Eden Plague - Latest Edition (51 page)

That was more than she’d ever done before at a stretch. It was true she had an advantage over the average Marine, male or female; she was at least twenty pounds lighter than normal. Missing everything below both knees put less strain on the cardiovascular system; absent lower legs didn’t need blood and oxygen.

Stay positive, stay focused.
Ever since the mortar shell that took her feet, that’s what she told herself.

She dropped gently to the floor onto her buttocks, maneuvering with wiry-muscled arms and leg stumps over to her prostheses. Sitting on the floor she strapped them on, fiddling and adjusting for a longer span than normal. Finally she got them to some semblance of stability, and wobbled to her artificial feet.

She stared down at the legs and the metal-and-plastic structures. They didn’t feel right. She felt her good mood evaporate. Some days the damn things just didn’t sit well on her, and it looked like this would be one of these days. She wasn’t even going to turn on the microprocessor control and servos that helped her walk and run with a semblance of normalcy. She still hoped she could work up to running a marathon again.

She sat down on the bed and took the prostheses off, rubbing at the end of the stumps. They were always itching a bit, but today they were positively screaming to be scratched. She did so, vigorously, and then looked more closely. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that the stumps had lengthened slightly.

Maybe they were just swollen.

She shrugged to herself. Rather than fight with the artificial legs, she phoned for a wheelchair pick-up. She’d come back after breakfast and fiddle with the things. She was
starving
.

Three decks above, in the crowded, well-lit breakfast cafeteria, nine-year-old Gennie Washington scooped spoonful after spoonful of yogurt into her mouth, finishing the bowl in record time. “More, please,” she requested.

Her father Rufous gently patted the scarf that covered her bald head. “Anything else?”

“Milk! And orange juice. And bacon.”

“Coming right up, punkin.” Ever since her mother died, he couldn’t refuse her anything, not that he wanted to in this case. The chemo had been hard on her, and getting her to eat so well was a minor miracle. The cruise seemed to be good for her, to lift her spirits, and the oncologists all said that kids made the best cancer patients, because they had the best attitudes. Attitude was everything, as his football coaches had all drummed into him so long ago.

He put a tray full of food down in front of his daughter and joyfully watched her eat. It was going to be a good day.

***

“Time to get off the boat,” Larry said to Spooky as they heard the disembarkation announcement for Cancun over the public address system. “Between this guy,” he hooked a thumb at the closet where the taped and frightened staffer had spent an uncomfortable night, “and the commander you knocked out, they’ll be onto us soon.”

“I’ll use his badge one more time to get off the ship,” Spooky said as he packed a shoulder bag. “We’ll meet at El Gringo Loco.”

Larry raised his eyebrows at Spooky. Actually they weren’t going anywhere near that bar; but the man in the closet would certainly pass this tidbit on to the authorities. He raised his own bag to his shoulder and the two men made their escape from the ship, Spooky from the staff and crew exit, Nightingale with the usual crowd of tourists heading in to the bars in Cancun.

Infection Day Minus Two.

Binoculars brought the water treatment plant at Van Norman Lakes Reservoir into sharp focus. I could see the enormous tubes of the termination of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Beyond it were hundreds of miles of pipes that gathered and funneled waters from the Sierras down to the Los Angeles Basin. It was a marvel of engineering, completely gravity operated, even generating hydroelectric power on the way. The devastation that the diversion of water caused Mono Lake and Owens Valley and many other, smaller natural Edens of California was deemed a cheap price to pay for keeping the economic powerhouse of the West Coast going.

I shifted my view to the trees planted between the Granada Hills Youth Recreation Center and the enormous structures that prepared millions of gallons of water a day for Los Angeles’ thirsty residents to use. The stiff breeze’s direction was important; I had to choose a place upwind to maximize my chance of success.

Not that I actually expected to succeed.

I’d spotted the car tailing me ten minutes ago; I figured I had another ten minutes before Homeland Security pulled me over and checked me out. I opened and drank as many canned protein shakes as I could. I think I choked down seven.

Homeland Security. Such a wonderfully loaded phrase. Nobody could possibly object to some nice security for the homeland, right? But it gave birth to dysfunctional abominations like the Transportation Security Administration, patting down toddlers and detaining old people with colostomy bags while angry young underwear bombers were let through for fear of being politically incorrect; to trading away constitutional rights and responsibilities to those in power, in return for the comforting illusion of protection that no amount of armed security forces or foreign interventions could provide.

I cut short my musings as I noted the wind direction was just blowing right for my ploy. I dialed a number on the disposable phone, put in a code, then tossed it out the window into a drainage ditch.

Shoving the surplus agricultural spray truck in gear, I drove down the slope of the hill and along Balboa Boulevard. It was the last mile of my journey across seven states, trusting to anonymity and the millions of trucks on the road to get me to my goal. But it didn’t really matter where or if I was intercepted; the design had been put in motion the moment I left the Sosthenes Bunker. It would be great if I could deploy the Plague into the water; but with or without me, the plan was going forward.

The tail started accelerating behind me, and I knew I was blown. They’d probably gotten a look at my face, despite my best efforts at concealment, and matched it against a biometric database. I sped up, taking the turn into the recreational complex in a skidding screech. I was five hundred yards from my target section of the fence.

I floored it, then reached over and threw a large lever under the dashboard. The mechanism in back of the truck, normally used for spraying a fine mist of agricultural chemicals in orchards or fields, coughed to life. In a moment a pale white fog trailed behind me, the stiff Santa Anna wind carrying it almost due west. Four hundred yards.

The heavy government sedan behind me gained on my anemic truck despite the best I could do; it wasn’t long before I heard the impact of bullets. But five thousand gallons of Eden-Plague-infused solution protected my person from harm. Three hundred yards to go.

Unfortunately the wheels were not so well covered. I felt one of the dual tires in the right rear go flat, and I steered gently, carefully, to avoid getting the liquid sloshing and so overturn the truck. Only two hundred yards now.

The car roared up, trying to get alongside on the right, upwind of the mist. I kept the speeding truck close to obstacles on that side – parked cars, fenceposts, curbs – preventing them from passing me. One hundred yards.

The truck shuddered and I felt the other right rear tire go. The vehicle settled on its suspension and I could barely control it, so I just kept my foot on the floor and aimed for the piece of fence that separated the sports complex from the water treatment plant’s eastern perimeter road. Strips of shredded rubber banged into the fender well, louder than the gunshots, and I prayed for speed as the barrier came up.

I crashed through.

I still had about thirty miles per hour going for me and I was holding it as I roared along next to the enormous rectangular pools that held and distributed the water for treatment. I blessed the designers of the Eden Plague, as Elise had told me that the processing would not kill the virus. Even now, the mist was settling into the pools, contaminating Los Angeles’ main tap supply with the life-giving microbe.

I’d almost made it to the end of the complex when I felt the tearing of a bullet in my shoulder and my right arm went numb. My vision blurred and the unstable truck yawed to the left, then rolled once and ground to a halt, breaking open the tough plastic solution tank. I felt the liquid slosh onto me.

Moments later the legs of my pursuers walked into my line of vision. My head was at an awkward angle, pressed against the ground and the remnants of the broken driver’s window of the truck. Dust and grit swirled over me, getting in my eyes, and I was sure my body was broken in several important places. I wondered whether the virus would knit my bones in this awkward position.

I could hear the buzz of a helicopter getting closer. It didn’t matter. I’d done the job.

“Should we get him out?” asked a voice attached to the legs.

“They said not to touch him. He’s contaminated.”

“This whole thing’s probably contaminated. Stay upwind. Besides, he can lie there and bleed for all I care. Scumbag terrorist. ”

“Did they say what the stuff is?”

“No, just some kind of chemical. Nothing too bad. I already called it in. They’re shutting down the plant until they can make sure the water is safe.”

“High five, partner.”

“Yep. Might get a commendation out of this one.”

“We should.”

The sound of the helicopter drowned out their conversation, though it barely added to the gritty wind. The legs walked out of my line of sight. I waited. It seemed like forever, but was probably just a few minutes. I drifted off in a fog of pain. This was good, because the gnawing hunger of the Eden Plague was coming back.

I awoke to the smell of plastic and my own bodily fluids. The world looked blue, but that was just from the colored sheet covering my face. It was loose enough for me to breathe, but I couldn’t move. I think I was wrapped and taped. I could hear sounds of activity nearby, snippets of conversation and orders. It sounded like they were cleaning up the crashed truck. I felt myself being lifted. The motion told me that unfortunately I was right; pieces of me had healed into an unnatural configuration. My mind drifted to wondering if someday Elise and the rest would be able to adjust the virus to straighten out bones too.

A resonant, commanding voice rose from the babble. “Put him in the chopper.”

I laughed to myself, my mind seizing on irrelevancies. Nobody who actually lived and worked around helicopters called them ‘choppers.’ Aircrew called them ‘airplanes” or ‘birds’ or sometimes ‘helos,’ or by their military designation – ‘Black Hawks’ or ‘Sixties’ or “Hueys.’ Never ‘choppers.’

Amateurs.

They put me inside the running bird, which sounded to me like some kind of Sikorsky, probably a UH-60 Black Hawk. I was in the hands of the enemy, now, and in God’s, Cassie would say. I sure hoped she was right. I could use some God right now. I closed my eyes, said a prayer, and let the pounding of the rotors lull me to sleep.

***

It had taken five days for Nightingale and Nguyen to work their way back up through Mexico, eventually crossing using false documents at San Ysidro, the busiest border station in the US. Now they were checked into a nondescript motel in Mission Hills, California, eating free continental breakfast and watching the headline news.

“Search and rescue forces of three nations were mobilized today as the cruise ship ‘Royal Neptune’ was reported overdue to arrive at Port Canaveral, Florida from Bermuda. While the US Coast Guard cautions against speculation, the internet is already buzzing with talk of the latest victim of the Bermuda Triangle.”

The two men turned to each other with ill-concealed horror.

Larry downed his coffee. “Damn. DJ was right. They hijacked it, quarantined it,” he whispered.

“Or sunk it to the bottom with a torpedo. The war, it is starting.”

“So it is. Let’s go fight it.”

They drove their rental car the mile or two to the north edge of the fence line surrounding the Van Norman water treatment plant. There was a communications conduit thirty yards inside the fence, where it ran from the main structure to a point where it dove into the ground. Beneath the earth, it would join and run alongside the enormous pipes of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, providing a secure fiber-optic link all the way up the pipeline. The line connected the whole system together, computers at each critical node – control valves, hydroelectric generators, pressure sensors – and the water treatment plant in front of them. But right here, it was exposed.

Larry checked his watch. “Some time in the next hour, I’d say. You still think you can do it fast enough?”

“As long as nobody shooting at me, I do it in under one minute. If they are, I do it even faster.”

Larry shrugged, resigned. “Sure hope you’re right. This is gonna take some nice timing.” He stared at his phone.

Seventeen minutes later the phone beeped and the go-code displayed.

They immediately exited the car, walking up to the fence. Larry worked heavy-duty wire shears along the cyclone fencing, making a hole within seconds big enough for Spooky.

Nguyen slipped through with a tool bag in his hand, his eyes roaming over the concrete and steel facility. They were far away from any of the plant workers’ usual locations, and the fence line only got checked twice a day. He dropped to his knees next to the conduit, taking a battery-powered saw and slicing carefully through the thin conduit pipe. He peeled it away with pliers, exposing the fiber-optic lines within.

With a few deft movements of his fingers he attached a clip-on shunt, which interposed itself into the line. Now, unknown to the plant managers, Spooky had access to the computer that ran the whole system. He pressed a button and the LED on the shunt started flashing. He slipped back across the hot dry dirt, through the fence, and into the car.

The tiny flash drive in the device dumped the cyber-worm Vinny had prepared into the line, where it burrowed its way in and immediately started taking over the system. Within two minutes the control computer, though otherwise unaffected, would ignore all commands to shut down water distribution. It would take tens of minutes or even hours to manually close valves and stop the contaminated liquid from flowing out into greater Los Angeles. By that time it would be too late.