The building was a warehouse, and there didn’t seem to be anyone inside.
Desmond moved across the concrete floor, to the first pallet, and peeled back the plastic. Cardboard boxes, flattened for shipping. There were more pallets of them, dozens.
Avery called out in the darkness. “Packing tape over here, must be a thousand rolls.”
William and Desmond joined her. Beyond, they saw pallets stacked with plastic jugs of water.
William stared at the pallets. “I think this is how they did it. Water. Boxes. Packing tape. It’s a distribution system. I bet the cardboard contains the virus. It survives inside the closed cells. Any puncture lets it out. The tape, too. The infected water is likely highly concentrated; they mixed it with water bottles, maybe large jugs that go in offices or a city water supply. What’s left here must be extras they didn’t need. That assumes they manufactured the virus here. If we find it in the main lab complex, that will confirm it.”
Desmond marveled at the genius of the plan. Parcels and water. A very simple yet effective way to distribute a contagion.
“But no cure,” Desmond said.
William thought for a moment. “They may have shipped all of it off-site, to test it elsewhere.”
“Or manufactured it elsewhere,” Avery said.
William nodded. “That’s also a possibility. Let’s keep moving.”
In the next building, they found a manufacturing facility where the boxes and tape had been made and injected with viral particles. There was still no sign of anything that might treat the virus.
The main building, which was four stories, held the labs. Desmond knew it the instant they crossed the threshold. The floor was white linoleum, recently cleaned. The walls were gray, with stainless steel handrails. The vibe was that of a hospital in the sixties, one that had never been updated.
The three stood just inside the door, listening for any movement, hearing none.
William took a step deeper into the building, then another, cautious, as if the white square tiles might be mines that could explode at any moment.
He paused, turned his head.
Desmond heard it too: the whirring of a small electric motor.
William looked up to a black plastic bubble on the ceiling. Extending his rifle into the air, he used the barrel to bring the cover down, revealing a black security camera within. A red light glowed at its base. It panned to get Desmond and Avery into the scene.
William walked past them out the door, whispering for them to follow.
The three stood outside in the falling snow, the yellow moon’s faint light obscured, like a paper lantern behind a sheer white curtain.
“They’re still monitoring the facility,” William said. “Either someone on site or remotely.”
Avery glanced around. “They could have a team in hiding or a rapid response force inbound right now.”
William nodded. “We need to hurry. We’re looking for shipping manifests.” William motioned back to the warehouse. “They transported the tape, boxes, and water to their distribution centers. I’m willing to bet they shipped the cure there as well—whether it was manufactured here or somewhere else. We figure out where those facilities are, we find the cure. Let’s move.”
Back inside, the three of them split up and began racing through the four-story building. Desmond’s boots pounded the white tiles. He found a surgical wing with bloody gurneys, scrubs left in piles, and ransacked medicine cabinets. These people had left in a hurry. On the second floor, he found a set of double doors that were locked. He activated his mic. “This is Desmond. I’m going to shoot a lock on level two. Have encountered no resistance.”
Avery and William responded quickly, with the same word: “Copy.”
Desmond shot the lock and pushed the steel doors open. The stench of rotting flesh overwhelmed him. He gagged, stepped back, bent over, and waited, fighting not to retch. The odor drifted past the doors, sweeping into the outer room like a ghost set free from its frigid tomb.
By degrees, Desmond adjusted to the repulsive smell. He took a step into the vast room. It was a near copy of the Kentaro Maru’s cargo hold, with sheet plastic dividing cells that ran the length and width of the space. In the green glow of night vision, the scene was even more eerie.
At the first cell, Desmond drew back the milky-white plastic. An Asian male lay dead. Dried blood ran from his eyes and mouth. Had they just left these people here to die when they evacuated, locking them in here like animals in a slaughter pen? What kind of people could do this?
Fury erupted within Desmond, and the thought that he had once been part of this project repulsed him.
He activated his comm. “I’ve found bodies. They were testing something here.”
“Copy,” William said. “I’ve located the target.”
He’s found the shipping manifests. Desmond breathed a sigh of relief.
“Level three, front left corner,” William said.
Avery and Desmond acknowledged and said they were inbound to his location.
William ducked in and out of the offices, searching quickly. In an office on the corner, with a couch and a bar-height long table, he found what he was looking for: the same picture he had seen in the home—his three children, holding hands on a street in London. It had been taken around 1982, William thought. This was the right office.
He moved to the filing cabinet, yanked it open, and began reading the folder names.
He paused at one that read, Viral Candidates. He pulled it out, scanned it. They had evaluated several pathogens for modification. He froze when he saw the notes in the margins. Yes, he was on the right track.