Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(157)

The Blackhawk, destabilized, tilts into the line of trees walling the road. The remaining three blades slash through branches, embed themselves in trunks, and then crack and separate from the craft. The chopper smokes and whines when tumbling through the air. The nose falls first, the tail reaching upward like the fletching of an arrow. There is the terrible crunch of metal meeting stone. The impact does not open into a ball of flame. The aircraft simply screams onto its side. The engine winds down. Smoke and dust rise from the wreckage.

The sky is empty, the other chopper departed. Patrick is released, shoved to the road, where he batters his knees against asphalt. He looks for Claire and spots her among the Mexicans. She does not look horrified, as he imagined. She does not weep or cry out. She does not bring a hand to her mouth. Instead she stands there holding a revolver the size of a cannon, the muzzle still smoking. Her mouth is a white line as if she has bitten away any emotion.

A few of the Mexicans approach the fallen bird and try to yank open the carrier door. But it is smashed shut. So they fire into the windows and then reach through the holes they have rendered in the glass and finish off those still strapped to their seats.



*



Buffalo explains the aborted rescue attempt, the downed helicopter, the suspected abduction, the signal traced from Miracle Boy’s satellite phone, and he does so dramatically, his hands moving and making a kind of shadow theater on the floor, so that Chase can’t help but imagine himself there, among those twisting shadows, caught up in the fight.

“One vial?” Chase says. “He has one vial?”

“That’s it.”

“Just one.”

“Yes.”

“How many doses are in one vial?”

“Ten, I believe. Maybe fewer. I’m not sure.”

“We get our hands on it, we can replicate it.”

“Hypothetically.”

“How long would that take?”

“I can’t say.”

“One vial.”

“Yes.”

“Our magic bullet.”

These past few weeks Chase has been dreaming again. When he was on Volpexx, his dreams were empty, a dying blackness overcoming him every evening. Now his dreams sometimes seem more wakeful and vivid than life. The woman—the woman with the charcoal skin and smoldering eyes—has returned. So have others. Last night he dreamed of the man he killed on patrol on a two-lane highway south of Niflhel. His platoon was clearing the road for a supply convoy, and in the dream he was there again, truly there, every klick of the road and every detail of the city familiar, as he drove past a sewage canal, decaying tenements, shacks sculpted out of tin and mud and snow, carts sloshing with half-frozen jugs of milk. They came across a man crawling along the side of the road in a state of transformation. His hair was as white as the snow piled everywhere. He was barefoot and wore only tattered slacks and a long-sleeve thermal. He seemed not to recognize the rumble of vehicles beside him. He stared straight ahead, blood drooling from his mouth and weeping from his eyes, while dragging himself forward one arm after the other. Chase got on the platoon net and ordered the other trucks to stop, then switched over to the battalion frequency, reported their location, a sit-rep. Sometimes the prions, in a later stage of development, made the brain bleed and gave the infected symptoms equivalent to dementia. “Think we got ourselves a rabid dog.”

A few seconds later the order came down to kill the lycan.

Chase could have ordered his gunners to fire but didn’t want to burden them with another death. He dismounted and crunched through the snow and sighted the lycan with his M16 but couldn’t abide shooting him from behind. He called out twice. The second time, the lycan spun around and lifted an ice-caked hand feebly to claw the air or warn him away. He was old enough to be Chase’s grandfather. Chase pumped a single round into him and then climbed back in the truck and left the body slumped in a snowbank. He felt wretched but at least the wretchedness was his and didn’t belong to one of the red-cheeked, tattooed nineteen-year-olds under his charge.

That’s what he wants now, an opportunity to cowboy up and take whatever pain or glory comes with it. And he knows he must. There is no other way to secure the vaccine for his immediate use. Without the help of medication, he can keep his condition hidden for only so long.

Buffalo is talking strategy—what needs to happen over the next twenty-four hours—and his voice slows when Chase begins to strip. He kicks off his shoes, then peels off his shirt, yanks away his pants, his socks and briefs, until he stands naked in the pile of shed clothes.

“What are you doing?” Buffalo says. It isn’t time for bed. They need to call a meeting. They need to go to the Situation Room. They need to patch through the CO stationed at the perimeter. Buffalo has already ordered coffee from the House Mess.

“I’ll go.”

“You’ll go where?”

“I’ll go to Oregon.”

Buffalo does not seem to know where to look. He uncrosses and crosses his legs. “You’ll—what?”

Chase walks over to the chair and stands a mere foot from Buffalo. “I’ll go. I’ll go and find the boy.” His stomach looks like stones stacked on top of one another. His arms are a root tangle of veins. His groin is pulsing.

Buffalo turns his head away so that he is staring directly into the lamp. “I don’t understand—what are you—why do you think—”