THE TRUCK FINALLY SLOWS, THEN STOPS. Freja stirs in my arms. A few minutes later, the door opens, and we’re blinking in the bright light. The sun hangs low in the sky—it’s late afternoon.
“Get out.” A soldier with a gun gestures at us.
Freja stumbles. “Cramp,” she says, and rubs at her leg.
We’re in what looks like a village—old stone buildings—no people in sight. Has it been cleared by the epidemic?
The lieutenant walks over with more soldiers. “Kai, I think it is time for the two of us to have a chat. Alone.”
He gestures at one of the soldiers. “Please take our other guest to the blue room and keep a close eye on her until the doctor is here to assess her. Use near and remote detail.”
A doctor? To assess her? Will he bring the scan?
Her eyes are on mine. Play along for now, she says. See what you can find out. She is led away, and I want to protest, to not let her out of my sight, but she’s right. There’s nothing else we can do at this moment.
“Come,” the lieutenant says. He doesn’t look to see if I follow, but given that there are three soldiers with guns behind me, it seems like the right thing to do—for now, like Freja said.
I follow him through the front door and into a grand sort of dining room.
He gestures to a chair. “Have a seat. Excuse me a moment,” he says, and walks through a door at the other end of the room, leaving me with the three soldiers.
Minutes later he returns without his biohazard suit, trailed by a civilian with a tray of tea things. He puts it on a table and then leaves.
“I’ve had some sent to Freja as well.” The lieutenant places a pistol on the table to his right and sits down.
He turns to the soldiers. “Leave us,” he says, and they back out of the room and shut the door.
As if he’s daring me to lunge for the pistol, he turns the other way to pour the tea. I’m just reckless enough to think about it, but the angle and distance are against me, plus I’m guessing the soldiers didn’t go far. And I’m also curious: what does he want to talk about?
“Milk? Sugar?” he says.
“Just milk.”
He adds milk, pushes a cup toward me.
“How is your head? Shall I get the doctor to check it when she’s here?”
“No. I’ve had worse. From some of yours.”
“Ah, that incident in Killin.”
“The incident, as you call it, when I was beaten up and chained to a bench, to try to flush out Shay and kill her.”
He takes a sip of tea and looks at me over his cup. “Instead, she killed several of my men. She’s dangerous.”
I say nothing to that. She did what he said, and I remember the extreme shock I felt to see it that first time—what she can do with her mind.
“Kai, let’s try to put that behind us for now. I suspect you and I have something in common, and I want to ask you about it.”
“Oh, really? What’s that?” And this time I take a sip of too-hot tea and stare at him over the rim.
He smiles. “A hatred for a man named Alexander Cross.”
My hands tighten on the cup. “Hatred is a strong word.”
“Sometimes it fits. Let me tell you my point of view on the man. He manipulated and deceived an entire army regiment—my regiment. He falsely obtained government funds and assistance for a project and then twisted it to suit his own ends. As a result of his deception, an epidemic was created and released—killing millions.”
“I’m not going to argue with you: he’s a complete ass. But he said you were also behind the epidemic—that you were in partnership.”
“We asked him to create a weapon we could target and contain. He chose to go another way, and you see the result for the country.”
“He said he wanted to cure cancer.”
He laughs. “Yes, he’s such a philanthropist, isn’t he? No. He deliberately created and released the epidemic.”
I shake my head. “No matter what I think of him, why would he do that? It must have been an accident.”
“I think not. And I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on his reasons.”
“He didn’t confide in me.”
“No. But you lived with the man for many years; you knew him. Why would he deliberately release an epidemic? I have a suspicion—but not the reason behind it. And it’s not that he’s an insane, psychotic murderer. He is highly intelligent and always had a reason for anything he said or did. As much as you can say someone is sane who has done such a thing, I believe this to be true. But why?”
He pauses, as if he thinks I’ve got some insight to share with him. And despite the whole situation and fear for Freja’s welfare and everything else, I want to know.
“Tell me your suspicion. Maybe then I’ll understand what you need from me.”
He pauses, then nods. “I think he deliberately set out to release the epidemic far and wide, and that he did this to create survivors.”
“What?”
“Survivors occur at a very low incidence—at current estimates, perhaps one in fifty thousand who get sick will survive. What I don’t understand is how he knew some would survive, or why he wants them. He’s been collecting them from here and there—the latest that group that escaped from the airfield and went who knows where with him. But why?”
I stare back at him, mind racing. The thing I know—that Alex himself has been a survivor for a long time—is the missing piece of the puzzle. Isn’t it?
“You know something,” he says.
“Maybe. And I’ll tell you if you let us go.”
He finishes his tea. “Your bargaining position just now isn’t the best. Still.” He taps his fingers against the desk a moment. “This is what I’ll do. If Freja is proven not to be a survivor by the doctor tomorrow, I’ll let both of you go. If she is one, then only you can go.”
“No. Both of us go, and go now.”
“I can’t do that if she is a survivor. That isn’t negotiable.”
“I don’t understand. Why do you want survivors? What is this really all about?”