If he could have held her until the sun came up, he would have, but he needed to get moving and find his son. He looked over at the small group waiting to greet them, and saw that Matt was there.
“Josie,” he whispered in his daughter’s ear. “Go with Chloe for a moment, okay? I need to find out all I can about your brother.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I told you, not your fault. Now go with Chloe.”
Josie sniffled as she nodded, then stepped over into Chloe’s embrace.
Ash walked directly to Matt. “We need to talk. Right now.” Without waiting for a response, he headed down the hallway, and soon heard Matt’s distinctive gait following him.
When he reached the shooting range, he opened the door, checked to make sure no one was inside, and entered.
As Matt followed him in, Ash said, “Shut the door.”
Matt did, then said, “I know you’re upset, but—”
Before Matt could get anything else out, Ash slammed him against the wall. “You were supposed to watch them! You promised me they would be safe!”
Matt put up no fight. “You’re right. I did. It’s my fault he’s out there.”
“Damn right, it’s your fault!”
Ash held Matt tight against the wall, seething.
“Have at it. Whatever you want to do to me, I deserve,” Matt said.
Ash glared into Matt’s eyes, and came close to slamming his fist into the side of the Resistance leader’s face. Finally, his breathing began to slow, and he took a step back, dropping his hands to the side.
“Tell me what happened. Everything.”
Matt did exactly that.
“We’re not sure if he’s out there or if the men in the helicopter took him,” Matt said as he wrapped things up. “As soon as the search teams have had a little sleep, they’ll head out again.”
“One of them is going to head out right now with me,” Ash told him.
“They’re tired. They need rest.”
“And my son needs me.” Ash headed for the door. “Have whoever it is meet me at the tunnel entrance in fifteen minutes.”
IMPLEMENTATION DAY PLUS TWO
World Population
7,176,892,851
Change Over Previous Day
+ 285,143
29
Sanjay could not find Kusum or her family anywhere.
After stealing the vaccine and leaving the Pishon Chem compound the previous afternoon, his plan had been to head straight out of the city to the rendezvous point. Only getting out was not quite so easy.
More and more streets and neighborhoods had been sprayed with the virus. By the time he found a clean route to the outskirts of town, the sun had dipped below the horizon.
As far as he could tell, there were no spraying efforts in the countryside. That didn’t prevent the paranoia about what was happening in the rest of the world from spreading beyond the limits of Mumbai. Many of the roadside restaurants and stalls that had been thriving the night before, when he and Kusum had ridden by, were closed and dark now. The few people Sanjay saw seemed to be in a hurry, and when they heard his motorbike, they would look at him in fear.
At first he took the lack of traffic to be a good thing, as he was making up for some of the time he’d lost in the city. But then, after he’d been in the country for about half an hour, something whizzed by his head. He slowed, surprised by the sound. This caused the noise of the bike’s motor to decrease so that when a second object flew past him, he heard the crack of a gun and realized someone was shooting at him.
He twisted the accelerator as far as it would go and sped down the road. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the headlights of a car about half a kilometer back. He wasn’t sure if the shots were coming from it or not, but he wasn’t going to take a chance. At the next road, he turned right, then right again behind a closed shop, and killed all power to the motorcycle.
Scared out of his mind, he waited for the car to pass. Instead, he heard it slow at the same road he’d turned on, and pull to the side and stop, idling.
He could hear voices, indistinct but angry. Then the car started up again, this time turning around and heading back where it came from.
While he waited to make sure it didn’t return, he felt around until he found the wire running into the back of his headlight and yanked it out. He did the same to the taillight. This was one time, he thought, when driving in the dark would be safer.
It was nearly ten p.m., two hours after he was supposed to be there, when he reached the place he and Kusum had spent the night before. No one was there.
All sorts of thoughts flew through his mind, most ending with something horrible having happened. No, he told himself. Remember how long it took you to get out of Mumbai. It’s the same for them. They’ll be here soon. You just have to wait.
But when midnight came and went, and they had still not shown up, his terrible thoughts returned. Maybe they had run into trouble. Maybe they had been shot by the people who shot at him.
Maybe they would never show up at all.
The last, he refused to believe.
I need to find them in case they need help.
He began searching in an ever-widening arc from the spot where they were supposed to meet, but as the sun came up, he was still alone.
His eyes felt like someone had dumped handfuls of sand in each, and it was becoming harder and harder to focus.
Go back to the meeting place, he thought. Maybe he’d missed them somehow and they were there waiting for him, wondering where he was.
He was lucky that he was on the small rough road leading to the rendezvous point when he fell asleep. If he’d still been on the highway, he would have been traveling at a much higher speed and would have most likely died.
The bike veered to the left, the front tire slamming into a rut. He woke in midair, flying over the handlebars. His mind was still trying to figure out what was happening as he slammed into the ground.
Dazed, he lay along the side of the road for several minutes before trying to sit up. That’s when the pain kicked in. His left shoulder was the worst. He touched it with his right hand and realized it was sticking out in a way it was never meant to.
Dislocated.
There were other pains, too, scrapes and bruises on his face and arms.
Then he forgot about it all, even his shoulder. The vaccine!
He struggled to his feet, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, and searched for his bike. It had traveled for another fifty feet before spinning off the road.
He could see at first glance that he wouldn’t be using it again. The fork holding the front wheel was bent to the side, while the wheel itself was skewed at an odd angle. The back didn’t look much better. He moved around it, looking for the bag containing the bottles of vaccine, and found it still strapped to the back of the seat where he’d put it.
He fought with the straps with his good hand, until they gave way and he could get the bag off. He sat on the ground and opened the top. Immediately he saw that the boxes holding the vaccine were wet.
“Please, no,” he said as he opened the first lid.
This was the box from which he’d given several bottles to the cooks at the compound, giving the remaining bottles plenty of room to smash into each other. Of the seven that had been there, only two were still intact. He checked the other box, the full one, and sighed in relief. Three bottles along the side had been destroyed, but that was it.