Silent Creed (20 page)

Haywood County, North Carolina

T
he smell of mud and mildew was replaced with antiseptics that stung Creed’s nostrils. It already hurt to breathe. He saw needles in his arm and tubes trailing from his body. And all he could think about was his dog.

He craned his neck. Tried to sit up and was met with pain. Lay back down on sterile pillows and white sheets stained with his blood. Machines gurgled and whirred somewhere beside him. His vision wouldn’t focus, breaking everything into pieces with halos of bright light around the edges. Still, he strained to lift his head enough to see over the bedrails. He needed to see if his dog was okay. If Rufus was safe.

Never leave their side. No matter what.

Not like Brodie. He should have gone with her.

Something startled him and Creed sat up. But he wasn’t in a hospital. He was back in his cot. Back in the high school gymnasium. Grace stirred beside him and looked up at him, ears perched forward. Concern in her eyes. On the floor in between his cot and what had been Maggie’s cot last night was Bolo, stretched out on the floor, fast asleep.

He realized the antiseptic smell came from his own body. He was shirtless beneath the blanket. Fresh bandages wrapped around his chest. But these weren’t tight. Instead Creed could see that they were used only to keep a thin ice pack the length and width of his chest pressed against him.

He fingered his face and felt stitches now where the butterfly bandage had been. He looked around the open space. Almost all the cots were empty. No one was milling around. And through the small windows near the roofline he could see clouds rolling by. So it wasn’t nighttime. But that was all he knew.

His body felt numb but he could breathe again despite the stabbing in his chest. The pressure in his head threatened to explode. He tried to think. Tried to remember. He stroked Grace but she still stared at him. He let his fingers run over her paws and she didn’t flinch.

“You okay?” he asked. “Is my girl okay?”

Her body wiggled against him. Ears went back and she relaxed.

“I’m okay, too,” he told her.

“You had us all worried.” He heard a voice behind him.

Dr. Avelyn came around and sat on Maggie’s cot where he could see her and she could observe him.

Suddenly he remembered the rush of water that had knocked him off his feet, that had separated him from Bolo. Creed had been battered against the rocks and debris, and so had the dog. He jerked up and his eyes darted around to where Bolo was lying.

“Whoa!” Dr. Avelyn grabbed his arm. “He’s fine. A few minor scrapes. He’s exhausted.”

Creed watched the big dog until he was satisfied. Then he asked Dr. Avelyn, “You the one who patched me up?”

“I wrapped some ice packs against your ribs. Not tightly. Maggie’s right. The medic probably shouldn’t have ACE’d you so tight like that on the first day. Compression wraps used to be recommended for broken ribs. But they just make it harder for you to breathe and double your risk for pneumonia.”

“Do I have pneumonia?”

“Not yet. And hopefully not on my watch.”

He nodded. “So is this what you’d do with a dog with broken ribs?”

“No, I’d wrap his chest tight.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and asked, “Then how did you—”

“Did you know that Maggie was premed before going into forensics?”

He smiled and felt light-headed but otherwise no major pain. He looked back at Dr. Avelyn. “You gave me something?”

“If you’re in a lot of pain you won’t breathe as deeply as you need to. Don’t worry, it’s nothing that will incapacitate you.”

“Thanks.”

And he didn’t worry. Dr. Avelyn was one of the few people he trusted explicitly with his dogs. It would be silly not to extend that trust to include himself.

Which reminded him. “Is Maggie okay?”

“Some scrapes and bruises, but yes, she’s fine.”

“Any idea where she is?”

“That I can’t help you with.” She stood back up. “I need to get to my post.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “The crews will be coming in for the night. I’ll check on you at dinner.”

“Do you know where Jason is?”

“Said something about an assignment you gave him this morning.”

Morning had been a long time ago, but Creed pretended to know when he had no idea. Maybe she was right about a concussion.

“Promise me you’ll stay put and get some rest?”

He nodded.

“No really.”

“I’m not leaving Grace and Bolo.”

That satisfied her and he watched her leave. What he failed to mention was that he could take both dogs along with him.

Y
ou need to tell me what’s going on,” O’Dell told Peter Logan.

When he hesitated, she added, “I pulled your sorry ass from being washed downstream.”

She was exhausted and tired of arguing with the man. It had been a battle tracking down Ross and the other guardsmen, then getting both Creed and Logan down off the mountain and back to safety. Dr. Avelyn had assured her that Creed would be fine but that he desperately needed to rest. Logan, despite having been knocked down and knocked out, appeared to be back to his normal, arrogant self.

“Ross’s team thinks they found part of the facility. It’s buried farther up from where we were digging. They think they have a secure opening to get down into it.”

“Are there more victims trapped inside?”

He shook his head and she saw an exasperated look that he held back behind a smile.

“Now I understand that it was never about that,” he said, watching her, and she knew he was still trying to decide whether or not he should trust her.

At first introduction she had thought he was a bureaucrat, a political bully accustomed to everyone following his orders and giving in to his demands. In the last several hours she had caught glimpses of a man unsure of himself, on the verge of desperation.

She’d seen it before in the eyes of men who realized they’d been used or betrayed. What they did about it could often be the dangerous part. And she wondered what Peter Logan was capable of doing to survive if he had actually been hung out to dry by those powers above him.

They were sitting in the front seat of his Land Rover—the only place he insisted was safe from being overheard. Every once in a while he cranked the engine and blasted hot air. O’Dell had showered and changed into clean, dry clothes but she wasn’t sure she’d ever remove the chill from her body. It was as if the ice-cold floodwaters had gotten inside her veins.

“Ben told me that USAMRIID and DARPA were working together on something,” O’Dell said. “Is that what this is about?”

He seemed surprised and almost relieved.

“But he didn’t tell you what it was?”

“No. He said it was classified.”

“And you were still willing to come down here?”

“I work for the FBI, Logan. The murder of these men is a federal investigation. I know how to work around classified issues. I don’t, however, like having things kept from me, especially when they almost get me killed.” She let that sink in, then added, “At some point my help to you is worthless unless I know more details.”

“Fair enough. I hear you.” And still he hesitated. “At first I was told that we needed to find any survivors and recover whatever bodies there were. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized that wasn’t the only mission.”

“Bodies that had been murdered,” she reminded him.

The first man, supposedly a scientist, had been shot in the head. O’Dell had never seen his body. The other man had been shot in the back. Logan still hadn’t given her an explanation for who the victims were. Maybe he was getting ready to tell her whom he suspected had murdered them.

“And a woman’s severed hand,” she added.

“Dr. Clare Shaw.” He nodded. “She was the director of the facility. Dr. Richard Carrington was the man they found first. I have no idea who the other man is or the one that’s still buried out there. We believe someone murdered them all right before the landslide.”

“And you honestly have no idea who it was?”

“No. But I think I know what the killer may have been after.”

O’Dell stayed quiet and waited.

“Many of our facilities are researching new drugs and vaccines, new procedures to help our military. Back when I was a platoon leader I had my guys testing stuff like go pills and blast briefs.”

“Pills and briefs?” She wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with anything.

“We called them ‘go pills.’”

He’d misunderstood her reaction. She wasn’t asking what they were. She tried to be patient.

“I’m not sure what they had in them. They’d keep us awake on long missions. No hangovers or aftereffects. Blast briefs are underwear with Kevlar. My point is, there’s always something that’s being developed and studied. I was always willing to try stuff out. It was for our safety, right?”

“The man lying in the temporary morgue certainly didn’t look like anyone had his safety in mind when they experimented on him.”

“Experimented? What are you talking about? I thought you said he was shot in the back?”

“That’s probably what killed him, but his entire body looks like one big red bruise, like he was exposed to something.” She watched his face. “Wait a minute, you didn’t know that?”

“Ross’s men said they delivered a mud-covered body.”

“But you knew enough about the hand to believe it’s Dr. Shaw’s?”

“That’s a no-brainer. They told me they had seen red nail polish. And there was the ring.” He waved his hand in front of himself like none of that was important and she was derailing his train of thought.

“But you see, the bodies are incidentals.”

“You’re not concerned that one of your facilities might have been using people as human guinea pigs?”

“If there were experiments, they were done in a professional manner with volunteers who were aware of the risks. It’s no different than the private sector, like pharmaceutical companies paying people for their studies. These facilities do amazing research. That’s what you need to be focused on.”

She did understand that. It was what Ben and his colleagues did at USAMRIID. But the man on the stainless steel table in Ralph’s Meat Locker had been exposed to something extraordinary. And she couldn’t imagine him volunteering for something so severe.

“In order to do this kind of research,” Logan was still explaining, “they sometimes have samples—dangerous samples—on hand.”

He stopped and looked at her, checking to see if she knew what he was getting at. She stared back, waiting.

He took a deep breath and went on. “The samples are often stored in what you might call a lockbox. It’s a portable, self-sufficient biocontainment unit that keeps them climate-controlled and at a temperature that keeps them from being hazardous.”

“Biocontainment? What kinds of samples are you talking about?”

“Anthrax, dengue fever, a variety of man-made viruses.”

“Ebola?”

“Possibly.”

Now she understood his sudden change to desperation.

Once upon a time O’Dell had spent a week in isolation after being exposed to Ebola. Fort Detrick called their isolation unit the Slammer. It had been one of the most frightening experiences of her life. Any one of the Level 3 or Level 4 pathogens would be deadly. That someone may have killed the facility’s scientists in order to get their hands on those samples sent a new chill through her.

C
reed had his boots tied and was working on getting a T-shirt over his head when he noticed Grace’s head go up. Then suddenly Bolo was getting to his feet, too. He turned to find Jason making his way down the side of the gymnasium with a small brown dog trotting at his side. Her floppy ears were pinned back and her head jerked from side to side, nervous about the new surroundings.

Her right leg was wrapped in a bandage and the back of her neck had been shaved to accommodate the sutures that now poked out. He couldn’t help thinking that the dog looked like him—beat-up, stitched up, but not broken.

“Hey, Grace, Bolo.” Jason stopped and addressed them from about ten feet away.

Both dogs glanced up at Creed as if asking permission to go check out the new dog. He put his hand up and kept them in their places.

“When you told me the guy had something for you, you could have maybe told me it was a dog.”

“I guess he didn’t find any family?”

“Grandparents, but they aren’t able to have a dog where they live. He said they sounded really relieved to know she had someplace to go.”

Creed reminded Grace and Bolo to stay, then he went around the cot and got down on one knee. He held out a hand for the dog, keeping it low so it wouldn’t be over her head. When she didn’t approach, Jason brought her closer. Creed waited for her to sniff his hand before he attempted to pet her.

“The guy said you found her in a vehicle buried underground?”

“Bolo found her. She was the only one alive inside.”

“No wonder she’s skittish. What do you suppose she is?”

“Hannah will know. I’m guessing she has some golden in her.”

“She’s small for a golden.”

“Do we know her name?” Creed asked.

“Dog tag says Molly.”

Her ears perked up.

“Hey, Molly.”

She wagged her tail but kept it down.

“New recruit?” he heard Maggie say from behind him.

“One of the survivors from the landslide,” Jason told her.

When Creed had woken up and didn’t see her, he was almost afraid she had gone back to D.C. He was glad to see she hadn’t. Immediately he noticed the bruise on her jaw. He stopped himself from reaching out to touch it.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“A little bit like I ran into a big concrete block.”

She smiled and he could feel her eyes running over his body, as if to see for herself how he was doing.

“Are you up for a short stroll? Just to talk for a few minutes?”

She looked to Jason before Creed did.

“I can handle this,” Jason told them. Already he had Molly at the side of Creed’s cot, letting her exchange sniffs with Grace and Bolo.

“Grace.” Creed waited for the dog’s attention, then pointed at her. “Be nice.”

Creed asked if they could go outside. Maggie still had her jacket on and he grabbed his, wincing as he put it on. Maggie noticed but thankfully didn’t try to help.

The air was crisp but not as damp. Different shades of purple stained the clouds where the sun had gone down. When Creed looked up he could see patches of sky through the thinning layers. Even some stars.

He took guarded breaths, trying to breathe more deeply, remembering what Dr. Avelyn had said about pneumonia. The pain meds made it easier but he could already feel them wearing off.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you for saving me and Bolo.”

“As I remember, both of you saved me once.”

She walked alongside him. They kept to the sidewalk across the street from the high school to avoid the rescue crews starting to come in. He let Maggie lead them away from the noisy engines and boisterous exchanges. The rest of the town’s streets remained fairly quiet.

“I need you to tell me about Peter Logan,” she said, and Creed found himself disappointed. He wasn’t sure what he had hoped she wanted to talk about, but it certainly wasn’t Logan.