Chapter 41

For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.

—Moses

 

Ezra Hodge was elated, but he didn’t dare show it. Truly, the Lord’s will was evident in the good fortune that fell his way. He monitored the White House orders to the offices of Pan-Pacific, and he made the right choice by heading straight for the airport. He had no idea how he was going to get the kids away from the Pan-Pacific boys, and the kids took care of that problem for him. He had no idea how to keep them from flying out of La Libertad, and then Flaming Sword, itself, came to his rescue. Now his only worry was how to eliminate Rico Toledo when they got to the harbor.

The Lord will provide, he reminded himself, and he was more confident of this today than ever before in his life.

“You get in the back,” Harry told him, twitching the pistol. “I’ll ride back there with you. Sonja can drive.”

“Whatever you say,” Hodge said. “Just so we make it to the harbor. I’m on your side, you know.”

“You’ve had a helluva way of showing it,” Harry said. “As far as I’m concerned, Sonja and I are on one side and the rest of the world is on the other. Hold that thought.”

Hodge slid across the back seat and Harry got in beside him.

“Even your father?” he asked. “And Colonel Scholz?”

“Maybe,” Harry said. “We’ll see.”

Sonja ran back from a quick inspection of the runway and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Can’t do it,” she said. “We’d have to use the road for takeoff, and nobody’s going to let us through.”

She toggled the doorlocks just as a group of wild-eyed men and women rushed the car. She spun the car around in a half-circle, tumbling them to the pavement, and fishtailed out the back gate onto the frontage road.

“Take Valle Viejo,” Hodge told her. “The highway’s jammed to a standstill.”

“Take whatever road you want,” Harry told her. “You can’t believe this bastard.”

“Harry,” Hodge said, in his calmest voice, “I don’t want to die out here any more than you do. Valle Viejo was clear ten minutes ago; the highway was not.”

Ezra was relieved when Sonja took his advice. This step, a very small step, moved towards their trust. Soon, they would rely on him for everything; they might as well trust him. He noticed tears sliding down Harry’s cheeks, and a disconcerting tremble in his gun hand.

“Are you all right, son?”

Harry’s eyes snapped into a cruel gray duplicate of Rico Toledo, and the bore of the pistol stared Ezra down as Harry sneered, “What are you saying, Hodge? Did you have a little fling with my mother?”

Ezra felt his heart shift into triple-time. He had not expected this kind of aggression from the boy, but it was magnificent testimony to the handiwork of Dajaj Mishwe.

“No, Harry, I . . . I just . . .”

“Harry!” Sonja snapped. “Chill out. It’s not his fault Marte died.”

“Are you sure?” Harry said. “He works for the Agency, the Agency gave us ViraVax, and ViraVax gave us this . . . this!”

Harry waved his hand at a burning bus as Sonja swerved around it. Lumps of charred, steaming flesh littered the roadway, and Ezra felt the thump-kathump of something soft under the car. Sonja was an absolutely fearless driver; Ezra liked that about her.

“Marte came up with an answer,” Harry said. He pointed to his head and patted the cube in his pocket. “It’s here, and here. Now, we need to get it to someone who can grow the proper medium. Then they could be growing a counteragent within twenty-four hours. And we have to warn people not to drink that EdenSprings water.”

Ezra shook his head.

“If you’ve got an idea of where to go,” he said, “I’ll be glad to get us there. But, as you can see, this bug is fast. Very fast. If anybody’s alive at this lab you seek by the time we get there, what makes you think they’ll let us in?”

“They don’t have to,” Harry insisted. “We can transmit the data and the warning about the water onto the web, and every lab in the world can get on it. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Hold on,” Sonja said. “Roadblock.”

The typical Costa Bravan Army roadblock strung three burned-out civilian cars across the road with a squad of young, scared grunts on both sides. They held their rifles ready and their gazes swept the area, self-conscious of their vulnerability on the open road.

“Bust it,” Harry said.

“Only in the movies, Harry,” Ezra said. “You will be killed or the car will be destroyed. Either way, you help nobody. Put the gun away and let me handle this. I have clearance.”

Sonja slowed nearly to a stop a hundred meters away from the roadblock.

“Ditches,” she said. “I can’t make it around, either. Shit!”

A sudden roar and a gust of wind pounded their car, and the army boys snapped rifles to shoulders. A pair of rockets streaked from somewhere overhead and blew the roadblock into a flaming fountain of junk. Then an old tin-can chopper dropped in front of their car and laid down a whirling storm of heavy red smoke while the grunts scrambled for the ditches.

“Go! Go! Go!” Harry hollered.

Sonja jammed her foot to the floor. A dozen rounds smacked into both sides of the car before they plunged into the smoke screen. They crashed through the twisted wreckage, bounced and skidded on the debris, and when they shot out of the other side of the smoke they were still on the road.

“Chill, girl!” Harry said, and slapped Sonja on the back with his free hand.

“Who was that!” Ezra whispered.

“A guardian angel,” Sonja said. “Who cares? They got us through and we’re almost there.”

She has her spiritual side, Hodge thought, with growing satisfaction. This is all as it should be.

Two things worried him now. It was well past time for his antidote, and the drawbridge to the harbor was up. A kilometer or more of roadway was choked with cars stopped for the bridge, and several cars at the head of the line blazed furiously under thick, black smoke. The bridge-tender’s shack was also ablaze.

“Do you have clearance for that, Hodge?” Harry asked.

Without waiting for a response, Harry picked up Hodge’s Sidekick.

“Dad and Scholz,” he demanded. “What channel?”

“Command one scramble,” Ezra said, and he was surprised when Harry’s fingers flurried the correct code.

No response.

“Transmitter’s working,” Harry mumbled. “They must have their hands full.” He keyed “memo” and said, “We’re stuck at the Valle Viejo bridge. We’ll work our way north along the waterfront, look for a boat and retransmit every fifteen minutes.”

“Sit tight, kid,” a voice came back. The background was so full of engine noise and static that Harry could hardly understand him. “I’ve got two shadows on my tail. When I set down, you-all come a-jumpin’.”

Ezra looked out the hole in their shattered rear window and saw the old Sikorsky racing the grasstops towards them.

“Let’s go!” Harry shouted. “You, Hodge, this way!”

Harry kept the pistol trained on Ezra as he slid out Harry’s side of the car. The chopper came in so low and fast that they heard the shriek of gravel against pontoons over the scream of the engine. Two Costa Brava choppers closed fast from a few kilometers back. Sonja dove headfirst into the loading door, then reached out a hand to Ezra. Harry only had one foot on the pontoon when the chopper surged skyward. He pinwheeled backwards and lost the pistol as he grabbed Ezra’s waist. Sonja braced her feet against the doorframe and hauled them both aboard.

“This’ll be quick,” their pilot shouted. “I’ll drop you at the harbor and lose those bogeys. Grab lifejackets; you’re gonna get wet.”

In less than a minute they hovered low over the end of the harbor pier where Kamui rocked in its slip.

“Can’t get closer because of the masts,” the pilot yelled.

“You’ll have to jump.”

Ezra’s heart dropped to his stomach.

“I can’t swim,” he shouted back.

“You’ll be swimming one way or another,” the pilot said. “Now, jump!”

A cannon burst stitched the water across their bow, and Ezra felt Harry’s foot punch him between the shoulder blades. He tried to grab the pontoon, but slid off into the water, his lifejacket clutched in his fist. He held his breath as hard as he could and never lost sight of the surface. Sonja and Harry plunged through the sunlight nearly on top of him, and one of them pulled him towards the surface.

They broke through the debris-strewn chop together, and Ezra gasped down a quick three or four breaths. He clutched his lifejacket to his chest as somebody towed him with a hand under his chin.

The chopper must have been hit just as they jumped, because it lay smoking on its side halfway across the neighboring pier. The old chopper took several boats with it as flames blossomed from the cockpit and it sank into the harbor. There was no sign of the pilot, and the two pursuit choppers turned back towards the airport.

The three of them reached the pier after the longest minute of Ezra Hodge’s life. Sonja and Harry clambered up the swim ladder, leaving Ezra to his white-knuckled grip on the bottom rung. He took several deep breaths, then climbed up after them on trembling legs. His abject fear turned suddenly to elation.

We made it!

Now, for everything to be perfect, he merely needed await the arrival of Rena Scholz, and they could be about the business of reclaiming the Garden of Eden for themselves, and for the Lord.