Jeff Carlson - Plague Zone

“Kendra Freedman designed both plagues and she probably built the second vaccine, too! What if we had that power on our side?”

“Enough,” Bornmann said. “That’s an order. Lang. Pritchard. Take him in back.”

“We could kill them all,” Cam said. “Listen to me! Freedman’s our best bet if you want to kill all of those chink motherfuckers.”

Something tightened in Lang’s face. Cam didn’t think he’d upset him with the racial slur. The Chinese American must have endured a thousand slights and bad jokes. In fact, Cam thought Lang approved. The rage in Bill Lang’s eyes wasn’t directed at Cam but farther outward, at their enemy, as Lang glanced from side to side at the other men in the plane. Their acceptance must be incredibly important to him.

“This is our home,” Cam said. “This place is ours.”

“Lang, get him out of here or I’ll do it myself,” Bornmann said, but Cam wouldn’t have stopped even if he was in control of himself.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, and all you want to do is hide?” he shouted.

Lang grabbed his arm. Lang had more to prove than anyone else, which was why he would obey orders to the last. Cam knew it was the others he needed to convince. “We can take everything back!” he said. “Colorado. California. What if Freedman can build a third plague or a new parasite?”

Walls rose to his feet, yet didn’t push into the knot of men. He didn’t have to. His presence alone was enough to draw everyone’s attention toward the front of the plane.

“This is personal for all of us,” Walls said. “You need to get your head straight.”

“You won’t do any good if you just run away!”

“We need the vaccine, and sharing it is our first priority. Someone has to survive.”

“For what? The vaccine won’t reverse the effects of the plague. It’ll only protect you if you’re inoculated before you get sick. Even if you save a hundred more people, so what? Then all you’ve got is enough of a crowd to watch you get down on your knees and surrender.”

“Sir,” Bornmann said, ready to defend Walls, but the general didn’t need his help.

“Think what you’re asking,” Walls said. “The Chinese hold all the cards. A suicide mission won’t change that. We need time to regroup.”

“No. This is the best time to try it, while they’re still shaken up. If you wait, you’ll just give them more time to get organized, too. Let’s hit the chinks now,” Cam said, using the insult like a knife. He had seen enough discrimination for the color of his own skin to feel angry and embarrassed at himself, but he wasn’t above using every available tool to convince them.

Religious hate might be the only option left to sustain these men. Without blind, unreasoning dogma, they were too battered and worn down to fight. Cam could see it in their faces. So could Walls. That was why the general wanted to let them rest and reassess, hoping for the miracle of making contact with other U.S. forces, but Cam was afraid that if they stopped moving even for a day they’d never get up again.

If he needed to invoke a race war, so be it. That was the reality of China’s bid for global domination — yellow versus white, brown, and black. The invaders were despised across America. No one was unaffected by fury or disgust. Cam only wanted to channel those emotions.

The firestorm in his head must be exactly what Ruth had felt at the end of the last war. He understood her hysteria now. If there was a God, this is what He wanted of Cam. The path was obvious. Once upon a time, men in caves in the Islamic world had motivated themselves against the colossal might of America in the same way, declaring themselves pure and righteous while condemning the West as the Great Satan. Now it had become their turn as the last holdouts against a far superior enemy. There wasn’t really any chance of winning. They could only pretend. Hunting for Freedman deep inside enemy lines would have been a madman’s scheme even before the missiles landed, reducing Los Angeles to a radioactive hell — but otherwise they were beaten.

Only fanatics would carry on.

“Kendra Freedman may be the last person left who can help us,” Cam said. “If she can reverse the infection, she’ll give us Ruth back, too. Then the two of them will massacre the fucking Chinese.”

“I think you want this for the wrong reasons,” Bornmann said. “For her.”

“What if he’s right?” Emma said softly, surprising them. Emma hadn’t spoken for hours, except to acknowledge orders, and Pritchard said, “Sir, we could split up.”

“I’ll go,” Foshtomi said. “I volunteer.”

“We will definitely split up,” Walls said, “probably into three groups. We need to be sure the vaccine gets out, and the plane will be a very visible target. Some of us will leave in the Humvees in opposite directions. One group will also be tasked with keeping Goldman alive.”

“I have a satellite,” Rezac said from her laptop.

“Send our files,” Walls said.

“Done. We have no other contacts.”

“What does that mean?” Bobbi whispered, and Medrano leaned toward her and said, “Exactly what you think. There’s no one else on our military nets.”

“Our first priority is photos of this area,” Walls said to Rezac. “Map it for a hundred miles in every direction.”

“Got it.”

“Then I want photos of Los Angeles,” Walls said, and Cam involuntarily raised both fists, elated and triumphant. He felt more than a little crazy, too, like an animal that had just torn itself from a trap. We’ll find her, he thought, as Walls said, “How long until we have a bird over the West Coast?”

Sweeney returned with Huff forty minutes later. Deborah helped them decontaminate both their suits, and then herself again — but she suggested it was impossible to clean the blood and tissue samples. Huff had splashed two canteens with gore and sealed several pieces of charred flesh in another. Bringing the canteens inside the plane would risk infecting everyone, because irradiating the blood to kill the mind plague would also kill the vaccine. Nor did they have any way to separate the two. That meant it would be a toss-up as to whether anyone without a suit would absorb the vaccine before the plague.

Cam volunteered to be the first to try it, earning another kind word from Emma. “You’re very brave,” she said, but Walls stopped him. “You know Freedman, don’t you?” Walls asked, and it was true that Cam had secondhand knowledge of her, which no one else could match. That put him in Walls’s elite with the other untouchables like their pilots, translators, and medics.

One of Foshtomi’s Rangers drew the short straw. His name was Ayers. Foshtomi volunteered herself instead, but Ayers refused. “It’s all right, Lieutenant,” he said.

Ayers walked out wearing his biochem mask and hood. Deborah produced a needle from a med kit. She wet it in the blood, then stabbed his forearm, repeating the process several times. Finally, Ayers took off his gear. He went to the warehouse door and walked outside, escorted by Sweeney, who reported every move on his suit radio.

“He’s okay,” Sweeney said. “It works.”

“What about Ruth?” Ingrid asked. “Cam? What in the world are we going to do about Ruth?”

They stood beside the plane, breathing in the acrid, dusty smell of the ash. The immunizations were done. The soldiers were removing their goggles and jackets and chatting in quiet relief, even laughing. Ingrid’s hazel eyes were sad. Cam hugged her again, but he couldn’t allow his heart to soften. He wanted to keep his rage. So while Ingrid nestled her face against his neck, he was rigid, with his chin up, which is why he saw Deborah approaching with a bloody canteen.