“Can they save her?” I asked, trying to hold back tears.
Rachel heard it in my voice, turning and gently rubbing my upper arm as she looked in my eyes.
“They have the cure,” she said softly. “It’s the psychological part that is the problem now. Maybe, before the attacks, with the right therapist, drugs and enough time, the damage could be managed. Not undone. The human mind doesn’t work like that. But if a person was strong enough, emotionally, perhaps they could eventually be helped and have a chance at a normal life. Now?”
I stared at her for a long time, processing what she’d said. Knew she was right. Then the tears began to flow and I fought to suppress a sob. Started to turn away, too prideful to allow her to see my pain.
Grabbing my shoulders, Rachel pulled me around and wrapped me in a hug. Held me as I cried like a child.
46
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
Rachel looked up and gave me a reassuring smile.
“Yes, I do,” she said patiently. “Plus, Joe and Dr. Kanger made sure I was well versed in the procedure before they left.”
We were standing in an isolation room. Katie, unconscious, was strapped to a gurney between us. Colonel Blanchard, the Rangers and Marines had left several hours ago, just after sunrise. Kanger had started Katie’s cooling process before he boarded a C-130, and Rachel had been closely monitoring her since he departed.
Now, Katie’s body temperature was approaching the target. Thirty-two degrees Celsius. Rachel had turned off the sedation drip that was keeping her out. Kanger wasn’t sure, but had cautioned that it might interfere with the effects of the cure.
“She’s waking up,” Rachel said.
I hadn’t needed the heads up. My attention had been focused on my wife. I’d noticed that her fingers had begun twitching. A moment later, she slowly turned her head to the side. I wanted to reach out and touch her face, but it was still covered with the mask that had protected the researchers. I settled for taking her hand in mind.
Suddenly, she gripped my hand hard enough to hurt. I endured the discomfort as her eyes snapped open. Her horrible, red eyes.
They darted around the room, pausing briefly on me before locking on Rachel. She began struggling against the restraints, a scream erupting from her throat. The leather cuffs that held her wrists and ankles were more than adequate to keep her in place, but she tested them as she bucked against the belts around her chest and hips. Rachel did her best to ignore Katie’s struggles and continuous screaming.
“Shouldn’t she be calmer with a lower body temperature?” I asked.
“Not according to Joe,” Rachel answered, preparing a syringe. “She’ll be slowed down, but her body can sustain itself during hypothermia much better than ours.”
I nodded, maintaining my grip on Katie’s hand. She ignored me, her full attention focused on her efforts to reach Rachel.
“I’m ready,” Rachel said, holding up a large syringe for me to see. “Are you sure about this?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“John,” she said, her voice barely audible over Katie’s screams.
I looked up and met her eyes.
“If this works, but she’s left catatonic…”
“I have to try,” I said, looking back down at Katie.
Rachel nodded, inserted the needle into a port on the IV tubing and depressed the plunger. Nothing changed, immediately, but then I didn’t expect it to. Rachel quickly cleaned up and headed for the door. Katie’s eyes tracked her every step of the way.
“I’ll be close if you need me,” Rachel said, then pushed out of the room.
It was several minutes before Katie stopped screaming. When she did, hope blossomed in my chest and I leaned over her face, talking to her. I thought I saw recognition in her eyes, but I also saw an uncontrollable fury. Then she screamed and I sat on the stool I’d pulled close to the gurney.
Forty-eight hours. That’s how long it took the cure to work. If it was going to work. Sitting there, I started talking to my wife. Told stories about vacations we’d taken. Road trips we’d been on. Talked about the dream house we’d never had the chance to build. The river cruise in Europe she’d wanted to take, but I’d kept putting off because I was too busy.
Sometime later, I looked up at the clock and realized I’d been talking for nearly six hours. That had to be a record for me. I’ve never been a big talker, and more than a few sentences at a time was unusual. But as I sat there, everything had poured out.
I looked at the equipment monitoring Katie’s status. Her heart rate and blood pressure were high, but her body temperature hadn’t changed. The machine that was cooling her blood hummed away in the corner, doing its job. I wish I’d asked how soon she would develop a fever, but I hadn’t thought to pose the question.
Katie had calmed, her eyes frequently closing for long stretches of time. At first, I’d thought she was lapsing into unconsciousness from the hypothermia, but the grip on my hand never wavered. Stayed solid, her fingers like iron. I didn’t know if it was because she knew it was me, or because that’s what an infected does when something is in their hand.
I was numb to the elbow from the pressure. But I wasn’t going to let go. If the cure worked, and she came back to me, I wanted my hand in hers to be the first thing she felt. The first thing she was aware of.
The door opened quietly and Rachel stepped into the room. I glanced up, noting eight hours had passed. We were in one of the stretches where Katie’s eyes were closed, so there wasn’t an immediate, screaming reaction to Rachel’s presence.
“You need a break,” Rachel said quietly in my ear, her hand resting gently on my back.
I shook my head.
“Look. I know you plan to stay here with her the whole time. But you at least need water, and some food wouldn’t hurt. I made you an MRE. It’s on the desk outside the door. Go eat and get something to drink. Have a smoke. I’ll stay with her until you come back.”
“Shouldn’t her temp be coming up by now?” I asked, ignoring what Rachel had just said.
“Some of the test subjects responded right away. Others, not for almost eighteen hours,” Rachel said.
I nodded and only pried my hand free of Katie’s grip because I badly needed to use the restroom.
“You’ll stay here?” I asked Rachel as I stood.
“I’ll be right here,” she said, moving to the far end of the room so Katie couldn’t see her if she woke up.
I took another look at my wife, then left the room. Took care of business and gobbled down the MRE Rachel had left for me. Standing where I could see through a glass, observation window, I smoked a cigarette.
Returning to the isolation room, I resumed my seat and took Katie’s hand in mine. This time, there was no iron grip, just a gentle closing of her fingers around mine. Rachel looked like she wanted to say something, but apparently decided to keep whatever it was to herself.
The time passed slowly, probably even more so because my eyes were glued to the monitors. Waiting for a change in Katie’s internal temperature. At the eighteen-hour mark, it was still solidly on 32. Rachel came in, checked the displays and started to leave.
“It’s not going up,” I said, hearing the anguish in my voice.
“Give it time,” she said, then left.
At twenty hours, there was still no change. I caught a glimpse of Rachel standing outside, looking through the window. At twenty-four hours, she came back in the room.
“Why isn’t it changing?” I asked.
“The cure may not work on her,” Rachel said, looking anywhere other than at me. “Dr. Kanger said it was ninety percent effective. She may be one of the ten percent it doesn’t work on.”
Despair took me at that point. I’d had hope. Belief that my wife could be saved. I knew how strong she was. Didn’t believe for an instant that if the infection could be beaten that she’d succumb to the psychological effects. That wasn’t her. She was too strong and too fucking stubborn to sit in a corner and give up.
But if the cure didn’t work on her…
47
I sat in the sand with my knees pulled to my chest, forearms resting on them, and stared at a point between my feet. Dog lay in the sun, a few yards away, panting softly. A pistol was in my right hand, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. Pain, rage and despair all coursed through me. I guess I’d decide what the weapon was for once one of them won the battle for control.
It was mid-afternoon and the sun baked my shaved head and shoulders. It was warm enough for sweat to form on my scalp and slowly run down to drip off my nose. Each drop made a small, dark splotch on the sand until the moisture completely evaporated. I was fascinated, watching each spot and counting how long it took for it to disappear.
Several minutes later, a small, yellow scorpion crawled by. It was apparently on a mission and not interested in me. Up and over the toe of my boot, then on about its business. I let it go in peace.
I looked up when a large shadow blocked the sun. It was Igor, a bouquet of wildflowers tightly gripped in his rough hand. He stared at me for a moment, looked at the pistol I was holding, then sat on the sand by my side.
We sat there for a long time, neither of us speaking, each lost in his own thoughts. Finally, I couldn’t take the distraction of his presence any longer.
“What?”
“I pay respects,” he said, wiggling the hand holding the flowers.
I nodded, then resumed watching my sweat dropping onto the sand.
“What you do with gun?” Igor asked a few minutes later.
“Haven’t decided yet,” I said, watching the last of a dark spot evaporate.
Igor grunted and went quiet. We sat there for nearly half an hour before he spoke again.
“Rachel worried for you,” he said. “Woman love you.”
“I know,” I nodded.
“She not your wife, but you love her?”
“Yes,” I said after several minutes had passed.
Igor didn’t say anything, and after a few more minutes I asked him a question.
“Are you in love with Irina?”
“She no like men,” he said, a slightly wistful tone in his voice.
“Not what I asked.”
I looked over at him, seeing him staring down the length of the runway. Far in the distance, several figures were standing in the sun, apparently watching us. I caught a glint of gold as light reflected off Irina’s blonde hair.
“Not matter,” Igor finally said. “She officer.”
“Big fucking deal,” I snorted. “Tell her. All she can do is say no.”
“That hurt worse than bullet,” Igor chuckled, and for a moment, I did too.
“Put gun away. Say goodbye. Go to woman who loves you,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“Then we go Australia.”
“Why?” I asked.
“We kill men who caused this.”
He stood and moved in front of me, extending his hand. After a long moment I holstered my pistol and let him pull me to my feet. Moving past, he knelt at the mound of soil where I’d buried my wife. A loaded syringe, prepared by Rachel and administered by me, had ended her suffering without her regaining consciousness from the hypothermic state.
I’d sat with her the full forty-eight hours, but her temperature had never budged. No fever. The cure didn’t work for her. After the machines indicated that her heart had stopped, I’d gently removed her restraints. I was in a daze that was a combination of two straight days of sitting by my wife’s side, and the shock that she was gone. Gently, I’d scooped her into my arms and carried her lifeless body out of the isolation room.
Igor placed the flowers he’d gathered on Katie’s grave, said something in Russian then stood and faced me. Uncharacteristically, he pulled me into a bone crushing hug, then walked away. He called Dog, who raced after him as he headed for the small group that had stayed behind.
Stepping closer, I looked down at my wife’s final resting place. Tears rolled down my face as I told her I loved her and said I was sorry I couldn’t save her. After several minutes, I walked away. Australia. Time for Barinov to die.
Want to learn more about the Athena Project? Turn the page to read a sample of my new thriller,
36
. It’s available through Amazon in both Kindle and trade paperback editions.
Sample of 36
1
Trevor Solverson sat watching the massive white and green ferry slowly approaching Pier 52 on Seattle’s waterfront. The sun was shining brightly, gleaming off the boat’s bridge windows. It was another glorious, summer day in the Pacific Northwest, the waters of Puget Sound almost impossibly blue under the clear sky.
All around, cars and trucks were lined up, waiting to board the ferry which would transport them across the open waters of the Sound to Bainbridge Island. It was a short trip, taking no more than 35 minutes from dock to dock, and was one of the busiest routes served by the Washington State Ferry System.
Trevor lit a cigarette with nervous hands, his stomach threatening to rebel. He was only 17 years old and this would be the first time he had ever driven a vehicle onto one of the massive ferry boats. For that matter, it was the first time he had driven beyond the confines of his well-heeled, suburban neighborhood other than a few practice runs with the truck. Navigating the maze of freeways and surface streets had been nerve wracking for the young driver. Doing it in choking traffic had nearly caused him to abandon his quest.
But he had persevered. Pushed on. Reminded himself that he was doing God’s work. That thought had given him the strength to calm his racing heart and keep pushing the large GMC truck to the docks. Now he sat, waiting as vehicles began streaming off, sweating as he puffed on the cigarette.
He jumped when his cell phone rang. Snatching it out of a cup holder between the seats, he sent the call to voice mail after checking the caller ID. His mother. Checking the time, he realized why she was calling.