Authors: Louise Voss
It was what made him such a good MI6 officer. A safe pair of hands.
Without letting Kate and Paul out of his sight, he made for a nearby news kiosk and picked up a couple of packs of chewing gum. Glancing at the newspaper stand beside the cash register, the headline on the
Dallas Morning News
caught his attention. Momentarily forgetting about keeping an eye on Kate, he picked it up, swearing under his breath. The cat was out of the bag.
OUTBREAK
, screamed the headline.
Killer virus on loose in Los Angeles. Authorities urge citizens ‘Don’t Panic!’
Harley dropped a couple of dollars on the counter and exited the kiosk, absorbed by the story, which had pushed the news about the bombing off the front page. The newspaper reported that fifty-nine deaths had been confirmed, with many more cases in hospital. That meant it was spreading through the city even faster than they had feared. He scoured the paper, looking for any suggestion of a link between the bombing and this outbreak. Aside from a passing reference to the bombing now seeming even more unfortunate, ‘just when we need virologists the most’, no connection had been made. The media didn’t know about the message that had been left – not yet anyway.
His cellphone rang.
‘I take it you’re in Dallas?’ It was the voice of Nicholas Lepore, Harley’s Director.
‘Yes, we’ve—’
‘Good, good. Listen. There’s been a change of plan …’
When Lepore had finished his briefing and ended the call, Harley stood for a moment, wondering if the cold ripple of fear that crept up his back and prickled his armpits was a wholly rational response. He looked over at Kate and Paul. They weren’t going to like this. Not one bit.
‘Hey, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get a move on. Kate and I have got a plane to catch,’ said Paul. ‘A private jet, apparently,’ he added, unable to resist the chance to gloat. Sometimes Kate wished he and Vernon would just take their shirts off and wrestle, get it out of their systems.
Vernon whistled. ‘Jeez, Kate. Since when did you become a VIP?’ He turned to Jack: ‘Hey, buddy, we should have a helicopter to whizz us back to my place, right?’ He chucked Jack’s cheek, but the boy looked pale and miserable now that the actual moment of parting was upon them.
Kate bent down to give Jack one final hug, and he clung tightly to her, making her neck wet with his tears.
‘Be good, Jack, OK?’ she whispered into his ear. ‘Have an amazing summer. Do what Daddy tells you. I promise I’ll email and call whenever I can.’
‘Let’s go, Jackie-boy,’ Vernon said, as Shirley returned. He peeled his son’s hands off the back of Kate’s neck and ruffled his hair. ‘You and me and Shirley are gonna have an awesome time, right? I’ll take you swimming tomorrow, and that’s a promise.’
‘Right,’ Jack said, in a high quavery voice, unable to take his eyes off Kate. ‘Bye, Mummy.’
‘Bye, my darling.’ She had to speak in a small, tight way to prevent the lump in her throat choking her. ‘I love you.’
‘Love you too, Mum.’
And he was gone, tears pouring down his face, looking back at her over his shoulder as Vernon and Shirley led him away, dragging his little wheeled suitcase behind him. Kate closed her eyes briefly, overwhelmed by the pain of not knowing when she would next see him. She swallowed, then straightened her back. Harley appeared next to them, looking stressed.
‘Ready?’
Kate blew her nose on a tissue she found in her skirt pocket. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘What are we waiting for?’
There really was a private plane, a six-seater Hawker light jet normally used for whisking high-ranking government officials around the country. Harley sat on his own, up near the cockpit, leaving the rear of the cabin to Kate and Paul. Neither of them could sleep. Kate’s brain was abuzz, wondering if she was doing the right thing leaving Jack with Vernon, worrying about what lay ahead. She had no idea how quickly the virus was spreading or how long they had. Scientists don’t like to work against the clock. Fighting viruses was a long, slow process, small step after small step, and Eureka moments were few and far between. She had so many questions and, like viruses, they multiplied until her head was bursting with them.
She watched Harley remove his shoes and recline in his vast leather seat, stretching out his legs. Tension had been coming off him in waves on the plane across the Atlantic, and now she saw his shoulders sink quickly into an enviable sleep. She realised that, despite everything, she liked him. He had an old-fashioned quality, a stoic, take-it-on-the-chin Britishness that made her think of army officers in black-and-white war films.
Her thoughts of Harley were interrupted by a hand squeezing her leg. She looked around, surprised to see Paul sitting there with the sort of naughty grin on his face she hadn’t seen for quite some time.
He gestured towards Harley. ‘He’s asleep and the stewardess is nowhere to be seen …’
‘Ye-es? And?’ Although Kate suspected that she had already guessed.
Paul leaned in, whispered in her ear, then took her hand. They ran into the toilet together, giggling like newlyweds. Paul slammed the lock into place and pushed Kate up against the wall. She breathed in the familiar musky scent of his skin and they kissed deeply.
‘What if he wakes up? It’s a bit bloody obvious where we’ve gone!’ she said, breaking off the kiss. She ran her hand down Paul’s hard belly towards the bulge in his jeans. He shrugged. ‘I’m sure we’re not the first, and we won’t be the last. Are you a member of the Mile High Club?’
‘Not yet,’ Kate said, unzipping him and sliding her hand inside his boxers. ‘You?’
‘Nope,’ he replied, lifting up her skirt and pulling down her knickers. The beige moulded wall of the plane’s small bathroom felt cool against Kate’s hot flesh.
‘Oh, darling,’ Paul said, kissing her neck and slipping a finger inside her, groaning when he felt how wet she was.
Kate felt tears fill her eyes and she held Paul tightly as he pushed his hard cock into her. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, before losing herself in the sensation of his thrusts; gentle at first, then becoming faster and harder. He lifted her up so she was sitting on the edge of the basin, and she leaned back, putting a hand on either side of it to steady herself as the movement increased in speed and intensity. They were both panting.
Over the engine noise, Kate heard a sound right outside the bathroom. ‘Stop!’ she hissed, and they both froze, their eyes wide, like guilty schoolkids caught in the act. There was a soft knock and the sound of a woman clearing her throat.
‘Everything all right in there?’ the flight attendant enquired drily through the door. Paul gave another gentle teasing thrust and Kate had to press her lips together to stop herself from either giggling or moaning – or both.
‘Just a minute,’ Paul called, with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘I think she’s on to us,’ he whispered to Kate, resuming his activity with renewed vigour.
‘Yes, well, when there are only three passengers on
a plane, and two of them suddenly vanish, I think it’s a fairly safe bet as to what they’re up to,’ Kate said, digging her fingernails into his back. ‘We’d better get back to our seats …’
Paul groaned. ‘Not yet.’ He slid out of her. ‘Turn round.’ She did what he asked, bending over the sink, biting her lip as he pushed deep inside her. She could see his face in the mirror, his eyes screwed up tight, and she thought how beautiful he was, and how beautiful his cock felt, and then she closed her own eyes and threw back her head, spiralling with him into an ecstasy made all the more intense by the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
By the time the plane landed, Kate was exhausted. But despite the doubts and the fears, her curiosity was burning, adrenaline still fizzing from the amazing sex. Fortunately Harley seemed to have remained asleep throughout. Kate squeezed Paul’s hand. We’ve still got it, she thought. That chemistry.
As they walked down the plane steps, Kate saw that they had landed in a small airfield, half a dozen hangars dotted around a single runway. Beyond the airfield there was little to see – no signs of civilisation, just an arid ochre landscape populated with spiky trees and tumbleweed. In the near distance, rocky hills blocked the horizon. The sky was sheer blue, the sun a white ball of fire that hurt her eyes, even at six thirty in the evening. The heat swept over her and she had a moment of dizziness. Paul grabbed her arm
as she swayed on the steps.
‘Steady,’ he said tenderly. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, just about.’ She turned to Harley as her feet touched solid ground. ‘What is this place?’
Harley had taken off his jacket and sweat had already begun to darken his shirt beneath his armpits. ‘Lone Pine Airport,’ he replied. ‘We’re in north-east California, about a hundred miles from the state border.’
‘The border with Nevada?’ Paul asked.
‘Yes. We’re between Death Valley to the east, and the Sequoia National Park to the west. That’s where the research lab is based.’
‘In a national park? But I thought we were heading to LA.’ Kate noticed a pair of black BMWs parked outside the closest hangar, three men standing beside them, one black, two white. They were wearing dark suits and inscrutable expressions.
Harley spotted them at the same moment and raised a hand in greeting. The men opened the doors of the two cars, got in and started to drive slowly towards them through the heat haze.
‘FBI?’ Paul asked.
Harley nodded, then cleared his throat. ‘There have been some developments.’
‘What do you mean?’ Paul exchanged a worried look with Kate.
Harley didn’t reply.
The two cars drew up beside them and the black agent got out, walked round the car and opened the back door. He had broad shoulders and a shaved head, and was carrying a little too much weight around the middle.
‘Dr Maddox? Your carriage.’ He gestured for Kate to get into the car. She ducked inside, glad to get out of the heat.
Paul made a move to follow her but the agent stepped into his path. ‘Uh-uh. Not you. You’re not coming. Just Dr Maddox.’
‘What the hell?’
Harley said, ‘Sorry, Paul – like I told you, there have been developments.’
Paul tried to push past the agent, who blocked his way, placing his hands on Paul’s chest. At the same time, Kate got back out of the car. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’
‘Get back in the car please, Dr Maddox,’ the agent said. The other FBI agents had emerged from their car and were standing watching.
‘Harley, can you please tell us what’s going on?’
‘OK, OK … Listen, there’s no need for all this aggression. What’s your name?’
The agent who had blocked Paul’s way looked at Harley like he’d just broken wind. But he replied, ‘McCarthy.’
‘Good. Agent McCarthy. We’re all on the same side, right? Let me talk to Dr Maddox and Mr Wilson for a couple of minutes, explain the situation, and then we can be on our way. OK?’
McCarthy folded his arms and made them wait for his reply. ‘OK. You got five minutes.’
‘I need ten. Come on, Kate, Paul, let’s get back into the plane.’
‘So what the fuck is going on?’ Paul asked.
Harley had the demeanour of a middle manager who has been told to make half his team redundant. He rubbed his eyes, then reached under his seat and produced a
newspaper
. He handed it to Kate, who gasped at the
headline then scanned the text. ‘Fifty-nine dead already? The
containment
at the reservation failed?’
Harley avoided her eye.
She opened the paper. The headline across the inside spread read: KILLER FLU SWEEPS THROUGH LOS ANGELES. The first four pages were dominated by the story, accompanied by snapshots of a few of the victims:
a young mother in her twenties, an elderly black man, a muscular guy in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt and, worst of all, a seven-year-old boy.
Kate gazed with horror at the picture of the boy. It was the kind of school photograph kids across the world pose for once a year, the school sending home glossy prints to the parents. Kate had almost identical portraits of Jack in her suitcase. The caption read:
Tommy Walker, 7 – the youngest victim of Indian Flu
.
Paul read aloud over her shoulder:
‘A doctor at Los Angeles County Hospital, who did not want to be named, told us that none of the antiviral drugs that are normally effective have worked in combating what he believes is a new, deadly strain of flu. “This is far worse than swine flu or any of the other epidemics that have broken out in recent years. We are at a loss how to treat it and are desperately seeking advice from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.”’
Paul read on.
‘The number of people suffering from the disease is currently unknown, as few people report to hospital with flu, especially in poorer communities where
people have no health insurance …’
Paul skimmed to the
final paragraph. ‘
If you develop flu symptoms, the advice is to stay at home, drink plenty of fluid, do not travel. Family members you have come into contact with should call the number below but should also stay at home, away from other people, even if they currently feel well
, blah blah blah … Oh
shit.
’
Kate couldn’t tear her eyes away from the picture
of seven-year-old Tommy Walker. It hit her like the wave of
heat that had almost floored her on the steps of the plane. She tried to imagine how Tommy’s mother must feel, if she was still alive. Suddenly, even more so than when she had learned of the bombing and Isaac’s death, this whole thing, the outbreak of this new strain of Watoto, all felt very real.
‘As I told you in London,’ Harley said, ‘the authorities here decided not to go public about the outbreak. They didn’t want a repeat of the fallout that followed the swine flu pandemic, when the WHO were accused of exaggerating the dangers so the sale of vaccines would soar, boosting profits for the drug companies. The allegations were rubbish, but it’s made some of the decision-makers cautious, if not paranoid. So they decided to keep it under wraps until they knew exactly what they were dealing with. They put together this team in secret, hoping some progress would be made before the situation escalated.’