Quarantine by Les Martin

Author:Les Martin [Martin, Les]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0064471896
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1998-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The dead prisoner’s face stared up at Scully. He was still lying in the prison incinerator room with the plastic body bag open. Scully gritted her teeth behind her surgical mask and took another look at the boils on his flesh. Then she bent down to read the label on the body bag.

ROBERT TORRENCE. 001. So Robert Torrence was the first to die, she thought.

Another thought occurred to her. She went over to a pile of plastic bags that contained the possessions of the dead prisoners. These, too, were slated to be burned.

She went through them with her latex-gloved hands until she found one with Robert Torrence’s name on it. Inside were the usual items. A toothbrush. A razor. Soap. A few books. Underwear, socks, shoes. Then she found what she was looking for—something out of the ordinary.

An express delivery package. It was empty, but the name of the delivery service was intact.

Scully pulled out her cell phone. Through information she got the number of the express mail company. She punched it in and gave her FBI badge number to the woman who answered.

“I’m trying to find out who sent a package to Robert Torrence at the Cumberland State Correctional Facility in Virginia,” Scully inquired. “Package ID number DDP112148.”

“Will you hold on the line while I get the information, or should I call you back?” she asked.

“I’ll hold,” Scully said.

As she waited, Scully moved as far away as she could from Bobby Torrence. He may be dead, she thought, but another of those boils could burst at any moment. He was a ticking time bomb—like this whole case, in fact.

Then the woman was back on the phone. “The package in question was sent from Wichita, Kansas,” she said.

“Did you record the name of the sender?” Scully asked.

Scully’s mouth dropped open when she heard the name.

“Would you please double-check that for me?” Scully asked the woman.

The woman confirmed the information.

“Thank you.” Scully pressed the DISCONNECT button, then, without hesitating, hit the automatic speed dial for Mulder’s number.

Mulder was in a car with three federal marshals speeding down the highway when his cell phone started ringing. He had barely managed to get out his own name when he heard Scully’s voice on the other end.

“What do you know about the Pinck Pharmaceutical Company?” Scully asked.

“It’s one of the biggest medicinal drug manufacturers in the country,” Mulder explained, suddenly curious. “Probably the biggest. Why?”

“They sent a package to a prisoner here who may have been the first to die from the outbreak,” Scully informed him.

“Pinck Pharmaceutical did?” asked Mulder. His brow furrowed. “What was in the package?”

“No idea,” Scully said. “It was empty. And nobody around here seems eager to fill in the missing blanks.”

“Scully, from the description we got, one of the escaped prisoners had a large inflamed boil on his face.”

“Sounds like the same thing I’m finding on the victims in here,” Scully said, clearly alarmed. “You know what that means, Mulder?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “This contagion could spread. From inside the prison to outside.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.