Son of Cerberus (The Unusual Operations Division Book 2) (5 page)

“It’s probably a side effect of whatever trauma you’ve been through. The body is a resilient thing, but some traumas can severely affect your memories and how they are processed. You don’t have an identification, but I think the investigators will be bringing some more information for you to look over later. If at any time they trigger a specific memory or you start feeling uncomfortable, you should let me know.”

“More police?” Amy asked pleadingly. “I don’t think I can tell them much.”

“It’s okay,” Doctor Robert said. “Just comply and tell them whatever you can. At this point you are both the only witness of a mass murder aboard a boat which has no record of you, and the sole suspect. You might be getting a lawyer or two coming by here, too.”             

“But I did nothing wrong.”

“It doesn’t appear that you could have,” the doctor continued.  “The fact that the yacht you were aboard has some invisible force field keeping people away will most likely work to your advantage. No one will be able to blame you for anything, from what I’ve heard.”

“What are you talking about?” Amy frowned. She was genuinely concerned. “I don’t remember anything you’re talking about.”

The doctor quickly explained what was going on with the boat while Amy listened intently. She wanted to help, but she couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened. Robert was quick to tell her that government agents would be coming to visit her, too.

“For now,” the doctor continued, “why don’t you try and get some sleep. I bet a few hours of rest and some hearty food will make you feel better. With some good food in your belly, it should be easier to rest.”

“What about my family?” Amy asked quietly. “Do you think that anyone will come for me?”

The doctor sighed. Even though he had his back turned to her, she could see the sadness set in. His shoulders slumped beneath the white coat he wore and his head swayed slowly from side to side. It made her heart sink within her chest, knowing that he thought that she was now an orphan.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Unfortunately, we can only know what we learn. Without an identity, you are basically a ghost. You have no home, no name, and nothing that could help give us clues to where your family is. We have no way of knowing if the people on the boat were your family, or whether you were kidnapped. I’m sorry.”

Amy contemplated her predicament. She was basically what the doctor said: a ghost. She didn’t exist. Her name was made up and her clothes belonged to someone else. All that she could call her own was her skin, her hair, and those awful scabs on each of her arms. She wondered what they were for a brief moment before falling back into the misery of her current situation.

She was truly alone, besides Belle the nurse and Robert the doctor. They were only being nice to her because they had to be. She knew that they were genuine, but if she had died they wouldn’t have noticed. Her family, if she had one, would definitely notice her disappearance. They would have to know that she was missing. They would come and find her, wherever she was, and she knew it.

Tears dripped from her eyes onto the bed like large raindrops. She didn’t mind crying in front of Robert. She had found despair and it was deep, and Robert the doctor was her only comfort. He softly patted her back before she buried her head into his chest and whimpered like the child she was. Long racking sobs came and went, leaving her feeling like she was being wrung dry. However she tried to stop, though, she could not.

After what seemed like forever, she started drifting off to sleep in the smell of the doctor’s embrace. He was warm and smelled like someone who was powerful, strong, and intelligent. His touch on her back was warm and comforting and all she wanted was stay forever in the arms of a man who cared. 

Eventually the crying stopped. Robert laid her sleeping head upon the pillow of the hospital bed and wrapped her in the generic hospital sheets. He shut the blinds and turned the lights down low so that she could sleep uninterrupted. He even took care to step quietly when he left the room and shut the door behind him. Amy would need as much sleep as she could get so that she could get better, or at least remember something useful for the upcoming investigation. It would be painful to everyone involved, even the doctor who was sure that he would have to testify in someone’s murder trial about the young woman.

A torrent of colors surrounded Amy as she slept. They flew this way and that, like a kaleidoscope stuck in a multihued sandstorm. They were comforting at first, then frightening, then comforting again—the entire ordeal was confusing. She felt relaxed, though she didn’t feel entirely safe.

She couldn’t be sure in the dream, but Amy swore that she could see a face. It was the only thing about the dream she could remember when she woke. It was an old man’s face, smiling a genuine smile of happiness at her. It was the happiest she had felt since arriving in the hospital.

Amy hoped she would dream about the man again. Maybe next time, he would be less colorful and more jovial. 

Marcus dreaded telling his girlfriend he was going on an adventure without her. The timing was just too perfect for the situation to sound like a coincidence. He slipped into his sleek sports car and let the leather massage his back through the thin black shirt he was wearing. It was always the perfect temperature, though he wasn’t sure how it had gotten that way. It took his mind off the task at hand—calling Julie.

The phone rang once, then twice, and then her voice broke the silence in between rings. Somehow, she managed to sound annoyed right off the bat. She must be driving if she gave him that voice.

“Hi baby,” she said in a tone that made him feel unwelcome.

“You sound so chipper,” he answered. “Is this a bad time?”

“It’s never a bad time for you. I just got some bad news about a case we’ve been working on and I had to hurry up and get ready is all. I’m frustrated that one of my damn employees can’t take care of the simplest matters without me holding his hand.”

“Sorry to hear that.” The sound of her frustration just gave Marcus more trepidation. He didn’t want her even more upset, but hopefully he would be home before dinner regardless. “I guess it’s a bad time to tell you I’m going to be out of the state for the rest of the day.”

“Not really,” Julie stated bluntly. “I’ll probably be at work until tomorrow morning anyway trying to sort through all of these legal proceedings. I don’t want you to go, but I won’t see you anyway. You’re not skipping out on me so you can have more time to think about us getting hitched, are you?”

“It’s a possibility,” Marcus chided. “I’m taking my whole team up north so that we can hash out the details of our living arrangements together. Don’t worry, though. They are all on your side.”

“As they should be.” Julie giggled. Her voice turned pleasant for just a moment before it was back to business. “Well, I’m just pulling into work. Please be safe and keep me updated. I’ll sleep at my place tonight, but you had better call me soon.”

“I will, don’t worry. You don’t give me enough credit.”

“You don’t give me enough of a warning when you’re jetting off to other states.”

“Goodbye, beautiful.” Marcus couldn’t help being curt. It was his way of telling Julie to stop pushing the matter. He had been open with her about the importance of his job from day one—complaining about it did nothing.

“Bye, Marcus,” she stated before hanging up the phone.

She really wasn’t in the mood,
Marcus thought to himself. He made a mental note to try and make it up to her later, if he could. There were many things both of them enjoyed that would make her happy and nearly half of them had to do with bed. Lately she had opened up to him about a specific fetish that included latex, ropes, and clamps. It wasn’t particularly surprising to him seeing as how she enjoyed ripping chunks of skin off every time they were in the sack, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to approach the subject. If he bought her something like a gag, he was worried she would turn it around on him and stifle his pleas for mercy.

He wasn’t quite sure whether or not the thought turned him on.

“You ready, buddy?” Stephen had accompanied Marcus to the underground parking garage to stow his personal effects and had been waiting patiently nearby. His booming voice woke Marcus from his temporary daydream. The ridiculously expensive vehicle he drove put Marcus’s sleek little sports car to shame, though Marcus would never admit it. The grin that split Stephen’s face from ear to ear made him wonder whether or not he had been able to read his mind.

“Women,” Stephen said. “They’re never exactly what you hope for.”

“Brenda is everything you want her to be, isn’t she?”

“That’s another story altogether,” Stephen said, pushing Marcus playfully as he got out of his vehicle. They sauntered toward the awaiting sports utility vehicles while bantering back and forth about women.

Something weighed heavily on Marcus’s mind. Though he hated to admit it, he was sure the rest of the team felt the same way; they were one man short. The banter, the preparations, all of it just seemed hollow without Bishop in tow. He had been the one to which every looked for fun. His bright smile, shining attitude, and ability to see the positive in every situation had made an impact on everyone he ever met. This would be the team’s first case without Bishop, and all of them would feel the loss keenly.

Marcus put the thought out of his head and jumped in one of the vehicles. Henry and Brenda were already seated and buckled up. They all carried concealed weapons and identifications associating them with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Marcus patted the FN 9mm strapped beneath his left armpit and the extra magazines that were hanging from the opposite side to reassure himself that he had not forgotten anything important.

“Are you guys ready to see something we’ve never seen before?” Henry was genuinely interested in getting his hands on the magical box that was making people see crazy things. Marcus had to admit, he couldn’t fathom what type of radio frequency radiation had to be pouring out of that thing in order to make people hallucinate. Something was seriously wrong with a machine if it could temporarily alter a person’s sanity.

“
Toujours Pret
,” Stephen said. It was the motto of the 2
nd
Cavalry Regiment, the longest running cavalry unit in the Army’s history, and French for ‘always ready.’ “I can’t wait to see what type of trip we’re going to have when we accidentally turn it on.”

“You would say something like that,” Brenda scoffed. “Don’t get mad at me when my skin melts off and I start shooting fire into your crotch.”

“You’d never hurt me, baby,” Stephen said, patting his girlfriend on the knee. “Trust me, a little fire crotch has never hurt anyone.”

“In all honesty,” Henry continued, cutting everyone else off, “we need to take this seriously. The DOD is concerned that a new weapon has been constructed that has the possibility of creating mass hysteria. We need to get in, snatch that box, and get out before local press is alerted to the situation. If news spreads that something like this exists, we’re going to have to deal with everything from copycats to a population that’s worried to go outside.

“We’re going to have to be very cognizant of the fact that there is a distinct possibility this piece of machinery will negatively affect us, too. I’d suggest putting someone on a rope with as many sensors as they can carry. That way, you can pull them back when they start seeing demons.”

“I take it you’re not volunteering to go inside?” Brenda patted him on the back.

“Hell no,” Henry said, laughing. “I’ve done LSD once or twice. I said I’d never do it again. Besides, you know how well I do with dead bodies. That’s why I’m going to the hospital. You doubt my usefulness, you young punks?”

Henry wasn’t one to complain, but it was true he was somewhat squeamish around gore. He could be a cold-blooded killer when the time came and never hesitated to shoot back at someone, but he had expressed, on occasion, his inability to stomach large amounts of human remains.

“We would never doubt you.” Marcus said and smiled.

Two vehicles pulled out onto the street and headed toward the small private airport. Fifteen minutes later, the team would be aboard two private corporate helicopters shooting northeast at over a hundred miles per hour. They would be in New Jersey and Philadelphia within an hour, split into two groups and essentially investigating two very different objects of interest.

Marcus wondered about the team that had been tasked with investigating the sole survivor. Thus far, the UOD had no background on the young woman, except for the fact she had been aboard the ship. No one knew anything about her. The owners of the boat, registered in Spain, had no known children. Though it was a distinct possibility the yacht had been borrowed or even rented out, their leads would be few and far between until the bodies aboard the ship were identified.

The team’s secondary objective was actually to clear the ship of any traps in order for coroners to take the corpses off to some medical facility. The only real way they could start solving this mystery was to get rid of that box. It was already causing headaches and Marcus hadn’t even seen the damned thing yet. He couldn’t help but speculate as to how much trouble it would give him when he did.

The fence around the pier was topped with barbed wire, and the gate was guarded by two FBI agents and four heavily armed officers. Though they might usually be carrying simple hip-holstered pistols, today they were packing loaded M4s and heavy body armor. Marcus grinned at the FBI agent who checked his identification. He reminded Marcus of one of the guys from an old movie.

He caught Marcus’s grin and flashed one back.

“Don’t get too happy,” the man said from behind dark sunglasses. “Once you guys get close enough to that haunted yacht, you’ll wish I never let you through in the first place. Park over there with the rest of the vehicles, please.”

Marcus complied and pulled the black, borrowed five-seat SUV into the parking lot. The short trip from the local airport had been uneventful. The helicopter ride was just over a half an hour long, so even with the small amount of traffic they encountered, they arrived on scene in a little more than an hour. The long SUV had a big enough cargo area to fit all of their substantial equipment.

The team was collectively amused at how large the operation at the dock had become. A giant clear tent had been erected on one side of the yard and was labeled as a quarantine zone. Yellow hazard tape clearly marked a half-circle at least a hundred yards from the yacht itself. It glinted with moisture from the sea, stirred up by heavy winds.

Here and there pieces of paper whipped around in the breeze. Marcus caught the glint of an old candy wrapper as it flittered by. Another piece of litter, a rubber glove, flopped lazily past a man in a half-worn hazmat suit.

Marcus parked the SUV near a white pickup truck with a CDC logo emblazoned across the side. Beneath the perfect exterior there was a leaky engine part that was already forming a tiny puddle of oil on the ground beneath it. He gritted his teeth against the feeling building inside of him. It was an overwhelming urge to curse at every single person on the scene until they realized how poorly they were doing in terms of preserving evidence.

The cold air smacked the team in the face as they opened the SUV’s doors. The overpowering scent of someone’s awful body spray came soon after as one of the FBI agents approached them from a nearby tent. He wore a polo shirt with golden FBI letters stitched above a breast pocket; the name Brian was also stitched on the shirt. His completely bald head formed straight into his bull neck and his facial features were serious and grim. Though he had one hand in a pocket, the other one swung lazily as he walked, brushing up against his holstered pistol.

The man looked as if he belonged in a mixed martial arts cage, not a federal uniform. He couldn’t even walk like a normal man. His khakis ruffled over his heavy black boots with every step.

“You must be the guys,” Brian said. What a normal name for such a monster. He eyed everyone as they exited the vehicle with contemplative frustration. Though he had been one of the first to the scene, he still couldn’t set foot past the yellow tape. Neither could anyone else for that matter. Why the UOD thought that they were any different was what made the man so grumpy.

“And woman.” He made the adjustment to his statement when he set eyes on Brenda.

“Yes.” Marcus smiled and extended his hand. The bullish man glared at it, then at Marcus, but kept his hand in his pocket.

“We are the men and one woman,” Marcus said sarcastically in response to the man’s spurn. Two could play at the angry agent game.

“Where can we set up, Brian?” Phillip didn’t care about what games the man was playing. He was anxious to start.

“Looks like you picked a perfect spot,” the grumpy agent answered. “I’ll go get one of the CDC representatives so you can get started. Don’t get too comfortable though. If you can’t come up with some special magic potion that lets you get aboard that ship, it’s going to go bye bye.”

“Thanks for the warning, big guy.” Brenda didn’t skip a beat as she started pulling boxes out of the trunk and setting them down forcefully near the agents feet. “Now run along, grumpy puss; we don’t have all day.”

The woman who came to greet them was wrapped in white. Her hair was tied up in a tight bun and tucked beneath a net that reminded Marcus of a cook’s hairnet. She was mildly overweight with a ruddy face and big red nose, yet the fiery intensity that decorated her brown eyes was nothing to brush off. She walked with a determined manner toward the group, though admittedly a bit awkwardly because of the bulky hazmat suit. Within seconds, the gruff FBI agent was replaced by the stone-faced CDC agent.

“Hi, kids,” she said, taking a tough stance with her arms crossed. Her voice belonged to someone who had smoked for thirty years. “My name is Patricia Banks. Just call me Trish, or lady, or agent, or hey-you.”

“I think we can remember Trish.” Marcus tried humor as he extended his hand in greeting again. She stared at it for a moment before regarding him with her very serious demeanor. The same look crossed her eyes as had crossed the FBI agent’s.

“You really want to shake hands with someone in a hazmat suit from the Center for
Disease
Control?”

“Guess not,” Marcus said sheepishly. “Do you really think there’s something biological out here?”

“Maybe,” she answered honestly. “Maybe not. The symptoms go away after you cross that yellow tape out there which leads me to believe it’s not biological. We can’t rule it out, however, since we can’t get close enough. We also have to factor in the multiple dead bodies aboard the ship and how they got that way.”

“Looked like murder to me.” David should have kept his mouth shut. “Because of all the blood, that is.”

“Have you ever seen hemorrhagic fever?” she asked seriously.

“What about the little girl?” Marcus asked.

“She’s in infectious disease quarantine in Philly until we get this whole thing straightened out. She would be cleared if she hadn’t collapsed like that after coming off the yacht.”

“Thanks for setting us up,” Brenda said, popping the top of one of the hefty laptops open. Beside the ten or fifteen different antennas sticking out of it, the machine seemed fairly basic. Brenda smirked at the slack-jawed bemusement of the CDC agent.

“Thank you for being so thorough, too,” Brenda continued. “Until we get down to the source of all this madness, we can never be too careful.”

“Okay,” Trish muttered. “What’s all this crap you have here?”

“Spectrum analyzer, EMF detector, Geiger counter, and a few other monitoring devices.” Phillip spouted the terms off systematically. “We’re going to be checking for all different types of radiation. There’s a very strong possibility what we’re dealing with here doesn’t have anything to do with biology, virology, botany, or any of those subsets.”

“That’s looking more obvious every second,” Trish said with just a hint of sarcasm. “No matter what type of suit we wear, we end up turning back. No one has been able to get close enough to that ship to figure anything out. Now you’re saying we might have all been exposed to some sort of radioactive substance?”

Brenda and Phillip looked sideways at each other. David wasn’t paying any attention and more than likely would not have been able to comment on the matter anyway. He was rubbing his stomach like he was ready to eat—or vomit. Marcus took the opportunity to educate Trish on what they were looking for before either of the brain-children attacked her.

“Radioactive infers that there is a material present that is unstable, thus releasing isotopes which may be entering people and not leaving. People might be exhibiting radiation poisoning in that case. No, we’re looking for a device that may be emitting radiation, like a microwave or a radio antenna. This would have immediate effects on the body within the effective area that would not linger once the person has left that area.”

“I’m aware of what RF radiation does to people,” Trish responded grumpily. “Nausea, headaches, fatigue—nothing this particular case exhibits.”

“Which is why it’s so interesting,” Marcus mused. He stood in speculative contemplation for a moment. The team had always theorized that some super-Relic might exist capable of affecting everyone, but none of them wanted to entertain the idea. It would mean bad news for the team and everyone involved.

“I hate hospitals,” Cynthia said, subconsciously scratching the glove covering her maimed hand. “I remember the last time I had to spend time in one of these places. They kept telling me this wicked thing would heal. Guess they were wrong. Jerks don’t know what to tell a grieving woman.”

“Grieving?” Henry questioned from the driver’s seat of the sedan in which they were currently seated. They had been granted permission to land at Philadelphia International Airport which gave them access to the Delaware Expressway. The ride to the hospital was in the comfort of another government agency rental; an unmarked police vehicle loaned to the Division for the hour or two that they would need it. Though the backseats were plastic, it was better than renting something and wasting more time.

The trip was a quick twenty minute jaunt down the expressway and into the inner city. They would only have to deal with a few crowded streets before they could find parking and finally find their patient in the biggest hospital in the city.

“Yes, grieving,” Cynthia answered, holding up her gloved hand and flexing it dramatically in the light of the passenger seat. “I’m grieving for the beauty of my hand. This one was my favorite.”

Henry chuckled. Stephen made a sour face that told Cynthia he thought she was serious.

“Well,” Henry continued, “at least you didn’t lose it altogether. Besides, hospitals aren’t that bad. It’s where people come to get better. You just happen to be an exception to the rule, dear. In any case, it’s a shame I can’t come inside and help you interrogate our young witness, but I’ll be looking for a lead-lined box to transport this mysterious machine. I still want to figure out what’s going on at that dock. It seems like someone may have inadvertently created a weapon and killed themselves in the process. I’m looking forward to getting out there.”

“Same here,” Stephen agreed. “It seems much more interesting dealing with a loony box than a loony woman.”

The day outside had turned out to be beautiful. The clear blue skies held hardly more than a hint of the cold front that had moved through the area. It was a warm day and all of them were thankful the long winter seemed to have finally lost its grip on spring. Henry even had a window down and a hand glided alongside the vehicle as they drove. Humming along, he reminded Cynthia and Stephen of some young man who had recently found love.

Though he had been catching more and more flack for being as old as he was, he was still an irreplaceable asset to the team and the Division. He may not be as quick on his feet as he once was, but he could still shoot the eye out of a gnat at 50 meters. His knowledge, especially when it came to setting up communications for the often-deployed team, was priceless. Marcus regularly commented on the fact that Henry could set up an entire network in the amount of time it took a team of electricians to replace one circuit breaker.

Henry exited the expressway and jogged this way and that before getting on the correct road. It ran along the shore of the Delaware River. In the distance he could see battleships from the World War II era, moored as exhibits for tourists to ogle. They were relics of the past, wrought in times of war and made for destruction, yet no one had ever gone crazy around them. It made him think of the Relic that had given them so much trouble just a few months ago.

Women and men, some with dogs and some without ran down the paths along the river. There was even a family here and there enjoying the warm sun with Frisbees or soft squishy footballs. He couldn’t help wanting to get out and join them along the banks of the slowly moving waterway. His only stipulation was that he needed a beer and a cigar in order to have his own fun.

Within minutes they were parked and headed up the long hallway toward the infectious disease corridor in the hospital. The brown tile walls made Henry feel uneasy—he had seen his fair share of men and women pass away in the drably colored hospitals of old. He wondered for a brief moment if they were ever going to get around to updating the place.

“We’re here to see a young girl.” Stephen flashed his federal identification to the man behind the reception desk. Henry had already headed down to the basement to meet with a man who might have a lead-lined box. “She was brought in from a yacht in Jersey this morning. We’re pretty sure she’s being held in the—”

“Yeah, I know the one,” the fairly large man said, cutting Stephen off. What little remained of his red hair was in the shape of a horseshoe around the top of his balding head. His red nose and greasy complexion told Henry that he most likely had a problem with alcohol. “Brought her in this morning off that crazy ship in Jersey and now she’s in the I.D.W.”

Stephen looked sideways at Cynthia.

“Infectious Disease Ward; I.D.W.,” the fat man clarified. Stephen noticed his nametag said ‘Ashley’.

“It’s a family name,” Ashley said, noting how long Stephen had taken to look at the tag. “I go by Ash though; makes me sound badass. Anyway, you guys have been cleared to see her, apparently. You’re going to need some masks though, and you can’t touch her.”

“Sounds good,” Stephen answered. “Where do we sign in?”

“Us, too.” Stephen and Cynthia had been oblivious to the fact that two sinister looking individuals had snuck up behind them. One was a rather ugly woman with huge pouty lips. Her stringy hair was black and thin and she hid her wrinkles with a pound of makeup. Stephen could feel the cigarette smell burning his nostrils as she approached. She wore large dark sunglasses which hid most of her age, but Stephen could tell that she had to have lived a hard fifty years, at least.