A Shot of Red (22 page)

“You’ll lose your coordination.”

He nodded. “You know the symptoms.”

This was the worst kind of déjà vu. She’d experienced some of the same symptoms as she fought for her life in the river the other night. Mia braced herself as the gondola swayed in another prolonged gust. Her feet were already so cold she could barely feel them.

They had to do something, but the idea of Gio climbing out of the gondola gripped her with fear. “What will you do once you’re out there?” She couldn’t believe she was considering his plan, but what choice did they have?

He looked up as if he could see through the top of the gondola. “I figure I’ll loop my belt around the cable, hold onto it, and use the angle of the cable to slide down to the next support tower—like a zip line. Then I’ll climb down and go for help.”

“You make it sound so simple.” Mia pinched her eyes closed, knowing that voicing her worries about everything that could go wrong—and there was a hell of a lot—wouldn’t change anything and would only waste time.

“I’m hoping it will be,” he said. But she could see in his eyes that he knew better.

“I want to go with you.”

A crease formed between his eyebrows. At least he hadn’t said no immediately. “You’re determined enough to do most anything. But it’s going to take a lot of upper body strength to make it from here to the ground. You think you can do it?”

Both of them knew it was unlikely for her. Maybe even for him, considering he already had a wounded arm. She shook her head. If he didn’t make it, she wouldn’t either. She might not, even if he did, depending on how long it took him to get help.

“I’d rather leave you up here with the hope that this thing will get moving soon,” he said. “If it doesn’t, I’ll get someone to move it myself.”

Mia tried to manage her panic, knowing his superhero act was just to keep her calm. The hard truth was that she could die up here. “You have to promise to tell them,” she said.

“Tell who what?”

She leveled her gaze on his.
If I don’t make it…
“Tell Lila and Claude what I suspect about the vaccine.”

He winced, then reached out and skimmed his knuckles along her cheek. “You’ll be the one telling them that.”

The wind howled and sleet spattered the gondola.

Gio tucked his hand beneath her hood and grasped the nape of her neck, his fingers cool against her skin. Pulling her to him, he kissed her deeply and tenderly, as if it might be the last time.

Tears seeped from the corners of Mia’s eyes, and her heart knotted with a tangle of emotions. Gio ended their kiss with a feathery brush of his perfect lips on hers, his breath warm when he said, “I’d better go.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Gio positioned himself where he could put the most pressure on the hatch, struggling to get leverage from his awkward, hunched stance. He pushed upward on the rectangular section with the heel of his hand, glad for every pound of weight he’d lifted at the gym, and every punch that had made contact with the bag. His hope was that the hatch was hinged from the outside, and snapped in place—instead of locked. If it had some kind of latch, he was determined to break it.

Mia watched from the seat, and he could barely stand to look at her. Was he making the right decision to leave her here? He’d wanted to say more than he had to her—to tell her how he really felt…in case he didn’t make it. But that might’ve made her more frightened, and he didn’t want that.

He pressed hard against the hatch, even squatting and using the flex of his knees for more power. It didn’t budge. “I’m gonna have to hit it,” he said, and Mia grimaced. He put on his glove to protect his hand and struck the hatch with the heel of it using all his force. Sharp pain shot through his wrist and reverberated up into his arm. The hatch popped open with a
thunk
on top of the gondola. A burst of snow and ice blew inside and rained down on them.

Gio tried to rub the pain out of his wrist. “Mother…” he said emphatically but bit off the curse that followed. He lifted his coat and his fleece, pulled off his belt, and gave it to Mia. “After I get out, I’ll need you to hand this to me.”

She nodded numbly. He moved beneath the opening in the roof and straightened to his full height, his head outside of the gondola. It was going to be tricky to hoist himself up and grab the steel arm that attached the gondola to the cable. A layer of ice had built up on the roof, probably on the arm, and the cable, too.

He ducked back inside and kissed Mia quickly.

Tears glistened in her eyes. “Be careful. Please.”

Gio went out of the hatch one arm at a time, his shoulders too broad for him to make it straight through. He swiped away the layer of wet ice and positioned his hands on the roof on either side of the hatch. The rubberized grips on his gloves helped him steady himself. He lifted his body through the opening and leaned forward, planting his weight on one hand and reaching for the steel arm with the other. Gaining a confident grip on the arm, he grasped it with his other hand, pulled himself out of the gondola and up onto the roof on his knees. His jeans became soaked immediately.

Despite his layers, the wind seemed to rip right through him. Snow blew in his eyes and he had to close them at regular intervals to keep them the least bit functional.

“Mia,” he called, barely able to hear his own voice. The top of her hood appeared in the opening. From his angle, he could see down to her eyes. “Hold the buckle and flip the belt toward me.” He hated to yell at her, but it was the only way she was going to hear him.

She did as he asked. The end of the leather belt landed within his grasp and he clutched it in his hand. “Got it. Let go.” He tugged at the belt and pulled it toward him. Once he’d secured it in his hand, he managed to stand, carefully clinging to the arm, the cable now at eye level. He couldn’t buckle the belt with two gloves on, so he risked pulling one of them off and quickly stuck it in his pocket.

Gio looped the belt over the cable just as a gust of wind swayed the gondola. He lost his footing and slid with a
thud
onto the roof, knocking the breath out of him, and leaving him dangling over the side of the gondola. One of his hands gripped the arm, the other clutched the belt that he couldn’t afford to lose. Adrenaline spiraled through him at warp speed.

“Gio!” Mia called.

He struggled to catch a frigid breath and looked up to see her trying to pull herself onto the roof. “No, Mia. Stay inside.” He managed to hold on to the belt as he grabbed the arm with his other hand and pulled himself back onto his knees, then his feet. His second attempt to loop the belt around the cable was successful, and he awkwardly clung to the belt and the slippery steel arm as he put his glove back on.

“Close the hatch,” he called.

Mia did as he asked, but the hatch didn’t fit tightly over the opening. Pressing his foot squarely on the hatch, he shifted his weight and snapped it back into place. Gio looped his hands on the inside of the belt to brace his wrists and vise-gripped the outside. He pitched forward, his feet leaving the roof of the gondola. The belt slid bumpily along the cable and Gio took off at unexpected speed, unsure what was ahead of him. Another gondola or a support tower.

Please be a tower.

But odds were he’d encounter some gondolas first. At each one, he’d have to unbuckle the belt and refasten it on the other side of the gondola’s arm.

Sleet stung his face as he whisked along—too fast. He hoisted his feet up in front of him and hooked them over the cable. Better to hit feet first than to take a body blow. As if the clouds weren’t enough to impede his vision, it was now completely dark.

His feet made contact with something solid, stopping him in an instant. Pain ricocheted in his ankles and knees as if he’d jumped from twenty feet, the cold doubling the ache. Gio clenched his teeth. The slippery roof of another gondola glistened beneath him. He released his feet from the cable and stood carefully. The pain in his ankles and knees had dulled to a steady thud, but the cold was suffocating.

He went through the motions of taking off his glove, unbuckling the belt, moving it around the area where the gondola was anchored to the cable, and reattaching the belt. His hand was nearly numb and trembling by the time he put his glove back on. If there were too many gondolas between him and a tower, he wasn’t going to last. His wounded arm throbbed. The icy air singed his lungs with every breath he drew.

Lesson learned, he took off with less force this time, feet first, his speed down the cable more controlled. He tried to judge the distance and measure it against last time—hard to do at a different speed. Besides, if he were coming to a tower next, it wouldn’t necessarily be the same distance that there was between gondolas. It was all just a fucking frozen crapshoot right now.

The shadow of the tower appeared just before his feet made contact again, the impact still painful, but not as bad as the last time. Relief surged through him when he caught sight of the ladder that led to the ground far below. Squinting against the blowing snow, he focused on the broadening of the tower structure as it neared the ground and figured he was at least sixty feet up. His heart thundered as his ragged breaths came out in cloudy plumes.

Gio swung his legs over to the platform adjacent the cable wheels—clearly for use by maintenance workers. Behind the platform, a narrow rail glistened with a coating of ice. With his hands already stiff and shaky, he’d have to make certain every grip was secure. Same with every step. He managed to get to his feet, but stayed in a crouch. A slip would be less critical if his weight was low. His knees ached with tension, pressure, and cold, but he was getting closer to finding help for Mia. He quickly removed one of his gloves, unbuckled the belt from the cable, and crammed it in his pocket. No telling what he’d face before finding help, and the belt might come in handy.

Gloves back on, he clutched the guardrail with both hands and stepped down to a larger platform connected to the ladder. He stood straight, gripping the rail. A split-second slip of one of his hands or feet could send him plummeting.

His body shivered. The colder he got, the more violent the shivering would become. He had to get down the ladder fast while he still had some muscle coordination left. He had to save Mia.

The top rung of the ladder was within arm’s reach. Securing his hand on it, he let go of the guardrail and moved over to the ladder. A layer of ice coated every rung. Icicles hung from them in jagged rows. The outside of the ladder wasn’t as thickly coated, so he decided to slide his hands down instead of risking a slippery grip on each rung. He’d have to take his chances with his feet.

Gio stepped onto the ladder and carefully descended a rung at a time, thoughts of Mia urging him to go faster. After the first several rungs, he hit a steady rhythm.

Set foot. Slide hands.

Set foot. Slide hands.

His iron grip was the only thing keeping his hands from shivering uncontrollably. His wounded arm throbbed with every heartbeat.

A sustained gust of wind blew sleet into his face and eyes. He whipped his head to the side, turning away from the blast, shifting the weight on his feet.

One foot slid off the rung.

He tried to recover his balance, but his hand slipped too far down the icy ladder. Nearly all his weight teetered precariously on his other foot.

Gio sucked in a frigid breath, scalding his lungs. He tried to plant his foot, but it slid off the rung and he overcorrected from the weight shift. Both his feet slipped off the ladder. He kept hold as long as he could, but his gloved grip was no match for the ice.

As he hurtled toward the ground, all he could think of was Mia.

…

Scrunched up tightly with her feet on the seat of the gondola, Mia shivered in the unbearable cold, praying that it would start moving again. Her only hope was that Gio would make it safely to the ground, and find someone who could get the cable system running again before she literally froze to death. And if anything happened to Gio…

She blinked back tears of panic. If neither of them made it, no one would know what she suspected about the vaccine. Just like Brent, she and Gio would end up dying in an unfortunate accident on Mount Pilatus. Surely Lila would launch a full-blown investigation then. Mia could relate to how Brent must have felt, believing his life was at risk, and desperately wanting someone to soldier on and reveal what was going on with the vaccine. Thinking of Brent’s video gave her the idea to make one of her own. She might not be getting a signal on her phone, but she could still record a video. The odds that anyone would see it might be slim, but it was worth trying.

Mia took one glove off long enough to get out her phone, key in the password, and activate the video camera. Pressing the phone between her knees, she stole a moment to gaze at the poison-beaded ring Gio had given her and wondered if it was a harbinger of their fate. Unable to bear the thought, she put her glove back on and shoved her hand in her pocket.

“I’m Mia Moncure.” Her voice wavered from the cold. “And I suspect the United States government is poisoning senior citizens with the current flu vaccine…produced by Moncure Therapeutics.” Her heart hitched heavily with every beat. Her father and grandfather would be devastated to know that the company they’d worked so hard to build—the namesake of their family—was associated with such a heinous plot.

Poor Lila.
She’d have to bear it all on her own.

“I’m unaware of all the operatives in this plan, but I suspect it involves…” She pressed her lips together tightly. Could she really name her own family? “Matthew Moncure, Senator Catherine Moncure, Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard Dartmouth, and Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization Thomas Sorensen.”

Mia shivered violently. How much of the information would she be able to record before her brain would no longer cooperate?

“Specifically, I have evidence that shipments of a million red color-coded syringes were diverted from a vendor in Jiangsu to a business, run by Katia Glasser, in Zhejiang, China. There, the syringes were tainted with abrin, a toxin similar to ricin, but more potent.”

Sustained wind pushed the gondola to one side and sleet pelted against it.

Please help Gio to be down by now…and not hurt.

Mia struggled to refocus on making the video. “Statistics show that seniors are dying from the flu despite being vaccinated. Most cases aren’t likely flu but, in fact, are abrin poisoning where people’s initial symptoms mimic the virus.” She wasn’t sure how much detailed information she should record, or how much she could remember from her research into abrin. Investigators could drill down to the bottom of the case, but she needed to give them motivation to start. “The lethal dose of abrin is incredibly small, and people injected with it will die within three or four days. But Moncure adds thimerosal to our influenza vials to prevent bacteria and fungus. I’m guessing that’s delaying the abrin absorption, so people are dying in about a week.”

Should she talk about the ways people would die, or how that would confuse investigators, or mention that abrin was nearly untraceable in an autopsy? All those things seemed important, but she couldn’t find the energy to say much more. Her body convulsed with uncontrollable shivers.

She had visions of the ghoulish skeletons in the
Dance of Death
paintings on Spreuer Bridge, certain one was coming for her. Now she understood how the paintings were related—anyone could die from the vaccine. The verses whispered in her mind…

Facing death, all are equal:

The rich man will not escape his fate…

Neither will the beautiful lady…

The fisherman…

The mighty abbot…

Nor the clergyman.

And her family’s company was responsible. Maybe she didn’t want to live through the fallout.

“I wish I’d found out about this sooner.” Her heart ached too much and for too many reasons. “And I’m so sincerely sorry people are dying.”

Mia ended the video and dropped the phone in her purse. Her muscles had stiffened, but she drew her knees in tight and bowed her head. She’d stopped shivering, and her pulse was slowing down—wasn’t it?