Burn (28 page)

“Mother of Mercy Hospital,” Scholz said. “It’s in Zone Twelve. . . .”

“. . . where the airport highway enters town,” Rico finished. “Can you give us a grid from the ViraVax site to La Libertad?”

“It’s yours, Colonel,” Melissa said.

Rico picked up a pointer and traced backwards from Mother of Mercy Hospital to ViraVax. The path included Valle Viejo, a dirt track that connected several Maya settlements and ended in jungle just outside the old ViraVax perimeter.

“You and Scholz don’t look too well, Rico,” Father Free said. “You’re onto something. Want to fill me in?”

“The army was supposed to secure that area,” Scholz said. “Nobody in, nobody out.”

“Yeah, right,” Rico muttered. “The lid was on. Orders were probably low priority—looter precautions, or some such shit that wouldn’t get a whisper going.”

Scholz stared at the peel as the data started fleshing in details and connecting the dots to the city. She spoke in a whisper so soft that Rico barely heard.

“Chang had some new projections,” she said. “She said we might not need a vaccine. This thing moves so fast that it just might burn itself out right here.”

In the stiff, momentary silence between them, Rico heard the hum of electric motors as the boat started to move.

“Mexico City doesn’t matter,” Rico told Father Free. “It’s big-time infection here.”

Father Free set his soggy cigar on his control panel, sucked in a big breath and let it out very slowly while he looked Rico in the eye.

“What are our odds?”

Melissa and Susanna had their visors up, fingers stilled, and the rest of the crew seemed to be holding their collective breath.

“If the wind’s been in our favor here, and we split now, we might make it,” Rico said.

He couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

“Might?”

Rico nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “We were all exposed topside when your customer went flambé. We thought yesterday that the Gardeners just poisoned themselves off. This mess we’re into now must be phase two.”

“Somebody’s got to get on the air, warn people, get them isolated,” Scholz said.

Father Free surveyed the equipment aboard
St. Elias
and his silent team of assistants, then made a decision.

“Here’s what we’ll do. The
Kamui
has excellent navigation electronics and a good transmitter. She’s a blue-water sailor. This thing’s designed for day cruises and really sucks the power. Wouldn’t get us far on open water. You, Scholz, me, Susanna and Melissa will take what we can from here and start broadcasting from
Kamui
There’s Wally for a short hop, maybe to one of the islands. If we split up, we’ll check in hourly and scramble via satlink on command one. Wind is from the water; that gives us a break. Let’s get out to
Kamui now,
and from there to Maude Island.”

Maude Island had been a consulting project of Spook’s like ViraVax had belonged to Rico. It was a real island, but hollowed out and fitted with warrens that sent exploratory fingers for kilometers under the Pacific. Rico knew of its existence, but not its purpose. Father Free had quit the Agency the day his portion of the Maude Island Project was finished.

As they navigated the boat haven and nudged up to the
Kamui,
Spook cracked the hatch. One by one, back in the city, the frantic sirens fell silent as the wall of flame grew.

Chapter 41

For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy
people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.

—Moses

Ezra Hodge was elated, but he didn’t dare show it. Truly, the Lord’s will was evident in the good fortune that fell his way. He monitored the White House orders to the offices of Pan-Pacific, and he made the right choice by heading straight for the airport. He had no idea how he was going to get the kids away from the Pan-Pacific boys, and the kids took care of that problem for him. He had no idea how to keep them from flying out of La Libertad, and then Flaming Sword, itself, came to his rescue. Now his only worry was how to eliminate Rico Toledo when they got to the harbor.

The Lord will provide,
he reminded himself, and he was more confident of this today than ever before in his life.

“You get in the back,” Harry told him, twitching the pistol. “I’ll ride back there with you. Sonja can drive.”

“Whatever you say,” Hodge said. “Just so we make it to the harbor. I’m on your side, you know.”

“You’ve had a helluva way of showing it,” Harry said. “As far as I’m concerned, Sonja and I are on one side and the rest of the world is on the other. Hold that thought.”

Hodge slid across the back seat and Harry got in beside him.

“Even your father?” he asked. “And Colonel Scholz?”

“Maybe,” Harry said. “We’ll see.”

Sonja ran back from a quick inspection of the runway and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Can’t do it,” she said. “We’d have to use the road for takeoff, and nobody’s going to let us through.”

She toggled the doorlocks just as a group of wild-eyed men and women rushed the car. She spun the car around in a half-circle, tumbling them to the pavement, and fishtailed out the back gate onto the frontage road.

“Take Valle Viejo,” Hodge told her. “The highway’s jammed to a standstill.”

“Take whatever road you want,” Harry told her. “You can’t believe this bastard.”

“Harry,” Hodge said, in his calmest voice, “I don’t want to die out here any more than you do. Valle Viejo was clear ten minutes ago; the highway was not.”

Ezra was relieved when Sonja took his advice. This step, a very small step, moved towards their trust. Soon, they would rely on him for everything; they might as well trust him. He noticed tears sliding down Harry’s cheeks, and a disconcerting tremble in his gun hand.

“Are you all right, son?”

Harry’s eyes snapped into a cruel gray duplicate of Rico Toledo, and the bore of the pistol stared Ezra down as Harry sneered, “What are you saying, Hodge? Did you have a little fling with my mother?”

Ezra felt his heart shift into triple-time. He had not expected this kind of aggression from the boy, but it was magnificent testimony to the handiwork of Dajaj Mishwe.

“No, Harry, I . . . I just . . .”

“Harry!” Sonja snapped. “Chill out. It’s not his fault Marte died.”

“Are you sure?” Harry said. “He works for the Agency, the Agency gave us ViraVax, and ViraVax gave us this . . .
this!”

Harry waved his hand at a burning bus as Sonja swerved around it. Lumps of charred, steaming flesh littered the roadway, and Ezra felt the
thump-kathump
of something soft under the car. Sonja was an absolutely fearless driver; Ezra liked that about her.

“Marte came up with an answer,” Harry said. He pointed to his head and patted the cube in his pocket. “It’s here, and here. Now, we need to get it to someone who can grow the proper medium. Then they could be growing a counteragent within twenty-four hours. And we have to warn people not to drink that EdenSprings water.”

Ezra shook his head.

“If you’ve got an idea of where to go,” he said, “I’ll be glad to get us there. But, as you can see, this bug is fast. Very fast. If anybody’s alive at this lab you seek by the time we get there, what makes you think they’ll let us in?”

“They don’t have to,” Harry insisted. “We can transmit the data and the warning about the water onto the web, and every lab in the world can get on it. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Hold on,” Sonja said. “Roadblock.”

The typical Costa Bravan Army roadblock strung three burned-out civilian cars across the road with a squad of young, scared grunts on both sides. They held their rifles ready and their gazes swept the area, self-conscious of their vulnerability on the open road.

“Bust it,” Harry said.

“Only in the movies, Harry,” Ezra said. “You will be killed or the car will be destroyed. Either way, you help nobody. Put the gun away and let me handle this. I have clearance.”

Sonja slowed nearly to a stop a hundred meters away from the roadblock.

“Ditches,” she said. “I can’t make it around, either. Shit!”

A sudden roar and a gust of wind pounded their car, and the army boys snapped rifles to shoulders. A pair of rockets streaked from somewhere overhead and blew the roadblock into a flaming fountain of junk. Then an old tin-can chopper dropped in front of their car and laid down a whirling storm of heavy red smoke while the grunts scrambled for the ditches.

“Go! Go! Go!” Harry hollered.

Sonja jammed her foot to the floor. A dozen rounds smacked into both sides of the car before they plunged into the smoke screen. They crashed through the twisted wreckage, bounced and skidded on the debris, and when they shot out of the other side of the smoke they were still on the road.

“Chill, girl!” Harry said, and slapped Sonja on the back with his free hand.

“Who was
that!”
Ezra whispered.

“A guardian angel,” Sonja said. “Who cares? They got us through and we’re almost there.”

She has her spiritual side,
Hodge thought, with growing satisfaction.
This is all as it should be.

Two things worried him now. It was well past time for his antidote, and the drawbridge to the harbor was up. A kilometer or more of roadway was choked with cars stopped for the bridge, and several cars at the head of the line blazed furiously under thick, black smoke. The bridge-tender’s shack was also ablaze.

“Do you have clearance for
that,
Hodge?” Harry asked.

Without waiting for a response, Harry picked up Hodge’s Sidekick.

“Dad and Scholz,” he demanded. “What channel?”

“Command one scramble,” Ezra said, and he was surprised when Harry’s fingers flurried the correct code.

No response.

“Transmitter’s working,” Harry mumbled. “They must have their hands full.” He keyed “memo” and said, “We’re stuck at the Valle Viejo bridge. We’ll work our way north along the waterfront, look for a boat and retransmit every fifteen minutes.”

“Sit tight, kid,” a voice came back. The background was so full of engine noise and static that Harry could hardly understand him. “I’ve got two shadows on my tail. When I set down, you-all come a-jumpin’.”

Ezra looked out the hole in their shattered rear window and saw the old Sikorsky racing the grasstops towards them.

“Let’s go!” Harry shouted. “You, Hodge, this way!”

Harry kept the pistol trained on Ezra as he slid out Harry’s side of the car. The chopper came in so low and fast that they heard the shriek of gravel against pontoons over the scream of the engine. Two Costa Brava choppers closed fast from a few kilometers back. Sonja dove headfirst into the loading door, then reached out a hand to Ezra. Harry only had one foot on the pontoon when the chopper surged skyward. He pinwheeled backwards and lost the pistol as he grabbed Ezra’s waist. Sonja braced her feet against the doorframe and hauled them both aboard.

“This’ll be quick,” their pilot shouted. “I’ll drop you at the harbor and lose those bogeys. Grab lifejackets; you’re gonna get wet.”

In less than a minute they hovered low over the end of the harbor pier where
Kamui
rocked in its slip.

“Can’t get closer because of the masts,” the pilot yelled.

“You’ll have to jump.”

Ezra’s heart dropped to his stomach.

“I can’t swim,” he shouted back.

“You’ll be swimming one way or another,” the pilot said. “Now, jump!”

A cannon burst stitched the water across their bow, and Ezra felt Harry’s foot punch him between the shoulder blades. He tried to grab the pontoon, but slid off into the water, his lifejacket clutched in his fist. He held his breath as hard as he could and never lost sight of the surface. Sonja and Harry plunged through the sunlight nearly on top of him, and one of them pulled him towards the surface.

They broke through the debris-strewn chop together, and Ezra gasped down a quick three or four breaths. He clutched his lifejacket to his chest as somebody towed him with a hand under his chin.

The chopper must have been hit just as they jumped, because it lay smoking on its side halfway across the neighboring pier. The old chopper took several boats with it as flames blossomed from the cockpit and it sank into the harbor. There was no sign of the pilot, and the two pursuit choppers turned back towards the airport.

The three of them reached the pier after the longest minute of Ezra Hodge’s life. Sonja and Harry clambered up the swim ladder, leaving Ezra to his white-knuckled grip on the bottom rung. He took several deep breaths, then climbed up after them on trembling legs. His abject fear turned suddenly to elation.

We made it!

Now, for everything to be perfect, he merely needed await the arrival of Rena Scholz, and they could be about the business of reclaiming the Garden of Eden for themselves, and for the Lord.

Chapter 42

With what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you.

—Jesus

Harry wouldn’t have recognized his father if Rico hadn’t been with Colonel Scholz. The two colonels sat in the cockpit of the
Kamui,
looking like casual holiday boaters drinking their frosty lemonade, the whole city ablaze like a violent sunrise behind them. Both Scholz and Harry’s father wore fire-blackened field pants and black T-shirts. Scholz’s face was hollow-eyed, pale, and for the first time Harry thought she looked old. His father looked dead.
Kamui’s
clockwork diesel chugged in the waveslap, and rigging rattled over the
pop-pop
of small-arms fire.

Rena Scholz held her lemonade in one hand and a scorched palm-cam in the other.

“Hey, Harry,” Rico rasped. “Good work, son. You too, Sonja.”

Rico didn’t attempt to rise to greet them, and Harry suspected that he couldn’t.

“Thanks, Dad. So far, so good.”

Sonja stood dripping on the pier in silence while she watched the city burn.

Rico’s eyelids drooped, his hands trembled, but his mouth worked up a smile.

“Between us, Pan-Pacific’s had a mighty bad day,” Rico said. “Cast off the bow line and jump aboard. You remember how to sail this thing?”

Harry grunted, moved to the bow cleat and untied the line. He didn’t ask about the fishing boat rafted to the rail of the
Kamui.
His father was only this casual when he had a trap ready to spring, and Harry expected that this time it was Hodge’s neck that was on the line. He and Sonja had sailed aboard
Kamui
twice. Both times his father had secured the boat from the DEA so that he and Sonja’s dad could take their families out. Both times Rico had failed to show up because he was drunk somewhere or chasing some skirt. But Harry, Sonja and Red Bartlett had enjoyed a few days sailing up- and down-coast.

“Come on, Sonja,” Rena Scholz said. “Let me give you a hand up.”

Sonja clasped the offered hand and climbed aboard, her wet tennis shoes slopping the deck.

A formation of Costa Brava’s tank-killers screamed overhead, hugging the coastline south. Rico pointed them out for Hodge’s benefit.

“Those boys have had enough,” Rico said. “They’re saving their own asses, heading for Costa Rica or Panama. If they’d left a few minutes earlier, the Peace and Freedom boys might still have their chopper. What’s the latest, Major?”

Hodge said nothing. He glanced around fearfully at the confusion of small boats that careened off each other and the pier in their frantic dash for the open water and safety. Overloaded barques pedaled a beeline for the channel.

Hodge avoided Rico’s gaze and shifted from foot to foot on the wet pier. Harry saw Hodge eye the water, as though weighing the sure death by water against anything his dad might have to offer.

Harry coiled the bow line and tossed the loop to Rena Scholz. A burst of rifle fire ended in a grenade explosion at the head of the boardwalk. Two Harbor Patrol boats, loaded way beyond capacity with women, kids, luggage and chickens, screamed past their bow and snaked their way through slower traffic to the mouth of the harbor. None of those things distracted Harry from standing between Hodge and escape. Harry followed a silent, sullen Hodge over the rail.

The sailboat’s diesel was smooth and nearly silent, but the rest of the world was noise. Several fireballs and concussions marked the destruction of the marina’s fences behind them. Rico motioned Sonja to the topside controls.

“Scholz has the charts,” Rico said. “Make for Maude Island when we clear the harbor. We’ve punched it into the navcom. Harry and I have some business with Major Hodge, here. Major? You don’t seem very grateful that we just saved your slimy ass.”

Major Hodge’s gaze was fixed on two metal boxes that Rico held in his lap. Harry would bet big money that the metal boxes covered a pistol, too, the way his dad’s hand lazed at the edge of them.

“I’m grateful,” Hodge said, and tried a smile. He spread his hands slowly, water dripping from his clothing to the deck. “I’m very grateful. I’m just not quite sure how . . .”

“Yes,” Rico said, “‘how?’ is the great question of the hour, isn’t it? Right after ‘what?’” He tapped the top metal box with his index finger. “This, for example. What is it?”

Hodge glanced quickly towards Scholz, as though asking for help. She stood, impassive, behind Sonja at the wheel, fending off the fishing boat as they maneuvered away from the pier. Sonja held her head high, to see over the top of the cabin, and picked their way through the chaos of small-boat traffic. She pretended that she wasn’t interested in Rico’s game with Hodge, but Harry could tell that she was tuned in.

“It’s insulin,” Hodge said. He began to shiver as the wind from the fires whipped the wavetops and his wet clothes. “I’m a diabetic, and I need insulin.”

Rico spoke in that calm, level voice that Harry knew always preceded a major explosion.

“If we had more time, I’d dick around with you,” Rico said. “But our circle of friends is narrowing fast, and you’re insulting my intelligence. The least you could do is honor me with a good lie, one I might be proud to remember you by.”

Rico held the top box over the rail, and asked again.

“What is it?”

“Allergy shots,” Hodge said, speaking quickly. “They’re in a series and I have to take one…”

When the metal tin hit the water, Harry heard a groan from Hodge’s throat that was ripped from the very bottom of his being. For a moment Harry thought Hodge would jump in after the box, but then the man remembered that he couldn’t swim.

“Oh, no. Oh, no,” was all Hodge could bring himself to say.

He grabbed a boathook and ran along the rail, trying to snag the silver box that now shone blue-green under the harbor surface. The blunt prong of his boathook just forced it under the surface that much faster. Then it was hit by a speedboat and sunk. Hodge dropped the boathook onto the deck, then turned a stricken face towards the others, hands outstretched as if expecting them to help him.

Rico picked up the remaining tin and held it over the rail, and Hodge dropped to his knees at Rico’s feet, unmindful of the pistol in Rico’s other hand.

“Please, no!” he begged. Hodge turned a desperate glance towards Scholz, who ignored him. “Please,” he repeated, nodding towards Scholz, “don’t drop it. She’ll die. You don’t want her to die.”

“No,” Rico said, “I don’t want her to die. Does Scholz have diabetes? Allergies that she’s not aware of?”

“You know what it is or you wouldn’t be doing this to me,” Hodge said. “Believe me, I was trying to save the children.”

“A lot of interest in these kids, these days,” Rico said. He kept his hand with the box over the rail. “Tell me about your newfound parental instincts. Tell me about your work with ViraVax.”

“Mishwe owed me some favors,” Hodge said. “He gave me two series of antidotes—one for me, one for . . . her.”

Rena Scholz raised an eyebrow.

“How thoughtful of him,” Scholz said. “And he didn’t even know me.”

Hodge turned to her in desperation.

“I got it for you. I talked him out of it. I didn’t want you to . . .”

“To die like the rest of the world?” Rico interrupted. “How romantic, Hodge. You and Colonel Scholz, the new Adam and Eve of the Apocalypse. I’m touched. But why save the kids if they’re just going to die later?”

“The GenoVax won’t kill them,” Hodge said. “They’re immune. They’re the real Adam and Eve.”

Harry was stunned, hearing this from someone who wasn’t merely speculating.

“So,” Harry said, “Marte was right. She guessed as much when she went through the cloning data that Sonja’s dad siphoned out of Mishwe’s records.” He clenched his fists and stood chest to chest with Hodge. “What else did you do to us?”

“That’s all I know,” Hodge said. His full, pale lips trembled.

Rico brought the case back into the boat and opened it. He selected one of the slapshots and squirted half of it overboard.

“No, no, no,” Hodge cried. “Don’t do that.”

“The boy asked you a question, Major. If you answer it, I’ll let you have one of these.”

“There’s a fail-safe,” Hodge said. “That’s all I know about.”

Rico set the injector back into the case.

“That’s better. What kind of fail-safe?”

“To make sure that they remain pure. He didn’t want their genetic material wasted.”

Harry felt himself dizzying with an unfamiliar but comfortable fury.

“What does that mean?”

Hodge stared at the puddle of water on the deck at his feet. He wouldn’t look up.

“It means you can’t have sex with anyone but each other,” he said. ‘If you do, they’ll die.”

Harry screamed his rage, and his palms popped both of Hodge’s ears.

“Marte!” he sobbed, then snap-kicked Hodge under the sternum. “Marte!”

Harry grabbed Hodge by both ears, then kneed Hodge’s face and kicked his belly as he dropped to the deck.

“You bastard! You rotten sonofabitch!”

“Wait, Harry,” Scholz said, with a hand on his arm. She moved quickly between them. “He’ll get his punishment soon enough. He’ll die like the rest of us.” She glanced up at Rico and their gazes held for a moment, two. “Don’t become what you hate, Harry, or it’s all completely hopeless.”

The sailboat lurched then as the fishing boat shoved itself into gear. Hull scraped hull as shouts came from below-decks, and a beautiful, terrified redhead reached up with a machete to chop their towline free. Sonja slipped the transmission into neutral as the
St. Elias
bounced back into their stern. It hung up in their rudder for a few seconds and spun them sideways, then pushed free.

The
St. Elias
wallowed away from them, already listing, and Harry saw thick black smoke and flashes of blue flame through the portholes. A small ski boat hit the
St. Elias
a glancing blow at the bow and the boat listed all the way over to its rail. Steam screamed from a jagged hole in the hull; then it started under in a boil of froth and foam. Father Free popped to the surface, holding a plastic bag out of the water.

“Spook!”

Rico tried to stand, and Hodge made a grab for his precious box. A runabout collided with
Kamui’s
bow and capsized a rowboat full of children. Hodge missed the grab and his case clattered to the deck, but Hodge’s momentum carried him into Rico. The lurch of the collision tipped both men over the rail in a slow-motion ballet.

Harry was in the water before he knew it. Dozens of small boats swarmed overhead, blocking what little light penetrated the turbulent bay. Harry swam downward, kicking himself into a spiral as he groped around wildly for his father. He felt something solid hit his back. Harry reached around and made a blind grab, hoping for the best. He got his dad’s hand with the pistol still in it.

Harry moved to get behind his dad’s limp body, and that was when Hodge clutched him around the legs. Harry tried kicking free, but Hodge had him tight with both arms, dragging them down. Rico never moved, and his body was hot, too hot, with bubbles leaking out of his scalp, his shirt, his melted, empty eyes.

Harry yanked the pistol free and his father’s finger stuck in the trigger guard. He pushed his father’s corpse and its bloody froth away and felt the telltale mushiness of collapsing tissues against his palms.

Air leaked past Harry’s lips as his lungs burned and Hodge dragged him further into the depths. He freed the trigger guard of his father’s finger, pressed the Hornet against one of Hodge’s arms, and fired. A dull
pat
and a burst of blood-stained bubbles rose past Harry, but Hodge held tight with his other hand. As the last of his breath whooshed out of him, Harry pressed the pistol to Hodge’s head and fired again. He kicked and stroked upward, chasing his own leaking air. Harry hadn’t broken the surface yet when he felt something snag the back of his shirt and yank him out of the filthy water.

Harry coughed and gagged as Rena Scholz hauled him alongside with the boathook. She dragged him by his belt over the rail, where he lay gasping beside a wet, gasping priest. Scholz hurried to the stern and began probing again with the hook.

“It’s no use,” Harry gasped. “Dad’s dead.”

“Dead?”

Sonja didn’t hesitate. She slammed the
Kamui
into forward and jumped on the throttle without a word. She shoved her way through the small boats that jammed the narrow channel out of the harbor, her face set in a mask of anger and despair. Behind them, automatic weapons splintered a wallowing houseboat and stitched across their wake.

Scholz thrust a few more times off the stern with the hook, but her movements were slow, automatic, numb. She looked like a B-movie zombie, barely holding her balance. The ride was choppy with all the small boats around them, and Harry was afraid Scholz was going over the side. He crawled to the back of the cockpit and grabbed her arm.

“He’s dead, Scholz,” he said. “The Deathbug got him. And Hodge won’t be coming up, either.”

Scholz dropped the hook, and Harry caught it before it hit the water. He set it down on the deck and Scholz dropped heavily beside it. She stared back at the inferno that used to be La Libertad and said nothing. Harry picked up the metal case and handed it to her.

“Maybe this is what he said it is,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Do you really believe that Mishwe would want to save a snake like Hodge?” she said. “It’s probably just saline.”

“You could take a little,” he suggested. “Then we could get it analyzed, just in case.”

“Yeah,” Scholz said, her voice as hollow as her eyes, “we could do that.”

Harry thought that she hadn’t really heard him, and wouldn’t really hear him for a while yet.

“What got Hodge?” Sonja asked.

They were just breaking out of the harbor and rounding the red channel marker, heading for the open sea. The Harbor Patrol was long gone, and a stream of small boats whined their way towards open ocean.

Harry tossed the little Hornet onto a cushion beside Sonja and ignored Father Free, who clutched a plastic bag to his chest and appeared to be praying to himself.