Their host replaced the heavy hood of his level-A gear. As he worked to affix the seals he told them, "You'll have to excuse me, but I have a lot more data to gather and we are on a tight time frame. Why don't you wait right here for a spell? We'll speak again soon."
Jupiter Wells kept his SCAR-H at the ready but he knew using his battle rifle would be a last, desperate resort. Given the numbers and armament of the newcomers to Tioga, he preferred to remain hidden, moving parallel to the southern coast in a westerly direction and using rocks and brush along the shoreline for cover.
He ignored the bullhorn announcements encouraging survivors with phrases such as, "we're here to help," and "the island is secure of danger … come out of hiding … we have medicine!"
To anyone who had survived the carnage on Tioga Island, the sight of men in hazmat suits wielding rifles might be a relief. Wells knew better. He knew that any force that had managed to arrive on the island so fast in such numbers and had immediately implemented a well-planned, systematic canvassing of the island had to have been well prepared to do so. That meant advanced knowledge, and that meant culpability.
The average civilian might be fooled into thinking the United Nations, the World Health Organization, or even the United States military could respond, launch, and execute a relief mission to a remote island in the middle of the Pacific twenty-four hours after a disaster of this kind. Those were the same civilians who probably envisioned those organizations as efficient, well-financed machines that could spring to life on a moment's notice.
Experience had taught Jupiter Wells a different lesson. It had been difficult enough to parachute three persons onto the island within sixteen hours of the call for help. As far as he knew, Campion was still struggling to muster a task force from Pacific Command. If and when they arrived, they would be equipped best to destroy, not save, the island.
So no, anyone who landed here in force so fast was suspect at best, most likely part of the problem and most certainly not the solution.
Wells decided that his best course of action was to consider the newcomers hostile, recon their positions and actions, and stay hidden. He had already decided to kill if it meant remaining undiscovered, or, possibly, if he could get one of them in an isolated position, he might be able to capture and interrogate. Given that the men worked in tandem and took a systematic approach to their search, Wells figured that the last option was not very likely.
In any case, he followed the coast, which bent north, led through a quarter-mile stretch of tall, jagged rocks, and then opened up to the island's only harbor, if it could be called that. He saw two long steel piers stretching out into the Pacific, still partially covered by shadows as the morning sun remained low in the sky.
A small marina-type area played host to personal watercraft and a boat that appeared rigged for parasailing, although there would be no customers today.
Nevertheless, the piers were the center of much activity, just not of the recreational variety. All roads, it seemed, led here, at least as far as the dump trucks in use around the island were concerned.
Wells watched as men in hazmat suits drove the trucks to the docks and met workers wearing t-shirts, jeans, and skullcaps. It was a strange contradiction in images: high-tech meets the East River docks, or something like that.
He found it even more interesting that when the men in the Level-A protective garb arrived at the pier, they quickly unzipped their hoods and basked in the open air. It occurred to Jupiter Wells that if there was a biohazard worthy of Level-A protection, then no self-respecting soldier or scientist would remove his gear anywhere close to the danger zone.
Do they actually need those suits?
Wells considered the bullhorn announcements and the methodical search patterns. Perhaps the hazmat gear was part of a costume, or a precautionary measure taken for their initial arrival on the island. Either way, it seemed the protection was no longer necessary, and that made him feel much better at having discarded his own gear hours ago.
Whatever the case, the dockworkers directed the dump trucks along the pier and up a short ramp. At that point the trucks emptied their loads into the hold of a small and aging freighter painted black, white, and red. As he watched from a distance, Wells realized that those loads were people. Or, rather, dead people. Furthermore, given the quantity, he suspected they were actually the now-silent zombies that had nearly killed him and the others in the bungalow district last night.
Something like a canvas tarp covered the name of the ship, and he saw no other markings, although he pegged the vessel to be a relatively small one, perhaps ninety meters long with gross tonnage in the 1,900 range with the bridge superstructure mounted to aft.
Using his binoculars, Wells also took note of the people involved. He got a good look at two of the hazmat-wearers with their hoods off. Both appeared Korean or northern Asian, although it was difficult to be sure. The seven ship workers he caught sight of represented a cross-section ranging from Caucasians from Europe or possibly America—Australia? — to others who were thin with darker skin, making him guess them to be Indonesian or at least from that region.
Still, it was all guesswork. Deducing nationalities or racial backgrounds from physical appearances was hard enough, let alone through binoculars at four hundred yards off.
At that moment Sal Galati's voice popped into Wells's head.
That guy is from North Korea, the other guy is from Sydney, and the two over there were born in Jakarta.
Yes, of course, Sal could bullshit his way through just about anything. To Galati, it seemed like every question had to be answered, and Sal would make it up and sound as sure as shit as he ticked off his half-assed reasoning.
Yet Jupiter wished his friend were along on this one, particularly now that he had separated from Major Gant and Dr. Stacy. Wells figured those two were doing what he was doing; hiding and watching. He had the distinct feeling that being found by the guys in the bio suits would be as bad as being found by another horde of those damned zombies.
Dr. Waters's Jeep came to a halt on a patch of gravel just outside a one-story stucco and thatch building nestled in the island's interior. A sign next to the open door read "MAINTENANCE" in three different languages, starting with English first, of course.
He was met by team six, a group of eight of his men wearing level-A biosafety gear that not only provided protection from any unforeseen side effects of the test, but would also present to any scared survivors an image of a prepared, well-organized rescue. Of course, the fact that the suits provided some protection against any units that survived the PX dusting was an added benefit — the last thing Waters needed was members of his team becoming units themselves.
In addition to the eight men, Waters was met by a chubby, middle-aged woman also wearing a hazmat suit. Her accent included a hint of the English midlands.
"Dr. Waters, we found this group barricaded in the maintenance shed."
The group included a tall man with glasses and a sharp nose dressed in cargo shorts and a golf shirt, a woman who was obviously his companion at about half his age wearing a tennis skirt, and a second woman of a more advanced age but in particularly good shape, no doubt due to her exercise routine, as suggested by the jogging suit she wore. Unfortunately, all the jogging in the world had not kept her safe from the plague that had swept across the island: blood from a neck wound pooled on her shirt as she sat on the ground with her back against the building.