The Malefic Nation (Graham's Resolution Book 4) (15 page)

Chapter 34 Devastation

“It’s been nearly a week,” Harding said. “I realize your people are devastated after the death of Tala, but we need to get answers from your prisoners or let them go.”

Dalton stared at the dust clumps gathered beneath Harding’s metal desk. Yes,
devastated
. Everyone now walked in a zombie-like state from morning till night.

If it hadn’t been for the infant to care for, Clarisse might fade away, too. It had all happened so fast, and she blamed herself. Tala had never even gotten to see her own child. And Graham? He wasn’t even human at the moment. He didn’t sleep, but sat outside of the child’s door day and night when he wasn’t standing at Tala’s freshly mounded grave. If the baby didn’t exist, neither would Graham, and Dalton couldn’t blame him one bit.

So far the baby girl, as yet unnamed, had not so much as ran a temperature.

“We’re not letting them go,” Dalton said and lifted his eyes just enough to send Harding an ominous look. He let it sink in before saying anything else. “They know where we are, now, even though they were unconscious when we brought them here. It’s too much of a risk. Besides, they’d slit our throats the moment we turned our back on them. I’m not letting them go only to have to deal with them another day. No, we’ll do the responsible thing and execute them when we’re done.”

Dalton gave Harding time to rebut, but Harding only tapped his pencil on the desk. Dalton resisted the urge to seize his damn pencil and snap it in half.

“How is Clarisse holding up?”

Dalton took a deep breath. He shook his head. “She’s having a very tough time. We all are.” Standing to leave, he said, “Henry, I’ll let you know as soon as we have any information from the terrorists. We’re not letting them go. Let us deal with things our own way.”

“Wait. How’s the infant?”

Dalton stopped and turned to answer him. “So far, she’s healthy. We’re watching for the virus around the clock. Clarisse is giving it two weeks to show up. We’ll keep you posted.”

“Was she born with the antibodies?”

“Yes, some. She’s also been inoculated. She could still come down with it at this point, though.”

“Must be tough for Graham,” Harding said crossing his arms across his chest.

“It’s a whole new kind of hell,” Dalton whispered in a choked voice as he left the room.

Chapter 35 Mourning

“I’ll take care of the baby, Clarisse. You go ahead to the lab. Macy and I can handle her,” McCann said as he recognized Clarisse’s dilemma. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours total in the many days since Tala’s death. Everyone was falling apart. Graham sat outside the baby’s room in a chair, often with a weeping Bang in his lap. He didn’t talk.

Marcy and Mark had taken over Bang’s care. To say the boy was distraught was an understatement. He said almost nothing, made muffled cries, delirious in pain. He and Graham both resembled zombies. Looking at Graham in despair, Macy asked, “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Mark responded.

He didn’t have an answer. His own heart felt as if it had been impaled on something; a sharp pain in his chest constantly reminded him of the wonderful mother Tala had been, even to him, and how they’d lost her. The baby would never know the pleasure of having Tala to care for her.

It was the greatest wrong Graham had ever experienced. It just shouldn’t be this way. He blindly patted Bang on the back in a vague effort toward comfort, though he himself was lost. His grief had stolen his soul; only his physical form remained. Since the birth he had hardly left the baby’s doorway.

In short, McCann found himself as leader of Graham’s wounded gang. He kept them all fed and rested. He had led Graham home from Tala’s grave, mindless in pain. He rocked Bang to sleep, and looked in on the motherless infant in the incubator. Wearing fitted gloves, he changed her diaper and fed her from a bottle sometimes, though Macy had taken over most of the baby’s daytime tasks. It had been almost a week, and no one was yet ready to move forward in even the simplest of ways. They all held fast to the anguish within themselves.

They lived in a hell that McCann doubted they could climb out of, and his own strength was fading after caring for everyone night and day. It trickled away a little at a time like a leak from a reservoir.

Clarisse gazed at the sleeping infant through the plastic. The baby was perfect in every way. So far, they’d gotten away with calling her “the baby,” but soon Graham was going to have to give the child a name.

McCann stood silently at Clarisse side, watching the baby’s chest rise and fall as she lay on her back, both hands balled into tiny fists as if she tried to hold on to something unseen.

“Yes,” Clarisse said, wiping the back of her gloved hand across her eyes. “I’ll go to the lab for a few hours and return around lunchtime. I’ll check on her then, but use the radio if you need anything. She has another week in there, but so far she’s perfect. Keep checking her temperature on the hour and write it down in the log. Don’t try to remember it, you’ll forget. We’re all sleep deprived.” She handed him the clipboard where they noted all of the baby’s details from around-the-clock observation.

As if he’d forget to write anything down. “I’ve got it covered Clarisse. Go ahead. Go.”

She nodded and opened the door, revealing Graham’s silent form sitting in the wooden chair, Bang asleep in his lap. Graham’s eyes locked on the child in the box as Clarisse closed the door behind her and addressed him. “Graham, you know, you can go in and see her any time. Just suit up. There’s an extra suit beside the door. She has one week to go, but after that you’ll need to hold her—
a lot
. Take care of her, you know?”

McCann heard the encouraging words through the cracked door as he mixed up another bottle of formula for the baby’s next feeding. Graham would come around. He just needed time to recover from the shock of losing Tala. They all needed that time. McCann hoped they had enough of it before the terrorists found them.

Is this my fault? I should have taken her blood pressure that morning instead of running off to the lab. I might have caught an increase, I might have detected preeclampsia.

Walking the worn path between their residence and the lab, Clarisse allowed her questions to flow and feelings of guilt to spill forth.

My God, it was preventable. I let her die. I could have stopped her death had I not been so involved in coming up with the virus. I allowed her to die. It was my fault . . .

Morbid thoughts ran through her mind. Seeing Tala’s blood rushing out of her, her olive skin turning pale and then turning blue. Hearing the baby’s insistent cries from the next room, Graham’s stricken expression, and yelling
No!
over and over. She could hear the despairing echo still.

She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath before she entered the lab. When she looked up, she found Dalton leaning against the far wall of the room, a worried expression on his face. They’d met like this every morning. He tried to extinguish her guilt, her pain. He felt it too. They all did. They’d lost Tala, but they’d gained a life, and they desperately needed to survive.

“You’re early,” he said.

“McCann and Macy have the baby covered.”

Dalton thrust forward and took steps toward Clarisse; they fell into an embrace. She leaned back after a moment and looked up at him. “You can’t . . . fix me, Dalton. I can barely breathe with this pain of her death. I feel so guilty.” She started to cry again. Her eyes had never been so swollen.

Trying to contain his own emotion, he said, “You’re not at fault, Clarisse. No one blames you one bit for what happened. How can you think that way?”

She brushed him off and put on her lab coat. “I’ve got work to do now. Have you guys gotten anything out of the prisoners?”

“No. Not much anyway. Rick and Reuben both know a little Arabic and we caught the prisoners talking last night on film. They’re trying to translate it.”

“They can’t see each other in separate stalls. How did that happen?”

“We conveniently left the doors cracked a little—by accident on purpose. They talked.”

“Gotcha,” she said, but worried they were taking chances.

“How’s your progress?” Dalton asked.

She let a deep breath out. “I’m getting closer. It shouldn’t be too long now. I might have something to work with in another two weeks.”

She now ignored her conscience, the potential consequences of her actions when it came to this. It was the only way to cope with the underlying morality of their plan.

“Clarisse?”

She looked up from her desk.

“I love you. We’ll get through this. It won’t be long now.”

She looked away and nodded, ignoring any further communication with Dalton. She was coping with too much right now; any more and she might break. And she couldn’t afford to break. Not now. Not yet.

As Dalton left she turned back to her work. She wouldn’t leave the lab until the nightfall.

The dirt had already settled a bit on Tala’s mound after only a few days. Graham left at sunrise, gathering wildflowers that bloomed in front of their borrowed home. He couldn’t bear to lie in bed anymore. He smelled her there; he smelled her everywhere. He heard her laugh. She whispered to him on the wind.

As he’d passed the opened door of the baby’s room, Graham caught a glimpse of Macy cooing at the infant. He imagined the baby sucking on a bottle. His eyes lingered on the worn doorknob in the low morning light. He turned and padded down the hall with his chest tight, his heart tighter.

Today was the day he could finally hold her, and yet he wasn’t certain he wanted to. This brought a profound feeling of guilt because Tala, more than anyone, would want him to love the child beyond measure. The truth was, Graham loved Tala beyond measure and having lost her too, like his first love, he felt like he didn’t have it in him to love like that again.

No, instead he would care for the child. He would raise her, but he would never love again. Not her, not anyone. That’s how it was right now. And when the child grew up, he would leave and find his place in death and be happy about it. In the meantime, he would only go on for Tala.

Her name was Tehya, meaning “precious.” This was the girl name they’d settled on weeks ago. Even though he’d given Tala a hard time about the odd name, he now agreed she was a precious child.

Bending down, Graham lay the blossoms atop the mound while brushing the perished ones aside. The constriction in his chest thrust forward and ruptured into wretched mourning. No longer would he feel the slickness of Tala’s braided, glistening black hair warmed in the sunlight. No longer would he hear the old Indian tales she often repeated for the children in dull moments of their workday. Her smile would exist only in his memory now. She loved the cabin in Cascade, and she would never see it again. Nor would she see the child she gave her live to have.

The love Graham had invested had been ripped from him so quickly. The pain was so deep; he would never be whole again. He resented the child right now. He wished she’d not lived so that he could die too.

A wind blew off the lake, chilling him. Graham dried his eyes with the back of his hand, taking long, deep breaths to calm his raging heart. But he’d promised her. The child lived, and he would carry on.

Dalton and Sam watched the footage and listened to the audio feed again and again. The speech came over as feminine. There was no mistaking it, the leader of this group was the woman. They were all a little surprised when Rick played them the footage the first time. When they met her behind the bars in the light of day, she pretended to be meek and subservient, as if she’d been a captive. It was all an act. She was hell-bent on murder, and made sure the other two men were complying with the kill-the-infidels agenda.

“I’ll be damned,” Sam said. “Though I guess it’s not surprising, since she was fully armed when we kidnapped her. They wouldn’t have let her see the light of day if she didn’t have some skill set they found redeeming.”

“See what I mean?” Rick asked. “She might look like a sweet, innocent girl, but that woman is evil. Don’t be fooled fellas.”

“What is she saying, exactly?” Sam asked.

“Same thing as always—
Allahu Akbar
, praise be to God. Only it’s meant as a war cry,” Rick said.

“You’d think they’d get a little more creative than that after all this time,” Sam said.

Rick leaned forward, “Yeah, well you have to give it to them—they’re consistent. Why mess with success?”

“That’s only because there’s no depth, no limitation to the atrocities they are willing to commit.” Sam’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Slicing a five-year-old in half was only the beginning. Committing genocide on a global scale . . .” He couldn’t finish the sentence because he lacked the eloquence with which to express his astonished disgust.

They took their turns in this comprehension of the events that had led them here. Each time those actions were mulled over, annotated, the indigestible realization came around; then it sped off into the universe to return once more. True answers never really came.

Rick addressed the silence, “Don’t try to understand them, Sam. It’ll drive you insane. The problem is, you’re applying human standards, and they’re not human; they can’t be. They gave that option up long ago. As for these clowns, we have to keep up the questioning to buy Clarisse more time. She’s nearly done, and the testing will start soon. Even so, I doubt the interrogation will give us anything we can use.”

“Good. I’m ready to leave this place. It’s starting to give me the creeps.”

“What do you mean?” Rick asked, not knowing Sam to be creeped out easily.

He shook his head. “Tala’s death. She’s still . . .
here
to me. She used to stroke the top of my daughter’s head and kiss her there. Last night, Addy woke up and swore she felt Tala do that as she slept. She was convinced of it. It took me forever to get her calmed down. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in strong spirits and Tala had—or
has
—a very strong spirit.”

Rick was silent, staring at the door leading to the prisoner’s cells. “She certainly left us too soon. I don’t know if Graham can go on after this. I can’t imagine losing Olivia. She’s all torn up about not having known what to do. She was right there with Tala.”

“Graham
will
go on. I’ve been there. As soon as he holds the little one, he’ll go on—for Tala.”

Rick blew out a breath. “Does he have a choice?” It was a rhetorical question, but Sam shook his head anyway.

Just then Dalton entered the building; they recognized the sound of his footsteps, unlike anyone else’s. They all knew each other that way by now, each man coming and going, their identities revealed in their footfalls.

“Hey. How are the infidels today?” Dalton joked.

Rick answered, “We’re fine. The asshats, on the other hand, were up late last night. Regurgitating the same old rant. Sounded more like a pep talk, though. And guess what? The ringleader is the lady.”

“You’re sure?” Dalton asked.

“Yep.”

Rick turned to Dalton. “How’s Graham this morning?”

Dalton shook his head. It was too soon to ask.

Just then a cart carrying the prisoners’ daily breakfast came through the front door. Rick and Sam greeted the guard and accepted the food, then pushed the cart smelling of pancakes down the hall to the cells.

Dalton wandered down the hallway and watched as Rick slid the trays of food under the bars. The prisoners didn’t move. Instead they sat with their backs against the cinderblock wall of their cells. The female prisoner appeared wary; the two men both had half smiles on their faces. No one spoke, but only followed Rick with their eyes as he delivered the food.

Dalton peeked in on each one. They were all being treated humanely: enough water, food, and the use of a bathroom facility. A small slice of sunshine came through a tiny window at the top of each cell. Once a day, Rick led them to a small enclosed courtyard with chained arms and legs. They didn’t struggle, but remained confident. They were waiting. All they had to do was wait for the disease to spread north to save them.

Dalton walked away in disgust. If he stayed any longer, he’d do something he’d regret.

He couldn’t wait for Clarisse, as brilliant as she was, to finish her research and help them exterminate the terrorists once and for all. They were almost at that point.

In Dalton’s mind, the terrorists were responsible for Tala’s death and the circumstances leading up to it. They were certainly responsible for Steven’s. Hell, as he saw it, they were responsible for everything.