Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2) Read online

  ALSO BY FERNANDO GAMBOA

  Captain Riley

  The Last Crypt

  Black City

  Guinea

  No Man’s Land

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Fernando Gamboa

  Translation copyright © 2017 Alex Woodend

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Tinieblas: Las aventuras del Capitán Riley, Libro n º 2 by Fernando Gamboa and Kindle Direct Publishing in 2014 in Spain. Translated from Spanish by Alex Woodend. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503936003

  ISBN-10: 1503936007

  Cover design by Mecob Design Ltd

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  Death

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Commander Fleming

  8

  9

  Godfrey

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  Mission

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  The Deal

  River Diary DAY ONE

  River Diary DAY TWO

  Stuck

  River Diary DAY THREE

  Snitch

  River Diary DAY FOUR

  Charlotte

  River Diary DAY FIVE

  River Diary DAY SIX

  Blanchard

  River Diary DAY SEVEN

  River Diary DAY EIGHT

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  Puppeteers

  Sabotage

  Life

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Hell is empty

  And all the devils are here.

  —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  Death

  The military control point occupied the end of Twelfth Street NW, just before it intersected with Constitution Avenue. The federal buildings on either side of the street acted as the gate to the National Mall, with barbed wire stretched between them. A pair of M3 tanks and several dozen National Guard soldiers armed with Thompson submachine guns and bulky gas masks stood guard.

  More than a thousand men, women, and children waited patiently in line at the gatehouse for access to the restricted area. Volunteer nurses checked the sclera color of every last one. If the whites of a person’s eyes showed any sign of ruptured blood vessels, they were automatically brought to one of the military doctors for a more comprehensive exam. A positive result landed the person in the quarantine zone, probably never to be heard from again.

  When the line in front of Alexander Riley dwindled, the captain of the Pingarrón took the hand of Carmen Debagh and sighed deeply. A southeast wind carried a putrid cloud of smoke and ash across the Potomac, covering the entire city with the smell of burnt flesh. “Come on! Don’t stop!” urged a sergeant, his voice muffled behind his mask. A nurse waved them forward.

  Alex went first, showing the sergeant his identification from the Office of Naval Intelligence, which gave him permission to be there, then faced the nurse. With a gesture she’d repeated a thousand times, the woman lifted Riley’s chin with a gloved hand while shining a penlight into his eyes with the other.

  Beyond the glass of the nurse’s gas mask, Riley saw the face of a young woman far more exhausted than she should appear at her age.

  “Clear,” she said curtly and tilted her head, signaling for Alex to go on so she could examine Carmen.

  Carmen, a woman from Tangier, took Riley’s place before the nurse. Just as the nurse readied her penlight, a fuss broke out in the line that stretched along the street, causing everyone to turn and look.

  About one hundred yards back, two men were locked in a loud shouting match. Suddenly, one of them took out a revolver and shot the other at close range, starting a stampede of terrified citizens running for safety in every direction. A squad of soldiers left their positions behind the safety of sandbags and ran over, weapons raised.

  “Second shot of the day,” the nurse said, shaking her head dejectedly. “This country is going to hell . . . ,” she concluded, turning back to Carmen.

  “We’ll make it out of this,” the Tangerine said with aplomb. “Soon.”

  Behind the mask, wrinkles at the corners of the nurse’s eyes revealed the hint of a smile, and she waved Carmen forward without bothering to examine her. Maybe because she’d forgotten she hadn’t already done so, maybe because what really mattered was to monitor people leaving the quarantine zone, not those entering it.

  Once past the checkpoint, they walked the few dozen yards leading to the National Mall. Just three months prior, when they’d first arrived in the United States, Riley had shown Carmen the Lincoln Memorial and the impressive Smithsonian while a fine coating of snow fell lazily on the capital.

  Now, from the Capitol grounds to the banks of the Potomac, the Mall was a massive field hospital with hundreds of army tents arranged neatly to accommodate the thousands who were confined in the quarantine zone.

  Not unlike a leper colony, the quarantine zone was a place to wait for death without infecting others. Countless similar camps had sprung up all over the country in the only possible response to the brutal outbreak of the Aussterben virus in North America. It had been ten weeks since the first case appeared, and since then President Roosevelt had declared a state of emergency and enacted a countrywide quarantine. Even though the government repeatedly told the public that a vaccine was on the way, everyone knew they’d yet to determine how it was even spread, never mind how to treat it. It appeared to be an unstoppable epidemic that even the First Lady had fallen victim to, and most believed a cure wouldn’t come in time to save a majority of the country.

  It was said that of the one hundred thirty million citizens of the Union, more than twenty million had already died, gotten sick, or shown initial symptoms. More realistic estimates, on the other hand, counted twice the number of infected and as many that had not yet developed symptoms but were already spreading the virus to those around them. Given the tran
smission and survival rate, some newspapers speculated that by the end of the year the total population of the United States would be reduced to only twenty or twenty-five million inhabitants. And that, they said, was optimistic.

  Carmen walked to a large wooden panel just in front of the entrance, where typed pages with the names of those interned in the camp hung. She began by looking over the names under “A.” She couldn’t help but notice that a quarter of the listings had been crossed out.

  Hundreds of people approached the lists with hopeful looks on their faces. Some cried out in relief and headed for the tents while others wept, hugged their companions for support, or collapsed on the trampled grass like puppets without strings.

  “Alcántara, Joaquín,” Carmen said, pointing with patent joy to one of the sheets. “Section H-8.”

  For some strange reason Riley had been sure he wouldn’t find his friend’s name crossed out. It was inconceivable that he’d survived, against all odds, the greatest dangers imaginable just to die at the hands of an insignificant, microscopic bug.

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking Carmen by the hand. “It’s this way.”

  They moved in the direction of the obelisk that was now surrounded by a sea of green tents. Posters nailed on posts marked the sections of the quarantine camp as if they were actual streets and districts of a city inhabited only by the dying.

  National Guard soldiers constantly entered and exited tents with stretchers. Some with newly admitted victims, others with bodies wrapped in canvas sacks destined for the crematorium.

  A soldier approached and pointed at the bags both Carmen and Riley carried on their shoulders.

  “Put on your masks,” he ordered sullenly, passing by without stopping.

  Both dutifully complied, reaching inside each bag for the small gas masks and placing them over their noses and mouths. Then they put on gloves.

  Alex looked at Carmen for a moment, the woman he loved, who was there because of him. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and a thick gray coat completely hid her sinuous body, leaving nothing visible but her face and neck; even so she seemed irresistibly beautiful to Riley.

  For a moment he wanted to tell her what he felt, that she shouldn’t be here and that if something happened he would never forgive himself.

  But then she put her hands on her hips and asked, “What are you thinking?”

  Instead of telling the truth, Alex tapped the filter on Carmen’s mask with his finger and said with false concern, “You look like an anteater.”

  Carmen huffed behind the mask and tutted. “Come on, let’s go,” she said, walking away quickly.

  It took almost ten minutes to get to the tent with “H-8” painted on the side. Without saying anything, Carmen kindly took Riley’s hand. Inside the tent was Riley’s best friend, perhaps in agony. And despite the calm he was forcing himself to show, he knew it would be hard to see his old buddy from the Spanish Civil War incapacitated like that.

  “Shall we?” Alex asked, pushing aside the canvas in the entrance.

  Carmen nodded and went inside.

  Riley followed resolutely, but couldn’t help stopping after crossing the threshold—as if he’d run into an invisible wall.

  A row of ten cots on each side of the tent took up almost all the space inside, leaving a narrow path between that could barely fit two people. A line of squalid lightbulbs hung from the ceiling, bringing some light to the darkness inside and illuminating the nightmarish scene.

  Each of the cots held an infected person. Someone’s father, someone’s daughter, someone’s grandchild . . . Twenty men, women, and children in that little space, resisting death, silently praying to find themselves among the 5 percent that survived infection. One in twenty. One per tent.

  Riley wondered if the tent setup was the result of chance or a strange psychological trick played by the military doctors.

  “There,” Carmen said, pointing.

  Riley craned his neck and spotted a silhouette a little bulkier than the others. Yes, that was Joaquín Alcántara, a Spaniard from Galicia known to his friends as Jack—and the Pingarrón’s second-in-command.

  It wasn’t until then that Riley realized he had been holding his breath.

  With uneasy steps, as if his legs were no longer his own, he advanced between the two rows of beds, followed closely by Carmen.

  The patients they passed were mostly unconscious or too weak to move—haggard, sweaty, and lying limply on thin padding as if they had fallen like that and couldn’t gather the strength to change positions. Only a couple raised their eyes, perhaps hoping in vain that the visitors were for them.

  Jack’s cot was the second to last in the row on the left. They silently situated themselves on either side. Carmen sat on the edge of the bed next to the prone man. Jack’s once-plump face was a gaunt, ashen mask, his rosy cheeks now furrowed valleys, and his brown hair stuck to his forehead, dirty and wet. With incredible tenderness, Carmen fixed his hair with a gloved hand, and Riley could see a tear run down her right cheek.

  Jack then opened his eyes, and for a moment looked at the two of them uneasily, examining their faces beneath the rubber and metal masks.

  “Hi, Jack,” Riley said, crouching over the bed. “How are you?”

  Jack stretched his lips in a painful smile, revealing bloody gums. His eyes were two swollen red balloons.

  “As you can see,” he said in a thin voice, “I’m taking a vacation on Uncle Sam’s dime. But to tell you the truth,” he added, weakly lifting a finger and pointing side to side, “the service here is horrible and my neighbors a bunch of bores. It’s the last time I’m coming here.”

  “I’ll speak with the management,” Riley assured him.

  “How are you feeling?” Carmen asked, unable to act as unconcerned as the two men.

  “Perfect,” Jack answered, falling prey to a sudden coughing fit that doubled him over. “Why do you ask?” he said when he recovered.

  Carmen shook her head and smiled despite herself.

  Then Riley turned to Jack and saw in his eyes that sense of guilt that he knew too well. “We did all we could,” he mumbled.

  Jack looked at the other nineteen people in the tent. “Not enough.”

  “They say some fishermen from Plymouth found a test tube in their nets containing the virus. They opened it with no idea of what was inside. By the time they got back to land, all were infected without knowing it, and from there, it spread to Boston and by then was already unstoppable,” Carmen explained.

  “Somehow,” Riley added, “that damn thing survived the explosion and sinking of the ship. If only we had . . .” He clenched his right fist till his knuckles turned white. “We were so close . . .”

  Jack put his deathly hand on the sleeve of Riley’s jacket. “That doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.

  Riley nodded. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Jack tried to lean his head back and take a deep breath, but the air seemed to resist entering his lungs and all he managed was a strange whistling in his windpipe.

  Carmen and Riley watched a moment, holding their breath as if that would help their friend.

  Finally, Jack exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. “Last night I dreamed of Julie and César,” he said, a look of infinite sadness coming to his face. “I hope they made it.”

  “It’s unclear,” Riley said immediately. “But we can’t give up hope of finding them.”

  Jack shook his head slowly. “Maybe one of the two survived,” he countered. “But not both.”

  “I agree,” Carmen said. “They loved each other too much to live without the other. So they went together and painlessly. Not like poor Marco,” she added.

  “And I promise you it hurt,” Jack said with a contorted expression. “By the way, have you heard anything from Elsa?”

  Riley shook his head. “Ever since the military took her I haven’t heard a thing. Not even the ONI knows where they have her—or they don’t want to tell me.
But it will be okay,” he added. “If they think her blood contains the key to the vaccine they’ll take care of her, of that you can be more than sure.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Jack said with a slow nod. “And speaking of food . . . You all brought me something to eat, right?”

  Jack Alcántara knew perfectly well that in his state he was incapable of digesting any solid food, but that didn’t stop him from acting surprised when Riley apologized for not having thought of it. “It’s great . . . I’ll go to the other side . . . like a model.” He smiled and gave his still-prominent belly a weak pat. “Gotta lose this first.”

  “Don’t say that,” Carmen said. “You’re a very strong man. I’m sure you’ll make it out of this.”

  Jack shook his head with uncertainty.

  “We’ve been through worse, my friend,” Riley assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Within a few weeks we’ll be eating sixteen-ounce steaks in the best restaurant in the city.”

  Jack gave him a suspicious look. “Your treat, no?”

  Riley smiled to himself. “We’ll see,” he said, glancing at Carmen. “The taxi to get here was pretty expensive.”

  “You miser,” Jack teased. “The next time . . . ,” he started to say but was interrupted by another coughing fit, even worse than the previous one.

  Blood filled his mouth, but he still had the strength to lean over the side and keep it from spraying his friends.

  “I’ll find someone to clean it up,” Carmen said, standing up and looking around.

  Jack shook his head and waved in exhaustion. “Don’t bother. I already told you the service is terrible. I’m still waiting for my chocolate on the pillow—” His words were cut short by yet another violent coughing fit.

  Just then a doctor, attracted by the coughing sound, entered the tent. He wore a mask that covered his whole head, making him look like a Martian on the cover of Astounding, but this extraterrestrial had a white coat stained with blood and seemed to be in a very bad mood.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone somewhere between exhausted and irritated. “This is not a visitation zone.”

  Riley showed him his ONI identification. “Office of Naval Intelligence,” he recited.

  “I don’t care if you’re in the cabinet,” the doctor said, looking up from the ID. “You can’t be here bothering my patient.”