Dream Sky (38 page)

She closed her eyes, thinking she’d rest for a second, regain her strength so she could…figure out…what…had…hap—

__________

G
ABRIEL MOVED HIS
eye from his rifle’s scope and patted Cahill on the back. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks,” Cahill said. “You, too.”

Gabriel frowned. “I was trying for her head.”

“Close enough.”

As they rose to their feet, Walker asked, “We go after them?”

Gabriel scanned the back of the stadium, and saw that the group that had been fleeing was heading once more for the fence.

“They’ll be fine. We go inside.”

__________

A
T THE SOUND
of the first two shots at the back of the stadium, Martina increased her speed, getting almost all the way to the wall by the time the second pair of shots went off.

She raced along the wall, looking for a way in as she tried not to think about the possibility that one of the bullets had hit Ben, but all the gates were locked.

She screamed in frustration.

“Over here!” Nyla yelled from along the fence behind her. “Boost me up.”

Martina raced back. “I’ll go.”

“No. I will.”

“No way!”

“Martina, which one of us is armed?”

Martina almost said to give her the rifle, but she knew Nyla was right. Martina had no firearms experience.

She laced her fingers together. As soon as Nyla stepped into the cradle, Martina thrust up her hands.

“Hurry,” she said as Nyla dropped out of sight. “Please hurry.”

__________

B
EN HAD BEEN
sure his life was over. But then the doctor had collapsed. Before her colleague could react, he was down, too.

There were shouts of surprise. Ben thought one of them had been his, but he quickly pulled himself together and said, “Come on!”

He raced back to the outside fence and was about to start climbing when he noticed movement to the left.

A woman with dark brown skin stepped from the shadows, a rifle in her hands.

As soon as the others saw her, they stopped in their tracks, a few raising their hands in surrender.

“Drop your weapons!” the woman said.

“We’re not armed,” Ben told her.

“We heard gunshots,” she said.

He couldn’t help but flick a gaze at the two dead doctors. When the woman looked, too, he said, “We didn’t do it. Someone else shot them. I don’t know who.”

The woman sidestepped over to the bodies. She poked a foot against Dr. Lawrence but didn’t bother with Dr. Rivera. When she seemed satisfied, she lowered her weapon.

“You’re the prisoners?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, I guess we are,” Ben said. “Who are you?”

“Let’s just say I’m not with them,” she said, nodding toward the bodies. “Any of you know how to shoot?”

No one moved.

She picked up the pistols the doctors had been using. “Anyone?”

Still no response.

She tossed one pistol to Ben, and the other to Jilly. “You’ll figure it out. Now come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

She led them behind the left-field bleachers and showed them how to help each other over the fence.

“There are more people still in the detention area,” Ben said. “And another inside somewhere. We can’t leave them here.”

The woman thought for a moment. “It’s Ben, isn’t it?”

He was surprised, but didn’t think he had time to ask how she knew. “Yeah.”

“Good to meet you, Ben. I’m Nyla. Show me where these others are.”

__________

T
EAMS B AND C
each reported successful entry into the stadium. All three teams made their way into the interior and headed toward the home-plate end of the structure.

Here and there they encountered sporadic gunfire, but most of the shooters appeared to have very little idea about what they were doing and were subdued with little effort.

“Gabriel?” Anton Helms’s voice said over the radio as the teams did a final sweep.

“Go for Gabriel.”

“Something here you need to see.”

“Where are you?”

Following Helms’s directions, Gabriel made his way to a set of rooms that appeared to have been converted into a medical facility. Helms and two others were standing by a windowed door.

“So?” Gabriel said.

“Over here.”

Gabriel walked over and looked through the window. A girl who couldn’t have been much more than eighteen was standing a few feet inside, staring back with fear in her eyes.

“Please, let me out,” she said, her voice coming out of an intercom on the wall. “Please.”

Gabriel glanced at Helms. “What’s going on?”

Helms shrugged. “We just found her like this. Said they stuck her in here earlier today after giving her an inoculation.”

“Double inoculation,” the girl corrected.

“Right, double. Apparently they told her she had to wait twenty-four hours to make sure it took.”

“Uh, and why would that be?” Gabriel asked.

Helms turned off the intercom and motioned for Gabriel to follow him. About ten feet over was a set of valves mounted on the wall, with one set of hoses leading to the door of the room the man was in, and another set leading to several metal tanks.

He touched the first. “This one’s on and hooked up to a couple of tanks marked O2.” He skipped the two middle ones and pointed at the fourth. “This one? Well, come here.”

He traced the hose back to a single tank. On the outside was stenciled
KV-27a
.

Gabriel gaped. They’d all heard the code before. It was Project Eden’s designation for the Sage Flu virus.

“They’re pumping virus into her room?” he asked.

“Pumped,” Helms corrected him. He easily picked up the tank with two fingers under the valve. “It’s empty.”

Gabriel shot a look back at the room. “Why?”

“You got me.”

They walked back over.

“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” the girl pleaded.

“You’re going to be okay,” Gabriel said, hoping that was true. “The people who were running this place are no longer in charge.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. We were right, weren’t we?”

“Right about what?”

“Some of the others and I were starting to think the doctors and guards weren’t who they claimed to be. And that they didn’t really plan on helping us.”

“No, ma’am, they didn’t.”

“Are you the UN?”

“The UN died with everyone else.”

“Then who are you?”

“We’re the ones who are going to figure out how to keep you alive.”

__________

P
AX AND MARTINA
heard the sound of running steps just inside the stadium, and then voices. A few seconds later something pounded against the fence and a head poked over the top.

“Jilly?” Martina said.

The girl looked down. “Martina?” She turned so she could glance back on the other side. “Martina’s here!”

Jilly swung over the top and dropped down. She hugged Martina so tight it hurt, but neither seemed to care.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” Jilly said. “You came for us!”

Four more came over, including a man Martina didn’t know, but the others were from her old softball team. She and Valerie even hugged, whatever problems between them forgotten for now or maybe forever.

When the last person dropped down, Martina stared expectantly at the top of the wall. “Where’s Ben? I saw him. He’s with you, isn’t he?” She moved up to the fence and yelled, “Ben!”

“He went back to the enclosure with that woman,” Jilly said.

“What woman?”

“The one with the gun. I thought she was with you.”

“Nyla?”

Jilly shrugged. “I guess.”

“Why would he go back?”

“There were others locked up with us,” Jilly said. “And Ruby…they took her somewhere early today.”

“All right,” Pax said. “We’re not safe here. I want you all to head across the parking lot to those trees over there and wait. Martina can show you where.”

“I am
not
going anywhere,” Martina told him.

He frowned but said, “Okay. The rest of you go. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“If Martina’s staying, we’re staying,” Jilly said.

“Definitely,” Valerie agreed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Pax said. “Did you hear those gunshots?”

“We saw two people killed in front of us,” Jilly said. “So, yeah, we heard them. And we’re staying.”

It was another four minutes before they heard people arriving on the other side again.

“Stand back!” Nyla yelled.

Everyone moved away from the fence.

A rifle blasted and the fence shuddered. There was the rattle of a chain, and then a gate a few feet away swung open.

The rest of the survivors swarmed out.

And at the very end came Nyla and Ben.

Martina rushed forward and threw her arms around him. At first he didn’t seem to realize who she was. He pushed her back enough so he could take a look, and then his breath caught in his throat.

Their kiss was infused with relief and joy and longing.

It didn’t matter what happened now.

She had found him.

January 8
^th

World Population

701,217,009

35

JAIPUR, INDIA

11:37 AM IST

“I
SEE HIM.
I see him,” Darshana said over the radio.

Sanjay looked west toward the building she was on, though he couldn’t see her from where he was. “What’s he doing?” he asked.

“Talking to another man. It looks like they are walking back to the car.”

“This other man, what does he look like?”

“Tall. Maybe forty. Short hair.”

“European or Indian?”

“European.”

Sanjay frowned. Not Director Mahajan. At least they still had eyes on van Assen.

“Kusum, are you ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” she responded.

Two hours earlier, van Assen had shown up at the survival station, alone in a car. Hopefully his next stop would be NB551. Sanjay and Kusum were both waiting on motorcycles, ready to take up pursuit.

“Van Assen’s getting in the car,” Darshana said.

“The other man going with him?”

“No. He’s alone.” Several seconds, then, “He’s leaving. Turning…east.”

Kusum’s route.

“I’ll catch up,” Sanjay said. He kicked his bike to life.

The people in America had called early that morning with the request for him and his friends to prepare to create some chaos in Jaipur. Since there were only the three of them, it was understood the chaos wouldn’t be much, but they were told whatever they could do would help.

To that end, the first thing they’d done that morning was locate a fireworks factory on the edge of town, where they obtained several small barrels of powder and reels of fuses. They hid the kegs around the perimeter of the station, ganging fuses so several could be lit at the same time. Darshana was staying behind so that if the call to act came while he and Kusum were following van Assen, Darshana could light them up. The makeshift bombs wouldn’t do much damage, but they would be unnerving.

Sanjay caught up to Kusum five minutes later on the street paralleling the one van Assen was using.

“Keep on him,” he told her over the radio. “Tell me every time he turns. I am going ahead.”

“To where?”

“I have an idea. Just do not lose him.”

Sanjay twisted the accelerator and raced away. He didn’t want to share his plan with her, knowing she would try to talk him out of it, but if it worked, they might be able to provide the Americans with more than the distraction from a few barrels of gunpowder.

Using Kusum’s directional information, he tried to stay at least two blocks ahead of van Assen. One time he screwed up and fell behind, but quickly made up the distance. Finally, when it seemed the Dutchman was going in one steady direction, Sanjay increased his distance to four blocks, then five, then six.

As they neared what appeared to be a warehouse district, he thought they must be getting close to van Assen’s destination, so he decreased his speed.

Two streets down and to the left, he saw it. Thankfully, it was far enough away that the guard at the gate didn’t see him. Even if there wasn’t a guard there, he would have pegged the place for a base. The array of satellite dishes and antennas on the roof was incongruous with the rest of the buildings in the area, and while the structure itself appeared appropriately worn, he would swear it was designed to look that way.

He turned the bike around. “Where are you?” he asked.

Kusum gave him a location that was only two and a half blocks away. He moved up to the end of the street and laid his bike down in the middle of the road, making it impossible to drive around it. Then he hid in the shadows of the building on the corner.

Twenty seconds later, van Assen’s car appeared on the road. When it neared the bike, it slowed. Van Assen had two choices: get out of the car to move the bike, or back up to use a different street. Sanjay wasn’t about to leave things to chance.

A second after the car stopped, he sprinted toward it, and was only a few meters away when the driver’s door started to open.

Perfect.

Sanjay leapt forward and grabbed the door. Van Assen yelped in surprise.

“Good morning, Mr. van Assen,” Sanjay said. “So nice to see you again.”

MADRID, SPAIN

8:08 AM CET (CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME)

L
ALO VEGA SILENTLY
worked his way around the Madrid survival station, checking on each of his people.

He sure as hell hoped this wouldn’t be for nothing. Putting all his people on the line like this felt like a disaster in the making. But the Resistance leadership back in America assured him his team wouldn’t be the only ones out tonight. It was a worldwide effort, they had said. The big push.