Page 71 of Smoky Lake

Gil had exchanged his jacket for a hoodie and a beanie that he’d somehow acquired in the last few minutes. She jumped into the passenger seat, while Victor climbed into the crew cab. Gil gestured for them to duck below the level of the windows, so she lowered herself onto the floorboards.

“How’d you convince Donohue to give up his truck?” she asked Gil as he shifted out of neutral.

“It’s a loan. I used the Subaru as collateral. He’ll report this truck stolen if we don’t get it back to him in two weeks.”

“Fair.”

They cruised slowly over the gravel of the parking lot. Ani squeezed her eyes shut, thinking of snipers lurking in bushes and buildings blowing up and Army sergeants slumped in hallways.

Was her life ever going to get back to normal?

“Head south,” said Victor when they hit the pavement of the highway. The truck made a turn. Ani stayed curled up in her uncomfortable hideaway on the floorboards until she felt Gil’s gentle hand on her hair. She looked up and caught his private wink and flash of smile. The relief of seeing Gil be Gil again, and not a suffering patient fighting an unfamiliar virus, brought tears to her eyes.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he murmured back. “Nice to see you. Thanks for saving my life with all that damn tea.”

“Back at you.” She meant the life-saving, not the tea, but he seemed to understand. “Hey, I’ve been thinking,” she added, after settling into a proper position in the passenger seat. “Do you think we’ll ever own the same vehicle for more than a few days?”

They both burst out laughing. The release from the tension of the last few days sent tears streaming down her face. The world righted around her and seemed to glow with sunshine and possibility. Gil was okay. He was no longer at death’s door. She wasn’t going to lose the man who’d become incomprehensibly important to her in such a very short time.

“When you’re done giggling like a couple of hyena, can you give me a quickie update on where you’ve been all this time?” Victor grumbled from the back seat.

Ani and Gil looked at each other again, and burst out laughing again. She wiped the tears off her face. “We were trying to find you, make sure you were okay, and then one thing after another kept happening,” she explained to the scientist. “And now here you are. And more things are happening.”

Gil’s jaw tightened at the reminder.

“Our next move was to go back to Smoky Lake. We thought you might be hiding out there.” Gil frowned over his shoulder at the scientist. “Why aren’t you? What have you gotten yourself into? Who followed you to Carlo Creek?” Before Victor could answer, he flung up a hand. “Biggest question. Is someone trying to weaponize the omegavirus? If so, who?”

The light seemed to drain from the sunny day as those words sank in. Ani stared at Gil, then looked back at Victor. His expression said it all. Gil was right. It explained the diplomatic plates, the military involvement, the secrecy.

Someone wanted to turn the new omegavirus into a biological weapon.

34

That was the thought that Gil had stumbled across in his feverish mental ramblings. This virus wants to kill me. No, it’s just a virus, it has no mind, no motivation, all it wants to do is replicate itself. But what if someone got ahold of it and turned it into a weapon and that entity wanted to kill me?

He’d been trained on the topic of biological warfare. It was always a risk in a foreign nation. He counted himself lucky that he’d never been posted to Cuba, where diplomatic staff members suffered from sonic manipulations that had damaged their hearing. Over twenty years ago, someone had used the postal service in an attempt to spread anthrax. Then there was ricin—a plant-based toxin, easy to use but limited in scope. State actors, non-state actors, cults, and lone wolves were all on the list of potential wielders of bioweapons.

A newly discovered virus able to evade immunity? Surely many people would be highly interested in it.

“I’m handling it. It’s handled. Just stay out of it,” Victor said.

Gil had always seen Victor as an enthusiastic optimist filled with ideas and projects and wild theories. He barely recognized this version of Victor. He looked wild-eyed and even unhinged. “What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”

“I’ve barely stayed one step ahead of them.” Was Victor unable to answer a direct question? “I had to go off the radar completely. I know no one followed me to Carlo Creek. They must have been watching the place already.”

Gil exchanged a glance with Ani. Maybe John had planted another tracker on them. Or maybe the bad guys had followed them from the Reel Inn and waited ever since then. Both options were possible.

“Whoever it is, they seem to think we’re working with you,” Gil told Victor. “We know they planted one tracker, but maybe there was another we didn’t catch.”

“I knew I was taking a risk. But I had to find you guys. Where did you go after you left the Wagon Wheel in Blackbear?”

“Jesus, Victor,” Gil exclaimed as another puzzle piece fell into place. “Are you the one who knocked out Sergeant Thomson?”

“Just a touch of midazolam.” Victor waved a hand in the air. “I wanted you two to get out of there so I could talk to you. But I messed up and had to scramble so I didn’t get caught. Those people were coming after me.”

Gil frowned at that. No one had showed up at the hotel. They’d had to call Dr. Christianson to get help for Sergeant Thomson. Was Victor imagining pursuers even when there weren’t any?

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