“Or another nation,” Desmond said. “To protect themselves.” He peered out the window, his eyes narrowing. “They bombed the airport’s runway too.”
Peyton stared in awe at the city. From their vantage point, she could see one of the hospitals. A crowd was massed outside, hundreds of people trying to get in. Bodies lay in the streets, dying, trampled.
Mombasa was her worst nightmare: an uncontrolled outbreak in a major city, millions of people at the mercy of a pathogen with no cure and no treatment, all of them left to suffer and die. Peyton had dedicated her life to ensuring this very scene never became a reality. She had flown to Kenya to stop this. Yet now it was happening. She had failed. They—Conner McClain—had beaten her.
If this was happening in Mombasa, she wondered what Nairobi was like. What America was like.
In that moment, she set aside her fears about her own safety—and Hannah’s.
She needed a place to start, needed to know how long she’d been in captivity, how long the virus had been loose.
“What day is it?” she asked.
“Monday,” Avery replied.
That came as a shock. Peyton had flown to Nairobi the previous Sunday, a full week ago.
“What’s the status of the outbreak in Kenya?” she asked urgently.
“I don’t know,” Avery said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Peyton didn’t even try to hide her skepticism.
“Again, we were under a comms blackout. Any information about the outbreak was tightly guarded. People on that ship have families too. I’ve only heard rumors.”
“Such as?” Peyton was almost certain she was lying—or at best, keeping information from them.
“Such as, there are two hundred thousand dead in Kenya from the Mandera strain. Another half a million around the world have died from the precursor flu virus.”
Precursor. So what McClain had told her was true: the flu strain that Elliott had been tracking was the precursor for the Mandera virus; it mutated into the deadly hemorrhagic fever that had killed the two Americans, including Lucas Turner. Some part of her had hoped McClain was bluffing, posturing, to scare her. She almost didn’t want to know the answer to her next question.
“How many are infected?”
Avery was hesitant. “Hard to say. I’ve heard three billion. Maybe more.”
Peyton’s head swam. She swallowed. For a long moment she thought she might throw up, or even pass out. Three billion people infected. It was an unimaginable catastrophe. If what happened in Mandera occurred around the world, human civilization wouldn’t recover for decades, possibly centuries. In fact, she had no idea what the world would look like after that. At the rate the virus was spreading, she wondered: Would there be only a few million survivors? A few thousand?
But Conner McClain had created a cure. Was he going to give it to his chosen few? Peyton had to find that cure, for her own sake, and the sake of so many others.
“McClain has a cure. He told me on the ship.”
“It’s true,” Avery said. “They informed everyone on board that it had been administered recently in our routine vaccinations. All employees at Citium companies received it.” She glanced back at Desmond. “Including you.”
He only nodded and glanced out the window, staring at the horrific scene, a hint of guilt on his face.
Avery moved the helicopter inland, away from the city. It was obvious that landing in Mombasa would likely be a death sentence. The helicopter would be mobbed, rushed by people hoping to get out or hoping for help to arrive. And once on the ground, they would find no way out of the city, and no help for Hannah within.
Avery reached under the seat, unfolded a map, and studied it.
“What’re you doing?” Peyton asked.
Avery didn’t look up. “Trying to figure out where to go, Princess.”
“Don’t call me Princess—”
Desmond held a hand up to Peyton. “Ladies. We’re all on the same team here. Let’s talk. What’re you thinking, Avery?”
“I’m thinking we’re screwed.”
“Okay, so nothing new there. What do we need? A satphone and a plane, correct?”
“And a hospital,” Peyton said quickly. She glanced at Hannah, asleep, helpless, taking shallow breaths as she lay in the floor of the helicopter. I won’t let her die.
Desmond spoke before Avery could.
“Right. So, what, we fly along the coast, try to find a city still intact?”
“Dani Beach is close by,” Peyton said. “They’ve got a great hospital and an airstrip. Lots of other coastal towns along the way. Once we cross the border with Tanzania there’s Tanga and Dar es Salaam farther south. Plus the Tanzanian islands off the coast.”
“They’ll shoot us,” Avery said flatly.
“Who?” Peyton asked.
“The Tanzanians. Think about it—you’ve got a raging outbreak to the north. Step one is to close your airspace, shoot anything flying in from Kenya. And the Kenyan coastal towns are no good either. They’re probably in the same shape as Mombasa, and I’m sure Conner is enlisting search parties there too. The American government has no presence or assets in Dani Beach that I’m aware of. There’s a CIA station in Dar es Salaam, and an embassy for that matter, but we’ll never reach them.”
“So we go inland,” Desmond said. “Nairobi?”
“Suicide,” Avery said. “If Mombasa looks like this, imagine Nairobi. And Conner will assume that’s our only move. I think…”
“What?”
“I think we’re trapped.”
“We’re not,” Peyton said. She had an idea. It was a gamble, but it just might pay off.
Desmond studied her.
“I know where we can go,” she said. “It’s inland, in Kenya. It has an airstrip, satphones, and a hospital. My guess is the outbreak is contained at this location. And McClain will never think to look for us there.”
After Peyton told them her plan, Avery studied the map.
“It’s at the helo’s max range. Fifty-fifty odds we have enough fuel to get there. If it’s a bust, we’re stranded for sure.”
“Flight time?” Desmond asked.