Sick

on the bikes and get the hell out of there.

But there were no footsteps, no voices, no nothing, because the girl he loved and his brother were dead.

That’s when Paul lost it.

It was ten minutes before he finally pulled himself together, his face streaked with tears, and climbed out of his hiding spot. The first thing he did was crawl the rest of the way up to the ridge of the canyon.

There, he looked everywhere to make sure the helicopters had really gone. There wasn’t a speck anywhere, not even a cloud. Just blue, empty sky. The wrong sky for the kind of day it had turned out to be.

He hurried down the ramp, pausing for only a brief second as he passed the spot where Nick and Lisa had been killed. What blood he could see looked like dark stains against the dirt. It was…unreal.

When he reached the canyon floor, he ran to the overhang, wanting to get under the cover of the rock. It had occurred to him that the only way the men in the helicopters had known they were there was if he, Nick, and Lisa had been spotted from above. There must have been planes circling around that he and Nick hadn’t noticed. He was going to have to expose himself eventually, but, for the moment, he wanted them to think no one else was there.

Thank God the bikes had been too bulky to put on the helicopters. He would never make it if he had to walk out, but the bikes gave him a chance.

Using a hose off of the engine on Nick’s bike, he siphoned the remaining gas from Nick’s tank into his to give himself the best chance for escape.

His first inclination was to wait until dark, hoping that would make it harder to spot him. But the problem with that was the same problem they’d had the previous night. He would have to keep his speed down so he didn’t kill himself. If he left now, in broad daylight, he could race through the desert and that might be the difference between survival and a bullet in his head.

A bullet.

The rifles. The echo of the shots. The lack of any screams.

He shook himself. He couldn’t think about that right now. He needed to go. He needed to get out. No one would know what happened to Nick and Lisa if he didn’t.

He wheeled his bike to the edge of the overhang, then took a last look back at the earthen ramp where his girlfriend and his brother had died. Unconsciously, he touched the cell phone in his pocket, making sure it was secured. He couldn’t lose that, no matter what.

He pulled on his helmet and hopped on the bike. There was no reason to stay any longer.

With a sudden roar, the motorcycle shot out of the canyon and into the desert.

Before the sun came up that morning, the Army finally caved to media pressure, and flew several people back to the roadblock outside Sage Springs. These were the people who had driven their particular network’s vans to the location before the quarantine had gone wide. They were now allowed to drive the vans back to Fort Irwin under the escort of four Army Humvees and three helicopters flying above. Each had a soldier equipped with a radio riding inside with the driver. No one was to get out of their vehicle, and they were to stop only if the escorts stopped, too. If there were any problems, the soldier with them would radio it in.

Since the roads were empty, they made it back to Fort Irwin just after sunrise.

Tamara and Joe were both up and waiting when Bobby parked the PCN van in their newly assigned spot.

“Were you able to get any shots?” Joe asked as the cameraman climbed out.

Bobby gave him a quick shake of the head, then motioned to the other side of the van with his eyes. There, the soldier who had ridden with him was getting out. With an expression that conveyed tolerance at best, the soldier waved to Bobby and said, “Have a good day, Mr. Lion.”

Bobby smiled broadly. “You, too.” As soon as the soldier walked away, the smile disappeared. “I told him I just wanted to get a couple of shots from inside the van, but he made it very clear that we were only there to drive. Hell, he wouldn’t even let me get in back to check the equipment before we left.”

Tamara knew Joe had been hoping to get the shots, but, personally, she didn’t care. Her mind was on something else.

“Can we check now?” she said.

Both men looked hesitant.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Joe asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Come on,” Bobby said.

He led them around the van to the side door, then opened it up. Not only was the van used to haul equipment, but it was also a mobile editing facility, allowing them to put stories together, record voiceovers, and transmit everything back to the network. Via their uplink, they also had a speedy Internet connection.

Using this, Bobby accessed the website where the footage from the incident at the Tehachapi roadblock had been uploaded. He clicked around for a bit, then said, “Found it.”

He downloaded the video and transferred it into the editing software.

Before hitting PLAY, he looked back at Tamara. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said quickly. “Play it.”

Together they watched the video all the way through. Tamara had told Bobby and Joe what she believed she saw, but had said nothing to anyone else. Every time the network replayed the video, she had watched it, pointing out to them the man she was sure was her brother.

Bobby and Joe tried to reassure her by saying things like “you can’t tell for sure,” and “the resolution isn’t the best so you could have made a mistake,” and “why would he even be there?”

As sure as she was, she wanted to believe them, so she had stared at the video every time it came on, but every time she came to the same conclusion. It was Gavin.

The reason she couldn’t be absolutely positive, though, was that she had no control over what she was watching. She hadn’t been able to stop it or start it or reverse it. She had to watch it all the way through, then wait until the network decided to show it again. But now that the truck was here, she had access to the equipment that would allow her to take a better look.

“Go back to the part right before he’s shot, and hold it,” she said.

Bobby scrolled back, then hit pause. The problem with video, especially lower resolution video, was that the clarity of the picture came from the motion. A single frame often looked blurry, with less detail. Such was the case here. The man she was sure was her brother wasn’t much more than an indistinct human figure when paused on the screen.

“Can you go back a second or two,” she said, “then scroll back and forth through this section until I tell you to stop?”

“Sure,” Bobby replied.

He took it back to where the man in question turned in the direction of the camera, then he started moving forward through the footage at half speed. They had just passed the point where they’d originally paused when she said, “Stop.”

The image on the screen froze again.

“You see that?” She pointed at the man’s left arm.

“It’s an arm,” Joe said.

“On the arm. Those dots.” There were three dark spots visible on the exposed underside.

“That could just be digital noise,” Bobby said.

She pointed again. “Gavin has a tattoo on the inside of his left arm. One big dot, and two smaller. He was on the swim team in high school. It’s the molecule model for water.”

The two men looked at the screen again. Bobby then played that portion back and forth a couple of times. It was clear the dots were not digital artifacts, but were indeed on the man’s arm.

“Jesus,” Bobby said.

A tear began rolling down Tamara’s cheek. There was no denying it now-Gavin was the one who’d been shot.

“Play it ahead some,” she said. “Let’s see if we can figure out who did this to him.”