Dead Asleep (30 page)

Chapter 54

B
anner and Stromeyer sat around a speaker-phone on a conference call with Susan Plower.

“We need to have them land somewhere,” Stromeyer said.

“They're arriving from a quarantine zone. No one wants them, I'm afraid,” Plower said. “Can they make it to Guantanamo?”

“Not enough fuel,” Banner said.

“Listen, Encephalitis Lethargica is quite dangerous. It's a sleeping sickness that causes catatonia, mutism, psychotic events, sleep, and death. There's no cure and no way to tell who will survive and who will die. You can understand why I'm getting no takers for them.”

“Yes, I do understand,” Stromeyer said. “But we have to do something.”

“You aren't exactly making this easy on me. How the hell am I going to sell that to anyone?”

“But the good news is that we don't know how it's spread. Perhaps it's not easily contracted from one human to the next.”

“That's not what happened in 1915. The CDC is telling me that over five million died.”

“But that strain hasn't been seen since. Or, at least only extremely rarely. It's entirely possible that this version isn't as deadly,” Stromeyer said.

“Or maybe not. I've already called the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. No one wants to expose their populations to this scourge and I don't blame them. Can they attempt a water landing?”

“I don't think so,” Banner said. “The seas are rough as a result of the tropical storm. It's likely they'll die if they do.”

“What about returning to Terra Cay?”

“There's an entire team of angry arms dealers just waiting to kill them. That's likely suicide.”

“I'll work on it. How long do they have before they run out of fuel?”

“Half an hour,” Banner said.

“Why didn't Carrow fill the damn thing up?”

“They did, it was hit by a grenade and it's leaking.”

“I'm on it. Let me make some calls.” Plower hung up.

C
arrow sat behind Emma and Sumner in a jump seat in the cockpit.

“What's the plan?” he said.

“We need to land,” Sumner replied. “The nearest airports are denying us access.”

“Can't we just land anyway? What are they going to do if we ignore them?”

“Blow us out of the sky before we do,” Sumner said.

“I'm an English citizen. Half these islands are territories of the British Crown. Hell, the Queen is a neighbor on the island. They'd better not blow me out of the sky.” Carrow sounded outraged.

“They can and they will,” Sumner said. “We need an airstrip that can handle a jet and a friendly nation.”

“Does the phone work?”

Emma nodded. “It does.”

“Then let me call my friend.”

“Who?” Emma asked. Carrow named an actor known the world over.

“He owns an island and he's got a landing strip.”

“He owns the entire island?” Sumner said.

“Yes. He owns the entire island.”

Emma handed him the phone. “Get the coordinates.”

Carrow dialed the phone and after a terse conversation said, “hold on,” and quoted the coordinates. “He says he doesn't know how long the airstrip is, but he can land his jet. It's a bit smaller than this one, but it may work.”

“Is anyone on the island? If so, tell them to stay far away from us and the plane,” Emma said.

“He's at his LA house with his family. There's only a skeleton staff there at the moment and they live off island, so he thinks we're alone. I told him about the quarantine and he's asking that we stay with the jet after we land.”

“Ask him if he thinks the runway lights are on,” Sumner said.

The plane gave a lurch as a gust of wind hit it. Emma's stomach lurched as well. Carrow braced himself against the back of Sumner's seat as he carried on his telephone conversation. He leaned toward Sumner.

“There should be directional lights on at the runway, but he's been having a bit of trouble with the utilities and he said there's no guarantee they're working in the midst of the storm. Will we make it there and can you land it?”

“We'll make it and I can land anything,” Sumner said. “But first get the creature off the controls.”

“No creature,” Emma said.

Sumner glanced at her. “Right.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Carrow asked.

“He was drugged with Scopolamine. He's having hallucinations.”

“Please tell me you can see the controls.” Carrow's voice was strained.

“I can,” Sumner said. He kept his eyes on the instrument panel and Emma watched as the plane began to descend. In the distance she saw a row of flickering lights. Sumner adjusted the jet and pointed straight at them.

“Everyone strap in. We'll land in three minutes,” Sumner said. The warning alarm on the panel switched to a louder, more strident pitch. The noise set Emma on edge.

“Is that a new problem?” she asked.

“No, it's the same problem. The fuel is just about finished.”

Emma watched the runway lights grow clearer. The wind still lashed at them and the plane bumped with the gusts, but Sumner kept it on the line of trajectory and the ground grew closer. Emma held her breath as they prepared to touch down. They lowered onto the runway with only a small bump and the plane slid along the tarmac and ground to a halt at the end. It was a near perfect landing. Glare from a nearby spotlight bounced off the windshield. Sumner killed the engines and the annoying alarm fell quiet.

No one spoke. Rain poured off the windshield, sheeting downward. Emma slumped in her seat with a sigh of relief.

“You are one hell of a pilot,” Carrow said. “And I need a drink.”

E
mma sat in the sunny kitchen in a small house located on the island. It remained devoid of people with the exception of Sumner, Stromeyer, and Banner. The last two had arrived after a decent interval, when it became apparent that none of the remaining group on the airplane had contracted the disease. After much negotiation on the part of Susan Plower, Marwell, Johnson, and Kemmer had been collected and transported days earlier to the Bahamas, where they were kept in the same cordon sanitaire with Randiger. Out of the forty cases on the island, twenty-five people died, including Martin from Rex Rain.

“How's Latisha doing?” Emma asked.

“Well. The doctor says he expects to discharge her shortly,” Stromeyer said.

“And the arms dealers?”

“Two contracted the disease and died. Shanaropov and a Mexican survived. The Russian took off on his yacht and is at large. Plower has put resources behind a manhunt. We'll see what comes of it. She's also arranged for the Mexican to be transferred to Guantanamo.”

“Bad for the Mexican,” Emma said.

“But nothing more than he deserves,” Banner said. “We recovered the bullets and the gun. None of it worked very well, but even if one had been smuggled through a metal detector and used to hit a target it could have been a disaster.”

“What about the encephalitis? Is the island still quarantined?”

Stromeyer shook her head. “It will be lifted shortly, since no new cases have appeared. It has disappeared once again, as quickly as it did before.”

“Still no cure?” Banner said.

“Still no cure and no answers, I'm afraid,” Stromeyer replied.

“So science can't explain everything yet. The world retains its mystery,” Emma said.

She sipped her coffee and eyed Sumner. He was his usual taciturn self, but she thought that his hallucinations had tapered off. He caught her staring at him, held her gaze and smiled.

Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank my agent, Barbara Poelle, and her husband, Travis, for the title suggestions, my publisher, Liate Stehlik, editor Lyssa Keusch for her editorial input and another great cover, the graphic artists and cover specialists who put it all together, and Shawn Nicholls for his online assistance. Thanks to everyone at HarperCollins for their support year round, and my publicists, Danielle Bartlett, Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, and Dana Kaye, who keep my schedule straight when I can't.

Thanks again to Darwyn Jones, who read the manuscript in a weekend despite the fact that he was swamped with his own work.

Thank you to the readers. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated.

And, of course, to my family.

About the Author

JAMIE FREVELETTI is a runner and a former trial lawyer. The author of the international bestsellers
The Ninth Day, Running Dark,
and
Running from the Devil,
she lives with her family in Chicago, Illinois.

www.jamiefreveletti.com

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By Jamie Freveletti

Dead Asleep

The Ninth Day

Running Dark

Running from the
Devil

The Covert One Series

Robert Ludlum's The Janus
Reprisal