Peyton wanted to swallow, but she resisted. She made her voice flat. “I couldn’t say.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“I’m not much for girl talk, Avery.”
“We don’t have to talk.”
Boots pounded the ground outside, then up the ramp. Desmond appeared in the doorway to the passenger compartment, took in the scene, and paused for a moment.
“If you two aren’t going to kill each other, we could use some help.”
In preparation for the possibility of a hasty departure, they refueled and positioned the plane for takeoff. Desmond reported that the tower was empty, but that it looked to have been used recently.
William launched a drone he had brought with them. The device was small and nearly silent. They all crowded around a tablet in the passenger compartment, watching the images captured by the drone’s night vision camera.
The town was deserted. The buildings were stone, two-and three-story, run-down mostly. They reminded Peyton of pictures of Germany after World War II. They almost looked bombed-out. Weeds and nature had retaken much of the landscape, and stone walls lay tumbled on the ground, the victims of time and gravity and perhaps the wind that whipped this strange island.
The drone flew on, toward the labs. A series of stone and brick buildings were arranged in a large horseshoe, forming a courtyard. A chain link fence with barbed wire surrounded the complex; a metal gate with a curved sign hanging above it spelled out words in Russian that Peyton couldn’t read. The motif was that of an American prison from the sixties—Shawshank, perhaps.
The drone made three passes, but found no sign of life.
William pointed to a house on the outskirts of the town. “We’ll sweep the town, then stage here. Peyton, you’ll monitor the drone feed from the house. Just keep flying over, and alert us if you see any movement. Desmond, Avery, and I will move on the complex.”
The town was creepy. Peyton thought it felt like an abandoned movie set: erected quickly, used and reused, then left to decay.
At the edge of town, closest to the labs, they found homes that showed signs of habitation. The windows were new, and the roofs had been repaired. But no lights burned, and they didn’t hear a single sound except for the wind.
William and Avery took the right side of the road, Peyton and Desmond the left, systematically searching each house along the way to make sure it was uninhabited.
“Are you sure you’re okay staying alone while we go to the labs?” Desmond asked.
“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Peyton said.
“That makes one of us. This place creeps me out.”
At the next house, Desmond ran through the rooms while Peyton waited in the living room. “It’s clear,” he said as he came back. But he didn’t move to the door as she’d expected. Instead he said, “What was that about in the plane? With you and Avery.”
Peyton glanced away. “Nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
“She’s just trying to mark her territory.”
Desmond bunched his eyebrows. “What territory?”
She smiled. “You know what territory.”
Across the street, William and Avery entered another home and moved through it systematically, each calling clear as they swept another room.
Upstairs, William found a desk set into a dormer across from a single bed. Pinned to the wall was a wallet-sized photograph, faded and wrinkled, like colored wax paper. A picture of his three children. Yes. This is the place.
At the cabin in Shetland, William had held back on what he knew about Aralsk-7. He’d had to—for Peyton’s sake. In truth, coming to this island had been a gamble. But now he was convinced: they’d find answers here.
Chapter 89
When they’d finished searching the town, the four of them regrouped at the house on the outskirts that would be their command post. It was empty and cold, but Peyton noted that there was very little dust on the simple furniture.
“Someone was living here very recently,” Desmond said.
In the kitchen, Avery opened the refrigerator. “Within the last month.”
Peyton got a whiff of the horrid smell before Avery slammed the door.
“Let’s get set up,” William said.
He placed a laptop on a coffee table in the living room and pulled up the drone footage for Peyton to monitor. He had pre-programmed a flight plan into the drone, and he took a few moments to show her how to alter it if needed. She waved his hands away from the laptop. “I got it. Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
Peyton wanted to hug Desmond and her father before they left the small home, but figured it would be awkward with Avery left hanging. She settled for a nod, and the three departed.
Peyton watched them go from the window, then she sat on the cloth couch, pulled a thick cotton blanket over her, and watched the drone footage. Bathed in the green glow of night vision, Desmond, Avery, and William were now pushing past the complex’s heavy iron gate. She let out a sigh and coughed—something she had avoided doing with the others around. The virus was gaining on her immune system.
Desmond shivered as another gust of frigid wind hit him. He followed William, gun held at the ready, sweeping the man’s left flank. The gravel crunching under their boots was the only sound in the night. Snow drifted down, then began falling harder. The wind caught the white flakes, tossing them around like the inside of a snow globe. The scene would have been beautiful if Desmond had had time to stop and observe it, and if he hadn’t been so nervous.
William stopped at the complex’s nearest building. The door was solid steel, with a hefty handle.
He nodded to Avery, who formed up across from him, ready to sweep the room. All three pulled their night vision goggles down. Desmond stood behind William, who turned the handle, and then the three of them were rushing into the room, guns sweeping left and right, red laser pointers dancing over crates and plastic-wrapped pallets of supplies.