The Atlantis Plague (28 page)

“Copy, General. Godspeed.”

“Captain.”

“Sir?”

“The girl in my quarters,” Dorian said.

“Yes, sir. She’s here—”

“Tell her… that I’m all right.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it—”

Dorian ended the call.

Dorian fell back to the ground. He was hungry. He needed to eat, needed his strength, especially with the extra weight he had to carry. He would have to hunt.

In the distance, he heard a low rolling rumble. Thunder? No. It was the beat of horses charging through the forest.

CHAPTER 58

Somewhere off the coast of Ceuta
Mediterranean Sea

For the better part of the last hour, Kate and David hadn’t done any talking, and that made her very happy. They lay there, both naked, in the sheets of the king bed centered in the wood-paneled master stateroom.

It felt almost surreal to her, like they were lying in a luxury hotel room, as if the world outside had been only a bad dream. She felt safe and free, for the first time since… since she could remember.

Kate’s face rested on his chest. She loved listening to his heart, watching his body rise and fall with every breath. She traced her finger around the red burn marks on his chest. It looked like he had been branded. “This one is new,” she said softly.

“Cost of a wooden horse in this screwed-up world.” His voice was serious.

Was it a joke? Kate didn’t get it if it was. She pushed up and looked him in the eyes, hoping for an answer, but he didn’t look at her.

He was different somehow. Harder. More distant. She sensed it when they made love. He was not as gentle as he was in Gibraltar.

She returned her head to his chest, half-hiding. “I had a dream about a wooden horse. Two, actually. You were drawing—”

David pushed her off of him. “I was at a drafting table—”

The shock gripped her. She nodded, hesitating. “Yes… a veranda looked out on a blue bay and a forested peninsula—”

“Impossible…” David whispered. “How?”

Martin’s words echoed in her mind,
We believe the Atlantis Gene is connected to a quantum biological process… Subatomic particles, transmitted faster than the speed of light…

Kate had given David a blood transfusion, but that couldn’t have changed his genome, couldn’t have given him the Atlantis Gene, yet there was some connection between them. “I think it has something to do with the Atlantis Gene—it activates some sort of quantum biological link—”

“Okay, stop right there. No more scientific mumbo jumbo. You and I have to talk.”

Kate drew back. “So talk. You don’t need a formal invitation.”

“You left me.”

“What?”

“Gibraltar. I trusted you—”

“Can I just remind you that you had been shot—
three times
? Keegan was going to kill you.”

“He didn’t.”

“I made a deal with him—”

“No, you didn’t. He needed me. He wanted me to kill Sloane. He was playing us both. You should have come to me—”

“Are you serious? David, you could barely walk. Keegan told me the house was crawling with his men—Immari agents. And they
were
his men, weren’t they?”

“They were—”

“And what would you have done? You were surrounded—”

“I wouldn’t have lied to you. I wouldn’t have slept with you and left in the night.”

Rage coursed through Kate. She fought to regain her composure. “I never lied to you—”

“You didn’t trust me. You didn’t talk to me—”

“I saved your life.” Kate stood and shook her head. “I did what I did. It’s done.”

“Would you do it again?”

Kate resisted the urge to answer.

“Answer me!”

She stared at him and he glared back at her. He was so different. So… but yet, it was still the man she had… and…

“Yes, David. I’d do it again. You’re here. I’m here. We’re both alive.” There was something else she wanted to say, but she couldn’t do it, not while he was looking at her like that, with those cold dead eyes.

“I won’t have anyone under my command that doesn’t trust me.”

Kate exploded. “Under your
command
?!”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s convenient, because I’m not looking to join the army or whatever the hell you’re running around here.”

A knock on the door came, and to Kate, it felt like water to a dying man. She opened her mouth, but David cut her off.

“It’s a bad time—”

“It’s Kamau. It’s urgent, David.”

David and Kate each replaced the sheets that they had held with clothes. They dressed with their backs to each other. David glanced at her coldly, courteously, and when she nodded, he opened the door.

“David—” Kamau began.

“What—”

“The old man.”

“What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

David glanced back at Kate, his face changed, the hardness instantly gone. She saw sympathy and the man she had fallen in love with. The exhilaration fought against the hurt she felt at hearing Kamau’s news. Then there was the shock: Martin’s face was burned, but he wasn’t that badly injured. Had Chang’s plague treatment failed suddenly? What would Kate do without him? She had never thanked him. What were her last words to him?

“Thank you for… telling us,” David said.

“You need to come now, David. Arm yourself.”

“What?”

Kamau glanced around, making sure they were alone. “I believe someone murdered him.”

Martin lay peacefully on the white leather couch in the enclosed living space of the upper deck.

Everyone was there: Kate, David, Kamau, Shaw, and the two scientists: Chang and the European scientist, who had finally introduced himself as Dr. Arthur Janus. Kate stared at Martin for a moment before crossing the room to kneel at his side. She tried to keep her emotions in check. He was the closest thing she’d had to a father. He hadn’t been up to the job, but he had certainly tried. And for some reason, that made it even harder for Kate. She tried to clear her head. She had to focus.

Kamau’s words echoed in her mind:
I believe he was murdered
.

She didn’t see any signs of a struggle. Kate checked his fingernails. No skin, no blood. There were a few bruises, but nothing Kate thought was more recent than the injuries from their escape from the plague barge. Martin looked the same as when Kamau had pulled him from the water. She looked up at the African, her eyes asking, are you sure?

He tilted his head slightly.

Kate felt Martin’s neck. Yes… She moved his head a little, testing its range of motion. Someone had broken his neck… Kate felt her airway constrict. Whoever had done it was in this room, staring at her right now.

“Kate, I’m very sorry about Martin,” Shaw began. “I truly am, but we have to get off this boat and be on our way. You’re not safe here.”

Had Shaw seen it too? Did he know?

“She’s not going anywhere,” David said.

“She is,” Shaw insisted. “Now tell me where you’re taking us, and I’ll make arrangements for someone to retrieve us.”

David ignored him. He took a step toward Kate.

Shaw grabbed his arm. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

David spun and pushed him, almost forcing Shaw to the floor. “Touch me again, and I’ll throw you off the back of the boat.”

“Why wait? You can give it a go right now.”

Kamau stepped behind David, letting Shaw know it would be two to one.

Kate rushed between the three men. “Okay, that’s enough of the testosterone show.”

She grabbed David’s arm and dragged him away.

CHAPTER 59

Northern Morocco

“Thank you, sir, for saving me,” the pilot said.

Dorian tore off a piece of the overcooked meat with his knife and scarfed it down. “Don’t mention it. I’m serious. To anyone.”

The pilot hesitated. “Yes, sir.”

They ate in silence for a bit, until the best of the meat was gone.

“This reminds me of camping, when I was a kid, with my dad.”

Dorian wished the sappy jerk would shut up or pass out. He looked at the man’s wound again, at the signs of infection. He would definitely lose the leg… if he made it to morning. Something about that thought made Dorian respond. “My father wasn’t into… camping, per se.”

The helicopter pilot began to speak, but Dorian continued.

“He was in the military. He took a great deal of pride in that. And his interests in Immari International, of course, though when I was young it was more like a club he was in, a social commitment. It didn’t become a preoccupation until later. About the only thing we ever did together was attend military parades. At the first one, I knew what I wanted to be. Seeing the Kaiser’s men all lined up in rows, marching in rhythm, the beat of the music in my chest.”

“Amazing, sir. You knew even then that you wanted to be a soldier?”

Dorian had told his father that night.
I want to march at the front, Papa. Please buy me a trumpet. I will be the best trumpet player in all the Kaiser’s army.
Dorian’s rebirth in the tubes had removed the scars from his legs and lower back, but he could still remember the beating his father had given him.
This is what the world does to trumpet players, Dieter.

“Yes. I knew it even then. A soldier…”

But when had he known it, become what he was? That day in 1986 when he had emerged from the tube. He was different. He was Ares. It was true. It was so clear now. But—

“Wait. Sir, did you say the
Kaiser’s
army?”

“I did. It’s… a long story. Now button up and get some rest. That’s an order too.”

Dorian had stayed up half the night and only slept a few hours, but he felt incredibly refreshed when he awoke. The first rays of sunlight were emerging in the east, and here and there the forest was coming to life.

Dorian had also awoken with an idea. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He needed to act fast for it to have any chance at success.

He crept over to the pilot. His breathing was shallow. The wound continued to seep blood onto the forest floor, spreading a black and crimson pool around him. He twitched periodically.

Dorian paced away from him and sat on a rock for a long while, listening, trying to get a direction. When he was sure, he checked his gun and set off.

From the bushes, Dorian could see two of the Berber tribesmen. One slept on the ground; the other, likely an officer, in a tent. He was pretty sure there were only two; only two horses were tied to a tree nearby.

At the smoldering fire lay a large machete. Dorian would use it. Gunfire would draw attention, and there was no need for it. Two sleeping Berber tribesmen would be no problem.