Silent Creed

65

When Colonel Hess opened the front door he scowled at Benjamin Platt.

“This had better be as urgent as is the hour.”

Hess was dressed in trousers, a collared shirt, cardigan sweater, and fine leather shoes. Even after being awoken in the middle of the night the man needed to look in control. Platt, on the other hand, had thrown on blue jeans and a sweatshirt. In his hurry, he’d forgotten socks and a jacket.

“The situation in North Carolina is more urgent than we thought,” he told the colonel.

“Have there been more landslides?”

“No. But there’s been a fire. The building they were using for a temporary morgue was destroyed.”

His bushy gray eyebrows rose. “And the bodies?”

“As far as anyone knows, they were destroyed.”

Hess nodded and Platt stared at him. He didn’t seem fazed by the news.

“Has Logan checked in?” Platt asked. “Has he told you anything about this?”

“Logan.” He made a noise as he waved his hand, indicating he’d had it with Logan.

“I sent someone down there,” Platt said, “who might now be in danger. Someone I care very deeply about. And I sent her there because you asked me to choose someone I trusted implicitly. You told me that facility might — and you emphasized might—contain Level 4 samples. You never told me about the experiments.”

“Calm down, Benjamin.”

“Look, I respect you, Abe. You’ve been a tremendous mentor to me—”

“One you repay by waking me in the middle of the night with your suspicions.”

“I just need to know what the hell’s happening down there. This isn’t about us protecting the world anymore, Abraham. We have a responsibility. This facility isn’t even a part of Fort Detrick. It’s DARPA. It’s your responsibility.”

“Exactly. You’re correct. I was wrong in asking for your help. However, I have everything under control. I have a team down—”

“Under control? Wait a minute.” And it only just occurred to Platt. “You mean under your control. Your special team isn’t just searching for the lockbox. They’re cleaning up to make sure no one ever knows about any of this.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Benjamin.”

“That fire destroyed evidence.”

This time Hess stared at him as if mention of the fire had finally struck a nerve.

“You’re not the only one, Benjamin, who has lost someone. I sent someone there, too. Someone who I once trusted many years ago. She was married to one of my dearest friends. I thought I could still trust her.” He shook his head like it didn’t matter. Then added, “We all make sacrifices.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your friend is a bit of a rebel, isn’t she? Just like my so-called trusted friend.”

“I suppose you could call Maggie a rebel. What does that—”

“You failed to mention that. Rebels have a tendency to meddle more than help.”

“She does what she believes is the right thing.”

“The right thing? The right thing? We’re faced today with a new threat that makes the Cold War look like child’s play. That’s what no one understands. Your friend has no idea what the right thing is in this case. She can’t possibly know. I suggest you go home and get some sleep, Benjamin. You need to trust me to take care of this.”

“And what if Logan is the rebel?”

Hess stopped and stared at him as if he hadn’t given it any thought until Platt said it.

“What if Logan is destroying evidence? What if he has other intentions?”

Hess shook his head. “I’ll take care of everything. You go home. Get some sleep.”

“I’m going down there first thing in the morning.”

“There’s no need.” And now Hess had his arthritic hand on Platt’s back and was guiding him toward the door. “By morning everything will be taken care of.”

Platt couldn’t help thinking that the colonel made it sound like he already knew what was going to happen.

66

At sunrise the sky was still clear, but Creed had checked the weather forecast and knew it would be short-lived. Maggie had argued about him coming with them up to the site where the facility was buried. She had argued harder when he told her he’d bring Grace in case the viruses could be sniffed out or the electronic ping was too faint to be registering. Perhaps Grace would be able to hear it.

She told him that she suspected they’d need to trek on foot for a good portion of the way. That he and Grace would only slow them down.

“If that happens you can leave us behind.”

She rolled her eyes at him, then she said, “I would never leave Grace behind.”

He was glad to see she had her sense of humor because the Maggie O’Dell he had witnessed throughout the night made him still concerned about her motives. He had heard the sincerity when she explained about needing to do the right thing, but he also knew she was angry with Logan. He suspected she was even angrier with Ben. From his own experience, anger could be a destructive force.

This morning he, at least, felt clearheaded. The throbbing had eased. His chest ached but he could breathe more deeply. He examined Grace’s pads, pleased with how they looked.

Jason arrived bleary-eyed, bringing Molly with him. They settled in with Bolo.

“Maybe Bolo and me should be going with you.”

He watched Creed prepare his pack with the gear he and Grace would need. Creed was taking along a mesh carrier that he planned on using with Grace. It fit over his head and shoulder and swung down by his side. She weighed only fifteen pounds so it wasn’t any different from carrying his backpack. He had used the carrier before, placing Grace inside so she could ride against him but be comfortable and have access to enough air to still do her job.

He looked around to make sure Maggie was out of earshot when he sat down next to Jason and said, “If we’re not back by nightfall, give this to Vance.”

Jason stared at the tracking device, then asked, “You already think you’re gonna need to be rescued, don’t you?”

“Just a precaution.”

Truth was, he didn’t have a good feeling about this. What Jason didn’t know was that Creed would be tucking the companion to the GPS tracking device into Grace’s vest so at least she would be found.

He saw that Maggie was ready to go and he clapped Jason on the back.

“One other favor,” Creed told him. “Call Hannah. Tell her what’s going on. But wait until I have a head start.”

Jason smiled at the last part. “I’ll call Hannah, but you have to do one thing for me.”

Creed agreed before he realized the kid had something serious in mind. Jason left for the locker room and when he came back he was carrying the one item he wanted Creed to take along. That’s when he knew Jason also thought this trip up the mountain was a bad idea.

—

The three of them climbed into Ross’s SUV. Grace barely got settled before she started to stare at Creed. She was alerting.

How could she already be alerting?

Creed glanced around the vehicle. Maggie sat up front with Ross. He and Grace were in the back. Creed turned his body so he could get a good look at what was in the very back of the SUV. It was possible that the vehicle had carried equipment or there was residue from a previous cargo, but he couldn’t see anything suspicious. Other than Maggie and Creed’s gear in the back, there was only one other backpack. Presumably it belonged to the young guardsman.

Ross was dressed in crisp camouflage fatigues. Creed had noticed that his boots were spit-and-polish clean. Maybe his weapon was tucked away somewhere, but Creed doubted that would set Grace off. Once he caught the dog’s eyes wandering to the back of Ross’s head. Then she immediately looked to Creed again.

Ross told them that he had good news. The trip up to the facility would take less time because of the clear skies. He had a helicopter waiting for them just outside the city limits.

Grace appeared to have settled down. That actually made Creed feel better. Perhaps whatever she was alerting to had been residue in the SUV. He was relieved they wouldn’t have to trudge through the mud. Plus they could get this over with more quickly. Although helicopters reminded Creed too much of Afghanistan, Grace loved the adventure and the roller-coaster ride. Perhaps that would make her relax.

However, Creed took one look at Maggie’s face and knew she did not agree that the helicopter was good news.

67

A helicopter! O’Dell’s jaw clenched and her stomach took a nosedive.

She hated flying, and doing it in a helicopter was a special hell of its own. She put on sunglasses and stared out the window. She’d been hoping to see blue sky for days.

Careful what you wish for.

She asked again about Logan, and again Ross told her his team hadn’t heard from the man since the day before. The young guardsman seemed on edge this morning, but then so was O’Dell. She hadn’t been able to relax the knot in her chest. Last night she had the nagging urge to crawl into Ryder’s cot. Even now as she thought about it, she scolded herself and repeated in her head, Careful what you wish for.

She considered talking Ross out of the helicopter. She hadn’t paid any attention to the forecast, but what if the clear skies didn’t last? Did they have another mode of transportation available to come back down the mountain?

But she stopped herself. More than anything, she wanted this over and done with. There wasn’t much time to waste. She reminded herself about Dr. Gunther. Whoever set that fire last night — whether it was Logan or someone else — had meant to destroy what was inside. She had to be next. She knew that.

She didn’t think she could wait for Kunze. She did tell her boss that they needed to find Peter Logan. It wasn’t a coincidence that he’d suddenly disappeared.

All night she kept watch, flinching and rising at any sound that seemed out of place. She didn’t think Logan would risk burning down a gymnasium and taking with it dozens of rescue workers and volunteers. But she’d seen desperate men do desperate things.

It was best that she beat him back up the mountain. She needed to recover the deadly samples before someone mad enough to kill an old woman and incinerate evidence got there. She couldn’t depend on Ben. He had called several times since they talked last night. She silenced her phone and ignored his messages.

O’Dell knew what she needed to do. She only wished she could have talked Creed into staying behind.

68

The wreckage up there was more severe. Creed was glad he’d brought the mesh carrier for Grace. No way he was allowing her to step foot onto that mess.

To Creed it looked like the remnants of a bombed-out village in Afghanistan. Only rubble left. Stubs of trees stripped of their branches. Pieces of rooflines sticking up out of the ground. An eerie reminder that they were walking on top of the buried building. He imagined hallways still intact underneath. Maybe more bodies trapped down there.

The smell of diesel and propane was dangerously strong and he searched for greasy puddles even as he followed Ross and Maggie.

The pilot had stayed with the helicopter. So far no one else was there to meet them. And Ross didn’t look like he expected anyone else.

“It’s not much farther,” he told Maggie. He glanced back at Grace then asked, “What exactly can the dog find?”

“A number of things. But she hasn’t been trained with any of the viruses we’re looking for.”

If Creed hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Ross looked pleased with that information instead of concerned about Grace’s limitations.

Grace, however, was unsettled again. She had wiggled into the carrier willingly but then stared at him again and fidgeted. Now traveling securely at his side, she pawed at him every once in a while. When he looked down, her nose was twitching, her breathing rapid. She obviously had found a scent she was working.

Multitask dogs were exceptional, even phenomenal. But sometimes they could get confused. The smallest miscue or misunderstanding of what their owner expected could result in a false alert. Creed used different commands and a variety of harnesses and vests for each task. If he didn’t make it clear what he expected the dog to search for, there could be confusion.

But Grace didn’t get confused.

Still, a dog might smell something that they recognized as a scent they’d been trained to search for. When they smelled it — even though they hadn’t been asked to find that particular scent at that particular time — they might alert to it. The landslide had smeared the mountain with enough scent to drive a dog crazy. Was she smelling human decomposition?

Earlier Creed suspected she was alerting to something inside the SUV. Now she was alerting again, staring up at him. The only common denominator was Ross.

He eyed the guardsman’s backpack. Creed watched the fit and swing of his jacket. Did guardsmen always carry weapons?

He looked down at Grace. Her nose was twitching again. She pushed her shoulders out of the carrier to get a better sniff.

“Looks like Grace is onto something,” Maggie said.

And this time when Ross glanced back Creed saw that the man didn’t look pleased.

Creed patted his jacket pocket and stopped. “I must have dropped her special collar when I was getting out of the helicopter,” he said while trying to catch Maggie’s eye.

“Collar?” Ross asked.

“Yeah, no wonder she’s so unsettled. Without it, she’s not really sure what she’s supposed to be searching for. Maggie, would you mind running back and getting it? I’m a little slow after getting banged up the last couple of days.”

But he could see she didn’t understand. She knew Creed used vests and collars to let Grace know which scent he wanted her to find. He wanted to alert Maggie that something was wrong, but more than anything, he wanted Maggie away from there.

“Sure, I can do that,” she said.

“It won’t be necessary,” Ross told her. And in seconds he had a revolver pointed at Creed’s chest. “Agent O’Dell, you’ll need to give me your service weapon.”

69

The hole in the ground reminded O’Dell of the entrance to a storm cellar. Deep, dark, and narrow, with a wooden ladder providing the only steps down. In the beam of her flashlight she could see fragments of what used to be an office or a laboratory. Shattered glass cupboards, light fixtures swinging from wires in the ceiling, walls partially caved in.

She couldn’t believe that she had let Ross’s uniform fool her. She had been convinced that Peter Logan was the problem. It never occurred to her to suspect the men who had worked beside her to recover the bodies in the mud.

Ben had called them a cleanup team that Colonel Hess had sent down to help. But now she understood why the colonel had used the term “cleanup.” She and Kunze were right. Hess and maybe others at the DoD didn’t want anyone to know about this mess, especially not while they were battling Congress to keep their other secrets under wraps.

“So your job was never recovery,” she said as she handed over her Glock. “You were here to cover up all this mess. Is there even a lockbox?”

“My men found it this morning. It’s already being transported down the mountain and into the trunk of my SUV. Before nightfall I’ll have it in a safe place.”

“I understand why you need to get rid of me,” O’Dell said. “I saw the results of the experiments that were going on here. Is that why you murdered Dr. Shaw and the others?”

Ross frowned at her. “I didn’t kill them. And I don’t know anything about experiments. I arrived after the landslide. Who knows what happened here? My team was hired to recover the bodies and lockbox.”

“And make sure no one knows about any of it.” She glanced back at Grace and Creed and a knot tightened in her stomach. “They didn’t even see the bodies. Let them go.”

“I didn’t suggest they come.”

The knot moved up into her throat and threatened to choke her. My God, he was right.

That’s when Maggie saw something else down in the hole. A flap of blond hair, bloodied by a gunshot wound at the temple. Peter Logan.

70

When Ross pulled out the gun, Creed had seen something else almost tumble out of his pocket. It looked an awful lot like a detonator.

And suddenly Creed understood what Grace had been alerting to. There were explosives down below. Ross must have helped set them. He still had residue on his hands or clothes. Creed kept his hand inside Grace’s carrier, petting her, reassuring her as best he could.

“Why bring us all the way out here just to kill us?” Maggie asked.

She was trying to remain calm, but Creed had already caught a glimpse of panic in her eyes.

That Ross had the gun pointed at him instead of Maggie was good. It could give her a chance to fight even if it was only seconds after he fired at Creed.

“The place is ready to blow up,” Ross told her. “Accidents happen. There’s an awful lot of spilled fuel, ruptured propane lines. It’s a shame that you two were poking around up here when it happened.”

“So you started the fire last night.”

He shrugged.

“And you killed Dr. Gunther. That was no accident.”

“Collateral damage.”

He said it with no emotion, like a dozen other soldiers Creed knew. It was drilled into them. But this wasn’t war. And then something occurred to Creed.

“The floodwaters yesterday. That wasn’t an accident, either, was it?” he asked the man.

“Would have certainly made it a lot easier if you’d both died then.”

“By ‘both’ you mean me and Logan,” Maggie said.

The stoic look on Ross’s face told Creed that Logan was already part of the collateral damage.

“So who exactly do you work for?” Creed asked.

“More importantly,” Maggie added, “who do you kill for, Ross?”

When he said nothing, Maggie added, “It’s Colonel Abraham Hess, isn’t it?”

Creed knew if Ross couldn’t force them down into the hole he’d have no problem shooting them and dropping their bodies down. He’d probably even shoot Grace. And that made Creed angry.

“I’m letting Grace go,” he told Ross as he started to bend down, making sure to put his body between the dog and the gun.

“No, don’t move. Stop right now or I’ll wound you and make you watch me shoot the dog.”

Creed stopped but stayed hunched over the carrier, protecting Grace as best he could. He kept his hand in the carrier. He glanced at Maggie and caught a glimpse of her eyes again. He expected to see regret. If not for him, then for Grace. That’s not what he saw. Instead he saw anger and fight. And while Ross was paying attention to Creed crouching down on the ground, he wasn’t paying as much attention to Maggie.

Sometimes when Creed did a search and rescue it took them to strange and dangerous places. He usually came prepared, not necessarily to protect himself but always with the thought of protecting his dogs. There were plenty of things in the wilderness that could harm them. And although he never wore a gun, he armed himself with whatever might be needed to fight off coyotes or even bears.

With his hand hidden inside the carrier he found the canister of pepper spray safely stowed in the back pocket. His fingers wrapped around it even with Grace fidgeting.

“Get back up on your feet. Now.”

Creed slid the carrier off his shoulder and rested it on the ground with Grace still in it. He’d need to shoot the spray up into Ross’s face without getting any of it on Grace. As he started to rise he heard the gunshot.

It knocked Creed off his feet. The bullet had hit him in the chest. Pain exploded inside him. Sucked the air out of his lungs. Creed fell on top of Grace. All he could think about was protecting her with his body. Just like seven years ago when he protected Rufus.

He saw starbursts behind his eyes. He didn’t even hear the second gunshot.

71

O’Dell lunged for her own weapon on the ground. She expected Ross to turn his gun on her. Instead, he shot Creed in the chest.

No, she didn’t want to believe what she saw.

Seconds ticked by. Her fingers grabbed the handle. She heard Creed gasp. She heard the thud as he dropped to the ground. She was rolling onto her back while her finger desperately searched for the trigger. Ross turned the gun on her.

Too late. She’d never make it.

She heard the second gunshot and knew it wasn’t from her gun. Before she could fire she saw the blossom of blood on the side of Ross’s head. She watched, stunned, as his gun slipped from his fingers. He fell to his knees, eyes already dead before he hit the ground.

O’Dell struggled to her feet.

A man stood about ten feet away with a rifle now slung down and pointing at the ground. He wasn’t one of Ross’s team. He wore what looked like medical scrubs, dirty and torn. His feet were wrapped in bandages.

Carefully, O’Dell made her way to Creed while watching the man.

“You folks okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

She wanted to find out and yet she couldn’t bear to see how badly Creed was hurt. If she couldn’t save him.

Or if he was already dead.

She knelt next to him. Grace squirmed out of the carrier and circled around and around. She was sniffing at her owner. O’Dell looked for blood. He had taken a direct hit to his chest.

Grace was licking his face.

“I’m so sorry, Grace,” she told the little dog.

Then Grace started to wag.

O’Dell heard a groan. Suddenly she saw movement. Creed was flat on his back. Eyes open now, looking up at her.

“How in the world—”

“Jason,” he said through gritted teeth as he tried to raise himself up.

“Just stay put for a minute.” She put her hand against his chest and that’s when she felt it under his jacket. “Jason gave you a bulletproof vest?”

“Supposed to be the newest, lightest—” He was gasping for breath. “His buddy Tony. He’s a paranoid bastard.”

She put a finger to his lips. “Please, just stay still.” And even as she was telling him this, she meant it for her own heart, because it was galloping in her chest. “It stopped the bullet, but we need to be careful about your ribs. We need to make sure they don’t puncture a lung.”

“You shoot him?” he asked. “Is he dead?”

She wiped the hair off his forehead. “He’s dead, but I didn’t shoot him.”

She looked up and the man in the raggedy clothes had ventured closer, slowly.

“Is he okay?” he asked.

Creed craned his neck to take a look at the man.

“These guys have been up here since yesterday. I knew they were up to no good. They were planting IEDs down in the tunnels.” He held up the rifle. “They forgot this.”

“Who are you?” O’Dell finally asked.

“My name’s Daniel Tate.”

“But how did you—”

Before O’Dell could ask, Tate interrupted. “Not right, him threatening to shoot that dog.”

He bent down and offered Grace his dirty fingers to sniff.

“Just wasn’t right, at all.”

72

It took some convincing to get the helicopter pilot to leave without Ross. O’Dell had to show him her badge. But he was a local contractor and not part of Ross’s team. He ended up more concerned about the weather and getting them back safely. In the distance they had already heard the beginning rumbles of thunder.

O’Dell had found the detonator in the guardsman’s pocket when she searched for the SUV keys. Creed told her that Grace had been alerting ever since they got into Ross’s vehicle.

“I just couldn’t figure out what it was.”

She told him about Peter Logan and they realized that up near the hole, Grace was probably alerting to the body. The poor little dog had too many scents to tell them about.

Daniel Tate she delivered to Vance. After listening to his story she realized Colonel Hess hadn’t counted on a survivor. Someone who had been used in the facility’s experiments. He kept talking about a spaceman opening a special suitcase and she wondered how many drugs were still in his system. How much of what he told them was real and how much were hallucinations?

She delivered Creed and Grace safely back to their cot in the gymnasium. By then he didn’t have any fight left in him to argue with her. She knew he was in tremendous pain. She only hoped his injuries weren’t severe. All she could concentrate on was that he was alive. For several minutes on the mountain she thought she had lost him a second time.

She left him with Dr. Avelyn and Jason.

“What are you going to do?” he wanted to know.

“I’ll be back,” she promised. “I just need to check and see if Ross was telling the truth about the lockbox.”

The rain had started again when O’Dell headed back out. She was on her way to the SUV when she stopped in the middle of the street. She could hardly believe her eyes. Benjamin Platt was talking to a rescue crew on the sidewalk. He glanced up. Did a double take when he saw her. He said something to the crew and they looked back at her, too.

“God, I am so glad you’re safe.”

He hugged her so tight he practically crushed her to his chest. And only then did she realize how much her body ached from the water rescue yesterday. Was that only yesterday?

“I left you a bunch of messages.”

“I was a little busy.”

“Have you heard from Logan yet?”

“Logan’s dead.”

“What?”

She told him what had happened, giving him as much detail as she could and ignoring the alarm on his face. She was still angry with him.

“My God, I’m so sorry, Maggie,” he said when she was finished. And almost a little too quickly — ever the scientist and soldier — he added, “I got here as soon as I could. I brought down a team with a hazmat van in case we find the samples.”

She was surprised at how disappointed she was that he sounded like the cold government official, the director of USAMRIID, instead of like her boyfriend. He was more concerned with deadly samples in a lockbox than he was about her. Of course, the samples were more important. And it was silly, but she was surprised how much more she needed the boyfriend than the director right now.

“I might be able to tell you exactly where those samples are.”

She ignored his look of astonishment and led him to the muddy black SUV in the far corner of the parking lot. She raised the lift gate. Then she removed the rubber mat from inside to reveal the trapdoor for the spare tire. When she lifted the hatch, she was almost as surprised as Ben. What looked like a harmless black metal suitcase was exactly where Ross had said it would be.

73

Creed had listened to Dr. Avelyn lecture him about resting. This time she insisted on a chest X-ray. No perforations. A couple of ribs were definitely fractured. She no longer questioned whether or not he had a concussion. About the only thing she had told him that he was happy about was that she didn’t want him to travel for a few days. Although Hannah wanted him back home where she could fuss over him.

How could he leave now when he knew Benjamin Platt was there?

Creed glanced at the three dogs in the corner next to his table in the cafeteria. Jason had insisted that Creed sit while he waited on him.

The dogs had eaten and were lounging next to each other. Molly already fit in, though it broke Creed’s heart when she looked up at everyone walking by, still looking for her owners. He reached down and petted her.

When he looked back up Maggie had come in the cafeteria door. He took small pleasure in the fact that she was alone. But he hated already wondering whether or not she’d be in the cot next to him tonight or if she’d be with Ben Platt.

She saw him from across the room, and as she walked over her eyes never left his. Even as she sat down, choosing the chair across from him. She scooted close so she could plant elbows on the table. The whole time, she didn’t say a word as her eyes held his. So much emotion between the two of them. In less than forty-eight hours she had saved him twice.

Finally she glanced away, using the dogs as an excuse and smiling when Grace pranced over to her.

“Jake and Harvey would instantly fall in love with you,” she told the little dog while scratching behind her ears. Maggie’s eyes darted back to Creed’s.

“You still can’t have her,” he said, and Maggie laughed.

Then she said something Creed never expected.

“Jake and Harvey would fall in love with you, too.”

Before Creed had a chance to say anything, Oliver Vance was making his way directly to their table.

“I’m glad you’re both here,” Vance said. “My crew pulled a vehicle out of a flooded ravine yesterday.”

When Jason and Creed came to the cafeteria they had passed by the whiteboard Vance kept in the gymnasium. The tally for missing persons had gone down to three. But the death toll had risen to seventeen. He was afraid Vance was getting ready to raise that number again.

“How many passengers?” Creed asked.

“Only one, but I recognized the victim.” He looked at Creed. “It was Isabel Klein.” He let the name sink in. “That government woman who brought you here.”

“Klein?” Maggie asked.

“She was Peter Logan’s assistant,” Creed said. “I haven’t seen her since that day. What happened? Did she slide off the road?”

Vance shook his head. “Not unless she was rushing herself to a hospital.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

“She was shot in the back.”

“Could it have been Ross?” Creed asked Maggie.

“It’s possible.”

“There’s more,” Vance said. “Her left hand was severed at the wrist. So far the rescue crew hasn’t found the hand anywhere inside the vehicle.”

Creed looked at Maggie and her face paled.

“The one Jason and Bolo found in the field,” she said. “It was a left hand. Dr. Gunther said it was a woman’s. But Logan insisted it was the director of the facility’s. He seemed certain it was Dr. Shaw’s.”

“Why would someone kill this woman, take her hand, and plant it at the flood site?” Vance was shaking his head. “This sounds like something from Daniel Tate’s messed-up mind. That man is telling some wild tales.”

“There was a diamond ring on the thumb,” Maggie said. Creed could see the alarm building in her eyes. “Logan was sure the ring belonged to Dr. Shaw.” She looked at Vance. “This may sound like a ridiculous question. Did you happen to notice if Isabel Klein’s fingernails were painted? A bright red?”

He thought about that and again shook his head. “I looked at her hand pretty good. There was no fingernail polish.”

“Why would Ross take Isabel’s hand and try to make it look like it was Dr. Shaw’s?” Creed asked.

“I don’t think Ross did it,” Maggie said.

Creed stared at her, and finally the realization hit him.

“Dr. Clare Shaw’s still alive.”

74

Platt had wanted to take more time and make sure Maggie was okay. He knew she was still very angry with him. He deserved that. When all of this was over he’d find a way to make it up to her. She was safe. That was the important thing.

He’d spent almost an hour moving and securing the lockbox in the mobile lab. Another thirty minutes to gear up in the special hazmat suit he’d brought. Already he was perspiring and fogging up his face shield. He could barely see without wiping a glove across it every few minutes.

The mobile lab was cramped and a far cry from what he was used to. The USAMRIID laboratories at Fort Detrick were state of the art, furnished with some of the best equipment and technology in the world. They’d come a long way from those archaic methods that they had talked about in the last several days during the congressional hearing. Much could be learned from history. What Platt hated to admit was that some things had not changed. There were still threats, just as Hess had said. And there were still too many secrets kept in the name of national security.

But as messy as this situation had been, it could have been worse. Much worse. Hess had dodged yet another bullet.

Now Platt just needed to make sure nothing had ruptured inside this lockbox. And if it had, that nothing had leaked out.

He tapped the numbers of the combination, having memorized them from his conversation with Hess. The digital display remained unchanged. He thought he had gotten the numbers wrong when suddenly the light that had been pulsing red suddenly blinked to green and the lock snapped open.

With careful fingers, Platt eased the heavy lid up. He felt the cold rush up. Even after all these hours, the inside remained icecold. That was a good sign. No rupture. The tension started to leave his shoulders.

He could see the sealed vials standing in their slots, side by side. Unharmed. Unbroken.

Suddenly he noticed an empty slot. Then another. And another. No spills, no glass fragments. There was no way for the vials to have fallen from their slots. No way except to have been removed.

Three empty slots. Three missing vials. Three deadly viruses, gone.

75

Dr. Clare Shaw exchanged the SUV for a sedan. She pulled out a credit card, but before she handed it across the desk to the rental car agent she checked the name on the card to see who she was pretending to be that day. Over the last year she had accumulated a stash of credit cards and photo IDs. Along with other important items like cell phones and extra cash.

She could remember the exact day she realized she would need an escape plan. It was the day she succeeded in replicating H5N1. If she could duplicate avian flu, what else was she capable of doing? But despite the so-called independence DARPA claimed to give her and the facility, her superiors had suggested new security measures, new checks and balances in the near future. They would never embrace her brilliance and allow her to continue. Even Richard had begun questioning her research procedures, complaining that some of her experiments were extreme.

Poor gutless Richard. Killing him was one of the easier parts of her plan. It pained her more to sacrifice the men who had been her current guinea pigs. And that government woman.

For all her planning, she’d never expected an actual landslide. The weeklong rains and the massive flooding were enough for her to put her plan into action. The landslide took her by surprise. She had almost lost the lockbox in the ruins. But the chaos that followed had provided her necessary cover.

Now, in the glass that separated the small office from the garage of cars, she checked out her reflection. She had cut her long hair but kept the bangs and decided she would enjoy being a redhead. The rental car agent seemed to approve.

He gave her back her card along with the keys to the sedan.

“Do you need any help with your bags?” he asked.

“No, I’ve got them.”

She picked them up, making it look effortless. She had already risked too much, paid too high a price. She couldn’t afford to make some stupid mistake now. She certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else handle the small gray case, despite how heavy the miniature lockbox might be.