Pax was silent for several seconds. “The hope is you’ll come back and help us when your personal business is settled. But that’ll be up to you. It’s not an expectation. We’d do this for you no matter what.”

“Come back and help you do what, exactly?”

Pax leaned back in his seat. “That’s something you’ll have to hear from Matt, when you’re ready.” He closed his eyes like he was going to take a nap.

Ash transferred the items into his bag, then pulled out the two files from the briefcase. The first folder contained a set of grainy, five-by-seven photos, eight in all. Five were of men, and three were of women. A note was attached to the front picture.

If you see any of these people, or someone you think looks like any of them, I’d appreciate it if you would contact us.

Matt

Ash looked at the pictures again. None of the faces were familiar to him. He put the photos back in the folder and set it aside. The second folder contained newspaper clippings. There was also a note with these.

Some things to think about.

This one was not signed, but the handwriting was the same as the other.

Ash looked through the clippings, reading the headlines: Earth Population Hits 7 Bil, Oil Spill Devastates Gulf Coast, Darfur Genocide Sees No End, Ethnic Cleansing a Worldwide Epidemic, Vanuatu Sees Territory Shrink As Oceans Rise.

Cheerful stuff.

“Those you can keep.”

Pax’s voice surprised him. Ash looked over, but Pax was still lying back with his eyes closed.

“The only things I need to take back are the pictures and the briefcase.”

“Are these articles supposed to mean something to me?” Ash asked.

“Didn’t cut them out. Don’t know what they are. Was just told you could keep them.”

Ash wasn’t sure he wanted to keep them, but he slipped the folder into his bag. He could always throw them out later.

“How long are we going to be in the air?” he asked.

“A couple hours.”

“Is there a bathroom on this thing?”

“In back.”

As Ash passed Chloe, she eyed him warily but didn’t pull back.

He had almost forgotten about her as he looked through the things Pax had brought him. Matt had said she would be valuable to him, but Ash was doubtful that whatever value she brought would outweigh the negatives he felt she had. It would probably be best to part ways once she pointed him in the right direction.

Because if she got in his way…

• • •

Rachel got out of the car and joined her brother at the edge of the runway. Together they watched the Gulfstream gain speed as it rushed away from them then lift off into the air. It wasn’t until the plane was a little dot in the distance that either of them spoke.

“What do you think his chances are?” she asked.

“You know I’m not good at figuring out odds. But if you pushed me I’d probably say not a chance in hell.”

“We’ve had people beat that before.”

“Yes, we have.”

She smiled. “You once said there was no way we would ever be able to defeat them.”

He took a breath. “I’m still inclined to believe that.”

“Yet we’re still here. Still fighting.”

“It’s a war that should have started a lot earlier than it did. All we’re doing is damage control and catch up.”

They fell silent.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” she asked.

“You mean after he beats no chance in hell? Maybe.”

“We could certainly use him.”

“We already are,” Matt said.

Rachel knew he was talking about the vials of Ash’s blood their off-site team was already working with. Their resources and facilities weren’t as impressive as the organization they were up against, but they weren’t working with kids’ chemistry sets either, and their people were both dedicated and motivated.

“I think he will be back,” she said.

Silently, they both looked west, in the direction the plane had finally disappeared. For the moment, there was nothing more to say.

 

 

29

 

Confirmation came at noon when Tamara’s mother called, wailing, and told her that someone from the California Highway Patrol had just notified her that Gavin was dead. Thirty minutes later, a list of the Tehachapi casualties was handed out to the media at Fort Irwin.

Tamara knew Gavin’s name would be there, but when she saw it, it was as if the breath had been ripped from her lungs.

Joe put an arm around her. “I’ll call the network and let them know. You won’t have to do any more reports.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t call.”

“You don’t need to be a hero.”

“I need to do this, okay? I need to have this right now. Understand?” What she didn’t say was that while Joe had been off at a logistics briefing elsewhere on the base, she and Bobby had been working on a piece about her brother’s death that she wanted to work into one of her upcoming reports.

“Seriously, Tammy. Your brother died. Don’t push yourself.”

“She’ll be fine,” Bobby said.

Joe frowned. “I don’t know.”

“What else is she going to do out here?” Bobby asked, looking around. “It’ll give her something to take her mind of things until she can go home.”

Joe thought for a moment, then looked at Tamara. “If that’s what you really want.”

She nodded. “It’s what I want.”

She allowed herself a quick glance at Bobby while Joe was distracted by a couple of helicopters landing nearby. “Done?” she mouthed.

He nodded.

Good. As soon as she could figure out how to work it in, the report would be ready to go.

“Who are these guys?” Joe asked.

Tamara turned around. The two arriving helicopters had settled down about fifty yards from where the press was camped out. The only other time helicopters had landed in that area was when they were all evacuated here. Though these were dark green, they had no markings on them, military or otherwise.

Three men jumped out of each helicopter, then gathered on the tarmac. After about half a minute, two of the men broke off and headed over to a waiting Jeep. The helicopters, though, had not powered down, giving the impression their stay was going to be short.

“I have no idea,” Tamara said. “National Guard?”

“Could be, I guess.”

They were just turning away when Bobby said, “Oh, crap.”

Tamara looked over. Bobby, always looking for images they could use, had his camera on his shoulder, shooting the helicopters.

“What is it?” she asked.

He stepped back into the shade of the canopy and said, “Come here.”

Tamara walked over, with Joe right on her heels. As soon as she got there, Bobby handed her the camera.

“The four men,” he said.

She aimed the lens at the men on the tarmac.

“The guy on the left.”

She centered the picture on the guy in question.

“Here,” Bobby said. “Let me zoom it in for you.”

He pushed a button on top of the camera, and the image of the man rushed at her.

“Whoa, whoa,” she said. “Too much.” The picture had pushed past the man, and into the passenger area of the helicopter. There was something yellow clumped on the seat, but she barely registered it. “Let me do it.”

Bobby showed her where the button was, and she eased the zoom out a little, then adjusted the angle so she could see the man’s face. He was in profile, and though he looked a bit familiar, she couldn’t place him. Maybe one of the guys who’d flown them out during the evacuation?

She was about to ask Bobby what was so special about the guy when the man turned, suddenly bringing his whole face into view.

For several seconds she forgot to breathe. Finally, she pulled her eye from the viewfinder and allowed Bobby to take the camera from her.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

Bobby gave him the camera.

“Oh, my God,” Joe exclaimed once he’d gotten a look at the man.

They had all made the same connection.

Standing a little over a hundred feet away from them was the man who’d killed Tamara’s brother.

• • •

The orderly checked on the children one last time. Their vital signs were stable, and their breathing deep and even. He made sure the IV tubes would not get caught on anything when the beds were moved, then exited the room.

His colleague had finished packing up the pharmaceutical supplies and their workstation, so the orderly did a final walk-through to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. They hadn’t.

He picked up the radio from their desk and said, “Station K. Ready and awaiting removal.”

“Roger, Station K. Removal team should be there in two minutes.”

“Copy that, Control.”

Together, he and his colleague double-checked all the latches on the containers to make sure everything was secure.

“I think we’re good,” his colleague said. The orderly was just starting to nod in agreement when the other man blurted out, “Wait.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you check the room at the end?”

The orderly shook his head. As far as he knew, there’d been no reason to go in there.

“I used the bathroom in there this morning,” the other man said, already starting off down the hall. “I think I might have left a tissue on the sink.”

“Jesus. Get it. We’re not supposed to leave anything.”

“I know. I know.”

His colleague headed quickly down the hall and disappeared into the last room on the right. When he came back out several seconds later, he held up his hand. In it was a couple of unused tissues.

The orderly was about to read him the riot act for being sloppy, but right then the removal team arrived and he soon forgot.

• • •

“What should we do?” Bobby asked.

Though Tamara barely heard the cameraman speak, the only thought she had was that she was looking at the man who had put a bullet through her brother’s back. Without even realizing it, she started walking toward him.

“Hey, where are you going?” Joe asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Tammy. That’s not a good idea,” Bobby said.

Still, she didn’t reply.

Footsteps ran up behind her, Bobby on one side and Joe on the other. Each grabbed one of her arms, stopping her.

“Snap out of it,” Joe said. “Going over there isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

She struggled to pull free. “I want to know his name.”

The four men on the tarmac seemed to realize something was going on. They glanced in the PCN team’s direction, but then, as one, their gaze swung to the left. The two men who had separated from them earlier were jogging rapidly toward the helicopters. One of them was waving the other men toward the aircraft.

“No!” Tamara yelled as the man who’d killed her brother disappeared inside the helicopter.

Bobby grabbed her around the shoulders, holding her back.

The last man had barely gotten on board when both helicopters rose into the air and shot off toward the North.

“No!” she repeated.

“It’s okay,” Bobby said. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

“But he shot my brother. I…I don’t even know his name.”

“I got him on tape. If there’s a name on his uniform, I probably got that, too.”

“Hey, you guys all right?”

The three of them turned and saw Peter Chavez stepping out in their direction from under the canopy.

“We’re fine, Peter,” Joe said.

“You sure?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

As soon as the wire-service reporter returned to the shade, Tamara whisper, “I want to check the video.”

Bobby nodded.

As they walked quickly back to where Bobby had set down the camera, she touched his arm, slowing him and putting a little distance between them and Joe.

“I want you to cut a shot of the guy into the story,” she whispered.

He pulled back a little. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t care if it’s a good idea. Will you do it?”

He grimaced, but then nodded. “I’ll do it.”

• • •

Paul was covered in dust. It had even gotten under his helmet and into his month. He tried spitting out what he could, but he was already parched. What he really would have loved at that moment was a nice long drink of water, but that would have to wait until he found civilization. His bottles had been in his backpack the men from the helicopters had taken.

So far he’d been able to make pretty good time. The roughest part had been right after he left the canyon. The gentle slope there had been deceiving. Decades of rainwater had carved out gullies that seemed to appear out of nowhere. If he had hit one of those too hard, he would have wrecked and broken his arm or worse.

But now he was on smooth, level ground so he was able to ramp up the speed. He figured the area was probably the bed of the ancient ocean that used to cover this part of the desert. Sarge would have known for sure.

He allowed himself a quick look around. Brown for as far as he could see. He glanced at his gas gauge. He had maybe another sixty or seventy miles left. Reluctantly he backed off on the accelerator. If he kept his speed down a bit, he might be able to squeeze out another ten or twenty miles. That could make all the difference in the world.

He let his eyes settle on the hills in front of him. Another fifteen minutes and he’d be there. If he figured it right, once he reached the top he’d be out of the quarantine zone. The thing he didn’t know was how far he’d still have to go to reach anyone after that. The map his dad had given them was also in the backpack.

To this point, he’d focused all his thoughts on surviving—going as fast as he dared, keeping the bike upright, looking for holes in the ground. But the thought of the map brought everything back.

Mom and Sarge. Leaving home after the sun went down. Racing through the dark desert.

Nick.

Lisa.

The girl who meant everything to him and his best friend in the world—both dead.

The thing he kept coming back to was that he’d sat there and done nothing. He had watched the men raise their rifles. He had watched them fire.

And he had done nothing.

Maybe he could have created a distraction. Maybe it would have been enough for Nick and Lisa to get away. Would it have worked? Probably not, but, dammit, he should have given it a try. He should have—

He didn’t see the rock.

One moment his eyes were tearing up with anger over his inaction, and the next he was flying over his handlebars, landing hard against the desert floor.

He lay on his back for a moment, groaning with the pain. The worse of it seemed to be coming from his left knee. He pulled off his helmet then felt his leg, checking if it was broken.

When his hand reached his knee, he nearly jerked back. It felt wrong. He tried to sit up, but that just made the pain worse, so he only raised his shoulder and tilted his head so he could see what was going on.

Immediately, he knew what had happened. He’d seen something similar before, during P.E. at school. They’d been playing soccer, and Ryan Young had tried to kick the ball but had stepped awkwardly and fallen to the ground.

Like Ryan’s had been then, Paul’s kneecap was sticking out like a shelf off the side of his bent leg, dislocated.

His eyes slammed shut as a new wave of pain washed over him. He took several deep breaths, trying to regain a little control. When it happened to Ryan, the school nurse had come down to the field and slipped it back into place while the rest of them stood around and watched.

Paul didn’t have anyone to put it back in place for him. He was going to have to do it himself.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said out loud. “Two seconds and it’s over.”

He arranged his leg so that the back edge of his shoe’s heel was on the ground. He then put his left hand on his kneecap, and his right on his thigh. Taking several quick, deep breaths, he tried to calm himself. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he pushed down on his thigh and in on his kneecap. As the leg straightened, the cap moved back into place.

He yelled out, not so much in new pain, but in memory of the old. Because while his knee was indeed throbbing, the sheer intensity of the pain he’d been feeling had subsided.

He lay against the desert floor, panting.

It was several minutes before he finally pushed himself up. His bike was about ten feet away. At first glance, it didn’t look like it had suffered much damage. He took a tentative step toward it, but immediately his left leg howled in pain. There was no way it was going to be able to hold his weight for any length of time, so he hopped as best he could to the bike.

As he pulled it off the ground, he smelled gas. There was a wet spot on the dirt under where the tank had been. He looked at the bike, checking for a hole, a loose hose, anything.

It was the cap. It had come loose somehow. He tried to think back to when he’d siphoned the gas from his brother’s bike. Had he not made sure the cap was on tight? There was really no other explanation.

He took it off now and looked inside. There was still some gas sloshing around in there, but how much had he lost?

“Dammit!” he yelled. I’m such an idiot.

He put the top back on, making sure it was secure this time, then wheeled the bike over to where he’d left his helmet.

Once he was re-outfitted, he got on and started up the bike. His left leg was already starting to stiffen and was going to be a problem. With more than a little pain, he bent it enough to get his foot on the peg.

He coughed a couple times, and he couldn’t wait until he could drink some water and get the dust out of his system.

Then he resumed his journey to freedom.

 

 

30

 

It wasn’t until they landed that the window shades rose again.

Ash looked outside. They seemed to be at a small airport. He could see a few planes parked off to the side and a hangar in the distance.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Pax glanced out the window. “Well, unless we got lost on the way, this should be Sonoma County, California.”

Though Ash had been stationed twice in California, he only had a vague idea that Sonoma County was somewhere in the North.

“This is where my children are?”

“As close as we can get.” Pax tilted his head toward the back. “Chloe will take you the rest of the way.”

Though they were still taxiing, Pax unbuckled himself and got up. He retrieved the metal case from the cabinet, then set it on the floor between his and Ash’s seats. He undid the clasps and lifted off the top. Protective foam lined the box, while another thick sheet covered whatever was inside. Pax pulled this away, revealing a small arsenal.

“You liked the SIG so much, I got you three,” Pax said as he touched the hilt of one of the three SIG SAUER P229 pistols inside. “You have four boxes of ammo, three extra mags…well, five if you only use one gun. I also packed a pair of binoculars, and something we call little bangs.”

“Little bangs?”

Pax moved a few things around, then pulled out a hard plastic rectangular box about an inch thick, and opened the top. The inside was divided into two parts. On one side was a device that looked like a cell phone, complete with a touch-screen display. On the other side were a couple dozen half-inch squares lined up like crackers in a box, the majority of which were gray.

Pax pulled out one of the squares. In the center was a smaller black box that barely rose above the surface. Running out from it were tiny wires that spread over the gray square.

“See the number?” Pax asked.

Ash took a harder look. On the black box a number had been painted in gray. Hard to read, but not impossible. This square was numbered one.

“I see it.”

Pax turned the gray square around. “This other side will stick pretty much anywhere. But you’ve gotta remove this first.”

He flicked his finger across the edge, and Ash could see there was a clear plastic sheet covering the back.

“Put this wherever you need it. Then you use this thing here.” He pointed at the black cell-phone-looking device. “This is your trigger device. Interface is easy. You input the unit number, then either set it off manually or set up a timer. These things don’t create a lot of damage, but they’re quite the noisemakers. Good for diversions if you need them.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Careful, though. You see these four here?” He touched four tiles that were grouped together. Unlike the others, they were white. “These do more than just make a noise. They’re what you use if you do need damage. They’ll blow a hole in pretty much anything you’ll come across. There’s only the four, so don’t confuse them with the others.”

He closed the box and tucked it back in the case. He then gave Ash the emergency phone number Matt had mentioned, making him repeat it several times. It was an easy number. Ash knew he wouldn’t forget it.

As soon as the plane stopped rolling, Pax said, “I believe this is your stop.”

There was no one around as they stepped out of the jet. In fact, the whole airport seemed quiet and deserted. It was tucked between several green hills, and though Ash could see a few houses in the distance, there was no town visible.

Pax nodded toward the hangar. “Your ride’s right over there.”

Parked near the closed hangar door was a silver Honda Accord.

The metal case went in the trunk, while Ash put his messenger bag in the back seat. Chloe had a dark green backpack. She tossed that into the footwell up front before climbing into the passenger seat.

“You got GPS in there,” Pax told Ash. “It’s already preset to get you to the highway. Chloe will take over after that.”

He held out his hand, and Ash took it.

“You’ve been put in a terrible position, Captain,” Pax said. “Most people would have given up already. Think they crossed the wrong man when they found you.”

“Yes,” Ash said. “They did.”

Pax stepped back. “Don’t be a stranger.”

By the time Ash got the car to the airport exit, the jet was already racing down the runway and taking off.

He let the voice of the GPS guide him through the countryside. In his other life, he would have appreciated the beauty of the area, mainly because Ellen would have loved it.

I should have brought her here.

I should have brought her a lot of places.

He gritted his teeth and continued to drive.

When they finally reached the highway, the GPS stopped giving directions. Ash looked over and saw that Chloe was staring out the window.

“Which way?” he asked. It was the first thing either of them had said since they’d gotten in the car.

She didn’t move for a second, then she pulled up her head and looked over at him. “What?”

“Which way? Pax said once the GPS stopped, you’d know where to go.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward, looking out the window again, and seemed to notice their surroundings for the first time. “Where are we?”

“At the freeway. North or south?”

She started nodding. “South. Definitely south.”

He headed for the on-ramp. “How far?”

She glanced at him again, then returned her gaze to the window. “Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

“Serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He hesitated, then said, “Okay. Fifteen-point-seven miles.”

“Almost point-six now.”

• • •

Since Ash knew he’d be shedding Chloe as soon as he didn’t need her any more, he was content to let the miles pass by in silence and avoid forming any kind of bond. For whatever reasons of her own, Chloe seemed fine with not talking, too.

The first thing either of them said came from Chloe at exactly fifteen-point-four miles from where they’d entered the freeway. “Next exit.” Once they were on the off-ramp, she said, “To the right.”

They were in a rural area, probably about fifty miles north of San Francisco. The area immediately surrounding them was hilly and green from recent rains. As they headed west the hills grew larger, and the trees started changing from scattered oaks and a few cottonwoods to a growing forest of evergreens.

“How far are we going?” Ash asked.

“At this speed, we’ll turn in nine minutes.”

Ash was tempted to go a little faster, but the road was only two lanes and had become winding with plenty of blind turns.

After a few minutes, Chloe said out of the blue, “They changed my face, too.”

Ash glanced at her, then back at the road.

“I’d be dead now if they hadn’t,” she added.

Unable to stop himself, he said, “Is that why you’re helping me?”

For several moments, she said nothing. Then, “I have to help. I have no choice.”

Ash frowned. “Are you telling me that Matt forced you to be here?”

“No. Of course not. After you get your children, if someone else needs help, you’ll have no choice, either. We have to fight them. We have to stop them.”

“You mean this Dr. Karp? Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him.”

“You don’t understand. You just don’t understand.” She shook her head, then looked back at the road. “There,” she said, pointing ahead. “Turn there.”

The new road was narrower and obviously less used. The centerline looked like it hadn’t been repainted in decades, and had become more of a faded suggestion than an actual demarcation. The road was dark, too, the sun hidden from view by a thick grove of conifers.

“Five miles,” Chloe announced.

Ash glanced at the odometer and noted the mileage.

“I’m sorry they took your children,” she said.

Ash didn’t respond.

“They took someone from me, too. But I can never get her back.”

Ash remained quiet for a moment longer, then said, “There’s someone I can’t get back, either.”

Again, silence descended.

After a bit, Chloe said, “Slow down.”

Ash checked the odometer, and saw that they had come almost four and a half miles. He reduced their speed.

The area was quiet. They hadn’t seen a single car on this road, nor had there been any houses or buildings alongside it.

Chloe patted her hand against the air. “Slower.”

Ash eased back on the gas some more.

Finally, she pointed at a spot just ahead and across the road. “There. Do you see it? Between those two trees.”

Where she indicated he could see the ghosts of two tire ruts running into the woods. They were mostly filled with dry pine needles, and looked as if no one had driven on them for a long, long time.

Ash pulled across the road and stopped just short of the ruts. He stared into the woods. As far as he could see, there was nothing back there but more trees.

He grimaced skeptically, then looked at Chloe. “My kids are back there somewhere?”

She hesitated. “The building where I’m supposed to take you is back there.”

“This isn’t even a road. It’s a path that no one’s used for God knows how long.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Would you rather I take you down the road they do use? Maybe right up to the front door so you can ring the bell? I can do that if you’d like. Except I’d probably just point the way and let you go on your own. I don’t want to die today.”

Of course she wouldn’t do that. What was he thinking? And if this really was a way in, wasn’t it a good thing it looked completely untouched?

“Right,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry.”

He turned the Accord onto the path.

Chloe guided him through a slalom course of trees, taking them deeper and deeper into the woods. Keeping their speed to a crawl, Ash still managed to scrape the sides a few times.

After they’d been going like that for about fifteen minutes, Chloe said, “You should turn the car around here. I’ll get out and guide you. Then we’ll walk the rest of the way.”

It took a little effort, but with Chloe’s help, Ash was able to get the sedan pointed back in the direction they’d come.

Once out of the car, he went around to the trunk and opened the weapons case Pax had given him. He grabbed one of the guns, then spent a few minutes filling its mag and the three spares. When he was done with that, he almost shut the case. Instead, he reached in and grabbed the box of little bangs before closing it up.

Chloe had been standing nearby the whole time, watching him. He wasn’t sure if she’d been expecting him to give her a gun, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They hiked for a quarter of an hour, then as they approached a ridge, Chloe motioned for him to get down on his hands and knees. When they reached the top, they dropped to their stomachs and looked down into the tree-filled valley.

At first, Ash thought it was as empty as the forest they’d just come through, but then Chloe pointed down and to the right. About a half-mile away he saw part of a roof jutting out from the side of the hill, like the structure was built right into the earth. If there was anything else around, he couldn’t see it through the trees.

She then pointed at one of the evergreens about ten yards ahead of them, then at another about the same distance to the left, then at another and another.

“Twenty feet up,” she said.

It took him a couple seconds to see what she was talking about. Attached to each tree at the height she’d indicated were some sort of electronic devices that had been colored to blend in. If Chloe hadn’t pointed them out, he would have never noticed them.

“What are they?” he asked.

“Motion sensors. They circle the complex. You can’t see it, but another fifty feet beyond that point is a fence.”

Ash studied the area for a moment. “I take it there’s a way through there.”

Chloe shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“But Matt told me you could get me in.”

“That’s true.”

He stared at her for a moment. “You want to stop being so cryptic?”

Several seconds passed, then she said, “This used to be an old mental hospital. It was closed sometime in the nineties and the land was turned over to the government, but don’t expect to find it in any of their records. The…others took it over and fixed it up for their own needs. It’s not one of their main facilities so they don’t always use it. But according to Matt, this is where your kids were taken.”

“You still haven’t told me how I get in.”

“There used to be a separate building where the mental hospital kept…problem patients. The building’s gone, but the foundation is still there.” She looked at Ash. “It’s outside the motion detection zone.”

“How does that help us?” Ash asked, still not following.

“They might have torn down the building, but they didn’t remove the tunnel that connected it to the main hospital.”

 

 

31

 

The throbbing in Paul’s knee had become so constant he almost didn’t notice it any more. He wished the same could be said for his growing thirst. His dry mouth and chapped lips were constantly nagging at him.

He’d reached the summit of the hill that marked the boundary of the quarantine zone thirty minutes earlier, but any elation he might have felt had been tempered by the miles of open desert that still stretched before him.

He coughed a couple times, then glanced down at his gas gauge. The needle was hovering just above E. He’d be walking soon, and in his condition, he wouldn’t be walking far. If only he could find a road, hopefully someone would drive by and see him. Or perhaps it was his lot to die out here like his brother and his girlfriend. The only difference being that his fate would be delivered by the elements, not a slug of lead.

The ground was rising again in front of him like a gentle swell in the middle of a dirt ocean. As he did every time he neared a crest, he prayed that he’d finally see a road on the other side, anything that would give him a chance.

“This time,” he began repeating. “This time. This time. This time.”

Just before he actually reached the top, he steeled himself and prepared to see nothing. He was so sure that was exactly what would happen, that even as he stared at the distant highway, it took a moment before he realized what it was.

He stopped the bike, his good foot planting on the ground. Was the highway real? Maybe the pain and the dust and the lack of water were making him see things. He wanted to believe, but…could he?

His eyes followed the road, then his breath caught in his throat.

Not five miles away, he saw a handful of buildings grouped together. Parked around them appeared to be several cars and a couple of buses. He blinked. The buildings were still there. The cars and the buses were still there.

Finally allowing himself a smile, he started down the hill. He was tempted to open the bike up all the way, but he knew even five miles might be too far for the fumes left in his gas tank. So he eased all the way back on the accelerator and let the bike roll free down the hill.

He was laughing as he neared the bottom, his hand poised to feed the rest of the gas into the engine as soon as his speed started to slow. That’s when he heard it. The thumping.

He didn’t need to look back to know what was there, but he did anyway.

Two helicopters, like black blots against the western afternoon sky.

There was no doubt in his mind that these were the same two that had come to the canyon that morning, that had brought the men who had killed two of the people he loved most. And though he was out of the quarantine zone, he knew they were here to kill him, too.

He jammed on the gas and shot toward the buildings, already knowing they were too far away and that the helicopters would reach him first.

If only he hadn’t stopped at the top of the ridge. If only he hadn’t fallen off the bike and hurt his knee. If only he hadn’t delayed himself a half dozen other times. But he couldn’t change any of that now.

The only thing he could do was ride.

• • •

Martina Gable and the rest of the Burroughs High School softball team were doing what they’d been doing for the last day and a half. Nothing.

They’d been heading home in a school bus from a tournament in Reno, Nevada, when the quarantine had been imposed over much of the Mojave Desert, including their hometown of Ridgecrest. Unfortunately, one of the girls was pumping a steady mix of pop from her iPod through the bus’s sound system, so no one had been listening to the radio at the time. But why would they have done that? They’d come in second in the tournament, much better than they’d hoped, so they had reason to enjoy themselves on the way home.

Ten miles past Cryer’s Corner, they reached the roadblock and learned for the first time what was going on. Initially, there’d been panic and fear, of course. But when they went back to Cryer’s Corner—not much more than a wide spot in the road with a café, a gas station, and a small convenience store—they were able to use the land phones there to contact their families and find out that everyone was fine.

They’d talked about driving back into Nevada to find someplace to stay, but when Coach Driscoll called around looking for a motel, everywhere she tried was full. Apparently the quarantine was stranding people all over the place.

The Cryer family owned all the businesses at Cryer’s Corner. They offered to let the girls sleep on the floor of the café, so that’s what the coach decided they’d do.

As the day progressed, a few other cars drove in—a couple of families and some solo drivers. They, too, were offered places to sleep.

The coaches tried to organize a practice out behind the café that first afternoon to distract the girls, but it didn’t work out too well. So this second day they’d pretty much let everyone do what they pleased, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble.

Martina had played catch with her friend Noreen for a while, then had thumbed through one of the gossip magazines another girl had brought along. After lunch, she’d found a spot on the side of the gas station, and was idly tossing rocks at a dumpster, wishing the damn quarantine would be lifted so they could go home. This put her at a good angle to see the helicopters the moment they popped over the hill.

Immediately, she got up and went around to the front of the station where several others were hanging out.

“Helicopters,” she said, pointing.

Since everyone on the softball team lived next to the China Lake Navy base, they were used to the sight of jets and helicopters. But having already spent a day of monotony on the side of the road, seeing them now felt like something new.

“From the roadblock?” Cathy Thorwaldson asked.

“I didn’t see any out there,” Martina said. “Did you?”

“Maybe they flew in during the night while we were sleeping.” This came from one of the drivers who’d arrived alone, a college-age guy. Cute, too.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Martina said.

“Do you hear that?” their catcher, Jilly Parker, asked. She’d been standing near the pumps but had taken a few steps toward the desert.

Martina listened. There was a very faint whine in the distance. “The helicopters, probably.”

Jilly shook her head. “Doesn’t sound like helicopters.”

A couple seconds later, they all heard a rhythmic thump-thump-thump.

“That’s the helicopters,” Jilly said.

She was right, Martina realized. The whine was still there, too. Its volume had increased a bit, and it seemed to be coming from ground level as opposed to the sky.

• • •

Sims was crouched just behind the two front seats of the helicopter, trying to spot the motorcycle below. The satellite images had gotten them this far, but now it was a matter of eyeballs.

“There, sir,” the co-pilot said, with a quick nod out the window. “Running along that old wash.”

Sims adjusted his position, then immediately saw movement about a mile ahead.

“Get us down there.”

“Sir,” the pilot said. “We’re already twenty miles outside the containment zone.”

“I don’t care where we are. If the person on that bike is infected, we could have a new outbreak on our hands. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Yet, he thought, but didn’t add.

The other thing he didn’t voice was his desire to clean up a situation that they had created themselves. The person on the motorcycle had come from the canyon they’d visited that morning. Apparently there hadn’t been two riders, but three. This third person must have hidden from Sims and his men, and that annoyed him.

It should have never happened. They should have checked for additional people but they hadn’t, and it had been his fault. Two bikes, two sleeping bags, two people. Logical, but wrong.

“Hang on, sir,” the pilot said.

A second later, the helicopters dipped in unison toward the fleeing motorcycle.

• • •

Jilly and Martina used a stack of barrels to climb up on top of the gas station, then moved to the back edge so they could see what was going on.

“That whine’s a motorcycle. I’d know that anywhere,” Jilly said.

Martina had recognized it, too. It was a common enough noise in the desert around Ridgecrest. But though she was looking toward where she thought the noise was coming from, she couldn’t see anything.

Jilly suddenly pointed repeatedly at the desert. “There, there, there!”

Martina put a hand on her forehead, shading her eyes. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s there! Along that wash.”

Something glinted in the distance, sunlight on a helmet, Martina realized as she finally spotted the motorcycle rider. For a few moments, she watched him—she assumed it was a him—heading in their direction.

“Is that one of the people who lives here?” she wondered out loud.

“I didn’t hear anyone leave earlier, but I guess it could be,” Jilly said.

Until that moment, Martina had thought the helicopters and the motorcycle had had nothing to do with each other. But suddenly both helicopters dove down toward the bike.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

• • •

Under Sims’s directions, the helicopters bracketed the motorcycle, his aircraft coming up on its left, the other on its right.

“We’ll take the shot,” Sims said into the radio. “If he doesn’t go down, you’re up.”

• • •

Paul felt the thumping of the helicopters in his chest. He allowed himself a quick glance back, and was surprised to see they were approaching him from either side.

There was movement at the open door of the helicopter to his left. He turned forward, checking the terrain ahead, then chanced another glance back. A man stood in the doorway now, held in place by what looked like a strap. In his arm was a rifle.

Without even thinking about it, Paul released the accelerator and pulled on the brakes.

Just then he heard something whiz by him through the air. Involuntarily, he jerked the handlebars to the side. The front tire of the bike turned with it, catching the edge of a sagebrush. Before Paul knew it, he was once more tumbling through the air.

• • •

“Is that a hit?” Sims asked. “Is that a hit?”

There was a brief delay. “I’m not sure, sir. But he is down.”

“Get us back there.”

• • •

Martina actually screamed when the driver of the motorcycle flew off his bike.

“Did they…shoot at him?” Jilly asked.

“I’m not sure,” Martina replied.

“I thought I saw a flash.”

Below them, one of the cars in the lot started up. Almost immediately, they could hear tires spinning for a moment on the dirty asphalt, then catching hold. Martina glanced over the other side, just in time to see the cute college boy race away from the gas station in his Jeep and head into the desert toward the downed driver.

• • •

The helicopters had both swung around and were now hovering above the motorcyclist. Sims was pretty sure it was a man.

“Does anyone see any movement?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“No, sir.”

“All right, then everyone suit up, and let’s bag him—”

The radio crackled. “Sir, civilian approaching.”

Out of reflex, Sims looked over at the other helicopter. “What?”

“Just ahead, sir,” the man in the other aircraft said. “A Jeep. There are also a couple people standing on one of the buildings at the roadside stop along the highway, looking this way, and several more doing the same from ground level.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, sir.”

Sims looked out the open doorway and spotted the Jeep. He quickly realized it would get to the motorcycle rider only seconds after they landed. What would they do then? Kill the Jeep driver, too? What about the people in town watching? He was pretty sure Mr. Shell did not want that kind of bloodbath.

Dammit!

He looked down at the motorcyclist again, then tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Head back to base.”

Even before they made the turn for home, he had his satellite phone out. The quarantine zone would have to be expanded to include that little bit of nowhere in case the motorcyclist was infected. But even if he wasn’t, and those in the town didn’t actually die from the disease, the quarantine would make it easier for Sims and his men to go in and deal with the witnesses.

It was an aggravating problem but fixable.

It didn’t even dawn on him that he should have also requested a communications blackout of the area. He thought that was already a part of the quarantine. Why wouldn’t it be?

It was another lesson they’d learn for next time.

• • •

Paul remembered flying off his bike, but didn’t remember landing. That was because the impact had knocked him unconscious. So the next thing he was aware of was a man lifting him off the ground.

“What…what’s going on?”

“Just relax,” the guy said. “You’re going to be fine.”

Where had the guy come from? The helicopter? But they were going to shoot him, weren’t they?

Then he saw the vehicle he was being carried to, a dark red, old-model Jeep, not a helicopter.

Someone passing by on the road, maybe? Did it really matter?

As the man helped him into the front seat, Paul knocked his injured knee against the dash, which caused him to wince in pain, which in turn caused him to cough a couple of times.

“Sorry,” the guy said.

“I’m…okay.”

The man got behind the wheel and started up the Jeep. As they turned around, Paul caught sight of his motorcycle. It was lying half in a creosote bush, its handlebars skewed. He could see a hole in his gas tank, but nothing was dripping out.

Just enough, he thought with a smile. Just enough.

 

 

32

 

Martina and Jilly climbed down off the roof as the Jeep returned. By then, many of the rest of the people stranded in Cryer’s Corner had come outside to see what all the noise was about. Word of what had happened spread quickly.

When the Jeep pulled to a stop, several people crowded around. The guy who’d been on the motorcycle was a mess. He looked like he’d been rolling in dirt for weeks, then had the side of his head dipped in blood.

There was something familiar about him, but Martina couldn’t place it. This thought, though, was soon forgotten as the cute college boy came around and helped the motorcycle rider out of the Jeep.

“I don’t suppose anyone here’s a doctor?” College Boy asked.

“My dad is,” Amy Rhodes said.

“Yeah, but he’s not here, is he?” Jilly asked.

“Isn’t Coach Delger a nurse?” someone asked.

“Yeah, I think she is,” Martina said. “Where is she?”

“Last I saw her, she was in the café,” Amy told them, no doubt trying to redeem herself.

When no one moved right away, Martina said, “I’ll get her.”

She raced over to the café and rushed inside. There were only three people there—an old woman behind the counter, and Coach Driscoll and Coach Delger in one of the booths. The coaches both had their backs against the window, with their legs stretched out, and seemed to be asleep.

“Coach Delger?” Martina called out as she ran over.

Both coaches cracked open their eyes.

“What is it, Martina?” Coach Driscoll asked. She was the head coach. Coach Delger was a volunteer from town.

“Someone’s hurt. And we thought…well, Coach Delger, you’re a nurse, right?”

Both of the women sprang to life and pushed themselves out of the booth.

“Where?” Coach Delger asked.

“Outside. Some guy on a motorcycle got thrown to the ground.”

Coach Delger raced ahead and shot out the door.

“Medical student,” Coach Driscoll whispered to Martina as they followed. “Her residency starts after the end of the season.”

“A student? Oh, uh, maybe we should ask around and see if anyone else is a nurse.”

“She’ll do just fine,” Coach Driscoll told her.

As soon as Martina stepped back outside, she saw that the college boy had an arm around the motorcyclist and they were both walking toward the café. Coach Delger ran up beside them and took a quick look at the injured rider. She then glanced over at Martina.

“Open the door,” she called out.

Once they were inside, the college boy helped the rider to a corner booth. It was one of those circular kinds that could fit a lot of people and had a correspondingly large table. Coach Delger had the injured kid sit on the table, then told Martina to get everyone else outside.

“You heard her,” Martina announced to the group who’d followed them in. “Everyone out.”

Soon she had the place cleared, but since the coach hadn’t specifically told her to leave, she returned to the table.

She’d barely walked up when Coach Delger said, “Martina, I need you to look for a first-aid kit. There’s got to be one here somewhere.” Before Martina could leave, she added, “And I’ll need some warm water and towels to clean him up, too.”

Martina found the old woman in the kitchen already filling up a large bowl with water.

“I heard her,” the woman said, then nodded toward the back of the room. “First-aid kit’s hanging on the wall by the bathroom. Just lift it and it’ll come right off.”

The kit was a large metal box. Martina got it off the wall and carried it back into the dining area. When she got back to the table, the coach was examining the rider’s head where all the blood was.

“Not too bad,” Coach Delger said. “A cut and a little bump. I’m guessing you were wearing a helmet, right?”

“Yeah,” the boy said.

“Some of the cushion missing on the inside?”

“A little.”

Smirking, she said, “Get a new helmet and that won’t happen next time.”

The old woman came out of the kitchen with the water and some towels.

“Susan,” Coach Delger said to Coach Driscoll. “Can you clean up his head? I’m going to check if there’s anything else wrong.”

“Sure,” Coach Driscoll said. She grabbed a towel and got it wet.

“My knee,” the boy said.

“Which one?”

“Left. From before.”

“Before?”

He gave a little shrug. “Not my first crash today. Dislocated it.”

While Coach Delger used a pair of scissors from the first-aid kit to cut away his pants leg, the boy looked at Martina.

“What are you guys doing here?” he asked.

“We were at a softball tournament. Got stuck outside the quarantine zone on our way home.”

“Did you win?”

She figured he was just trying to distract himself from his pain. “Second place out of sixteen teams. Not too bad.”

“Go Burros,” he said.

She smiled for a second, then looked down. She wasn’t wearing one of her school shirts. Maybe someone outside was. That must have been it.

“Yeah, go Burros.”

“Who did most of the pitching? You or Sandra?”

Martina wasn’t the only one who was suddenly staring at the rider. Both coaches had stopped what they were doing and were looking at him, too.

“Do I know you?” Martina asked.

“Do I look that bad?”

She squinted her eyes, studying him. “You look familiar, but…”

“Spanish class,” he said.

“Paul?”

“Hey, Martina.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Coach Driscoll asked.

“This is Paul Unger,” Martina said, surprised. “He goes to Burroughs, too.”

“What were you doing out there on a motorcycle?” Coach Driscoll asked.

Paul got a faraway look in his eyes, and the small smile that had been on his lips disappeared. “Trying not to die.”

• • •

They got the whole story out of him.

As soon as Coach Delger realized he’d come from the quarantine zone, she immediately segregated everyone into two groups: those who had come in contact with Paul, and those who hadn’t.

The hardest part of the story to believe was the deaths of Nick and Lisa. That was until he showed them the video.

It was Martina’s idea, however, to post it on the Internet.

 

 

33

 

Chloe guided Ash through the woods, circling around to the top of the rise behind the building, just beyond the line of motion sensors. After crossing a small clearing, she walked on for another dozen feet, then stopped under the cover of the trees.

Without a word, she got on her knees and started digging. At first Ash couldn’t figure out what she could possibly be doing, but after she removed a thick layer of needles and branches, she exposed a manhole cover.

“Where does it go?” he asked.

“I have no idea. Just thought I’d randomly show it to you.” She stared at him for a second as if he were an idiot. “Where do you think it goes?”

She was right. It was a dumb question.

“How do we get it open?”

“That’s a better question than the last one, at least,” she said.

She got off her knees and walked over to a tree a dozen feet away. Jumping up, she grabbed one of the low branches and pulled herself onto it. She reached to the branch above her and moved her hands around for a moment. When she dropped back to the ground, she was holding a long metal rod that had an L hook at the bottom.

With a smirk, she stuck the hooked end through a hole in the cover and yanked the disk off, surprising Ash with her strength.

He took a step closer and looked down through the opening. The filtered afternoon light was only able to penetrate a few feet into the dark hole, illuminating just the concrete sides of the tube and the first rung of a built-in iron ladder.

He thought for a moment. Perhaps it was now time to part ways with his guide. “Is it just down and follow a tunnel?”

She scoffed. “No, it’s not just down and follow a tunnel.”

“Okay,” he said, revising his plan. “I was just asking.”

Chloe went first, pulling a flashlight out of her pocket he hadn’t known she’d brought along, and he followed. At the bottom was a large, damp tunnel running perpendicular to the entrance tube.

“This leads back to the main building?” he asked.

Chloe grimaced, annoyed. “Do you not listen to me? I already told you it doesn’t.” She huffed out a breath, then said, “Come on.”

She headed to the left, the glow of her flashlight leading the way, then stopped after forty feet and said, “Here.”

She turned her flashlight toward the wall and revealed a big V-shaped break. Ash examined it for a moment. There was an opening through the dirt on the other side of the concrete, not really a tunnel, more of a rift through the earth. Just at the furthest reach of the light he thought he caught a glimpse of more cement.

“This happened during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989,” she said. “You know, the one that took down that freeway in San Francisco?”

He vaguely remembered that from when he’d been a kid. “What’s on the other side?”

Instead of answering, she climbed into the rift and started working her way through the cramped space. Ash knew it was going to be even tighter for him, so instead of crawling as she had, he got on his stomach and pulled himself forward.

The distant cement turned out to be a wall, the break in it not a giant V, but a lopsided oval. As he slipped through the opening and got to his feet, he found himself in a wide space that fell quickly off into darkness beyond the spill of the flashlight.

“Welcome to the Palmer Psychiatric Hospital’s special patient facility. Or what’s left of it,” Chloe said.

She moved the flashlight through the room. There were piles of wood and old office furniture and what appeared to be mattresses. Trash was strewn throughout.

“When they tore down the building, they left the basement,” Chloe explained. “They threw some dirt over the top and let the earth reclaim it. Above us is that clearing we walked through.”

“Why leave the basement?” he asked.

“You ask me like I was there. I wasn’t. I do know, though, that they tore the building down not long after the earthquake.” She paused. “You want my guess?”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“The hospital was still open then. The people who were running it would have known about the tunnel, and probably thought they could still use this place. It’s nice and hidden from the view of anyone. I wouldn’t have put it past them.”

That was a bit on the conspiracy side of things for him, but then again, hadn’t his whole life slipped firmly to the conspiracy side? God, what was happening to him?

“Show me the tunnel into the hospital.”

“Follow me.”

She led him to a door in the far corner. Inside was a staircase leading down.

“There’s two underground levels?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just the stairs,” she said as she started down. “And the tunnel.”

Directly left of the stairs at the bottom was a wide opening. Chloe shined the light into it, but it revealed nothing more than walls on each side before the darkness took over again.

As she started to walk into it, Ash said, “Wait.”

She turned back.

“This isn’t your fight,” he said. “I appreciate you getting me here, but I think I should go on alone from this point.”

She stared at him, then said, “Really? Do you know how to get out of the other end of this tunnel?”

“Is it that hard?”

“It depends on your definition, I guess.”

He shrugged. “If you tell me how to do it, I’ll manage.”

“And what are you going to use for light? You’re not taking my flashlight.”

“Actually, I am,” he said. “You can wait here until I get back.”

She took a step away from him, toward the tunnel. “You want to leave me here in the dark? Are you kidding me?”

“It’ll be safer.”

“Yeah, until I go crazy because I keep hearing things, then I run straight into a wall and knock myself out. I’m sorry, Mr. Not-In-The-Army-Anymore, but no way in hell I’m staying here in the dark.” With that she turned and started down the tunnel.

Once more he found himself in the position of following her.

The tunnel between the buildings was a good six feet wide and at least eight tall, with a gentle downward slope. Ash realized that explained why the stairs from the annex basement had been built. If the tunnel had been dug directly from the main building up to the annex, it would have had a considerably steeper incline.

After they’d gone nearly fifty yards, Chloe whispered, “We’re getting close, so best to stay quiet.”

Ten yards further on, they came to a stop in front of a cinder-block wall that closed off the tunnel.

“I thought you said this went all the way through,” Ash said, feeling suddenly panicky.

“You’re such a downer.”

She knelt by the wall and worked her fingers into the gaps on either side of a block on the bottom row. Within seconds, she slid it out. Peeking through, she shined her light into the opening then sat back up. Four more blocks came out. When she was done, she’d created a hole big enough for them to snake through.

“This was apparently put up when the hospital finally closed. They were supposed to fill in everything on this side of it.” She shrugged. “I guess they didn’t have the money.”

“How did you find out about it?” he asked.

She was silent for a moment. “Matt’s people, when they got me out. They showed me.”

Before he could ask another question, she disappeared through the wall. Ash, left in the dark, had to feel his way down to the opening then slip through and join her. On the other side, the tunnel went on for another twenty feet, then T-boned into a wide corridor.

“Where exactly are we?” he asked.

“This is the main hospital. The part that was built into the side of the hill,” she said. “We’re on the top floor, but still underground.”

Ash tensed. “Where will my kids be?”

“Two floors down,” she said without hesitation.

Once more he thought about leaving her behind, but she’d proved more useful than he’d expected. So instead, he said, “Show me.”

“There are five stairwells,” she told him. “One at each corner, and a fifth along the south wall.” She pointed off to their left. “We’re actually on the fourth floor. Your kids’ll be on the second, in the northeast corner.” As she said this, her jaw clenched a little. She was quiet for a moment. “The quickest way is by either of the north-side stairwells, but there’s an excellent chance the others will hear us before we can even get close.”

“So we use one on the south side,” he said, eager to move.

“Yes, but not one in the corners,” she told him. “The one in the middle. This floor used to be where the doctors’ offices were. The middle stairway is attached to the old hospital director’s office. It was his private way of getting in and out.”

“Fine,” he said impatiently. “Can we just go?”

She glanced at him without moving. “You might want to get your gun ready.”

• • •

The middle stairway creaked a bit as they went down, but not enough, Ash hoped, to draw attention. When they reached the closed door at the second floor landing, Chloe stopped and listened.

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.

“What’s on the other side?”

“An examination room. Or at least I think that’s what it used to be.”

“Do they use it?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There was a stack of old wheelchairs there when I came through. That was about it. They only use a small area in the back of the building. ”

As she reached for the door handle, Ash grabbed her arm, stopping her.

“I’ll go first.”

Holding the SIG in one hand, he grabbed the knob with his other and eased the door open.

Indirect sunlight filtered into the examining room from a window on the south wall, providing more than enough illumination to see the stack of wheelchairs Chloe had mentioned. From the dust on the floor it was clear no one had been through here in a long time. Ash stepped inside, and moved quickly across the room to the main door. There was only silence on the other side.

He hesitated for a moment, then turned to Chloe. “There’s light here. If you want, you can wait until I come back.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If I want? You’re not telling me to stay?”

Shaking his head, he said, “It’s up to you.”

“Let’s go, then. You’re going to need me.”

He nodded reluctantly, then opened the door. The hallway on the other side was dark, but not pitch-black like the tunnel or the basement. The scant bit of illumination was courtesy of sunlight spilling out of a couple open doors to the left.

“I assume we go right?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Mind if I carry the flashlight now?”

She hesitated for a moment, then handed it to him.

The hallway got darker and darker as they headed back into the section that was embedded in the mountain. There were doors along both sides. The few that were open led into rooms that Ash sensed hadn’t been used in decades.

They’d been going for just over a minute when Chloe touched his back and pointed ahead at an opening to another hallway. He stopped at the corner, listened, then peered around it. There was a very dim light at the far end, but that was it.

“If they’re here, that’s the part of the building where they’ll be.”

If…

He was beginning to wonder. So far there had been no sign of anyone else in the building. Surely by now, they would have heard at least one of these mysterious people who were supposed to have his children. It was just too damn quiet. The condition of the building didn’t help his mind, either. It was a dump. Why would they have brought his kids here in the first place?

He turned down the hall, knowing the only way to find out for sure was to keep going.

Silence continued to reign as they got closer and closer to the other end. With each new step, Ash couldn’t help but think that Matt’s information must have been wrong. There was no way anyone was here. He moved all the way to the end of the hall, then stopped for another check.

Stone. Dead. Silence.

Even in places with just a few people around, there was always a sense of others. Ash didn’t have that sense now.

He stepped out into the intersecting hallway without checking first, knowing no one would be there. And he was right.

“We’re alone,” he said, not bothering to whisper. “Matt was wrong. They’re not here.”

Chloe was more tentative as she stepped out to join him. She looked one way down the hallway, then the other, her face full of confusion. “He was sure of it. I know he was.”

“Maybe he was just—” He stopped himself and shook his head.

“Just what?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you mean? Just what?”

“I didn’t mean anything, okay?”

She stared at him, obviously waiting for more. When he remained quiet, she said, “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Matt and Rachel. There’s no question about it. And you’d be dead, too, if they hadn’t changed how you look and given you a new name. So if you’re questioning whether Matt was lying to you or not, don’t. He wasn’t. He never would.”

Without another word, she turned and walked down the hallway to the right, fading into the black.

“Are you coming?” she called out. “I can’t see anything without the flashlight.”

“What’s down there?” he asked.

“If your kids were here, they would have been kept down this way. We should check.”

Doubting they’d find anything, he walked down the hall and joined her.

 

 

34

 

Within fifteen minutes of being posted online, video of what appeared to be two teenagers murdered by soldiers somewhere within the quarantine zone had been picked up by several blogs, and spread through the Internet via Twitter, Facebook and a half dozen other social networking sites.

Its first television appearance was on a German network, thirty-five minutes later. Another hour passed before the American networks finally started showing the footage. While some immediately dismissed it as phony, others pointed not only to the effort that would have been needed to intentionally create something like it, but also to the footage’s incredible realism.

Network researchers worked feverishly to find out who had posted the video. The account had an ID made up of numbers and letters that, on the surface, meant nothing to anyone. When the video-hosting site was contacted, they denied requests for the user’s true identity, citing privacy guidelines. The only information that had been uploaded with the video was the line: Shot by my friend this morning in the Mojave quarantine zone, so sad!

While the search for the poster was going on, the Army vehemently denied any connection to the events in the video. They, too, pushed the idea that the footage was staged.

The breakthrough came in the form of a phone call from a teenage girl named Frances Newcombe of Ridgecrest, inside the quarantine zone, to her cousin John working at Glitz, an entertainment-focused cable channel based in Los Angeles. John was a producer on the long-running show Tinseltown Tales, which, in his case, meant he spent most of his time in edit bays making sure the shows were fast-paced, exciting, and made at least a little sense.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her when she said she knew who had uploaded the video. He’d been tied up most of the day on an episode about a recently failed celebrity marriage, and was unaware of the latest developments concerning the Sage Flu.

“How can you not know?” Frances said. “It’s been on the news, like, nonstop for the last hour.”

“What has?”

“The video of the soldiers carrying away the bodies of two people they’d killed in the quarantine zone!”

The producer frowned. Sure, there was the unfortunate incident in Tehachapi, but soldiers openly firing on civilians? Not likely. Besides, his cousin was sixteen, an age when kids easily jumped to conclusions and felt everything was the end of the world.

“Hold on,” he said, then put his hand over the phone. “Tony, you know anything about some footage on TV of soldiers and dead bodies in the quarantine zone?”

Tony, the editor, spun around in his chair. “Yeah. It’s wild, isn’t it?”

“You saw it?”

Tony nodded. “When I went to get more coffee a few minutes ago. It was on the TV in the break room.”

“Who shot it?”

“They don’t know. They’re trying to figure that out. Someone uploaded it to the Internet but didn’t give their name.”

John took his hand off the phone. “You know who shot this video?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Frances said. “Okay, I don’t know who actually shot it, but I do know who put it up. It’s my friend Martina’s account.”

“You’re sure.”

“One hundred percent positive.”

“Have you asked her about it?”

“I tried calling her cell, but I couldn’t get through.”

“Give me a second,” John said. If his cousin was right, and this video was generating a lot of buzz, then this could be a very, very big moment for him. “Okay. Give me her name and her number.” She did. “What about her home? If we can’t get through to her cell, maybe we can find her there.” His cousin gave him that, too.

“Don’t forget I’m the one who gave it to you,” she said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pass this on, and maybe someone will call you to find out more.”

“You mean like one of the reporters? Will I be on the air?”

“You never know. I’m glad you called me, Frances. I’ll talk to you later.”

He hung up before she could ask anything else.

“What was that all about?” Tony asked.

John just smiled, then ran out of the room. He didn’t stop running until he reached the door of the network president, who, it turned out, was watching the desert canyon footage on their sister network PCN at that very moment.

• • •

When the video of the desert shooting first aired on PCN, Tamara and Joe had been arguing about the story she and Bobby had put together about the riot at Tehachapi, and, specifically, what they thought had really happened to Gavin.

“I’m telling you,” Joe said. “The minute that goes on the air, we are all fired.”

“You saw what I saw,” she argued. “I could tell. It was in your eyes. You know it was the same guy.”

“We all think it was the same guy. We don’t know one hundred percent. But that’s not even my point.”

“Oh, come on, Joe. How can you say that? That man killed my brother.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You aren’t objective on this. Even if it is the same man, and he did kill your brother, you are too emotionally involved to be the one reporting it.”

“Of course I’m emotionally involved, but I’ve kept myself in check and you know it! That’s a damn fine report and we need to air it.”

“Oh, we do, do we? And when whoever’s anchoring comes back to you, that is, if they haven’t fired us already for airing something we haven’t warned them about, when he comes back and asks you questions about the report, you’re going to keep your cool? You won’t show any emotion? What if he questions the connection? What if he just hints that maybe there’s another explanation? You going to be able to hold it together then?”

She clenched her teeth together. “It’s the truth, and you know it.”

“No. I don’t know it. Not for sure.”

She gawked at him. “What? You saw the same thing I—”

“Hey, guys!” Bobby called from inside the van.

“—did. You know it’s the same guy. You know he—”

“Guys, seriously! Get in here!” Bobby yelled.

Tamara glanced over at the van, then back at Joe. “We’re not done,” she told him, then headed over to see what the other member of their team wanted.

Bobby was sitting in the chair in front of the mobile editing station. On one screen was footage he’d been shooting around the base. He was supposed to be putting together a report about the conditions the media had to work under since being moved to the base. On the other screen was a live feed from the network of some amateur footage shot in what looked like a desert canyon. Tamara could see several people in biohazard suits, and, during a brief second when the camera tilted up just a bit, at least one helicopter outside the canyon.

The suited people were standing next to a couple of bodies.

“What is this?” she asked.

“More Internet video,” Bobby told her. “Network’s played this one a couple times already.”

As she watched it, Tamara couldn’t help but feel the sense of something familiar.

Whoever was doing the filming seemed to be above the action. As the bio-suited people began bagging up the two bodies, a voice said in a haunting whisper, “That’s my brother, and my girlfriend. Those…those men shot them. We weren’t doing anything, but they shot them.”

“My God,” Tamara said.

The image zoomed in, intending, it seemed, to identify the people in the suits. But the angle was making it difficult, and the suit masks weren’t helping. Still, the camera operator was able to hold on two of them just long enough to get an idea of what they looked like.

Tamara tensed. “You’re recording this, right?”

Bobby nodded. “Every second.”

She said nothing for a moment, willing herself to remain as calm as possible. “Bobby, can you bring up that video of the soldiers from the helicopters that landed here?”

He gave her an odd look but said, “Sure.”

He punched a few buttons, and the report he’d been working on earlier disappeared from its monitor, replaced by the requested shots.

“Scroll ahead to that part where you were trying to zoom in for me,” she said.

He sped up the footage.

“There,” she told him a few seconds later. “Back it up a little bit, then let it play.”

He did. On the screen they watched the soldiers talk together, then the picture zoomed in quickly, rushing past Gavin’s killer and focusing for a few moments on the interior of the helicopter. Just like she remembered, there was a clump of something yellow on the seat.

“Freeze there,” she said. Once the shot stopped moving, she looked at the other two. “Am I seeing things?”

Both men stared at the screen, then looked back at the network feed.

“Son of a bitch,” Bobby said under his breath.

The yellow clump looked very much like one of the bio-suits worn by the people in the desert canyon.

“Hold on,” Joe said, shaking his head. “I’m sure all crews have been outfitted with these kinds of suits. They probably all look alike.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Tamara said. “But then that means you’re also conceding those people in the video are part of the military.”

Joe didn’t have a response to that.

“There’s something else,” she said.

Once the network finished playing the desert clip, Tamara had Bobby go back to where the kid whose friends had been shot zoomed in on the biohazard face masks. Bobby paused on the image she requested, then went back to the footage he’d shot of the men outside the helicopter there at Fort Irwin. Once more, she had him pause on an image.

She didn’t have to say anything.

The features and expression of the man on the left screen were exactly the same as the features and expression of the man on the right.

“I want to talk to whoever shot that footage,” she said.

Without looking away from the screen, Joe said, “Let me see what I can do.”

 

 

35

 

The door Chloe opened led into a dark section of the building that was obviously built into the side of the hill. Ash moved past her into the room, swinging the light around to get a quick take on the space. But he barely registered anything before the overhead lights came on.

He whirled around. Chloe was standing by the door, her hand next to a switch.

Power in this decrepit building?

It seemed odd, but then, as he looked around, he realized the room he was in wasn’t decrepit at all. It was clean, almost sterile—white walls, black-tiled floors, no dust, no mud. Even the air smelled pure. It was as if they’d been transported out of the abandoned building they’d been in, and into a brand new hospital a million miles away.

The room wasn’t particularly large. There were benches against two sides and a row of empty bins along the wall.

Chloe pulled open the only other door in the room and passed through. As Ash followed, she switched on a light in the new space. They were in a corridor, with a dozen doors leading off it in either direction.

“They’re gone. Definitely,” she said.

“If they were here at all.”

She looked at him. “Let’s check.”

She began opening doors. Behind each were shorter hallways with what appeared to be a nurse’s station near the front, and anywhere from three to five doors on either side. These spaces were as immaculate as the first room had been.

Starting at the far end, Chloe and Ash entered each hall and went door to door, checking inside. Each door opened onto an empty room. It wasn’t hard to imagine the rooms were designed to hold a bed, and that each of these small hallways was like a hospital ward.

“What do they use this for?” he asked.

Chloe said, “Whatever they want.”

That seemed to be all the answer she was willing to give. Ash noticed that with each new ward they entered, she seemed to draw more and more into herself.

So far, they had found nothing. As Ash approached the door for the next ward, Chloe said, “Not that one.”

“Why not?”

She walked past him to the next door down. “We’ll try this one.”

But it was as empty as the others, and so were the final two after that.

“We haven’t checked that one yet,” he said, nodding at the door they’d skipped.

She stared across the hall at it for several seconds, then finally said, “Okay.”

When he opened the door, the new ward looked exactly like all the others. He walked in and checked the first room. Empty. As he stepped back out, he noticed that Chloe was standing in the ward doorway, her feet not having crossed the threshold.

“You okay?” he asked.

She gave him a quick nod, but didn’t say anything.

He knew this must have been where she’d been imprisoned. He wondered what they’d done to her, what had affected her so deeply.

He walked over to the room directly across the hall and looked inside. It was a mirror image of the first room. He moved to the room next door—same again—then crossed over to its opposite.

When he flicked on the light this time, he got a surprise. The room was furnished. There were two hospital beds, two tables that could be rolled into position so a patient could use them, a padded chair by the door, and a cabinet between the beds.

He walked all the way in.

“What is it?” Chloe called out.

“This one’s not empty.”

There were no sheets on the beds, but the mattresses themselves looked new. He leaned down to take a cautious sniff. Neither smelled of age or decay.

He checked the cabinet, then searched the rest of the room to see if anything had been left behind. The only thing he came up with was a hair, thin and brown and long, that had fallen between the mattress and the headboard of one of the beds. It could have belonged to a million different people, a billion even, but it could have also belonged to Josie. Had his children really been here? Was it possible?

He carefully rolled up the hair, put it in the change pocket of his jeans, then continued searching the room but found nothing else. When he turned to leave he was surprised to see Chloe standing at the door.

“I…I had the same kind of bed,” she said, her eyes flicking to the left down the hall, unconsciously looking in the direction of the room Ash assumed had been hers. “But it was…it was only me. Your kids are lucky they have each other.”

“There’s no way to know if they have each other,” Ash said. “I don’t even know if they were really here.” He looked back toward the beds, trying to hold himself together. “The only thing we know for sure is that they aren’t here now.”

When he looked back, Chloe wasn’t in the doorway any more. He exited the room, assuming she’d be back at the ward door, but instead she was standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the last room on the right.

“Let’s go,” he said. “There’s no reason to stay here.”

But as he took a step toward the exit, she didn’t move.

“Chloe?”

Without looking at him, she said, “Matt’s…Matt’s inside person…is the same one who helped me.” The words were obviously causing her a great deal of distress, but Ash couldn’t understand why. “He would…leave me…messages. You know…so I’d know I wasn’t…alone. That helped me to survive.”

“You don’t need to torture yourself like this,” Ash said. “Come on.”

“Matt told him I was coming with you,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “If something…changed, he…might have left me…a note.”

Ash took a step toward her, suddenly hopeful. “A note?”

She continued to stare at the door. “We don’t even know if…he got Matt’s initial message…but if…if…if he did…”

“If he did, what, Chloe?”

She took a couple of deep breaths. “He would probably leave it somewhere only I would know.”

“Where?”

The silence stretched out for a dozen seconds, then she said in a barely audible voice, “In my room.”

“It’s okay,” Ash said, trying to calm her down. “Just tell me where it is, and I’ll check.”

Her head began shaking left and right. “No. I have to do it. It’s my spot. My place only.”

Her breath shuttered in and out one more time, then she took a step toward the door, then another step and another, each coming quicker than the last. When she reached the room, she went inside without hesitating.

Ash wasn’t sure what to do. Should he let her look on her own or should he help? When half a minute passed and she hadn’t reappeared, he decided he needed to see what was going on.

As he opened the door, he could hear her sobbing.

“Chloe?” he said, rushing in.

She wasn’t there.

“Chloe?”

Another sob, this one from his left through the doorway to the bathroom. He found her inside on her knees in the middle of the tiled floor.

He dropped down beside her. “Are you hurt?”

She jumped when he touched her, surprised that he was there. “I can do this. I’ll be okay.”

“Just let me help.”

“I can do this,” she repeated, but didn’t move.

Her put his arm around her shoulders. She tried to pull away again, but then she took another breath, this one longer and slower, and she let him leave his arm where it was.

“What did they do to you?”

She said nothing for several seconds, then finally turned and looked up at him. “I don’t remember.”

“Well…that’s probably…good, right?” he said, realizing he shouldn’t have asked in the first place. “Maybe it’s best that way.”

“No,” she said quickly. “You don’t understand. I don’t remember. Anything.”

“What do you mean, anything? From when you were here?”

Again, her head shook. “From before. I remember waking up here. I remember being strapped to the bed. I remember the needles and the pills and the tests. I remember all that. But anything that came before in my life? I don’t remember.” She looked around the room. “This place took my past from me.”

Good God, Ash thought. “You don’t…know anything about your past?”

“I know about it. My name used to be Lauren Scott. Matt and Rachel showed me family pictures, articles in the local paper where I apparently grew up, my college diploma. I even sat in a car down the street from my…my parents’ house, and watched them walk along the sidewalk. If I hadn’t been shown a photo of them, I would have never recognized them. They were just two people I didn’t know. I had no feelings for them whatsoever.” Her eyes narrowed. “These people took that from me. They took me from me. That’s who I can’t get back.”

Ash wasn’t sure what to say. Was it better to remember that his wife was dead, and that he had two children who were in need of his help, or to be conscious of the fact you could remember nothing at all?

She wiped a hand across her cheeks. “I’m sorry. This isn’t helping. We’re here to find your kids, not watch me break down.”

“Don’t worry about it. You have every right to be upset.”

She tried to smile, but failed, then said, “Help me up.”

Once they were back on their feet, Ash asked, “Was there a note?”

“I…I haven’t checked yet.” She stepped toward the shower. “It’s over here.”

“I can get it.”

“No. I’m okay now.”

Whether she was or not, she was at least more in control of herself as she stepped into the shower stall. Water for the shower was controlled by a handle that could be moved left or right. Behind the handle was a concave metal plate that curved into the wall. Chloe pressed her fingertips around the edge of the plate, then twisted it to the left. It moved about two inches, then slipped out of whatever clamp was holding it in place. She moved it as far out as the still-attached handle would allow, then reached into the gap behind it. When she pulled her hand back, there was a piece of paper between her fingers.

Ash tried to temper his anticipation. The paper could still be nothing. A note from when she’d been here before, perhaps, or…or…

She unfolded it, read what was there, then showed it to him.

There was a date at the top, that day’s date, and a time, ten a.m., with the word “gone” after it. That meant as few as six hours before, Josie and Brandon had still been there. The next part read:

Kids still alive. Taking to NB7.

Alive. They’re alive. But what did he mean by “still”? Did that mean their time was almost up?

“What does NB7 mean?” Ash asked.

“It’s the way the others refer to their different facilities. They each have alpha-numeric designations.”

“Do you know where this place is?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Ash felt his world start to crumble. He’d been so close. He put a hand over his eyes, and could feel the pressure in his head building. He had to do something, but he didn’t know what.

Chloe touched his back. “Hey. We’re not done yet. There’s someone who might know.”

He looked at her. “There is?”

She hesitated. “Yes. A woman named Olivia.”

“Can we call her?”

Chloe shook her head. “We can’t call. We need to go see her.”

“Where is she?”

“Not too far, I think. Maybe an hour, hour and a half away. Matt’s the one who knows exactly where she is.”

Without even hesitating, Ash pulled out his phone and called the emergency number Pax had given him.

 

 

36

 

Rachel entered Matt’s office as he was finishing up his call with Ash.

“Did they find the children?” she asked when her brother hung up.

“The place had already been cleared out.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s not as bad as it could have been. Winger was able to leave a message. They’ve taken the kids to someplace called NB7.”

“Is that on our list?”

“No. I checked while we were talking.” He paused for a moment, then looked at his sister. “Chloe suggested Olivia might know where it is.”

“Olivia?” Rachel frowned. “Even if she does, she might not tell them.”

“You don’t think it’s worth trying?”

Rachel looked out the window. Her history with Olivia was not a particularly pleasant one. “Does it matter? You’ve already sent them to the Bluff, haven’t you?”

He adjusted himself uncomfortably in his chair. “If you can think of any other way to find out in a hurry, I’m more than open to it. But, yes, I’ve already sent them there.”

Rachel stared at the distant hills, knowing her brother had done the right thing, but also not sure if she would have done the same if it had been up to her. Of course, truth be told, if it had been up to her, Olivia would have been dead a long time ago.

Finally, she turned back to him and set the paper she’d been carrying on the desk. “We have another situation.”

Matt read the message. “Damn.”

“I think there’s a better than fifty-percent chance we’re going to have to perform an extraction,” she said.

He glanced through the message again, then nodded. “Keep a close eye on it, and get everything in place.”

“I have a truck already on its way.”

He eyed her suspiciously.

“It’s going in with a CDC pass,” she said. “There won’t be any problems.”

“Still, an extraction’s going to be tricky, given the location.”

“But not impossible.”

“No. Not impossible.”

• • •

At Bluebird, a similar high-level conference was being held. The Director of Preparation—who, among other things, oversaw Dr. Karp’s work and the operation Mr. Shell was heading up to keep a lid on things—and two of his counterparts were meeting in a small room specifically designed for these kinds of quick, private meetings.

“It’s getting out of hand,” the Director of Recovery said. “We are dangerously close to exposure.”

“I don’t think we’re even near that point yet,” the DOP said.

“Don’t you? What about that video that the networks are blasting all over the place today? Those weren’t military troops doing the shooting. Those were our people.”

“Yes, they were. And even if they weren’t covered in bio-suits, there would be no possible way for the connection to be made back to us.”

“What were they doing out there anyway?”

“Their job.”

The DOR didn’t look as if he liked the answer.

“Is there a problem?” The DOP asked.

“Given the safeguards of KV-27a, it just seemed…unnecessary.”

The DOP looked at his colleague for a moment. “Are you worried about the deaths of two people?”

“Of course not,” the other man said quickly. “There just seems to be a lot of…glitches with this particular operation.”

“You’re right. There have been several glitches.”

“Starting with KV-27a reaching the public in the first place!”

“True, but I think that has actually been a benefit to us. As have these glitches. They’ve exposed areas of concern that are much better for us to know about now than later, don’t you think? If we had to do it all over again, I think I would have pushed for something like this to occur by design as opposed to by accident.”

“You’ve got to be…” The DOR fell silent.

“What? Kidding? Is that what you were going to say?” The DOP’s eyes cooled to hard steel, his voice cutting the air as he spoke. “The stakes we’re playing with are enormous. I can’t worry about two kids being killed in the desert. They’re not even a drop in the bucket of what’s to come if we’re to achieve what we’ve set out to do. The future of humanity is in our hands alone. That’s the oath we’ve all taken, or have you forgotten? Perhaps you think we need to change the parameters of the entire project. Perhaps you think we need to go easy.” He paused. “Tell me, how are you going to react when implementation day comes? Are you going to raise your concerns then, too?”

The DOR tensed. “Of course not.” He stood up. “Perhaps I was…hasty.”

The DOP immediately became calm and conciliatory. It was one of the abilities that made him an excellent leader within Project Eden. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. Don’t worry about it.” He offered his hand.

The DOR shook it, nodded at the silent third man in the room, then left.

As soon as the door closed, the DOP said, “He needs to be replaced.”

The third man, the Director of Survival, rose to his feet. He was smaller than the others by a foot, and one of the most dedicated members of the project. “Yes, he does. But he also has a point about the mistakes.”

“I know.” The mistakes were good learning tools, but the ones who had made them would need to be dealt with.

“What about the KV-27a safeguards? Any word?” the DOS asked.

“I’m told everything is on schedule.”

“Excellent.” Changing the subject, the DOS said, “Where are we on the vaccine?”

“Almost there. We should have a working batch within a few weeks.”

“Then we’re on to the next phase.”

The Director of Preparation smiled. “Yes, we are.”

• • •

By late afternoon it was clear to Martina and the others in the segregated group at Cryer’s Corner that Paul Unger was not just suffering from his wounds, but was also ill.

Coach Delger had said that if he only had the increased fever, then it could have been explained by his injuries. But there was the cough, too, and the growing congestion, all symptoms that had been previously reported in connection with the Sage Flu.

Martina was a smart girl. She knew if things played out the way they had everywhere else, she and the others in the segregated group would all be dead within a day or so. It scared her more than she wanted to admit, but she tried to stay calm because a few of the others were totally freaking out already, and someone had to keep their head.

It didn’t help that the news reported the virus had spread throughout the entire quarantine zone, including their hometown of Ridgecrest. And even though the correspondent had said the new outbreaks seemed to have been contained to a handful of people here and there, the sense of doom that hung over the café was stifling.

There was no report, though, on the fact that the quarantine roadblock had been moved from ten miles west of Cryer’s Corner to ten miles east. Perhaps they were the only ones who knew about that. And given the fact that the phones, and therefore the Internet, had stopped working not long after Martina uploaded Paul’s video, there was no way they could share that information.

The only good news as far as she was concerned was Ben. That was the name of the cute college boy. He was from San Mateo in the Bay Area and had been driving home from a skiing trip in Colorado. Luckily for Martina, he wasn’t one of the people flipping out so, naturally, they had gravitated toward each other.

At that moment, they were sitting in a booth at the far corner of the café, absently watching the TV. The reporter was a woman who’d been caught inside the zone, and was now at Fort Irwin near Barstow with several other members of the media. Martina wasn’t paying her much attention, though. The woman had pretty much been saying the same thing over and over all day.

“This sucks,” Martina blurted out.

“The news?” Ben asked.

She glanced at the screen. “Well, yeah. That, too. But all of this. It completely sucks. We can’t even call our families to see how they’re doing. It’s like we’re in prison.”

“At least this prison has cushioned seats,” he said, smiling.

“Ha ha.” She turned her attention back to the TV, but could only take it for another minute before she said, “I wish I’d just start coughing and get it over with, you know?”

Ben didn’t say anything.

“Did you hear me?”

She looked at him. He was staring out the window at something in the distance. Finally, as if on delay, he said, “Sorry.” Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he scooted out of the booth. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” she asked, but he was already halfway toward the front of the café, so she got up and followed him.

He stopped at the counter near the register and looked around.

“What are you doing?” she asked, walking up.

“Have you seen Molly?”

Molly Cryer was the older woman who, it turned out, owned the café.

“Maybe in back?” Martina suggested.

With a nod, Ben passed through the opening in the counter and back into the kitchen. More curious than ever, Martina continued to follow him.

Molly was sitting on a little stool in back, watching a DVD of some old black and white movie on a small TV set on a desk. She had a soda in one hand, and an unlit cigarette in the other.

“The gas station across the street,” Ben said. “There’s a big rig behind it.”

“Yeah,” Molly said without taking her eyes off the screen.

“Whose is it?”

“The rig? That’d be Eddie Jackson’s truck.”

“Is he around?”

“Nah. He’s in…” She paused for a moment. “Reno, I think.”

“Who has the keys?”

“I assume Lance does over at the station.”

“Great. Thanks.”

As Ben headed back out, Martina said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“About what?”

He said nothing.

“Whoa! Where are you two going?” Coach Driscoll asked as Ben and Martina reached the front door.

“I need to check something,” Ben said.

“Well, just stick around right out front. Don’t want to expose anyone else.”

Most of the unexposed group had been hanging out at the mini-market just down from the café. No one had really laid claim to the gas station on the other side of the road yet, because there really wasn’t much to claim other than a couple of pumps and a greasy garage.

Once he was outside, Ben started jogging straight for the station.

Before he reached the road, Martina said, “I don’t think we’re supposed to go across.”

“Then you don’t have to come.”

Though she’d bent one or two rules in her life, she wasn’t a big one for breaking them, but given the fact that by this time tomorrow she’d probably be dead, what did it matter? She picked up her speed and caught up to him midway across the asphalt of the empty highway.

“Still not going to tell me what you’re doing?” she asked.

“Still not.”

No one seemed to be around as he led her into the gas station’s small office. He then started pulling desk drawers open, and slamming them closed when he didn’t find whatever it was he was looking for.

After a few minutes, he moved into the garage and took a quick scan around. His gaze locked onto a black cabinet on the wall.

He pulled the door open, then let out a yelp of triumph.

Martina moved around so she could look inside. There were several rows of hooks. Most were empty, but a few had keys hanging from them. Ben moved his finger along the sets that were there, pulling off several.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if I’m right.”

As they stepped out of the garage, a voice yelled out, “What are you doing in there?”

Lance Cryer, the guy who ran the gas station, was standing near the highway looking at them. He’d been in the group deemed unexposed.

“Just borrowing some keys,” Ben said.

“Dammit. You shouldn’t have gone in there. That’s my place. Now I can’t use it until someone washes it all down.”

Ben grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Too late now, isn’t it?” Lance said. “What are you going to do with those keys?”

Ben looked down at the sets in his hand. After a second, he seemed to come to some decision. “Tell Eddie Jackson I’m sorry, too.”

“What?” Lance asked, confused.

Ben touched Martina on the arm. “Come on.”

They circled around the gas station to the semi truck parked in back. The first set of keys didn’t work, but the second opened the door.

“Go around to the other side,” he told her. “I’ll open it up for you.”

By the time she got there, the passenger door was unlocked.

“Okay, so are we going to make a run for it?” she asked, smirking, as soon as she was inside.

“Not a bad idea. But I kind of think I’d rather die of a cold than a bullet.”

That wiped the smile off her face.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to be funny. But…”

Shaking her head, she said, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” She glanced at him expectantly. “So why are we here?”

Ben put the key in the ignition and turned it enough to get the electricity inside working.

“That,” he said, pointing at a device mounted in the dashboard.

“What is it?”

“CB radio. If we can get it to work, we might be able to get you in touch with your mom.”

Martina looked at him. “You…you think so?”

“That’s the hope.”

It took him a few minutes to get the hang of it, but soon he got it working.

“Hello, hello. Is anyone out there?” he said into the mic. Static. “Hello. I’m calling from Cryer’s Corner inside the quarantine zone. Can anyone hear me?”

Static again, then, “…hear you.”

Martina hit Ben’s arm excitedly.

“This is Ben. Ben Bowerman. Who’s this?”

“…ame’s Marty Zimmerman. Everyone calls me…ee.”

“Sorry, you faded out. Calls you what?”

“Zee. Everyone calls me Zee.”

“I can’t tell you how great it is to hear your voice, Zee.”

“Where’d you say you are?”

“Cryer’s Corner.”

“Kinda near Death Valley?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hell, I know where that is. Tiny speck of a place. Did you say you’re in the quarantine zone?”

“Uh, yeah. Where are you?”

“Sitting in the parking lot of a casino just east of the Cal border along I-15. Stuck here with a load of potato chips I was supposed to be taking to Barstow, while I wait to hear where I’m being rerouted. But better stuck here than inside the zone, I guess. What’re you hauling?”

“I’m…not a trucker. There’s a whole group of us stuck here at Cryer’s Corner.”

It took a few minutes to explain everything, then another as Zee made the requested call on his cell phone before Martina heard the voice she thought she would never hear again.

“Hello?” her mother said, her voice distorted by the fact it was coming out of a speakerphone on a cell that was then being transmitted over the CB.

“Mom?”

A slight delay. “Martina? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she said, her eyes welling with water.

“This connection is horrible, sweetie. Can you try calling back?”

“No, no!” Martina yelled. “We don’t have any service here. I’m on a radio.”

“You’re on a what?”

Martina loved her mom dearly, but there were some things she didn’t get right away. “Just don’t hang up, okay?”

A moment later, her dad joined in on another extension. They talked about missing her and wishing she were home. She tried to sound upbeat, and was careful not to say anything about being exposed to the virus. Let them have one more night of peace, she thought.

“I want to know about this video you apparently put on the Internet,” her father said.

“It’s so horrible,” her mother cut in. “Please tell me it’s not true.”

“How did you know I put it up?” Martina asked, confused. Her video account name was a completely random series of numbers and letters.

“We’ve had several calls from people at PCN, including that reporter out in Barstow. They apparently learned about it from your friend Frances.”

Frances, of course.

“Did you really put that up?” her dad asked.

“Yes, Dad. I did.”

“But it’s fake, right?” her mom said. “That didn’t really happen.”

“It’s not fake, Mom.”

Her dad said something, but the static on the line covered most of it up.

“Dad, can you say that again? I couldn’t understand you.”

“…wants to talk to you, sweetie.”

“Who wants to talk to me?” she asked.

“The reporter. From PCN? She gave us her number and wants you to call. I’m not sure you should or not, though.”

Martina looked at Ben. “They want to talk to me?”

He shrugged. “It makes sense. That video must be a big thing right now.”

Over the radio, her dad said, “Sweetie, are you there?”

She moved the CB mic back to her mouth. “I’m here, Dad.”

“Do you want us to give you the number?”

“I’d talk to her, but I can’t call from here.”

Zee cut in. “I could do it for you, if you want.”

“Who’s that?” Martina’s dad asked.

“That’s Zee, Dad. He’s helping us with the radio connection.” She looked at Ben. “Should I talk to her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Someone needs to get the word out about what happened to Paul and his friends.”

She thought for a moment, then keyed the mic again. “Dad, go ahead and give Zee the number. I’ll talk her.”

 

 

37

 

Matt had called the place where Ash and Chloe were going the Bluff. It turned out to be two and a half hours away from the old Palmer Psychiatric Hospital, not one.

The directions took them into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, east of Sacramento. Ash was surprised by how light the traffic was until he realized it was probably due to the outbreak down south. Though there had been no reports of cases up here, that didn’t mean the fear didn’t stretch well beyond the quarantine zone. Better to play it overly cautious and keep your family at home than to risk infection.

They left the interstate behind as they entered the mountains and proceeded up a narrower, windier road into the thickening forest. From there it was down a series of smaller roads. Ash carefully followed Matt’s instructions, but even then he almost missed the gate in the darkening twilight.

It wasn’t anything special, and in fact looked like a half dozen others they’d passed on the way up. Metal-pipe frame, three twelve-inch-wide planks running from side to side, and that was it. The fence it was connected to was made of wood posts with barbed wire strung between, the majority of it covered by vegetation.

Though Ash was tempted to climb out and push the gate open, Matt’s instructions had been clear. “When you reach the gate, stay in your car and wait.”

Two full minutes passed before the gate swung open on its own. Once it was completely out of the way, Ash drove through.

The road on the other side was narrow, the feeling reinforced by the pine trees that grew right up to the edge and the overarching canopy created by their branches. This went on for nearly a hundred yards, then suddenly the trees fell away, and they entered a grass-covered clearing at the top of a hill.

Chloe drew in a surprised breath. “It’s so beautiful.”

At the far edge of the clearing was a house, and beyond it an amazing view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

In many ways, the house looked like a smaller version of Matt and Rachel’s lodge. Wood-stained sides and large windows and warm outside lighting. This Olivia person obviously lived pretty well.

There were two cars parked out front—a pickup truck and a decade-old Cadillac. Ash pulled in behind them then cut the engine.

“Are you staying here or coming with me?” he asked Chloe.

“I’m certainly not staying here.”

They both got out and headed over to the house. As they stepped up onto the porch, the front door opened and Ash got his first shock. The smiling couple who came out to greet them was the same couple who had picked him up in the Winnebago out in the middle of nowhere when he’d been fleeing Barker Flats.

He glanced quickly side to side, thinking he must have missed the RV, but it was nowhere to be seen.

The man, Mike—if that hadn’t been a fake name—thrust his hand out at Ash. “Great to see you again,” he said. As Ash shook his hand, Mike pulled him into a quick hug. “Simply great.” He turned to Ash’s companion. “And Chloe, it’s been far too long.”

“Hi, Mike,” she said.

They hugged with genuine affection.

Janice came over next and gave Ash a coy, contrite smile. “I’m sorry about the coffee. I hope you’ll forgive me, and know I was only trying to help you.”

A day or two earlier, he might have still been mad at her, but now it didn’t seem important. “It’s fine. I know you were doing what you were supposed to.”

Her smile widened in relief, then she gave him a hug. When she stepped back, she said, “Your face looks horrible.”

“Janice!” Mike said.

“Are you going to try to tell me it doesn’t?” she asked.

Ash touched the bandage that covered his nose. He’d almost forgotten about the surgery. “She’s right,” he said. “I wouldn’t even want to look at me.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Janice said, then turned away. “Chloe, you are as beautiful as ever.”

The women hugged.

“Come, come,” Mike said. “We’ve got a fire inside.”

Mike ushered them indoors and led them into a living room.

“Would anyone like coffee?” Janice asked. She looked at Ash. “I can guarantee you this pot is completely harmless.”

“Are you Olivia?” he asked.

“Me? God, no. I’m Janice.”

“Sit,” Mike said. “She’ll bring us coffee.”

Ash remained on his feet. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not here for coffee or small talk. I’m here for someone named Olivia. Matt said she’d be here.”

Mike and Janice shared a look, then Mike said, “She is.”

“Then I’d like to talk to her now.”

Mike’s smile disappeared. He nodded. “Of course. This way.”

He crossed the living room and entered a small hallway near the back corner. As Ash followed, he realized Chloe was behind him.

“Just me,” he told her.

“I’m coming, too.”

“This isn’t your business. It’s mine.”

“I’m coming, too,” she repeated.

He stared at her for a moment, then said, “The second you get in my way, you’re out.”

They found Mike standing halfway down the hallway, in front of an open door.

“Inside,” he said.

They crossed the threshold into what turned out to be a large bathroom.

Ash looked at Mike, confused. “We’re in here because…?”

“You’ve been allowed to come to the Bluff only because Matt trusts you. He thinks you might be able to help us someday. If that trust is misplaced, and you try to betray us, you won’t last very long. I’m not threatening you, I’m just telling you. So before we go any further, I need to know if he’s wrong about you.”

Ash took a moment, then said, “Matt and the rest of you saved my life. And you’ve all been very generous in helping me try to find my children. I have no intention of ever telling anyone about him or his ranch or even your little house here. But if you do try to block me from getting my kids, all bets are off.”

“Good. Then there’s no misunderstanding between us,” Mike said.

He stepped over to a closet with accordion-style doors and opened them. Inside, there was nothing earth-shattering or unusual, just a washer and dryer and a stack of towels. Mike reached behind the washer and touched something. There was a subtle click. Then, with a simple, one-handed push, the dryer moved to the side, and a section of the wall behind it slid open. Mike motioned for Ash and Chloe to pass through.

The space beyond was dark and not particularly large. As soon as Mike joined them, the wall slid shut. The moment it was fully closed, a light came on, and the small room they were in began moving downward.

An elevator.

There might have been more than a little bit of crazy in these people, but they were certainly well funded, Ash thought.

The car continued downward for much longer than he’d expected. When it finally came to a stop, the door opened onto a brightly lit room. There were two men standing just inside, both armed.

“Please step out of the elevator and raise your arms to shoulder height,” one of the men said, demonstrating what he wanted them to do.

Ash was surprised to see that he and Chloe weren’t the only ones who needed to follow the instructions. Mike, too, had his arms out, as he let one of the men first use a metal detecting wand on him, then pat him down.

When they were all through, the man who’d spoken originally said, “Follow me.”

The door on the other side of the room buzzed and he pushed it open. They then entered a long, wide corridor that was as brightly lit as the space they’d just left. About twenty feet from the door was a see-through wall of either glass or Plexi, dividing the area in two. There was a very elaborate-looking security door inset on the right-hand side of the wall.

Prior to this divider, there was a room off to the side that also had a clear wall along the front. Inside, Ash could see at least five more men. Two were standing right at the wall, looking out. Like the guys who’d been waiting outside the elevator, they were armed. The other three were sitting at desks looking at screens, their faces lit by their computers.

The guide led Ash, Chloe, and Mike over to this wall, then said, “Adam Cooper and Chloe White cleared for entrance.”

“Cleared for entrance,” one of the men inside repeated, his voice coming out of a speaker somewhere nearby.

The elaborate security door on the large divider began to hum as locks disengaged. Finally, there was a slight sucking sound before it swung open toward them.

“Through here,” the guide said, leading them to the other side.

There were twenty doors in the back half of the corridor, ten on each side, paired in twos. Down the center of the space were three more armed men, walking back and forth as if they were protecting something.

“What is this place?” Ash asked Mike.

“I’m sorry,” the guide said. “No talking here, please.”

Frustrated, Ash fell silent as they continued down the hallway.

The pair of doors their guide finally stopped in front of was the second to last on the left side. He opened an eye-level panel on the left door, looked through it, then closed it again. He gave Mike a nod, then opened the door on the right.

This time it was Mike who took the lead, with their guide staying outside.

As if the whole facility wasn’t odd already, this new room was even stranger. The first part was a narrow passageway that took a jog to the right, then turned back to the left before opening into a wide space with five comfortable chairs sitting side by side. The chairs were facing the wall on the left, which seemed to be made of opaque, black glass.

“Take a seat,” Mike said.

“Where is she?” Ash asked.

“You’ll see her in a moment.” He gestured at the chairs. “You should take the one in the center.”

Once they were seated, Chloe to his right, and Mike to his left, Ash said, “So what now?”

“Now we talk to Olivia. But I want to warn you first, don’t buy everything she tells you. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.” Though ready was probably not the right word. He had no idea from which direction she was going to enter. And where would she sit? Down at one of the ends? How could he talk to her there?

Mike pushed a button on his armrest.

A voice came out of a speaker. “Station one.”

“This is Mike. We’re ready.”

“Copy that, Mike.”

Suddenly, it was as if the wall in front of them melted away. The opaque black was gone, replaced by clear glass, a window into another room.

Not just a room, Ash realized. A cell.

There was a bed in the back and a sink on the wall next to a toilet. Hanging from the ceiling in the corner, enclosed by a wire cage, was a television that was currently off. But the most striking thing in the room was the woman sitting on a plastic stool just a few feet on the other side of the wall, facing them.

Her blonde hair was short, maybe no longer than half an inch. She had an angular face with high cheekbones and eyes that seemed to smirk. She’d barely moved since the wall became transparent, staring at it, a smile resting on her lips.

“Can she see us?” Ash whispered.

The woman suddenly laughed. “Yes. I can see you. Hear you, too.”

“This is Olivia,” Mike said. “Olivia, we have some guests who need to ask you a few questions.”

“So I’ve been told.” Her gaze shifted to Chloe. “You look kind of familiar. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Chloe said nothing.

The woman shrugged, then turned her attention to Ash. “You’re one ugly son of a bitch, aren’t you? Someone throw you in front of a train?”

Ash ignored her comment. “I’m looking for a location, and I’m told you might know where it is.”

“Hold on. You know my name. I don’t know yours.”

He paused for a second, then said, “Ash.”

“As in cigarette?”

“Do you know the location of something called NB7?”

Her eyes widened a fraction of an inch, as if he’d actually surprised her. “What are you? One of their hunters?” she asked, nodding toward Mike. “Out to bag you a big-name baddie, is that it?” She smiled, then leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “Have you ever considered for a moment that maybe you guys are the black hats?”

“I don’t care about sides,” Ash said. “I'm just trying to find…some people who are important to me. I’ve been told they’ve been taken to NB7. I just need to know where it is.”

“Look, honey. You might as well stop what you’re doing right now. If they’ve been taken to NB7, then they’re probably already dead. Time to move on.”

Ash tried to maintain his composure. “Just tell me where it is.”

“Out of the goodness of my heart? I don’t think so.”

Ash couldn’t hold back. He jumped up and slammed his fist against the wall. “Tell me where it is!”

“Oh, touchy. Who’d they take? Your girlfriend? Wife, maybe? Your mom?”

“Dr. Karp took my kids!”

Olivia stared at him, once more looking a bit surprised.

“Please,” he said. “Where is this place?”

“Even if I told you, do you think they’d just let you walk out with them?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She leaned back. “Really? Because that actually makes it interesting. Whatever it takes?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on,” Mike said. He pressed the button on the armrest. “Cut audio.”

“Audio off,” the voice from earlier said through the speaker.

Ash twisted around. “What?”

“She’s tried to make deals before,” Mike explained. “The one time someone actually took her up on it, it was a trap.”

“I don’t care. If it gets me close to my kids, that’s all I’ll need. I can take it from there.”

“If you’re dead, that’s not going to help your kids at all.”

“And if they’re dead, there’s no reason for me to live. Switch the sound back on.”

Reluctantly, Mike did.

“Can you tell me where my kids are or not?” Ash asked.

“Oh, you’re back. Mikey there telling you not to trust me?” Olivia said.

“Answer my question.”

She held up her hand and wagged a finger at him. “You know very well how this works. Trade-off.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you.”

“Isn’t there?”

He stared at her for a second. “You obviously have something in mind. What is it?”

Her upper lip curled in a faux pout. “I get so little entertainment in here, and you deny me even a little negotiation. Fine. Here’s all I want you to do. When you find the fabulous Dr. Karp, just before you put the bullet in his head, because I know that’s exactly what you want to do, I want you to tell him hi from me, and ask him why he gave up on me. One more thing. If he says anything after that, tell him he’ll be heading to the afterlife before me.”

“That’s it? That’s all you want?”

Her smile was back. “It would mean the world to me.”

“That, I can do.”

“I thought you probably could.”

 

 

38

 

The only thing that kept Ash from speeding down the mountain was the fear of skidding off the side and plunging down the slope. Not only would he and Chloe die, but he’d be effectively killing his children, too. Still, it was hard to keep from pressing the pedal to the floor.

“I’d wish you good luck,” Olivia had said after she gave them the location of NB7, “but I’m guessing you’re already too late.” She stood up and walked right up to the glass, directly in front of Ash.

“Stand away from the wall,” the voice from the speaker ordered. “Stand away from the wall.”

She locked eyes with Ash, her feet firmly planted where she was.

“Stand away from the wall.”

“But just because they’re dead,” she said, “doesn’t mean you can’t deliver my message to Dr. Karp.”

She obviously hoped that whether his children were dead or alive, Ash would want Dr. Karp to pay for what had been done to his family. And though he wasn’t about to accept the possibility that Brandon and Josie were gone, she’d been right.

The biggest problem now was that NB7 was in Eastern Oregon, 370 miles away from the Bluff.

The jet Matt had sent them west on wasn’t an option. Mike had checked. The plane was apparently somewhere in Texas, and wouldn’t be able to get to an airport close to them for nearly four hours. Add on the flight time, and the fact that the closest place they could land would still be an hour away from NB7, and the balance decidedly tipped in favor of driving.

Mike had suggested they get at least a few hours’ sleep at the Bluff before they left, but that was out of the question. Every minute saved could be the difference between Ash’s kids living or dying.

According to the car’s GPS, the trip should take them six and a half hours. Ash planned on slicing at least an hour to an hour and a half off that once they hit level ground.

“You going to hold the steering wheel like that the whole time?” Chloe asked.

He shot her a quick look. “What?”

“You’re gripping it like you want to tear it out of the dash. You’re wasting energy.”

He glanced at his hands. His fingers were wrapped around the wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel the stress running up his arms and into his shoulders. He forced himself to relax, then looked back at the road.

“I can drive, if you want,” she said. “I’m pretty good.” She paused. “I didn’t forget how, if you’re worried about that.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Sure, whatever you want. I’m here though, okay? ‘Cause, you know, I think you’d want to be at your max when we get there. But that’s your choice.”

He didn’t respond, but he knew she was right. It would be after midnight when they arrived and he’d need to be sharp. Maybe after they got out of the hills, he’d let her drive for a couple of hours while he slept.

“What did you think of Olivia?” Chloe asked.

Ash shrugged. “I just wanted the location from her. I didn’t think about her otherwise.”

“Last time I saw her she was mad as hell because we’d just caught her, like a cornered wild animal.” She paused. “She used to work with Dr. Karp on the experiments. Yours wasn’t the first, you know. Not even close. But probably their most successful, huh? Not only did they find something that worked, they found you and your kids, too.”

Without looking at her, he said, “What do you mean?”

“The experiments. You know about that, right? Matt told you?”

“He just said we were part of a test.”

“Oh. Well, then…maybe…I shouldn’t…I mean it’s not my place. Oh, dammit. Just forget it.”

The silence lasted for nearly a minute.

“He was going to tell me,” Ash said. “Back at the ranch, but I just wanted to focus on getting my kids. That first day, he started talking about things that were bigger than I could imagine, like I’d been caught up in some sort of…of…”

“Conspiracy?” she asked.

“Conspiracy,” he said, nodding. “That’s exactly what it sound like to me. Some nut-job theory like NASA faking the moon landings or the U.S. Government being behind 9/11.”

“NASA landed on the moon?” she asked.

He looked at her, his eyes narrowing in concern.

“I’m kidding,” she said. “I forgot about who I was, but things that I learned, things that weren’t about me, I remember most of those.”