The Hungry 4: Rise of the Triad (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) (11 page)

ABOVE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, EASTBOUND

They headed east into the blistering sun, nearly five thousand feet above the Los Angeles Basin, the giant Black Hawk’s rotors straining to pound the air into submission. A layer of haze squatted over the edge of the city like a ball of rusty steel wool. Even at their modest altitude, the morning sky above it was gin clear and almost painfully blue. Miller felt her body sag into the canvas seat as the new drug Rat had injected took effect. Her super powers faded away. Her heartbeat slowed and her system returned to normal.

Miller glanced around the small cabin of the helicopter. Alex sat opposite Rubenstein. The out of shape doctor was facing backwards, jammed into his seat on the starboard side of the aircraft. A mercenary sat between Rubenstein and Scratch, tense as a referee between prizefighters. Meanwhile, Rat was across the cabin next to Alex, thus facing Miller and Scratch. Two of the mercenaries sat immediately next to Rat. The cabin felt cold and drafty. The ship grumbled and swayed through the sky. They all wore communication headsets to drown out the noise, but soon fell silent, as if to properly absorb and process the bloody chaos that had just ensued.

Her gaze fell on Rat. “Now, do you want to tell me what the hell that was about and where you guys came from?”

“Funny,” Rat looked at Miller with a shrug, “I was just about to ask you the same…” Her last few words were obscured by the thumping rotors.

“Hold on.” Miller adjusted the volume on her headset. “Rat, if you’re going to be a smart ass, I want to be able to hear you loud and clear.”

“If that’s what you heard, then you
are
reading me wrong.” Rat leaned forward in her canvas and steel tube jump seat. “When you popped up on our radar five days ago, I was shocked as hell. Look, I searched that entire burned-out wreck of the lodge in Colorado, looking for you and Scratch and Terrill Lee. I thought you had been eaten, killed, and burnt to a crisp, more or less in that order.”

“I came damn close to being a Christmas turkey,” Miller said.

Rat reached across the aisle to take both Scratch and Miller by the hand. She squeezed. “I’m just so happy that you’re alive, Penny.”

Miller found herself strangely affected by the impromptu show of emotion, perhaps because she was back to being a normal human being. It mattered more than she would have expected. She looked over at Scratch, who was smiling from ear to ear.
Of course he would, he’s got two hot women touching him at the same time, the hound dog.

Scratch winked. “She likes us!”

Rat dropped both their hands. She leaned back. “Scratch, don’t get all carried away. I said I was glad to see you.” Her face returned to the slight scowl of harried professionalism she traditionally affected. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to adopt you.”

Now even Miller smiled. “
That’s
the Rat I know.” She chuckled into the microphone and heard a popping hiss in her headphones. “I was beginning to think them pod people from outer space had replaced you with a kinder, gentler Francine.”

“Call me Francine again, I’ll tear your head off and go bowling.”

Miller snorted. “Sorry, Francine.”

“Are you hearing this shit, Lovell?” Rat looked over Miller’s shoulder back into the cockpit. “I fucking save Penny’s life again, and this is the thanks I get.”

Kurt Lovell’s voice came back over the headset, deeper and louder than the others. “Yeah, yeah, we’re all thrilled. You guys were starting to go all kissy-poo back there. The conversation was getting really boring. I like it better when you cat fight.”

Miller straightened in her seat as a new thought occurred to her. “Hey, back up. What did you mean when you said that we popped up on your radar? Because that’s the same shit that our own Dr. Frankenstein here gave us.”

Rubenstein sat scowling and ignoring the conversation. He was staring out the window at the clear blue morning sky.

“So?”

“So who the hell else should I be worried about showing up looking for us one of these days, the Easter Bunny? Sasquatch?”

“Ain’t those kind of the same thing?” asked Scratch in an uncharacteristically thick, highly sarcastic drawl. “Like some dude in a fluffy suit?”

“Funny.” Miller patted him on the knee. “That’s nice, dear. Now let’s let the lady finish explaining.”

Rat drank water from a small canteen by her seat. “What do you want me to tell you, Penny? I was worried about you guys. Without getting all mushy…”

“Too late,” Scratch interrupted, “I heard the violins at least two minutes ago.”

“… You two are important to me and Lovell, and to Karl Sheppard as well. He is going to be thrilled that we found you alive.”

“Sheppard is okay? He got out?” They had lost track of their old friend while trying to escape the hunting lodge in Colorado.

“When he hears that we pulled
you
out today, he’s going to be turning cartwheels.” Rat lowered her eyes. “We did find Terrill Lee’s body back in the lodge. I’m really sorry.”

Miller looked out the window to control her reaction. Her eyes dampened. She forced herself to shut the sadness down. She was done grieving Terrill Lee—death was forever, at least with a carefully placed headshot. The past was past.

Scratch raised his hand again. He looked like some playful boy in elementary school asking permission to pee. Miller made a mental note to try and break him of that silly habit. It reminded her a bit too much of ol’ Terrill Lee.

“Hey, Rat. How’s my newly discovered kid?”

“Jimmy? Last time I checked, he was fine.”

It was Scratch’s turn to scowl. “What the hell do you mean, the last time you checked? Where the fuck is he?”

“Relax, Scratch,” Rat said. “The government folks took over since the boys are under eighteen. They found a healthy placement for them. Your surprise son Jimmy and his little brother are up in Mountain Home, Idaho, and they’re both perfectly fine.”

Scratch’s mouth gaped. “What did you just say
?
”

“Yeah, just one danged minute.” Miller shot a concerned look Scratch’s way. “Isn’t Mountain Home General Gifford’s old stomping grounds?”

“And mine,” Rat said.

“That bastard Gifford sold us out,” Scratch said. “He almost got us all killed.”

“Look, General Gifford was a good man once,” Rat said, “before the zombie thing happened. That’s when he went off the rails. This is all water under the bridge, the man is dead. You can ask Dr. Rubenstein anything you want. He knew Gifford better than I did.”

Rubenstein paled. “Penny, I bear no responsibility for what General Gifford may or may not have done. I simply worked for him.”

Alex had been watching the conversation quietly. At least up until now. “Offhand, just what the fuck do you take responsibility
for
, Doc? I think you have a hell of a lot to answer for.” He leaned forward toward Rubenstein. His jaw was set. “Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not tied up and drugged out of my mind anymore.”

Dr. Rubenstein sat back in his jump seat and tried a different tactic. He affected a look of relaxed superiority. “Though I can certainly understand your anger, Alex, the truth is that I have done nothing illegal. I have much larger concerns. I was operating under a government license granted to me by the Department of Homeland Security. And, as you may recall, you also gave us your informed consent. We have that in writing.”

“
Informed
consent? You freaking kidnapped me and shot me up with God-knows-what and then strapped me down to a cot. I would have signed a castration order in that state. I got poked and prodded and then splattered with blood and damn near bit when the crazies went wild.”

“I also understand you feel that your treatment experience was less than pleasing, Alex,” Rubenstein said, soothingly. “Truthfully, we had all hoped…”

But Alex wasn’t finished. “
Less than pleasing?
Why, you arrogant son of a bitch, have you got any idea what kind of hell you put us all through with all those drugs and that false imprisonment? You may have forced me to execute some kind of legal cover, but I sure as hell never consented to any of that, and I know the poor girl with me didn’t either.” Alex leaned closer to Rubenstein. “Her name was Leslie, and she is dead.”

Rubenstein shifted in his seat. His composure slipped. He stared at Rat, seeking support. “I have the paperwork with your signatures back at my office, people. Everything I did was duly authorized, I assure you.”

“Back at your office?” Miller said, scornfully. “Oh, you mean the office that just burned to the ground when the place got torched? All that destruction happened because of your experiments with super soldier accelerants.”

Rubenstein affected a tight-lipped smile. “But there were no soldiers at the Serenity Center—with the exception of you and your team, Major,” he said, nodding to Rat. “So I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff.”

“
You don’t know
?” Miller lost it. Only the seatbelt kept her from jumping across the deck to throttle Rubenstein. Her voice carried over the throbbing helicopter blades, even without the microphone. “You lying, pencil necked, old rucksack full of disease-ridden flea snot! Is there a single thing that comes out of your foul mouth that’s true besides that weak belch of a voice of yours?”

“Nice string, Penny,” Scratch said, admiringly. “World class.”

Penny ignored him.

“I never lied to you, Penny,” Rubenstein said. He broke eye contact.

“I’m going to throw the son of a bitch out the door,” Alex said. The idea lit his face up like a floodlight. Scratch seemed willing to assist.

“Help!” Rubenstein squeaked.

Alex lunged for Rubenstein, but the seatbelt held him fast. Scratch fumbled to unlock his own. Miller thought the two of them looked dead serious, though they may have been engaging in a bit of mental torture.

“Major, do something!” Rubenstein shouted, shrinking away from the angry men.

Before Rat could respond, Miller sighed and took charge. “All right, that’s enough. You ease up there, Alex.” Miller reluctantly dropped back into her usual role of group leader. “Not now. We’ll deal with him when we get where we’re going.” Miller turned to Rat. “And by the way, just where the hell
are
we going?”

Rat’s eyes dropped to the rivets on the floor. “That’s classified.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. When we get there.”

Miller snorted. “Classified? Kiss my ass! Who are we going to tell? CNN?” Miller leaned forward and her headset tugged at her hair. She winced and pointed her finger at Rat, using the single digit to punctuate her words. “Where. The fuck. Are. We. Going?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I won’t? Unless we’re going to the North Pole, Never Never Land, or that burned-out pile of Nevada nuclear waste that used to be Crystal Palace, I think I’d believe any damn spot on Earth that you could name.”

Rat stared back with a poker face worthy of the World Series of Texas Hold’em. It spoke volumes. Miller felt her skin ripple with fear. The absolute silence that followed gave her another distinctly odd feeling. Like someone had just walked over her grave.

Miller whispered, “No. No fucking way.”

“Well, it isn’t the North Pole,” Rat said. Her face still showed no emotion, just professional detachment.

It was Miller’s turn to go numb. “You have got to be kidding me. Crystal Palace is toast. We saw the nuclear device armed and placed. We ran for our lives. We
saw the explosion!
We can’t go back to that part of Nevada for Christ’s sake. Unless we’re in the first solid lead chopper in history and you got some first-class radiation suits tucked away under these jump seats and some SPF 3000 sunscreen spray to soak in, I’d say going back to Crystal Palace is a
very
bad idea.”

“Well, as it turns out,” said Rat, now choosing her words very carefully, “what actually went down when we weren’t there isn’t quite as bad as all that.”

“There was a
nuclear
explosion,” Miller said. “What am I missing here?”

She stared at Rat.

Rat stared back.

“There
was
a nuclear explosion, wasn’t there?” Miller’s head began to swim. So many deceptions to sort through, so little time. “We saw it from Utah, damn you. The whole sky lit up. Half of Nevada was toast.”

“Yes, there was an explosion,” said Rat, finally. “Look, most of this stuff really is classified. I’ll tell you this much, because you’ll be briefed eventually. The detonation we saw is officially referred to as a ‘controlled above ground nuclear test.’ It was more for show than destruction. It happened miles from the actual base. All of it was on a need to know basis, and even I did not know at the time.”

Scratch banged his head back against the chopper seat. “You have got to be shitting me!”

“I don’t think they are, Scratch,” Miller said. Her heart sank.

Rat said, “In point of fact, all of this was a just one huge Top Secret operation from the very beginning. I found out a few weeks ago that the bomb we planted in Crystal Palace turned out to have been a dummy. The insides had other functions, most of them just for research.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Good,” Rat said, “then no one else will, either.”

Scratch looked at her and drawled, “Is Elvis still alive, too? Did we ever land on the moon?”

“It was a brilliant operation,” said Rubenstein. He looked like the cat that had eaten a whole flock of canaries.

“Brilliant?” Miller said. “Blowing that place up was the only way to both destroy the source of the zombie virus, and to keep it contained in Nevada.”

Rat said nothing. Rubenstein shut up. Miller felt queasy as a twenty-dollar whore in a confession booth. She shook her head. “Wow.”

Rat said, “Penny, it’s simple, really. The bomb was not a nuke, and was never actually meant to destroy the laboratory. That’s because the Army still needs the facility to continue researching the zombie virus it created. It’s back in service, hopefully to find a cure, but you know those assholes. Anyway, they didn’t want to panic the public. They wanted everyone to believe it had been eradicated within a controlled area.”