Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller: Book 3 (16 page)

The night came and went with no attack from the Somalis, though at least a thousand of their reinforcements had taken up a position in the cover of a collection of houses and trees within sight of the south wall.  The jihadists and Somalis who had retreated the night before had moved mostly into the city north of the airport.

While waiting for the attack to come, Mitch brought Austin to the east side of the perimeter set up by the Marines.  He took away Austin’s AK-47 and gave him an M-16 that matched those used by the Marines.

“We’ve got plenty of ammunition for the M-16,” said Mitch.  “If the attack comes and if things get bad, you need to be ready to shoot.  The CO is thinking about putting you and the other novices out here on the east end of the camp with a platoon of Marines to keep you from wetting your pants.”

“I won’t wet my pants.” Austin had no idea what would happen if he were part of a line of men defending themselves against a mob of attacking Somalis.  “But do you think it’s a good idea to have civilians defending the base?”

“The CO’s words, not mine,” said Mitch.  “And you won’t be defending the base.  You’ll be defending your life.  That’s what this is, Austin.  The Somalis might be trying to take the base, but they won’t be taking prisoners.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.  I’m going to show you how to reload this thing and how to shoot while lying on your belly or kneeling.  I don’t want you standing up while you shoot unless you absolutely have to.”

“Okay.”

“Most importantly, if this all goes down, you need to pay attention to the Marines.  Do whatever they tell you to do.  Whatever they tell you even if you don’t agree, even if you think it’s a bad idea.  They know what they’re doing.  You don’t.”

“Got it.”

“If they shoot, you shoot.  If they retreat, you run.  Got it?”

“Got it, boss.” Austin looked at the burned-out frames of several planes on the tarmac east of their position.  “Do you think the Somalis will come during the day?”

Mitch shook his head.

“Then we’ll miss out.  If they come tonight, we’ll be gone.”

Mitch shook his head.  “Still trying to get final permission to land in Muscat.  It’ll be tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

Austin looked down at his new weapon.  “You said we have plenty of ammunition?”

Mitch nodded.

“I guess I need to find out if I’m a prodigy with this thing.  Show me what to do.”

Three backpacks stuffed full of plasma made up the load Larry needed to haul to the surface.  He stared at them on the floor.  He grumbled.

Paul stood back and watched Larry.  “This is what you wanted.  You said fill all the bags.  You said we didn’t have a choice.”

“You’re carrying two.” Larry glared at Paul.  “I’m carrying one.”

Paul shook his head.  “Make two trips.  This is your deal, and
you’re
the one making money here.”

Larry leaned over and rubbed his knees.  “I been up and down the damn ladder all day.  I ain’t makin’ two more trips tonight.  You better haul this shit, or it’s your ass.”

Paul leaned over and selected one of the backpacks.  “I’m taking this one, do what you like.” He marched out of the clinic, leaving Larry to grumble threats.  Paul didn’t care.  He’d climb the ladder and leave the bag in the tall, dry grass beside the dirt path that led from the exit hatch to the warehouse.  Then he’d go back to his bunk and stare at words on the pages of a book he still wasn’t reading.  He’d come back out later after Larry had done his business.  Paul would stare at the diamond sparkles in the blackness above and try to find the moment of peace that got him through each day. 

When Paul reached the ladder, Larry was still lagging far behind.  Paul climbed.  When he was ten rungs up, Larry was coming up the hall, complaining about the weight of the bag, making threats he could do nothing to back up, and muttering about his knees. 

The ladder creaked when Larry mounted it.  Paul hurried.  Distance would help mute the echoes of Larry’s bitching.

“Wait up,” Larry called.

“Why?” Paul asked.  “We’re climbing a ladder.  We’re not walking through the woods.”

“Wait.”

Paul climbed a few more rungs at a tentative pace while he looked down.  “What?”

“You gotta wait for me.”

Paul kept on and heard Larry scrambling on the ladder to catch up.  “Why do I have to wait for
you
, Larry?”

“‘Cause.”

“Because why?”

“The Captain.” Larry stuttered through a few pants.  “He wants us to come up together.  Security or somethin’.”

Paul shook his head.  Larry was lying.  He set his pace and moved on up.  He paused.  What if Larry was telling the truth?

Larry closed the distance until he was on Paul’s heel. 

Something bumped Paul’s foot as he took a step up.  “Watch your hands, you’re too close.” Paul got angry.  Larry truly was an idiot.  He took another step and Larry’s hand gripped his ankle and yanked.  Paul’s feet swung out, and he barely caught himself with his hands.  “Dammit!”

“Stop,” Larry ordered.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Paul looked down as he tried to get his feet back on a rung.

Larry had an elbow wrapped around a rung and was making every effort to pull Paul off the ladder with his other hand. 

“Let go,” Paul yelled.

Larry’s eyes were full of hate, and he yanked.

Paul kicked.

Larry grunted.  “Stop it.”

“Let go.”

Larry’s hateful stare didn’t turn away.  He pulled harder.  He leaned back, holding the ladder with one hand, daring to hang most of his weight on Paul’s ankle.

“Stop!” Paul kicked at the fingers on his ankle. 

Larry cursed.

Paul kicked again, and Larry’s bony fingers unclamped.

Larry screamed.

He thudded at the bottom of the shaft with a grunt as the concrete floor pushed all the air out of him.

With hands shaking, Paul got his feet set, and wrapped his arms around the rusty ladder to look down.  Larry was at the bottom.  One of his arms was moving.  His head lolled.  A bone protruded from his shin.  Another broke through the skin below an elbow.

They hauled Larry up vertically.  He’d been tied to a cage stretcher, the kind that dangled out of rescue helicopters.  Larry was half-conscious, moaning, and hollering.

Paul, his shoulders stiff from his part at pulling on Larry’s rope, now stood in the grass on the surface just outside the hatch, looking alternatively at the three backpacks at his feet and at Captain Willard.  Willard was perturbed and silent as he looked alternatively at the bags and at the warehouse.  A semi-trailer was backed up to the warehouse, its diesel engine idling.  The driver clearly expected to be leaving before long.

Captain Willard looked Paul up and down.  He pointed at the backpacks.  “I know you’re in on it.  Larry told me you’re one of his boys.”

Paul didn’t respond.

“Here’s how it’s going to work now,” said Captain Willard.  “Larry Dean is out of action.  We got to make a delivery and get payment tonight.  When I say we, I mean you.  I go over there, and I do what I do.  I inventory all the legit stuff.  I do it in front of the camera.  Only one of them works.” Captain Willard pointed at the warehouse.  “Have you been in there before?”

Paul shook his head.

“I’ll point out which camera works.  I’ll point to where Larry stashes the contraband.  After I leave, you make the exchange with Millie; she’s the truck driver.  You’ll do it all out of the area where the camera can see.”

“You sure the other cameras don’t work?” Paul asked.

“You don’t ask questions.  I know what I know.  You do what you’re told.  Understand?”

Paul did understand, but he resented it one-hundred-percent.

“After you get the payment, you stuff it in the backpack.  Don’t take cash.  Millie’s a wily old bitch.  She might try to give you cash because you’re new.  Gold is what we trade in.  That’s it.  She’ll have it.”

“Gold coins?” Paul asked.  “How much?”

Captain Willard reached over and tapped Paul on the side of the head.  “You’re supposed to be one of the smart ones.  Good God, you’re dumber than Larry.  Jewelry.  Watches.  Shit like that.  That’s what people are trading these days.”

“How will I know if it’s real? How will I know how much to take?”

Captain Willard heaved a great sigh.  “You don’t worry about that.  You just make sure she gives it to you.  I’ll check it all out after you bring it to me.  If what she gives us is bad, then she gets nothing next time.  We’ll take our business to other drivers.”

“Got it, bossman.” Paul didn’t figure his tone was enough to convey all the sarcasm he meant, so he topped it with a fake smile. 

“Bossman is right and don’t you forget it.  Pick up those bags.  Let’s go.”

The supplies Millie brought in had been unloaded.  The legitimate boxes of plasma were scanned, accounted for, and loaded onto the truck for Millie’s return trip.  The plasma was bound for the distribution pipeline to hospitals and clinics that treated Ebola patients.

Only Paul and Millie were left in the warehouse.

“Now that it’s just the two of us.  Where’s Larry?” Millie showed her smiling yellow teeth.

“He had an accident.”

Millie’s smile waned into something clearly fake.  She put a finger to her head and pantomimed pulling a trigger.  “Accident? Did he get cross with the wrong people?”

“Nothing like that.” Paul thumbed in the direction of the silo complex.  “He slipped off a ladder coming up from the silo earlier tonight.  He got hurt pretty bad.  Compound fractures, and a concussion, I think.”

Millie grimaced and returned her face to a wrinkled calm.  “So are you the new Larry?”

Paul nodded.  “I’m Paul.”

“You look familiar.”

“I get that a lot.  I have a plain face.  People always think they’ve seen me before.”

“That’s not it.” Millie examined Paul more closely.  “You look like a nicer fellow than Larry.”

“I get that a lot, too.  Listen, I don’t know how much Larry told you or didn’t.  But neither of us is running the show here.  It’s Captain Asshole in the camp here.  He makes the rules.  I just do what he tells me.”

“Ain’t that the truth for everybody?” Millie cackled.  “Some things never change.”

“Good.” Paul looked around.  “I’ll bring out the contraband boxes and put them in your truck.  You get the payment.  Anything different about how you and Larry handled things that I should know about?”

Millie shook her head.  “I’ll go get your pay.”

Once they’d taken care of their exchange, Millie said, “There’s something your captain fellow doesn’t know about.”

“I’m sure he knows.  Larry’s not a bright guy.  I don’t think he kept anything hidden from the Captain.”

“You know about the books then?”

Paul laughed.  “Maybe I’m wrong.  What books?”

“I’ve been bringing some books to Larry.  He trades them for things.  Two bags of plasma for a box of books.”

“So that’s how the books get into camp.” Paul sighed.  “I don’t have an extra bag of plasma.  If I’d known up front, I’d have brought you some bags.  It’s damn hard to get good reading material in here.  Do you know who Larry trades the books to?”

Millie shook her head. 

“That’s okay.  I think I know.” Paul looked at the two boxes of books sitting near the back of Millie’s nearly empty trailer.  “I’d offer to buy the books from you on credit for plasma next time, but I don’t know if I’m as sneaky about this stuff as Larry was.  I might get busted and end up in a cage.”

“A cage?”

Nodding, Paul said, “Yeah, they keep most of the volunteers in cages in the old missile silos.”

“I knew things were bad in there.” Millie grimaced again.  “Cages?”

Paul nodded.  “They’ve got wards built on the north side of the camp for the really bad-off Ebola patients they bring in and the ones who show up at the gate, even though the East Denver Internment Center is supposed to be a secret.  I’m under the impression most of those people die.  They burn bodies out by the east fence every night.  I think most of the guards and contractors stay in those modular apartments up past the wards.  People like me, well, I sleep in a bed where I work.  I get threatened from time to time.  I get ignored a lot.”

“That’s a shame.  What’d you do to get stuck in here?”

“They said they mailed me a notice to show up for donations.” Paul laughed.  “Then they came to my house and arrested me.  Now I’m here.”

“Why didn’t you just show up and donate?”

“I didn’t know I got the letter.” Paul thought back to the day the cops had broken into his townhome.  He remembered that he’d just come back from taking Heidi’s body to the mass grave.

“You okay, honey?” Millie put a hand on Paul’s arm.

“I’m sorry.” Paul took a breath to steady his emotions.  “I’d just buried my wife.  I guess she checked the mail.  I don’t even know where the mailbox key is.”

“We all lost people.” Millie let go of Paul’s arm and stepped back to the legal distance.  “That’s how it is for everybody now.  We just have to get through the day, you know.”

Paul nodded.

“Why don’t you take those two boxes? If you can get me a bag for them, then good.  If not, don’t get yourself in trouble over it.”

“Just one? I should have bargained harder to start with.” Paul looked at the boxes wondering what strings might be attached if he couldn’t pay for them.  “Thanks.  We really appreciate it.”

“How’d Larry get you mixed up in this?”

Paul laughed harshly.  “Some story about his sister’s kids and all the sick kids at their school.”

“Larry can spin some whoppers, I tell you.” Millie cackled.  “I could tell you some stories about Larry and his partner that would make you sick to your stomach.”

Paul stopped, in surprise.  The longer he knew Larry, the more he suspected that he was more than just a liar looking to make a buck off of other people’s suffering.  “Like what?”

“Larry’s a braggart, so I guess I can’t say all he told me was true.  I guess some of it was, or at least, had a grain of truth.  You know the type.”

Paul nodded.

“I guess the thing that turned my stomach the most was hearing Larry tell stories about how he and his buddy Jimmy were the first ones who started selling plasma.”

Paul picked up one of the boxes of books and moved it out of the truck.  “How’s that? You mean Larry was here at the detention center?”

“No.  Early on in the epidemic.  He said they got it from people who got better.  One time when he was trying to get me to behave, Larry even implied that he and Jimmy even killed some people, and it wouldn’t bother them to do it again.”

“Killed some people? Early on?” Paul froze.  He thought about the girl who’d lost most of her blood in his clinic.  He thought about how her pallor matched Heidi’s.  He jumped to a conclusion that was mostly speculation, and he felt rage running through his veins.

“You all right honey?”