“You need me.” Chloe glanced at Ash. “You need both of us.”
“Yes, I do,” Matt said. “But as you were, not like this.” He grimaced. “I know how much both of you have done, that you’ve both earned the right to be there. But be honest with yourselves. You’re going to be more of a burden than help, and you know it.”
“And you’re not going to be?” Chloe said, motioning to his bad knee.
“I have to be there,” he said. “You don’t.”
“Bullshit. You…I can…” She was so worked up, she looked like she was going to launch herself right at Matt and rip out his throat. Instead, she threw open the door and charged out of the truck.
Matt’s head drooped. “I’m sure you understand,” he said to Ash.
“Oh, I understand the reasoning, but your logic is flawed.”
“I just want—”
Ash cut him off. “Injured or not, when the mission is critical, you always want your best people with you, and you’ve got no one better than Chloe and me.” He leaned forward a few inches. “The fact that you don’t see that makes me very concerned for those who will be going with you.”
He opened the nearest door and piled out, his exit not quite as graceful as Chloe’s, but his point made.
It was another seventy minutes before the snowplow driven by Hiller pulled into the gas station parking lot.
Matt was the first to greet him. “Any problems?”
“Not with the kid,” Hiller said. “He’s been out the whole time. But this thing…” He nodded his chin at the truck. “Not sure how much farther it can go.”
“We’ll leave it here, then.”
“What do you want me to do with Rick?”
“Let’s put him in Ash’s truck. At least when he comes to, his sister will be there.”
“Sure,” Hiller said. “I’ll get one of the other guys to help.”
“I can do it,” Matt told him.
Hiller looked unconvinced, but he headed back to the plow with Matt limping along behind him. Together they eased Rick out of the passenger seat. With one of the boy’s arms over each of their shoulders, they carried him toward the Humvee Ash and his family had been riding in. They were a little over halfway there when Matt saw Ginny running toward them, her eyes wide.
“Rick? Rick, oh my God!” As she neared, her steps faltered. “Rick?” She looked at Matt. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s sleeping, that’s all.”
“He looks sick. Is he sick?” she asked, panicked. Instead of backing away like most people would, she moved closer to her cousin.
“He’s not sick. He’s asleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. “Can you open the back door for us?”
With a nod, she hurried over to the Humvee and did as requested.
After Rick was situated and the doors were closed again, Matt turned to the others standing around. “Everyone load up. I’m hoping we can make it all the way to Denver before we stop for the night.”
He watched them walk off and climb into their vehicles. They were good people — great, even — all willing to do whatever needed to be done.
For how many of them, he wondered, would this be the last call to action?
20
Primary director Perez read the report, his displeasure increasing with each word.
In Mumbai, India, someone had taken it upon himself or herself to release the survivors who had already shown up at the survival station by cutting holes in the detention-area fences. Perez’s initial question was why would anyone even consider doing this? The survival stations were places of refuge as far as anyone on the outside was concerned, and those in the holding areas would believe what they’d been told, that their confinement was merely a precaution designed to keep as many people alive as possible. No way any of them would want to leave prior to receiving the promised inoculation.
To Perez, this meant it had been an inside job.
Though not acknowledged to the Project Eden general membership, it had long been known among those in charge that some members were not quite as dedicated to the cause as everyone else. They were sympathetic to those outside the Project, willing to risk everything the Project stood for to avoid what they considered unnecessary deaths. Perez was sure the person who’d cut through the fences was one of these people, and that he or she was part of the Project personnel assigned to Mumbai.
When he finished reading, he called Claudia on the intercom. “Who’s the director in Mumbai?”
“Mr. Dettling.”
“Dettling?” he said. Perez was good with names, and had at least a passing knowledge of most of the people running Project operations around the world, but Dettling didn’t sound familiar.
“That’s Pishon Chem,” she reminded him.
Right. Pishon Chem.
There had been a problem there on Implementation Day. The previous senior manager, Herr…Schmidt, had died of complications from an injury he’d received. If Perez remembered correctly, the injury had occurred in the semi-chaos of a loading zone being used to distribute KV-27a to the unsuspecting men hired to spray the city with it. Schmitt had been punctured in the shoulder by a loose railing on one of the trucks or something like that. By the time anyone realized what had happened, he’d lost too much blood to be saved. Dettling had been the next man in seniority, and was immediately promoted.
“I want to talk to him. Right now.”
“Right away,” she said.
One minute later Perez’s phone rang.
“I have Mr. Dettling for you,” Claudia announced. “Center screen.”
“Put him through.”
The center monitor filled with a head shot of a tired-looking, middle-aged man with thinning hair.
“Principal Director,” Dettling said. “This is an honor. What is it I can do for you?”
“You can start by telling me what the hell is going on over there.”
Dettling hesitated. “I assume you mean the detainee issue.”
“Yes. The detainee issue.”
“Uh, um, most of those who had been housed in the infected enclosure were still within the compound so we’ve been able to round them up.”
“And the uninfected?”
“We’re, um, still looking for them.”
“How many have you reacquired so far?”
Another pause. “None yet, sir.”
“None? As in zero?”
“Yes, sir.”
Perez stared into the camera, letting an oppressive silence grow between them.
After several seconds, Dettling shifted nervously in his chair and said, “Sir, I promise you we will—”
“Have you caught the one responsible?”
“Not yet. I’m sure we’ll find him when we find the others.”
“And what makes you think that?”
Dettling’s eyebrows moved toward each other, his forehead wrinkling. “I’m, uh, not quite…I don’t know—”
“Why would you assume the person who cut through your fences is with the others and not still there in your compound?”
“Our compound? You mean, you think it could be one of the infected detainees?”
“Mr. Dettling, prove to me you’re not an idiot and tell me you are looking into your own personnel.”
“My personnel?” Dettling said. “You mean the Project people here?”
“It certainly wouldn’t be anyone where I am, would it?”
“Of course not. It’s just…I didn’t—”
“No, you didn’t, but now you will. Check them.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
The intercom buzzed. He hit the speaker button