Bloodsport: Z Sisters: Book 1 Read online

  The nicknames sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Yeah, you can Google it, some bystander filmed the whole thing and uploaded it.”

  Because of course they did.

  “Turned out he’d taken this designer shit they called ‘bath salts’ and had a really bad reaction to it.”

  “Somebody high on a designer drug caused a riot?”

  “That’s the story they’re telling,” he said. “Not really a domestic terrorist at all, just a druggie on a rampage.”

  I lowered my voice. “They’re really trying to sell that bullshit?” I said. “How many people do you think were in the street? A couple hundred?”

  “Look around Rose,’ he said. “You see those guys in the cheap suits?”

  That could pretty much describe any of the guys in the bullpen. Pay at my grade is sixty thousand and change a year, which would be a great wage if I was living in a small town in Texas. But if you look at a cost of living chart with a hundred being the national average for say, housing, the number for Burbank is a 277. Nobody in BPD is wearing bespoke suits.

  “…doctors,” Emmet said.

  “Doctors what?” I said because I hadn’t been listening.

  “They say they’re from the CDC, but they don’t look like doctors.”

  I took another look at the guys in the cheap suits. They were all fit with military-style haircuts and a look about them that said, “Do not fuck with us.”

  “Maybe they’re an elite unit of doctors,” I said, but my curiosity was piqued.

  “Here’s another thing to consider,” he said. “Apparently there have been a couple of these attacks. Not just in California.”

  “I didn’t see anything about that on the news,” I said.

  “And you won’t,” he said darkly, then pointed to a woman in a trim navy pantsuit, who was talking to one of the guys who was supposedly from the CDC. “She’s from Homeland Security. She’s in charge.”

  She looked like it. She had an Angela Merkel slash Judi Dench as M thing going on, small, sturdy and scarily competent looking.

  After the chief and the guy from the National Guard briefed the press, reassuring the public that all was well, everyone gathered in the largest room in the station to get our own briefing.

  The woman in the pantsuit took the floor without introducing herself.

  “Good afternoon,” she said. “This is what we know so far. At approximately 11:50 a.m. today, a man walked into the Emergency Room at St. Joseph’s hospital, complaining of stomach pains and severe headaches. While a nurse was taking his vitals, he attacked her, literally pulling off her face.”

  I saw one of the young uniformed cops swallow hard.

  “Three hospital employees pulled the man off the woman, but at approximately 12:17, in what we believe was a pre-arranged attack, a group of nineteen men entered the E.R. and conducted a murderous rampage that left six people dead at the scene.”

  I really hoped David wasn’t one of those people and said a silent prayer for the loved ones of the victims. What a senseless way to die.

  “When patients and employees attempted to flee, they were met by other individuals who were apparently working in concert with the men who had invaded the E.R. and had staged themselves outside the perimeter.”

  “Was it just men?” Sarah Gilardi asked.

  The Homeland Security agent flicked a look at Sarah. “Please hold your questions until the end.”

  Sarah, who’s not a shrinking violet and who is always looking for a chance to man bash since her nasty divorce, looked like she might want to object, but held her tongue.

  “We believe there were as many as two hundred and fifty individuals who coordinated the attack on the street outside the hospital.”

  She went on to run the numbers for us. Twelve dead inside the E.R., at least nineteen dead in the street, and more than a hundred wounded who had been transported to every hospital within a thirty-mile radius.

  “We believe the individual who first touched off this incident was under the influence of synthetic cathinones, also known as ‘Bath Salts,’” the woman continued.

  “Bullshit,” Emmet muttered, not quite quietly enough.

  :Problem detective?” the Homeland Security agent asked.

  Emmet waved her off. He was really troubled by something and not just acting out of his usual us vs. them paranoia.

  I had to agree with him. I’d seen what that crowd outside the hospital had been like. They all couldn’t have been high on bath salts.

  The agent dismissed Emmet with a glance and then turned to the cluster of guys in cheap suits.

  Shouldn’t there be some women if these teams are from the CDC? I wondered. But the agent was still talking. “We’ll be setting up a vaccination station in the chief’s office,” she said and looked directly at Emmet. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  She stepped away and Sarah called out, “Do you have the names of the victims yet?”

  The Homeland Security Agent looked at Sarah like an exterminator might look at a roach. “We’re compiling a list.”

  She nodded to one of the guys in a suit. He was holding a tablet in his hand. “We’ll do this in alphabetical order,” he said. “Apkarion, Richard.”

  “Yo,” Dick Apkarion said.

  “Follow me,” the guy with the tablet said.

  Dick obediently followed him out of the room as the rest of us milled around

  Sarah, though, wasn’t about to let the Homeland Security Agent go without asking some more questions.

  “Since when does the CDC have a militarized rapid response team?” she asked.

  The Agent ignored her.

  “Hey,” Sarah said, and put her hand on the woman’s arm. The agent reacted like a coiled rattlesnake and two seconds later, she had Sarah in a submission hold and was whispering something in her ear.

  Emmet and I looked at each other.

  “Becares, Oscar,” the guy with the tablet called out as the agent released Sarah.

  I figured it would take them a while to get around to the Zs, so I dug out my phone to try calling my father again.

  Suddenly one of the supposed CDC guys showed up at my elbow. “No calls,” he said, literally taking the phone out of my hand and closing it.

  I looked up into a serious face. This is not a doctor, I thought, unless he’s a superhero whose secret identity is “bad ass doctor.”

  “Who says?” I asked, and it didn’t come out nicely. I have a problem with authority, especially when I’m scared. Like a fear aggressive dog.

  “Above your pay grade,” he said. Then he added, with what sounded like total sincerity, “I’m sorry.”

  I was actually struck silent, and anyone who knows me knows that doesn’t happen very often. Then the guy walked away with my phone and dumped it in a box on a desk that already contained a couple dozen other phones.

  What the hell is going on?

  “You wanted to know what you missed,” Emmet growled. “That.”

  Chapter Five

  About ninety minutes later, I was finally called in for my shot. The guy administering the jabs was the guy I’d found searching my locker.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” he said in a lame attempt at humor.

  He looked exhausted, and that seemed weird. I wondered if he’d been on the streets during the riot because searching a few lockers and administering a hundred or so shots might be boring, but it shouldn’t take it out of you. but then I realized that it wasn’t exhaustion I saw in his face. This guy looked…haunted.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if surprised, his blue eyes appraising, then his mask snapped back into place.

  “Zelnick, Rose?” he said.

  “You know that’s my name,” I said.

  “For the record, he said. “Please confirm.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why were you answering the phones in the station this afternoon?”

  “Why did you ha
ng up on me?”

  “I don’t like dealing with storm troopers,” I said.

  “Fair enough,” he said and motioned me to a chair with a little swing away arm on the right side. It looked something like the desk/chair combos in my old high school.

  “I’m right-handed,” I said. “I don’t want a shot in my right arm.”

  “Okay,” the said and looked at me again. Really looked at me.

  His eyes were so blue I wondered if he was wearing colored contacts. Do guys do that? I wondered.

  Why do you care? I thought.

  “You’ll never make the bath salts story stick,” I said.

  “You don’t think so?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “In my experience, people prefer an explanation that fits their narrative to one that breaks their paradigm.”

  “Break my paradigm,” I said. “I’ll always choose the red pill.”

  Because when all else fails, there are always movie quotes.

  He flashed me an unexpected grin. “I loved that movie,” he said. And then he frowned, puzzled. As if he hadn’t meant to say anything personal.

  As he gloved up and I took off my suit jacket, I said “What’s in the shot?”

  “Wide-spectrum antibiotic,” he said, “plus a tetanus booster. Roll up your sleeve, please.”

  His answer sounded like total b.s. to me.

  He tore open a foil packet and took out an alcohol pad and swabbed my arm with it, his fingers holding my arm, gently but firmly.

  “My shots are up to date,” I said. “None of the rioters even touched me. I don’t need a booster.”

  He looked somewhat surprised by my objection.

  “This is for a mutant variation of tetanus,” he said. “Patient zero tested positive for it.”

  Now I knew he was feeding me a load. No one can do blood tests that fast.

  “No,” I said, jerking my arm out of his grip.

  “No?” he repeated. “No what?”

  I put my suit jacket back on. “No, that’s not what’s in the shot. And no, I do not give my consent to this procedure.”

  “This is not optional Rose.”

  I was still processing that when he launched himself at me, giving me no warning and taking me down hard. I’d studied Gracie Jiu-Jitsu after taking their Women Empowered Self Defense program when I was in high school. I can handle myself against an ordinary assailant and have twice disarmed street thugs bent on doing me serious damage with a blade.

  But this guy countered every move I made and then ended it by simply banging my head against the floor hard enough to daze me and then pinning me down with his weight.

  “Bastard,” I said trying to throw him off.

  “Hold still,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you any worse than I already have.”

  And the next thing I knew, he’d jammed a jetgun injector against my bare arm.

  “Ow,” I said.

  “I can give you a lollipop if you want.”

  I almost laughed. Almost.

  “Are you seriously bantering with me?”

  “I promise you, what’s in the shot won’t hurt you and it might save your life.”

  I could see a drop of blood welling out of the injection site. The skin there looked swollen, as if I’d been bitten by a mosquito.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “And if you say that’s ‘need to know’ I will shoot you.”

  “My name’s Mac,” he said. “But the rest is classified.”

  His blue eyes bored into me and I felt heat flash through me.

  Really Rose? Really?

  “It itches,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and sounded like he really meant it.

  Right then Emmet appeared in the doorway. “You done here Rose?” he asked.

  “I’m done,” I said, giving “Mac” a last look.

  To his credit, he looked a little ashamed.

  “Take care Rose,” he said.

  Emmet pulled me out of the office into the hallway. “What was that about?” he said. “I could practically see the pheromones in the air.”

  I gave him a look, more surprised that he even knew the word “pheromone” than that he was commenting on what he thought he’d seen.

  “Let’s go,” he said with a scowl.

  “I want my phone back,” I said. “I just changed plans.”

  “You’re not getting the phone back,” he said. “Pantsuit Nation had one of her boys take the phones out to her car and dump them in the trunk.”

  “So now what?” I said, “we’re supposed to just go back to work like everything’s okay?”

  “That’s evidently the plan,” he said.

  ‘You know there’s got to be phone video of the riot hitting the internet even as we speak.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There were hundreds of people on the street,” I said. “They can’t confiscate all their phones.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t go all Illuminati on me Emmet.”

  “This is more like Deep State,” Rose. This comes from the top. Way up at the top.”

  “Above our pay grade,” I said, thinking of the guy who’d grabbed my phone and who I’m pretty sure wasn’t with the CDC.

  “They probably roofied us with those shots,” he said. “This time tomorrow none of us will even remember this.”

  Even for Emmet, that was pretty paranoid. But I was feeling paranoid too.

  “I can’t get in touch with my dad,” I said.

  “He’ll turn up,” he said. “I’ve got a burner phone in the car if you want to try calling him.”

  I looked back at the knot of strangers in the station. Mac was staring at me as if trying to lip read my conversation.

  “No, I’m headed out there now,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  We’d been told that all the perpetrators had been rounded up, but I did not have want to be on the streets of Burbank tonight—not with people who were capable of ripping faces off.

  Chapter Six

  I arrived at my dad’s to find Kaz had cooked dinner. Vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread. I didn’t see any kale salad, but I suppose she was saving that for dessert.

  Kaz always cooks when she’s upset. From the looks of the kitchen, she’d been at it a while. There was probably a plate of vegan cupcakes chilling in the fridge.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been calling and calling and just getting your voice mail.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “Is there any beer in the fridge?”

  “No,” she said. “I checked.

  “Maybe dad went out on a beer run,” I said. And ran into a friend and lost track of time.

  “Lyle’s not answering his phone either,” she said.

  “That might not be his fault,” I said. “A bunch of Feds are swarming around Burbank, confiscating phones and generally throwing their weight around. I wouldn’t put it past them to have some kind of jamming device in place.”

  “Feds?”

  “Yeah, Homeland Security and some guys who say they’re CDC who look more like military contractors.”

  “So, it was a terrorist attack,” she said.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “They’re saying one guy went crazy in the E.R. and then a bunch of other guys stormed in and herded everyone out into the street where other people were waiting to attack them.”

  “That sounds like that attack in France, the one where they killed the people in the theater and everyone who ran out.”

  ‘Yeah,” I said, “but that still doesn’t explain the face eating.”

  “You told that guy on the phone they were running around like a bunch of zombies.”

  Mac’s face flashed before my eyes, and I felt an aftershock of that weird sense of connection I’d had.

  I shook off the sensation.

  “That’s what it looked like to me,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call back. The Feds t
ook my phone.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “Apparently, they can.”

  We ate our dinner in front of the television, switching from channel to channel in hopes of getting some information about what had happened. One local channel reported that a patient in the St. Joe’s E.R. had attacked and killed three hospital employees before being killed by an off-duty cop.

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “Which part?” Kaz asked.

  “All of it.”

  I told her what the Homeland Security Agent had told us.

  “If it’s a terrorist attack, who do they think it is?” she said. “ISIS or a domestic terrorism thing?”

  “Domestic terrorists are usually lone wolves,” I said, “Timothy McVeigh types or someone like the guy who shot up the waffle house a few months ago. If the woman from Homeland Security was right, this was a coordinated attack involving multiple operatives. And that’s not an easy thing to coordinate.”

  “There’s nothing like that on the news.”

  She was right. Everyone seemed to be leading with the latest crisis out of Washington D.C. where another political scandal was heating up.

  I had a sudden thought.

  “Did you take any pictures? When it first started?”

  Kaz doesn’t go anywhere without her phone. It occurred to me that she might have been playing with it while she waited for Lyle to return from his meeting.

  Her face fell. “No, I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. “Somebody got a picture,” I said. “A couple hundred face-chewing people don’t just show up like a flash mob without someone noticing. They had to get there, and I doubt they came by bus.”

  There are security cameras all over the city and you never know what’s going to show up on them. When SpaceX launched from Vandenberg in December of 2017, a traffic camera caught it.

  Unless the Feds were going door-to-door pulling down cameras, somewhere, someone got a look at events that would contradict the official story.

  After dinner I pulled up my laptop and started typing in keywords. I started with “bath salts” but all that did was pull up advertisements for aromatherapy products and old news stories about the “Miami Zombie,” who turned out not to have had bath salts in his system at all. Since the man was dead, no one would ever know why he suddenly went after the homeless man he left maimed.