Nods all around.

Zeke clasped his hands together, rubbed them briskly. “That’s settled, then. Because they’re at the most risk, the first expedition is to get my family. Then we can get anyone else’s. Who’s coming with me?”

The discussion sorted itself into two parts. The A-team composed of Skull, Larry, Spooky, and Zeke would go get his family. Once they were secured and en route to the bunker, Larry and Spooky and maybe Skull would go get Larry’s relatives, and possibly some of Spooky’s. The rest would stay at the bunker, with Vinny doing the shopping trips, and get the place in order.

-18-

Right before the mini-A-team left, Elise sought out Zeke. She watched from the doorway for a minute as he suited up, before disturbing him. “Here. Protein bars. Stick ‘em in your pockets.”

“Thanks, doc.” He took them, stuffing them into various places in his clothing.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Closest thing we got, right?”

“No, that would be Daniel. I’m just a scientist, I never practiced on anybody.”

“Except for injecting people with the Plague.” Zeke grinned. “Like the Swiss Army knife of combat medicine.”

“Funny you should say that. Take this too.” Elise handed him a zippered pouch.

“What is it?”

“Open it.”

“Syringes? See, you’re a doc. What’s in it?”

“Like you said, Eden Plague. From my saliva.”

“But I can just bite anyone I need to.”

“I think this will work faster. Bigger dose. And it might have its uses.”

He opened the pouch, looked at the two preloaded syringes wrapped in padding. “Okay.”

Elise took his hand. “Good luck, Zeke. I’m looking forward to seeing your wife and Ricky and…”

“Millie.”

“Right. “ She smiled crookedly. “Bring them back safe. I’m tired of being the only woman here.”

He hugged her like a father, like a brother. “Thanks, Elise. I will. Take care of DJ.”

***

Zeke and Larry took the Land Rover, Skull and Spooky the Cherokee, a natural division. On the way Zeke and Larry hardly stopped talking, reminiscing about missions and comrades, friends and golf games, women and bars.

The other two drove in relative silence, listening to the radio and making a few comments about the road. They all had their secure radios but kept them in push-to-talk mode.

Eight hours later the pair of SUVs pulled into a truck stop at the outskirts of Fayetteville, North Carolina, just after dark. They sent Spooky in for food.

Zeke opened up a disposable cell phone, activated it, and called a special set of digits. He entered a code and his home number. This process masked the call, routing it through an offshore international service, nearly impossible to trace.

“Hi, Cass, it’s me. How’re the kids?”

“Everything's green here, Mister J.”

Zeke’s blood chilled. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll be gone for two more weeks.” He rambled on about family concerns couple of minutes before hanging up. Disposing of the phone, he switched his secure radio to voice-activated mode.

“They’re under surveillance. My wife gave me the code for ‘being watched.’ I told her to expect extraction at two a.m.”

“Damn, Sam, you got that girl well trained,” Larry chuckled.

“Actually, she got me trained. I never told you what she did before, did I?”

“Not really. State Department or something?”

“Well, I did meet her at the US Embassy in Moscow. I was there as a military attache. She was deputy station chief.”

“She was Agency?”

“Yup. In the ultimate tradecraft training ground city. She’ll be fine. We just have to make a plan to get them out and break contact. That means we have to locate the surveillance and shut them down.”

Skull chuckled. “Does that mean I’m weapons free now that DJ Do-Right is out of the picture?”

Zeke sighed, exasperated. “Alan, if we kill their people it will raise the stakes tenfold. Right now daddy Jenkins is trying to keep everything hush-hush. Dead Feds, or even contractors, will force him to fess up to his superiors and they’ll come after us like a pack of hounds.”

“Joking, boss, joking.”

“I hope so. If you have to shoot, wound them. One of us will bite them if we have to.”

“Why don’t you do that anyway? Won’t that screw them up? Get them fighting the disease instead of us?”

A long, thoughtful pause. “Interesting idea. Maybe when we get back we should start trying to weaponize this thing. Create a delivery system. Darts or something. See if it can be put in a water supply. So we can make good on our threats.”

“Hmm.”

Spooky returned with the food.

“How do you think they connected you with Markis?” Skull asked Zeke.

“Good intel work. Assemble a database of all his associates. Cross match with things like, ‘Did he treat them in the field?’ ‘Are they at home or out of town?’ Stuff like that.”

“I hate intel pukes,” Skull growled.

“Only when they’re on the other side.”

“I hate them all.”

Zeke exchanged silent looks with Larry. He shrugged.

“Let’s focus on our five-meter targets, shall we? We make a sweep of my neighborhood. Locate the surveillance. Make a plan. Ready?”

Affirmative grunts and sounds.

They drove into Fayetteville. Zeke led them to an unused corner of a large, well-lit gas station. “This is our ORP. Make your sweep, maintain commo, meet here.”

The SUVs split up, approaching Zeke’s suburban middle-class home from two different directions. They quartered and searched the blocks, looking for vehicles with the telltale signs of a surveillance team: being parked on the street, not in a driveway; extra antennas; roomy models, like vans or big SUVs; too-black windows; sitting heavy and low on their suspensions; magnetic business logos, the kind that can be slapped on and peeled off easily. There were many clues if one knew what to look for.

It didn’t take long. Skull spotted them first, and called on the tactical net. “I got a cable service truck on your street. Old van, new paint, UHF and satellite antenna, barrier between the driving and cargo compartment. Parked between houses.”

“That’s probably it. No cable technicians working this time of night.”

“Do they ever work?”

“Ha ha. We going in light or heavy?”

“No way to sneak up on them. If you want them deactivated, we have to do it heavy.”

“Understood. Rally now at the ORP.” They met back at the gas station.

Zeke said, “We need a shock truck. Spooky?”

“If we can find it, I can steal it.”

“Okay, spread out, report when we got one.”

It took them twenty-five minutes to locate a suitable truck, a flatbed two-ton. Spooky had it gone in sixty seconds. Skull drove. They talked over their plan of attack on the way.

Zeke and Larry pulled up at the end of the alley that ran behind his house. “In position.”

“Roger. Commencing shock run.”

Skull put the truck into gear, coming around the corner nose-on the surveillance van. At the same time Spooky drove the Cherokee around the opposite corner, slowly, focusing the watchers’ attention on him as they looked out the back window.

The shock truck was going forty when its heavy steel bumper smashed into the nose of the van. Impact drove the vehicle several car-lengths down the street, coming to rest on its side.

Spooky pulled up in the Cherokee. He and Skull jumped out of their vehicles, charging the van. Through the shattered back window they could see broken electronics and camera equipment, and two men lying amid the wreckage, moving weakly. The shock had jumbled them like mice in a paint shaker, and the smell of leaking gasoline wafted through the mess.

Spooky stepped through the opening and pistol-whipped each in turn, ensuring unconsciousness. Then he pulled out the syringe Zeke had given him and pumped half of the contents into each. “Get them out, Skull.”