The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1) (18 page)

Soon August was in full swing and one day came
the worst day of my life. I woke up that morning and realized that in less than
a week, Ava would have to return to college, and I needed to make something
happen regarding our relationship. Either I cut her loose or find a way that we
could be together.

I was getting ready for work when I heard a
knock on the cabin door. My heart skipped a beat—maybe Ava came to say good
morning to me before she had to head off to work. When I opened the door, my
heart fell right out of my chest. Standing in the doorway, dressed in his
perfectly ironed, black Armani suit, was Agent Harper. His blonde hair was
cropped perfectly, and he was wearing black Versace sunglasses. “Agent Hill,
the day has come. The CBB is in desperate need of your help.”

He plowed right through the door into the cabin
before I could say anything in response. I noticed a few Upper Dells guides
peering out of their cabins across the way with strange looks on their faces. I
shut the door quickly and then pulled the blinds down over the front window.
When I turned around, Agent Harper looked bothered.

“Sorry, kid, this place is disgusting. I guess
you’ll be happy when the day is done. We’ll soon apprehend the Carrier, and
you’ll get to move back into your apartment in Chicago.” He picked up a dirty
sock from the couch and threw it on the floor. Then he carefully took a seat.

My knees lost their hold, and I involuntarily
slid onto the bed.

Today?
No.
No!

My insides were twisting. I had been pushing
this out of my mind for the last few weeks. I was not ready for this.
Poor Ava.
I hadn’t prepared her at all for the end of our
relationship. What was I thinking by avoiding the topic?

“Agent Hill, are you feeling alright? You look
pale. Do you need to grab a bite to eat before I give you the protocol?”

My gaze moved up from the floor to Agent
Harper’s face. Eating was the last thing I should be doing. I managed to reply,
“No, sir. I’ll be alright. Please continue.”

“Fine.
Today’s mission is two-fold. Part one is to locate and destroy the space object
that is emitting dangerous radiation. Your work has narrowed it down
considerably.”

What? But I haven’t shared that info with the
CBB.

“We’ve just about locked in our coordinates.
Our techs have discovered that we must carry out this mission before the sun
sets at nine o’clock tonight.

“Our scientists have been building computer
models to project the nuclear decay in similar parent isotopes, considering
physical and chemical conditions that may have occurred at different time
periods—I know, next generation stuff, right?—and they have come to the
conclusion with much certainty that the item is at risk to blow up. What’s
more, our research has finally pointed to today’s date, indicating that the
meteor will likely detonate not unlike a nuclear bomb. If we allow this to
happen, not only all of Wisconsin but much of the Midwest will be destroyed.
Mass panic and chaos will likely ensue. Blackouts, fires, raids, and terror of
all kinds will strike the people of this area who were not blasted to char.”

If this dangerous object was somewhere in the
neighborhood, as I suspected, and I didn’t assist in destroying this object,
there would be little chance that Ava and I would survive anyway. “Sounds like
an important mission. What is part two?” I asked, trying to hide my nerves.

“Part two involves us bringing down the citizen
who has harbored this object and willingly endangered the citizens of Wisconsin
and of the United States. The Carrier has been exposed to this object for
possibly the past twenty years. As I’m sure you’ve read in the reports, our
geneticists have determined that the specific type of radiation from this rock
negatively affects human DNA and brain activity. It slowly mutates the neurons
that control brain activity, specifically in the hypothalamus and
amygdala
. As I am sure you know, Agent Hill, these areas
control emotions, memory, and fear. Intense aggressive and fierce violent
tendencies increase two-fold through each generation of genes exposed to the
radiation. If the object has been passed down as an heirloom, as we suspect,
then the current Carrier is now the fourth generation vulnerable to this
dangerous object.

“It has taken CBB ten years to learn enough
about this type of radiation, as it is very rare. What’s more, our scientists
and research team have discovered that the radiation enters the body and then
lays dormant for almost twenty years. The victims don’t even know that their
DNA is under attack. After those twenty years, the mutated genes become
actively aggressive and quickly take over the brain. At that point, there will
be no stopping this monster. The Carrier must be destroyed upon discovery.”

This was all very odd. I couldn’t believe he
was actually telling me the truth, but suddenly my mind raced back to that
first night I was inside Ava’s house, and I followed her up to her bedroom. I
had noticed something strange sitting on the bookshelf by the door. An odd,
bluish rock sat under a glass dome and was obviously on display.

I heard Hayward’s voice in my head: “A blue
rock fell from the sky.”

Could she possibly be?

Agent Harper knew I had realized the secret.
“Yes, Agent Hill. Ava Gardner is the Carrier, and we believe her family is
involved as well.”

My mouth dropped open, but I had no voice. I
bent over for my stomach to retch, but nothing came up. I fell to my knees and
gasped for breath. This couldn’t be happening.

My Ava.
My sweet, sweet Ava.
There was no way she was the Carrier.

“But how?”
I
muttered.

Agent Harper rose from the couch and pulled me
up from the ground fiercely by the arm. “Get up!” he yelled, suddenly angry.
“You’ve been bugged—your
cabin, your car, your ticket booth,
even
your damn shoes! We know exactly where you’ve been and who you’ve
talked to. We’ve downloaded every text, every call, and every app you’ve run on
your phone. We’ve been following you all summer, Agent Hill. We know you have a
relationship with this woman.
You
helped us into that house.
You
got the family history we needed. It was so perfect I couldn’t have planned it
better.”

I stared at him through raging eyes. 

“If you’d like to stay with the agency, it
needs to be you who
kills
her. I told you that you would
be very
integral
in carrying out the CBB’s objectives.
You will get her alone and do the job quickly and quietly.”

“NO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was
suddenly angry at myself. I had let my feelings get in the way of my work and
now I was in a dreadful situation.

“She doesn’t have to die!” There had to be a
logical solution. “We can take her to CBB. The geniuses over there can fix her
up.” I pleaded with Agent Harper. “She won’t be twenty for two more weeks...”

Agent Harper cut me off. “No, Agent Hill, Miss
Gardner is not a project to be fixed. We cannot put tens of thousands of people
at risk just so your pretty little lover can become a genetic experiment. She
is a federal criminal!”

“Absolutely not!”
I
tried to control my breathing. “I am confident that Ava has no idea the
implications of this rock. She just thinks it’s pretty.”

Agent Harper laughed maniacally. “Oh, Agent
Hill, you are so naive. Ava Gardner and her family know exactly what they are
doing. She and her family need to be destroyed.”

That couldn’t be true. I spent the entire
summer with her. She gave me no reason to believe she was a hardened criminal.
The thought was preposterous!

“I won’t do it!” I screamed from deep within
me. I turned to grab my keys off the side table. I was going to find Ava and
then get the hell out of here, but Agent Harper slapped my cheek hard and then
grabbed my neck, pushing me up against the wall. Everything on the table came
crashing down.

He got within inches of my nose and said in a
threatening but steady voice, “You
will
go sell tour tickets today.” He
paused and then continued. “You
will
act normal. You
will
convince Ms. Gardner to come to your cabin tonight. And as other agents are
securing the meteor, you
will
destroy the Carrier. If you don’t, I will
personally exterminate you
and
your disgusting little criminal
girlfriend. Got it, kid?”

I wanted to wipe his spit from my face, but my
arms were pinned down. His eyes stared deeply into mine, and I felt a fire
radiate from behind them. Then he shook his head, let go of my shirt, and, as I
dropped to the floor, his voice changed to a lighter tone. “Oh, and I’m rooting
for you to be successful tonight because I actually like you. Should you
complete this mission, the head of the CBB has given me permission to shower
you handsomely with expensive toys and promote you to be my successor in
training. Good luck.” 

Then Agent Harper bolted out of the room and
let the door slam on the way out. I heard his car’s engine fire to life, followed
by the crunch of gravel as he left, and then I broke down and sobbed right
there on the cabin floor.

What the hell was I going to do? How could I
get Ava out of this?

I panicked for almost ten minutes before I told
myself I had to get up, be a man, and figure out a plausible way to save Ava’s
life. Harper had bugged the ticket booths, my cabin, my car, and even Ava’s
boat. I’d be tailed to work and watched carefully. There was no way I could
alert Ava to any of this.

I finally drove downtown to the Dairy Queen
booth
, pretending I had business there. I had one thought, a
shot in the dark that might be able to get Ava out of this mess, so I made a
quick stop on the way to work to meet with my only chance to save us.

When I arrived at the docks I felt the most
horrible feeling. For the first time in my life I dreaded seeing Ava. She came
up to visit me after her first trip of the day. I searched her sweet face.
There was no way she could be intentionally keeping a dangerous space orb in
her house.

Ava took one look at me and knew something was
wrong. “Hey, honey, are you okay?” She came close to me and then put her hands
around my waist.

Be careful. Don’t alarm her.

I kissed her forehead quickly and then pulled
away. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bring myself to smell the coconut
scent in her hair when it could be the last time I ever did so.

I tried to act normally so Harper wouldn’t know
I was up to something. “When are you off tonight?” I asked Ava, but my voice
came out all wrong.

Oh, God, I wish I could tell her.

While her shaky voice told me she had the early
shift today, she grabbed my hand with a hard squeeze. I could see she was in
pain, and it was killing me.

Maybe I could whisper. I could tell her to
sneak out of work and go somewhere, anywhere. I slowly moved in for a hug and
whispered in her ear, but as I did, a semi blew by the booth, its large engine
covering up my whisper. A middle-aged couple with some loud kids walked up to
the booth, so I quickly pulled away from Ava.

Dammit
!

When the family left I tried another tactic.
“Can you come over to the cabin when you are done with work? I’ve
got...something planned.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I could
tell she was not buying it. I was seeing the pain grow in her face. It was
agonizing that I couldn’t comfort her at that moment. Then I kissed her
forehead again and went back to fake work selling tickets.

The day was absolute hell. I spent the entire
shift in a haze trying to orchestrate ways to get us out of the mess. Every
time Ava came up to see me, I felt more and more sick, but luckily for me,
perhaps, I was swamped with customers, and we didn’t get to talk much at all. I
suspected the unending crowds were somehow a stunt planned by Harper.

My shift ended when Ava was out on her last
tour with Jack. I grabbed a handful of twenties and then threw all the rest of
the money and ticket stubs in a drawer under the counter. This was definitely
my last day at the boats and perhaps my last day alive, but in case we did escape,
we might need a few bucks to get by on before we could establish ourselves
somewhere.

I sprinted out to my Audi in the small parking
lot near Lower Two. There were no suits that I could see, but when I pulled out
of the lot I noticed a dark black Audi with tinted windows pull out after me.

Crap
!

I punched the accelerator and heard the engine
roar in response. I tried to lose them on the way home, but they had been
trained the same way I had been. There was no getting around them.

Brakes screeching, my car slid into the spot in
front of my cabin, sending gravel flying everywhere. I flew out of the car and
rushed through the cabin door. Locking it behind me, I wedged a chair under the
doorknob while I madly gathered a few essentials we could take with us. We
needed to get the hell out of Wisconsin as fast as we could. I would deal with
her genetic disorder later.