“So, you want a medical extraction team to bring this person back to Fort Detrick?”
“Ummm,” Janus muttered. “No, I think you’d better send the military boys, along with some heavy ordnance. Depending on the circumstances, they may have to do some wet work to gain control of the specimen.”
“Wet work? On whom, or do I really want to know?”
“It could be the CDC team, or it might even be the entire fucking Mexican Army! What the hell do you care as long as we get control of this epidemic for ourselves?”
He chuckled. “You’re right, of course. It really doesn’t matter, but you’ll have to forgive me for being a little rattled right now. That fucking Paco managed to contaminate the entire fort while killing himself in the bargain.”
He could hear Janus sigh over the satellite connection. “I told you he wasn’t right for a courier… too dumb and too unconcerned with security of the specimens I sent.”
“Okay, okay. You were right. Now, tell me how I’m gonna get a kill team from here to you without the entire world knowing about it.”
“Check the satellite maps of Mexico. I seem to remember an abandoned airfield about ten klicks east of here. It should be okay for one of those twin-engine Air Kings to land, and they’re big enough for your team and a couple of other passengers on the return trip.”
“A couple of other passengers?”
“Yeah. If we have to waste the CDC team I’m going to have to disappear without a trace also, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulders for FBI trackers.”
“You’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“That means this will be my last mission, but I might as well go out on a big one, right?”
“Right,” he said, but he was thinking the team would only have to bring one passenger back. If Janus wasn’t going to be of any further use to him, might as well have the extraction team kill the entire CDC team including his spy and leave no loose ends that might bite him in the ass.
“It’ll take me a while to set this up, so hang loose and contact me again in a few hours and I’ll give you the kill team’s ETA.”
“Don’t dawdle, Blackie,” Janus said, “I don’t know how fast the CDC team will be able to get transportation for the specimen and I’d hate for you to come in second place in a race for a cure for this shit.”
“Don’t worry, Janus. I can act a lot faster than some dipshit government health service can. We’ll get there first with the most, and I’ll have you out of there before you know it.”
Mason, wearing long-sleeved scrubs, latex gloves, and a micropore mask, exited the lab and began to direct his team members down various paths through the jungle overgrowth to look for the Indio boy.
As he started to talk, he noticed Sam Jakes off by himself talking on a sat-phone. “Hey Sam,” he said, after walking over to him so he could speak in private. “I didn’t know you had a personal sat-phone.”
Jakes’s face colored and he stammered, “Er… uh… well, after the last mission to Australia where we were out of touch for almost a month, I decided to splurge on one to keep in touch with my family.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I was just calling my sister. She lives in the Bronx, and I told her to take her husband and their two kids to my cabin in the Catskills until this plague blows over. I told her to have her food delivered and to get no closer than ten feet to anyone until this is over.”
“What’d she say?”
Jakes chuckled. “She whined about her husband losing his job if they left on vacation without giving notice, so I asked her if she’d rather have a live unemployed husband or a dead one with a job.”
“And?”
“She’s packing.”
Mason nodded. “You know, Sam, you might want to offer the sat-phone to the others so they can do the same thing for their relatives. I can’t let them use the satellite uplink CDC provides us ’cause Joel’s on it 24/7 giving the Battleship updates on our progress and checking on what’s happening with the plague.”
“Good idea, boss, I’ll do that.”
Mason turned and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, people, time to get moving.”
He stood in the middle of the group and pointed out different directions for each of them to take to look for the boy, taking the one through the densest part of the jungle for himself.
Lauren had gone about three hundred yards, pushing her way through thick vines and bushy jungle plants, when she thought she smelled smoke.
She broke through into a small clearing and saw a brown-skinned boy sitting next to a tiny campfire. He was staring at her with wide, frightened eyes and had a child-size bow with an arrow notched and pointed at her chest.
She held her hands out in a nonthreatening way and said in Spanish, “I am a friend. I am not here to hurt you.”
He replied in something that was close to Spanish but was not quite the same. “Are you one of Los Oráculos, messengers from the sun god, or are you a creature from the Spirit World sent to take me to the underworld?”
“I am neither, young one, but merely a person such as yourself.”
“Did the warriors wearing costumes the color of naranja send you?”
Lauren had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, realizing how strange they must have seemed to this primitive young man. “Yes, I am one of the warriors who wore orange costumes, but they were to protect us from the sickness that killed the other Americans.”
“You were friends with the Americanos?”
“Yes.” Lauren pushed the lump in her throat down and said, “The older man was my… father.”
Guatemotzi nodded. “He was a very nice man. He gave me money and food to help with the digging.”
“Yes, he was,” Lauren said, moving slowly closer to the boy as he lowered the bow and arrow. “My name is Lauren, what is yours?”
“I am called Guatemotzi,” he answered, putting the bow down and moving an MRE pack around on the fire a bit.
Lauren grinned. “That is a very powerful name. You are named for the emperor who came to power after Montezuma?”
He sat up straighter and puffed out his chest a little. “Yes. My grandfather says he was killed when he would not tell the Spaniards the secret hiding place of Los Aztecas’ gold. He was very brave.” He pointed at the MRE. “Would you like some food, Lauren?”
She smiled, noticing his ribs showing through his skin. “No, thank you, Guatemotzi, but I think you need it far more than I do.”
He expertly popped open the MRE and began to spoon out the steaming contents with his fingers and popped the food into his mouth.
Lauren squatted down across the fire from him. “Do you know what happened to the Americans?”
He nodded. “An illness came out of Los Aztecas’ tomb and killed them.”
“Do you know of this illness?”
“Yes. My grandfather told me of the bleeding sickness that killed Los Aztecas many, many years ago. He said the Aztecs that the sickness did not kill are the ancestors of our village and he prays to them every day.”
Lauren felt her heartbeat quicken. If what this boy was saying was true, there could be an entire village of people immune to the plague. Surely Mason and the others could use them to help find a cure for the anthrax.
“Guatemotzi, where is your village?”
He pointed back over his shoulder. “It is in Chiapas, in the mountains to the south.” He scrunched up his face for a moment, thinking, and then added, “It is not so far from the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, but is on other side of very high mountain.”