Backwoods (35 page)

“What is that?” Andrew asked, alarmed,
because the last time someone had poked a needle into him, as it
had turned out, they’d been identifying him as a potential subject
in a bioengineering experiment.

“It’s medicine,” the nurse said.

“It will help your pain, Mister Braddock,”
the doctor told him.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” said the
nurse and about that time, Andrew felt his eyelids drooping, his
mind growing cloudy. The pain in his leg became something distant
and vague, like a nightmare that upon waking, is nearly forgotten,
with only the lingering unease it inspired remaining.

****

“Mister Braddock?”

Andrew felt his mind emerging from this
subterranean bliss, a murky sea of clouded dreams. He was only
dimly aware of something draped against his face, some kind of
tendril-like tubing he could also feel against his arm in loose
coils. When his eyelids fluttered open a dazed half-mast and a man
came into view leaning over him, dressed in military fatigues,
Andrew had a moment of stark and bewildered terror.

Prendick made his way out of the garage, oh,
Christ, and found me!

With a gasp, he sat up, flailing his arms,
trying to knock away what he thought were Prendick’s entrails that
had reached out again to grab him. It took him a disoriented,
frantic moment before he remembered where he was

the hospital in Pikeville

and that the tubes he’d mistaken for
Prendick’s snake-like intestines were instead the IV lines
delivering clear fluid and blood into twin ports in his hands. The
soldier above him wasn’t Prendick, but a tall, lean black man, his
hair shaved high and tight, his expression stern-faced and stoic
beneath the rim of his hat.

“Mister Braddock?” he said. “I’m Captain
Darnell Peterson with the Office of the Special Assistant
Commanding General, U.S. Army Armor Center, Fort Knox.”

I’ll call my C. O. in New York,
Dani
had said when they’d arrived at the hospital.
He’ll know what to
do. There’s a base in Fort Knox. They can send someone to take care
of things.

With a groan, Andrew glanced around, taking
in his surroundings. A jumble of broken bits of memory flooded his
mind all at once, from being wheeled into the emergency room to a
series of radiography suites after that. He seemed to have fuzzy
recollection of being asked for his signature on papers and forms,
consent for surgery, a smiling nurse had told him. They needed to
operate on his ankle.

“Where’s Dani?” he asked, his voice hoarse,
little more than a croak. “Specialist Santoro. Is she alright?”

Peterson nodded. “She’s going to be just
fine.”

“I want to see her.” Andrew grimaced, trying
to sit up more in bed. His foot had been immobilized in some kind
of soft, inflatable cast. It looked like a astronaut’s boot.

The Captain smiled at him, a practiced,
polished and patently insincere sort. “I’m afraid that’s not
possible, Mister Braddock,” he said.

Andrew frowned. “Why not?”

“She’s been transferred to the Keller Army
Community Hospital in West Point, New York.”

“She’s gone?” Andrew asked, startled, and
when Peterson nodded, he stammered, “But I…I didn’t say…”
I
didn’t get to say good-bye,
he thought, stricken.
I never
told her that I love her.

“She was transported yesterday, shortly after
Alice Moore left.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked. “Where did
she—”

Peterson cut him off, cool and smooth. “She’s
been remanded to the charge of the state of Massachusetts, a ward
of the court.”

What?

“It’s my understanding that Edward Moore had
sole parental custody of her, that her mother had signed away her
rights in the last year. With no surviving family to take charge of
her, until such time as Dr. Moore’s estate has been settled,
guardianship reverts to the state.”

“But they’ll lock her up.” Andrew tried to
swing his legs around, to get up and out of bed, but that damn
inflatable boot was apparently hooked up to some kind of machine
through a network of tubes, keeping it inflated, and thus hampered
his efforts. “They’ll put her back in Gallatin, goddamn it! How
could you let them take her?”

Peterson looked mildly insulted at this. “I
didn’t let them do anything. I’m afraid the girl is well beyond the
Army’s realm of responsibility, Mister Braddock.”

“What the hell
is
your realm of
responsibility, then?” Andrew snapped. “What are you doing here?
Get out of my room.”

“I’ve been authorized to debrief you on the
events that occurred at the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency Appalachian Research Facility,” Peterson said.

“I don’t need debriefing. I was there. I know
what happened.”

Despite the fact that Andrew was getting more
pissed off by the moment, Peterson remained cool and collected.
“You were injured in a motor vehicle collision. You were brought to
the research facility for medical attention. While you were there,
an incident occurred in which some National Guardsmen attempted to
carry out an isolated act of domestic terrorism.”

“What?” Andrew shook his head. “That’s not
how it happened.”

Just let me handle it,
Dani had said.
Was this what she’d meant?

Peterson continued, ignoring Andrew’s
interruption. “Through the heroic efforts of others stationed at
the compound, including base commander Major Mitchell Prendick, the
attempt was thwarted. Unfortunately, several people, including
Specialist Santoro, were injured and others lost their lives during
the incident, including Major Prendick and Dr. Edward Moore, a
civilian contractor working at the facility.”

‘
There’s a base in Fort Knox. They can
send someone to take care of things. ’ That’s what she told me.
That’s what this is, what this guy, Peterson, is telling me.
They’re taking care of things—by sweeping it all under the
rug.

He managed a humorless laugh. “You son of a
bitch,” he said to Captain Peterson.

“That is all you are authorized to disclose
about this incident, Mister Braddock,” Peterson said. “Any
deviation from this account will result in your immediate arrest
and prosecution for trespass on federal property.”

“Yeah, I know. Title Eighteen, Chapter
Sixty-seven, Subsection Thirteen-eighty-something, am I right?
Punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of five grand.
I’ve already had that run down.”

“Good.” Peterson nodded once, that smarmy
smile at last withering from his face. His mouth drew in a thin
line and his brows narrowed slightly. “Then you understand how this
works.”

Andrew locked gazes with him.
“Perfectly.”

Peterson turned on his heel and walked
briskly to the door.

“Captain,” Andrew said, making him pause and
glance back over his shoulder, one brow arched. “What’s going to
happen to the facility?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your
concern.”

“I mean, are you going to send more troops
there?”
To claim the bodies,
he wanted to add, but couldn’t
muster the words, not with visions of Dani’s squad mates, Maggitti,
Reigler and Spaulding, all dead in the corridor of the house of
pain, or Suzette’s body mangled and sprawled in the corner of a
vacant office.

And then something Peterson had mentioned
earlier came to mind:
With no surviving family to take charge of
her, until such time as Dr. Moore’s estate has been settled,
guardianship reverts to the state
.

How could he be sure Moore was dead?

He licked his lips because his mouth suddenly
felt tacky and dry. “You’ve already sent troops there, haven’t
you?” he asked with a sudden, sinking feeling.

The corner of Peterson’s mouth hooked wryly,
as if he found Andrew’s visible apprehension amusing, pathetic or
both. “It’s a fifty-one million dollar research facility, Mister
Braddock. Fifty-one
million.
A containment crew was
dispatched from the moment we learned of Specialist Santoro’s
survival. Once they’ve secured the facility and assessed the
situation, I’ll forward their report along to the appropriate
agency personnel for further consideration and action. It’s fairly
standard protocol.”

“Did they open the garage?”

Peterson looked puzzled. “Their orders are to
sweep and secure all of the compound buildings and—”

“
Did they open the garage?”
Andrew
shouted, balling his hands into fists, making the little LED
monitor near his bedside that had been monitoring his heart rate
suddenly begin firing off a rapid series of
beep-beep-BEEPs.

At this, Peterson’s lips puckered, as if he’d
tasted something sour, and his brows narrowed. “I would assume so,
yes.”

Then they’re already dead,
Andrew
thought, leaning back against the pillows. “You son of a bitch.”
Again, he laughed, a hoarse, dismayed sound. It was either that or
burst into tears. “You’ve killed them all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“They have horses, Andrew!”

One month later, Andrew sat on the couch in
his apartment, feet propped on the coffee table, a freshly opened
bottle of Harp in one hand, his replacement iPhone in the other,
and listened as Alice chattered excitedly in his ear.

“They have stables and a barn and a riding
ring and they said I could take lessons every day. They even gave
my
own
horse! Not to keep or anything, not forever at any
rate, but they said I could ride her whenever I feel like it, as
much as I want. Her name is Sunshine and they let me feed her
carrots. She eats them right out of my hand!”

“Gross. Horse slobber,” Andrew said, making
her laugh, a high-pitched, happy sound. “I’m just kidding. I’m glad
you like it there.”

“I
love
it!” she gushed.

As it had turned out, when Moore had sued the
state of Massachusetts to have Alice released from Gallatin, in the
process, he’d made sure that no one would ever be able to
institutionalize her there again. He’d left specific instructions
in his will, along with a sizable trust in Alice’s name, that
placed her in the custody and care of Cochrane Academy, a facility
in western Massachusetts specializing in the long-term treatment
and care of autistic children.

“Two of the girls in my therapy group told me
there are dance lessons in the fall, too. Ballet and tap. I want to
take them both.”

“Wow.” He tried to feign the appropriate note
of enthusiasm. “That sounds like fun.”

In the weeks since his return, Andrew had
been keeping an eye on the internet, straining for any hint of news
from the Appalachian region that might give him a clue as to what
might have happened to Prendick.

A containment crew was dispatched from the
moment we learned of Specialist Santoro’s survival,
Captain
Peterson had told him. Which meant that Prendick had, in all
likelihood, been freed from his prison inside the garage. Suzette
had told him the screamers would suffocate within a week, that the
virus would cause growths to block their airways, but Andrew was no
longer so sure.

Search Continues for Missing Hunters.
That had been the headline on Google News, cached from the
Times
WV
newspaper online edition two and a half weeks ago. The
WV
stood for
West Virginia
and the hunters who were
being sought had disappeared from the heavily forested area
surrounding the small town of Elkins in this very same state.

“How’s your ankle?” Alice asked him over the
phone.

“Getting better.” As he spoke, he tilted his
head back, took a long drink of beer, then looked at his
outstretched leg, wiggling his foot experimentally. “A couple more
weeks, and they think I can lose the cast.”

When Prendick had shot him, the bullet had
ruptured his Achilles tendon, among other things. The moon boot
from the hospital in Pikeville had been replaced with a plaster
cast after he’d been hospitalized for more reconstructive
orthopedic surgery in Pittsburgh. He’d worn the cast for several
weeks, transitioning only recently into the walking variety that
looked better equipped for hitting the ski slopes than the
sidewalk. But his occupational and physical therapists had both
been pressuring him to walk as often as he could, forcing upon him
a daily regimen of exercises to support and strengthen the repaired
tendon.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

“Liar.”

His mother had come to stay with him upon his
release from the hospital, and had only returned to Alaska a few
days earlier. To his absolute astonishment, his father had flown in
from Anchorage, as well, and Katherine had told him that Eric had
kept a nearly constant vigil at his bedside during his first few
days in the hospital, when he’d been in and out of surgery, heavily
sedated.

Eric had come to the apartment only once, and
if Andrew had answered the door himself things might have wound up
differently. As it turned out, Katherine was with him, and she had
let Eric inside. Andrew had hobbled in from the kitchen on the
damnable crutches he’d been forced to use for a time, and he’d
stopped in the living room, staring at his father face to face for
the first time since that awful night at the Pagoda Restaurant.

“Dad. Hey,” he’d said, a non-confrontational
greeting he’d since come to blame on the Percocet he’d still been
taking pretty regularly for pain.

“I brought you some kung pao pork,” Eric had
replied, looking anxious, as if expecting Andrew to throw another
punch at him. He held a grease-spotted white paper sack in his
hand, Chinese take out. “You…uh, used to like it best, you always
said.”

Andrew had shrugged, the crutches digging
ruthlessly into the meat of his armpits. “I still do,” he’d said,
and that was it. The big reconciliation with his dad. It wasn’t
like they’d gone back to the way things were before, or like that
night in North Pole had never happened, but it had been a fresh
start, in any case. For both of them.