Germ

She said, "Was he telling the truth, do you think?"

473

"One way to find out."

She could tell he was in great pain. His breathing sounded sloppy and wet. Still, he displayed more vigor than he had ten minutes before. Eyeing Litt's body, sprawled flat on its back an arm's reach away, she understood how he felt. She hoped he could hold on to the energy awhile longer. She worried about her ability to carry him to safety if he couldn't walk.

She took a deep breath, popped the latches, and opened the case. Mounted to the inside of the lid were two rows of stainless steel vials. Small labels identified their contents: "Ebola Kugel 4212A"; "Ebola Kugel 521 IF"; "Ebola Kugel 3294B" . . . The last one on the right was twice the size of the others. "EK Antiserum."

"That's it," Allen said.

"Do you think it's an actual antidote, not just his blood? Doesn't it take years to develop?"

"He told me he had an antidote. Antiserum's the same thing."

The bottom portion of the case contained a square metal box, what appeared to be bankbooks, passports, identification, and other documents. She opened the box. Inside were roughly two dozen memory chips in plastic cases.

"The formula for Ebola Kugel?" she wondered.

"Or digitized DNA records. Blackmail material. Financial transactions. Could be anything."

A jet streaked overhead, low. A thunderous blast shook the hangar. They realized it had emanated from the front of the hangar, much closer than the others.

She slammed the lid closed. "Come on."

"Wait." With some difficulty, he reopened the case, plucked three vials of Ebola from the metal tongs that held them, and tossed them toward Litt's body.

"Don't—" She stopped herself. Of course he was right. Nothing good could ever come from those vials. She reached in, removed the remaining vials—all but the antiserum—and tossed them onto Litt's chest.

"You think they'll be destroyed?" Allen asked.

A missile shrieked into the jungle and exploded. Noises of a million varying pitches and tones collided with each other, forming one bellowing scream.

"Witness the wrath of Kendrick," she said. "If he wanted to take down Litt and get his research, he'd have sent in a platoon of commandos." She thought a moment. "Actually, that's what I expected. No, he wants Litt and his germ destroyed. He won't stop until this entire place is a wasteland. Bet on it."

She removed the memory chips from the case and tossed those too. She pulled out the documents. He stopped her. From the sheaf in her hand, he extracted a stack of hundred-dollar bills. It must have been three inches thick.

"For Stephen's church," he said. He dropped the money back into the case and pushed against the wall to stand.

She closed the case and stood. As she reached for Allen, an explosion rocked the ground and she toppled into him. They hit the dirt hard. Then the neighboring hangar blew apart. Roiling clouds of fire and smoke flung jagged panels of sheet metal and twisted beams into the air. The hangar they leaned against lost a wall and started collapsing.

"Hurry!" She pulled Allen's arm around her shoulder and heaved him forward in a stumbling run.

On the other side of the chain-link fence, a huge tree instantly ignited and crashed down, crushing one of the Deadeyes and a section of fence. Heated air shoved them against the wall. Allen yelled out in pain and dropped to one knee, but he pressed on. She could feel him drawing determination from his physical distress, turning the agony into fuel that powered his fight for survival.

Together, they scrambled behind the hangars, awkward as shackled prisoners not yet attuned to each other's rhythm and gait. They tottered into a wall, pushed off, and stumbled forward another dozen paces before falling into the wall again. Instead of turning into the alley through which she had pursued Litt, she led Allen farther south: he did not need to see the body whose head and upper torso she had covered.

The explosions were no longer demarcated in an easily avoided region but seemed to be everywhere, ripping apart the compound's central area, its hangars and Quonsets. She thought the pounding was less severe on the south side of the base near the mineshaft. Or was that just wishful thinking?

She considered escaping through the main gate and along the dirt road where the compound's workers had gone. But she didn't know how far Kendrick would go to eliminate Litt's threat. After pulverizing the compound, might he then start on the road, with the intention of catching up to the fleeing masses? She wouldn't put it past him.

No, she and Allen would leave the way she and Stephen had arrived. If God thought they'd had enough adversity for one day, Tate would be waiting for them with his truck.