Pale Horse (A Project Eden Thriller) Read online

  “He’ll get Brandon out.”

  This time Matt simply nodded.

  Though most of the people who had been at the Ranch when the helicopters were spotted were safe in the underground facility, Jon Hayes and Brandon Ash had been caught outside, unable to get back before Matt was forced to seal up the Bunker. While Jon had received the training all Resistance members were given, Brandon was just a kid. To make matters worse, Matt himself had promised the boy’s father he’d watch over him.

  He just hoped Jon and Brandon had done what he ordered, and were already in the woods, trying to get as far from the Ranch as possible.

  “Intruders on ground,” someone announced.

  Matt looked at the monitors displaying feeds from cameras hidden around the compound. He zeroed in on a view of the open space near the Lodge, where one of the helicopters had just set down and a half dozen heavily armed men in fatigues, helmets, and body armor were jumping out. As they rushed toward the burning building, the second helicopter landed and more men joined the others.

  “Dear God,” someone said.

  Matt could sense fear filling the room.

  “Hold it together,” he ordered. “They can’t get in. You all know that.”

  There were a few nods, and a couple of grunts of agreement, but the anxiety level remained high.

  On the screen, the attack squad circled the Lodge, while a smaller detachment raced over to the dormitory. When it was clear no one could be alive in the burning buildings, they regrouped, then split again, and headed in teams of three into the woods.

  It’s okay, Matt thought. Jon and Brandon are far away. They won’t be seen.

  “Matt?” Christina Kim called out from the communication terminal she was manning.

  “In a minute,” Matt said.

  “No. Now.”

  He turned. “What is it?”

  Her eyes never left the monitor in front of her as she motioned for him to hurry over. She said into her microphone, “Your signal’s weak, but you’re getting through.”

  Matt walked quickly to her desk. “Who is it?”

  “Pax,” she said as she handed him a second headset.

  Matt donned it and pressed the earpiece tight to his head. Pax was his right-hand man, and was currently above the Arctic Circle in search of Bluebird, Project Eden’s control center. “It’s Matt. Are you there?”

  “Good to hear your voice, Matt,” Pax said.

  There was a lot of interference.

  Matt put his hand over his mic and said, “Can you do anything about the signal?”

  Christina shook her head. “I’ll keep trying, but that’s the best I’ve been able to do so far.”

  He took his hand off the mic. “Any luck?”

  “Bust here,” Pax said. “The science facility on Amund Ringnes Island is legit.”

  The assumption had been that Bluebird was posing as a scientific research outpost on one of the far north islands. The Resistance had narrowed it down to the most likely ones, and sent the team—headed by Brandon’s father, Daniel Ash—to see if they could pinpoint its exact location, and do whatever they could to stop Project Eden from initiating its plan. The team had then divided in half so they could check the final two possibilities at the same time. Pax led one group to Amund Ringnes Island, while Ash led the other to Yanok Island.

  So if Bluebird wasn’t on Amund Ringnes…

  “I haven’t been able to reach Captain Ash,” Pax said. “Has he reported in to you?”

  Though Matt knew the answer, he glanced at Christina. She shook her head. “No,” he said. “We haven’t heard from him since before they left for Yanok.”

  “I was afraid of that. I’ve also been unable to reach Gagnon to arrange pickup.” Gagnon was flying the seaplane that shuttled the men to the islands. “I guess it doesn’t matter at the moment. Even if I did reach him, I doubt he’d be able to get here for a day or two.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “A storm happened. It seems to be a pretty big one. We’ve taken shelter in an unmanned research outpost, and won’t be going anywhere until it calms down a bit.”

  “I understand.”

  There was a pause. “Matt, Bluebird’s got to be on Yanok. I’m sure Ash has already figured that out, so I’m surprised you haven’t heard from him.”

  “Could be caught in the storm, too.”

  “Could be, but he wouldn’t let that stop him until he knew for sure. We’re running out of time. Implementation Day could be tomorrow, for all we know.”

  Implementation Day, when Project Eden would activate the release of the Sage Flu virus on the world.

  Matt glanced over at the others watching the assault team search the area around the Lodge. “Actually, Pax, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be tomorrow.”

  __________

  “KEEP MOVING!” HAYES yelled.

  Brandon jerked back around. He hadn’t even realized he’d slowed down, but he hadn’t been able to help glancing over his shoulder to search for the helicopters thumping in the distance. He couldn’t spot them, though, with the thick forest cover barely allowing him a glimpse of the sky. He picked up his pace, and soon caught up to the man who was trying to save his life.

  “The emergency stash is only about five minutes from the top of the ridge,” Hayes said. “We can rest when we get there.”

  “I’m fine,” Brandon told him, not wanting to show any weakness.

  Hayes gave him a smile. “Glad to hear it.”

  When they reached the top, the trees parted enough for them to see two columns of smoke rising into the air from back toward the Ranch. Brandon knew that at the bottom of the larger column would be what was left of the Lodge, and below it, underground, the Bunker where his sister Josie and the others were hiding. He hoped she was all right, and that the security measures Mr. Hamilton had taken would be enough to protect her and everyone else.

  A part of him wanted to rush back, and do what he could to help them. What that would be, he had no idea, but running away just seemed wrong.

  As they started down the other side of the ridge, he said, “Do you think they can get into the Bunker?”

  “No,” Hayes said, and started walking again.

  Brandon grabbed his arm. “You can’t know for sure.”

  The man turned toward him. “Matt knows what he’s doing. The people from the helicopters won’t be able to get to them. You and I, we need to concentrate on our own survival right now. Playing guessing games about what’s going on back there isn’t going to help us. Okay?”

  Brandon frowned, but said, “Okay.”

  A few minutes later, Hayes stopped.

  “Is this it?” Brandon asked, looking around. There was nothing there but more trees.

  Hayes approached a broken branch sticking out of the ground. No, not a branch, Brandon realized—an old rusted stake.

  Hayes aligned himself with it, then marched off a couple dozen paces to the west. The place where he stopped was just a small open space, maybe ten feet in diameter at most, and looked pretty much like everywhere else.

  “Give me a hand,” Hayes said. He dropped to his knees and began pushing away the ground cover.

  Brandon joined him. He almost asked what they were looking for, but as soon as he started moving the dirt and dead vegetation, he saw a flat metal surface. It took them less than a minute to completely clear it.

  “Come over to this side,” Hayes said.

  Brandon repositioned himself, and together they put their hands underneath the four-foot-square plate and lifted. The metal was heavy, but they were able to get it up and to the side. In the space beneath was what looked like a sewer lid, only it had no holes in the top, and instead of being metal, it was plastic. Embedded in the surface were two handles about six inches apart.

  Hayes put a hand in each, and turned the whole thing like the lid of a jar. It took two complete rotations before it came free. Underneath was a round shaft stuffed with items in a
irtight packages.

  Hayes set the lid to the side, then began pulling the packages out and handing them to Brandon. By the time they finished emptying the cylinder, the area around the hole was littered with bags. Hayes started going through them one by one, separating them into two groups.

  When he finished, he pointed at the bags to his right and said, “Those go back in. Can you take care of that?”

  “Of course,” Brandon said.

  While he put the unwanted bags back in the storage cylinder, Hayes opened the others. The first contained a standard hiking backpack, while in the second was a smaller bag, not too dissimilar from the book backpack Brandon had used for school. Hayes began filling each with contents removed from the other bags—food, bottles of water, clothing, two sleeping bags, and a few things Brandon couldn’t identify.

  “Shall I put the top back on?” Brandon asked when he was finished.

  Hayes shook his head. “We need to put all the empty bags in first.”

  Brandon collected the bags and stuffed them down the hole.

  Once that was done, Hayes said, “You’ll take the small pack.”

  The bag looked full, and had one of the sleeping bags strapped to the bottom.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t make it too heavy.”

  “I’m not worried,” Brandon said.

  “All right. One more check around to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything, then—”

  A low, rhythmic noise echoed softly down the hill. Both Hayes and Brandon cocked their heads.

  “One of the helicopters,” Brandon said.

  Hayes looked around, his gaze settling on the half-full storage cylinder.

  “Get in!”

  “What?”

  “Get in! Now. We don’t have time to talk about it.”

  “You said they might have a thermal scanner. Won’t they be able to see us?”

  “Not through the lid and the ground.”

  Brandon looked at the hole, then at Hayes. “But…we both can’t fit.”

  “I’ll get rid of them, and come back for you.”

  “No!”

  “If you don’t get in, you’ll get us both killed.”

  The whirling of the helicopter rotors was growing louder.

  “Now!” Hayes shouted.

  Brandon jerked back in surprise, then climbed into the hole.

  “Here,” Hayes said, shoving the small backpack in with him. “I’m going to leave the screw top off, and just pull the plate over.”

  “But…but…”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Hayes said, grabbing the metal plate and tipping it back over.

  As it was closing down on him, Brandon said, “How long will I have to—”

  “It’s going to be fine.”

  The plate fell the rest of the way to the ground, plunging Brandon into darkness. He could hear scrapes on the other side as Hayes covered the plate with the loose ground they’d scraped off. For several seconds all was quiet.

  Then the helicopter roared overhead.

  4

  YANOK ISLAND

  11:04 AM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME

  THE MOMENT THE bullet left his gun, Daniel Ash started running toward the front of the room. His aim had been true. The slug slammed into Olivia Silva, spinning her off the chair.

  But had it been in time?

  He paid no attention to the huddled group of men on the floor, or their dead colleague who lay nearby. His focus was completely on Olivia, and the computer she had been using.

  She was now on the ground, clutching her blood-soaked shoulder. Through clenched teeth, she said, “Very good, Captain Ash. I’m impressed.” She sneered. “But not as impressed as I could have been.”

  Ash looked at the computer. On the screen, in deceptively small letters, was the simple phrase:

  ACTIVATION COMPLETE

  Dammit!

  He blinked, but the words remained the same. His bullet may have hit its mark, but it had not stopped Olivia from transmitting the go code that would commence the release of the virus on the world.

  Project Eden’s restart of humanity had begun.

  He looked down at her. “You’ve got to stop it!”

  “Stop it? Even…if I could, why would I?”

  He whirled around and glared at the group of men, the leaders of Project Eden. “Deactivate it!”

  No one moved.

  He rushed forward, pointing his gun from one man to the next. “Turn it off. Stop it. Now!”

  “We can’t,” one of the men said.

  Ash turned to him and put the muzzle of the pistol against the guy’s forehead. “Turn it off!”

  “Can’t be done. Once activated, it can’t be stopped.”

  “Bullshit! You’ve got to have some sort of override.”

  “Ash!”

  He looked up. Chloe was standing in the doorway at the back of the room.

  “We’ve only got a few more minutes!” she yelled. “We’ve got to go!”

  Before punching in the go code for the virus, Olivia had begun the self-destruct sequence for the Project Eden facility known as Bluebird. From that moment, they’d had fifteen minutes to exit the building. Half that time was already gone.

  “Olivia activated the virus!” he told her.

  Chloe’s eyes widened in horror.

  Ash looked back at the men on the floor. “Override it!”

  “There is no override,” another man said defiantly. He was the one who’d been sitting at the computer when Ash, Olivia, and the others had barged in and taken over, the man who was supposed to have activated the release. “What’s done is done. Welcome to the new world, Captain Ash.”

  “Ash, we’ve got to go!” Chloe said.

  Ash ran back to the computer, hoping there was something—anything—that might indicate the men were wrong. But there was nothing on the screen other than:

  ACTIVATION COMPLETE

  Sitting beside the keyboard was the open envelope Olivia had taken from the man who’d been at the computer. Next to it was the piece of paper that had been inside. Ash snatched it up. There were only five characters on it:

  EXIT 9

  The activation code, he realized. He started to throw it down, then stopped himself. What if…?

  “Ash! Come on!” Chloe called.

  He typed in E-X-I-T-9, and hit ENTER. Nothing happened.

  He tried the code backwards, 9-T-I-X-E, knowing it was a long shot at best. Nothing again.

  “Ash!”

  He glanced toward Chloe. She was frantically waving at him to join her.

  “Give me a second!” he yelled, then input EXIT 9 again.

  ACTIVATION COMPLETE

  He tried once more.

  ACTIVATION COMPLETE

  Someone tugged at his arm.

  “Ash,” Chloe said from beside him. “We’re out of time. We need to leave now!”

  “We’ve got to stop this!”

  “We can’t stop it! We tried, but we can’t. Do you want to die here, too? Because that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t move now.”

  He balled his hands into fists as he stared down at the computer, more frustrated than he’d ever been in his life.

  This time, when Chloe grabbed his arm and pulled, he didn’t fight her.

  “Sorry to ruin your…day, Captain Ash,” Olivia called after him.

  He twisted out of Chloe’s grasp and stepped toward Olivia.

  “What are you doing?” Chloe asked.

  “She started this,” he said. “She’s coming with us. She needs to answer for what she’s done.”

  Before he could grab Olivia, Chloe yanked him to a stop. “Are you kidding me? She’s going to die here when the building goes up. That’s about the best solution we can get. Come on!”

  He stared down at Olivia.

  She smiled at him again. “Goodbye, Captain.”

  Snatching his gun off the desk where he’d left it, he pointed it at her head.

  “Go
on. Do it,” she said. “You know you want to.”

  Damn right he did. No one would ever come close to matching the number of dead that would undoubtedly lie at Olivia’s feet. Billions, if the Resistance’s projections were correct.

  Her smile broadened. “You can’t, can you? You’re too good for that. You’d never shoot an unarmed—”

  He pulled the trigger, blowing the top of her head off, ensuring she’d never speak another word.

  “Satisfied?” Chloe asked. “Can we go now?”

  There was no satisfaction in killing Olivia. His inability to stop what she’d already unleashed made her death a footnote to what he knew would be happening next.

  Without responding, he headed for the door, Chloe running right beside him. When they entered the corridor, they found two members of Olivia’s strike team waiting there.

  “Where is she?” one of them asked.

  “She didn’t make it,” Chloe said as she tried to push past them.

  The man grabbed her arm. “What do you mean, she didn’t make it?”

  Ash shoved him away. “She means Olivia’s dead.”

  The other man raised his rifle, aiming it at Ash. “You killed her, didn’t you?”

  Before Ash could respond, two shots rang out, and both men dropped to the ground.

  Chloe, her gun held near her waist, said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  They raced down the corridor, retracing their path back to the emergency tunnel. Somewhere behind them, Ash could hear others running in their direction, the Project Eden members who’d been held captive in their own command center now trying to escape the coming destruction.

  “This way,” Chloe said, turning down a smaller hallway that Ash almost missed.

  At the end, they could see another one of Olivia’s people standing in the open entrance to the tunnel, waiting.

  “Close it behind us!” Ash yelled as they approached.

  “Where are the others?” the man asked.

  “Not coming,” Chloe said.

  “What happened?”

  As they neared the door, Ash could hear the Project Eden members turning into the hallway. “Just close it!” he ordered. He rushed through the opening right behind Chloe.