Zombie D.O.A. (17 page)
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he slurred.
“Who did this to you? Basher?”
“Aptly named,
”
he
said and tried to laugh set
ting off a coughing spasm
. “Fuck, that hurts,” he said, after it stopped.
“Want me to call someone?”
“No,
don’t do that
, they’ll only pump me full of morphine and I need to talk to you.”
“It can wait, man. If you’re…”
“No it can’t wait,” he hissed, “this is important.” He tried to rise and that
started him
coughing
again
.
“Ta
ke it easy, big guy,” I said. “D
on’t try to get up.”
He took in three slow,
deep
breaths and I
almost thought he’d dozed off. T
hen he said. “I’m not going to make it, Chris.”
“Bullshit, all you need is to rest up, some recovery time…”
“
Take it easy
, Collins, I’m
not about to keel over
and die just
yet. But they’re not going to let me
walk on this one.
I
’ve
seen this before, compadre.
” The sound of his breathing came aga
in
,
harsh and ragged.
After a while Joe spok
e again, “
Can I trust you, Chris?”
“You need to ask me that?”
“Guess not, just thought it would sound
dramatic. Can’t help the actor in
me.” He tried to laugh and started coughing instead.
Joe stopped to catch his breath before talking again.
“
There
’s
som
ething I need to tell you Chris. Something someone needs to know.
But u
nderstand that
when
I
pass this information its like the passing of the flame. The people that want me gone are going to want you, and…
“
“Quit prattling and just tell me.
”
“Good man.”
Joe took several deep breaths again.
“
Remember when
I told you before
about
the
four runaway
biologists?
“Uh, huh.”
“
I lied.
”
He paused then, either for effect or because of the pain.
“Not about them running. That part is true. But the truth
is,
I was one of the hitters called in
.
”
Another pause, again punctuated by his harsh breathing.
“
The guy I was
given
was
called
Kas
s
im,
your typical industrial grade boy genius
, you know
Harvard
, MIT, pocket protectors
.
Anyway,
I track him
down to a motel in Niagara Fall
s. He’s just a kid,
Chris,
27 years old.
I could have been his father.
Jesus
, I’m thirsty?”
“I’d get you some water but I’m handcuffed to the bed.”
“You too, huh? He said rattling his own cuffs. “I’ll
be okay, just give me a second.
Outside, I heard the first signs of the camp coming to life, the r
attle of pots from the mess tent, a squad being drilled past
, someone calling out good morning.
“So I’m in
this kid
’s
motel room
, and he’s like shitting himself, crying and begging
me not to kill him
,
and
you know what,
I take pity on him. I never reneged on a contract before
in my life,
but hey, there’s a first time for everything.
”
“You let him go
?”
“
More than that.
I got him into Canada. From there to a contact of mine in Africa.”
“What about the virus or whatever it is, they smuggled out of the lab?”
“He said he didn’t have it.”
“You believed him?”
“Had no reason not to. T
he guy w
as literally shitting his pants.
I don’t think he had the ball
s to lie to me
.”
“
What about t
he
other three?”
“Fuck knows, but what’s certain is that at least one of them pulled the trigger.”
“Pulled the trigger?”
“That’s
the way
this
Kassim
put
it.
He called it
The Trigger.
”
He started coughing again. “Joe you okay?” I asked
, “You don’t have to do this?”
“I’m not dead yet, sonny boy. Takes more than an ass-wippin’ to
put
Pa Thursday’s boy
in the ground
. Where was I?”
“The trigger?”
“Right, the trigger. Y
ou ever heard of BZ?
”
“No.”
“
BZ
was a
drug
the military developed
during
Vietnam, supposed to make GI’s more aggressive. Brewed up a shit-storm and had to be dropped.
Except some headbangers around the fringes
still believed
that the idea had
legs if only they had more control of the outputs
.
“
So they put together a team of
scientists, kind of a Justice League America for geeks. And they
start
brewing up some new improved BZ.
Somewhere along the line, one of the biologists on the team sees some promising results and the whole project makes a detour from developing a
hallucinogenic to developing a virus
.”
“Jesus!”
“You said it.
But now things start to go awry. They ship one of these geeks to Afghanistan to see the effects of their
handi
work on some captured Taliban fighters and when this kid sees what this stuff does in practice, he gets cold feet. Back stateside, he does a runner.
”
“Enter Marvin and Coburn.”
“Exactly. But
here’s where
the
heads
running the program
really
fucked up. They thought they’d scare the rest of
the
team
back into line
, but it had the opposite effect. Four more jump the fence, and this time they’re packing.”
“And one of them pulls the trigger here in New York.”
“Maybe
elsewhere too.”
“You serious?”
“Deadly.”
A pretty nurse walked in with two armed guards. “Gentlemen,” she said.
“
Time for your meds.”
“I’ll take a sponge bath,” Joe said and start
ed coughing again.
“Nurse,” I said, “I need to see my daughter.”
“In time, I’m sure,” she
replied
.
“Is she okay?”
Sh
e looked at me as though I’d just made an indecent proposal, then she said simply, “Yes.”
She turned towards
Joe
, lifted
t
he mosquito net and then helped
him into a sitting position. As she did so he reached up and touched her hair.
“Mr. Thursday!” The nurse said, crossly.
“Just bei
n
g
friendly,” Joe mumbled.
“Well, you can be friendly by taking your meds,” she said
,
still obviously irritated.
“For you honey, I’d take a hit on Rev. Jones’ Kool Aid,
”
Joe said and swallowed his medicine. Within a few seconds he
was already snoring.
“Nothing for you
,”
the nurse said primly
to me.
“
You have a meeting with Dr. Brad
y.”
I was taken to shower, given a pair of combat pa
nts, boots and a white t-shirt
to wear and fed a breakfast of powdered eggs, canned beef and b
aked beans
. Then I was
marched over to t
he North Meadow Recreation Cent
e
r
where the
military
had set up its HQ.
Dr. Brad
y
turned out to be
an attractive woman in her
early forties
. She wore an unbuttoned white lab coat over her military uniform. I was marched into her makeshift office and told to sit. One of my guards left the room while the other stationed him
self inside.