Cooper decided not to play his game. He jerked a thumb at Dranko, who stood at the doorway looking back into the hallway, “He’s a man that is a good shot. Best of all, he shoots when and who I tell him to.” Dranko looked over his shoulder and nodded firmly, a sinister grin revealing a thin line of gleaming white teeth.
Then, he brought the thumb to his own chest, “I’m a man who’s lost his wife to this plague. So, I have nothing to live for except getting some answers. You got it?”
Mr. Mitchell’s stolid façade was shaken. A dollop of nervousness showed through his nod. He shuffled his feet, as if to gain surer footing, “You do have something to live for though. Your child, perhaps.”
Baffled, Cooper blurted, “How’d you?”
“Know? I wouldn’t be where I am today if I wasn’t an adept reader of people. First, I know you’re not the nervous type. You wouldn’t be in my office waving a pistol around if you were. So, that leaves only one explanation for the worry lines that cross your face. You’re a father.”
Cooper laughed, “You’re good. I’ll give you that. If you can see all that, I’m betting you can see that I’ve killed men before?”
Mr. Mitchell eyed him again and swallowed hard, “Yes, I can see that.”
Cooper maintained a steadfast stare, “Recently?”
Ethan gulped and only nodded in agreement.
“Furthermore, I’m guessing you can see that I’m a serious man. A deliberate man. A man who gets what he needs, when he needs it, yeah?”
“Yes, I see that too.”
“Good. So, let’s start with what you know about this plague.”
A long silence followed as a slow, smug, grin took shape on Mr. Mitchell’s face, “Maybe a better question would be: what do I not know about it?”
Cooper tried to hide his surprise, and did a poor job of it, “Sure, why don’t you start there then?”
Mr. Mitchell responded slowly and deliberately, “First, it was unavoidable. We had too many people, living too close together, for too long. Something like this was bound to happen.”
Cooper interrupted him, “I’m not asking about something like this, I’m asking about this plague.”
Mr. Mitchell pursed his lips, irritated at being interrupted, “May I finish answering your question?”
Cooper stared back at him. Eyes locked, Mr. Mitchell continued, “Second, as unfortunate as it is, it was necessary. Despite the high number of deaths occurring now, it would have been much, much worse later.”
Agitated, Cooper shook his head and squinted his eyes, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Mr. Mitchell looked like a schoolteacher disappointed in one of his students, “Look around you. Do you not read? Do you pay attention at all? The planet is dying out there. It is losing its ability to support life.”
Cooper was confused, “Are you saying Mother Nature concocted this thing to save the whales?”
Mr. Mitchell burst out laughing, “No. I’m saying she should have done exactly that, but she didn’t know how. We just…” He stopped himself and paused. “Or, maybe she did, but she was just taking too long to pull the trigger.” He chuckled to himself at a joke that Cooper didn’t understand.
Cooper heard the buzz of Dranko’s watch. Already? I’ve let this guy banter too much.
“Just tell me if there’s a cure for this thing?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Who’s we? This place is empty,” Cooper shouted, waving his pistol around to indicate the empty building.
“A small team of specialists is dedicated to it around the clock, but not at this facility.”
Cooper didn’t believe him. His head hurt from everything he’d heard as he desperately tried to make sense of it all.
“We got company. Multiples,” Dranko shouted from the doorway. Cooper turned towards him.
Moments later, he was rocked to the floor by concussion from a blast that came from Mr. Mitchell’s direction. Simultaneously, a flash lit up the room. He fell to the floor, dazed. He was dimly aware of Dranko firing down the hallway. He whirled his head around back towards Mr. Mitchell, but the metal desk had been overturned. Through the smoke, he couldn’t see him. Finally, it hit him. He detonated a flash-bang grenade.
Cooper stumbled towards the desk and looked frantically for Mr. Mitchell. That’s when he noticed a panel in the wall was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and looked into another room which had three doors on different walls. Mr. Mitchell wasn’t in that room either. “Damn you!” Cooper cursed.
As if through a long tunnel, he heard Dranko shouting for him, “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Cooper sprinted back towards the doorway and landed next to Dranko, “What’s our situation?” he shouted.
“Three guards, pinned down near the receptionist area. They didn’t expect two-fisted .45 firepower!” Dranko yelled gleefully.
Cooper surveyed the hallway. Across from them was a long hallway marked with an “Exit” sign.
“You hold them down. I will circle around their rear flank!”
“Got it,” Dranko responded, “but hurry!” He slammed home a fresh magazine into his pistol. He resumed firing to cover Cooper as he raced across the hallway. A random pistol shot rang out in their direction, shattering a window behind them.
Cooper ran down the hallway at full speed. He reached the door and crashed into it. It was locked. Swiftly, he drew his pistol, stepped back, and fired three rounds into the lock. He kicked the push bar once more. This time, the door flew open, and he was out into the dull Oregon sunshine. He turned to his right and sprinted the length of the building, making a final right hand turn that would return him to the front of the building.
He longed for the intimidation provided by fully automatic fire. He remembered his drill Sergeant from boot camp, “I never met EF Hutton, but I know damn well that when Rat-Tat-Tat speaks, people do listen!” He had never understood the joke—apparently an obscure reference to a commercial—but he had seen the veracity of the sentiment proven many times over in combat. He clenched the pistol tightly in his hand. You’ll have to do today.
He rounded the corner and saw three guards sprawled on the floor, desperately seeking cover amidst bullet-riddled furniture.
Cooper wasted no time in peppering the ceiling with gunfire. The boom-boom-boom of close-up pistol fire would both shock the guards and, as importantly, let Dranko know he was now firmly in his line of fire. “Hands up,” Cooper screamed.
The three guards, after a moment’s surprise, rolled onto their backs and saw Cooper standing over them. They looked at each other as Cooper swept over them with the looming muzzle of his pistol. At this close range, they knew he couldn’t miss. In turn, they each tossed their pistols to the ground and held their hands up.
Dranko came running in from the opposite direction, pistols at the ready.
Cooper began questioning the guards, “Where does Mitchell’s secret passage lead to?”
Dranko scooped up the guard’s sidearm and then stood up to face Cooper, “We can’t do this now. We gotta go!”
Cooper looked at him blankly, “Why?”
“Don’t you hear that?”
“No,” Cooper said, indicating his still-deafened ears.
“Sirens. Police. And, if I can hear them after all that shooting, it means they are close,” he shouted into Cooper’s ear.
They ran to the pickup, jumped in, and sped away.
Chapter 25
They arrived back at Cooper’s house safely. Given how close things had come, Cooper was glad he had put grease over several key numbers on the license plates. If the guards had been thinking and had written it down, he was hoping the partial plate would prevent them from finding him.