Orpheus (31 page)

"When my Dad gets here, we need to get to my truck."

* * *

The fight with the zombies was over, but they all knew what the sudden light above them meant: they were busted. They huddled under a thick copse of trees and wondered what to do next. No one had even a terrible idea for escape, let alone one that had a chance of succeeding. A second helicopter had joined in the search near the end of the fight, and the four men, once they had a moment to breathe, wondered where the hell it came from. They continued to hover, as Anders was content that Orpheus and his men were contained.

"That second chopper. What the fuck, gentlemen?" Sam said.

"It doesn't matter. This is bad."

"It's...worse than that, Orpheus." Mutt, who was already on his knees, fell sideways, and was only saved from prone by Fish's leg. He turned his face into the leg and breathed deep, but became horrified as soon as he realized what was happening. He pushed away from Fish and yelled, "Oh, God!" This time, he did hit the ground. His friends moved to help him, but he screamed, "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" They all recoiled.

"Mutt, what is it?" Orpheus asked, even though he already knew the answer. He felt ashamed by his hand that, of its own accord, moved the pistol a few inches in Mutt's direction. "Are you in pain?"

"Oh, Christ, you have no idea. I swear I could hear and smell the blood pumping through his leg. Hunger. That's all I feel now. It's over."

"It's not over, Mutt," Fish said, even though he was visibly creeped out. "We can figure something out."

"God love ya, kid, and I do, too, but you're stupid if you really think that. Orpheus, call 'em and tell 'em they can have me."

"No."

"Then give me the fucking radio. I'm done, and you know it. They only want me, so you guys can get away, at least." He paused and let it sink in.

"Orpheus," Sam said. "This is stupid."

"Shut it, Sam. All of you know this is the only good I can still do. I can feel myself losing control. I'm a threat now. Please let me do this."

The last sentence was a plea, and it broke Orpheus' heart to hear. He bent down and picked up Mutt's pistol. He popped the magazine, inspected it, the slammed it back home. He handed it gently to Mutt. "You have no idea how much I want to argue, but I just can't."

"Good. Because I still owe you. They want me. I'm going to start walking...okay, dragging ass...thataway, and you're going to radio them while you haul ass in any other direction."

"You don't owe me a goddamn thing."
I'm losing another one. How many more?
He wanted to just let loose, throw a tantrum, break whatever he could get his hands on, but that would only serve to demean Mutt's sacrifice. Instead, he called Anders and told him that Mutt was giving himself up. Anders sounded disappointed that he wouldn't have an opportunity to take him by force, but orders were orders. Orpheus read between the lines: Anders was doing his job by securing Mutt, but he still wanted to gut Orpheus.

"Cameron! Wait!"

The transmission took him by surprise, and he dropped the radio. He picked it up and said, "Lena, what?"

She  was obviously in a hurry. The next fifteen seconds was a hodgepodge of rapidfire information that nearly knocked him off of his feet. He'd barely had time to register what she'd said about the radio stations before she hit him with Tim's code phrase.

Eleven o'clock Special.
Popcorn and diced onion rings mixed together. Ethan's invention, and the only thing he would snack on during the second showing at the drive-in.

"Orpheus! Hey! You still with us?" Fish shook his shoulder. "What does that mean?"

Orpheus knew without question that Anders had not only heard that, but it had piqued his curiosity, as well. He was a sociopath, but he wasn't stupid; he might have even figured out what Lena's panicked transmission meant to Orpheus, that his son was alive and was telling him where to meet.  Fortunately, Anders couldn't possibly know where that place was, and there was no way that Orpheus was going to lead him there now. He told Fish and Sam where to go, and also what to say so they'd be accepted as friendlies.

"Us? What about you?" Sam asked.

Orpheus said nothing, and that spoke volumes.

"Aw, fuck that, boss! We're not leaving you!"

"Please. Please take care of my boy." The same note of pleading that he'd heard in Mutt's voice now dominated his own. He said no more to them, because he trusted that they'd do as he'd asked this one last time. He simply helped Mutt to his feet and shuffled them both in the direction opposite the drive-in.

"Orpheus," Mutt said, then switched gears, "Cameron, you have no idea how much I want to argue right now."

"Yeah, yeah...just don't eat me." It shouldn't have been funny, but they both burst out laughing. There was no need for stealth anymore, and the light moment seemed to pick them both up for a few moments. Mutt became just a little bit lighter on Orpheus' shoulder for a few dozen yards. One helicopter followed them; the other hovered, the pilot either unsure whom to follow, or just awaiting orders. Orpheus would make that change.

Mutt's boost of strength flagged, then vanished altogether. "I'm fried, boss. Just put me down easy." Orpheus dropped to one knee and held Mutt while he got in a comfortable sitting position against a tree. When he was set, Orpheus stood and looked down at him. There were no tearful goodbyes, words of encouragement, or even a handshake. These two men had been through Hell together, and that meant far more than any gestures could.

Orpheus turned on his heel and began to jog away from everyone. When he got some distance, he jogged backwards for a while and watched the helicopter descend to pick up Mutt. The second chopper still hovered, and Orpheus was sure that Anders was in that one, because there was no way he would voluntarily bring an infected person on board
his
helicopter. He couldn't allow that helicopter to follow Sam and Fish. He wouldn't.

He transmitted. "Anders? You still airborne?"

"Yeah. So?"

Orpheus fired two shots into the body of the helicopter. The pilot banked hard, and the chopper shimmied away from the direction of the shots before it righted itself. "Come get me, dick."

Mutt broke in laughing. "Ha! Classic."

Orpheus clipped the radio to his belt and ran back through the area that they'd just fought through, believing that it was the most likely area to be clear of zombies. He wasn't going to make it easy.

* * *

Tim's news had rattled Lena. She found it hard to concentrate on getting the shortwave radio up and running. The pounding on the door wasn't helping matters. She finally got her fingers working, but all she got was shit over the air.

"Lena!"

Trager.

"Lena, open the goddamn door. Now. I need to talk to you."

What can I do? Is there a chance I can get away?
Climbing out of a window was impossible, not only because she was on the fifth floor, but because the windows didn't open anyway. They were shatterproof, too. It was almost as if they didn't want people jumping.

She cursed and swept the mike off of the desk. She formulated a quick, possibly crazy, plan and passed it on to Tim just before she heard, "Shoot it off." She instinctively ducked, but forced herself back under control and said her farewells to Tim.

She expected Trager to come in right away, but it took a lot more bullets than she expected to shoot out a lock on a door. Gunshot, thud against the door, scream in failure, repeat. It was almost funny, and it bought her some time. Not as much as she would have liked, but enough to dunk her laptop in the toilet and flush a few times. All she cared about was eliminating any information that could be used to find Ethan Holt and, by extension, Cameron. She didn't think that Trager had anyone with enough expertise to crack her files, but with the data destroyed she couldn't possibly be coerced to do it herself. All she had to do was play dumb.

If they killed her because of it, that would really suck. A lot. But she could die with a clean conscience, and that was something, she guessed.

Sainthood, here I come.

She resigned herself to capture, and yelled, "Stop shooting! I'm opening the door!" She paused and waited for acknowledgment. "Did you hear me, Martin?"

"Yes! Now let me in!"

The deadbolt looked like the star of a commercial. She couldn't believe that it held as long as it did. She flicked it and opened the door, all smiles. "Sorry, I was in the bath." Trager stood stock still, flanked by two unmasked Scythe guys. None of them looked amused.

"Lena, let's go."

She was confused. Why wasn't she, at the very least, on the ground? "With you? And them? Why? Where?"

"Jesus, you're infuriating. To the roof. Them you can trust. Can we please walk now?" He held out a hand. She didn't sense any threat behind it. It felt more like a request for her trust.

It was kind of...sweet.

She took his hand and thought,
What on Earth am I thinking right now?

Trager held her hand for a brief moment, then furrowed his brow. "Why are your hands wet?"

"It's just toilet water." He let go and wiped his hand on his pants. "Don't ask."

"Well, dry off and take this." He handed her a pistol and started walking.

She fell in step beside him and behind Scythe. "Are-are we in danger?"

"You, me, everyone else alive on this island. Shhh."

"What?"

"They're about five minutes out," one of the Scythe agents said, just as they'd reached the roof access stairs.

Trager stopped and grabbed Lena's arm. He dropped his voice into a whisper. "I heard Tim's transmission. Unfortunately, everyone else did, too. The first thing I did was check what he was saying. I had this little two dollar POS radio in my desk. You know what the first thing I heard was? Rush Limbaugh. That's enough to put me in a bad mood on a normal day, let alone on a day when you find out that the world hasn't been overtaken by zombies as you were led to believe."

"You really didn't know?"

"I really didn't."

"And the rescue attempt really was a rescue attempt? You didn't just want Mutt?"

"I wanted both. Mutters may hold the key to a cure. I don't want to sound heartless, but he's going to die anyway. I'd think he'd rather do it to save people a world of grief and not walk around eating brains. But it's a good thing that Holt...and you...didn't trust me. If you had, we'd probably all be dead."

"So who-"

"Four minutes out."

Lena said, "Wait here," and headed back the way they'd just come.

"Lena!"

"Just wait!" She disappeared around a corner.

Trager said to his feet, "I'm gonna friggin' kill that broad, I swear..."

Her absence lasted about two minutes. When she reappeared, she was frantically fiddling with her spare laptop. "What are you doing?"

"This is everything I have on your...not your...operation. People need to see this."

"I thought you flushed it."

She smiled. "I wouldn't be a very good spy. I forgot about the SD card. That should still work." She handed him a card, no larger than a postage stamp, but capable of holding more information on it than entire hard drives could a decade previous, and he slid it into his pocket. "I wish I had time to make more copies."

"Sixty seconds."

"Shit. Let's go." He led them up the stairs at a run. "We're outmanned and outgunned, so this has to happen fast and brutal. Lena, get behind something and help out where you can. I wish you didn't have to do this."

He opened the door. The helicopter was close, no more than twenty seconds from touching down. They took up positions that would afford them some good cover.

It sank in for Lena that she was about to have a life-and-death gun battle, and she still wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

Trager pointed to his other escort. He had to yell to be heard over the rotors. "On his signal! Not me! Him! Everyone on that helicopter but Mutters is fair game!"

Lena didn't know if that last order was in deference to her, but she thought not. Mutt was important to her, but he was just as important to Martin, although for a different reason. She glued her eyes to the Scythe agent who would be making the signal.
I don't even know their names,
she thought. The skids made contact with the helipad, and still he waited. She perceived a change in the sound of the rotors, then two occupants jumped out. They worked with the two men in the helicopter to remove a heavy-looking bundle. One of them lost their grip and dropped the bundle to the helipad, where it began squirming, despite being bound hand, feet, shoulders, and knees. One of the men kicked it repeatedly in the stomach.

Mutt,
she thought with horror
. That's Mutt.

"Now!" the agent yelled. He jumped up and began firing. The other agent and Trager were a second behind him. Lena, who up until a few seconds ago hadn't been sure she could shoot at a person, followed suit, the image of Mutt being manhandled and kicked like a bad dog burned into her mind. Those two men were the first to drop. The pilot and the other occupant used the helicopter for cover and returned fire. One of Trager's men made himself visible for a second and drew their fire. Trager and Lena helped him out while the other agent flanked them.