence in his ability to take the man out. And when the man poked his head up above the hood, opening his shield to fire, Jeremiah squeezed the trigger.

  His red pulse hit the man in the head, instantly killing him. Jeremiah sprinted forward. He reached the car in seconds, saw no one inside, then ran back toward the ex-Marine, who lay on the ground, his hands clutched to his stomach, cursing softly as bits of burning ash floated from the flaming branch above him.

  Lendra still crouched on the ground next to the van, safe.

  Jeremiah breathed a sigh of relief as he removed his hood and deactivated his camos. Grabbing the ex-Marine’s knife, Jeremiah flicked it aside. Then he pulled back his sleeve and checked his arm. It bled freely.

  “You okay?” Jeremiah asked Lendra.

  She looked up at him. “I think so,” she said.

  Jeremiah glanced up at the tree. The branch seemed to be burning itself out. Reaching into a pocket, Jeremiah pulled out a large QuikHeal bandage, then knelt in front of the wounded ex-Marine.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The man glared at him for a second, then said, “Raddock Boyd.”

  “Well, Raddock Boyd,” Jeremiah said, “that’s a nasty wound. I was stabbed like that once.” He waved the QuikHeal bandage in front of Boyd’s face. Boyd followed it with his eyes, then looked past it at Jeremiah.

  “You won’t get Devereaux,” Boyd said. “We’ll stop you.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Friends of Devereaux.”

  “Why me? How did you know to follow me?”

  Boyd looked at the bandage again. “That for me?”

  “Answer my questions,” Jeremiah said.

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Boyd said. He removed his hands from his stomach, as if to prove his point. “As long as Devereaux is saved.”

  “You don’t have to die today,” Jeremiah said. “Now tell me, how did you know to follow me?”

  “Orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “We know who you are,” Boyd said. He clutched his stomach again. “We know you work for Elias Leach and that you’ve been sent to kill Devereaux.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Boyd didn’t answer. His face paled. The mole under his left eye lightened in color. Jeremiah decided he could wait no longer. He ripped open Boyd’s shirt, then removed the bandage from its package and placed it firmly over
the deep cut in Boyd’s abdomen. He pressed the strip on the bandage that adjusted the flow of painkillers and antibiotics, set the dispersal to maximum.

  Almost immediately Boyd’s eyes lost focus as the anesthetic worked its way into the wound.

  “Who sent you?” Jeremiah asked again, but Boyd simply smiled, a dreamy expression on his face. Jeremiah would get no information from the ex-Marine now. He spoke quietly, “You got the wrong intel, Raddock, I’m one of the good guys. I don’t want to kill you, but if you get in my way again I will.”

  He left Boyd lying on the ground and made his way over to Lendra. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her elbow. “There might be more of them headed this way.”

  Inside a minute they were back on the road, but Jeremiah couldn’t relax; Boyd knew too much about his mission. It struck Jeremiah that Boyd might know even more than he himself did, a thought that raised the hair on the back of his neck. Had Eli sent him? That seemed doubtful. Was Lendra here to assassinate Devereaux? No, whatever she was, Lendra was no Julianna.

  Chapter Eight

  Lendra had seen footage of Jeremiah during training sessions, yet she found herself amazed at how quickly he could move, how deadly he could be. Raddock Boyd, the tough ex-Marine, had stood no chance against him. Nor had his partner. She remembered Eli’s prediction that Jeremiah would be a little rusty and suddenly wondered if Eli had arranged for Boyd to find them, just to give Jeremiah a last-minute practice session. Eli specialized in that kind of obsessive preparation. He thought of everything. If she hoped to take Eli’s place some day, she would have to learn to do the same.

  When Jeremiah took his eye off the road to check his scanner, Lendra said, “You’re bleeding.”

  “Med kit’s in the back,” Jeremiah said. “QuikHeal bandages inside.”

  Lendra rummaged through the kit until she found a bandage, then said, “Give me your hand.”

  Pulling back his shirtsleeve, she examined his arm. Although the cut was six inches long and nearly half an inch at its deepest, the bleeding had almost stopped. She knew more about his enhancements than he did, but still—this kind of healing was remarkable. She held his hand a few seconds longer than necessary, breathing in the intoxicating, almost animal muskiness of his sweat. Then she tenderly applied the QuikHeal bandage and pressed the low dispersal setting.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You probably don’t even need it.” She released his hand. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  She studied his face. He could have killed Boyd easily, justifiably. Why hadn’t he? She recalled a notation from his file—a psychologist’s concern that his innate morality might inhibit his performance in the field. Yet he had acted swiftly and decisively back there, taking out the shooter without mercy, even though he’d spared Boyd’s life.

  “I don’t kill out of convenience,” Jeremiah said. “Keep an eye out for Highway 52. That’s our exit.”

  “Boyd could still be a threat,” Lendra persisted. “He could contact others.”

  “Boyd is part of a much larger organization,” Jeremiah said. “That equipment he and his partner had, and their intel—they’ve got some high backing. Whoever sent them knows who I am, knew our route and where we were likely to stay. Boyd’s just one tiny piece of it. And he was a Marine. I didn’t need to kill him.”

  He pointed out the window. “Look.” Glancing that way, Lendra caught a brief glimpse of a large animal with black and yellow striping disappearing into the woods. Jeremiah said, “Did you see that?”

  “A tiger?”

  Jeremiah nodded. “What would a tiger be doing loose in Minnesota?”

  Lendra accessed the CINTEP database via her interface and said, “There are over a hundred tigers in Minnesota. Ecoterrorists have been breaking them out of zoos for years, bringing them here and setting them free.”

  “Look at me,” Jeremiah said.

  Lendra turned to face him.

  Jeremiah studied her for a long moment. “You took neo-dopamine again, didn’t you?”

  Lendra shrugged. “I got nervous waiting in the van. As you pointed out, I’m no field agent.”

  “You got some kind of psychological problem?”

  Lendra stared out the window. Jeremiah’s profile suggested that he found weakness endearing in otherwise strong women. And Eli had told her that Jeremiah would discover her claustrophobia during the trip. “It’s what he was trained to do,” Eli had said. “Find other people’s weaknesses.”

  Lendra considered how best to draw him in. She couldn’t lie; he’d catch that. “I have claustrophobia—a mild case.”

  “You should have told me. You got any other issues I should know about?”

  Lendra shook her head. “Just the one.” She reached for her necklace, caressed the glass bulb filled with her medication. “And the neo-dopamine worked.”

  Jeremiah stared into her eyes and she returned his gaze, aware that her pupils were slightly dilated. Her cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment, but she hoped they didn’t show it. Jeremiah nodded. “Don’t withhold relevant information from me again.”

  “I won’t.” Lendra pointed to a sign. “There’s Highway 52. Weiss’ soldiers have checkpoints set up around Rochester. They’ve cordoned off the entire area.”

  Jeremiah took the exit and headed north. As they neared Rochester, Jeremiah braked for the first checkpoint, showed the soldier his Identi-card, and was waved through. The town bustled with soldiers, all wearing gas masks, conducting searches. Jeremiah drove through town at little more than a walking pace. The Mayo Clinic, rising up beside the highway in a series of tall white buildings, looked like it had been at the center of fierce fighting. Several buildings appeared to have been bombed. Piles of rubble sat before the gaping holes in the exterior walls, and most of the windows were broken.

  “There was a battle here,” Jeremiah said. “Las-weapons and particle beam cannons. Heavy-duty ordnance. I wonder when it happened. You got any information on it?”

  “I’ll call Eli. See what he knows.”

  Jeremiah eased the van past the Mayo Clinic, toward the north side of the city. Soldiers kept an eye on them as they rolled past. Lendra didn’t see a single civilian anywhere. A glance down a side road showed vegetation sprouting up through the asphalt. The road looked impassable.

  When Eli didn’t answer, Lendra connected to his PlusPhone and left a message explaining the signs of battle. “That’s odd,” she said to Jeremiah. “No answer.”

  Jeremiah snorted. “Typical.”

  “Typical? He’s always in the office. I wonder where he could be.”

  “Oh, he’s there. He just doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “He’s always testing, playing games. He’s probably stringing you along too, hinting at his imminent retirement, telling you that if this mission goes well, you’ll prove your worth as a potential successor.” Jeremiah must have seen something in Lendra’s face, for he laughed. “He’ll leave when they carry him out on a stretcher. You think you’re the first one he’s promised to consider as his replacement?”

  “But his health… He’s thinking of buying that retirement place.”

  “In Albuquerque?” Jeremiah said. “He’s been talking about that for years.”

  “So he’s not going to retire?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Lendra tugged on her earlobe. She knew Catherine used to do that when she was thinking. Eli had recommended she copy the gesture. And as much as she despised herself for obeying him, she knew it was necessary. If she were truly to rise to the top of CINTEP, take Eli’s place some day—and she still intended to do that even if Eli wasn’t ready to retire just yet—she had to be able to handle men like Jeremiah. Plus she found him fascinating.

  “Now, let’s get back to Devereaux and this Tessamae Shelter
where he’s supposed to be hiding.”

  “The psychological profile on Devereaux,” she said, “is that he carries a tremendous amount of guilt. His strict Catholic upbringing, his desire for his parents’ approval—especially his mother’s—and his guilt over his father’s death and his mother’s suicide all weigh heavily on him.”

  At the mention of suicide, Lendra glanced at Jeremiah. Was he remembering Catherine, sprawled ungainly on the bed? Was he feeling again the guilt that came from knowing he’d arrived too late?

  “That’s one of the reasons he’s at or near the shelter,” Lendra continued. “He visits it because he admires the nun who runs it.”

  “Perhaps,” Jeremiah conceded. “What’s so special about the nun?”

  “She’s a strong Catholic with an independent mind—something of a renegade. The shelter she runs is a haven for the disaffected—all men, almost all hiding something. Apparently, she refuses to allow the Church any say in the day-to-day operations of the shelter. If Devereaux approached her seeking sanctuary, she’d offer it.”

  “But now that Weiss is there, why doesn’t Devereaux just run?”

  “First, the Army has the place surrounded. No one gets in or out except through them.”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “Devereaux’s got a big enough organization that he could figure out a way if he wanted to. Hell, he might be gone already. If it was me, I’d have taken off at the first sign that Weiss was on his way.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Lendra acknowledged. “But there’s another reason Weiss and Eli believe he’ll stay. Devereaux’s psychological profile shows a man who’s deeply conflicted. We think he’s got a martyr complex. Plus, for the past few months he’s been advocating for the Mars Project to go forward as planned, so it seems likely he’s with the Escala.”

  “Okay. It’s all we’ve got. So we’ll just have to run with it. You say the Escala are hiding in the area, which means they’ve escaped from Rochester and are probably in the woods somewhere between here and Crescent Township. Of course, Weiss knows that too. We need to find a way in through the Escala. What about the Elite Ops? Any of them in the area?”