Plague of the Dead (23 page)

    She knew CS gas was non-toxic. One could spend their days living in a roomful of the stuff and not die-but they would not have a very pleasant few days. Light exposure left one itchy and set one’s eyes to watering. A nice lungful started your nose running and the coughing would begin shortly after. A few good breaths and you could expect to deposit your last meal on the floor-followed by whatever was left of the meal before that. She could only imagine the misery of the guards under cover next to the spent grenade.

    “Move in!” Mason said, rounding the corner and charging like a madman toward the checkpoint. One of the two remaining conscious guards was doubled over, bile trickling out of his mouth, struggling to breathe. A quick butt stroke to the head knocked the man out and sent him sprawling to the floor. The third was hacking, spitting, rubbing at his eyes and moaning. When he saw Mason coming through the cloud of gas, he reached for his sidearm, but the agent was too fast. A kick to the chest knocked the guard back, and a second butt stroke knocked him out cold.

    “Clear!” Mason yelled, coughing. The shirt he had drawn over his face was no substitute for a gas mask, and he was beginning to feel the effects as well. “Come on!”

    Anna grabbed Julie around her shoulders and dragged her past the downed guards and through the checkpoint, out of the detention block they had been held in for so long.

    Eyes watering and gasping for breath, Mason gestured down a side hall.

    “There’s a ramp down to the catacombs here. We’re almost out.”

    The trio turned the corner to find the whitewashed walls gone, replaced by bare concrete and utility lighting. Signs said they were entering a maintenance area, but Mason paid them no heed.

    “Downtown has sporadic outbreaks. We’re losing this war,” Mason said between coughs as they helped Julie negotiate the sloped floor that was taking them deep beneath the surface. “These tunnels can take us most of the way out of the city. I wanted to head to Weather, but I don’t think that would be advisable. Probably still a heavy presence of military and government there.”

    Anna said, “Mount Weather, in Virginia? That’s dozens of miles from here. Fifty, sixty…”

    “These tunnels link everything in the region,” Mason told her. “We’re heading to the suburbs. They’ll be on our trail, looking for us. Especially
you
, Colonel.”

    “
Me
?” Anna asked.

    “You’re the foremost expert on the Morningstar Strain. They want you for intelligence. They’ll come after us.”

    A vicious yell from behind startled the trio. They didn’t turn to see the source-the voice and determination said it all.

    “Mason! You bastard traitor! I’m going to kill you, kill your friends, kill your family-Mason!”

    “It’s Sawyer,” Mason breathed. “Keep moving. Hurry!”

    The ramp leveled off and the trio found themselves in a tunnel that seemed to stretch on forever. Lit with intermittent low-watt bulbs and flanked by rusting, corroded piping, the access tunnel was certainly showing its age, but it was clean and functional. Four electric carts were parked near the base of the ramp, and Mason made for one of them.

    “Put Julie in the back. I’ve got to open the security gates,” Mason said, helping Anna place the weak journalist in the cart. He jogged over to a panel on the wall that looked to Anna like a subway map-tunnels lit with green and red lights, crisscrossing in a wonderful imitation of Perseus’ labyrinth.

    Mason slapped buttons and switched tracks. Lights flicked from red to green and back to red.

    “Our path’s clear. Come on!”

    Footsteps sounded on the ramp behind them. Their pursuers were gaining on them. Anna and Mason hopped into the cart and slammed it into gear. It took off at a modest rate-no faster than a sprint. Mason pushed his sub-machine gun over to Anna.

    “Cover us!” he shouted.

    Anna picked up the weapon and swiveled in her seat, taking aim at the ramp just as Sawyer and Derrick appeared, weapons in hand. Anna squeezed the trigger, sending a fusillade of rounds back at them. The agents were good. They hit the deck, rolling apart from one another and coming up behind the carts they’d left behind, and returned fire. Rounds whizzed through the air, one so close Anna felt it brush through her hair.

    Mason sent their cart careening around a bend and braked to a stop without warning.

    “What the hell are you doing?!” Anna screamed. “Go!”

    “I’m buying us time!”

    Mason had stopped them next to another wall panel, identical to the one he had manipulated moments earlier. He slammed one button and a heavy security gate lowered from the ceiling, cutting off the passage behind them. He grabbed the sub-machine gun back from Anna, held it up to the panel, and put a pair of rounds into it. It sputtered, shot sparks, and died, lights dimming to black.

    “That should hold them for a few minutes.”

    As if to enunciate his statement, a furious pounding on the other side of the gate got their attention.

    “Mason! You shit! Open the gate!”

    “I’m out, Sawyer!” Mason shouted back. “And I’m taking your prisoners with me! We’ve got to survive! Someone’s got to survive! Stay here and die for a cause you think you believe in-I’m leaving!”

    Mason got back into the cart and the three took off again, safe for the moment. Behind them, Sawyer’s rapidly fading voice chased after them with words of conviction.

    “I swear, Mason, I won’t forget this! You’re a dead man! I’ll track you down wherever you go! You can’t hide! Do you hear me, you traitor?! You can’t hide from me! I’ll look down on your body someday, Mason! Mason!”

    If Agent Mason was fazed by the threats, he showed little sign. He seemed very focused on the tunnel that stretched out ahead of them.

    “How far do we have to go? Can’t they cut us off?” Anna asked, grasping her pistol with white knuckles and casting nervous glances behind them as if she expected to see the other agents already catching up.

    “No,” Mason replied. “Not unless they call ahead to the safe house’s operator that we’re heading for and tell him to bar up the catacombs-and he won’t be answering any calls.”

    “Why?”

    “Because he’s not there anymore-they called in the metro cells for backup at HQ. We’ve got a clear ride for a while.”

    Anna said nothing for a few moments and Mason glanced over at her-only to see the barrel of her pistol pointing at his chest. He recoiled.

    “Whoa! Whoa! Jesus! What’s the idea?!” he protested.

    “If you expect me to just start trusting you,” Anna said, “You’re mistaken. You kidnap us, interrogate us, keep us locked up in conditions that could’ve been deadly,”-Anna jerked a finger over her shoulder at Julie, who was curled up on the back seat of the cart, shivering-“And now, out of nowhere, you’re our best friend. Well, fuck you, Agent. I don’t buy it. What’s your angle?”

    Mason barked laughter.

    “What do you think, I’m leading you into a trap by killing four of our own guards and having you fire on Agents I’ve worked with for five years? Or do you think I’m tricking you somehow? Why? What purpose would that serve? Jesus, listen to yourself. You sound like a raving paranoid. What’s my angle? I don’t want to die yet. How’s that for an angle? Three’s better than one and like I already said, you’re the foremost expert on the Morningstar Strain. I’d say I made a damn fine choice in getting you out of there-
that’s
my angle.”

    Mason took the cart around another gentle bend in the tunnel. He had already driven past several intersections and Anna knew there was no way she’d ever be able to find her way back, even if she had wanted to. To call the network the
catacombs
was oddly appropriate, for they were damp and dim and depressing, but the word
labyrinth
stuck out as even more appropriate in Anna’s mind.

    “Fine,” Anna said, after a moment. She dropped the pistol into her lap, and Mason relaxed a bit into his seat. “Though you didn’t seem to have any intention of getting Julie out with us.”

    Mason fixed Anna with a chagrined look. He said with conviction, “I honestly forgot she was even down there. Sawyer took over her interrogations and I was removed from the case. If you think I wanted to leave her behind because I’m ‘
cold
,’ or felt she would be ‘
baggage
,’ then to hell with your opinions. I’m not Sawyer-I’m a human being. If I had thought of her before I saw my opportunity, I’d have factored it in. So, ‘
forgetful
,’ maybe. Unfeeling bastard?
No
. But I’ve had a lot on my mind recently to be expected to remember the status of every detainee I come across in our facilities.” He swiveled his head to glance at the journalist in the back of the cart, then added, “She seems really sick, not just worn thin.”

    “Might be pneumonia,” Anna said, watching the flickering light fixtures as they swept past the cart. “I won’t know until I can take a closer look at her. I’m not a medical doctor, but I’ll do what I can. Now, there’s something else I’m curious about. What happened today, back there? What’s happening outside, in the city? The world? I need to know. They haven’t told me anything at all.”

    Mason grimaced. “It’s not going well.”

    Anna winced. That was not what she had hoped to hear.

    “What you heard today was our own personal Alamo,” Mason explained. “The infected control several sections of Washington. There’s a war going on in the streets above us. I don’t mean martial law or rioting or flare-ups-I mean a
war
. The last time I was on the streets was two days ago and I saw a tank firing into an apartment complex. The entire place had been overrun. I saw a line of soldiers butchering a wave of the infected. And I saw that same firing line get taken from the side and overwhelmed by another wave. There have been air strikes ordered in several of the major cities. Entire blocks have been leveled. Here’s the good news: The tactic is at least doing some good.”

    He went on, “Lots of major cities have been completely overrun already, but none of ours, not completely-not yet. We think the strain hit our shores when asymptomatic carriers came over on planes or ships before the situation in Africa had peaked. Every time we find an outbreak, we burn the area to the ground. We scorch the earth.
Zero tolerance
, if you want to say that. It’s slowed the spread of the virus somewhat, but… there have been losses.”

    “
Collateral damage
,” Anna echoed, lowering her eyes.

    “We estimated one-hundred and ten thousand carriers destroyed and close to ten thousand innocents killed in the process across the nation.”

    “In all this time?” Anna asked, hope brightening her face for a moment. As callous as it sounded, the numbers were much smaller than she expected. Maybe the USA would hold out after all. Then, as quickly as it arrived, hope vanished.

    “No,” Mason said. “That’s yesterday’s estimate.
Just yesterday
.”

    “And back there? Today’s attack?”

    “Our stand. They’ll make it through today, I think. We have enough firepower to hold off the infected, and headquarters is a fortress. The strain will have a hard time driving us from our home ground. I figured the confusion was enough to cover our escape-I don’t know when or how they realized what was going on, but they’re good at what they do. Which means we’ll have to be extremely careful if we’re going to make it very far from here. Like I said, they’ll be after us.”

    “How far are we going to get with two weapons and no food or water?” Anna asked.

    Mason smirked. “We’re heading to a safe house in the suburbs, remember? We’ll find whatever we need there.”

    “Will there be any medical supplies for Julie? I’d like to get her taken care of as soon as possible.”

    “Doc,” Mason said with a grin, “When I say whatever we need, I mean it. Another five minutes and we’ll be there.”

Washington, D.C.

1830 hrs_

    Agent Mason had not been lying. The safe house was a wonder of modern espionage. There were several at any given time in and around every major city in the world, Mason had explained. They had been built and stocked for one purpose: to equip an agent on the run. Naturally, they weren’t meant to be used by agents who’d gone rogue on the company, which was why each safe house had an operator stationed inside. The operator was meant to keep the gear secure and maintained, and also to keep up a semblance of normalcy to the neighbors and keep suspicion at a minimum. Luckily for the three escapees, the operator of the safe house in the suburbs was long gone to answer the call at headquarters. Once Agent Mason had picked the lock on the door that led into the house from the catacombs, they were home free.

    The door opened into the basement of the house. Anna thought for a moment they had stumbled into an office building-the basement was fully finished, with sterile white walls and a carpeted floor. Heavy lockers lined the walls. An expansive computer terminal sat in one corner, screens scrolling information faster than the human eye could read. One wall had a number of hooks screwed into it from which dangled suits of riot gear that looked like they’d been collecting dust for a year or more. Another wall held maps of the area-topographical maps, street maps, utilities, every possible variant seemed arranged neatly next to one another for reference.

    Mason made a beeline for the computer terminal, quickly punching keys and bringing up a set of windows that showed scenes of suburban normalcy: a deserted street outside, a frost-covered back yard, an empty front porch. The house had its own security system and Mason was arming it piece by piece.

    “I’m locking us down,” Mason explained. “Don’t even touch any of the outside windows or doors. The knobs are electrified and we have a video-assisted targeting program running on a turret ‘bot in the foyer. Make a wrong move and this computer will think you’re an intruder. It’ll light you up.”