Omega Plague: Collapse (18 page)

Bruno didn’t believe in fate or destiny or powers greater
than himself, but at this moment, he recognized he had a choice. He could heed
the words of his father, prolonging his existence as long as he could. Or he
could embrace death, the only path to hope. For in this world, even mere
survival invited death, let alone embarking on a futile quest into the bowels
of a once-great city. Despite, or maybe because of the inexorability of
morality, Bruno knew what he would choose even before he turned to speak, for
in his mind, ultimately, there could be only one choice.

Bruno exhaled. “If we’re going to do more than just live,
I’ll need your help. I can’t do this alone.”

DeLuca nodded. “You know, we have that small motorboat of
mine. Of course, we’ll have to scavenge fuel, but I think we can find enough to
get us to Naples and back.” DeLuca sounded giddy with energy. Bruno felt like
the old man of their duo, embittered and weary.

“Maybe you’re right. Who knows? Maybe whoever it is can help
us.”

Part II

Chapter 17

September 10

Now, Bruno felt that hope had indeed died.

For what seemed like an age, Bruno stared in disbelief at
bare rocks below him. He knew he wasn’t in the wrong spot. He had said to
DeLuca to stay here, and now both DeLuca and the motorboat were gone. Had
DeLuca moved? Had they found him?

The two approaching figures sprinted faster than Bruno
thought was possible with rifles strapped across their backs. Bruno’s options
for escape diminished with each moment. Then Bruno heard a voice.

“Ehi! Down here!” Bruno descended the stairs toward the
rocks below, three at a time, nearly stumbling twice. DeLuca had pulled the
motorboat further onto the rocks into the shadows, under the pier’s overhang,
obscuring it from sight.

There was no time for explanations. As soon as Bruno
finished his descent down the stairs, he dashed over the rocks to the boat and
began pulling it by the bow into the water. DeLuca lifted the stern, making
sure the engine was not damaged.

When they were knee-deep into the water, Bruno clambered
aboard. “Got it.” That was all he said to DeLuca. They were fifty meters behind
him.

“Come on, come on!” DeLuca muttered as he pulled the rip
cord on the engine. On the second pull, it bellowed to life. DeLuca opened up
the engine full throttle and headed for the center of the marina. Their bodies
were facing away from the city, but both had craned their heads to see what was
happening behind them. Though they were fast retreating, they spotted the
pursuers standing on the top of the pier. One of them aimed his rifle. Bruno
turned and yanked DeLuca down. Surprised, DeLuca kept his hand on the tiller,
sending the boat veering to the left. They saw the kick of the rifle a
split-second before they heard the rifle’s report. Staying crouched, DeLuca
pushed the motor to the left, and they headed out into the open bay. Swerving
this way and that, they stayed in a semi-crouch long after the pursuers had
faded into the haze of the shoreline.

When he couldn’t stand staying in the same position any
longer, Bruno turned his back toward the bow of the boat. He slid the backpack
off his right shoulder and trapped it between his legs, unzipping the main
pocket and peering in. He wanted to pull it out, to study it in the daylight,
this thing for which he had risked his life. But he didn’t dare, for fear of
having it catapulted out of his hands. The waves were choppy, and DeLuca kept
the engine at a high rev. The boat bounced around with enough force to rattle
teeth.

Bruno slumped, back towards the bow, exhausted, in no mood
for explanations or chat. Still, DeLuca felt the need to engage Bruno. “I hope
it works!” shouted DeLuca over the din of the engine and the waves. Bruno
turned his head and looked out over the water, pretending not to hear. The
sweat on his face drying in the wind cooled him, and he didn’t feel like
shouting over the engine’s growl or telling DeLuca to slow down. Nor did Bruno
feel like saying anything to the man who had pushed him to risk their lives in
the first place.

When they made it back to the island, Bruno was in a
piss-poor mood. The rifle he had poached was gone. In their rush to escape, he
hadn’t properly secured it, and it had fallen overboard. Bruno knew himself
better than to try to set up the radio that evening. So, he plugged the radio
into the battery bank. It would take hours to recharge, which was just as well,
since Bruno needed time to decompress. That night, they stayed in Filippo’s
house. Bruno had long waited for some reason to celebrate something, anything,
and since merely surviving now passed for a joyous occasion, he decided he
might as well drink to that. He opened an old bottle of grappa he had found in
the ruins of some patrician’s house. He felt better after a few drinks. They
handed the bottle back and forth, laughing and talking well into the night.

DeLuca explained why he had moved the boat out of sight. “I
was getting paranoid that something had happened to you.” DeLuca took a swig
from the bottle before continuing. “So I thought I’d move the boat where it
couldn’t be seen from the pier, just in case someone came looking. Then I heard
the shots and knew I was right to be paranoid!”

Bruno laughed. “Well, it worked! I didn’t know where the
hell you had gone!”

Bruno broke eye contact, looked down, and his smile faded.
He swirled the bottle around.

“Something wrong?” DeLuca asked.

“He’s there, you know.”

DeLuca’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Il Serbo. He’s there, in Naples. I know. You remember, when
I found you, the guy I shot said his name.”

DeLuca shook his head. “You said you weren’t sure what he
said. God knows, he was a bloody mess. And you said your sister was sick, so he
must have got it too, from the one who escaped Tiberius’ Leap. Il Serbo is probably
long dead by now.”

“No, he’s not! They were organized. That gang—that bunch of
thugs needs a strong hand to keep them in line.”

DeLuca shrugged. “So, they need a strong hand, so what?
Could be anyone.”

“No, no. Only a Camorrista would know how to do that. Only
someone like him.”

“Yeah, a Camorrista . . . or maybe a cop,” DeLuca replied,
deadpanning.

For a second, Bruno stiffened. Then he chuckled. “Good
point, old man.” Bruno took a large gulp of grappa, and the next words out of
his mouth changed the subject to more pleasant topics.

As they bantered and laughed, time passed slowly, and Bruno
savored each moment, enjoying the alcohol and DeLuca’s company. Hours later,
DeLuca passed out face down on the bed, his snores echoing around the room.
Bruno remained awake, lost in thought, long after even DeLuca’s snores died
down. Finally Bruno fell asleep in a lounge chair, with hope for the future
raging in his mind for the first time since it all fell to pieces. Yet
suffocating dreams troubled his sleep, dreams of swimming blind in murky water,
dreams of clawing up out of a dark pit through rubble.

***

When Bruno woke the next morning, DeLuca was snoring again.
Bruno eased his way up out of the lounge chair. While stiff from sleeping in
the chair, to his surprise, his head didn’t throb from the booze the previous
night. I should have drank more grappa, he reflected. No impurities and no
hangover.

Bruno rubbed the sleep from his eyes, moved to the desk, and
studied the ALE radio. Before beginning the task of setting it up, he moved
some other radio equipment around on the desk, taking care not to disconnect
anything, making just enough room for the ALE radio. Unlike the ham radios in
Filippo’s bedroom, the ALE radio did not have a confusing number of knobs,
buttons, and keys. It was simple, even sleek. The body of the unit was
olive-drab plastic with two rounded metal handles jutting out from the front
panel and the battery attached to the back. The front panel itself had a long,
narrow screen that could display perhaps ten lines of data. Below the screen
was a keypad arranged in a square. Its keys had numbers, letters, and functions
listed on each key, along with volume control and various keys used to activate
the functions. To the left of the screen were three ports for various types of
antennas, and to the right were two ports for connecting accessories and a knob
with five positions.

Bruno read through the manual with care. Satisfying himself
he knew what to do, he began to connect cables. Once DeLuca awoke he hovered in
the background, lending Bruno a hand when he could, but mostly just providing
encouragement. They spent all morning setting up the radio, checking
connections, cross-checking the manual, making sure they understood how the
radio worked, and double checking everything.

By the time Bruno and DeLuca finished the setup, the sun
rode high in the sky. They paused for a moment, each sitting in a chair in
front of the desk, Bruno directly in front of the ALE radio, and DeLuca behind
and to the right of Bruno, in a chair taken from the kitchen.

Bruno leaned back in his chair and turned towards DeLuca.
“Well, everything is set, as best as I can tell. They’ve been broadcasting the
signal every two hours.” Bruno glanced at his watch. “I’m sure the date is
still right, and I’m pretty sure the time still is. So we are just about due
for a signal.”

DeLuca patted Bruno on the shoulder. “You are quite the
technician.”

“Not so fast, I haven’t turned it on yet,” said Bruno,
laughing. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Bruno paused, his finger lingering over the “on” knob.
“Well, this is it,” said Bruno.

The tiny screen blinked to life. “It works!” said DeLuca.

Bruno smiled. “I was afraid it might have been damaged from
our Naples adventure.”

Referring to the manual on his lap, Bruno touched the “menu”
key and set the radio to search for a signal on a series of preset frequencies.
Now that he was sure the radio worked, Bruno plugged in the keypad/display
attachment. The display on the attachment had a full keyboard and LCD screen
that was about twice the size of the one on the radio itself. The radio
switched to the keypad attachment as the primary display. The words “ALE
Sounding” blinked in a slow rhythm on the larger screen as the radio switched
rapidly from frequency to frequency. In a regular pattern, the radio lingered
on each frequency, transmitted a few seconds of audible signal, and paused for
a response. Nothing.

They listened in silence. On and on the pattern repeated,
and still no responding signal. DeLuca fidgeted, his leg twitching up and down.
Bruno resisted the urge to swat it, and instead leaned back in his chair and
closed his eyes. He had risked his life for nothing. He had—his eyes opened
when he heard something else—a fainter, yet still quite audible responding
signal, an echo of one they were transmitting.

“Listen! They’re responding!”

The screen on the radio changed, the words “establishing
link” flashing repeatedly in time with the audible signal. The word “connected”
then appeared in English, steady, unblinking, in all capital letters. The word
lingered for a moment, and the screen went dark.

DeLuca rose in his chair. “What happened? Did we lose the
signal?”

Bruno kept his eyes on the screen. He raised his right hand.

The words “Cognome” and “Nome” flashed on the screen,
followed by a blinking cursor.

Bruno looked at DeLuca. “We’ve got a link!”

Bruno’s hands hovered over the keyboard.

“Well?” said DeLuca.

“Whoever it is will know I’m alive.” Bruno typed in a fake
name.

The screen cleared for a moment, and the words “Codice
Fiscale” appeared, again followed by the cursor.

“What?” said DeLuca. “They want your tax ID number?”

“It’s an attempt to verify identity,” said Bruno. “Maybe to
make sure the one answering is in the military or law enforcement.”

Bruno took his eyes off the screen just long enough to
glance over his shoulder at DeLuca. “Anybody might know the name of a cop or
someone in the military, or even have taken his ID card with the serial number.
But what are the chances they would know his tax ID number?”

Of course, Bruno realized, any number of painful, horrid
methods existed that could force some poor bastard to reveal that string of
numbers. Even an unwilling biometric scan could be obtained if someone were
ruthless enough to remove a finger. Or an eyeball. Bruno guessed that this was
the best way whoever was transmitting had to verify the identity of the person
responding.

He entered a made-up tax ID number, but the words “identità
non autenticata” appeared on the screen, and the screen reset back to “Cognome”
and “Nome.”

“Shit,” said Bruno. “If we want to find out what this is,
I’ll have to use my real information.”

“Up to you, Bruno. But we’ve come this far. Don’t you want
to know what this is?” said DeLuca.

Bruno looked at the keyboard. Then he typed in his last name
and his first name.

“I want some answers,” said Bruno.

At the next screen, Bruno entered his tax ID number.

The screen went blank, and Bruno thought the connection
might have been broken. Then the English word “Processing” flashed multiple
times on the screen, followed by the words “identitá autenticata.”

“We’re in!” said Bruno.

The screen began to fill with words, and Bruno used the
keyboard to scroll back up and read the information. DeLuca read over Bruno’s
shoulder.

From the way the information appeared, at a steady rate with
no typos, Bruno surmised that there was no one on the other end.

“This transmission is automated,” he said, more to himself
than to DeLuca.

“So, what does that mean? Is there anyone there, or is it
just some computer in a bunker?”

“Who knows, really. They must still have electricity from
somewhere, and access to some sort of government database. So, I would imagine
there is someone or, more likely, some group, maintaining everything. But for
all we know, they’re all dead, and their transmitter connects to a
solar-powered automated system.”

“Ever the optimist, aren’t you?”

Starved for so long from contact with anyone off the island,
they gorged on the information all the same. Perhaps a half-hour into the
transmission, DeLuca gasped.

For a second, Bruno was puzzled, but then he saw what DeLuca
has seen. “I risked my life for this? I don’t believe it!”

“Believe it!” DeLuca made the sign of the cross. “They want
blood—the blood of San Gennaro!”