The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (25 page)

Much to
Ethan’s relief, the soldiers didn’t immediately open fire on him
and his two companions. It was the one thing he was grateful for in
this entire situation. He couldn’t handle watching Kimberly die. He
remained motionless, fighting the urge to grab her hand as a squad
of the soldiers separated from the rest and started toward the
three of them, their rifles raised and pointed at them
unwaveringly.

“Excuse me, we need to speak to someone in
charge,” Ethan said when the squad got to within earshot.

One of the soldiers replied, his voice
muffled by the respirator he wore.

“I’m sorry?” Ethan said, looking at the
masked man in confusion.

“He said get down on the ground,” Chris said,
already sinking to his knees. Ethan hesitated and motioned for
Kimberly to do the same, and they both dropped to their knees. The
soldier who’d given the order barked something else, and Chris
repeated, “Face down on the ground.”

Ethan eased onto the warm pavement between
Chris and Kimberly. Heat radiated through his clothes, and he
turned his head to the side to look at Kimberly. She was already
staring at him, her eyes wide with worry, her fingers curling
against the pavement. “It’s okay,” he mouthed to her, hoping that
his reassurances wouldn’t turn into a lie.

Kimberly smiled waveringly and inched her
hand toward his. He met hers halfway, resting his on top of hers
and squeezing. Then his backpack was pulled off his back, and
gloved hands yanked his arms behind him. Cold steel handcuffs
closed around his wrists, and he was jerked to his feet. A surge of
panic welled up in his gut, and he fought to not struggle. Two of
the soldiers grabbed him under his arms and started half carrying
him and half dragging him toward the rest of their squadron.

“No!” Kimberly yelled. He started to twist
around, and one of the soldiers shoved him forward. He stumbled and
nearly pitched face-first onto the pavement. “You can’t leave that
backpack! It’s too important!”

Alarm swelled up in Ethan, and he struggled
against the hands that were propelling him forward. “You have to
bring that backpack with us!” he said, his voice frantic. “It has
important research in it!”

That didn’t work, until Kimberly said the
magic words that made the soldiers around them pause.

“The cure is in that bag!”

Everyone stopped where they were, and Ethan
wrenched free enough to twist around to see Kimberly. She was
halfway between him and their abandoned backpacks, her face alarmed
and tears streaming over her cheeks. “Get the backpack,” he said,
backing her up. “For the love of everybody uninfected that’s left
in the world, get the backpack.”

“What the hell is going on here?” a muffled
voice asked from behind him. Ethan turned back in the direction of
the military convoy. A MOPP4-outfitted man strode toward them in a
manner that suggested he meant business. Not wanting to put
Kimberly in the line of fire any more than necessary, Ethan
straightened and faced the man with as much authority as he could
muster.

“We’re looking for a medical facility that we
heard was in Eden, North Carolina,” he explained. “We think we have
the cure, or at least the key to the cure, and we’re trying to get
it into the hands of someone who might know what to do with it.”
The masked soldier stared at him. “It’s true,” Ethan implored. “We
were surviving with a CDC doctor who worked with the virus. He was
still working on it when we connected with him. Kimberly, who is
with me, she was his assistant. They found a rudimentary vaccine
for the virus that, in certain circumstances, can reverse the
effects of the virus and potentially be a cure.”

The soldier stared at him for another long
heartbeat and motioned to the squad surrounding Ethan, Kimberly,
and Chris. “Get the backpacks and bring the three of them to one of
the trucks. We’ll let Major Bradford decide what to do with
them.”

One of the soldiers jabbed Ethan in the back
with the barrel of his rifle, indicating for him to start walking.
He gritted his teeth at the rough treatment but obeyed, allowing
the soldiers to goad him toward one of the Humvees blocking the
road. A soldier standing by the Humvee opened the back door, and
Ethan slid inside awkwardly. Kimberly scooted in seconds later, and
the door shut behind her.

“Where’s Chris?” Ethan asked.

“They put him in the other Humvee,” she
replied.

Two soldiers climbed into the front seat. The
one in the passenger seat twisted around to watch them, his rifle
angled so he could get it raised and fire into the backseat in an
instant.

“No talking,” the soldier ordered, and Ethan
swallowed and nodded.

The Humvee jerked forward, and Ethan lurched
toward the front seat involuntarily. Thankfully the soldiers didn’t
think he was about to attack them, because they didn’t react. He
slouched back against the seat, the metal bracelets of his
handcuffs digging into his wrists, and looked at Kimberly. She was
looking back at him, no longer crying, though her cheeks were
stained with previously shed tears. He was dying to wipe them away,
but with his hands cuffed behind his back, that was impossible.

“Are you okay?” he mouthed to her.

Kimberly shrugged and mouthed back, “I don’t
know. Not what I expected.”

“Me neither,” Ethan said.

The two of them looked away from each other
and watched the miles and the scenery roll by. Ethan struggled to
stop the spiral of terror over Kimberly’s safety as he imagined
everything that these soldiers could possibly do to her.

His shoulders were hurting from tension when
the convoy turned onto a long, remote road that, by all
appearances, led to a rural airstrip. Four hulking black
helicopters sat on the runway in a widely spaced row, several
military vehicles arrayed near them with soldiers standing guard,
rifles in hand. This looked like a well-run operation, and Ethan
started to have second thoughts on how well the rest of the world
had survived. For all he’d known before, Chris had been lying or
exaggerating about the circumstances the world was in. He couldn’t
conceive that the world at large had had
that
little of a
problem with the Michaluk Virus considering the speed with which it
had spread in their own cities. The extensive military presence on
the airstrip was a good indicator that everybody else had it a hell
of a lot better than Ethan and his companions had had over the past
two years.

The thought of everyone living their lives
normally didn’t make Ethan angry; it made him incredibly sad. After
everything he and his friends had been through, after the deaths of
his wife, and Nikola, Theo and Gray, among others, it made him feel
like they’d gone through it all for nothing.

One of the soldiers opened his door and
motioned for him to climb out, and he slid to the pavement, trying
to roll his stiff and sore shoulders. The soldier shut the door
behind him and pointed to one of the helicopters. “You’re getting
in that one,” he said, nudging him in the back. “Get moving.”

“Are we going to Eden?” Ethan asked and
started walking toward the helicopter as instructed.

“We’re taking you to see Major Bradford,” the
soldier said, and Ethan sent up a silent prayer of thanks that
someone
was willing to tell him a little about what was
going on.

“Is he the one in charge?” Ethan asked.

This question the soldier didn’t answer.
“Have you ridden in a helicopter before?” he asked.

“Yeah, several years ago when the police
department got its own helicopter and the pilot took us all out for
joy rides,” Ethan said.

“You were a cop?” the soldier asked.

“Yeah. I’d just gotten promoted to major at
the Memphis Police Department the day before all this shit
started,” Ethan answered.

“Memphis?” the soldier repeated, and through
the man’s gas mask, Ethan could see his eyes light up. “My brother
was an officer in Memphis. Caleb Jones. Did you know him? He was at
the second precinct.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I worked in the
first precinct. The name rings a bell, but I don’t think I knew
him.”

The soldier sighed, the sound hollow as it
echoed through his gas mask filters. “Oh well. I thought maybe…” He
motioned toward the helicopter again. “Climb on in. We’re going to
take you to see the major, and maybe he can help you with this cure
thing you say you have.”

Ethan clambered into the helicopter. One of
the soldiers already inside put a helmet on his head and fastened
the buckles for him. Ethan settled back and saw Chris and Kimberly
being led to the same helicopter. While the soldiers who’d helped
Ethan into his seat assisted them, he watched the soldier who’d
asked him about the Memphis Police Department and wondered if the
man would serve as a potential ally in whatever was going to happen
next.

Lindsey
was sitting at her desk, a binder full of typewritten pages opened
in front of her, her head resting against the palm of her hand. She
was trying to study the most recent report the day shift had left
her and Jacob, but she wasn’t having much success. Her mind was
still stuck on her worries over Michael Brandt Evans, her apparent
brother-in-law, and how and when she could attempt to get him out
of the military’s custody. It was a difficult problem, and it was
one she was putting her powerful brain to, shuffling through
possibility after possibility, trying to find one that would be
most likely to work.

She’d tossed four different ideas by the time
she realized her lab partner had gone into the decontamination
chamber, and she jerked to attention when the steady hiss of the
chamber’s water shut off. A few moments later, the door to the
chamber slid open, and Jacob stepped out, fully dressed, still
drying his hair off with a towel. Lindsey glanced at him, then
licked her thumb and turned a page in the binder, though she had no
idea what the page she’d just left had said.

“You look like you’re very deep in thought,”
Jacob said. He sat on the edge of her desk and tapped his fingertip
against her forehead. “You’re going to get worry wrinkles right
here if you frown any harder.”

Lindsey slammed the binder shut. “I have no
idea what I’ve read,” she said. “I’ve been staring at these notes
for
hours
now.”

“That means you’ve missed out on all that
I’ve been doing in the lab,” Jacob said. He motioned toward the
door. “What do you say we get out of here and I’ll fill you in over
some coffee?”

“Is it Earth-shatteringly important?” Lindsey
asked, and Jacob nodded. “Let me get my stuff.” She opened a desk
drawer and shoved the binder into it, then retrieved her purse and
keys from another drawer. “Your car or mine?”

“Let’s take mine,” Jacob said. “I have an
urge to drive.”

They processed out of the building, retrieved
Jacob’s SUV from the parking garage, and started on their way to
the coffee shop. Jacob was changing lanes to get to the shopping
center that was home to a Starbucks they liked to frequent when
Lindsey cleared her throat and asked, “So what’s going on?”

“You know that guy the military brought in?
The lieutenant?” Jacob asked. Lindsey nodded. “I don’t know if
you’re aware, but the results of his blood tests came back. He’s
showing positive for infection with the Michaluk Virus.”

“Oh hell,” Lindsey muttered.

“Sort of.”

Lindsey raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean
by, ‘sort of’?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Jacob said.
“I barely understand it myself. I think he’s infected with a
different strain than what we’ve seen in the infected we’ve
captured so far. The paperwork the military scavenged from the
remains of the CDC alluded to multiple strains of the pathogen. I
think we’ve found one of them.”

“Really?” Lindsey asked. “Are you serious?
It’s one of the missing strains?”

“I believe so,” Jacob said, “though I can’t
say for sure.”

Lindsey frowned. “Wait. He’s not showing any
symptoms. Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Jacob said. “I ran the tests four
times to make sure.”

“Well hell,” Lindsey said. “I don’t know,
then.”

“Maybe he’s a carrier,” Jacob suggested. “He
could be infected and not showing symptoms.”

“Like Typhoid Mary?”

“Exactly,” Jacob said, his tone delighted at
the fact that she got where he was going with this. “So what were
you plotting when you were in the offices just now?” Lindsey didn’t
answer, staring out the passenger window. He pulled the car into
the drive-thru at Starbucks and asked, “You’re still thinking about
what to do about that lieutenant, aren’t you?”

“His name is Michael,” Lindsey corrected.
“And I found out earlier that he’s my brother-in-law, or he says he
is.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He knows enough about Cade to make him seem
believable,” Lindsey replied.

“So you still want to get him out of there?
Even knowing he’s most likely infected?”

“Yes, because he might know where my sister
is,” Lindsey said. “And right now, she’s the most important thing
to me, even beyond the work we’ve been doing.”

“Any idea how you’re going to do it yet?”

Lindsey sighed. “Not a clue. He always has
guards on his cell, and I don’t know how I can get past them to get
him out of there. Then there’s getting him out of the
building…”

Jacob paused in the conversation long enough
to put in their orders, and once they’d pulled forward, he said,
“Maybe we can tell Bradford we need to do a medical exam and get
him moved to one of the medical rooms.”

“That won’t work,” Lindsey said. “They
handcuff him to the bed in there, and they don’t give me a key.
Besides which, the last time he was in there, the guards insisted
on staying in the room with him. The medical ward is out.”