Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (16 page)

The Chief shook his gray, balding head.
 
“I don’t know, and
they
don’t either, if you ask me.
 
Agent Sheffield,” he said, indicating a man in a tattered black suit talking with three others, “Said he saw fully automatic weapons fire hit one of the motorcade vehicles from two different directions.
 
He’s talking machine guns—he’s talking military-grade stuff, very high powered.
 
Either the gangs got a hold of some new toys or…”

“Or
what?
” asked Brenda.

“Well, it’s just speculation, but the rumor is there’s some kind of assassination squad in L.A. trying to take out the President.
 
The Agents over there in the corner think it may be the North Koreans.”

“Oh my God,” muttered Dr. Fletcher.
 
“That would mean we’re at war?”
 

“What about the civilians?” asked Brenda.
 
“If the President is here and these guys think he’s not safe…that means whoever the hell is out there trying to kill him may know he’s here.
 
Everyone in this hospital is at risk now.”

The Chief nodded.
 
“I thought that too,” he said with a sad smile.
 
“There’s nothing we can do.
 
We can’t evacuate the President, his vitals are too weak.
 
We can’t empty the hospital, there’s just too many people.
 
Besides, where would we send them?
 
Every hospital in L.A. is bursting at the seams with ILI cases.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“From what we can gather, every major hospital along the West Coast is in the same boat.”

“This place will be a circus when the media finds out…” said Dr. Fletcher.

“That won’t happen,” said the Chief with a glance at the German shepherd, sniffing around doors and cabinets.
 
“The media think the President is still at his hotel.
 
Agent Sheffield figures we have a few hours before they start to sniff around. But, he said they have ways to keep the media thinking the President slipped away and moved up north. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but he says that should keep whoever is trying to kill him off guard as well.
 
They’re trying to get military reinforcements until they can get the President out of here. Whatever the hell is going on, it’s serious.”

“Is he responding to treatment, then?” asked Brenda. She wondered if Derek was getting a call at this moment to mobilize and head into war.
 
Would she be able to talk to her brother again?
 
Would she ever see him again?
 
She tried to fight the tears starting to form in her eyes.
 
It
was
still her first day of work, technically.
 

“Not very well, but yes.
 
He’s stabilized, which is more than can be said for most people in this hospital right now.
 
Agent Sheffield says they had plans to get some of The Pandemic vaccine to the President before the trip but he refused on the advice of his political advisers.
 
They said it would look cowardly and the media would eviscerate him for trying to act heroic and help the sick when there was no
chance
he could get sick.
 
This close to the election, he listened to them.”

“Politics!” hissed Dr. Fletcher.
 

Brenda sniffed to get her emotions in check.
 
You are back in the Army, girl
, she told herself.
 
Act like it!
 
“So they can just get him the vaccine now!
 
We know it’s effective after exposure, it just takes longer.
 
Right?” asked Brenda.

“Right.
 
But they no longer have any.”

“Any?
 
Why?
” she asked, confused.

“There was an order from on high to consolidate the remaining vaccine supply at the CDC’s strategic vault last week.
 
No one thought anything of it,” said the Chief.
   

“Strategic vault…” said Brenda, looking back at Dr. Fletcher.
 
“That’s
Atlanta.”

“Was
,” said the Chief sadly.
 
“I had a lot of friends down there…”

“But wait, I thought the CDC had all the really important stuff buried deep underground in vaults…weren’t they designed to survive an attack by the Russians during the Cold War or something?” said Dr. Fletcher.

“They were,” said the Chief, looking at his own hands.

“Oh my God,
that’s
why Atlanta was nuked. Even if the vaults survived, the whole
city
would be so hot that no one would be able to get in to bring any surviving vaccines out,” Brenda said and slumped against the wall in exhaustion.
 
“Why is this
happening?
”
 
She slid to the floor, hands on her face.
 
Exhaustion was knocking on her door again with the reminder that people could not function on two hours of sleep in forty-eight.

“Without the vaccine, what hope is there for the President, or any of these people?” asked Dr. Fletcher.
 
“Or us, for that matter?
 
What if
we
catch it?”

“I don’t know,” muttered the Chief sadly.
 
“I just don’t know.
 
I have to believe that those who have been previously exposed to H5N1—and survived—have a better than even chance of fighting this off.”

“That’s
something
, I guess.
 
But…?” asked Dr. Fletcher.

“But…” said the Chief.
 
“We sent off samples of the first cases Thursday.
 
It’ll take a few days to be processed.
 
We just don’t know,” he said, holding up his hands in a helpless gesture.

Just then, a nurse behind her circular desk at the end the “T” intersection of hallways, sneezed violently.
 
The entire ward went deathly silent as all heads turned to look at the poor woman.
 
She went pale—a trembling hand still over her mouth and looked around with wide eyes at all the staring faces.

“God help us all,” said the Chief.

C
HAPTER
8

Glacier National Park, Montana.

C
HAD
H
UNTLEY
LAY
ON
his side in the snow and tried to slow his breathing.
 
He was a little surprised by the amount of snow this early in the season, but he figured he was high enough up in the Rockies that it was bound to snow sooner or later.
 
He dusted the cold white powder from his weeks-old beard with the exposed fingers of his trigger hand.
 

He was so close.
 
He wanted badly to take a peek over the boulder that he was hiding behind but was afraid the movement would blow his cover.
 
Instead he glanced down at the crude heartbeat monitor attached to his belt.
 
The glowing point of light flickered but remained in the same spot on the monitor.
 
The female cougar that had been tagged last year was acting erratically.
 
He had been tracking her for a few increasingly cold days now and his suspicions grew the longer she sat still.

He adjusted the grip on his rifle.
 
The well-traveled Henry lever action was chambered in .45-70 and Chad loved it.
 
It wasn’t as cool looking, he supposed, as the standard issue AR-15 his boss had issued him, but it had a
soul
.
 
There was something that made him smile about the smooth polished walnut stock and heavy, solid barrel of the trusty Henry in his hands. It just felt…natural.

As a gust of wind cascaded cold air over the boulder and onto his face, he thought he heard a low yowl come from the direction of his prey.
 
The cougar sounded sick, sure enough.
 
The heartbeat monitor showed the big cat was circling.
 
Then it paused.
 

Time to move.

Chad slowly removed his father’s old Stetson and set it gently in the snow next to him, letting the wind blow stray locks of his thick brown hair across his face.
 
The cold air hit the dampness of his scalp and sent a shock through his body that was not completely unpleasant.
 

Slow as he could, Chad unstrapped the pack from his back and crawled his way up the side of the boulder.
 
He was dressed in his custom winter ghillie suit made of white, gray, and brown scraps of painted burlap and twigs.
 
He carefully pulled the hood up over his head.
 
Since he had started wearing it, and the dull brown-green one he wore in the warmer months, his success at taking sample animals had skyrocketed.
 

As far as he could see, the boulder before him was only about two feet high, but he was sure it would be a nice long drop on the other side.
 
By the time he raised his eyes over the top of the snow crusted boulder, he felt like he had just climbed Little Matterhorn with a deer on his back.
 
He paused to survey the scene before him.

There she was.
 
A big one.
 
All at once, the fatigue threatening his muscles faded, replaced by the primal thrill he always felt when he was about to take an animal.
 
The big cat’s fur was a distinct tan color, rippling with the strength of the muscles beneath.
 
She was pacing around in a wobbly circle, yowling and panting.
 
Tongue hanging out.
 
He slowly brought the rifle up and put his eye to the scope, mounted on a base designed for a shotgun.
 
In this way, the scope projected closer to his face, freeing the action of the rifle from blockage.
 
He settled the rifle on his cheek and looked through the scope.

The cougar’s tongue was
definitely
darker than it should be if the cat were healthy.
 
He could see right away her head wobbled side to side in an unusual manner.

Yup, she doesn’t feel so good…

Chad steadied himself and forced his arms and back to relax and let himself lean completely against the boulder.
 
The rifle grew light as his mind focused on the sick animal in the scope.
 
He put the cross-hairs just behind her left shoulder and tracked as she circled, stumbled, yowled and paused, panting.
 
A few snowflakes began to drift across his vision in the scope.
 
The storm he was expecting all day was almost here.
   
The cougar’s breathing created little jets of vapor that rose like a small cloud above her massive head.
 
He was running out of time.
 
He was still a two hour hike to shelter.

One breath.
 
Breathe in, breathe out.
 
Chad kept both eyes open.
 
He waited until he was sure of the shot before putting his finger on the trigger.
 
Breathe in, watch the target area.
 
Cross-hairs locked, breathe out, he extended the exhale and started to gently squeeze the trigger.

The cougar froze, the shoulder-blade suddenly blocking his angle on the big cat’s heart.
 
Something had spooked it.
 
Chad held his breath and tried to calm his beating heart.
 
He went over his actions silently, trying to figure out if he had given himself away.

No, he could see through the scope that the cougar was intently focused on something else to the southwest.
 
He was almost due east, downwind of the big predator.
 
Whatever had captured her attention, she was intent on watching it.
 
She was sniffing the air, eyes alert and ears forward, scanning, searching.
 
For what?

Chad took his eye off the scope and slowly followed the gaze of the cougar to his left.
 
There was a stand of evergreens there that partially blocked his view of the valley stretching down to the northern tip of Lake MacDonald.
 
A second later he heard the sound. An engine.
 
Two.
 
Maybe three vehicles.