Jeff Carlson - Plague Zone

“Kendra, look,” he said. “Kendra?”

Her bulging eyes were locked on something he couldn’t see, so Cam swung away from her again. As they flew closer, he noticed two circles in the ash where helicopters had lifted off, scouring the rubble. It was the rotors’ force that had revealed what was left of the red tile roofs.

“Bom uMeHHo,” Alekseev said. Then, in English, “We’re putting down. Be ready.”

They landed close against the slumping dune of the largest building, which had probably been a gym, leaving Kendra and Obruch in the helicopter. She was catatonic. Obruch drew his sidearm.

Deborah and Alekseev flanked one side of the building as Cam and Medrano took the other. His body clattered with two AK-47s and a submachine gun. Medrano and the others carried the same or more. The chopper’s noise meant there was no chance of surprising the enemy. No one expected even enough time to reload, so they would kick in as many doors as possible before they were killed themselves.

Cam’s heart rattled like the metal slung across his back, but his head was clear — even disappointed. The campus was empty. Everyone was gone except for four bodies lined up on the floor of one classroom. From their injuries, they’d been hurt when the buildings dropped. The Chinese must have evacuated, first bringing their scientists to Saint Bernadine and then marshalling the remainder of their personnel to find Kendra after an emergency radio call that she was loose.

Cam didn’t say it, but his disappointment turned into a new anxiety. What if the data and samples they needed were in the wrecked Chinese helicopters?

They swept the campus more thoroughly, trying to identify which areas had been used for labs and offices. Ten minutes later, Medrano yelled for them to bring Kendra to a building near the athletic field. It had been shielded from the blastwave by other buildings. There was a gaping hole in the roof and one wall was down, but more than a third of its classrooms were intact.

Cam went to help Obruch. Kendra didn’t want to leave the chopper. She’d nestled into the back seat and tried to pull free when Cam touched her leg.

“We’re here,” he said. “We found the sister lab.”

It was no use. They were forced to drag her outside — but her mood changed as they half carried her through the fallen buildings. Her giant eyes filled with curiosity. Maybe she’d forgotten her safe little nest in the helicopter.

“What do you think?” Deborah asked when they escorted Kendra inside. There were opaque black plastic tents in two of the rooms, although the plastic was split or sagging, pelted by debris. Clean room suits sprawled on coatracks that had been knocked to the floor. More to the point, there were several desks that had been loaded with microscopy gear. Most of the equipment was on the floor. Another room held rows of laptops and larger computers, file cabinets, and a dry-erase board covered with the deft, boxy symbols of written Mandarin.

Cam felt an unusual flash of optimism. The Chinese had been unable to carry even the beginnings of this stuff in their first flight to Saint Bernadine, and they couldn’t possibly have expected American troops this deep into the blast zone. They must have planned to come back for the majority of their equipment. In fact, we’re lucky they were hit so hard, he thought. The few planes and helicopters they’ve been able to make operational have been busy all day with other problems — but that’ll change. This luck can’t last.

“We need to hurry,” he said.

Kendra was subdued but responsive. She nodded and said, “Let me see. I can see. Let me see.”

Was she consciously referring to the sky outside the roof? Cam didn’t think so, but it was getting dark. The unending twilight had become something deeper. Beyond the ash clouds, the sun was going down.

Cam left Kendra with Deborah to help the other men. Medrano had located the power room on the collapsed side of the building. All three of the labs’ generators were buried. Worse, most of the fuel cans had ruptured. “I can get one of these running,” Medrano said, “but we’d better move it first or this place will ignite.”

Cam, Alekseev, and Obruch pulled away the wreckage as Medrano tried to salvage some electrical lines, hampered by his broken arm. Then he identified which generator he wanted. By now, they could barely see. There were no stars or moon beneath the fallout. The night would be absolute.

Obruch produced a small penlight, which he ran to give to the women as Cam and Alekseev dragged the generator into an open spot of concrete. “Give me two minutes,” Medrano said, splicing his new line to the classrooms.

Kendra’s response was less satisfying when they hurried into the lab. “I need three hours,” she told them, rummaging through endless files as Deborah said, “There’s a machining atomic force microscope. It looks like it’s okay. She thinks she has what she needs.”

Alekseev took Cam aside. “This is madness,” he said.

“No. We’ve come too far to quit. Either she can do it or she can’t. There’s no sense in running away. Where would we go? The chopper’s nearly empty.”

“They were keeping aircraft,” Alekseev said in his odd English. “I will check the fuel.”

“Where would we go?” Cam said. “Your side is gone. So is ours. But go ahead — check for fuel. We’re going to need every weapon we can make if we’re going to hold this place against enemy troops.”

Alekseev paused. “You are speaking of something like your Alamo,” he said. “Yankee Doodle do or die.”

Cam almost smiled. Alekseev had his American history mixed up, but not its spirit. They were a nation created by rebels and underdogs who never did quite figure out how to manage their own success. Cam wanted to see them back on top again. “The Chinese won’t expect us here,” he said, “so we have surprise on our side. That should work against the first group that shows up.”

“What about the next?”

“Best case scenario, we won’t have to last that long.”

“Do you believe her estimates? Three hours?”

“Yes. You know who she is.”

“We know who she was,” Alekseev corrected him.

“I think she’s… motivated.” Cam chose the word carefully. “She wants to make things right. Do you understand? She wants to do something good.”

The generator rumbled outside and the lights sprang on, flooding the building. “Got it!” Medrano called. Kendra screamed, thrashing her arms in the sudden brilliance. Deborah grabbed her, talking fast, as the men scrambled to turn off as many switches as possible. They didn’t want to be the only star in the night.

When they were done, Alekseev walked over to Cam again. “We must seal this tent,” Alekseev said, indicating the black plastic. “She can work inside it.”

Cam met the colonel’s hard brown eyes. “So you agree,” he said. “We’ll stay.”

“Da.”

Then we have about three hours to live, he thought.

Deborah protested when they asked her to stay with Kendra, but she was hurt and she had some lab experience. It only made sense. They couldn’t leave Kendra alone.

Before he went, Cam kissed Deborah’s cheek because he knew her better than anyone else. She caught his arm to keep him close, leaning her forehead against his with sudden intimacy. I wish you were Ruth, he thought. Who was she wishing for?

“Take care of yourself,” Deborah said.

“You, too.”

The four men spread through the ruins to dig in against the Chinese. They even hurried despite the knowledge that if they won — if any of them survived — they would be destroying themselves with Kendra’s counter-vaccine.