Benny explained about the pack of brightly colored balloons he’d found in the reaper’s quad. “Can’t figure why he’d have them, though.”
“Everyone’s a scavenger these days,” observed Joe. “Maybe he knew some kids and thought they might like them.”
That thought didn’t make Benny feel any better. Kids waiting for the reaper to return with a present for them.
He sighed and busied himself with trying to adjust the straps. Seats requiring buckles were as far outside Benny’s experience as helicopters were. However, he couldn’t tell if the hammering of his heart was because of the thought of actually flying—particularly in a machine that was as extinct to his experience as the dinosaurs—or because of the confrontation he’d just had with Colonel Reid. He suspected that it was both in roughly equal measures.
Nix sat next to him, her small hand in his, fingers entwined, skin icy cold. Lilah sat across from him, and her thoughts were clearly directed inward. Shutters had dropped behind her eyes.
Joe slid the door shut, squatted down, and shouted over the whine of the engine. “We used to have an expression: ‘This just got real.’ Well, that’s where we are. We’re stealing government equipment, and we have no friends here at Sanctuary except a bunch of monks.”
“Is that meant as a pep talk?” asked Benny.
“Just stating the facts.”
“Thanks,” said Nix, “but I’m pretty sure we’re already scared enough as it is.”
Joe grinned.
“Do we even know where we’re going?”
“We do.” Joe removed a big map from his pocket and spread it out on the floor and tapped a spot with a forefinger. “Right here.”
Nix leaned in and read the words printed on the map. “Death Valley National Park. Oh, isn’t that wonderful.”
“?‘Death’ Valley?” asked Benny. “Seriously? Death Valley?”
“That’s the DVNP on the note we found,” observed Nix. “It fits.”
“I get that, but really . . . Death Valley?”
“I think we all appreciate the irony,” said Nix.
“Not sure you do,” said Benny. He reached out with the toe of his shoe and tapped another spot. “Does that actually say the ‘Funeral Mountains’?”
“Don’t let it spook you, kid,” said Joe. “Those names were given long before the dead rose.”
“That’s actually not a comfort,” said Benny, and Nix nodded agreement.
“We’re heading to a spot called Zabriskie Point on the eastern side of Death Valley, south of Furnace Creek. It’s in the badlands. . . .”
“Oh, ‘badlands.’ Also very comforting.”
Joe said, “Look, if we pool all of what we know, we come up with a picture that’s a little grim and a little hopeful. I think we can safely deduce that Dr. McReady was not on the C-130 when it crashed. It seems clear that the plane stopped at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon, where I believe Doc McReady and Field Team Five deplaned and took alternate transport to Death Valley.”
“Why did Dr. McReady stop at the base in Oregon?” asked Lilah. “What’s there?”
“Ah, well,” said Joe diffidently. “One of our dirty little secrets. Even though that base had been officially decommissioned, it was actually still in operation at the time of the outbreak.”
“You mean there were still chemical weapons there?” Benny asked.
“Were,” agreed Joe, “and are. Chemical and biological weapons, agents, compounds, and ingredients. It was all stockp
iled there. The decommissioning process was a smoke screen. The government was making a show of complying with the Chemical Weapons Convention, an arms control agreement that outlawed the production, stockpiling, and use of all chemical weapons. The international agreement was administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in the Netherlands.”
“But we kept the weapons?”
Joe looked pained. “There are a lot of skeletons in the closet, kids.”