Eden Plague - Latest Edition (38 page)

There was a flurry of activity, as everyone tore down and packed all the gear. Boxes went from vehicle to vehicle, all sorts of cases and high-tech-looking containers. I wondered what all we had besides weapons and Vinny’s commo gear.

I cleaned out the van really well, took the plates off and tried to sanitize it. Spooky helped. We couldn’t get rid of every identifying mark and number, but the more we could slow them down, the better. I put all my stuff in the Land Rover, my long gun case, my ruck and my aid bag. One or two men in each vehicle meant we had plenty of cargo room.

Zeke took my van, Spooky fired up his Porsche, and Skull drove the Jeep as the recovery vehicle. An hour later they came back in it, having sent the van into the lake in a hidden cove. If we were lucky it would be months before anyone found the site.

In the meantime I had cooked some food, trying to use up everything that we couldn’t bring along. I laid a huge spread, knowing I’d eat a lot of it, and the others wouldn’t be too far behind. Stuffing our faces, between bites the talk naturally turned to the coming operation.

“How soon do we go?” I threw out. “And how?”

“Qui Audet Adipiscitur,” quoted Skull.

I furrowed my brow at him. “Latin?”

“Who Dares, Wins. The motto of the SAS.” He meant the Special Air Service, British special forces.

“You mean you think we should go in fast and hot.”

“Yes.”

I nodded, thoughtful.

Zeke looked at me, then at Skull. “I agree, to a point. And I think I want the treatment.”

“What?” That caught me off guard.

“Hey, I’m the oldest one here, I’m getting fat, my feet are flat, my cholesterol is high, I got a hernia, and it ain’t gonna get any better. And we have to do this right and do it fast, for Ricky’s sake if nothing else. I’m willing to take the risk.”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The payoff looked too big, too rich, to ignore. “Anyone else?” I asked around, challenging.

Skull shook his head. So did the rest, though more slowly.

“Not yet,” said Nightingale. “What if it makes my…makes me not be able to…you know.” He looked down at his crotch.

Everyone burst out laughing, but it was a legitimate question. We just didn’t know anything about the side effects.

I said, “Well, I haven’t noticed any ill effects.”

“I don’t see any women around here to test yourself on.”

The next few suggestions were too vulgar to repeat; warriors can be rough-spoken. After the laughter died out and everyone had pretty much finished their dinners, Zeke drained his beer and said, “Well?”

Everyone stared at me expectantly. “Well what?”

Zeke held out his hand, palm up. “Bite me.”

“Oh, dude…this is creepy,” I answered. “Maybe we should just cut our thumbs and mix our blood.”

Zeke shook his head. “We don’t know that would work. We do know this does. Bite me.”

“Bleah, bleah,” I did my best Dracula. “Okay.” I grabbed his hand and bit him, slobbering on the wound a bit for good measure. “Yech. I’d make a bad vampire.” He tasted like cheap after shave, which meant really, really horrible. You ever taste cheap after shave? Try it sometime, near a bucket.

To his credit he hadn’t flinched, just rubbed the bloody spots a little bit and looked at it.

“It took a little while. Overnight, for me. Don’t expect anything before that, except to get unusually hungry and sleepy,” I put in.

He shrugged. “Que sera, sera.”

We cleaned up, locked up and moved out.

I called my neighbor Trey with a clean phone on the way. “Hey Trey, DJ here.”

“Hey, man. Glad you called. There is a truck parked in your driveway. It says Dominion Power on it, but I saw four guys get out and they went in your side door. Which seems weird since I know you’re not home, and it’s after hours. You want me to call the police?”

I really didn’t want him to. I actually wanted them to clean up the body, if that was what they were doing. I hoped they weren’t setting up a frame for Jenkins’ murder. I pushed that thought away.

“No…Trey, it’s some classified stuff, national security. I think these guys are bad guys but I don’t want to tip them off. I’ll just report it myself, okay? Don’t get involved, they might be dangerous.” I didn’t think he would. He was a nice guy, but not the adventurous type.

“Okay, man, your call. You got a number I can call you on?”

“No, sorry, I’m moving around. I’ll call you now and then, okay?”

“All right now. You take care.” He hung up.

I pulled out the batteries and tossed the phone out the window when we crossed the next river. It traced a sweet arc downward to splash fifty feet below. Then I went to sleep.

I woke up when our convoy was pulling into Outdoor Mountain near Richmond, a mecca for the hunting, fishing, and nature sporting crowd. A hundred thousand square feet of gear, from the smallest lure up to bass boats and ATVs, and guns and ammo. Lots of guns and ammo. We did some shopping.

We didn’t actually buy any guns. That takes a background check, ID, and an hour or two of waiting even if your record is clean. We couldn’t be sure any one of us wasn’t on some watch list somewhere.

Ammunition, however, can be purchased like candy in Virginia. Echoes of carpetbaggers and Reconstruction and the Federal city right on its northern border kept Virginia’s gun laws libertarian. Thomas Jefferson, native Virginian, had said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” A few million Virginians stood quietly ready to prove him right if the Feds ever tried to take their liberty and the guns they protected it with.

I picked up a few things I wanted to try out, a few things I thought would be useful. We all did. Then we drove on, well stocked.

The sun was coming up the next morning over Onancock as we deployed around the apartment complex where the Integrated National Strategies people lived. It turned out that they all had units at a place called Seaside Acres, built in the last ten years, cookie-cutter. Made it easier to recon. Made it easier for their security people to keep an eye on their own guys too.

Zeke, Spooky and I sat in the Land Rover, parked down the street from the apartment complex’s single gate. Zeke was munching on his fourth ham-and-egg croissant. We both figured the XH had taken hold. He was cheerful.

We’d already watched one little nerdy-looking guy get into a black Suburban driven by a big Hispanic minder. They were parked just inside the gate, by the leasing office. We could see them easily from our angle.

“That’s Arthur Davidson, virologist. The heavy is Miguel Carrasco, former Texas Ranger.”

It was hard to say for sure, but Carrasco didn’t seem to be all that alert. Just another day on the job for him.

He got out of the vehicle again as another guy walked up. Caucasian, thin, grey and balding, thick glasses. His pants were too short and he had on a stained white shirt, and dirty leather shoes like fry cooks wear on greasy floors. “Roger Auprey. Epidemiologist. Nominated for a Nobel prize once, but apparently he has to be reminded to shower and change his clothes. Mad scientist.” One more of the watchers followed behind him.

“The guy behind him must be Rogett.” Karl Rogett, Master Gunnery Sergeant, USMC retired, I remembered from his file. Looked tough as nails, like you might expect. These two hard cases seemed more focused on controlling their charges than protecting them. I guess they expected me to run and hide, not gather up my own personal A-team – well, Zeke’s - and come after them.

I really wanted this thing to go smooth, no casualties. I wasn’t sure the other guys were on the same page, despite my insistence.

Skull, Larry and Vinny were in the Cherokee, over Larry’s strenuous objections. A flashy Escalade just wasn’t any good for surveillance, so we’d parked it back at the chain motel we were staying at. They were down at the biggest marina nearby, renting a nice big pleasure boat that would accommodate us. If we were lucky, INS’s corporate vessel would be at the same marina. If not, it would be easy to keep an eye out for them from the water between here and Watt’s Island. The harder thing would be not to be noticed ourselves.

The Suburban pulled out of the gate and we shadowed them from well back. They drove like locals, not too fast and not too slow, and pretty soon we watched them pull into the marina where our guys were. Sometimes things do go smooth. For a while.

Zeke called the other vehicle on his walkie. “They’re here, look alive.”

We turned left where the Suburban had turned right, to go down to where our boat waited. We parked, schlepped our cases with various supplies and ordnance onto the boat, and loaded up.

Vinny stayed on shore. He was going to do some surveillance of everyone’s vehicles and residences. He had hinted he might try for something more than that; maybe sneakiness ran in the Nguyen family. Maybe Vinny was a younger version of Spooky in the techno-urban jungle.

Skull piloted the boat like a pro, taking us out about a mile then slowing down. We loafed along like some lubbers out for a pleasure cruise. It was chilly but sunny and we bundled up and broke out the coffee thermoses and doughnuts and binoculars.

Pretty soon a nice thirty-six-footer came out of the marina and angled off to the north pretty fast, toward Watt’s Island, which I could barely see about seven miles off. They crossed to windward of us doing twenty knots, going northwest, and by this time Alan had us on a parallel course at ten or so. We didn’t want to look too eager.

We watched them all the way in to Watt’s Island, a tiny patch of scrubby pines and rocks with the all-steel buildings showing quite clearly. The highest tree on the island didn’t look more than twenty feet tall. The complex was on the southeast corner, and everything looked just like it had on the satellite imagery. We could see the white Jeep parked at the pier, with someone standing next to it, smoking.

We tooled along, not too near, not too far, and observed. Their cruiser pulled up to the dock next to the boathouse. Three people got out onto the pier, then into the Jeep, which drove the hundred yards or so to the tiny empty parking lot. The boat pulled away and headed back for Onancock.

By this time we were looking at the south side, and then the back of the complex as we rounded the island. There were no windows in the big building, but there were two in the small one facing south. We could see the helo pad, which was empty except for a short pole and a wind sock standing stiffly in the north-by-northwest breeze.

“All right, that’s enough. We don’t want to get made. Head for Tangier Island,” Zeke ordered.

Alan turned the wheel and ran the throttles up to comfortable cruising speed. Less than half an hour later we came into Mailboat Harbor and docked at the marina at the north end of the island. Skull, slightly less conspicuous than usual in a New York Yankees cap, paid the docking fee and got the boat topped off with fuel. He could still frighten children with a look.

We wandered around the tiny island, splitting up to act like we were interested in the little shops, museums and restaurants along Main Ridge Road. The whole piece of land we stood on was barely a square mile, the southwest-most of three sub-islands that were all that remained of historic Tangier Island. It used to be much bigger, just like Watts Island, but rising ocean levels and erosion were slowly washing it away. In a couple of hundred years it would probably be completely gone.

We met up for an early lunch at a seafood place overlooking the water, within sight of a dozen fishing boats trying to eke out a living in the Chesapeake and the coastal Atlantic nearby. It was hard to hide, because the tourist season hadn’t started yet, and it was mostly locals. At the same time, that made it easier for us to spot anyone out of the ordinary, and none of us reported seeing anyone that looked like they were watching us. That was good news.

We headed back as soon as we were done. Just a bunch of guys on an outing, yeah. The island looked the same on the way back, though we went around to the north of it this time. It was about noon, and not a creature was stirring except for the sea birds.

We met back at the motel, and went inside Vinny and Tran’s room. Lawrence had been complaining because of the crowding in the Land Rover, so he was first out of the vehicle. He was a big guy.

On the other hand, Zeke was getting smaller. He didn’t seem as hungry as I had been, but he was still eating more than normal and he kept grabbing the roll of his gut and shaking it, with a big pleased look on his face.

“My pants are getting looser. Hot dog, this stuff is a weight-loss miracle too. It must boost the metabolism like crazy. I feel awesome!”

I looked at him soberly. “Every high has its low, and every benefit has a cost. We just don’t know what this is yet.”

“You won’t just let me enjoy it, will you?” He laughed again.

“All right, enjoy it while you can. I’m a pessimist by nature, I guess.” I’d lived with that serpent too long.

Vinny dragged the round motel table into the spot between the two beds, so we could sit on chairs and bedsides and all see. He had a row of portable computer stuff on a folding table on the other side of the room, and he’d printed out hardcopy photos.

“Pictures of everyone’s apartments. Nothing much to see. They are either not home or staying indoors. If they take the two scientists back off the island this evening, then we can expect just Elise and one or two minders when we go in for the snatch.”

“What if some don’t leave the island? Or what if different ones come off? What if they rotate some overnight?” asked Skull.

“Does it matter?” Zeke asked. “Once we see, we’ll know something. We’ll go in with all five of us. Sorry Vinny. Wrong skill set.”

He shrugged. “No problem, man. Until I get some superhero powers too, I’d rather stay away from bullets, thank you very much.”

Spooky glared.

Vinny shrugged again.

Zeke went on, “Okay, general plan. Skull will drive the boat and provide overwatch, secure our line of retreat. We’ll pull in here, into this channel, and disembark behind these scrubby trees. Spooky will take point. Then me and Dan, with Larry and Alan watching our backs. We’ll move in quiet. Here’s the objective rally point, where you post, Skull.” He pointed at a spot just inside the tree line, about fifty yards from the buildings. “Spooky, you’ll do the forward look and report back to us there. If we can’t pinpoint everyone, or anyone, we’ll enter, search and clear the buildings.”