Dark Cure: A Covid Thriller (Dark Plague Book 1) Page 12

  He set up new phones for Steph and him to replace the one the kidnappers had destroyed. His prepper’s guide chapter on personal telecoms ensured that everyone in his family already had a duplicate SIM card, and he had purchased middle-range Android smartphones as backups. He keyed in a handful of passwords and put the pair down on the table as Chrome and Gmail worked their intrusive magic.

  His first email on the new device arrived soon after. Fillmore reported that the helicopter hadn’t flown until eight o’clock and had spotted nothing out of the ordinary. The deputies went to the tracked phones’ last locations and discovered two wrecked automobiles. Neither had been searched as of yet. Their theory was that Burns’ Jaguar was involved in an accident at the scene, but had been drivable. Fillmore would advise further once the Mendocino deputies learned more, and Sal should alert him if anyone called the burner.

  Jaime slid the patio door open and walked over to the railing to stare out at Mount Tam as a red-tailed hawk circled on a morning thermal. Sal didn’t know what to make of this young warrior other than Barb had stuck with him longer than her other infatuations. Jaime also spent a lot of time at the VFW Hall and gun range, two habits Barb wanted to replace with less militaristic causes. Jaime winced as he adjusted the bandage on his head. “Did you serve?”

  “No, I was too young for Vietnam and there weren’t any 9/11s in the Nineties.”

  “I ask because you seem to be motivated by a higher cause. In the Corps, we learned that no one lives forever; only the Corps endures. I wondered if you had a similar philosophy.”

  “No, I’m a business analyst. My children and wife consider me a misanthrope because I apply probabilities to their dreams. I don’t mind people taking chances, but they need to know the odds too.”

  “I agree with you there. In Iraq and Syria, we had to balance risks all the time. Our rules of engagement allowed us to shoot any adult male who didn’t obey our orders. We put ourselves in extra danger if we held fire to see if they’d comply on the second try. Our goal was to preserve life, not take it, so that was a fundamental conflict.”

  “And a terrifying one, I assume.”

  “The very best, the tier-one operators, were good enough to pull it off and not get hurt. Everyone else, including my unit, suffered casualties. We shouldn’t die to protect people who don’t deserve it.”

  Sal didn’t know where this conversation was headed and kept quiet.

  “Ever read any utilitarian philosophy?” Jaime asked.

  “Not directly,” Sal responded, trying to hide his surprise. “John Stuart Mill and ‘The greatest good to the greatest number’ is all that I know.”

  “That’s why you gave the last dose away, to try to help the most people even at the cost of your grandson’s life?”

  Sal shifted in his chair. “There’s an element of that, but if I could trade myself and the dosage to save Tyson, I’d do it. I’m just not prepared to throw away a decent chance to save many people in a longshot attempt to save a baby who already might be beyond help.”

  “You think Tyson’s dead?”

  Sal brought Jaime up to speed on Fillmore’s email. “It seems our adversaries have consolidated. I didn’t see the need to tell the women or you, not after what happened at breakfast. It doesn’t really matter to me: I’ll search for Tyson until I find him.”

  Jaime walked over and sat on the chair next to Sal’s. “I hear you. Those Black Ice operators are pros, but I’ll hunt them down. If you come with me, we shoot on sight: The safest way to free Tyson is to eliminate all the threats. If he’s already dead, all the more reason to kill them.”

  “That doesn’t sound very much like utilitarianism.”

  “Utilitarianism?” Jaime’s disgust was evident. “That’s bullshit spouted by dictators. It’s counter to the laws of natural justice. I’m all about justice.”

  “Fillmore better supply an address. Otherwise, we’ll just root in the dark like blind hogs.”

  “I learned from Delta that operations conducted with limited or poor intel were always much more complicated than you would ever expect. We wait until something solid appears. Once the sun sets, we’ll use tonight for a weapons familiarization and training session. Write down everyone and every place Burns might know or visit. I’ll work out approaches for each. Do you still have a budget to buy vehicles for Canada?”

  “We can’t go to Canada without Tyson or else my family will be in full revolt.”

  “Tyson will be settled one way or the other by the end of the week. After that, we need to leave this place. We’re in the Covid kill box and every day’s a step closer to civil chaos. I’ve seen it before, and it happens fast.”

  “Agreed: Once we find Tyson, we leave. Barb still good?”

  “Barb will go if Steph comes. Steph will go if Greg agrees. Work on him once he’s back from the hospital. If you’re serious about whatever the convoy’s called—”

  “The 3M, the Manned Mission to Mars.”

  “—we’ll have lined it all up. You still want two fancy motorhomes plus a delivery truck?”

  “Yes, beyond the one-point-three cash in reserve for ransom funds, I have two million in the bank available Monday. You can spend at least one and a half mil on the vehicles. Once I read the sales contracts, I’ll transfer the funds online or pay in cash.”

  “Good. I have the brochures and salesmen’s last quotes for eight-ply tires, four spares and extra fuel tanks.” Sal nodded in approval and Jaime walked inside with a purpose to his stride.

  Sal shook his head. USMC Sergeant Jaime Gonzalez, modern philosopher, executioner and futurist. Maybe there was hope for the Gen Y’ers after all, though he suspected Jaime’s childhood in Juarez hadn’t abounded with group hugs and playdates.

  * * * * *

  Carla despised Harriet Holland. She was a shoddy scientist and a kiss-up, kick-down manager. As the only other female team leader in the bioweapons lab, Carla also sensed that Dr. Harriet Holland despised her right back. That made the insincerity of the current conference call with the D.C. higher-ups even more offensive.

  “The efficacy of 896MX isn’t in doubt and I’ve redeployed resources,” Dr. Holland pontificated over the Polycom. “Our goal is to replicate this miraculous formulation and start human trials. Since you’ve finally made it back to the lab, I need you to share the formula and other details concerning its provenance.” The two women were alone in a small meeting room. Carla had already provided answers to these questions, making Holland’s insistence on a long-distance re-creation a double irritation.

  “I was given a small batch by an intermediary who sourced it from another researcher,” Carla said. “I don’t have the formula. I don’t have the name of the researcher, either.”

  “Then give us the name of the broker and we’ll investigate.”

  “I can’t do that: He provided the treatment on a non-attributable basis. I suspect that he stole the drug, or there’s another strong reason why he can’t tell me anything else.”

  “Dr. Maggio, I’m less interested in your source than in procuring the benefits of the adjuvant,” General Overmeyer said. He was a creepy old man who was always staring at her chest, but she was grateful to have him in her corner. “What can you tell me?”

  Carla played her trump card. “General, I left the lab yesterday because my contact indicated that he had a small amount of the drug. With the assistance of one of the lab’s on-site security firms, I brought in the last dose this morning. I have four of my team suited up and we’ll start work after this call ends. In the next day, we hope to at least have the ingredients, and possibly formulations to test against live coronaviruses.”

  Carla watched as Holland’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut in anger. The senior woman’s eyes radiated contempt, but she said nothing.

  General Overmeyer slapped the tabletop in approval. “Excellent! I was told you’d withheld cooperation. That sounded very uncharacteristic. Please carry on with your team, Carla.” Less cord
ially, he added, “Dr. Holland, could you call me back in private from your office?”

  Carla was out of the conference room before Holland could confront her. She didn’t stop speed-walking until she was in her office. She looked at her phone and saw a new Signal message from Travis: Eureka! Meet at my office? As Holland was only minutes away from another tirade, she was grateful for a trip outside the wire. She checked her hair in the reflection of the elevator door on the way to the lobby. When the doors opened, a white-shrouded form lay on a gurney: coming or going?

  Out through the body scanner, an X-Ray of personal effects, and then her photo ID at two manned security posts—the second staffed by a blank-faced Maung—and into the parking lot. Fifty yards away stood her man outside Ride Out Security’s office. He saw her and went inside. She had to restrain herself from jogging on this blazing July morning. Two minutes later, she entered the air-conditioned splendor of a doublewide trailer. She was disappointed not to see more personal items in Travis’ tiny office, maybe a bloody bayonet mounted on the wall. Instead there was a framed picture on the desktop of Travis and a woman standing behind a little girl of about five and twin toddler boys. The woman was attractive and wore a broad, hopeful smile, a brunette about a head shorter than Carla. Travis had a wry expression as if he’d been tricked into posing.

  “That’s my ex, Sally, Louise from her first, plus Les and Paul,” Travis said. “That’s from two years ago, after we were already divorced. She gave it to me in the frame as a birthday present.”

  She heard remorse in his voice. Time to shift tack. “Your friend came through on the files?”

  Travis lost himself for a moment in that cascade of copper hair, green eyes and an upturned nose . . . A future full of untold promises, with more child support payments one possible outcome. He snapped out of his reverie. “Yes, Bob’s the best. He said it was tough sledding, which is why it took him, what, six hours?”

  “What’s in there?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I haven’t opened the files, just copied them back onto your thumb drive unencrypted. Here it is.” He handed it over and their fingertips touched for more than the mandatory millisecond. “Good luck.”

  “Once I walk back into the lab, I’ll be quarantined regardless of what’s in these files. There was a body in the lobby when I left to meet you. I don’t know if it was one of ours, or if they were bringing it in for study. Either way, I’ll be locked inside supervising the batch production of the formula that might be on these files or reverse-engineering what Sal gave me. Come what may, I’ll be in the secure area for the next several days. If I want out earlier, can you help me?”

  “Not easily. This is about as close to the action as they let us get. Let me think about it and I’ll text you my thoughts. In the meantime, can you access your office?”

  Carla shrugged. “I think so. I’m on the third floor, second from the end facing the parking lot.”

  “Open the blinds when you return. If there’s something wrong and you want to trigger the plan, close them halfway. If you need an immediate evac, shut them entirely. We’ll have to assume they’ll clamp down on your comms once you’re suited up and in the basement. They’ll confiscate your phone and disconnect your computer. I’ll text the escape plan in the next two hours: Read it, delete it and encrypt your Signal app.”

  “This sounds all very cloak and dagger. What happens once I’m out?”

  “Hide until the pandemic ends. I can help with that.”

  “I’m interested. Let me write down my address and give you my house key. Pack for cold weather. I suspect northern Canada will be our destination.”

  “All right. Looks like we’ll both be busy.” Unable to hold back any longer, he leaned over and kissed her. Carla responded passionately and felt the heat between them. This could get out of hand fast; she pulled away and broke it off. They were college kids again and in love. Lust. Whatever.

  Then the old SEAL pragmatism stepped in. “Since you’re here, let me show you how to work an M-4, an automatic carbine that fires a zippy .223 caliber round from a thirty-round magazine. I have one here in my closet. Civilians aren’t supposed to own these, but my company has a pair compliments of Burma’s military junta.”

  * * * * *

  Muller sat on the couch as Will Smith talked shit to an alien he’d just punched out. He split his attention between Independence Day and the snoozing baby. Melvin walked in grinning like the feline that had dined on canary. Muller knew it portended ill. “What did you do?”

  “The home safe in the den was a Costco special: I pried the back off with a screwdriver. Looks like the doctor keeps a supply of medicine for his parties in the country.” The former paratrooper held a glass jar the size of a 35-millimeter film canister up for inspection. It was full of white powder. “Guess what’s in here?”

  “For fuck’s sake, out with it.”

  “Pharmaceutical cocaine.”

  Katerina sat in an armchair, legs tucked up underneath. She looked like a seventeen-year-old cheerleader, the petite bubbly one who stood at the top of the pyramid who did the full flip into the waiting arms of her teammates. She put down the crossword magazine and fixed Melvin with a predatory intensity. “Bring it over here.”

  Melvin complied and the two men watched as she dipped a wet fingertip and rubbed her gums. “Goddamn!” was her judgment.

  Before Melvin could move, Muller was on his feet. “I’ll take that. We’ll save it for a celebration. How’s Fraser?”

  “Last I checked, he’s feverish and asleep in his suit, steaming up the face shield. The less time we spend in that room, the better.”

  “He said the sales plan needed a video of a Covid patient cured with our drug. Looks like he could be the star of his own infomercial.”

  Katerina shook her head. “Even if I collect lab equipment tonight, we’re two days away from a first-generation treatment.” She thought for a moment. “There’s one possibility, however. Last night I took five CCs of the baby’s blood. I used three and have two left. It’s a longshot, but the newborn’s raw blood might be a cure all by itself.”

  “You can inject Burns and see if it works, right?”

  “The baby’s blood type is O-negative, a universal donor. I looked online and a seven-pound baby has about two hundred milliliters of blood, and twenty CCs is the maximum I can safely draw every four to six weeks even if I return the red and white blood cells after stripping the plasma. That leaves me fifteen CCs to work with over the next month or until he puts on more weight. I’d hate to waste our two CCs on Burns.”

  “But we need him to sell the cure,” Muller protested.

  Katerina smirked. “That’s what he told you when I was in the garage? I know plenty of dark web buyers of biologicals. If I can derive the Dark Cure, we’ll have a ready market. Delivery, payment and protection are the hard parts.”

  With that, Muller pocketed the white power and returned to the couch. Melvin rued his folly. He had a couple of other prizes from the safe, but he kept quiet and left to find a grocery bag.

  Katerina sank back into her crossword. A minute later, she looked up. “The kid’s mother had Covid-19, right? We need to grab her. We can tap more blood, and maybe she has an even higher concentration of antibodies.”

  Young Tyson chose this time to start to howl. “Melvin, get in here!” Muller shouted. “The baby needs to be fed or changed or something.” He shifted his attention back to Katerina. “We know where she lives. With the lockdown, she’ll be at home or maybe at her father’s. She’s skinny, but weighs at least a hundred pounds. She can nurse the baby too.”

  “If she checks out, we may not need the baby. We leave Fraser, grab the mother, pick up my equipment, and you find me lab space. Then we’re all set.”

  “One thing at a time. We take Burns with us if he’s alive and wears the suit. We break into your lab tonight. We’ll lie low at a safehouse the rest of today and tomorrow while you assemble your lab.
Sunday night, Melvin and I will find Stephanie Maggio and make our move.”

  “Any later than that, your best bud Fraser will be dead.”

  Tyson continued to wail. “Goddamnit, Melvin,” Muller grunted. “Where the hell did you go?”

  chapter sixteen

  BITS AND PIECES

  Saturday, July 11: Kentfield, San Francisco, Mendocino County, Livermore California, afternoon

  July wasn’t yet half over, and already the leftwing newsrooms had likened the U.S. to Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. Fox News was urging the government to unleash the Army against domestic terrorists. Viewers at home watched with alarm as multi-level mayhem unfolded. Most of the protests involved healthy people, though in much lower numbers than even a week before as Covid-20 spread. Police officers bombarded protestors with gas, shot them with hard plastic projectiles erroneously called “rubber bullets,” and beat them with unhygienic batons while their allies in militias menaced the conflagrations with automatic rifles and clashed with Antifa members dressed in black masks and hoods.

  Meanwhile, smaller numbers of healthcare professionals stood vigil outside their hospitals and clinics, and pled for personal protective equipment. Early in the day, they were ignored. By lunchtime entire medical staffs had walked out of urban emergency rooms in light of the suicidal work conditions with the dying and dead lying in every bed and hallway. Many EMTs, nurses, orderlies, technicians and physicians in less badly affected areas saw the future and also deserted their posts. Relatives of the infected split, half in support of the medical professionals and half in condemnation.