“Tell them we’re full up,” Lister barked as David shifted the vehicle to the side, parked it and killed the engine.
Mavis rolled her eyes. “The Sergeant-Major knows the drill. I’m sure he had it down the second time you said it.”
The twentieth was a bit of overkill.
“He’s Army and enlisted. They need the repetition.” Lister groped along the floor until he found his half-empty water bottle. Deviltry glinted in his pale blue eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”
David set his helmet on his head and wrapped his hand around the barrel of his M-4. “Which of the trucks still have room, Sir?”
Room. The trucks had so little room. Yet they couldn’t leave the sick and take only the healthy. Anthrax could take up to a month and a half to present symptoms. Everyone needed to climb on board and pray they weren’t already the walking dead. A chill slipped down her spine. Great, the fever was back and her throat hurt. If she hoped to get any rest, she needed another dose of aspirin. She reached for her purse by her feet.
The general tapped his keyboard. “Put them in seven and twenty-three.”
Her fingers wrapped around the medicine bottle and her nails bent under her grip. “Twenty-three?”
That truck housed her niece Sunnie. Glancing over her shoulder, she peered into the dust and smoke clogging the dirt road and rising from the wash. Where in the convoy was she? The trucks had leap-frogged each other so many times, it had been turned into a shell game. Sure, she’d started in the same vehicle as her niece but there’d been so many decisions that she’d been forced to move to the Humvee with General Lister. David had accompanied her, filling in when the original driver had nearly hit a tree when fever had rolled his eyes back in his head.
He’d be dead by morning. As would half the soldiers. Instead of protecting them, the anthrax vaccine had supercharged their immune system, drowning them with their own antibodies. She thumped her chest, temporarily dislodging the congestion. Hopefully, her forty-one year old, slower-to-respond system would prevent her from meeting the same fate.
“Trucks twenty-three and seven have room.” Lister twisted the cap off his water bottle, tossed back his head and drained the contents.
She rubbed her burning eyes. At least anthrax wasn’t contagious. But given the amount blowing around, it didn’t need to be.
The general eyed her. “You going to change my orders?”
Yes. She squeezed her eyes closed. Please, please, please, let her recover. She bartered her soul for her niece’s life. “No.”
“You know Johnson will have other patients to attend.”
“I know.” The words were razor blades in her throat. She’d been lucky to have the medic just on Sunnie for as long as she had. Everything her niece needed to beat the infection had already been dispensed. All that remained was one-on-one mortal combat.
Please, God, let my niece win.
“Maybe if we had more leaders like you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Lister turned back to his computer.
Don’t bet on it. She’d sacrifice them all to keep her niece alive. She’d promised her sister to look after Sunnie and she’d be damned if she broke that promise.
Speaking into his headset, David notified the numbered vehicles of the impending visitors then opened his door. Smoke tainted air drifted inside. “Try the walkie. She might be awake.”
Walkie. Where’d she put the darn thing? Forgetting the medicine, Mavis patted down her chest then thumped the plastic walkie. Sighing, she plucked it off her belt and pressed the talk button. “Sunnie? Are you there?”
She released the button. Static crackled in the air for a moment.
“She’s asleep, Ma’am.”
Mavis curled against the seat back as the medic’s deep voice drifted through the line. Sleep was good. She’d like to be sleeping right now. “How’s she doing?”
“No better or worse than fifteen minutes ago. Respiration is shallow and she’s still whistling Dixie, but her temperature is stable and she’s keeping down the Cipro.”
Good signs all of them but it was a long way from healthy.
“Thank God.” Mavis closed her eyes. “Let me know when she wakes up.”
When, not if. She needed to keep a positive attitude. She yawned. Eighty winks sounded pretty good right about now.
“Before you drift off to the Land of Nod, Doc.” Lister flicked the walkie which jostled her hand. “With all these delays, we’re going to need to revise our plans.”
Opening one eye, she glared at him. Sleep, don’t sleep. The man had more ups and downs than a yo-yo. “I could shoot you right now.”
He grinned, revealing white teeth, but fatigue hung heavily under his eyes. “That’s why I moved all the guns and knives out of your reach.”
She opened her other eye and shifted in the seat. Did they put the lumps in them on purpose? “I don’t need a gun or knife to kill.”
Her training had taught her that those things could easily be taken away and used against her. Instead, she’d learned to improvise. A pen made an effective weapon under some circumstances. So did a bed spring. Unfortunately, neither was particularly handy.
And the brass-toting fat head keeping her awake probably had the same training.
“That’s why you’re in charge.”
No, she was in charge because she’d been second-in-command to the Surgeon General. Now she was all that remained of the US government besides the rapidly dwindling numbers of servicemen and women. And they were determined to maintain a chain of command with her being the ‘it’ girl.
Outside the Humvee, David guided the sleep-walking survivors to the right side of the vehicle while the convoy lumbered by. Pebbles pinged the metal body and dust coated the windows like brown powdered sugar. A truck filled the review mirror. She twisted on her seat. Was Sunnie in that truck?
“Now, about our evac plans. We need to revise our ETA.”
“No need.” Guess, she’d find out later. After hooking the walkie back on her belt loop, she fished in her purse for the bottle of aspirin. Since she was up for a while longer…. Gripping the bottle, her shaking fingers fumbled to line up the raised arrows. The plastic top slipped against her palm but didn’t open. Child-proof, her behind. Adult proof was more like it.
“Why’s that?”
“Because, I’ve already accounted for these delays.”
Lister held his hand out for the bottle.
Mavis glared at it then bit down on the top and pulled. Pain flared in her jaw. Finally the cap popped off. The pills rattled against plastic. She spit the cap onto the seat near Lister’s open palm.
“You knew this was going to happen?”
“Basic rule of planning, consider how long something should take then multiply it by the human factor, also known as four, and then pray everything works out.” She dumped eight pills into her palm then popped one into her mouth. Bitterness and saliva flooded her mouth but soon the fire in her throat was doused. Blessed relief. Thank God the corpsmen had known that little trick. She scraped the residue off with her tongue and waited for the medicine to kick in. The rest she’d take with water.
Lister took the bottle from her hand and measured out his own dose then capped it. “The human factor is four?”
He tossed them in his mouth and chewed.
Yuck! She shivered. Either the guy needed more hair on his chest or he was trying to prove something. Like she had something to prove. She’d take hers with water and be damn proud of it. She scanned the seat, leaned forward and checked the floor. Now to find her water bottle. There. By the door. Dumping the pills into a pile on her tongue, she retrieved her drink, opened it and took a gulp. Warm water washed down the tiny tablets.