The Pandemic Sequence (Book 3): The Tilian Cure (21 page)

The chair in which she sat was constructed of thick wood. Flexing wrists and ankles subtly, she determined her legs were free to move. Her arms were stretched across the chair’s back and bound by cord or zip ties. A glance across her chest and hips revealed she had been stripped of all weapons. Forcing herself to steady, measured breaths, Michelle tried to focus on the voices.

Even with the dull ringing, Duncan’s Louisiana accent proved a distinctive identifier. The second voice, further from her she believed, was flat and barren of any dialectal nuance. Concentrating, and ignoring the thumping of her heart, she was beginning to pick up some of the conversation.

“Satellite is finally showing movement,” the unfamiliar voice said.

The Cajun twang responded. “Very well. Continue to monitor the situation closely. Alert me when there is engagement.”

“Yes, sir.”

For a moment both voices died away. Slowly counting to ten before moving her body, Michelle’s hopes that the men had left the room died when Duncan’s voice, barely feet away, caused her to jump.

“Good morning, Michelle. Well, nearly so, at any rate.”

Abandoning the ruse, she raised her head to find Duncan leaning against his desk. Looking slightly more unkempt than she remembered him, the man bore a sneering grin as he stared at her.

“Nasty bit of work back there. You killed eight of my guards,” he said with words of soft sugar. Even knowing the depths of his malevolence, Michelle could still hear the charisma that had served him well. “Didn’t think you were capable of such savagery.”

“You don’t know what I am capable of, you bastard!” she spat the words at him.

Smirking, he replied. “Indeed? There’s a simple remedy for that, though. But first I must say I am surprised to find you here. I assumed by now you would have been far away from New Cuba.”

Willing her eyes to reveal nothing, Michelle fixed the man responsible for Andrew’s death a cold stare and clenched her jaw.

“I wonder where you have been keeping yourself, and more importantly, what you have been doing.” Michelle fought back a shiver as Duncan’s expression snapped from bemused to dangerous; eyes which had held bewitching affability shifted to sinister menacing. “Your discoveries in the east could prove very inconvenient to me. Which I’m sure you know. So again, I wonder what brings you back here?”

Straining to match the evenness with which Duncan spoke, she replied flatly. “I’m not going to play your little game. Just kill me.”

A sharp laugh sliced out of the councilor. “Kill you? I’ve made a career out of not wasting resources, girl. I am short eight soldiers, but I have their killer, and that’s a very valuable resource. You’ll make for a fine replacement.”

“Sure, I’ll guard you. Just give me a gun.”

Straightening himself, Duncan turned his back to her, walked around the desk and eased into the black tufted leather chair. Facing her once again, humanity’s traitor smiled. “You mistake me. Men with guns are a dying relic. The ferocity in you will nicely compliment the… what did your group call them… Tils? Yes, Tils… I quite like that name.”

Panic surged and Michelle bucked wildly in the seat but her bonds were too tightly secured to allow much movement. She had been prepared to die in her attempt to reach Duncan. Being converted to a Til, however, was a far more unnerving fate. Ceasing her feckless battle with chair and bonds, Michelle stilled her body. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” she seethed.

“You can of course, spare yourself a forced evolution. Tell me what I want to know and I might take pity on you. Where are your friends? Mike Allard, Erik Lasdale, and your fiancée Andrew Weyland?”

“I don’t know.”

Duncan’s sneer slipped slightly. For a moment he simply sat and stared across the dark mahogany desk. Rising again to his feet, he slowly made his way to her, a circling shark biding its time. “Where are your friends?” he asked again in a midnight whisper.

“I told you I don’t know!”

The blow came as a shock. Michelle had not seen his hand rise until the back of it collided painfully with her jaw. Specks of white flashed across her vision as her head was driven to her left shoulder. The metallic tang of blood from a cut to her lip pooled at the back of her throat. Pain flared again as Duncan grasped her jaw, his fingers pushing cheeks against teeth. She grunted as she felt new wounds slowly shredding open in her mouth. Duncan pressed his face close to her, his breath citrus sweet.

“You think you know pain?” he rasped threateningly. “Seen people you love die? Watched as their throats were ripped out? Tell me what I need to know or I’ll make those the happiest memories of your life.”

The second blow struck as surprisingly as the first, though this time the hand was curled into a tight fist. A tooth that had loosened moments before, now flew freely from her mouth.

The interrogation continued for nearly an hour. Duncan loomed over her asking the same question repeatedly. Each of her refusals to answer earned another strike from the man. Through swollen eyes, Michelle could see the blood dripping from the councilor’s fist. There was some satisfaction that the dark liquid was not solely her own blood. He had lacerated his hand on her teeth, which stoked his anger and resulted in further punishment. For survival, she clung to the minor victory that she had yet to divulge information and betray her friends.

“Why do you continue to resist?” Duncan asked her during a momentary reprieve from the pummeling. “Do you expect me to believe that three of your friends simply disappeared the same day you did?”

“What does it matter?” she retorted through spilt, aching lips. Michelle tried to infuse the words with resilience, but she could feel her strength waning. “Your Tils are running loose all over the island. You’ve lost. We’ve lost.”

“The Tils run loose because I allow it.”

“Why?”

“Because the world is being remade, Michelle.” His tone was filled with explanatory condescension. “The Ira Project is now the only insurance we have that American interests will prevail. Even now survivors across the globe are rebuilding, restarting civilizations. This country has been a superpower for a century. The Tils ensure our dominance in world affairs will continue.”

“You’re making an army with them?” It was less question and more sudden realization that marked her words.

“Certainly it was not the original goal of the Ira Project. The virus was developed to incapacitate our enemies, then it spread beyond our control. But as I’ve said, I never waste a resource. The past years on this island have been spent studying and understanding the virus. Learning how to control the infected, direct them at a specified target. Did you not wonder how the top floors of this building are secure when so many of the Tils walk freely below us? They can be controlled now.”

Michelle knew he referred to the ARC, but she made a conscious effort to conceal any knowledge she had of the device’s existence. The trick was simple as her thoughts were consumed by Duncan’s mention of survivors across the world. If the man knew of such groups, Michelle was determined to coax further details from him. “We are probably the only ones left. You’ve killed any chance of a future.”

“Ah, you caught that part?” he sneered once again. “Of course there are others out there. Hundreds of thousands, likely more, across the world. Before the pandemic, we were the masters of more satellites than most countries combined. Did you really think all that technological power was lost to us?”

“You’ve seen them.” She had heard the guard with whom Duncan had spoken mention satellites. Whatever capabilities of the modern world had been lost to average citizens, he still had access to orbiting machines, and the eagle eye views they provided.

“You understand now. We’ve avoided most direct contact until I could be sure of our own strength. The first test proved successful. And by day’s end a second operation will be completed. Then, we can reemerge from our long solitude and reclaim our global position. The technology to control the infected provides us incalculable leverage over the nations of the world.”

“Test?”

Duncan seemed to hesitate before he answered, as if weighing how much information was wise to share with his captive. Ego and self-assurance that her fate was inescapable won out in his calculations, and the councilor all but crowed with conceit. “A band of survivors in Texas has unknowingly volunteered to test our control of the infected. They’ve spent the past few days constructing useless defenses. Nearly three quarters of a million Tils are about to sweep over them.”

Coincidence had long since left her philosophy, and Michelle knew that her friends, people with whom she had faced the impossible, were among that band of survivors. All sense of defeat, bowing before the executioner’s blade, evaporated. It would be impossible to retrieve the ARCs and deliver them to Mike in time, but another piece of Duncan’s words, a last glimmer of hope, fused the steel to her spine.

But, how to escape? If left alone, she might be able to find a way to free herself. Telling Duncan what he wanted to know, which surely could not put her friends in any greater peril than what they already faced, might cause him to leave the room. It also might mean I am no longer useful and he’ll kill me.

The decision was taken from her when a guard entered the room. “Sir, we have an update,” he announced from the doorway. Duncan stepped to his desk, opened a drawer and removed a neatly folded handkerchief. After wiping the blood from his hand, the councilor tossed the cloth into a waste basket and followed the guard out of the office. Like the blood stained handkerchief, he seemed to dismiss Michelle from his thoughts.

Waiting to hear the door close behind the pair of men, she began to inch the chair towards the desk. Duncan, in tending to his wounded knuckles, had brought Michelle’s eyes to an overlooked item on his desk. Raising her free legs from the ground, she pulled the old-fashioned tape dispenser to the edge of the furniture. Knowing she had but minutes to complete what was potentially her only possibility of escape, she began to pivot the chair so she eventually had her back to the desk. Straining against the binds on her wrists, she lifted her arms along the seat back until she could feel the dispenser. If I drop it, it’s game over, her mind warned as she slid the object into her hands.

Not expecting the tape dispenser to be as heavy as it was, she fumbled for a frightening second before securing her hands around it. Working blindly, she quickly slid the small metal cutting teeth along the restraints. Several times she slipped and winced as the flesh of wrist and fingers were scored. The fresh trickle of blood made her manipulations more difficult. A near-silent snap preceded the spasm of freedom as her hands flew apart. Standing immediately, Michelle gripped the weighty dispenser-turned-cudgel as she desperately scanned the room. Now what? Undoubtedly the outer office held guards and she was not likely to last more than a few seconds armed only with the dispenser. Her only option, she decided, was the window, the fourth-story window.

Loud voices from the outer office froze her before she reached the paned glass.

“Let me go! Where is she? Where is she?” a hoarse voiced screamed in panic. The unmistakable thud of forceful contact reached her ears just as she recognized the shouting voice. Matt!

As the door opened, Michelle raised her head with feigned wooziness and watched as Matt Locke was dragged forward and thrown roughly to the floor, hands secured behind his back. Blood trickled from a deep gash above his right eye and red welts along his jaw were already turning to a sickening yellow. Relief that he still lived warred with sympathy as she saw his present condition.

Duncan entered the room next, ordering the guard to close the door on his exit. The councilor looked from Matt to Michelle, a look of insincere pity splashed across his face. “You didn’t tell me you had friends in the building?” he said with brow furrowed in consternation. “The surprise, however, is quite opportune. As I said, I never waste a resource.” Duncan pulled a gun from inside his black jacket. Chambering a round, he then pointed the gun at Matt’s head.

“No!” Michelle shouted from the chair.

Unwilling to abandon Matt, she had rushed to return the office to its previous state. She clasped her hands behind the seatback and hoped Duncan did not notice the missing binds.

“This will be the last time I ask you,” he told her with a voice of pure ice. “Where are you friends?”

Matt, kneeling now, looked into Michelle’s eyes. He shook his head slightly, urging her to remain silent. Only recently joining with her and the other mountain survivors, Michelle fought back tears as she watched him willingly offer his life for their safety.

“Fine. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just leave him alone!”

“Where are they?”

“You were right. We took a boat and left the island that night. We landed in Florida. From there we moved west to Louisiana. Fort Polk.”

At the mention of the first Ira Project facility, Duncan’s face betrayed surprise. His body tensed almost imperceptibly as he walked over to Michelle. “Fort Polk.”

“Yes,” she continued. “We found your old lab. They have all your secrets, Duncan. They’ll beat your Til army and expose you to the world. They have an ARC.”