Fast (77 page)

            ‘You’ll see.’

            And minutes later, when Coleman reached the Quarantine Center, he did.

#

Vice Admiral Tucker watched the digital countdown on the right hand corner of the Knowledge Wall. It was synchronized to every clock on the ship, and in turn linked to the ship’s weapon systems.

            When the neutron weapon detonated under the Biological Solutions Research Complex, Tucker would know the exact moment.

            That moment was twenty seconds away.

            Captain Boundary paced the room.

            Apart from his footsteps, the room was filled with stony silence. Both men found themselves glancing towards the mainland as though they could see through the walls of the Disney Room.

            Tucker heard steps, the sound of someone running. His head snapped up as Chief Warrant Officer Daniels burst into the chamber.

            Daniels was short of breath, like he’d sprinted all the way. He jerked his hand over the table to Tucker.

            ‘Sir, a message, sir. From inside the Complex. From Captain Coleman, sir.’

            Tucker jumped up and snatched the message.

            It was brief.

           
Templates Secured. Hostile Forces Neutralized. Urgent medical assistance required for civilian and military casualties.

            Daniels spoke up urgently, ‘It came in on the right frequency. It’s genuine, sir.’

            ‘Go!’ yelled Tucker at the Chief Warrant Officer. ‘Shut it down now!’

            Tucker checked the countdown as Chief Warrant Officer Daniels sprinted from the room.

#

The radio signal left the USS
Coronado
with six seconds left on the synchronized countdown. It was picked up by the concealed antennae in the grassy tussock less than a second later. It sped down the underground line and was manipulated and verified by three repeater stations. It reached its destination with four seconds to spare.

            In the cement bunker buried below the Complex, a small red light stopped flashing as the neutron weapon went back to sleep.

#

Four hours and twenty-three minutes later, two emergency divers broke the surface in an underground pool.

            They finned into the cave until their feet touched the sandy bottom.

            The lead diver flipped down a small map from her wetsuit and checked their bearings.
This is it. This is definitely the right cave.

            No lights showed in the cave. It looked pitch black. The lead diver lifted her dive flashlight and panned it over the beach at the back of the cave. She spotted one figure stretched out on the sand.

            Just one? We were told there were two in here.

            She signaled for the second diver to approach. ‘Fire up the chem-lamp.’

            The second diver lifted a large-lensed lamp from under the water. The chemical lamp ignited with a crackling hiss. With the entire cave fully illuminated in every detail, she scanned the beach where it joined the water.

            There were foot prints and drag marks. Two sets of foot prints led up the beach, and the same two came down again. There were two parallel drag marks. Partway up, trodden into the sand were the black straps, like two dead snakes, which they had used to drag the injured underwater to this location.

            That all made sense.

            What didn’t make sense was the extra drag mark that looked like it had come
down
the beach again.

            ‘Am I missing something here?’ she asked, turning to the diver with the chem-lamp. ‘I thought –’

            The rest of the remark died on her lips.

            A huge man held a combat dagger to her diving partner’s throat. The man must have circled around and emerged in the water behind them.

            It was pitch black in here! He has no idea who we are. I thought they were supposed to be incapacitated.

            The man looked half-dead, but obviously strong enough to use the knife.

            ‘Sergeant King, right? William King? We’re on your side. We’ve come to get you out of here.’

            With that, the big man dropped the knife and passed out.

#

TWO WEEKS LATER

Forest used the ergonomic bar to pull himself into a sitting position in the hospital bed.

            Nice and steady.

            He kept his movements slow and controlled. No sudden jerking or he’d be punished with more internal spasms of pain up and down his torso. The doctor said he should upgrade to crutches in three weeks, but Forest aimed for ten days.

            The scuba tank had done an efficient job at messing up his insides.

            The military hospital was the last place he would choose to spend the previous two weeks, but at least he was getting paid. He knew he shouldn’t be moving at all, but lying back in bed made him crazier than a bucket of bat crap.

            There aren’t even any pretty nurses.

            He could deal with the pain, but not with the boredom. Flirting with a couple of hot nurses would really take the edge off.

            As he bent his body, the new pressure made him need to pee. He glanced at the wheelchair beside the bed. He could put it off a bit longer, maybe half an hour. It hurt like wildfire to pee.

            And he had a dry mouth.
Drink now, pee later.

            Turning gingerly towards the high bedside table’s ever-present plastic water jug, he saw that someone had left flowers beside his bed.

            Large blooms, red fading to pink on the inside.

            Forest stared at them for a full minute. Finally he turned them around so the blooms faced the opposite corner of the room.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to risk waking up with those in my face. I’ll have a heart attack before my real injuries have a chance to kill me.

            He tried not to laugh at himself. Laughing was definitely out.
God, I’m a funny bastard.

            Now, time for some more training.

            A television hung in the corner of his room. Forest picked up the game console hand-control, loaded his saved game, selected the ‘Assault Rifle’ icon, and then started blowing away the baddies that popped up on the screen.

            In his head, large pink flowers were having the worst day of their lives.

#

King glanced up and saw that the man had the wrong recovery room.

            He dropped his head back down to the hospital pillow.

            The guy would get the message. A big black man with a face full of stitches obviously wasn’t who he was looking for. The big guy who’d slid open the door was wearing a tailored suit and carrying a small plant, obviously intended for somebody else’s bedside table.

            King knew it was a tailored suit because from personal experience he knew you couldn’t buy them that big from off the rack.

            That was the thing with being relocated to the civilian surgery – he had to contend with visiting hours and people wandering around. In the military infirmary where Forest was being treated, he wouldn’t have had that problem. But the specialist equipment and surgeons to fix his arm were located here, in the middle of New York City, and King valued the use of his hand very highly.

            The hunting knife had lacerated veins and nearly severed three tendons.

            King heard the door to his private room slide closed.

            Someone spoke from the door. ‘I’m not here to kill you.’

            That voice.

            He looked up again.
The meds must be playing tricks with my brain. It can’t be….

            There was no mistake. The suit and their environment had thrown him off at first.

            It was Krisko Borivoj.

            Bora moved past King’s bed and placed the plant on his bedside table.

            King considered pressing his assistance button.
What good would that do? Probably just get a nurse and a couple of security guards killed. This is my problem.

            Bora looked up and down King’s prone frame, studying the very wounds he had delivered.

            ‘Are surprised to see me?’ asked Bora.

            ‘What do you want?’

            Bora repeated his question, articulating each word precisely. His tone made it inelegantly clear that the events of the next few minutes depended on King’s answer.

            ‘I’ll ask you again, because I know you’re upset. Are you, surprised, to see me?’

            King already knew the answer. He didn’t need to think about it. It had been something playing on his mind for the last fortnight. The thought was linked to a sound. It was the sound of the assault rifle firing as King abandoned Bora to the creature.

            Bora’s question wasn’t
Are you surprised to see me in this hospital?
,
his question was
Are
you surprised to see me still alive?

            ‘No, I’m not surprised,’ answered King. ‘I knew you’d made it out when they didn’t recover your body.’

            Bora looked thoughtfully down at the drip in King’s arm. ‘When you regained consciousness, after your military secured the Complex, after all your civilians were evaced, that was your first question, wasn’t it? You asked if they’d located my body.’

            It wasn’t a question. Bora knew it. It was true. It was the only question that had been in King’s mind when they were stretchering him out of the Complex.

            ‘So, how did you get out?’ asked King.

            ‘Every dog has his day, William. You and I had unfinished business.’

            King just waited. Something was coming.

            ‘You dropped these,’ said Bora. ‘And I of all people understand how badly you wanted to take them from me.’

            Bora dropped Marlin’s dog tags onto King’s open fingers.

            King couldn’t close that hand. The recent surgery had left it immobile for the present.