Dark Days (Apocalypse Z) (31 page)

“That’s up to the pilot, I guess,” the soldier replied with a shrug.

We quickly climbed onboard. Three bodies lay on the floor, covered
with bloodstained blankets. A clenched fist stuck out from under one of the blankets.

“There were three of them?” Prit asked.

“Just two.” The soldier shook his head. “The third guy’s Ensign Barrios. He got one of them before they killed him.”

A middle-aged lieutenant came out of the cockpit. Judging from his uniform, I guessed he was one of the pilots. We shook hands warmly.

“Be glad you got here when you did! An hour later and we would’ve left without you! We’ve been trying to get Tank on the radio for hours, but nobody answered. When those bastards tried to hijack the plane, I guessed the same thing had happened to the team on the ground.”

“More or less,” I said, remembering that the radio operator had plunged down the stairs. “Only in our case, the Froilists took over. They’ll be here any minute. They’re in a tank with a cannon that could blow this plane to pieces, Lieutenant.”

“What’re we waiting for?” The pilot hurried to the cockpit. “You can fill us in later. Now, let’s get outta here!”

Exhausted, I fell into a seat, while the two surviving soldiers and the pilot closed the Airbus’ door. Prit, buzzed on methamphetamines, slipped into the copilot’s seat. His predecessor was smoldering in the wreckage of the Buchon. He declared loudly enough for everyone to hear that he wasn’t going to ride back in the cabin.

A couple of minutes later, the Airbus rolled slowly down the runway. Its wing cast a brief shadow over hundreds of thousands of enraged Undead pressed against the other side of the fence. As the pilot made the final checks, I glanced out the windows, trying to make out the silhouette of the other Centaur coming down the road, but all I saw was an endless tide of Undead.

Discovering that the plane had left without them would probably be a death sentence for Marcelo, Pauli, and Broto. In the middle of nowhere, almost out of ammunition and provisions, their chances were slim. I felt bad for Broto, but he’d made his choice. Heads or tails. And he chose tails.

At least he has the bullet Marcelo gave him. Hope he has the guts to use it
.

The Airbus’ engines roared when the pilot gave it some gas. Amid a symphony of groans and creaks, the plane accelerated down the runway,
shaking like crazy, then miraculously rose into the air, clearing the fence only by about two feet.

After ten minutes, the plane leveled off at five thousand feet and began the two-hour trip back to Tenerife. Too hopped up on speed, I couldn’t sleep. I was elated to be alive and heading home. My mind wandered, thinking about the heroes’ welcome we’d get. Prit had cleared his name, we had two backpacks with enough drugs to supply a pharmacy, and I had a beautiful girl waiting for me. Life was good.

I patted the Velázquez painting I’d rescued from the Prado Museum, picturing Lucia’s astonished face when I gave her that painting to hang on our living room wall. Satisfied, I smiled and curled up in my seat. She’d be thrilled.

49

TENERIFE

“Hey! What the hell’s going on down there?” asked the pimple-faced, young soldier as our plane made its approach into Tenerife North Airport.

The flight had gone smoothly. We’d had nice, early summer weather all the way. Exhausted but smiling, Prit and I slapped each other on the back as the plane came to a stop. But then that question got our attention.

“What’s happening?” I asked as I looked out the window.

No one answered. Everyone was too engrossed in the scene below. The airport looked like an anthill some naughty little boy had kicked over. A long convoy of military trucks filed out of the base; packed like sardines into each truck were dozens of grim-faced soldiers rushing here and there, armed to the teeth.

“That doesn’t look good,” Prit whispered to me. He looked worried as he watched out the window.

“Maybe it’s a drill or maneuvers,” I said, trying to be nonchalant.

“I don’t think that’s it,” said the Ukrainian. “Look at all those trucks. Given the fuel shortage, moving that many vehicles is a drain on supplies. No, this must be something big. Really big.”

We didn’t have to wonder for long. A set of stairs were rolled up to the Airbus and then the doors flew opened. Before we could deplane, a group of heavily armed soldiers covered in hazmat suits entered the cabin.

My first though was,
Dammit, not again!
But then I calmed down. The soldiers seemed friendly, not hostile. After carefully checking out everyone onboard to make sure we weren’t a bunch of slobbering Undead, they lowered their weapons and took off their helmets. Everyone relaxed.

“Welcome back, boys,” the commanding officer said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “You picked a fine time to come back. It’s hot as hell and we’re on high alert.”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Prit.

“We have reports that Froilists have attacked Tenerife Hospital. The situation seems to be under control, but apparently there’re dozens of dead.”

“Prit!” I grabbed his arm. “The hospital! Lucia and Sister Cecilia!”

“What happened exactly?” asked the Ukrainian, as he motioned for me to calm down. “How many casualties?”

“Nobody’s sure,” said the officer, taken aback by Prit’s military-style interrogation. “Some think their target was the hospital’s lab, but I think they wanted to rob the pharmacy. Drugs are worth a fortune these days.”

He cast a greedy glance at the bulging backpacks lying in the aisle.

“What happened? You brought back just those two backpacks? Where’s that old SOB, Tank?”

Nobody said a word. The officer’s expression changed to disbelief.

“Tank? Dead?” He stammered, shaking his head. “What about the rest of the team? So it’s just you guys? Fuck! What the hell happened out there?”

“Froilists,” Prit said quietly. “Same as here.”

“Shit!” The officer pounded his fist on the plane’s bulkhead. “This fucking civil war’s going to finish off the few of us those Undead didn’t get. Hell! We don’t need an infection to exterminate the human race—we’ll do it ourselves!”

I leaned in close, as his men escorted the rest of Tank’s team off the plane. “Sir, we’ve got to get home as soon as possible. My girlfriend
works at the hospital and we have a friend being treated there. We need to know…”

“There’s a procedure we’ve got to follow,” said the officer, bluntly. “Seven day quarantine for the entire team. You were informed of that before you left.”

I tried to contain my impatience. I couldn’t wait seven days. Or even an hour. Something was terribly wrong. I could feel it. I needed to find Lucia and Sister Cecilia right away.

“Listen, officer,” I said, pulling him aside, “I just need an hour to make sure she’s okay. One lousy hour. I’ll be back before anyone misses me. Swear to God.”

“You know I can’t do that. We’d both get in big trouble if anyone found out.”

“No one’ll find out, I swear,” I said as I searched my pockets.

I finally found what I was looking for—a half-dozen boxes of antibiotics I’d stuffed in my pocket back at the supply room. That little stash was worth a fortune in Tenerife. The officer’s eyes grew wide when he saw what I was offering him. I’d planned to sell it on the black market, but getting out of there was an emergency.

“One hour, not a minute more,” the officer muttered, as he slipped the boxes in his pockets. “If you’re not back in an hour, I’ll report that you two escaped. Then the problem will be on your shoulders. They’ll shoot to kill, you know.”

“I’ll take that chance.” I grabbed a Glock and stuck it in my belt.

“We’ll both take that chance,” Prit said, grabbing one of the HKs.

“Thanks, Prit, but you don’t have to come. This is my concern. I’ve got a bad feeling Lucia needs me now, not in a week. I hope I’m wrong because if they pick us up out there, we’ll be in deep shit. God knows you’ve got enough problems of your own.”

“Cut the crap! I’m going with you and that’s that. So, let’s move. We’ve only got an hour to get there and back.”

I gave the Ukrainian a grateful look and resisted the urge to hug him. What a friend!

We rushed out of the plane as the officer trotted toward the quarantine area in the terminal. I had no idea how he’d justify our absence, but I was sure he had the situation under control, at least for that hour. People like him always manage somehow.

After five minutes of furious negotiation (and trading two more boxes of antibiotics, which quickly disappeared into the right pockets), Prit and I were perched on a pile of scrap metal in the back of an asthmatic truck headed for Tenerife, its driver terribly pleased with his unexpected fortune.

The trip took forever. The closer we got to town, the stronger my hunch got. We passed through all the extra checkpoints without a hitch. At one, the officer in charge told us they were tracking a woman, a Froilist spy who’d taken part in the assault on the hospital, but gave no details.

“Whadda you think, Prit?”

My friend suddenly looked tired. “I don’t like this one bit. I hope we find Lucia soon. In case you hadn’t noticed, those people are paranoid and armed to the teeth. Out of the blue, some nut job could lose it and start shooting. Then we’d be in big trouble.”

“You’re right. I hope Lucia’s someplace safe.”

Five minutes later the truck came to a more heavily manned checkpoint. Soldiers and the police had parked a couple of tanks sideways and set up a machine gun nest.

The truck driver talked briefly with the officer in charge. “Here’s where you get out. The entire area within a thousand feet of the hospital has been evacuated and no one can go through.”

“Why? What the hell happened?” I asked as we climbed out of the truck.

“Not sure,” said the driver, looking really scared. “Apparently the Froilists attacked a medical lab. They might’ve released some kind of germ. Didn’t those people learn anything from what TSJ did? Only an idiot would rob a lab, for God’s sake.”

Muttering under his breath, the driver lit a cigarette, his hands shaking. On the seat of his truck, he set a poster that the officer at the checkpoint had given him. With a terrible sense of dread, I reached over and picked it up.

It was a blurry photocopy of an ID. Below the picture, in bold letters, was the word
WANTED
. It warned anyone who saw the woman in the picture not to go near her and to contact the military.

I handed the poster to Prit, without saying a word. A cold sweat ran down my back as a sense of doom came over me.

The woman in the poster was Lucia.

50

I have no idea how we got through that checkpoint. My mind had shut down, so it was all a blur.

Lucia, a Froilist spy. That was impossible, for God’s sake! My girlfriend couldn’t have cared less about politics. Hell, she didn’t even know all the details of the problem. If she’d gotten involved, wouldn’t she have told me? All those ideas whirled through my mind.

“Hey! Wake up!” Prit snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. “I get it—you’re overwhelmed, but if you really want to help Lucia and Sister Cecilia, you’d better get it together. Those two need us to be at the top of our game. Agreed?”

I took a deep breath. “Of course, dammit! What’re we gonna do?”

“First, find Lucia. Then clear things up, if we can.”

“How do you suggest we find her in all this chaos?” I said, pointing to the riot troops that just drove up. “Half the island’s looking for her and the other half thinks the fucking Froilists are invading.”

“Let’s start at the most logical place—our home.”

We didn’t have much choice, so I agreed. At first the truck driver flatly refused to take us to our home in the hotel. After a brief talk with Prit away from prying eyes, he became more cooperative. I’d guess the nick on his neck from Prit’s knife had something to do with his sudden change of attitude.

I was not surprised to find a URO parked outside our building. A couple of soldiers lounged against the hood, while another soldier was sitting in the driver’s seat, reading a well-thumbed, girly magazine.

“They’re on the lookout for her,” I whispered to the Ukrainian. “Lucia wouldn’t come here with those guys hanging around.”

“Well, they’re sure not going to find her sitting on the couch reading Tolstoy, idiot,” Prit said, as he got out of the truck. “Maybe we can find something in there to clear things up.”

The soldiers barely glanced at us as we entered the building. They were looking for a seventeen-year-old brunette, not a tall, skinny guy with a pained look on his face or a short guy with a blond mustache.

As we walked through the doorway, the door flew open and someone stuck her head outside. Just in time, I grabbed Pritchenko’s shirt and dragged him behind a dusty flowerpot with a plant big enough to hide behind. The open door cast a rectangle of light along with the smell of cooked cabbage.

I recognized the block leader, an old gossip I’d always distrusted. The woman squinted as she scanned the dark lobby. Most of the light bulbs had burned out months ago and no one had replaced them.

“Who’s there?” she chirped.