Pale Horse (A Project Eden Thriller) (16 page)

Sanjay stepped quickly to the manager and knelt down beside him. He pulled the gag off the man’s mouth, and shoved the gun back into the man’s uninjured shoulder. “Tell them.”

“Tell them what?” the manager said defiantly.

“Tell them it’s the truth.”

“That there’s a disease we’re trying to distribute through Mumbai? That’s crazy.”

“Tell them!” Sanjay moved the muzzle of the gun over to the man’s wound, and shoved it against the bullet hole.

The man cried out.

“Tell them!”

The manager began panting deeply, his eyes flicking from Sanjay to the others. “He isn’t…lying. It’s true. But we’re…only trying to make this a better world.”

“By killing our countrymen?” Sanjay said.

“By killing everyone.”

The last seemed to do the trick. The two other men looked horrified as the manager’s words sunk in.

The first man turned for the door. “I need to get home. I need to save my family.”

“Wait!” Sanjay called out. “The only way to save them is to help me.”

The man looked back. “What are you talking about?”

__________

A
CCORDING TO THE
manager, the remaining vaccine was locked in a storage closet near the main conference room on the ground level.

One of the two cooks went down the stairs first, checking to see if the way was clear. Once he gave them the signal, Sanjay, the other cook, and the manager joined him.

They could hear voices from farther down the main hallway. It sounded to Sanjay like the guttural language most of the managers spoke. Unfortunately, it was also coming from the same direction they needed to go in.

Every few steps, their captive manager grunted behind his gag in obvious pain. Sanjay didn’t care what the man was feeling, but he did care if the noise gave them away.

“Quiet,” he whispered.

Ahead, the hallway took a ninety-degree turn to the right toward the conference room and, just beyond it, the locked room where the vaccine was stored. Sanjay held up a hand for the others to stop, then leaned a few inches around the corner for a look.

While the corridor was empty, the voices were clearly coming through the open door of the conference room. Sanjay could make out at least four people.

“What are we going to do?” one of the cooks whispered.

Sanjay thought for a moment. The managers had never seemed particularly threatening to him—not physically, anyway—relying more on their leadership positions to get what they wanted from the men they’d hired. He had also never seen more than two or three guards patrolling the compound, all local hires. Since the public and the government had been more than happy to have Pishon Chem in India, the company apparently never thought it’d face a threat.

It was wrong, Sanjay thought.

Glancing back at the other men, he said, “Follow me.”

He stepped around the corner, hauling the manager right beside him, and walked straight to the conference room. Just before he got there, he turned the manager over to one of the cooks, and moved into the open doorway.

There were five of the Europeans inside, not four. They were laughing at some unknown joke—something that caused Sanjay’s anger to intensify—and it took them a moment to realize he was there.

It was the manager named Dettling, the man whose name Sanjay had been dropping, who spoke first. “Can we help you?” Before Sanjay could say anything, the man’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Sanjay?” Then those same eyes widened as he seemed to remember that Sanjay had gone missing after paying an unauthorized visit to his dying cousin.

“Mr. Dettling, you and your friends will stay here,” Sanjay said.

“What do you mean, ‘stay here’? What are you talking about?”

Sanjay lifted his hand so they could see his gun. “I would rather not hurt anyone else.”

“What?”

Two of the men jumped up from their chairs.

“Sit,” Sanjay ordered, pointing the gun toward them to emphasize the point.

The two men hesitated a second, then returned to their seats.

“I don’t know what you are thinking,” Dettling said. “But whatever’s going on in your head, you’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

Glancing to the side, Sanjay grabbed hold of the senior manager’s shirt and pulled him into the doorway with him. One of the men in the room gasped.

“He’s hurt,” Dettling said, rising to his feet. “What have you done?”

He took a step toward the door.

“Stop,” Sanjay said.

When Dettling took another step, Sanjay did something he would have never thought he was capable of doing—he pressed the thumb of his free hand against the wound on the old manager’s shoulder. The man screamed, the gag barely blocking any of the noise.

Dettling stopped. “Don’t hurt him.”

Sanjay eased back on his thumb, but didn’t remove it completely. “Who has keys to the room next door?”

A collective blank stare.

Sanjay pointed the gun at the man to Dettling’s left. “The keys?”

This time there was a shrug or two. Then Dettling said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you’re—”

Sanjay pulled the trigger.

The man next to Dettling jammed backward against his chair and then tumbled to the ground.

“Who?” Sanjay asked, aiming the gun at the next person in line.

Two of the remaining men pulled sets of keys from their pockets and tossed them across the room.

“It’s the silver one,” one of them said. “With the J on it.”

Sanjay shoved the senior manager back to the cooks. Then, without taking his eyes off the men at the table, leaned down and picked up one set of keys.

“Sanjay, please,” Dettling said. He was holding his hands in front of him, his palms facing out, in an obvious attempt to show he meant no harm. “Why don’t you put the gun down, and let us get medical assistance for our friends?”

Sanjay rose back to his feet, his eyes blazing. “And who will give medical attention to all the people of Mumbai when they become sick from your spray?”

“Whatever you think you’ve heard is wrong. The spray is only for—”

“What I’ve heard? Mr. Dettling, I have
seen
what your spray does. I have seen my cousin and the men he was working with dying from it. The Sage Flu. Are you going to tell me the nurse was lying?”

“Of course she was. Your cousin was only suffering from extreme exposure to the malaria spray. It was a very unfortunate event, but that’s all it was.”

Sanjay grabbed his captive and pulled him back. “And your senior manager here? He has confirmed that I am right. Are you saying he lied, too?”

“Yes. He was just telling you what you wanted to hear.”

The worried look on the faces of the men behind Dettling belied his words.

“Then you are saying I won’t find any of the vaccine in the room next door.”

That caught the men by surprise. Even Dettling lost some of his composure before he recovered and said, “It’s where we keep our medical supplies, so of course you’ll find medicine in there. But a vaccine? I’m sorry. I don’t even know what it would be for.”

Sanjay wanted so much to pull the trigger again, and put a bullet right through the center of Mr. Dettling’s chest, but that was a line his conscience was not yet willing to let him cross.

He looked over at one of the cooks. “Come here.” When the man joined him, he said, “Take this.” He handed him the gun. “Don’t let any of them leave. Remember, they are trying to kill your family.”

The cook nodded, his face hard and determined.

Sanjay motioned to the other cook to follow him, and bring the senior manager along.

“You’re not going to find anything!” Dettling called out as Sanjay moved away.

“Shut up,” the cook with the gun said. “I am not nearly as nice as my friend.”

Sanjay used the silver J key to open the closet door. The medical supply room was about the size of the main room in Kusum’s apartment, and was cooler than the corridor, apparently having its own temperature-control system. Through the middle and along each wall were shelves filled with medical supplies.

He pulled the gag out of the old man’s mouth. “Where is it?”

The manager gasped several times.

“Where?” Sanjay repeated.

“Over there,” the man said, his voice weak. “In the glass cabinets.”

Sanjay dragged the man across the room.

The cabinets were built into the shelving unit. There were two of them side by side, each about Sanjay’s height, and two meters wide. Inside were boxes and bottles of varying sizes.

“Which one is it?” Sanjay asked.

“In there,” the man said, pointing at the second cabinet. “Those bottles on the third shelf down.”

Sanjay opened the cabinet, pulled out one of the small bottles, and raised it to the light. The liquid inside was clear, not tinged with orange like what he’d been given.

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I do that?”

“This isn’t the vaccine.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then you take it.”

“I’ve already been vaccinated.”

“I don’t care.”

Sanjay spotted a box full of prepackaged, ready-to-use syringes on a nearby shelf. He opened one, and stuck the needle through the rubber cap on the bottle. He drew in the same amount the nurse had given him and, in turn, he had given Kusum. He moved the needle toward the manager’s arm.

“No,” the man said before Sanjay could plunge it in.

Sanjay held the needle just above the manager’s skin. “Why not?”

“I…I made a mistake. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, though Sanjay was willing to bet the man did know.

Instead of asking him again where the vaccine was, Sanjay searched through the bottles, looking for the orange tinge. Finally he found two boxes of bottles sitting together in the first cabinet that matched his memory of the vaccine.

He held one in front of the man. “This is it.”

By the defeated look on the man’s face, Sanjay knew he was right. He added the box of syringes to the two boxes of vaccine, and headed to the door where the cook was waiting. Stopping just inside, he took a quick look around. There were no windows in the supply room, and the only way in and out was the single door.

“Stay here,” he said to the manager, and went out into the corridor.

Sanjay and the two cooks escorted the other managers individually into the medical supply room. The only exception was that they allowed Mr. Dettling to help his injured colleague.

After making sure they’d taken all the mobile phones from the men, they shut the door and jammed a chair from the conference room under the handle. It wouldn’t keep them inside for too long, but it would be enough for Sanjay and his new friends to get away.

He gave each cook a few of the needles and several bottles of vaccine, then instructed them on how to administer it.

They thanked him, and left as fast as they could.

Before taking off, Sanjay found a bag in one of the rooms, put the remaining vaccine and needles in it, then hurried from the building.

“Your identification,” the guard said as he walked by the gate.

“Oh,” Sanjay groaned. “I totally forgot. Look, you can call Mr. Dettling again while I wait, if you want. But please hurry. He told me I needed to deliver this across town as soon as possible.” He held up the bag.

The guard frowned, then shook his head and waved him through. “Next time, don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” Sanjay said. “Thank you.”

Less than a minute later, he was speeding away from the compound, barely believing he’d actually done it. He had the vaccine, more than enough for Kusum’s family. He couldn’t wait to meet up with them again, sure that they were already out of town and nearing the rendezvous point.

They weren’t.

19

MONTANA

5:42 AM MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

T
HE WHOLE NIGHT
had
been a nonstop race through the woods. The monsters, faceless but always close, hounded and teased Brandon as he tried to get away, but every time he thought he was free, he would hear them again.

The forest seemed to go on forever. He knew there had to be a road somewhere, something that would lead him to others who could help protect him from the creatures hunting him.

A howl. Not a wolf, but something else, and so, so close.

“No!” he yelled. “No! No!”

His eyes shot open as the final shout woke him from his sleep. For several seconds, the terror of the woods clung to him as if it were the real thing, then it began to fade and the world came back into focus.

He was momentarily confused by how low the ceiling was above him. So low, in fact, he could reach up and easily touch it. But the air was freezing, and the last thing he wanted to do was pull his arm out from under his…sleeping bag?

The fire at the Ranch. The helicopters. Mr. Hayes. Oh, God, Mr. Hayes. The endless hours of trekking through the forest. The house. The garage.

The old station wagon.

Now he remembered, and wasn’t sure which was worse—the nightmare or reality.

Though he hadn’t wanted to expose himself to the frigid air, he had to check the time. If it was late enough, he needed to head out to the safety of the forest. Using the flashlight, he checked his watch.

Eighteen minutes to six a.m. Definitely time to get out of there.

He was about to turn the flashlight off when he realized something was wrong. The door to the car was open. He had shut it when he climbed in. He was sure of it. Had he woken at some point and opened it but didn’t remember? He didn’t think so. He’d never been the kind of person who’d get up during the night and forget about it like a sleepwalker in a movie.

He played the light through the door but didn’t see anything there. Feeling a bit of the panic he’d experienced in his dream, he scrambled out of his sleeping bag and scooted through the car door. He spun around, shining the flashlight through the room. It was exactly as it had been earlier.

Relax. Maybe you just didn’t shut it all the way and it swung open while you were sleeping. Just get your stuff together and get out of here.