The Chimera Vector

Chapter 4-1

Chapter Four

15 hours later

Sophia couldn’t remember anything.

Her throat burned and she couldn’t swallow. She was … somewhere brightly lit—too well lit, it stung her eyes. No vehicles, no gunfire. Had she been in a firefight?

She squeezed the trigger. The Minister of Defense’s head popped like a grape.

Was that a dream or a mission? She couldn’t remember. Instead, she was lying in a hospital bed while a pair of military police sergeants stood outside, their attention on a television in the opposite ward. She could see them through the curtains. One had a long, crooked nose and pencil-thin lips. The other was a few inches taller with flushed cheeks.

Her ward was empty, save for two beds on her left. She managed to turn her head in that direction. Beside her was a young, unshaven man. He had pale olive skin, dark greasy hair and a nose slightly too big for his face. Damien.

He didn’t look injured. But as he leaned against the bedhead, she saw the patient on the next bed. With even shorter hair, higher cheekbones and darker olive skin, Jay was hard to miss. There were quite a few Hispanic operatives, but Jay was Pardo: mixed-race Brazilian. At a stretch, he could pass for light-skinned Arabic, which made him a popular choice for Middle East operations.

‘They said Iranian missiles could hit the States in five years,’ the MP sergeant on the left said, speaking softly.

The sergeant on the right laughed. ‘Slow missile.’ His voice sounded like gravel.

Sophia tried to move her fingers but felt nothing. She could hear the news reporter talking on the television.

‘The United Nations representative for Human Rights was killed in a suicide bombing last night. The US Secretary of State said the bombing underlines the absolute moral bankruptcy and brutality of those who planned and executed it. A previously unknown terrorist group, the Holy Jihad Brigades, issued a statement claiming responsibility.’

Sounded more like a cover-up for an assassination. Sophia wouldn’t be surprised if the real culprit was an operative just like her.

Her memories shifted like a prism.

She squeezed the trigger. The United Nations’ representative’s head popped like a grape.

‘Who do they think…’ Damien’s voice croaked from beside her. ‘What did we do out there?’

She could remember now, but it was all wrong. The events were different, the faces were different, the people were different. Even lying down, she felt dizzy.

She opened her mouth, pulling dry lips apart. ‘I don’t know.’

‘We made it over the border,’ Damien said, under his breath. ‘I remember that part.’

‘Where are we now?’ she asked.

Damien rubbed his eyes. ‘Looks like Camp Anaconda.’

‘My anaconda don’t want none.’ Jay started rapping to himself.

‘Or Joint Base … whatever it’s called now,’ Damien said. ‘Seriously Jay, stop.’

Sophia’s gaze wandered to the MPs posted outside. ‘They’re guarding us. That’s not a good sign.’

‘Hey.’ Damien leaned over to whisper. ‘Did we plant the IEDs?’

Her arms and legs tingled. ‘I don’t know.’

The Iranian girl slumped to the ground, locks of hair blowing in the breeze.

Whatever sedatives she’d been given, they were starting to wear off. Her fingers flexed when she told them to. The fog was beginning to clear from her mind and something inside her was convinced she had to get away from here.

Struggling to sit upright, she looked at the vital signs monitor beside her. It was measuring her pulse rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate. She knew as soon as she detached the wires from her body it would start beeping, alerting the MPs. But right now they were adequately entertained with the latest celebrity breakup.

Jay stood and peeled tape from the needle in the back of his hand. Sophia whispered for him to stay down, but as usual he didn’t listen. She could already see a blood-pressure cuff hanging loosely from his right arm.

Jay removed it and quickly wrapped it around Damien’s arm. The monitors didn’t have a chance to beep.

Damien caught Sophia’s gaze with large hazel eyes. He held a finger to his lips.

Sophia used sign language to say to Damien, What are you doing, i***t? She didn’t know the sign for ‘i***t’ so finger-spelled it instead.

Damien nodded, then turned his attention to Jay, who had just clipped a pulse oximeter onto Damien’s fingertip. One by one, Jay peeled the electrodes from his body, transferring them immediately to Damien, right next to Damien’s own electrodes. Jay’s vital signs monitor hadn’t beeped yet.

Commercial break.

The first MP was pacing now. His crooked nose strayed dangerously into view and then moved away.

Barefoot, Jay hobbled from the end of his bed to Damien’s, then to Sophia’s. He paused, his gaze locking with hers. He held his hand out, palm down, indicating for her to wait.

She shook her head. No. But Jay was already staggering for the ward entrance, his movements unsteady and sluggish. She peeled the tape from her own needle. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for Jay to screw up.

Jay half-collapsed against the wall. Sophia could hear his heavy breathing. The second MP paced inside, eyes narrowed and complexion chalk white. His eyes widened when he saw them awake.

Jay was behind Chalky, limbs moving simultaneously: knee into the back of Chalky’s thigh, hand slamming into his shoulder blades just to the right of the spine, and the other hand pulling his left shoulder back. All three movements sent the MP in a counterclockwise spin to the floor.

Sophia pulled the needle from her arm and got to her feet. Crooked Nose stormed into the ward, chest puffed, to find Chalky lying on his stomach and Jay staggering over him.

Crooked Nose drew his pistol. ‘Turn around!’ he yelled. ‘On the floor!’

Jay wasn’t anywhere near close enough to attack the armed marine.

Crooked Nose eyed Sophia. ‘Hands where I can see them, princess!’

Sophia raised her arms. Dizziness burned through her. She tried to remain upright and not pass out. A slight glance over her shoulder showed Damien lying in bed, eyes closed.

Chalky pulled himself to his feet while Crooked Nose mumbled into his radio. ‘Echo Five Charlie to Echo Five Golf, we need assistance in Ward Three East Eighteen to Twenty Four, over.’

Jay was on the ground between the two MPs. Chalky kicked him in the ribs and Jay grunted in pain, folding into a fetal position.

‘Limbs spread!’ Chalky said.

Jay spread his arms and legs, but kept one knee slightly bent. Sophia knew why.

‘Echo Five Charlie to Echo Five Golf, patients trying to escape,’ Crooked Nose said into the radio. ‘One patient, aggressive behavior, attempted assault. Patient restrained, over.’

Sophia’s mouth felt dry. All she could think about was Crooked Nose’s bony finger resting on the trigger of his M9 pistol. A bead of sweat trickled down his skewed nose, hung from the tip. Sophia waited for it to drop. The wait seemed eternal.

Crooked Nose’s attention shifted to Jay. ‘Five minutes. Let’s get this joker tied up.’

He held his pistol in one hand and dug into a pouch for plasticuffs. Crouching, he wrapped one of Jay’s legs with a pair, then moved to straighten his bent leg. Chalky was standing in front of Jay, near his hands.

Jay moved quickly. He grabbed Chalky’s nearest boot with one hand and clamped behind his knee with the other. He pulled sharply. Chalky’s body twisted to one side and he dropped to his knees. As he went down, he tried to smash his pistol into Jay’s face. It glanced off Jay’s arm.

Chalky straddled Jay’s head. Jay pulled his hand back and punched Chalky in the testicles. Hard. Chalky cried out in the highest pitch Sophia had ever heard from a grown man. He waved his pistol, trying to aim at Jay’s head.

Crooked Nose moved for a clear shot. They were prepared to shoot. That wasn’t good news. Sophia ripped off her blood-pressure cuff. She had to do something.

Jay ran his hand down Chalky’s firing arm. He wrapped his right hand over Chalky’s and took control. At the same time, he hit Crooked Nose’s neck with the edge of his other hand, then smeared an open palm over his face, fingers into his eye sockets.

Meanwhile, Crooked Nose heard Sophia’s machines wailing. He aimed his pistol at her, but she’d already snatched the pillow from her hospital bed and thrown it in his direction. It was big and slow, but he still had to sidestep it. By the time he had, she was under his pistol.

Thumb tucked under her palm, she brought her hand around in a smooth arc. Its inner edge crushed his windpipe. With his pistol-holding arm poised over her shoulder, she pivoted on her heels, turning her back to him. She grabbed his hand, clamped over the pistol and brought it down hard. His arm snapped over her shoulder. She thrust her elbow back, catching him in the ribs. He couldn’t breathe. She turned in time to see him collapse to his knees.

On her left, Jay had one hand over Chalky’s face and the other over Chalky’s pistol. He pulled the pistol’s aim away from Sophia, toward Crooked Nose, then rolled Chalky’s head back, disrupting his balance and throwing him off his feet. Jay crouched behind him, pistol pointed at Crooked Nose.

Sophia’s machines were still beeping.

She glared at Jay. ‘Don’t.’

He squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed into the corridor.

Not ideal.

There was a sickening snap. Chalky’s neck.

‘We have three or four minutes,’ Sophia said. ‘At most.’

Damien was on his feet, his and Jay's machines creating a symphony of beeps and wails.

Jay grabbed the clipboard from the end of Damien’s bed. ‘Four milligrams of lorazepam and four of haloperol … ololol.’ He discarded the clipboard. ‘What the hell?’

Damien removed his needle while Jay checked the window. Dawn was about to break.

‘Do you think Denton can pull some strings?’ Damien said.

Sophia shook her head. ‘This one’s on us.’

She checked Damien’s clipboard. Antipsychotic and strong sedative. Potent amnesic effects. But she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d done something horrible. Killed people she shouldn’t have.

The clipboard said the drugs had been administered to Private Esposito: Damien’s cover surname. She checked her own clipboard. It had her own cover name and the same drugs.

‘What are they doing to us?’ Jay said. He checked the rounds in Chalky’s pistol, then dragged the MP behind a bed curtain.

Damien took the clipboard from Sophia. ‘They’re not messing around.’

‘Full moon out there,’ Jay said. ‘They’ll see us a mile off.’

Sophia untied the string from Damien’s hospital gown and pulled it off him. ‘Get changed. Now.’ Her tongue felt like cotton as she spoke.

Damien, naked, glared at her. ‘Was that necessary?’

‘Yes.’ Sophia checked the clock on the wall. ‘Get changed. After what we’ve done, there’s a very real chance we’ll be—

‘Someone else’s fertilizer?’ Jay asked.

‘Not quite how I was going to put it,’ Sophia said, ‘but we need to get as far away from here as possible.’

‘And then what?’ Damien asked.

Sophia licked her dry lips. ‘Then we try to stay alive.’

‘I like that plan,’ Jay said. ‘The not-dying part is appealing.’

Sophia indicated Crooked Nose’s limp body sprawled on the floor. ‘You have sixty seconds. Time for dress-ups.’

Damien relieved Crooked Nose of his desert-cam trousers while Jay got busy fleecing Chalky of his uniform. They each strapped a tactical vest over the top. Unfortunately, the MPs weren’t wearing any armor. As if to make up for it, Jay snatched Chalky’s twelve-inch fighting knife.

Sophia pulled a hip flask from Chalky’s pouch. It was half full. She tossed it to Damien and checked the clock again. ‘Time’s up.’

‘What about your uniform?’ Jay said. ‘We only have two.’

‘That’s all you need,’ she said. ‘You’re escorting me out of the hospital.’