Working silently so as not to disturb Rachel in her suite next door, Ash and Chloe started going through the boxes. Sweaters, long underwear, socks, T-shirts, buttoned shirts, pants, and shoes — all four boxes full of clothes.
They carefully taped the boxes back up and moved on to the duffel bags. The heavy one was stuffed with books — a survivalist’s how-to treasure trove of instructions on how to do everything from simple farming to advanced electronics. Ash could imagine Matt sitting up late reading through them.
The lighter bag held a box of photos, a few pictures in frames, and several journals, each tied closed by strings. Chloe pulled the top one out, untied it, and opened the cover. On the front page was a thirteen-month date range from several years earlier.
Ash motioned for Chloe to flip through the book.
Every single page was filled with handwriting they recognized as Matt’s. She randomly stopped at one of the pages and held the book out so they could both read.
Monday, Sept. 23rd
Prep for winter almost complete. Have left most of those details in Rachel’s hands. Heard from G1 this morning. No real news, which I guess is good. Pax is still out on the recruiting run. When we spoke, he said things with the group in Singapore looked promising. If he’s able to bring them aboard, that’ll up our organization by another thirty-seven. They will also hold a strategic position that we desperately need. I stressed to him how important it is that he succeeds.
At the end of the entry were several numbers, in distinct sets.
00317 43 4388 9629 20153 6 7219
A quick glance at some of the previous entries revealed a few of them also ended with numbers. Ash could discern no obvious meaning, so told Chloe they could figure out later if the numbers were important or not.
They quickly went through the rest of the books, eight in all. Each was filled front to back like the first.
“We’re missing one,” Chloe whispered.
Ash nodded. He’d noticed it, too. The journal covering the last four months wasn’t there.
He stepped over to the pack Matt had taken with him on the trip south to New Mexico, and searched through the pockets. He found the journal wrapped in a shirt at the very bottom of the main section.
“Done here,” he whispered, showing her the book.
They closed the duffel bags and arranged them and the boxes exactly as they had been before. At the door, they paused to make sure the corridor was quiet before leaving with their old friend’s journals.
4
“How you feeling?” Robert asked, raising his voice enough for it to carry through the wall into the next room.
“No change,” Renee’s muffled reply came back.
Though he was still pissed off at her, his anger was far outweighed by the relief he felt from her response.
Twenty-four hours earlier — two days after Isabella Island had been doused with the Sage Flu virus by an organization apparently known as Project Eden — Renee had walked outside.
While Robert knew that eventually someone would have to test the effectiveness of the vaccine they’d been given, he’d fully intended to be the one leaving the confines of the dining room where everyone had holed up. Leave it to Renee to sneak away and do it herself. When Robert found out, it took Rich Paxton, Estella, and several of the others to keep him from running out after her.
“We only need one guinea pig,” Pax had said.
Renee had stayed outside and exposed herself to the virus for several hours before moving into the restaurant manager’s office on the other side of the wall. Robert had yelled at her at first, but soon tempered his emotions when he finally accepted that what was done was done. Since then, he had spent most of his hours leaning against the wall, talking to her and checking on her, and sometimes not saying anything at all.
Pax had told them it could be anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days before she’d show signs of infection, but given the concentration of the virus she’d been exposed to, he was leaning more toward the former than the latter. Robert’s own experience with the Sage Flu was minimal. Dominic was the only one he’d watched die, and it hadn’t been much more than a day before his friend had shown signs. Surely Renee would have come down with it by now.
“No sniffles? Fever?” he asked. “You don’t feel tired?”
“No change means no change, Robert. I feel fine. Can we talk about something else?”
“Uh, sure. What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t care. Anything.”
Robert was saved from having to come up with a subject by Estella’s arrival.
“Pax would like to talk to you,” she said.
“About what?”
She shrugged. “He was on the phone to his people, then he wanted you. That is all I know.”
“Hey, you still there?” Renee asked.
“Go,” Estella said. “I will keep her company.”
Robert found Pax across the room. “You were looking for me?”
Pax nodded toward the buffer room and headed over. The area next to it was a quiet place to meet, most people not wanting to get so close to what was right on the other side.
“The arrangements are set,” Pax said. “But we’ve got a bit of a time crunch so we need to start getting things moving.”
The island — coated now with the virus — was no longer a safe place to stay, even for the inoculated, so Pax had been working on a way to get them all off.
“When will the planes be here?” Robert asked.
“That’s part of the problem. They can’t come here exactly. If we had enough seaplanes, maybe, but with only one or two, it would take far too long to get everyone off. They’re sending a passenger jet. It’ll land at the airport over in Limón tonight. So that means we have to get ourselves over there.”
“But we don’t have enough boats,” Robert said. The resort had only a few speedboats and some diving boats. “Even if we overloaded them, it’ll take at least two trips to get everyone across. And if the water’s at all rough, I don’t want to think about how dangerous that’ll be.”
“We’ll take them all at once,” Pax said.
“And how the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“A ferry.”
“But the ferry is at the coast.”
“Which is why,” Pax said, “you and I are going to go get it.”
“We’ll blow the horn as soon as we reach the bay,” Robert said after he explained to everyone what he and Pax were going to do. “That’ll be your signal to head for the dock. Until then, stay in here.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to leave?” someone asked.
“Renee has shown no signs of the flu,” Robert said.
“Doesn’t mean she won’t,” someone else countered.
“What about our stuff?” a man near the back asked. “Do we grab that on our way out?”
“If there is something vital you need to bring, then you can get it. But no suitcases, no clothes, nothing bulky. They’ll take up too much room.”
“What’s the hurry?” a woman asked. “Isn’t it safer if we just stay here?”
“I’ll take this one,” Pax said. He stepped forward. “In all likelihood, your system is now as immune to the Sage Flu as it’s going to get. So, from that point of view, staying in here or leaving would be the same.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then how can you know that?”