Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) (20 page)

Connelly nodded.

Sasha cleared her throat and
said, “While Serumceutical appreciates the assurance that the shipment isn’t
going to cause a problem with GAO and, of course, will provide replacement
vials, I want to be clear that the Board of Directors instructed me to file a
temporary restraining order against ViraGene. This prepper business aside, they
have serious concerns about a competitor playing dirty pool.”

The attorney contingent nodded in
unison, with the sole exception of Bardman, who was scribbling rapidly on his
legal pad.

Anthony Washington, whose card
identified him as an attorney with the Executive Office of the United States
Attorney General’s Office, Communications and Law Enforcement Coordination
Division, spoke up. “If your client intends to rely on its contract with
Congress as an exhibit in any civil litigation, you will, of course, have to
file it under seal. Portions of that contract have national security
implications.”

“Of course. We’ve actually
already filed, and the contract
was
submitted under seal. But I don’t
think the contract specifics will come into play in any way. ViraGene seems to have
placed a mole in the organization; we’d have a viable claim even absent the
theft of the vaccines,” Sasha assured him.

Maybe
, she added silently.
If Celia Gerig even had anything to do with ViraGene, which was becoming
less clear as the picture developed.

Washington must have been
thinking along the same lines, because he shot her a skeptical look but merely
nodded. Bardman kept scrawling notes.

“You already filed?” Bardman
asked without looking up.

“Yes, we filed electronically
yesterday in the District of Columbia District Court,” she confirmed.

Washington leaned over and
whispered in Bardman’s ear.

Richardson stood. “I’ll be in
touch,” he said to Leo.

The meeting was adjourned.

Colton peered at
the Salvadoran’s blank face. “You understand?” he repeated.

The man, who claimed to be named
Tito, nodded. “Yes, yes. Mr. Leo, he is your friend. You want to surprise him.
Put the gift in his top desk drawer tonight when I’m cleaning. I understand.”

Tito waved the box to punctuate
his understanding. Colton tried not wince at the thought of the box crashing to
the ground with the vial inside.

“What else, Tito?” Colton
pressed. He wished this idiot would talk faster. It was cold, not to mention
unseemly, lurking around the dumpster in an alley behind a restaurant in some
godforsaken corner of Northwest D.C. The wind swirled stinging snow in his
face.

Tito thought. “Ah, don’t open the
box?”

“Correct! Do not, under any
circumstances open the box,” Colton said with an encouraging nod.

He reached into his overcoat
pocket and felt around until he located the bills he’d removed from his wallet
before entering the Metro station. There was no need to pull out his wallet and
get robbed. He pressed the thick wad of green into Tito’s gloved hand.

The shorter man thumbed it but
didn’t count it, then he shoved it into his pants pocket. Colton imagined he
wasn’t interested in being robbed, either.

“Gracias. Thank you, Mr.
Jefferson,” he said.

“That’s payment in full. I don’t
want to see you again, ever,” Colton told the man.

“Si, si,” Tito smiled and pointed
toward the back of the dingy concrete block building. “You like huevos? This
taqueria has the best huevos. I will buy you breakfast.”

Colton refrained from wrinkling
his nose in disgust. “No. Thank you. I need to go before the storm comes. You
should, too, Tito.”

He didn’t want to pique the man’s
curiosity about the beribboned package in his hand, but he also didn’t want
some oaf to elbow it off a table inside the restaurant and waste a perfectly
good vial of the virus on a room full of inconsequential immigrants.

Tito waved a hand, dismissing the
threatened blizzard. “A man’s gotta eat.”

“Suit yourself,” Colton said,
turning on his heel and bowing his head against the wind.

In the end, it made no real difference
to him if Tito and his fellow egg lovers died a miserable, painful death. He
had one more vial; if need be, he could find another janitor.

The door to the
cabin swung open, and Gavin blinked as sunlight flooded his tired eyes. He swung
his legs over the side of the too-short bed and pulled his sweater over his
head.

Rollins stood in the doorway, his
ever-present weapon at his side.

“Good morning, Mr. Russell. How’d
you sleep?” Rollins asked in the mild, uninterested manner of a hotel clerk.
His voice was muffled by a blue paper surgical mask.

Gavin just grunted at him in
response. He’d slept poorly—uncomfortable in his clothes, worried about Celia,
not trusting Lydia or some other overzealous prepper to burst into the cabin
during the middle of the night in a hail of bullets.

“C’mon. Captain wants to see you,”
Rollins said.

Gavin bent and slid his feet into
the shoes at his bedside. As he knotted the laces, he calculated his odds of
taking Rollins down. He could lower his shoulder and run at the armed man, just
pretend he was back in high school on the football team. Gavin figured he had
forty pounds on Rollins. And he’d have the element of surprise on his side. His
chances against Rollins were decent.

But the rifle was a complicating
factor. And, assuming he did overpower Rollins and get his firearm—then what?
Was he going to shoot his way out of the compound? They’d confiscated his keys,
wallet, and cell phone before they’d locked him in the cabin for the night. He
wouldn’t get far on foot.

Reluctantly, Gavin decided
attacking Rollins was suicidal. He straightened and grabbed his coat. “Take me
to your leader,” he cracked.

Rollins didn’t laugh or respond.
Instead he slid a mask over Gavin’s mouth and snapped the band against his
head.

Then he waved Gavin through the
open door and, like Lydia had the night before, walked behind him, with the
rifle pointed at Gavin’s back.

Gavin walked a few feet and then
slowed his pace and looked around. Off in the distance a group of kids played
in a snowy field. Rollins gave him a little nudge with the muzzle of the rifle.

“Let’s go,” Rollins said. “We’re
going to the recreation center. Captain Bricker’s office.”

As they passed the clearing, Gavin
took a closer look at the kids.

A half-dozen boys and girls were
playing a game of freeze tag, whooping and hollering as they dashed around. He
wasn’t great with children’s ages, but he guessed the group ranged from three
or four to fourteen or fifteen years old. They were siblings or maybe cousins:
they all had the same pale skin, straight brown hair, and big, round eyes. The
littlest girl still had the round cheeks of a toddler, but the others were all
lanky, thin and angular.

Kids. He hadn’t expected kids. He
was suddenly very aware of the gun pressed into his back.

“Keep moving,” Rollins
instructed.

Gavin shuffled his feet but kept
his head toward the knot of kids, who had stopped mid-game to stare at him and
Rollins as they approached.

The tallest of the girls spoke
first.

“Are you lost, mister?” she asked
as she twisted her long ponytail around a gloved finger. She stared up at him
with a mix of curiosity and concern for him. She showed no fear.

Gavin hesitated, unsure whether
to answer. Rollins seemed equally unsure. Gavin reasoned Rollins wouldn’t shoot
him in the back in front of a group of kids, so he opened his mouth to speak.

As he did, the tallest boy ran
across the field. He came to an abrupt stop between Gavin and the girl. He took
in the masks they wore, and his eyes flashed anger and fear. He clenched his
hands into fists.

“This is private property, sir.
You need to leave.” The boy tried to say the words in a firm tone, but his
voice cracked.

Rollins interjected, “It’s okay,
son. I’m taking the prisoner to see your father. The situation is under
control.”

Gavin ignored Rollins, looked
around Bricker’s son, and addressed the girl. “I’m looking for a friend of
mine. Maybe you’ve seen her? Her name is Celia, and she has dark, curly hair
about—”

The girl burst into tears.

“Celia’s dead,” she cried.

The boy jutted his chin forward, “Shh,
Bethany. Don’t.”

Celia was dead?
Gavin’s
mind reeled, and he tried to work through the news.

The boy led Bethany back to their
game, with a backward glance at Rollins. The other kids clustered around the
crying girl with hugs and soothing pats.

“Celia’s dead?” Gavin asked
Rollins.

“I’m getting tired of telling you
to keep moving, Russell. You can talk about it with Captain Bricker. Now let’s
go.”

This time, Rollins’ shove was
less gentle. The gun hit Gavin’s spine with a thud.

Gavin stepped it up and strode
across the frozen path to the recreation center.

Inside, the scene was very
different from the previous night. The room bustled with activity, shouted
instructions and laughter rang out. Men and women dressed in hunting jackets,
ski coats, and an array of various camouflage patterns, ranging from desert to
forest to tundra, unpacked boxes, trotted back and forth with pots and bowls,
and handed out bedding. In the far back corner of the room, a teenage girl led
a group of small children in a game of Simon Says. A cluster of slightly older
children camped out at one end of one of the tables with paper and crayons.

 Rollins and Gavin started down
the hallway to the office where they’d met the night before. From behind, the
boy from the field darted past them and rapped on the door.

“Dad,” the boy called as he
knocked.

“Come in,” a baritone voice
rumbled from the other side.

With a backward glance at Gavin,
the boy rushed through the door.

Rollins and Gavin followed.

A tall, fit man with a
salt-and-pepper buzz cut and piercing blue eyes rose from behind a metal desk.
He gave Gavin and the Magnum-toting Rollins a short nod, then turned to his son.

“Clay, what’s going on?”

“The man with George says he’s a
friend of Celia’s. I thought you might need some help—” the boy began.

Bricker responded in a measured
tone. “Clay, this isn’t your concern. Go back outside. You shouldn’t have left
your brothers and sisters alone. If you aren’t going to supervise them, they
need to come inside.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, clearly
disappointed at being dismissed. Gavin half-expected him to argue but he immediately
turned and walked out of the office, leaving the door open behind them.

“Sir—” Rollins began.

Bricker cut him off. “That’ll be
all, Sergeant Rollins. Thank you for escorting Mr. Russell to my office. You’re
dismissed.”

Gavin snuck a glance at him. Rollins’
face crumpled, but like Bricker’s son, he didn’t argue.

“Yes, sir,” Rollins said. He
shouldered his weapon and headed for the open door.

“Shut that behind you,” Bricker
ordered.

The door closed with a soft
thump.

Bricker stared at Gavin, studying
the portion of his face that was visible above the mask. Gavin stared back at
him for a long moment.

“So, Mr. Russell, it seems we
have a problem,” Bricker finally said.

“What are you the captain of?”
Gavin said by way of answer.

“Pardon?”

“Your people call you ‘Captain
Bricker.’ What are you the captain of?” he repeated.

Bricker squinted hard at him,
measuring his response. After a moment, he jerked his head toward the metal
chair in front of Gavin. “Have a seat, Mr. Russell, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Gavin said.

He eased himself on the hard,
cold chair and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. Bricker
returned to his seat, pushed aside a sheaf of papers, and leaned forward on his
elbows.

“In 1999, I was working in the
banking industry. My wife, Anna, was home with Clay, our oldest, who was just a
baby. She was pregnant with our second child. The bank, of course, was very
worried about Y2K. We’d been working on contingency plans for years, trying to
prevent any interruptions to our service and making arrangements to deal with
snafus if they did happen, but no one knew exactly what would happen when the
calendar rolled over. Now, Americans look back on that time as a joke. All the
panic and preparation were for nothing. But, as I sat praying with Anna on New
Year’s Eve, waiting for the clock to strike twelve, I had a vision.”

Bricker paused. Gavin assumed it
was for dramatic effect.

“A vision, huh?” Gavin asked.

“That’s right, Mr. Russell. A
vivid vision of a post-disaster America, where the government ceased to
function and neighbor turned on neighbor for a sack of flour or a glass of
potable water. Where the unprepared and untrained starved or froze to death. An
America where the strong survived and the weak were slaughtered. Where the dead
rotted in fields and city streets, and orphaned children roamed the countryside.
And I saw a new civilization rise up. Built by hearty people in good physical
condition, who had prepared for this eventuality. People who could start a
fire, raise vegetables, hunt, and sew. People who did for themselves instead of
relying on the government to do for them. And this new community needed a
leader. It needed me.”

Despite himself, Gavin was rapt.
Bricker could deliver a sermon like the best of the televangelists.

Bricker continued, his voice
ringing stronger. “So on January 1, 2000, Anna and I committed our lives to
building a network of like-minded survivors. We began by recruiting neighbors
and friends who shared our values. Preppers PA is now several hundred members
strong with cells throughout the state and a few select members from out of
state. We run workshops and drills to teach self-sufficiency and self-defense.
As we’ve grown, it’s become necessary to impose an organizational structure.
Many of our members have military backgrounds, so the hierarchy that we chose
borrows liberally from the armed forces. To answer your question, then, I’m the
captain of a band of Americans committed to preserving our way of life when—not
if—a large-scale disaster strikes.”