Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [63]
Angrily, Ashford said, “Don’t try to make deals with me.”
Then Abernathy hung up the phone.
Ashford blinked.
Who the hell did that woman think she was? He was offering her a way out—a way to survive, even as the rest of the city died around her! How dare she treat him like some kind of common criminal!
He blinked again.
Wasn’t he a common criminal? After all, accessory to murder was a criminal act, and by creating the T-virus, he was one. The law probably would never prosecute him as such—Umbrella paid good money to a lot of lawyers to prevent its higher-ups from ever having to face anything as irrelevant as a consequence—but that didn’t change the facts.
Ashford redialed the number.
Abernathy let it ring five times before picking up.
“We understand each other?”
“There’s a helicopter already being prepped. It takes off in—” Ashford checked the time stamp in the corner of his monitor “—forty-seven minutes. It’ll be the last transport to leave Raccoon City.”
“I take it this helicopter isn’t laid on especially for us?”
Ashford smiled. “No. It has another purpose, but it will be lightly guarded.”
“Where’s the evac site?”
Now Ashford had to draw the line. “First I talk to Angie.”
To Ashford’s relief, this time Abernathy capitulated. She handed the phone to Angie.
“Daddy!”
At the sound of his little girl, alive and well, even sounding vaguely chipper, which was nothing short of miraculous, Charles Ashford felt true joy for the first time in years.
Probably for the first time since Angie’s mother died.
“I’m here,” he said in a quiet voice.
“When can I see you?”
Not soon enough, Ashford thought, but he wanted to be encouraging for his little girl. “It’s okay, baby. These people are going to bring you to me. I’ll see you real soon.”
“I hope so, Daddy. I want you to meet my new friends.”
Ashford shuddered. These were not the kind of people he wanted his daughter befriending.
On the other hand, they were still alive in a city full of the walking dead. How could she not bond with the first living beings she’d seen all day? Especially the ones who were bringing her back to her father?
“Angie, could you please put Ms. Abernathy back on the phone?”
“Okay, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
Abernathy came back on the line. “Well?”
“The helicopter will be at City Hall. I advise you to make haste—you only have forty-three minutes.” He smiled. “You can take heart, though—the traffic should be light.”
“We’ll see you soon, Doctor,” was all Abernathy said in reply.
Then she hung up.
With a goofy grin on his face—a gesture he wouldn’t have believed himself capable of an hour ago—he watched as the five of them walked to the pickup truck that Officer Valentine had liberated earlier.
A minute later, they were on the road, heading up Hudson in the general direction of City Hall. Ashford changed his view from traffic camera to traffic camera as they proceeded.
Then the laptop screen flickered and went dark.
“What the hell—?”
He tapped several keys in rapid succession, but nothing. The connection had gone dead.
But it was a T3 line. Normally, it would be wireless, but the same method being used to jam mobile phones would have scrambled a wireless signal, so all the network connections in the base camp were hardwired.
“Computers,” said a familiar, German-accented voice behind him. “So unreliable. Just like people.”
Cain.
Ashford turned his wheelchair around to find Timothy Cain, given the appallingly inappropriate nickname of “Able,” holding a knife and the cut T3 cable.
“You really thought I didn’t know about your little one-man insurrection?”
“It’s not an insurrection,” Ashford said through gritted teeth. “I just want my daughter back.”
“Your daughter is a casualty. She became one the minute we closed the doors at the bridge. Now, it’s regrettable that your little girl is going to die, Doctor, it truly is. But what’s even more regrettable is that, by doing what you’re doing, you’ve signed your own death warrant as well.”
Ashford found himself chuckling involuntarily at that.