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“It’s the worst kind of slavery,” Fabi said. “But something else is going on.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Fabi caught the lab tech glance up sharply from his cart of instruments, waiting for Avila’s reaction, which was a hollow laugh.

“Let’s just say there are certain applications for this work that others will pay handsomely for.”

“Like what?” A cold fear, like ice water coursing through her veins, gripped Fabi.

“You served in the military. Imagine a fighting force that never disobeyed an order and never quailed in the face of the enemy. Fearsome, to be sure.”

“You’re crazy, Dr. Avila, you know that? You can’t possibly understand the full ramifications of this… .this zombification process you’re playing with. What if it gets out of hand and you can’t control the people you change?” She eyed Cassandra with dismay.

Avila glanced over at his tech, who promptly lowered his gaze and went back to shuffling his instruments around on the cart. Avila looked back to Fabi and said, “We’re working on a ‘switch’ so that we’ll be able to turn the abilities on and off. We’re almost there, isn’t that right, Peter?”

The tech looked up and gave a nod that lacked true enthusiasm. “We’re working on it.”

“That’s why you want the treasure, isn’t it?” Fabi spat. “To fund your sick experiments.”

“That is part of it, you’re right. But the other part is that the 1715 Spanish treasure is in fact rightfully mine. I have an ancestor, a distant relative, who was the ship’s doctor on that ill-fated voyage. Cristobal D'Avila was his name. I still share his same pure, Spanish blood. Our family has never permitted our noble bloodline to be diluted by intermarrying with commoners.”

Avila could see Fabi’s eyes widening, and he leaned toward her to emphasize his last point. “When my work here is completed, I believe it will pave the way for me to rule in Haiti, as it should be.”

Fabi eyed him with unadulterated disgust. “Consider this my resignation, Dr. Avila. I can’t believe I spent so much time working for such a monster.”

Sudden, spastic convulsions racked Cassandra’s body. She let out a guttural, pain-addled scream. When she settled back down, Avila said, “You will share her fate, you know, if you can’t tell me where this treasure is. This is your last chance.” He nodded to his tech and the man wheeled his cart full of instruments over to Fabi, still strapped down in the cot. The tech adjusted an IV stand and swabbed her arm, preparing to insert a needle. Cassandra caterwauled again and Fabi looked over at her.

“Okay! Hold it! I’ll talk.”

Chapter 38

Maddock, Bones and Willis slipped unseen past the guarded front entrance to Avila’s main house. After coercing information from the front gate guard by scaring but not actually hurting him, they had left the man trussed up outside the gate and made their way here.

“Back door should be on this side.” Maddock crouched low and pointed to the house. Bones and Willis nodded. They were about to move out when something stirred in the waist-high brush that surrounded much of the house. A man rose about twenty-five feet in front of them and walked toward them without speaking. The person had a slackjawed look about him, lifeless eyes and a deathly pallor about the skin.

“More over here!” Bones pointed to the right.

“And here!” Willis indicated their left flank.

Maddock pointed at a forty-five degree angle to their left, toward the back door the guard had told them about. More zombii poured out of the brush and stalked after the three intruders. The treasure seekers ran for the back door, slipping through gaps in the zombie ranks before sprinting the rest of the way to the house.

A chain link fence surrounded the house close to the door, with a gate that was closed and locked. Worse, a guard patrolled the area between the house and the gate, pacing the narrow space up and back. Maddock tapped Bones on the arm.

“You take care of the gate. Willis, you’re on zombie duty. I’ll handle the guard.”

Willis held up a hand. “Hold up, there’s gotta be at least a dozen of those things coming this way. I can’t take ‘em all out, at least not without making some noise.” He patted his holstered pistol.

Maddock tilted his head toward Bones, who was already moving to the gate. “You know how Bones is with locks. Shouldn’t be very long. But if that guard sees us and raises the alarm…” He turned and looked back to the approaching zombie squad. “My guess is that we could end up as one of those things.”

Willis nodded. He turned around and headed a little ways back through the brush while Maddock crept off to the left, a rock in one hand. When Maddock saw the guard turn around and begin walking back in their direction, he tossed the rock along the fence. When it landed the guard spun around and moved his weapon to the ready position before moving off to investigate.

Maddock breathed a sigh of relief and looked back to check on Bones, who had thankfully just sprung the lock. Maddock then looked around for Willis and saw two shadowy figures circling in a fighting dance. He went to Willis and dispatched the combatant zombie by pistol whipping it in the skull. It crumpled to the ground, but three more were heading their way.

“Come, let’s get inside.” Maddock and Willis turned and ran to Bones at the gate. The zombii closed fast and the men hurried inside the fence without closing the gate, running for the door. As they reached it, the guard walked around the corner of a metal utility housing, where Willis grabbed him, pinning his arms to his sides, while Bones relieved him of his weapon and Maddock took the swipe card he wore on a lanyard around his neck.

The sound of approaching zombie footsteps neared, and they moved on to the door on this side of the house. When they got to it, Bones tried it and found it locked. He pointed to the card reader. Maddock took a glance back at the zombii before pulling the card through. A light turned green and Bones pulled the door open. He stood there a moment, straining to see what was inside, but Willis shoved him in. “”Go! Go! They’re coming!”

Bones and Willis entered the building first. Maddock followed them, pulling the door shut just as they heard the screams of the guard as the zombii got to him and began to maul.

Chapter 39

A wave of bitter self-loathing coursed through Fabi as she unburdened herself to her captor. She hated herself for what she was doing. She’d been trained to resist interrogation, but now she was broken. Damn! She’d believed herself tougher than this. Apparently, she wasn’t.

“And so Maddock, Bones and Willis went diving off Alto Velo Island to look for the wreck, and I haven’t heard from them since.” Fabi looked up from the cot at Avila, tears streaming down her face, sobbing and gasping for breath. “That’s everything.”

It had been an emotional recounting of events. The facts, stories and memories poured out of her. Once she began telling the truth, she held nothing back, as if a floodgates had opened and she could do nothing to close them. Avila looked down on her with a wide smile.

“Shhh, there now, Fabi. You’ve done well! Calm down, now. Take it easy…” Fabi closed her eyes for a moment, to block out the reality of this weird place, to try to calm down a bit… but when she opened them again Avila was wearing a respirator mask and placing an inhaler like the kind used by those with asthma into her mouth. With her wrists cuffed to the cot rails, she couldn’t fend him off, and he squeezed two puffs of whatever the inhaler contained into her mouth before she could move her head away from it.