Brian O'Grady - Hybrid

“You mean your terrorist buddies?” She scoffed.

“You can see farther than that; they are simply a means to an end, and in time, they will be gone as well. You can’t stop this, Amanda; I know you can see that even without me the virus will be released.”

“Then why do you need that?” Amanda pointed at the small bag attached to his belt.

“Call it insurance.” He felt her mind darkened as the energy that enveloped her focused into a single point. Reluctantly, but savagely, he threw her against the far wall of the unit. The air about him immediately calmed. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t let you interfere. If you can’t see reason, then I have no choice. .” He wondered why he hadn’t finished his thought the moment before he struck the window in Phil’s room. The glass cracked, but didn’t shatter, and he fell across an unconscious Phil. There was another snap, another blue light, and Klaus was flying against a side wall, his forearm burned to the bone. For a moment, his white lab coat caught fire, but he quickly extinguished it. “This is getting very tiresome, Amanda,” he said picking himself up from the floor. She stared back defiantly, and he struck at her with every ounce of energy he had remaining. Amanda deflected it with a wave of her hand.

More glass exploded, and the air began to sizzle as she walked towards him. His face began to burn, but still she closed the distance. When she was within ten feet, she was forced to stop.

Reisch slumped against a wall, as his arm was already sealing itself. “An impasse,” he said looking into the anger that filled her eyes. “I can see the killer in you, Amanda. Why don’t we take this life together, and start out our new lives right.” He motioned to Phil.

“You reach for him and I will have you,” she said, fatigue filling her voice.

“And if you try and protect him, I will have you,” he answered, knowing that neither could sustain this mental wrestling match much longer, but that the first to let go would die.

“Tired Klaus?” She mocked him.

“No more than you,” he shot back.

Amanda took a step towards him and the air audibly crackled. Klaus backed away, but she kept coming.

“You’ll kill him as well,” Reisch said his back against the window.

“Small price to pay,” she said, taking a step into the thickening air. The sheet on Phil’s bed began to smoke, the floor began to vibrate, and an unbearably loud, high-frequency sound shattered all the remaining glass in the ICU.

He watched and listened as she struggled with herself. A part of her embraced death, almost welcomed it as a redemptive sacrifice, but a different part stopped her from taking that last step. A shadow of doubt, buried for years under a mountain of conditioning, guilt, and responsibility had struggled free, and she hesitated. Maybe he’s right , it whispered.

A small red dot appeared on Reisch’s forehead, and then three more on his chest. A moment later, he was flying through the air and his only clear thought was Not again.

“We’ve checked three times; both of them are worthless,” Martin said. “The biohazard vial had nothing but wood shavings, and the bottle that was supposed to hold the vaccine was tea.” They had wasted eight precious hours sifting through powdered balsa wood before realizing that they had been duped.

“Avanti insists that you’re wrong,” General McDaniels said.

“We’re not,” Martin said sadly. “So we’re back to square one. Look on the bright side, maybe all Jeser has is wood shavings and tea.”

“It makes no sense — why would he go to so much trouble for an utterly transparent ruse?”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he knew. I think that he believed that he had the original virus and vaccine. I’m guessing they found him out and switched the vials.”

“That doesn’t track well. If they knew that he was going to betray them, they would have killed him, or at a very minimum, sent someone else.” McDaniels’s voice betrayed his anxiety. “Do you have anything for me, any good news?”

Martin tried to think of anything positive. ”We’ve started to culture the Colorado Springs virus. In a week, we should have enough to work with.”

“A week. I doubt that’s going to make the president’s day.”

“There are certain physical realities that limit us and wishing won’t change those. What about Amanda Flynn? She would be a tremendous help.”

“Yes, she would be, and we may be close to resolving that issue.” McDaniels’s voice was circumspect.

“You know where she is?” Martin said with surprise and accusation.

“It’s complicated. You don’t know all that’s going on; I don’t even know everything. All I know is that right now she is not an option. That may change soon.”

“It better be soon, because for the next week all we can do is sit on our asses. At this point, I’d buy a beer for the devil himself if he could help.”

“The devil, huh?” McDaniels asked.

“Anyone, in fact. I am now extending a blanket offer to anyone who can extricate our posteriors from this mess.”

“I will pass that on; in the meantime, I have something for you. We finished the background checks on Dr. Sabritas and Larry Strickland; both of them are clear, but Strickland had a girlfriend. .”

“Rachel Hill,” they both said at once. The dark-haired beauty was one of the secretaries who had filled in for Martha during her yearly two-week reserve deployment in early January. She had physical access to Martin’s computer and wouldn’t need much time to work out his passwords. The rumors of the tall and hunched Larry Strickland dating the exotically beautiful Rachel had even reached Martin’s ears.

“She’s your spy,” said McDaniels. “The real Rachel Hill disappeared when she was a junior at Georgetown two years ago, only to reappear in Tampa six months later. They probably killed her. The poor girl had no close family ties, and after several weeks, she was essentially forgotten. Your Rachel Hill has been quietly living someone else’s life ever since. Very clever, very discreet, only she wasn’t aware that the real Rachel Hill had at one point volunteered to be a bone marrow donor. She had type O positive blood. Your Rachel Hill is B negative — reasonably rare, except in certain ethnicities.”

“So now what do we do with her?”

“We will handle it, but I would like you to secure her for us,” McDaniels said without emotion or further explanation. “Please thank your secretary, Colonel Hays, for me. She pointed my people in the right direction; probably saved us a few days.”

The line went dead, and Martin wondered if all of McDaniels’s phone calls ended so abruptly.

The general had given Martha free rein to find the spy, and she had. There would be no living with her now. “Colonel, can I borrow a moment of your time?” Martin yelled loud enough for Martha to hear.

She appeared at his doorway, freshly showered and wearing surgical scrubs. Her hair was pulled back, and she looked ten years younger.

“Mrs. Hays, you clean up well,” he said.

“Maybe you should try it,” she said wryly, and he smiled. “Come on, what do you want? I have a photo shoot in five minutes.”

“That was the famous General McDaniels. He sent his greetings and thanks. Rachel Hill is not who she says she is.”

Martin quickly summarized their conversation.

“So she is the leak,” Martha said without surprise. “She always seemed ‘off’ to me.”

“You’re taking this well. Did I fail to mention that whoever she is, she had every intention of watching all of us die?” Martin was surprised by her utter lack of emotion.