Here we go again
Part Five
Getting down the incline would normally have been a simple and quick task for me, but with my injury, it took the best part of an hour. By which time I was soaked in sweat and feeling dizzy – not that I mentioned either to Pete.
As we reached the body, I finally paused and let out a long breath, relief washing over me that I’d made it this far. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I could go further.
I let my knees buckle into the snow beside Allcott and began to take a closer look, evaluating what had happened.
I’d noted earlier there was no snow on the corpse, and the fact that the body was still warm bore out my theory that this hadn’t happened during the storm.
“Gimme a hand here, Pete,” I asked my friend to help roll over Allcott and within seconds we could clearly see what had caused her demise.
Our good doctor had two point blank gunshot wounds to the chest.
“You were right, Mac, there must be more of Zalister’s’ men on the mountain.”
I took off my favorite hat and ran a hand through my hair. I didn’t know why, but that theory bothered me more and more.
“Something’s not right here, Pete. I just can’t figure what,” I admitted, offering up my hand so my friend could tug me up from the snow.
Pete tugged me to a standing position and I leaned on my crutch.
“Like what? I don’t see how there’s any other explanation.” Pete was glancing around constantly, and I knew he was worried, especially as I couldn’t exactly run if bullets started flying.
I still wasn’t buying it. “There’s always more than one answer. It’s just finding it…” I sighed. The problem was, right now, I didn’t have the energy to move, let alone think clearly.
It was time to confess. “Pete, I think you should go on alone and find the sheriff. Bring him back up here to take a look at this. I can stay close to the body.”
“I’m not leaving you.” His words seemed final, but I had to convince him otherwise.
“Pete, my leg won’t hold me up long enough to get down there.”
He shrugged. “Then you’ll just have to MacGyver up some kind of transport so I can pull you down. You know, like you see in westerns?”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary gentlemen…”
A new and very gruff voice made both me and Pete spin around. I half expected Pete to be right and one of Zalister’s goons to be standing there pointing a forty-five at us, but instead a rather rosy-cheeked man in a sheriff’s uniform stared back.
To his side were two deputies, rifles poised in their hands, but not targeting anything in particular.
“Looks like your friend hit a spot of trouble?” The sheriff spoke to Pete, but pointed to my leg. For a second I’d forgotten the pair had already met the afternoon before.
“You could say that,” I winced. “The lady behind me decided I needed a nice new thigh piercing.” I jerked a thumb at the body, but the sheriff didn’t look beyond me.
In fact, he pretty much ignored me altogether. Don’tcha just hate it when folks do that?
“Call up Abe over at mountain rescue and tell him to get that chopper over here,” the sheriff was barking at one of the deputies, who duly obeyed, using his radio to redirect the helicopter searching for us to a nearby clearing.
The other deputy didn’t say a word, but sheepishly trotted over and slung my free arm over his shoulder, taking my weight to help me to the area where the bird was going to land.
It all felt weird, like the men weren’t quite sure what to do with me. Still, the deputies were young, maybe they hadn’t been put in this kind of situation before.
The sheriff, on the other hand, now he was an enigma. He freely chatted with Pete as we walked, but still didn’t attempt conversation with me.
Stranger still, he paid Allcott’s body little or no attention, and made no effort to leave a man to watch over it, and what was, potentially a crime scene.
My leg caught on a branch under a thick drift of snow, sending tendrils of pain snaking up as far as my spine, and suddenly I didn’t care about the local law officer’s lack of procedure.
What had happened at Wolf Creek five years previously had waited this long for justice, I figured it could wait just a few hours more.
* * * *
Pagosa Springs Medical Center
Some time later…Abe, the mountain rescue pilot was a jolly kinda guy who more than made up for the sheriff and deputies lack of conversation. He’d loaded me and Pete up and gotten us to the local hospital in double quick time, and all with a smile and a friendly word.
Right now, I was sitting on a gurney waiting for Pete and the sheriff to reappear.
The doc who’d tended my leg had wanted to keep me in over night, but I really wasn’t in the mood for that. Besides, it was clean, dressed, and I had an ample supply of antibiotics and a real pair of crutches.
What more did I need?
Of course, there may well have been some pretty nurses in this place to keep me occupied, and on any other occasion I might have been tempted, just a little bit.
Today, though, there was other business to deal with yet, and after a couple of hours in a nice warm building I was feeling much better anyhow.
I glanced out of the window.
It was snowing again.
Even the weather here wasn’t happy.
Maybe that was VX490’s legacy. It had left a stain behind that you couldn’t see, but that was there all the same. Not just the lab up on the mountain, but some of the people here too.
As I pondered my sickening revelation, the door swung open and Pete and Roy Brevin finally breezed in.
“About time,” I teased Pete. “I was starting to think you’d abandoned me here.”
“I should,” he groused back. “The doctor tells me they wanted to keep you in, and you refused. Mac…”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine. Sore, but fine.” I looked pointedly at the sheriff. “What about Allcott? Any word on her killer?”
“I have people on the mountain, but if they’re as good as you say, I doubt we’ll find them.”
“But you got the two from the cabin, right?” I was starting to see a pattern again, and it wasn’t a pretty one.
“My deputies went straight up after we’d taken you to the clearing, but they’d already gone. I’m guessing they had an accomplice who set them free.Probably the one who got Allcott.”
“I’ll bet,” I nodded. “And I’m guessing he also wore a uniform and badge…”
The sheriff’s hand snapped to his belt, reaching to free his weapon like a practiced gunfighter.
But Pete was faster.
My old friend had come armed after I’d told him my suspicions on the chopper, and this time he hadn’t let the opposition get a hold of his gun.
Right now, the forty-five was pointed square at Brevin as he held his own weapon a few inches out of the holster.
“I’d put that right back where it belongs, Sheriff,” I warned. “I might hate guns, but Pete here isn’t so particular.”
The sheriff wavered, then hissed out a breath, letting the gun slide back home. “How did you know?”
“You never asked how Allcott had died up on the mountain, and you didn’t seem to care. It was as if you already knew her body was there. But then, you did, because you were the one that shot her, right?”
He looked at me, deciding I think, whether to come clean or keep quiet.
Eventually, Brevin spoke, but there was no remorse in his voice, just a coldness like nothing I’d encountered on the mountain.
“She was a weak link. She didn’t want to kill, only with her stupid virus. I had to take matters into my own hands when she botched things up with Stirling’s body, and then Zalister’s people couldn’t contain you or her either.” He looked at me with what I was sure was hatred, and at that point I realized if it hadn’t been for the deputies being present, he’d have killed me and Pete up on the mountain too, right beside the good doctor.
“But why?” Pete intervened. “What does any of this have to do with you?”
“Money, what else?” Brevin answered honestly. “I was in Zalister’s pocket right from the get go. Small time sheriffs don’t always get to stay in office, and then what? With Zalister’s payouts I was set for my retirement big time. And all I had to do was keep the tourists away from the labs, and mop up any unfortunate incidents. That is until it all went wrong, and all I was left with was my badge.”
“And the money you’d already earned,” I pointed out in disgust.
He shrugged, not caring, and obviously not wanting to say more.
Behind him, the door opened and two well dressed and very well preened men entered.
The feds were here to collect the sheriff, as per Pete’s instructions, but it was of little solace.
Brevin had let Zalister’s men escape, Allcott was dead, there was no evidence at the labs, and I’d lay money on the sheriff not testifying against his old employer.
In short, all we’d got was a crooked sheriff about to take the wrap for something he had no true comprehension of.
The feds cuffed him and led him out, but he remained almost jarringly silent.
I looked at Pete as I slowly eased myself off the gurney. “We’re not gonna win this one, are we?”
He slid his gun away inside his coat. “At least we know the truth about Stirling and those skiers.”
“But we haven’t gotten justice for their deaths, Pete, and we still don’t know what happened to the Reaper virus. It could still be out there.” I was angry, not at my friend, but at our possible defeat. “What if it wasn’t destroyed five years ago? What if..?” I couldn’t bear to finish my sentence out loud.
I mean, what if Reaper actually did still exist? Then the world could die in a few days, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Pete looked solemn, and I knew he was thinking the same things as I was. “I don’t know, Mac. I just don’t know…”
We stood there for a good two minutes, just looking at one another, hoping the other would come up with some grand plan or solution.
But we couldn’t, because this time, Zalister had beaten us.
Eventually, Pete simply moved and opened the door, holding it for me to swing myself through on the crutches. “Maybe it’s time for that vacation,” he smiled wanly. “Heck, I might even join you!”
I paused and looked at him to see if he was serious, an idea for revenge formulating in my head faster than I could open my army knife. Y’see Pete had once broken his legs on a ski trip – granted he’d saved my life at the same time, but for days after I’d been his slave.
He didn’t want anything, no, not a thing. At least that’s what he’d said, and then two seconds later he wanted a blanket, or food, or the TV turning on or…
Oh yeah, Pete coming on vacation with me was going to be real fun, because this time he could follow me around.
Well, maybe just for the first few hours, until he realized I was teasing.
“Okay.” I smiled maybe just a little too broadly. “Just as long as it’s not snowing, there are no mountains, no insane doctors, rogue sheriffs. And especially no deadly diseases that could wipe out the planet.”
Pete smiled back. “Sounds good…”
Present Day California The memory of my time in Colorado slowly faded to black in my mind, and I was drawn back to the here and now, still saddened that my friend was gone.
I looked down at both envelopes in my hand, and shuffled the one Pete had hand-written to the top.
Carefully tearing it open, I scanned the crude lettering, realizing that Pete had somehow scribbled this after going blind. That meant it was something he hadn’t wanted to trust another living soul to write.
Mac
Firstly, if you’re reading this, then it means I’m gone. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you what’s in this letter to your face while I was alive, but I was sworn to secrecy by the U.S. government.
I have been aware of the fate of Project Reaper for some time, but my contacts at the foundation are long gone, and there is no one else left I can trust except you, my old friend.
I realize the years have not been kind to either of us, (especially considering where I must be right about now) and I wouldn’t think any less of you if you chose not to do anything with the information I’ve supplied.
But then, I once said to you not to ever change, Mac, and I think you took it as good advice, so I guess that means you’ll put my intelligence to good use, and finally end Zalister’s most evil creation.
The Problem is, Zalister no longer holds the virus. After we stirred things up on the mountain our government got involved and Reaper was seized. It’s now being held in a secure lab, supposedly for safe keeping.
But you and I both know what that can mean, even if the people in charge of it have the best intentions, just like Sandra Millhouse that time at Phoenix.
If you can, Mac, put an end to Reaper, one last assignment, or maybe just the end of one from all those years ago that we never finished.
Everything you need, including Reaper’s location is in the other envelope I have provided.
Good luck and Godspeed
PeteIt must have been hard for Pete write the letter, knowing that I really wasn’t in any kinda shape to go running around after rogue viruses anymore, but he also knew that Reaper had never really been out of my mind either.
I hated assignments with no resolution, and I hated this one even more now, knowing that it was being controlled by my own government.
I thought back to Sandra Millhouse that Pete had mentioned in the letter.
She too had thought she could control a rogue virus, and she too had been working with the best of intentions.
But somehow the best laid plans never come to fruition, and deadly viruses should never be stored, not for any reason.
Heck, they shouldn’t be created in the first place, but that’s a whole other argument I’ll toss around with you another time.
I folded Pete’s letter and tucked it in the back pocket of my jeans.
Then I just stared at the larger folder in my hand, the wording burning into my retinas.
Reaper.
VX490.The thing needed wiping from the face of the planet, but could I do it?
My back twinged every morning from a fall I took years ago off a multi storey, and my knees have been shot for years from too many skiing accidents, parachute landings and other death defying activities.
In short, my own body was against me, and I didn’t think my brain would compensate enough to get me through a whole bunch of government security measures, not even with Pete’s intelligence.
On the other hand, I did have other aces up my sleeve that the government wouldn’t know about should I get in a pickle.
I let my fingers run along the edges of the envelope, the tactile sensation goading me to open it.
And open it I would, just as soon as I got it somewhere safe.
“One last assignment, one last time, Pete,” I whispered, and then tucked the file inside my jacket, heading for my truck as fast as my creaking bones would carry me.
TBC…
Looking forward to the next chapter! 
