Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (3 page)

“Whoa, Tex,” she said. “I said it
could
be, but it’s still not likely. She might just have a bad case of the flu and a nose bleed. But let’s be on the safe side. Put her in a clean room. Strict isolation, okay? Just in case. And let’s turf it to someone who really knows about this stuff—Collins, maybe, or Park. Okay? And don’t spread any Ebola rumors around. I was just thinking out loud.”

“Okay,” he said.

She had almost finished her coffee when Ravenna stuck her head around the corner.

“Incoming SCUD,” she said. “Motor-vehicle accident.”

“My lucky night,” Talia sighed, and she went to scrub up.

* * *

By the time she had the guy stabilized enough for real surgery, her shift was almost up. Which was good, because she was dead on her feet. She was pulling herself together to go when she ran into Randal.

“Get her settled in?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “And you know what? We got another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another blood-sneezer. Old African-American lady. I sent her straight to isolation.”

“Huh,” Talia said, and she frowned. “I don’t know. This is starting to sound like a thing. Have you called around?”

“I’ve kind of had my hands full,” he said.

“I’ll check it out tomorrow,” she said.

She wore her scrubs home, showered, and pulled out a pair of pajamas.

“It’s just us, baby,” she told the pj’s. “We can be together all night.”

She fixed herself a Moscow Mule and just sat for a moment, savoring the slight sting of the ginger beer and lime over the kick of the vodka. She checked the messages on her landline. Some of her friends thought she was a bit out of it for having one, but landlines worked in power outages, and they worked when towers or satellites were down. And here in earthquake-land, that seemed like a good thing.

Also, landlines—hers anyway—didn’t have texting, so she could safely give the number to people from whom she didn’t want to get texts all of the time. Like the people who had left the four messages on her phone. Her father, a guy named Dean she had met last week at a bar called the Choirboy, another guy named Serge who got her number
from, of course, her father. And another one from her father.

Tonight, he counted as two people.

Deleting the messages, she sat back and took a sip. Halfway through her drink she remembered to turn on her cell phone. It had been off all day.

She had a text from St. John, a guy with whom she had done her residency. She hadn’t heard from him in a while—he worked at another hospital in the Bay Area, also in the ER. Curious, she checked the message.

Hey Tal—funny disease today. Hemorrhaging, high fever. Couldn’t diagnose, turfed to ICU. Two cases. U have any? Let’s get a drink sometime.

“Wow,” she said to her pj’s. “It must be a thing.”

As the helicopter descended, Malakai began to think he had made a mistake—perhaps a fatal one. He had been ambushed before, in Rwanda and in South Kivu. In Uganda he’d been led into a trap he’d barely escaped. But this was California, and it was possible that his instincts had grown sleepy.

They were kicking in now, though, big time. What he saw below him didn’t make sense.

It didn’t fit with the public story, either, which meant something was happening that powerful people did not want to be common knowledge. That could very well mean he was entering into a situation he might not as easily walk out of.

He had expected to meet with a few park rangers, some police or National Guard or whoever dealt with these sorts of matters. Instead what he saw was a cluster of prefabricated buildings bearing the symbol of Anvil, a military contractor that he personally knew had been involved in some pretty nasty business around the globe. He knew that because he’d worked for them himself, during the Second Congo War.

Of the four people with him in the helicopter, two of
them had sidearms. He might be able to grab the gun of the nearest, shoot the other, take control of the situation…

Maybe twenty years ago. Maybe even ten.

But not now.

Oh well
, he thought.
We’ll see, I suppose.

The chopper landed, and he wasn’t murdered immediately upon touchdown, so he figured this wasn’t payback of some sort. They wanted something from him, and most likely it was only after they got it—or if he couldn’t provide it—that imminent danger kicked in. Nevertheless, he was on the edge of a forest with which he wasn’t familiar, surrounded by people he did not know.

Everything about it screamed “covert.” Whatever was happening here, only very few people knew about it.

He was escorted into one of the buildings, which had been set up as a spare sort of office. The desk was fairly large, but the only thing on it was a plain manila envelope. Behind it stood a man of middle years. His suit was expensive and tailored. The man escorting Malakai seemed to shrink a little in his presence.

“Mr. Youmans,” the man behind the desk said. “My name is Trumann Phillips.”

He reached out to shake Malakai’s hand. His own hands were soft and smooth, suggesting a man of soft living. But Malakai had dealt with men like this before. The set of his shoulders and the hard glint in his eye suggested some sort of predator. This man was used to getting what he wanted, and probably not squeamish about how he got it. Or from whom.

“Tell me, Mr Youmans,” Phillips began, taking a seat and clasping his hands together. “What have you heard of the situation?”

“What the television tells me,” Malakai said carefully. “It’s all a bit confused—doesn’t really make sense. Some
apes escaped from a laboratory and freed others from a zoo. They had some sort of a fight with policemen on the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of them were killed there, but a few escaped into the Muir Woods.” He spread his hands. “To here, I take it.”

Phillips nodded.

“That’s the bare bones of it,” he said. He unfolded his hands and leaned back in his chair. “You know something about apes, don’t you, Mr. Youmans?” he continued.

“A thing or two, I suppose,” Malakai replied. “But you must know that already, or I wouldn’t be here. I consult for those who study apes in the wild—help track and find them so they can be studied. I work with various rescue groups, as well, and am employed by several zoos.”

“Yes,” Phillips said. “But back in the day you wore other hats. Safari guide, for instance. Mercenary. And you poached mountain gorillas and chimpanzees.”

Malakai shrugged. “If I’d done anything like that, it would have been illegal. So I don’t suppose I did it.”

Phillips eyebrows dipped a little, and Malakai felt the danger lurking there.

“I’m not concerned with the legality of anything you’ve done,” Phillips said. “I’m concerned with your qualifications. And the results you achieve.”

“Mr. Phillips,” Malakai said, softly, “You contacted
me
, sir—not the other way around, so I wonder why this talk of qualifications. Yes, I know how to hunt apes. And yes, I know how to capture them. And I daresay—if it is necessary—that I know how to kill them. If those are the qualifications that concern you, I’m your man.

“If not…” He shrugged again, trying to seem confident while wondering what his “if not” might lead to. A flight back to San Francisco? An unmarked grave in the Muir Woods?

Phillips sat silently for a moment, tapping his finger on the table.

“You signed a confidentiality form before coming in here,” he said.

“I did,” Malakai agreed.

“You understand the penalties involved in breaking that contract?”

“It does not matter,” Malakai said. “Asking for my word would have been sufficient to secure my discretion.”

Phillips gave him a long, hard look in the eye.

Malakai gave it back unflinchingly. A moment of truth was coming, a wind blowing through.

Phillips finally nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “Here’s the job. Lead a team into the woods. Find the apes. Capture them.”

“How many are there? Which species?”

“Chimps, mostly, including some bonobos. A few orangutans and gorillas.”

“They’ll be all over the place, then,” Malakai said. “The different groups won’t stick together. Depending on how many there are, it could take a while.”

“We believe not,” Phillips said. “We believe they keep together as a group.”

Malakai blinked, but didn’t say anything. That didn’t make any sense at all, but then again, neither did anything he knew about the incident on the bridge. He’d half believed the whole thing had been some sort of weird American publicity stunt, staged for a reality show of some sort.

“How many did you say, sir?” Malakai asked. “How many apes all together?”

“It may be as many as several hundred,” Phillips answered.

“That is… a lot,” Malakai said. “You want me to capture a few hundred apes?”

“As many as possible,” Phillips said. “At least one from each species would be nice.” His lips thinned into a smile.

“That’s the job,” he said. “Now, shall we discuss compensation?”

* * *

The compensation was considerable, which didn’t make him feel any easier about the situation. Nevertheless, he accepted the job.

A young man with a nametag that identified him as “Flores” escorted him to his quarters.

“You get the special treatment,” Flores said. “No barracks for you. You get the suite.”

The “suite” was a square prefabricated hut with a sort of entry room, a small bathroom with a sink and toilet, and two bedrooms. It was unoccupied except for his backpack and small suitcase.

“Where is my rifle?” Malakai asked.

“You won’t need it,” Flores said. “We’ll do any shooting that needs to be done. And that reminds me—if you have a phone or anything like that on you, I’ll need to hang on to that for as long as you’re here.”

“May I ask why?”

“I’m just told that this is a very sensitive situation,” Flores said. “No communications allowed except through official channels.”

Frowning, Malakai produced his phone and handed it to the young man. Flores gave him a quick, apologetic pat down, and then seemed satisfied.

“See you at chow,” he said. With that, he left.

A quick look though his things revealed that—as he suspected—they had been searched. His tablet was gone.

He picked the room to the right, moved his things in, and sat on the bed.

Malakai hadn’t smoked a cigarette in five years. Now he wished powerfully that he had one.

* * *

For some reason, the orangutans always heard the helicopters first, and from their disturbed calls Caesar knew that one or more of the flying machines must be approaching again. He quickly worked his way to the top of the canopy, followed by Rocket, a gray, almost hairless chimpanzee who was one of his seconds.

For a moment he could only stare, caught as always by the wonder and magnificence of the woods. The morning fog was all but gone, and the tops of the great trees bent under a gentle breeze. A blue-colored bird with a black crest was complaining noisily about his presence, and, above, a much larger bird drifting above on expansive wings. He remembered the first time Will had brought him here, how the forest seemed to shape itself around him, take him in, fill something inside of him he hadn’t understood was empty.

He shook off the reverie and set himself to the task at hand—keeping his troop alive and safe.

Rocket spotted the helicopter first, and a moment’s observation showed the machine coming straight for them.

Find this many
, he signed to Rocket, holding up six fingers.
Go, and be quick.
Then he raced back down, leaping from tree to tree, toward the main body of his troop. Most were in the middle canopy, and he searched through them, making low calming noises, until he found one the orangutans, Maurice. Maurice knew the hand language that Caesar had been taught.

Calm them
, he told Maurice.
Make them quiet, and lead them in that direction.
He pointed off toward a thicker region of the woods, away from the approaching helicopter.

Then he moved further on down, to those who were too injured to climb or walk well. Most had been hurt in the fight at the bridge, some badly. Most of them did not know the hand signs, although a few of them were learning quickly.

As his feet came to ground, he saw a young female tending to an injured gorilla. She looked up and then bounded toward him. He recognized Cornelia—she wasn’t wounded, but had taken it upon herself to care for those who were. She put her head down and held out her hand when she got near, but only just in time, as if she was reluctant to do it at all. She seemed agitated, but that often seemed the case with Cornelia.

Helicopter coming
, he told her.
That way
.
Stay with Maurice.

She raised her head, a little defiantly.

Moving hurts them more
, she signed, gesturing at the injured.
Need rest
.

Caesar shook his head.

If rest, die
, he told her.
Go. I lead them away
.

Need rest
, Cornelia persisted.

Caesar pant-barked at her, a clear threat. Cornelia’s eyes widened, but then she put her head down, backed away, and went to help the wounded to their feet.

Satisfied, Caesar took back to the trees. Moments later Rocket joined him with three orangutans and three other chimpanzees, one of whom was Koba.

Caesar had found Koba at the Gen Sys labs. The bonobo had been given Will’s mist, as had the apes from the San Bruno refuge. He was smart, and he was tough, and this far had proven very useful. But he was a little unpredictable.

Together, the eight of them rushed toward the upper canopy, straight toward the sound of the flying machine.
He had prepared them for this, just in case, and the seven who accompanied him knew what they would have to do. But the beating of the blades grew louder, and then the shadow fell against the uppermost boughs. Caesar was suddenly fearful that they were too late.

When he reached the top of the tree he saw his worries realized. The machine was already past their position, headed straight toward his troop.