Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

It was Anah, a young woman Gault knew to be a cousin of El Mujahid. She had the same dreamy half-mad look as Amirah, and the same gray skin, but the young woman’s mouth was smeared with red and in her hands she held something so grotesque that Gault had to clamp a hand to his mouth to keep from vomiting.

Anah carried the head of Captain Zeller. The leader of the Global Security rescue team.

Gagging, Gault thrust the barrel of the pistol through the observation slot and fired shot after shot into Anah, punching holes through her chest and face, staggering her back to the metal rail and then blasting her over. Anah fell without a scream and crashed down into the mass of creatures fighting below.

“You mad bitch!” he screamed at Amirah and shot her. His first bullet hit her in the stomach. Amirah staggered back and her face twisted into a grimace of agony.

No…

Not pain. Amirah was laughing. She whirled and ran along the corridor as Gault fired after her, trying to hit her, needing to kill her, wanting her death. He hit her at least three more times until she was so far down the corridor that he could no longer get an angle for a useful shot. He knew that he’d hit her, he’d seen her robes fluff out with the impacts, had seen blood splash the walls. But Amirah hadn’t even slowed down… and as she ran she called his name in a mocking laugh.

The slide on Gault’s pistol locked back and he reeled away from the slot, gasping, blood roaring in his ears. With trembling fingers he fumbled for a new magazine and slapped it into place. Sweat coursed down his face and chest.

He had a flash of panic and pulled out his sat phone, but Toys did not answer. No help was coming. He was alone. Panic howled in his head.

Amirah knew about the secret passages he’d built into the place. If she and El Mujahid had been playing him then there was a good chance she’d somehow hacked into his computer. The network of hidden passages was on there. And, dammit, so were the detonation codes he had created to blow this place to atoms. Okay, that option was gone. Just as the rescue was gone.

He had two full magazines plus the one in the gun, which gave him about a third as many bullets as he would need even if every shot was a kill, and that was unlikely.

“Head shots, you bloody fool.” He cursed himself for wasting a chance to kill that witch.

Witch. He’d called her that so many times that now it came back to haunt him. It was more accurate a label than he had ever known. What she had done was the blackest kind of sorcery. A true deal with the devil, and it occurred to Gault that it hadn’t been cuckold’s horns that El Mujahid had worn. They were the king and queen of Hell. Damn them both.

He paused at a T-juncture in the corridor. To his left he could hear the hiss of hydraulics as someone—Amirah or one of her monsters—opened a doorway to his right. Okay, he thought, that simplifies things; and he took the other fork of the juncture.

There was only one more thing that he could do. One final chance left to stop Amirah’s doomsday scheme. At least the part of it that she wanted to launch here in the Middle East. He only hoped the American had been able to somehow warn the authorities before things got out of control over there. He rushed down the hallway, knowing that his one chance was slim, and even then he had almost no hope of surviving. Somehow it amused him to think that he might actually sacrifice himself to save the world.

“God… they really will think I’m a saint now,” he mused. He almost laughed as he raced along through the shadows.

The Liberty Bell Center / Saturday, July 4; 12:16 P.M.

I STARED AT Skip. “You?”

“Yeah,” he said. “What… you thought it was Dudley Do-Right over there?” He jerked his head at Ollie.

“You piece of shit,” growled Top, but Skip jabbed the First Lady with the pistol. She sat rigid and terrified, her eyes locked on mine, pleading silently for me to do something. But Skip held all the best cards.

“Put your piece down, boss,” Skip ordered. “Two fingers, nice and slow. Now kick it away. Good. The knife, too. You, too, Top. You even think about doing anything funny and I pop the lady first.”

“Why?” I demanded. “What’s your stake in all this?”

“Well,” he said with a grin, “if you’re wondering if I’ve embraced the teachings of the prophet Mohammad, then no. I’ve pretty much embraced ten million dollars in an offshore account.”

“You’re doing this for money?”

“Of course I’m doing it for money.”

“That doesn’t make sense… you fought side by side with us against these things.”

“Yeah, and it’s the best cover story in the world. And that whole ‘Taser’ thing was a setup. Cute, huh? Once you and the others went to explore the crab plant I slipped into the hidden passage. Oh, don’t look surprised. They downloaded the whole floor plan to me before we ever set out. We planned the whole thing via text messages—it went off like clockwork. I told them to take out one of the other guys with a liquid Taser and then I faked my own abduction. I had to fake my own burn with a lighter, but we all make sacrifices. The rest was window dressing to confuse things. I pop caps in a bunch of walkers, rub dust in my eyes to get the tears flowing, and then wait to be rescued. I should get a frickin’ Academy Award. That Courtland bitch bought it hook, line, and sinker. And if you’re wondering about the fight in the laboratory, I’d have made it out of there, too. There was an exit door behind the last meds chest, right near where I was standing. I’m sure Jerry Spencer will probably find it eventually, not that it’ll matter now. If that asswipe Dietrich had been another ten seconds slower I’d have ducked out as soon as you guys started getting chomped.”

“You’re a real piece of work.”

“Just doing my job. Funny thing is, I wasn’t even supposed to be the point man for this gig. Lieutenant Colonel Hanley was supposed to step up and lead Echo Team, with me as his backup, but then you come along and go all Jackie Chan on him. Ah well. More cash for me.”

“And Room Twelve…?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t let you interrogate the tech from the Delaware lab. That hit hadn’t been part of the plan and they weren’t ready for you. I never even got a chance to send a warning ’cause we were wheels up so fast. So I opened Room Twelve, popped a cap in the prisoner, and let the walkers out to play. If you guys hadn’t cleaned it up so fast I would have gotten there and played hero… but it worked out okay.”

“Don’t you realize the people you’re working with are trying to start a plague that will wipe out—”

He cut me off with a laugh. “Oh come on, Captain… you don’t buy any of that shit, do you. We fed you the clues. This was even timed to happen right before the Fourth so that there would be some concerns about this event. I was tickled pink when I heard that we were coming down here ’cause it meant that absolutely everything was falling into place. We gave you everything you need to stop the plague before it goes anywhere. All you have to do is spend a shitload of money on research and inoculation. That Chink doctor from the DMS is already working on a treatment. There are enough agents and cops here in Philly to keep the infection contained. None of this was ever going to get out of the center. You’ll be happy to know that was the last planned release of the plague. Nah… this isn’t about the end of the world, it’s just about the moolah. Always has been, always will be.”

“Ten million dollars sounds like a cheap price tag for your soul, Skip.”