I
t took some convincing to get the helicopter pilot to leave without Ross. O’Dell had to show him her badge. But he was a local contractor and not part of Ross’s team. He ended up more concerned about the weather and getting them back safely. In the distance they had already heard the beginning rumbles of thunder.
O’Dell had found the detonator in the guardsman’s pocket when she searched for the SUV keys. Creed told her that Grace had been alerting ever since they got into Ross’s vehicle.
“I just couldn’t figure out what it was.”
She told him about Peter Logan and they realized that up near the hole, Grace was probably alerting to the body. The poor little dog had too many scents to tell them about.
Daniel Tate she delivered to Vance. After listening to his story she realized Colonel Hess hadn’t counted on a survivor. Someone who had been used in the facility’s experiments. He kept talking about a spaceman opening a special suitcase and she wondered how many drugs were still in his system. How much of what he told them was real and how much were hallucinations?
She delivered Creed and Grace safely back to their cot in the gymnasium. By then he didn’t have any fight left in him to argue with her. She knew he was in tremendous pain. She only hoped his injuries weren’t severe. All she could concentrate on was that he was alive. For several minutes on the mountain she thought she had lost him a second time.
She left him with Dr. Avelyn and Jason.
“What are you going to do?” he wanted to know.
“I’ll be back,” she promised. “I just need to check and see if Ross was telling the truth about the lockbox.”
The rain had started again when O’Dell headed back out. She was on her way to the SUV when she stopped in the middle of the street. She could hardly believe her eyes. Benjamin Platt was talking to a rescue crew on the sidewalk. He glanced up. Did a double take when he saw her. He said something to the crew and they looked back at her, too.
“God, I am so glad you’re safe.”
He hugged her so tight he practically crushed her to his chest. And only then did she realize how much her body ached from the water rescue yesterday.
Was that only yesterday?
“I left you a bunch of messages.”
“I was a little busy.”
“Have you heard from Logan yet?”
“Logan’s dead.”
“What?”
She told him what had happened, giving him as much detail as she could and ignoring the alarm on his face. She was still angry with him.
“My God, I’m so sorry, Maggie,” he said when she was finished. And almost a little too quickly—ever the scientist and soldier—he added, “I got here as soon as I could. I brought down a team with a hazmat van in case we find the samples.”
She was surprised at how disappointed she was that he sounded like the cold government official, the director of USAMRIID, instead of like her boyfriend. He was more concerned with deadly samples in a lockbox than he was about her. Of course, the samples were more important. And it was silly, but she was surprised how much more she needed the boyfriend than the director right now.
“I might be able to tell you exactly where those samples are.”
She ignored his look of astonishment and led him to the muddy black SUV in the far corner of the parking lot. She raised the lift gate. Then she removed the rubber mat from inside to reveal the trapdoor for the spare tire. When she lifted the hatch, she was almost as surprised as Ben. What looked like a harmless black metal suitcase was exactly where Ross had said it would be.
C
reed had listened to Dr. Avelyn lecture him about resting. This time she insisted on a chest X-ray. No perforations. A couple of ribs were definitely fractured. She no longer questioned whether or not he had a concussion. About the only thing she had told him that he was happy about was that she didn’t want him to travel for a few days. Although Hannah wanted him back home where she could fuss over him.
How could he leave now when he knew Benjamin Platt was there?
Creed glanced at the three dogs in the corner next to his table in the cafeteria. Jason had insisted that Creed sit while he waited on him.
The dogs had eaten and were lounging next to each other. Molly already fit in, though it broke Creed’s heart when she looked up at everyone walking by, still looking for her owners. He reached down and petted her.
When he looked back up Maggie had come in the cafeteria door. He took small pleasure in the fact that she was alone. But he hated already wondering whether or not she’d be in the cot next to him tonight or if she’d be with Ben Platt.
She saw him from across the room, and as she walked over her eyes never left his. Even as she sat down, choosing the chair across from him. She scooted close so she could plant elbows on the table. The whole time, she didn’t say a word as her eyes held his. So much emotion between the two of them. In less than forty-eight hours she had saved him twice.
Finally she glanced away, using the dogs as an excuse and smiling when Grace pranced over to her.
“Jake and Harvey would instantly fall in love with you,” she told the little dog while scratching behind her ears. Maggie’s eyes darted back to Creed’s.
“You still can’t have her,” he said, and Maggie laughed.
Then she said something Creed never expected.
“Jake and Harvey would fall in love with you, too.”
Before Creed had a chance to say anything, Oliver Vance was making his way directly to their table.
“I’m glad you’re both here,” Vance said. “My crew pulled a vehicle out of a flooded ravine yesterday.”
When Jason and Creed came to the cafeteria they had passed by the whiteboard Vance kept in the gymnasium. The tally for missing persons had gone down to three. But the death toll had risen to seventeen. He was afraid Vance was getting ready to raise that number again.
“How many passengers?” Creed asked.
“Only one, but I recognized the victim.” He looked at Creed. “It was Isabel Klein.” He let the name sink in. “That government woman who brought you here.”
“Klein?” Maggie asked.
“She was Peter Logan’s assistant,” Creed said. “I haven’t seen her since that day. What happened? Did she slide off the road?”
Vance shook his head. “Not unless she was rushing herself to a hospital.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.
“She was shot in the back.”
“Could it have been Ross?” Creed asked Maggie.
“It’s possible.”
“There’s more,” Vance said. “Her left hand was severed at the wrist. So far the rescue crew hasn’t found the hand anywhere inside the vehicle.”
Creed looked at Maggie and her face paled.
“The one Jason and Bolo found in the field,” she said. “It was a left hand. Dr. Gunther said it was a woman’s. But Logan insisted it was the director of the facility’s. He seemed certain it was Dr. Shaw’s.”
“Why would someone kill this woman, take her hand, and plant it at the flood site?” Vance was shaking his head. “This sounds like something from Daniel Tate’s messed-up mind. That man is telling some wild tales.”
“There was a diamond ring on the thumb,” Maggie said. Creed could see the alarm building in her eyes. “Logan was sure the ring belonged to Dr. Shaw.” She looked at Vance. “This may sound like a ridiculous question. Did you happen to notice if Isabel Klein’s fingernails were painted? A bright red?”
He thought about that and again shook his head. “I looked at her hand pretty good. There was no fingernail polish.”
“Why would Ross take Isabel’s hand and try to make it look like it was Dr. Shaw’s?” Creed asked.
“I don’t think Ross did it,” Maggie said.
Creed stared at her, and finally the realization hit him.
“Dr. Clare Shaw’s still alive.”
P
latt had wanted to take more time and make sure Maggie was okay. He knew she was still very angry with him. He deserved that. When all of this was over he’d find a way to make it up to her. She was safe. That was the important thing.
He’d spent almost an hour moving and securing the lockbox in the mobile lab. Another thirty minutes to gear up in the special hazmat suit he’d brought. Already he was perspiring and fogging up his face shield. He could barely see without wiping a glove across it every few minutes.
The mobile lab was cramped and a far cry from what he was used to. The USAMRIID laboratories at Fort Detrick were state of the art, furnished with some of the best equipment and technology in the world. They’d come a long way from those archaic methods that they had talked about in the last several days during the congressional hearing. Much could be learned from history. What Platt hated to admit was that some things had not changed. There were still threats, just as Hess had said. And there were still too many secrets kept in the name of national security.
But as messy as this situation had been, it could have been worse. Much worse. Hess had dodged yet another bullet.
Now Platt just needed to make sure nothing had ruptured inside this lockbox. And if it had, that nothing had leaked out.
He tapped the numbers of the combination, having memorized them from his conversation with Hess. The digital display remained unchanged. He thought he had gotten the numbers wrong when suddenly the light that had been pulsing red suddenly blinked to green and the lock snapped open.
With careful fingers, Platt eased the heavy lid up. He felt the cold rush up. Even after all these hours, the inside remained icecold. That was a good sign. No rupture. The tension started to leave his shoulders.
He could see the sealed vials standing in their slots, side by side. Unharmed. Unbroken.
Suddenly he noticed an empty slot. Then another. And another. No spills, no glass fragments. There was no way for the vials to have fallen from their slots. No way except to have been removed.
Three empty slots. Three missing vials. Three deadly viruses, gone.
Memphis, Tennessee
D
r. Clare Shaw exchanged the SUV for a sedan. She pulled out a credit card, but before she handed it across the desk to the rental car agent she checked the name on the card to see who she was pretending to be that day. Over the last year she had accumulated a stash of credit cards and photo IDs. Along with other important items like cell phones and extra cash.
She could remember the exact day she realized she would need an escape plan. It was the day she succeeded in replicating H5N1. If she could duplicate avian flu, what else was she capable of doing? But despite the so-called independence DARPA claimed to give her and the facility, her superiors had suggested new security measures, new checks and balances in the near future. They would never embrace her brilliance and allow her to continue. Even Richard had begun questioning her research procedures, complaining that some of her experiments were extreme.
Poor gutless Richard.
Killing him was one of the easier parts of her plan. It pained her more to sacrifice the men who had been her current guinea pigs. And that government woman.
For all her planning, she’d never expected an actual landslide. The weeklong rains and the massive flooding were enough for her to put her plan into action. The landslide took her by surprise. She had almost lost the lockbox in the ruins. But the chaos that followed had provided her necessary cover.
Now, in the glass that separated the small office from the garage of cars, she checked out her reflection. She had cut her long hair but kept the bangs and decided she would enjoy being a redhead. The rental car agent seemed to approve.
He gave her back her card along with the keys to the sedan.
“Do you need any help with your bags?” he asked.
“No, I’ve got them.”
She picked them up, making it look effortless. She had already risked too much, paid too high a price. She couldn’t afford to make some stupid mistake now. She certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else handle the small gray case, despite how heavy the miniature lockbox might be.
As I write this I’m reading reports from the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. In the last twenty-four hours, a Himalayan earthquake—a massive 7.8—has claimed an estimated 2,500 lives. Aftershocks continue to trigger avalanches and landslides that have already buried entire villages. Search teams—dogs and handlers—from across the United States are being deployed to assist in rescue and recovery. I can’t imagine all the things they will encounter. I pray they’ll be safe and I will be anxious to hear their stories when they return, because real life is so much stranger than any fiction I can write.
Many of you who read my books already know I’m a news junkie. I watch the newscasts about the Nepal earthquake or read about the bird flu and, unlike most other people, I’m taking notes as I watch or read. I’m also a history buff, so it’s not unusual for me to include real details—present and past—in my novels. I wanted to mention a few of those real details in
Silent Creed.
The tests that Senator Ellie Delanor stumbles upon actually did happen, including at least one that used schoolchildren at Clinton Elementary School in Minneapolis in 1953. From 1952 through 1969, the Army dropped thousands of pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide in nearly three hundred secret experiments conducted in such places as Fort Wayne, Indiana (1964–66); St. Louis, Missouri (1953, 1963–65); San Francisco, California (1964–68); Corpus Christi, Texas (1962); and Oceanside, California (1967). The Army has insisted that the levels used in these tests were harmless. But various studies now suspect that cadmium in humans is a carcinogen that causes kidney damage and that can contribute to liver disorders, nervous system problems, and perhaps reproductive health problems.
Project 112 and SHAD were also series of actual tests conducted by the Department of Defense from 1962 through 1973, during the height of the Cold War. The individual tests were code-named—Autumn Gold, Flower Drum, Night Train, and Shady Grove were just a few. Sailors and soldiers had no clue that they had been exposed, or if they did know, they believed the aerosols were harmless simulants. In some cases VX nerve gas, Sarin nerve gas, and a variety of bacterium including E.coli were used as part of the biological and chemical tests.
It wasn’t until 2002 that some of the facts about Project 112 were made public. Why did it take so long? The DoD claimed that too much of the information needed to be kept classified. In the meantime, veterans experiencing illnesses related to their exposure were denied VA benefits and medical help. After all, how could they be sick from something that didn’t happen?
I have a deep admiration and respect for the men and women—and the dogs—who have served and continue to serve our country. They sacrifice much and risk their lives. They deserve to have their country take care of them. Which brings me to another hard fact that is touched on in
Silent Creed.
Robby’s Law (H.R.5314) made it possible for military dogs to be adopted instead of euthanized when they are retired. Can you even imagine that that was acceptable for these four-legged heroes? That after they saved so many lives, their final reward of retirement meant death? Robby’s Law also allows for the dogs’ former handlers to be first in line to adopt them.
But here’s the catch—the military still does not guarantee transport of these dogs back to the United States. Right now the military says it’s too expensive and requires resources they simply don’t have, so oftentimes the cost for transport falls to the adopter. Currently there is a push for legislation in Congress that would change this and require that the military bring these dogs home first, then retire them and, when possible, reunite them with their handlers or offer them up to the long list of others who would gladly adopt them.
It’s amazing to me that we need legislation to do what should naturally be the right and just thing for these four-legged heroes. Yes, real life is stranger than fiction.