“Okay, that way,” he said, pointing into the storm.
“No,” Ash said. He nodded to his left. “This way first. We have a stop to make.”
Red checked on the pilot again. Gagnon was still out, his temperature warm, but not too hot. The fever had to be from an infection caused by one of the wounds the pilot had received when their plane crashed on the ice just off Yanok Island. In addition to the cut on Gagnon’s head, the man had at least two broken ribs and a deep gouge on his leg. Red had done what he could, keeping the pilot’s ribs wrapped, changing the bandages as often as necessary, but his biggest concern was that Gagnon had suffered internal damage. If that was the case, there was absolutely nothing Red could do.
What the man needed was a doctor, but Red was beginning to think they were both going to die right there in the makeshift shelter the Resistance advance scouts had used when they’d first discovered Bluebird’s location.
It had been over eight hours since Ash and Chloe left them there. That in itself might not have been cause for concern, but just over two hours earlier, the ground had shaken violently several times. Not earthquakes, Red thought. Explosions. He only hoped that if Ash was the one who set them off, he’d been able to do it in time to stop the monsters from Project Eden.
Gagnon groaned, turning his head first one way, then the other.
Red grabbed the pot of warm water he’d heated earlier, poured some onto a piece of cloth, and pressed it lightly against Gagnon’s lips. Squeezing, he let some of the water drip into the man’s mouth. This seemed to calm him.
Outside the wind howled past the shelter. Red glanced over at the doorway, making sure nothing had blown away, and nearly jumped when the cover moved to the side and someone stepped in.
Ash. Chloe entered right after him, then a man Red didn’t recognize.
“I wasn’t sure if you guys made it,” Red said as he hopped to his feet.
“We weren’t sure ourselves there for a little while,” Ash said.
“Did you find it?”
“Bluebird? Yeah, we found it.” There was hesitation in Ash’s voice.
“I felt explosions. Tell me you were able to—”
“It didn’t go as planned.”
“You mean—”
“They set it off.”
Red closed his eyes and rolled his head back. “Holy shit.”
“We can worry about it later,” Ash said. “Right now we need to get out of here.”
“In the storm?”
“If we don’t, the only way we have of getting off this island will be gone.”
“What about Gagnon?”
Ash looked past him at the pilot. “We’ll have to take turns carrying him.”
“That might kill him.”
“Staying here will kill him. At least this way we’ll all have a chance.”
It took them forty minutes to reach the small bay where they’d come ashore after the plane crashed. It was the only path Ash knew that had easy access to the frozen ocean. Kessler said that his people had come up another way, but he wasn’t completely sure where it was, so this was better than wasting time hunting around.
Chloe took charge of the GPS tracker once they were on the ice, while Ash and Red traded off carrying Gagnon every ten minutes. Unfortunately, the only way to effectively to do this and not lose time was to put the pilot over their shoulder in a fireman hold. Not exactly the ideal position for someone with broken ribs.
The frozen surface of the ocean, as they’d learned when they landed the plane, was not smooth and level. To make it worse, the new snow hid many of the contours and ridges, resulting in each of them falling or nearly doing so more than once. Luckily it never happened with whoever was carrying Gagnon, but it did slow their progress, making the one mile seem like ten.
An hour and twenty minutes passed before Chloe yelled out, “We should almost be there! Maybe another hundred yards.”
Without saying anything, they all picked up their pace.
“I think I see something,” she said a few minutes later.
As if to answer her, there was a sudden loud crack.
“No!” Kessler yelled, then raced ahead.
“Come on!” Ash said to the others. “They’re leaving!” With Gagnon over his shoulder, Ash could only get up to a slow jog, but he urged the others to keep going. “Get their attention!”
He didn’t see the ship until he almost reached it, its black metal hull suddenly rising up from the ice.
It was moving. Very slowly, but definitely moving.
“Hey!” Kessler yelled from several feet away.
The others joined in, but there was no reaction.
“Red! Come here!” Ash called out.
Red rushed over.
“Take him,” Ash said, handing over Gagnon.
Free of the pilot, Ash backtracked several yards until he could see the dim outline of the deck. His gaze moved back and forth, searching for signs of movement.
There!
It was the shape of a man moving quickly toward a door that led inside. He probably wouldn’t hear Ash yelling, so Ash pulled his gun from his jacket, aimed at a spot near the door, and pulled the trigger.
The shape jerked to a stop.
Ash couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the man turned toward the side, so Ash jumped up and down and waved his arms. The others, seeing what he was doing, started to mimick him and scream at the top of their lungs.
At first, nothing happened. Then the cracking of the ice began to recede as the ship came to a halt.
10
The video conference call Perez wanted set up within the hour took four to organize. There were several factors involved in the delay. Number one — and the most time consuming — was determining who the other four highest-ranking Project members were, and where they were located.
The only one on the list higher than Perez was Dr. Henry Lassiter. Dr. Lassiter’s purview was the health of Project members. Working under him was a team of physicians — general practitioners, surgeons, and specialists — who responded to all medical issues not related to the KV-27a virus. In effect, he was a hospital administrator whose employees were scattered all over the globe. The doctor himself was at NB772 in the south of France near the Spanish border.
The other three on the list in descending order were: Erik Halversen, Regional Director of Technologies for the Northern Hemisphere, located at NB405 outside Hamburg, Germany; Patricia Nakamura, Regional Director of Supplies for North America, located at NB89 near Seattle, Washington; and Dominick Tolliver, Regional Director of Supplies for East Asia, located at NB294 in the outskirts of Osaka, Japan.
“Are we ready?” Perez asked Claudia.
“Just waiting for Nakamura to come online.” There was a pause, then she nodded. “All right. She’s live. I can connect you all now.”
“Do it.”
Perez was pleased with how Claudia had jumped right in and helped without any hesitation. She’d proved herself very useful over the last few hours, something he couldn’t say about Kane. The facility director just didn’t seem to understand he was no longer in charge. Finally, Perez had had him taken to one of the holding cells. That solved the problem, at least in the short term.
Claudia tapped away at her keyboard. “All right. Here we go.”
She hit one more key, and the large screen on the conference room wall came to life. The image was divided into four equal sections: Dr. Lassiter in the upper left, Halversen upper right, Nakamura lower left, and Tolliver lower right.
“Can you all hear me?” Perez asked.