“But now…NOW we have the real thing. This is the original in its purest form,” he declared. “How it survived all this time, I’ll never know.”
“So, all of this is in order to weaponize the virus?”
“What rock have you been living under?” He stared at her as though her nose had just fallen off. “What do you think we do at Ft. Collins?”
She suddenly stiffened and stared blankly back at the man. “Frankly, captain, I don’t care what you do or where you do it at. I’m simply to take the report back to the colonel.”
“Then go. I’ve got work to do.” He reached for his helmet again, then froze. “But tell your goons out in the woods to try to bring me a living, breathing specimen, please. Oh, and an uninfected specimen, too, if you please,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Maggie didn’t stifle the shudder this time as she stepped away from the captain. She questioned her sanity and her judge of character as she marched away. How could she have ever looked at those dead eyes and ever found anything attractive about that man?
Chapter 5
“Okay, so the military are here, but it’s not a rescue,” Mitch reiterated. “They’re using helicopters, most likely with infra-red to track down ‘the infected,’ and then sending in ground troops to round them up?”
Hatcher shook his head. “I don’t think they’re rounding up anybody with automatic weapons and night vision,” Hatcher replied softly. Both kids groaned and went limp as if the wind had been knocked from them.
Candy dismounted and went to comfort Skeeter, but Buck seemed to shrink into the shadows farther behind Daniel. “There must be something we can do?” Candy said as she stroked Skeeter’s hair. “We have people out there, too.”
“The colonel was quite clear. Anybody who wasn’t already back at the station and ready to be checked out by their medical personnel by the time they got here were to be written off,” Hatcher stated. Skeeter let out a small, muffled cry when he said that and buried her face into Candy’s chest. Hatcher gave them an exasperated look, but shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know how else to say it. “Look, just because he says that, doesn’t mean we can’t keep looking for—”
“No,” Mitch interrupted. “They have hunters in the woods that will most likely be shooting anything that moves.” His eyes focused on something far off, his mind obviously hatching a plan. “I know from my own experience with those things that they’re burning hotter than normal people. Like they have fever or something.” He remembered the EMT’s comments when he found Darren. “They’ll light up real easy for the chopper boys to find, even in this dense foliage. It will be as simple as directing the ground crews to where the densest groups are, then they march in and clean them up.”
Hatcher shook his head. “So what do we do?”
Mitch shot him a serious stare. “We infiltrate the base, take the colonel and redirect traffic.”
“Do what?” Hatcher wasn’t sure he heard him correctly.
“We take over their command,” Mitch restated. “We don’t need a large force. A two- or three-man team could easily slip in and take him. You said he took over your office, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And there’s a back door, right?”
“I don’t have the keys anymore, Mitch. They took everything when they ran me through decontamination.”
Mitch smiled. “Who needs a key? I ain’t met a lock yet I couldn’t pick.”
Hatcher studied the large man sitting across from him and shook his finger at him. “What exactly did you do before you were a ranger?”
Mitch smiled again. “I was a Ranger. Worked with SOG for a while before I decided to support the Arbor Society.”
Hatcher’s brows knitted as his mind connected the dots. “You were military…” He finally figured it out.
“Something like that,” Mitch said as he straddled his four-wheeler again. “We need to find a safe place to ditch Fisher and the kids.”
Buck leaned off the side of the ATV. “No. I’m going with you.”
Hatcher shook his head. “I don’t think so. This will be dangerous.”
“I can help,” he argued. “I helped get Skeeter out of the woods!”
“And you only wrecked one motorhome and a pickup doing it,” Skeeter joked. Buck shot her a withering look and she quickly ducked back behind Candy’s protective arm.
“Look, I’m good with a crossbow, and it’s a quiet weapon. They’ll never hear me coming. I’m small and I’m fast,” Buck said.
“I said ‘no’ and I meant it,” Hatcher said.
Buck squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin. “You can’t stop me. I’m my own man. I can do what I want.” He pulled out his father’s 9mm and racked the slide.
Hatcher quickly grabbed the weapon and pulled it from his grip. “First off, in this operation, I’m the senior officer. Second, I need you to stay behind and keep an eye on Fisher. He’s hurt and drugged up. The guy can’t even stay awake.” He pointed to the man drooling on himself and slowly sliding from the back of Candy’s ATV as she wasn’t there for him to lean on. Hatcher leaned in close and lowered his voice, “And third, I need you to keep an eye on the girl for us. Keep them both safe in case we don’t make it back. If those military creeps are out there hunting for anything that moves, I need you to have eyes in the back of your head.” He slowly handed the pistol back to Buck. “And be willing to take the first shot. Crossbow or pistol.” His eyes met Buck’s and there was a silent communion between the two.
For the slightest of moments, Buck understood what Hatcher was truly asking him and he nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said solemnly. “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
“Kid, we all do things we don’t like,” Hatcher said, starting the ATV. “That’s what being
