The Chimera Vector (3 page)

Jay stood, peeled tape from the hypodermic needle embedded in the back of his hand. Sophia whispered for him to stay down, but as usual he didn’t listen. No wonder she trusted Damien more. But maybe Jay had the same urge to get away from here that she had. Only, in keeping with his style, he’d do it recklessly and get them all caught. She could already see a blood-pressure cuff hanging loosely from his right arm.

Jay removed it and quickly wrapped it around Damien’s arm. The monitors didn’t have a chance to beep.

Damien caught Sophia’s gaze with large hazel eyes. He held a slender finger to his lips.

‘Your wife kisses another dude, that’s cheating,’ one of the MPs said. ‘You down?’

There was a long pause.

‘Wouldn’t happen,’ said the other one. ‘No point talking shit that don’t happen.’

‘You’re on the other side of the world, man.’ The first sergeant spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘What if she slips the tongue? That’s cheating, right?’

Sophia used sign language to say to Damien,
What are you doing, idiot?
She didn’t know the sign for ‘idiot’ so finger spelled it instead.

Damien nodded, grinned, then turned his attention to Jay, who had just clipped a pulse oximeter onto Damien’s fingertip. One by one, Jay peeled the electrodes from his body, transferring them immediately to Damien, right next to Damien’s own electrodes. Jay’s vital signs monitor hadn’t beeped yet.

‘It ain’t proper cheating, man,’ the second MP said.

‘Totally is.’ The first MP was pacing now. His crooked nose strayed dangerously into view and then moved away.

Barefoot, Jay hobbled unsteadily from the end of his bed to Damien’s, then to Sophia’s. He paused, his gaze locking with hers. He held his hand out, palm down, indicating for her to wait.

She shook her head.
No
. But Jay was already staggering for the ward entrance.

She peeled the tape from her own needle. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for Jay to screw up. He was in no condition to take on an armed soldier, let alone two. She could see his movements were unsteady and sluggish. He was going to get himself killed. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

‘Why don’t you check on the vegetables in there,’ the second MP said.

‘Why don’t you not change the subject?’ Crooked Nose said.

‘Fine. If we’re getting into technicalities, then yeah,’ the second MP said. ‘But cheating is like speeding fines, you know? Who cares if you speed a bit? We all do it. And when you get caught you’re given a warning or a fine or whatever.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But what if you get wasted and crash into a bus? You’re screwed. And by bus, I mean vagina. And by crash, I mean have sex with.’

Jay half-collapsed against the wall. Sophia could hear his heavy breathing. The second MP walked in, eyes narrowed and complexion chalk white. His eyes widened when he realized she was awake.

Jay was behind Chalky, limbs moving simultaneously: knee into the back of Chalky’s thigh, hand slamming into his shoulder blades just to the right of the spine, and the other hand pulling his left shoulder back. All three movements sent the MP in a counterclockwise spin straight to the floor.

Sophia pulled the needle from her arm and got to her feet. Crooked Nose stormed into the ward, chest puffed and mouth agape, to find Chalky lying on his stomach and Jay staggering over him.

Crooked Nose drew his pistol. ‘What the fuck is this? Turn around!’ he yelled. ‘On the floor, spread your shit!’

Jay wasn’t anywhere near close enough to attack an armed soldier.

Crooked Nose eyed Sophia. ‘Hands where I can see them, princess!’

Sophia raised her arms. Dizziness burned inside her head, blockading her thoughts. She did her best to remain upright and not pass out. A slight glance over her shoulder showed Damien lying in bed, eyes closed.

Chalky pulled himself to his feet while Crooked Nose mumbled into his radio. ‘Echo Five Charlie to Echo Five Golf, we need assistance in Ward Three East Eighteen to Twenty Four, over.’

Jay was on the ground between the two MPs. Chalky kicked him in the ribs. Jay roared in pain, folding into a fetal position.

‘Limbs spread, spic!’ Chalky said.

Jay spread his arms and legs, but kept one knee slightly bent. Sophia knew why.

‘Echo Five Charlie to Echo Five Golf, patients trying to escape,’ Crooked Nose said into the radio. ‘One patient, aggressive behavior, attempted assault. Patient is restrained, over.’

Sophia’s mouth felt incredibly dry. All she could think about was Crooked Nose’s bony finger resting on the trigger of his Beretta M9 pistol. A bead of sweat trickled down his skewed nose, hung from the tip. Sophia waited for it to drop. The wait seemed eternal.

Crooked Nose’s attention shifted to Jay. ‘Five minutes. We got this. Let’s get this joker tied up.’

He held his M9 in one hand and dug into a pouch for plasticuffs. Crouching down, he wrapped one of Jay’s legs with a pair, then moved to straighten his bent leg. Chalky was standing in front of Jay, near his hands. Jay moved quickly. He grabbed Chalky’s nearest boot with one hand and clamped behind his knee with the other. He pulled sharply. Chalky’s body twisted to one side and he dropped to his knees. As he went down, he tried to smash his pistol into Jay’s face. It glanced off Jay’s arm.

Chalky straddled Jay’s head. Jay pulled his hand back and punched Chalky in the testicles. Hard. Chalky cried out in the highest pitch Sophia had ever heard from a grown man. ‘Motherfucker!’ He waved his pistol, trying to aim at Jay’s head.

Crooked Nose moved for a clear shot. They were prepared to shoot. That wasn’t good news. Sophia ripped off her blood-pressure cuff. She had to do something.

Jay ran his hand down Chalky’s firing arm. He wrapped his right hand over Chalky’s and took control. At the same time, he hit Crooked Nose’s neck with the edge of his other hand, then smeared an open palm over his face, fingers into his eye sockets.

Crooked Nose had heard Sophia’s machines wailing. He aimed his pistol at her, but she’d already snatched the pillow from her hospital bed and thrown it in his direction. It was big and slow, but he still had to sidestep it. By the time he had, she was under his pistol. Thumb tucked under her palm, she brought her hand around in a smooth arc. Its inner edge crushed his windpipe. With his pistol-holding arm poised over her shoulder, she pivoted on her heels, turning her back to him. She grabbed his hand, clamped over the pistol and brought it down hard. His arm snapped over her shoulder. She thrust her elbow back, catching him in the ribs. He couldn’t breathe. She turned in time to see him collapse to his knees.

On her left, Jay had one hand over Chalky’s face and the other over Chalky’s pistol. He pulled the pistol’s aim away from Sophia, towards Crooked Nose, then rolled Chalky’s head back, disrupting his balance and throwing him off his feet. Jay crouched behind him, pistol pointed at Crooked Nose.

Sophia’s machines were still beeping.

She glared at Jay. ‘Don’t.’

He squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed into the corridor.

There was a sickening snap. Chalky’s neck.

‘We have three or four minutes,’ Sophia said. ‘At most.’

Damien was on his feet, his and Jay's machines creating a symphony of beeps and wails.

Jay grabbed the clipboard from the end of Damien’s bed. ‘Four milligrams of haloperidol and four milligrams of lorazepam.’ He threw the clipboard aside. ‘What the fuck?’

Damien removed his needle while Jay checked the window. Dawn was about to break.

‘Safe to say Denton won’t be impressed,’ Damien said.

Sophia glanced at the clipboard. Antipsychotic and strong sedative. Potent amnesic effects. Had the drugs changed her memories and made her think she’d killed a bunch of innocent people? The clipboard said the drugs had been administered to Private Esposito: Damien’s cover surname. She checked her clipboard. It had her own cover name, the same drugs.

‘What are they doing to us?’ Jay said. He checked the rounds in Chalky’s pistol, then dragged the MP behind a bed curtain.

Damien took the clipboard from Sophia. ‘They’re not fooling around.’

Sophia untied the string from the back of Damien’s hospital gown and, when he turned, pulled it from his body. ‘Get changed. Now.’ Her tongue felt like cotton as she spoke.

Damien, naked, glared at her. ‘Was that really necessary?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Was killing that staff sergeant really necessary?’

Damien hesitated. ‘The girl.’

‘You saw the girl as well?’ Sophia said. ‘It was a girl?’

‘I don’t . . . I didn’t,’ Damien said. ‘I thought she was a terrorist. But then she wasn’t. And  . . .’

Sophia checked the clock on the wall. ‘Get changed. We’re out of time. After what we’ve done, there’s a very real chance we’ll be disposed of.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘We need to get as far away from here as possible.’

‘And then what?’ Damien asked.

‘Let’s concentrate on surviving first. We’ll last longer if we stick together.’

Jay nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘I don’t need you to agree,’ Sophia said. ‘I need you to do exactly as I say.’ Jay opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. ‘Or you can wait another two minutes for the Fifth Column’s extermination squad to arrive. After all, you did open fire on US Marines, didn’t you, Jay?’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘I don’t know what the fuck went through my head there,’ Jay said. ‘I just . . . had to protect Damien. And you.’

She indicated Crooked Nose’s limp body sprawled on the floor. ‘You have sixty seconds. It’s time for dress-ups.’

Damien relieved Crooked Nose of his desert-cam trousers while Jay got busy fleecing Chalky of his uniform. They each strapped a tactical vest over the top. Unfortunately, the MPs weren’t wearing any armor. As if to make up for it, Jay snatched Chalky’s twelve-inch fighting knife.

Sophia pulled a hip flask from Chalky’s pouch. It was half full. She tossed it to Damien and checked the clock again. ‘Time’s up.’

‘What’s your plan?’ Jay said.

‘Escort me out of the hospital.

***

Jay took a sharp left in front of Sophia, breaking formation. With the pistol drawn, he stepped out of the exit and under a canopy. Sophia followed, with Damien beside her. They marched under a grammatically incorrect sign,
HERO’S HWY
, barely visible in the moonlight.

A pair of tan-colored Land Cruisers pulled up in front of the building. Sophia hesitated. She pulled back and crouched in the canopy’s shadows. Damien did the same. As long as no one walked into the canopy, they’d go unnoticed.

Jay was already out in the open. He’d been spotted. She watched him approach the marines as they climbed out of the 4WDs. Even in the dim light, she could identify the three chevrons and rocker on the shoulder. A staff sergeant. Jay would’ve seen it too.

‘We have three escaped patients, armed and mentally unstable,’ Jay said, pointing left, down the road. ‘I saw them take a Cruiser and head for that entrance. They’re in stolen uniforms.’

‘Can you ID them?’ the staff said.

Jay shook his head. ‘Only seen the back of their heads. They’re in that Cruiser at the rear.’

The staff called to his marines, ‘Cruiser at the rear of the line! Move!’

Jay was so busy watching the marines head for the base’s entrance that he bumped into one of them. Sophia knew why. The soldier just happened to be the driver, and carried his M16A2 rifle right-handed. Magazine catch button above the trigger. She saw Jay press the catch, saw the magazine drop into his hand. The marine didn’t even realize. Jay apologized for bumping him and kept walking.

Sophia shook her head. Now he was just showing off.

Jay called out to the marine, his breath pluming in the morning air. ‘Hey! Your mag!’ She saw the marine’s face flush.

Jay handed him the mag, then moved in closer to point at the magazine. ‘Make sure it’s in tight.’

Sophia watched Jay’s other hand run his stolen knife under the marine’s right hip pocket. The 4WD’s ignition was on the right so the keys would be pocketed with the right hand. Jay had probably pushed his hip against the pocket when he bumped the marine, just to be sure they were there. Real slick.

A ring of keys dropped from the sliced pocket into Jay’s hand. He curled it into a fist so the keys wouldn’t jingle, then watched with mild curiosity as the marines ran ahead to the base’s entrance.

Damien moved out from the canopy towards their new ride. Sophia followed him, trying to walk as naturally and purposefully as possible. Jay was in the driver’s seat, key already in the ignition. Damien jumped in the front passenger seat. Sophia took the back.

The eight-cylinder engine growled at Jay’s behest. The tires were run-flat—more resistant against punctures—and had an extra lining that self-sealed in the event of a puncture. If this failed, they had additional support rings that, even with lost tire pressure, could support the weight of the 4WD at a reasonable speed for another 200 klicks. Sophia knew that with run-flat tires came level B-6 vehicular armor. At this rate, they were going to need it.

Jay put the 4WD into first. ‘Which way?’

They were facing an exit eighty klicks ahead. Beyond it, the twilight gradually revealed a main road and bridge. It would’ve been a possible escape route, had there not been a couple of armored Cruisers in the way and—thanks to Jay throwing the marines off their scent—a whole bunch of marines going haywire at each other with assault rifles.

Out Sophia’s window, another dusty road. Too much traffic up ahead. She looked behind them. The road stretched on, flanked by concrete walls for a distance. Right into the heart of the base.

‘Turn us around,’ she said.

She noticed a disposable cigarette lighter sitting in front of the stick shift. She pointed to it. ‘Damien, hand me the lighter.’

Damien passed it to her while Jay pulled into second and punched the accelerator. Two Cruisers streaked past them. Jay hit third, passing a KFC and Burger King. The base was so large it even had its own fast-food places.

Two faces from the second Cruiser registered in Sophia’s mind. Operatives. Her cheeks flushed as blood shunted to her muscles.