Jeff Carlson - Plague Zone

“I realize you were half-blind,” Qin said.

Jia nodded. Their radar net was still only at 40 percent, and, in too many places, orbital surveillance was blocked by fallout.

“We don’t expect the impossible,” Qin said.

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“But all of us will suffer if there are American Special Forces at those labs.” Qin emphasized one word again. Us. The signal was unmistakable.

If the cabal had started the war, their destinies would be tied to the nanotech. They would live or die with it. The momentum they’d gained from the mind plague and its spin-off technologies would either further their rise to prominence, or, if the research was lost, the sudden lack of potential could leave them susceptible to new bids for power from more conventional elements in the military.

“Don’t fail us,” Qin said, quieting his voice. Then his fingertips brushed Jia’s forearm again as he appraised the younger man.

It was an invitation. Qin could protect Jia from the leaders outside their cabal if he succeeded. Bringing back the scientists and the nanotech would help offset the failures they perceived in Jia’s conduct… if he really knew what he was getting into.

Jia began to have second thoughts. What if Qin was playing him? There might not be a cabal after all, only Qin. The general could be running an unsanctioned operation and using Jia for his own purposes. Jia hoped not. If an uncontrolled nano weapon had silenced the labs, he might die as soon as his helicopters flew into the area… but if a cabal existed, even his death would serve them by warning them to contain the nanotech by any means necessary, even nuclear, thus limiting the damage to their political strength. He would be a part of their legacy. And if there were enemy soldiers inside California, Jia would welcome a chance to punish the Americans with his own hands.

Either way, Qin owns me, he thought, stiffening into a salute. “I’ll have my strike team assembled in five minutes, sir.”

Cam tucked the penlight against his uniform when he heard helicopters, smothering its white beam before lifting his head from beneath a Ford pickup truck. “Choppers,” he said. “Two, maybe three.”

Alekseev didn’t climb out from under the vehicle. “I am hearing them,” he said. “Let me finish.”

“We don’t want to get caught in the open.”

“They will go to your Saint Bernadine first. Give me the light.”

Cam shut his mouth. There was no sense in agitating someone with his fingers in a block of C-4. Alekseev had wedged a fistful of plastic explosive against the Ford’s driver-side rear wheel, where it would blow upward through the axle and truckbed. Cam aimed the light below the truck again, keeping his head turned the other way. Unfortunately, his night-vision was awful after watching Alekseev work.

They weren’t concerned about anyone sneaking out of the rubble. The Chinese might have garrisoned other troops nearby, or maybe a few men had survived Kendra’s attacks, but moving silently through the debris was impossible.

Cam was able to discern most of the ruins immediately surrounding him in the weak halo of the penlight. Within five yards, the ash-colored wreckage faded into the ash-colored gloom. It was silent, too, except for the falling whisper of the dust, which reminded Cam of snowstorms and skiing and better days. He even enjoyed his melancholy, because he knew this small peace couldn’t last.

The helicopters pulsed out of the northwest, vibrating across the city. Cam felt the noise in the lumber and glass beneath his boots. Somewhere to his left, he heard the clink of bricks as a dune collapsed.

Cam and Alekseev had been hustling through the mayhem on the west side of the school for most of an hour, risking the penlight after Cam opened his cheek on a jutting length of wood. They’d both fallen several times, bruising their hands and knees. Medrano, alone, was on the north. Obruch had the east and southern sides where their defenses would be the weakest. Nor did they expect much chance to reinforce each other if necessary. The perimeter was too big. Cam had accompanied Alekseev less as a guard than as a student. He might need to know how to wire the plastic explosives himself.

“They’re down,” Cam said as the tremor of the aircraft briefly magnified, then cut off as the helicopters landed at Saint Bernadine. With the change in sound, his pulse deepened, too, finding a familiar calm. Beneath it, he felt a fresh edge of determination that was both welcome and unwanted. The waiting was over.

It won’t take them long to realize no one’s there, he thought. “We’d better start back. Save whatever you have left.”

“Da. I’m done.”

At each place they’d stopped, first Alekseev had shaped the off-white clay. Then he’d eased a thin cylinder into the explosives and set the tiny digital readout near its top. The cylinders were frequency-specific remote control blasting caps. The initiator was an olive drab clamshell like a small lunchbox. Most of it was nothing but battery, a blunt antenna, and shock-absorbent steel. The bottom face held a digital display and a simple twenty-three button keyboard. The first twenty were square. The next three were rectangular and read ARM, CANCEL, and FIRE. It was American gear that Alekseev’s people had scavenged during the first war.

Seeing those words in Alekseev’s hands was strange. Just a day ago, they would have been at each other’s throats. Now they were friends. Cam didn’t like it, but he needed the other man.

As he worked, Alekseev had keyed each blasting cap to one button at frequencies between 1000 and 3000 megahertz. Medrano used 4000 to 5000, Obruch 6000 to 7000. Each of them would be able to detonate the others’ charges if necessary, including Cam, who carried his own initiator. Their best hope of buying time would be to appear as if a significant force had occupied the campus. That meant bombs wherever they couldn’t direct their guns. Most of those charges would be small. Alekseev hadn’t brought as much C-4 as he would like — but they had other surprises.

They also hoped the Chinese would be hamstrung by the fear of damaging their labs and scientists. The Chinese probably didn’t know those people were dead. Alekseev planned to fake a hostage situation. With any luck, they could string out their negotiations until Kendra infected them all.

Deborah flinched but said nothing when the helicopters’ beat reverberated through the tent. Instead, she watched Kendra. Then something pattered against the black plastic sheeting above them. The debris slid down two sides of the tent, stroking it like fingers and odd faces. Was the building itself cracking in the new sound? Did Kendra even notice?

The skinny, bedraggled witch had frozen ten minutes ago. She said nothing. She did nothing. She only stared at the machining atomic force microscope. Deborah was afraid to jostle her, but how long could they just stand here?

The black tent held them like a shroud or a veil. It seemed much smaller than fifteen-by-twenty feet. The walls shone in the halogen lamps, crisscrossed with shadows from the equipment and themselves. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if the plastic wasn’t opaque or if they had a radio or someone to talk to on the outside.

Deborah’s shoulder hurt. Her face. Her chest. At least there was water. Medrano had brought two gallon jugs from the labs’ kitchen before he taped the plastic shut, and Deborah used one to wash her own face and neck and Kendra’s bone-tight skin, too, caring for the dull-eyed witch as if she was a young girl or a doll. It seemed to revive her. For a while, Kendra had been sharp, multitasking like a different person altogether. Their first thirty minutes together had been harried and productive as Kendra skimmed through binders and sample cases, snapping over her shoulder at Deborah as she described the Mandarin characters she sought.