Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)

“I don’t know if we have any other options right now. If what you say is true—if she’s not in control of this…this ability—then we’ve got to keep her under wraps.”


Sara took a breath then continued. “I don’t buy into this idea of psychic power, but there are any number of other ways this might have happened. The research we took from the Manifold lab indicates that the virus they discovered here might have been responsible for the genetic mutation that led to the rise of human consciousness hundreds of thousands of years ago. They thought a second exposure to the virus might switch that gene off, essentially reversing that evolutionary leap. But maybe the trigger is something else. A pheromone that she releases when threatened. Just imagine how that could be used as a weapon. We’ve got to isolate exactly what that trigger is so we can come up with a way to stop it, and if we’re lucky, reverse the process.”

“She’s not a lab rat, Sara.”

Something dark and angry flashed in Sara’s eyes. “No. She’s patient zero for an outbreak that just might wipe out humanity, and that’s exactly how I have to think of her. You of all people should know that sometimes saving the world requires sacrifices. Hope and good vibrations aren’t going to save us from this, Jack. Let me do my job.”

Before King could respond, Fulbright returned. “It’s all arranged. Miss Carter, if you could just come with me.”

Felice lurched into motion as if the events of the past few days and recognition of her own role in those events had, at long last, deprived her entirely of volition. She moved, almost like one of the zombies, toward the waiting helicopter. As she stepped past Fulbright, he grasped her biceps with one hand.

Felice let out a cry of surprise and pulled away, clapping a hand to her arm where he had touched her. King caught a glimpse of a hypodermic syringe in the man’s hand.

Fulbright stepped back hastily, raising both hands. “Just something to make sure she doesn’t change all of us into zombies.”

“That’s completely unnecessary,” Sara accused. “You should have asked me first.”

“My apologies, Dr. Fogg, but you’re not calling the shots any more.” Fulbright lowered his hands, letting the syringe fall, and then stepped forward to catch Felice as the sedative he had administered went to work.

Moses suddenly jumped forward, breaking his long silence, and tried to wrestle Felice’s limp form away, but Fulbright shoved him back with his free hand, and then in the same motion drew a pistol and pointed it at the young Ethiopian. Moses raised his hands in a show of surrender, but the gesture evidently made no impression on Fulbright.

He calmly pulled the trigger, and shot Moses between the eyes.





20.


Sara gasped as the small pistol roared and the young Ethiopian man’s head snapped back. Right up to that moment, things had more or less made sense, and even now, her brain tried to wrestle with what she had just witnessed, to figure out how it fit with everything else.

But it just didn’t. Fulbright had murdered someone in cold blood, and now his gun was swinging toward Sigler. In the corner of her eye, she saw the other members of Fulbright’s assault team shoulder their weapons, likewise taking aim at her boyfriend.

Sigler was already moving. Maybe his stated distrust of Fulbright had given him just enough of an edge to act decisively when the betrayal occurred. Sara saw him zigzagging across the open area, and then the world seemed to explode in a haze of noise and sulfur smoke. She couldn’t tell if Sigler had been hit, and before she could find him again, one of the commandos grabbed her by the shoulder and propelled her toward the helicopter. Fulbright was already stuffing the unconscious Felice into one of the rear seats.

He looked at Sara as he buckled Felice’s safety harness over her torso. “Sit down and shut up, Dr. Fogg. You’ve got important work to do, and I hope for your sake that you’ll be cooperative. I will get what I want either way; it’s just a question of how hard you want to make it for yourself.”

Still reeling from the violence and treachery, Sara complied without really even knowing what she was doing.

Fulbright leaned out and addressed the commando. “Did you get him?”

The man shook his head. “Might have wounded him, but he made it to that cave.”

“Keep a team here and make sure he’s dead.”

A pang shot through Sara’s heart at the pronouncement. Fulbright reached back tapped the pilot’s shoulder, signaling him to start the engines, and then he settled into his own seat and buckled in. She had to understand what she had just witnessed. It was the only way to keep the despair at bay, to keep from thinking about what she had just witnessed, and… Jack!

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, shouting to be heard over the whine of the turbine.