The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (25 page)

Though she wouldn’t be joining them on their jaunt ashore, Lauren Winters represented the medical team at this meeting. From the communications and electronics workshop, Adam Galloway had been chosen. His training in cyber security, electronic surveillance, and communications had come from his service in the Air Force, which meant he possessed military training that Samantha and Chao did not.

Since the AW109 could only accommodate eight people, Dom needed Hunters with as many talents as possible. They also needed to be prepared for the hellish landscape they were about to enter.

The final member of their team, helicopter pilot Frank, sat next to Dom.

Dom stretched a map on the table between the group members. “Here’s the flight plan.” He traced the line from Annapolis to the outskirts of Frederick. “If all goes well, Meredith Webb will meet us here.” He circled a small spot. “This is my family’s neighborhood. She should be on her way right now, and there’s a cul-de-sac plenty wide enough for us to use as a temporary helipad.”

“I could land my bird on top of a house if you need,” Frank replied.

Dom didn’t doubt the joke was half-serious. “Hopefully, we won’t be relying on your helicopter rodeo skills to get us safely on land.”

“And we’re just going to sweet-talk the Army into letting us land in their base?” Frank asked. “I know I’m charming, but that seems a bit challenging.”

“I don’t think your pickup lines are going to work with the comm specialists in Detrick,” Adam said. “Which, either way, we still haven’t gotten into contact with anyone. Nothing, including ocean-borne UHF transmissions or satellite phones, is getting a response from them. And even if we do reach them, how do we convince them to let us land?”

“Meredith’s role—or former role—in the CIA should help us,” Dom said. “But that might be a bit tenuous with the way things worked out before the outbreak. So our second tactic is to name-drop references to the Amanojaku Project.”

“And if that doesn’t work, Chief?” Miguel asked, clenching his prosthetic fingers into a solid fist. “Are we supposed to just jump out of the bird and force our way in?”

“I know you’re itching to get back in the saddle, but I’d prefer to keep our fingers off the trigger as much as possible.” Dom gestured to Lauren. “And that’s why it’s so important our research aboard the
Huntress
continues while we’re away. I want to have a bargaining chip. Any details, anything you can provide on the biochemistry or the biological origins of the Oni Agent would help us establish some rapport with Detrick. The best thing would be, of course, a cure.”

“A cure?” Lauren scoffed, turning up her nose. “You want us to find a cure in a matter of days—maybe hours? Are you serious?”

“Absolutely,” Dom said. “If it can be done, your team is the one to do it. You’re smart, capable, and resourceful enough.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll need every minute I can in the lab.”

“Then go ahead,” Dom said. “Get to it.”

Lauren stood to leave, her face already adopting a serious expression. Her eyes seemed at once distant. Dom had seen the look before whenever the results of a laboratory experiment or a patient’s diagnosis were turning over in her mind.

“Just be ready when we call for you,” Dom said. “Stream any new findings at once over satellite comms, okay?”

Lauren nodded as she left. “Aye aye, Captain,” she said over her shoulder.

“Think she can actually do it?” Miguel asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Like I said, if someone’s going to find something on the Oni Agent, it’ll be Lauren.” If she couldn’t, Meredith’s connections and name-dropping the Amanojaku Project might not be sufficient. He hated flying into a mission as ill-prepared as this, but the reports of the Oni Agent’s spread meant they didn’t have time for luxuries like prolonged intelligence gathering and analysis. Action was more valuable than deliberation.

“And why do we have to stay aboard?” Jenna said, motioning to herself, Glenn, and Andris. “I’d rather be out there with you guys.”

“I appreciate it, but someone has to keep an eye out on the ship,” Dom said. “Glenn, we need you to stick around in case Amir talks again. You’re the only one who can communicate with the guy. If he has anything that might help us bridge a relationship with Fort Detrick, I want that information.”

“Understood,” Glenn said, folding his arms across his considerable chest. “If I can’t be there to protect you, you’ll keep an eye on our captain, won’t you, Renee?”

She grinned. “You know it. Plus, we’ll be streaming everything on shore back to Samantha and Chao, so if you guys miss us, you can see what we’re up to.”

“Right,” Dom said, “as long as it doesn’t distract you from your duties here. But I am glad you’re here, because there is something worrying me.”

Thomas nodded. Dom had already discussed these concerns with the man since the second-in-command would also be staying aboard during this mission.

“Being so close to shore, there’s a real possibility we’ll see survivors desperate for protection,” Dom said. “Hell, we might even see Skulls trying to get aboard the
Huntress
. I don’t want to tell you to ignore these people, but use caution. We all know what happened to Scott. He came aboard, an injured Hunter, and over the course of his brief stay in the isolation ward, he turned into one of those things. If we offer to protect everyone we see, we run the risk of inviting an outbreak on the ship.”

“If we lose the ship, we lose the mission.” Thomas took his traditional unlit stress cigar from the corner of his mouth. “We won’t fail you, Dom.”

“Understood, Captain. We’ll be vigilant,” Andris said, his Eastern European accent slightly tilting his words.

“Great. I don’t want to waste much more time, so can we have the bird in the air in thirty?”

Despite the short turnaround from meeting to mission, the Hunters gave no signs of trepidation. Frank gave him a thumbs-up. “Consider it done.”

“Hunters, ready?”

Miguel, Renee, and Hector responded in unison. “Aye aye, Captain.”

“Grab your gear,” Dom said. “Standard mission ops, plus any other weapons you can carry on your person. We’ve already got the AW109 equipped with emergency supplies.”

The three left for the armory with Adam, along with the Hunters who would stay aboard.

“I’ve seen the streams, I’ve heard the reports, and I’ve got to admit, I’m worried,” Thomas said. “Just a little bit.”

“I’m scared for you,” Dom said. “All aboard the ship unsupervised. Me leaving you in charge. Dangerous situation.” He forced a smile that quickly faded. “Take care of everyone while I’m gone.”

“You know I’d be happy to go with. We’ve gone on missions together before, and the
Huntress
didn’t sink.”

“I know, but I wouldn’t want to risk your life too,” Dom said. He knew the implications of his statement and what he had planned rang clear to Thomas. “If anything happens to me—”

“It won’t,” Thomas finished.

“If anything does, you take care of her.”

“Don’t want to hear you talk like that, Captain.” Thomas jabbed a finger at Dom. “You’re coming back in one piece, or so help me God, I’ll hunt you down and put you back together myself.”

Dom stood. When Thomas followed suit, Dom clasped the man’s hand. “I know you would. Just to save your ass, I plan on coming back alive along with everyone else on the chopper.” He then gestured toward Thomas’s cigar. “When I get back, maybe we’ll share one of those and two fingers of Scotch in celebration of a job well done, eh?”

He left the mess hall and headed toward the armory, wondering if he could indeed make good on his word. For everybody’s sake aboard the ship, for those headed to Detrick with him, and for his daughters, he would do everything in his power to keep his promise.

A few minutes later, Dom was stuffing extra magazines into his tactical vest and slinging the SCAR-H’s strap over his shoulder. He secured his NVGs to his helmet with a click.

The others counted their magazines and holstered their weapons. Hunters staying aboard helped pack extra ammunition, body armor plates, breaching charges, and grenades for Renee, Hector, Adam, and Miguel. Chao had also fitted a blade attachment to Miguel’s prosthetic. By making a fist and twisting his wrist, Miguel could activate the retractable blade, and he practiced with it now.

When the team was ready to go, they took the metal stairs to the helipad. Gusts of air batted at them as the AW109’s blades spun.

Frank waved at them from the cockpit, his voice echoing in Dom’s helmet comm link. “Today’s flight will take us from the
Huntress
to Fort Detrick. On our way, we’ll be making a layover in Frederick. Due to the short flight duration, beverage service will be suspended.”

Dom ducked instinctively as he led the team to the open doors in the side of the helicopter.

Once they all hopped aboard and secured their harnesses, the chopper shuddered and lifted into the air.

“Expect plenty of turbulence,” Frank said. “And as always, no smoking. Except for the captain’s smoking good looks.”

“Awful, man. Just awful.” Miguel rolled his eyes.

The
Huntress
grew smaller as the chopper climbed vertically. On the helipad, a small gathering of the ship’s crew waved them off before the helicopter tilted forward and sped toward the dark shore.

Normally, Annapolis would be a collage of bright lights from shop fronts, houses, and restaurants. Now it was mostly dark, lost in the shadows of the night like the rest of the Chesapeake Bay, except for the fires burning across the marina. Smoke plumed against the dark-purple sky, obscuring their view farther along the horizon.

Several ships drifted in the bay, some with red and green navigation lights to announce their presence. Smaller sailing crafts bobbed between them, their cabins glowing against the black waves. Dom figured they must’ve been people seeking the protection of the sea, fleeing from the horrors on land. The yachts and other boats unable to make it out of the bay either burned or were jammed in a mass of sea craft near the marina’s entrance.

The chopper’s blades thumped in the air, cutting over the city. The Hunters, Adam, and Frank didn’t say a word as they surveyed the scene below them.

A couple of bright flashes illuminated a patch of the historic brick road near the center of Annapolis. Shapes moved in the darkness.

More flashes.
Gunfire.

Someone ran into the street. Other figures pounced on the person.
Skulls
, Dom thought. More poured from the neighboring alleys like ants swarming an injured insect.

Dom turned to Miguel and caught his eyes—a moment of realization passing over both of them. Things were about to get ugly, and Dom suddenly wasn’t sure how well he could actually protect his Hunters.

––––––––

T
he fluorescent lights buzzed overhead in the medical bay. While Scott and Amir both lay still under medical sedation in the isolation room, Lauren skimmed through the tissue samples they’d fixed to glass microscope slides and stained. Each was taken from Brett Fielding, Scott Ashworth, or Amir’s wounds.

“Let me get this straight,” Peter said, lifting his eyes from the microscope. “Dom wants us to identify the Oni Agent and try to find a cure by the time they reach Detrick.”

“Right.” Lauren rotated one of the histological microscope slides they’d made of the mineralized tissue from Scott’s wound. “At least they’re landing in Frederick to pick up Meredith before going to the base.”

“That gives us, what, another hour?”

“You can take a lot of images on the microscope in one hour,” Lauren said with a grin.

“Yeah, but it’d help if we knew what we were looking for.”

Lauren deposited a slide on the microscope and pressed her face to the eyepiece. The scope illuminated bright-red splotches within the tissue. “Check this out.”

“This is an Alizarin red stain, right?” Peter asked, taking his turn with the scope.

“Right. All the positive red staining shows calcium compounds.” Lauren switched to another slide taken from Scott’s tissue samples at a later time. “This one shows a much more uniform area of positive calcium staining.”

“So the mineralized tissue is growing and calcifying.”

Lauren nodded and placed the slides back in their spots in a plastic box filled with other samples. “Let’s go over this one more time. I want to make sure we haven’t missed something. What are all the possible causes of tissue calcification you know of?”

Peter held up a finger. “First, infections causing inflammation or an immune response.”

“So maybe the Oni Agent causes a significant immune response that leads to the calcified tissue. Still, that response would normally take days to weeks before you’d get calcified tissue formation. Not minutes and hours.”

Peter pointed to the incubator where they kept their experimental cell cultures. “Plus, there were no macrophages or other immune cells in our cell cultures to cause this spontaneous calcification.”

“Very true.” Lauren leaned against one of the lab benches. “All we added to the mineralized tissue sample was basic cell media.”

“Which ended up causing the calcified tissues to spread spontaneously and quickly.”

Lauren took out one of the cell culture dishes. Normally a vibrant pink, the liquid was tinged a pale yellow. “See the color change? There’s something in these calcified formations using up all the cell media nutrients and filling the culture dish with metabolic waste products.”

“Which indicates there’s a high likelihood something’s growing in there that we can’t see,” Peter said. “That all harkens back to the coral idea. But what or where are the polyps making the coral structure?”

“My guess is bacteria. They’re usually the culprits in cell culture. They can turn a nice dish of pink media to stinking yellow in a matter of hours.” Lauren placed the culture back in the incubator and shut the door. “But we haven’t found any visible signs of bacteria.”

“None I’ve been able to confirm with microscopy, at least.” Peter pulled up images on a computer monitor. Several different pictures displayed various tissue samples. “The Gram staining didn’t show anything. No Gram-positive or -negative bacteria.