No Immunity

questions she needed answered. Was the drug going to save the boys, or save the navy’s experiment? Would the boys be cured or would it kill them—and the evidence of Louisa’s connection be buried? Already the roar of the engine was louder, closer. There was no time.... “The boys have had this fever for days. Ten more minutes won’t matter. We wait till it’s safe.” Louisa wheeled toward her. “That’s crazy. This drug’s their best shot.”
    “We need to deal with the guy on our tail.”
    “But I could be—”
    “A spy? A pawn? What’s the right word, Louisa?” She was standing inches from the woman, shouting. “You’ve got a designer drug. The navy’s researchers are the only ones who know what to design against.”
    “I couldn’t—”
    “You’re still tight enough with them to have a pass into the park. You knew what they were doing there. Did you send Grady and the boys there just to spite Grady?”
    Louisa jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “No! The experiments were different when I was up there. I never suspected... till it was too late.” She swallowed hard. “But no one will ever believe me.”
    “Yeah, right,” Kiernan snapped. “That’s real hard to believe when you’re leading Fox here. Why didn’t you just offer him the backseat of your car and save him the trouble of driving?”
    “I-“
    Brakes squealed; the engine snored like a winter bear, paused, then grumbled forward. It made the turn in the driveway.
    Louisa turned toward the driveway, her face taut with panic.
    “What are you worried about? Your buddies will be here in a minute to back you up,” Kiernan said. “Unless even you are frightened of them.”
    Louisa didn’t answer.
    “Maybe it’s worth more than two dispensable kids to test their ‘best shot’ drug. Is that it, Louisa?”
    “Hurry.” Connie raced across the gravelly ground and disappeared into what looked like a pile of rotten timbers.
    The truck was already in the driveway. No time to get to Connie. Kiernan raced back into the car barn, Louisa on her heels.
    The driveway was ten feet away, visible between the boards. The wind hummed through the decaying wood, pricking at Kiernan’s skin, its deep tone contrasting with Louisa’s nervous huffs of breath. She was shivering so violently that even clasping her arms to her chest had no effect. She peered through the boards, through the falling snow, for the first sighting of Fox.
    But it was Reston Adcock’s pickup truck that screeched to a halt. He leaped to the ground, gun in hand. “Get out here, both of you!”
    Louisa gasped. Her fingers went to the wound on her face; she started to move. Kiernan grabbed her arm. “He’s looking around. He doesn’t know where we are. He’ll head for the house first.”
    “He’s desperate. His hired thug has already attacked me. He’s already killed Grady, what do you think he’ll do to the boys after he’s used them up?”
    Or before, Kiernan thought. When Adcock realized the boys couldn’t tell him where the oil was, he’d leave them here in the snow without a thought. But kill Grady? That was the last thing Adcock would have done, not when Grady was the only lead to the oil and the boys. Grady knew Adcock better than any of them. He would have let him in, offered him a seat, and waited to hear if he could top Nihonco’s offer. If he’d been too feverish? Adcock would have scooped him up and raced to a hospital. What’s a little biological danger compared with millions of dollars? Through the cracks she could see Adcock edging his way toward the house, gun poised, eyes wild. In the silence she heard a rumble in the sky like thunder. “Wait till he’s inside. We’ll have a little time to make our move.”
    “Move to what? From one pile of timber to another?”
    “Shhh.”
    “No! Are the boys in the house? Is he going to find them?”
    Kiernan shook her shoulder hard. “Quiet! Of course they’re not in the house. Do you think Connie’s an idiot?”
    “Well, then where? If something happens to you and I can’t find them—”
    Adcock yelled, “I’m not after you girls, I just need those kids. Give me the boys and I’m gone.”
    He stopped halfway to the house. The whitening ground of the courtyard was in front of him, the pile Connie had disappeared into ten feet behind him.
    Snow coated Adcock’s shoulder as he looked from the house to the shed to the mine building and the car bam. Frustration and fury creased his