42

Evan met her gaze, his heart pounding and stomach clenching. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have the number for the CDC?” Lou reached for her phone.

He frowned. “The what?”

“Centre for Disease Control or whatever it’s called here. I can’t remember off the top of my head.”

“Ah. We don’t have one. You’ve been in the US for too long. I’ll ring the HPA—Health Protection Agency—but they’ll probably send in the military from Porton Down.”

“That’s the other end of the country.” She sounded as worried as he felt.

“What choice do we have?” He pushed his hands through his hair. “First we find those documents and discover exactly what we’re dealing with and what the half-life is. Maybe the ashes are no longer contagious.”

“And maybe they are.”

Evan made a grab for the phone. “Either way, I’m calling the dam and issuing an immediate evacuation order. I also want a two-mile exclusion zone set up and enforced. We then go to the dam and check those blueprints and find this cave.”

“You need more coffee.” Lou ran a hand over his arm. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Forgive me for being a little freaked out about this.”

She rubbed her temples. “You’re not the only one, but we can freak out later.” She raised her phone. “Right now we have both calls to make and a dam to evacuate. We’ll need hazmat suits. Can you get some?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. Four: you, me, and two spare suits. You call and organize those. Let me handle Porton Down. I have a friend who works there. I can cut through all the red tape in getting an alert raised. If it’s a false alarm, it won’t matter.”

“Seriously? Where don’t you have contacts?”

“I have them everywhere.” She pulled a face at him and dialled her phone. “We met at uni and went out for six months before we realised I wasn’t his type. We stayed mates though.

“Hey, Peter, it’s Lou Fitzgerald. Yeah, I’m good, thanks. You? That’s great, congrats. Listen, I have a massive favour to ask as I’m in a bit of a bind right now.”

Evan tuned her out and called the dam. “Ralph, it’s me.”

“Nothing new here, boss. Water level is still dropping and we stopped the new stuff coming.”

“Good. I’m on my way as soon as I can. I have to do a few things first. Right now I need you to listen and listen good. You have to do exactly what I say. Evacuate the dam immediately and get a perimeter set up. Nothing in or out for a two-mile radius. I also need the hazmat suits left in the car park for us. Make sure that every blueprint and plan there is of the dam is left in the office. And that’s everything, dating right back to the original ones from when it was built.”

“Evac? Hazmat? What’s going on?”

“I don’t have time to explain. You need to get everyone out and stay out. Keep an eye on it from somewhere safe, and let me know the instant something changes.”

“Hang on, boss. The military just showed up in force.”

“Good. Let me speak to the officer in charge.” He gazed at Lou, but she’d turned her back to him and stood by the window, talking rapidly.

The phone in his hand crackled. “This is Colonel Davies.”

“I’m Evan Close, head of Xenon, owner of the land and dam and in charge up there. We have a situation, Colonel. I’m in touch with Porton Down, and I need an immediate evacuation of the dam with a two-mile perimeter for now. Set up a command point immediately, half a mile from the dam. No one is to go on or near it with the exception of myself and Dr. Fitzgerald.”

He waited for the officer to object. When he didn’t, Evan carried on speaking. “I’ve explained to Ralph that I need hazmat gear. It’s vitally important, and I can’t stress this enough, that no one from the Sparrow Foundation gains access to the dam at all.”

“Boss, it’s me again.” Ralph sounded breathless. “The sensors flipped out big time. There’s movement along the entire base of the dam.”

“Then we can’t delay. Open the gates completely. Drain it as quickly as possible. I need you with the guards they’ll post on the road. I can’t risk having anyone other than Lou or myself up there. A team from Porton Down may arrive, but unless they’re cleared via me, even they can’t get near the dam.”

“What’s going on?”

“Trouble.” He paused as Lou touched his arm. “One minute.”

She shook her head. “Is that the dam?” As he nodded, she held her hand out for the phone. “Can I have a word with whoever is in charge up there?”

“Ralph, put Colonel Davies back on.”

Lou snatched the phone. “Yes, this is Dr. Lou Fitzgerald. I’ve just got off the phone with Peter Dorchester from Porton Down.” She paused. “Yes, that Porton Down. He’ll be bringing a team up by military helicopter within the next couple of hours or so. It’s possible we’re dealing with a version of the pneumonic plague. There is no cure for this if he’s right. Antibiotics won’t work. Therefore, we have to evacuate the dam now and keep it clear. Mr. Close and I will be over there as soon as possible. We’ll need full hazmat gear.”

Evan watched in amazement as she transformed while she gave orders. At the same time shock rolled through him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Could that plague still be active down there?

Lou scrunched her face. “I understand that, Colonel, really I do. However, no one knows the dam like Mr. Close, and he needs to get up there to determine how long we have before it fails and whether the vault below it possibly containing plague samples is at risk. I’m the only person who knows what we’re searching for once we find the vault.”

She paused and raised her eyes heavenward. “Thank you.”

She handed him the phone.

“Actually Colonel, we’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Evan hung up. “We need to leave.”

She rubbed her temples again. “I thought we were doing the caves first? I know Peter needs those samples ASAP, and it’ll be quicker if we do it. We can go down there, retrieve the samples, and leave them for him. We can give him the paperwork at the same time if we do the caves first. Because he won’t be here for—”

Evan cut her off. “Ralph said the seismometers at the dam show movement.”

“Then you’re right, we don’t have time to waste. We’ll assume the worst, and if your records prove us wrong, so be it. Peter is concerned enough by my description of the symptoms to drop everything and come up here. He agrees with your great-grandfather’s notes that the plague wasn’t a natural occurrence. He said there had been genetic work done on that strain of plague that predates World War II.”

Evan’s blood ran cold. “They used the villagers as guinea pigs.”

“It’s looking that way.” She stood and hung onto the edge of the couch to steady herself.

Evan grabbed her arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She rubbed her head. “I’ve got a headache. It’s turning into a migraine. I’ll repeat the meds in an hour or so. I’ll be fine.”

~*~

Lou’s stomach roiled as Evan sped to the dam. “Killing us on the way won’t help,” she complained as he rounded a blind bend on the wrong side of the road.

“Do you want to drive?”

“Love to.” She swallowed hard and cranked open the window.

“No.” He rounded another corner. A horn blared, and he pulled into the hedge just in time to avoid a head-on collision.

“Evan!” Her voice came out more like a squeak than the scream she’d imagined in her mind.

Both of them thudded back into their seats, breathing heavily.

Lou’s fingers gripped the door handle and dashboard tightly. “Well, that escalated quickly,” she gasped.

“Sorry.” Evan’s knuckles were white, and he levered them off the steering wheel. “Are you OK?”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah.” Actually, she felt lousy, but at least the headache wasn’t yet impinging on her vision. “So, am I driving or are you slowing down a bit?”

“You drive.” He paused. “Have you driven an automatic before?”

She nodded. “Heaps of times as the car I drive in America is automatic. However, I did learn to drive the same way all Brits do—on a manual car. That way I have a choice what I can drive here, rather than being limited to just automatics.”

They changed places, and Lou settled into the driver’s seat. She took a minute to move all the mirrors and position the seat. “OK.” She set off sticking to the speed limit, which was slower than Evan had been going. “Nice wheels.”

“Thanks. Ira prefers automatic. I don’t. But then I haven’t driven much the last six years or so.”

“That accounts for a lot, but then I guess you don’t need to. You know, if you’d woken Ira or Zach…”

“They are evacuating the manor—removing some of the paintings and so on. Just in case.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Paintings?”

“Some of them are worth a fortune. Along with some of the vases. I’ve been meaning to clear out stuff and donate it to a museum anyway. This gives me reason to do it.”

Lou slowed to a halt at the barricade and opened her window. “Hi, I’m Dr. Fitzgerald and this is Evan Close. Colonel Davies is expecting us.”

“I need to see photo ID from both of you.”

“Of course you do.” Lou pulled out her driving license and handed it over.

Evan reached past her with his. “Look, we really don’t have time for this…”

Lou glanced at him. “Hey, the exclusion zone was your idea.”

The soldier handed back the cards. “Colonel Davies is at the dam.”

She frowned. “Doesn’t he know what a total exclusion zone means? Tell him I’m on my way.” She closed the window. “Thought you said to make the command point half a mile away? Not at the dam itself.”

Evan scowled. “I did. Now put your foot down.”

Lou did so, and it wasn’t long before she swung into the car park. She stopped the car and gazed in horror at the dam. Water was beginning to seep through the gap in the middle. “That will not last.”

“Then we need to be quick.”