The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind Read online

  “But prions are too small to see in a microscope like this,” Navid said, gesturing to the light microscope they were using.

  “Right,” Lauren said. “So we’ll run a couple of tests this afternoon to find out if the compound actually eliminated the Oni Agent prions or not.”

  Navid shook his head, pulling his hand through his thick black hair. “So we actually have no idea if the compound works. This might not be a breakthrough at all.”

  “Now hold up,” Lauren said. Healthy skepticism was a good thing, but pessimism would kill their momentum on Operation Phoenix. “Yes, there are more experiments to run, and we’re miles from the finish line. But this is a good first step.”

  “Lauren is right,” Peter said. “If I’ve learned one thing during my career, it’s that you should celebrate the little wins because they come far and few between.”

  Navid gave a noncommittal shrug, and Kara simply nodded, her expression unreadable.

  Back at the CDC, Lauren’s next steps would have been a lot easier. She used to have a fully equipped lab with over two thousand square feet of dedicated resources at her disposal. But here, in a footprint barely the size of a Manhattan studio apartment, her experiments were necessarily more constrained and limited.

  At least she had good people on her team. Lauren couldn’t resist testing them now. “So, if you were me, what would you guys do next?”

  “I’d test the Phoenix Compound in an animal model,” Navid said. “It’s the only way to know for sure whether it actually works. You need, say, a mouse with a working immune system, fully intact organs, and healthy tissues. Then you can see if the body’s normal physiology interferes with the Phoenix Compound’s treatment of the Oni Agent in any way.”

  “Very good,” Lauren said. “But unless you’ve got a cage full of mice hidden in your quarters, we’re out of luck, aren’t we?”

  “Dunno about that,” Divya piped up. “I’ve seen a few rodents scurrying around in Sean’s room.”

  Sean shot her a mock hurt expression. “Who I spend my time with is none of your business. And I’ll have you know the mice in the Huntress’s galley are a thousand times friendlier than you lousy bunch.”

  “All right, let’s get serious,” Lauren said. “This isn’t just about solving some theoretical scientific problem. We’re talking about a compound that can change the course of the Oni Agent pandemic. Something to keep the Hunters safe out in the field.”

  “So mice are out of the question,” Kara said. “And we can’t exactly work with Fort Detrick right now.”

  “Not while General Kinsey is trying to sink us,” Lauren said.

  “Damn,” Kara said. She shuffled her feet and looked at the floor as if the answer were hidden somewhere on the tiles.

  “I got it,” Navid said. “Organ-on-a-chip!”

  “Bingo,” Lauren said.

  Kara looked confused as the other scientists scoured the lab for the small chips Lauren would use for the upcoming experiment. Peter was the first to find one labeled HUMAN NEUROLOGICAL SYSTEM. Lauren held up the acrylic chip, letting the light illuminate the tiny channels within the thumb-sized device.

  “That’s the brain?” Kara hazarded.

  “Basically.” Lauren placed the chip in a biosafety cabinet. “Within this chip, there are a selection of molecules and cells that will help us to simulate the brain microenvironment. I’ll inject it with samples of both the Oni Agent and the Phoenix Compound.”

  Kara furrowed her brow, leaning closer to the biosafety cabinet. Sean, Peter, and Divya were already prepping various solutions in vials for the experiment. “Why is this better than those neuron cells?”

  “Well, scientific discoveries in a cell culture aren’t always representative of what will actually happen in the real biological environment,” Lauren replied. “For example, when scientists are looking for a cure for a certain type of cancer, it’s very easy for them to test all kinds of chemicals made by man or found in nature to show whether or not they kill the cells. But those same chemicals might interfere with important physiological functions. And sometimes, the human body might actually render the chemicals useless.”

  “Okay. So we can’t just say something works by testing it in the cell culture. Like, bleach will definitely kill your cancer cells in a plastic dish, but you can’t say bleach cures cancer?”

  “Exactly,” Lauren said, pleased to see the dawn of understanding in Kara’s eyes. She’d make a scientist of the girl yet.

  “Ready,” Divya piped up beside Lauren. She held a vial in one gloved hand and a pipette in another.

  “Go ahead and introduce the compound.” Lauren stood back from the biosafety cabinet and watched as her team finished their work. She listened to the soft clatter of plastic against plastic and the whoosh of filtered air blowing through the cabinet. Her heart rate increased in anticipation as Divya inserted a tiny droplet of liquid into one of the chip’s channels. It contained a fatal dose of Oni Agent, capable of transforming a healthy person into a Skull within mere hours.

  They’d worked with several deadly pathogens and biological agents over the years, but nothing had ever matched the brutality of the Oni Agent or the havoc it wreaked.

  “Done,” Divya reported.

  “How soon will we know?” Kara asked, her eyes turned to Lauren hopefully. “What do we do next?”

  “We wait,” Lauren said, imagining the microscopic battle being waged between the Phoenix compound and the Oni Agent within the tiny plastic device. “With any luck, it’ll take a few hours at most for the Phoenix Compound to eradicate the Oni Agent.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Kara asked. “What’s our next move?”

  Lauren looked around at her crew. Dark bags hung under their eyes, evidencing the long hours they’d spent in the lab and the med bay. The answer to Kara’s question almost physically hurt to admit.

  “If the Phoenix Compound doesn’t work, we’ll keep redoing the simulations and finding new compounds until we identify one that does.”

  Kara looked stricken. “You mean we’ll have to start over?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Welcome to the world of science.”

  -10-

  The bang and clatter of Skulls ramming the warehouse doors echoed through the building. Meredith shuddered at the relentless noise. Her nerves were halfway shot, and this wasn’t helping.

  Despite Thomas’s best efforts to distract the creatures, they’d been drawn to the warehouse by Dom’s bout with the Goliath. Escaping this place would be a challenge, even with the Huntress’s distant support. There was only so much the ship could do to convince a horde of hungry Skulls to search elsewhere for food.

  Something slammed into one of the warehouse doors. The hinges squealed, and the door bent inward with a metallic groan. The Skull—or maybe multiple monsters—battered at the dented door, sensing that their dinner was close at hand.

  “We need a way out of here,” Dom said. “The faster, the better. Meredith, Andris, check for a route. The rest of you, see if we can find anything useful in here.”

  “Message received,” Meredith said. She surveyed the doors along the warehouse’s perimeter. The majority of the Skulls’ roars and scratches seemed to be coming from the front of the building, so they might sneak out the back. She wanted to have a better idea of what they were up against, though, before they made a move. Since she didn’t have Superman’s X-ray vision, there was only one option.

  “To the roof,” she said, grinning at Andris.

  The Hunter stretched his arms, his joints cracking. “A little climb would do my body good.”

  Meredith scanned their surroundings, taking in the catwalk and the series of grimy skylights in the ceiling. Even with Andris giving her a boost, she wouldn’t be able to access the roof that way.

  Another Skull threw itself against a warehouse door, the sound reverberating through the metal walls like a drum.

  An idea sparked in her brain, but she quickly discarded it. St
acking oil drums would take far too much time, and they needed to be quick. She stalked through the winding stacks of storage crates, searching for something they could use.

  “Got a plan for getting to the roof?” he asked.

  “It’s coming together,” she said, rushing toward a wall of tool chests near some compressed gas tanks and a rusted forklift. She peeked into a crate filled with sheet-metal scraps and pieces of discarded pipe. She sifted through the junk.

  “Here,” she said, handing Andris a pipe. Then she withdrew an anchor fitted for a small craft no bigger than a rowboat. It still had a barnacle-covered rope attached to it. The tool chest held an array of cables and ropes, from which she took a bungee cord.

  Andris shot her a wry grin. “Ah, I see where you’re going with this.” He moved to the rows of compressed air tanks, checking the valves of each. A twist of a knob yielded the satisfying hiss of air. He coiled some silicone tubing around his shoulder. “Ready.”

  Meredith started climbing the metal stairs to the nearest catwalk. Andris followed with the heavy tank.

  Once they reached the top, Meredith took the tank from him, attached the tube, and secured it to the end of the pipe. Then she fitted the anchor into the end of the pipe, adding several wraps of duct tape to ensure a snug fit. She secured the bungee cord over the anchor to hold it in place.

  As she leveled it to the nearest skylight, she gave Andris a short command. “Shoot that one out.”

  Andris complied, shouldering his rifle and letting out a salvo of suppressed shots. The holes punched through the glass, and shards rained down. Meredith cringed at the sound, but it was unavoidable.

  Now for the real show. She used the nozzle on the air tank to fill the tube with gas, pressurizing it. The anchor trembled, but the bungee cord held as the pressure built. Without a gauge, she had no idea how many pounds per square inch of gas were pushing on her makeshift grappling hook. Once the bungee cord looked like it was about to give way, she unclipped one end.

  The cord whipped as the tension within it released, and the anchor flew from the pipe, thrown by the expanding gas. The barnacle-covered rope trailed behind it as the anchor cleared the opening in the destroyed skylight. A heavy clunk signaled the anchor had landed on the roof, and Meredith tugged the rope, dragging the anchor until it snagged the lip of the skylight. She heaved on the line to ensure it stayed in place.

  Andris glanced up at her handiwork. “Want me to go first?”

  “Thanks for the chivalry, but I’ve got this.” Meredith gave the rope one more tug for good measure. She started to climb, hand over hand, refusing to think about the hard concrete waiting for her thirty feet below if she fell. The skylight framed a night sky full of glittering stars, and she reached up toward it with a gloved hand.

  For a moment, up above it all with the night air tickling her skin, the Skulls’ growls sounded as distant as the calls of birds in the trees and the crash of water against the shore. Meredith pulled herself up to the skylight and then onto the roof. It took more effort than she liked to admit. Was it because she hadn’t kept up with her fitness routine of calisthenics, running, and weight exercises since the start of the outbreak? Or worse, was it just a sign of reaching a half century in age?

  She let out a long exhalation as she took her first few cautious steps on the corrugated metal roof. Neither age nor the apocalypse could stop her. With her rifle pressed against her shoulder, she scanned the rest of the roof, looking for any sign of movement through the lingering haze of the smokescreen.

  “All clear up here,” she called through the comm link.

  The muffled huffing and clang of boots on metal told her when Andris had made it up. The clamor of the Skulls rose all around them, especially deafening near the front of the warehouse. The Hunters definitely wouldn’t be escaping the way they’d come in.

  The front of the warehouse faced the harbor—and the thronging mass of Skulls. Meredith and Andris crept over to the other side of the building. It looked onto a dense line of trees, their leaves dancing in the wind. Meredith used a pair of binoculars to scope the river just past the canopy of leaves.

  Misshapen creatures were lurking on the river’s edge. Skulls, and plenty of them. But at least they seemed spread out enough that the Hunters might avoid being overwhelmed.

  “Any sign of a boat?” Andris asked. He stood at her back, covering them while she searched.

  Meredith shook her head and followed the bend of the river as it snaked toward the harbor, back to the clot of shipwrecked barges, freighters, and fishing craft smashed together like a manmade mountain. None would be of any use.

  As she studied the river, she spotted something that made her heart leap. A ferry had been beached on the shore closest to them. It had three decks. Cars, motorcycles, vans, and other vehicles in a sorry state of repair lined the bottom deck. A middle deck appeared mostly closed off, protected by a bulkhead punctuated with portholes, many of which were cracked. The top deck held what looked like the pilothouse along with several rows of benches. There was a smattering of tarps strung up between the gunwales and benches as some sort of temporary shelter.

  If they sprinted, they could make it to the ferry within a few minutes. The prow was far enough up the bank that they might be able to lower the ramp onto solid ground. Meredith guessed at least a couple of the vehicles inside might work if they needed land transport. The ferry itself might still be functional. The Zodiac had been smaller and quieter, but it offered almost no protection against the elements or Skulls. Even if they couldn’t get the ferry going, she spied a pair of lifeboats.

  “Think it’ll work?” Andris asked when she handed him the binos and pointed out the vessel.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Meredith’s blood quickened in her veins. The hunt was back on.

  -11-

  Frank was only a football field or two away from the choppers that would take him out of Manassas. But between them stretched an airfield with dozens of lumbering Skulls. Their claws scraped against the tarmac, and every once in a while, one of the monsters’ hungry groans would echo over the landscape. They meandered between the idle single-prop planes and larger passenger aircraft, bumping into the luggage-handling vehicles and a lone fuel truck. Frank’s fingers traced across the cold metal of the pistol tucked in his waistband, loaded with his only remaining round. He had no other weapon besides his fists and his ability to talk himself out of any situation.

  He didn’t regard either of those too highly at the moment.

  Instead, he gave himself a half-hearted pep talk. “Well, Frank, ol’ boy, didn’t you always want to be a ninja? Now’s your chance.”

  He crept through the underbrush toward the tarmac then sprinted for a luggage truck to hide behind a wall of spilled suitcases, each of them carefully packed for vacations or work trips. Marie had packed them all a picnic lunch on the day she and Philip died, and he had never found out what was in it.

  No need to get all sentimental again.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about his family. Their ghosts haunted this place, and he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to stay here with them. At least they’d be together again. Frank slumped against a massive wheeled suitcase. A Skull limped on the opposite side of the luggage cart. He tried to hold his breath and balled himself up as small as possible.

  The Skull’s shuffling footsteps ceased as it drew to a halt. Frank didn’t dare move to see what it was doing, but he heard it sniffing and imagined the monster’s nostrils flaring beneath the scarred bone masking its face. Frank’s heart threw itself against his ribcage with wild abandon, and he pressed himself tighter against the pile of luggage. Another Skull’s footsteps scraped closer until he heard the two monsters collide with the hollow thud of bone smacking against bone. The first Skull let out a menacing growl, and the second responded in kind. Frank heard a brief scuffle, followed by a whimper of pain. Then a spray of blood painted the concrete red as one of the monsters fell. It cr
ashed against the ground in a heap of skeletal limbs and gray flesh.

  What the hell? Frank had seen plenty of humans torn to shreds by the beasts—God rest their souls—but the Skulls didn’t usually turn on each other. These must be desperate, ravenous.

  The surviving Skull finally dragged itself away, and Frank held back a sigh of relief. He peered between two suitcases leaning against each other to watch the silhouette of the victorious Skull amble away, awash in pale moonlight. Strange, amorphous dark shadows covered its organic armor. Frank guessed they were splashes of blood.

  Turning, he started toward one of the squat buildings outside the regional airport’s terminal, where he hoped to find the keys to the Helicopter Flight Training School’s choppers. He snuck between helicopters and abandoned vehicles across the tarmac. Each time a Skull growled or shuffled closer, he froze. It was like playing a game of Statues where the other team ate you if you lost.

  He made his way to a row of bushes lining the training school office. After sneaking to the front door, he tried pushing the handle. It didn’t budge. If he had to, he’d come back and break it, but for now he wanted to keep his options open. Any tinkling glass shards would call out to all the Skulls he had just painstakingly avoided.

  Instead, he followed the brick walls to the back of the building. There, he tiptoed to a familiar white-framed window. His old office. He used to complain about the window looking over an untended field of grass and wildflowers. Drafty in the winter and a channel for the sticky humid air of summer, the window never quite closed right. He’d hated it then, but he loved it now.

  He probed around the swollen wooden frame until he felt the gap. Then he wedged his fingers in it and pried. A muffled pop sounded, and the window jolted open. Frank surveyed the field to ensure he hadn’t been spotted. Nothing jumped out of the darkness, and no Skulls cried out with their demonic wails.

  So far, so good. Score one for Team Battaglia.

  His old office was almost unrecognizable. Where once a picture of Marie and Philip had sat on a wide wooden desk, now metal scale-models of various Air Force helicopters were lined up in a neat row across a modern glass desk. The chair was a minimalist piece instead of the lush leather beast Frank used to sit in. Framed certificates and diplomas for a Leonard G. Craft decorated the otherwise-barren walls.