“Hey, Rude,” I said, relieved to hear his voice, “how the hell are you?”
“A borderline mess, Cowboy,” he admitted. “As, I suspect, are you.”
“Not what I meant, Rude. I know who jumped you. How are you?”
“My answer holds.”
“Okay,” I said. “Got it. And … Circe?”
“No change.” There were miles and miles of hurt in his voice. And twice as much fear. If that was Junie lying there, I’d be out of my fucking mind.
“Damn,” I said. “I’m heading over there now and—”
“Listen, Joe,” said Rudy, cutting me off, “Mr. Church doesn’t want you to come here right now. We got word from the doctors at the hospital where the bodies were taken. Joe, we both need to get over there right now.”
“Why?”
“We don’t have all the details, but the doctor over there—Alur, I think his name is—has implemented a class A biohazard lockdown and wants to evacuate the entire facility.”
“Christ. Any clue what the disease is?”
“No, but Doctor Alur said they should have that answer by the time we arrive.”
“We? You’re supposed to be in bed, or was that a different one-eyed Mexican psychiatrist friend of mine who got kicked in the damn face?”
“Joe, I don’t want to argue with you,” said Rudy. “I convinced Mr. Church to have me discharged and to let me get back to work. I’m not seriously injured. The burn is minor; the head injury is not worth discussing. You’ve had worse. Many times.”
“But—”
“And quite frankly, if I don’t get involved in this, if I don’t have the opportunity to participate in this case, to use what skills I have, I’m going to go out of my mind.”
He did not sound like he was making a joke.
That scared me, because Rudy isn’t the type to throw himself into the active side of one of the DMS cases. He was a therapist, a doctor. He counseled the operators between jobs, he kept the spiders locked inside my head, and he worked with victims afterward. He was not a field man. Wasn’t trained for it and didn’t have the right mental attitude for it. Rudy is the kind of decent human being guys like me try to protect so he doesn’t have to run head-on into the fire.
Except …
Circe was in a coma, and a psychopath pretending to be a priest had brutalized Rudy. And Rudy had been at the ballpark; he’d seen people blown apart by the drones. He’s friends with Bug and Aunt Sallie and was feeling their hurt.
He has skin in this game. A lot of it.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
“Brian will drop me off at the hospital. I think you should meet me there.”
Brian Botley was the newest member of Echo Team. A hazardous-materials expert who also knew how to cook up useful things that went boom. Code name: Hotzone, which really wasn’t much of a stretch.
“Okay, pardner,” I said, “but if you look wobbly, I’m putting you back on the bench.”
It was the same threat Top had used on me. Rudy ignored it, exactly as I had.
Chapter Ninety-nine
Fox Island
Hale Passage, Puget Sound
Pierce County, Washington
March 31, 8:03 P.M.
It took Aaron Davidovich very little time to bypass the security system of the empty house. Then he was inside. The house was cold, but it was the warmest he’d been since he’d waded into the waters off the Seven Kings’ island.
First thing he did was look for a telephone. Found it. Snatched up the receiver.
Heard nothing. Not even a hiss.
The place was as empty as a dead battery. The furniture was covered in plastic. There was no food in the fridge. The gas and water were turned off. Because of the needs of the security system, the electricity was still on, and the oven was electric. He turned it on and warmed himself by the open oven door. Then he went prowling and found several useful things.
Clothes, neatly folded in moth-proof plastic tubs. Most of what he found didn’t fit him, and he soon realized that it was a woman and two kids living here. The kids were young. The woman was short but, he discovered, plump. He could stretch a couple of her sweaters around him. He stripped off his own clothes and draped them around the stove to dry. In one of the cabinets, he found canned tuna, and he opened three cans and devoured the cold fish.
In the attic, he found a trunk with clothes that clearly belonged to an older man. Probably the woman’s father. The man had been very tall—inches taller than Davidovich. That didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that the clothes smelled of cedar chips and old man. There were no shoes, but he found a pair of good slippers. He stuffed the toes with socks and put them on.
Dressed comfortably in useful layers, he searched in vain for a cell phone. There was no chance he’d find one, but he had to look.
No topcoat, either.
Wearing a dead man’s clothes and bedroom slippers, carrying pocketsful of tools, Davidovich slipped out of the house and went into the garage. He wanted his luck to hold long enough for the car to be functional and fast.
It was a classic 1965 Mustang.
It had no engine.
“Fuck,” he said.
But he wasted no time mourning the car. Instead, he left the property through the back gate and headed toward the bridge to the mainland. Caution took time, though, and with every minute he used ensuring his anonymity, he felt a minute of his son’s life burning away.
Chapter One Hundred
Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center
Medical Center Court, Chula Vista, California
March 31, 8:54 P.M.
We pulled into the hospital ER roundabout. That whole section of the facility had been evacuated, and someone had brought in a set of police barricades. Two soldiers in hazmat suits stood on the other side. I recognized them through the plastic visors. New guys working for me at the Pier. A couple of MPs I borrowed from the army. A third man, Brian Botley, came to meet us, but he stopped a dozen paces away and nodded to a stack of folded hazmat suits.
“You’re going to want to suit up,” Brian said. “Believe me.”
We each put one on. Since they don’t make them for dogs, I’d had to leave Ghost in the car. He wasn’t happy about it, and I knew it would be on me if he peed on Mike Harnick’s new leather seats.
“They redirected ER function to another hospital,” said Brian. “Nobody was happy about it until the staff got a look at what we were bringing in. After that, it was assholes and elbows to clear this place out and button it up.”
Another figure in a hazmat suit appeared and came limping toward us, leaning on his cane, which was wrapped in plastic and sealed with duct tape. We didn’t shake hands, of course. Didn’t go for the big bromance hug. Best friends in protective clothing have to be content with a manly and stoic nod.
“I just got here myself,” Rudy said. “I was about to go looking for Doctor Alur.”
Brian said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay here,” I said. “Make sure nobody else comes in here unless they know today’s secret password.”
He frowned. “Um … we have a secret password? What is it?”
“Fuck the Seven Kings,” I said.
Brian grinned. “That works.”
He went to take up his station. I gave Rudy an up-and-down appraisal. “You look like shit.”
“Thank you very much. You’re so kind,” he said. “I reciprocate the sentiment.”
“How’s your head?”
“It hurts. How is yours?”
“It hurts.”
“Aren’t we a pair?”
I nodded to his hands. There were puffy bandages beneath the plastic gauntlets. “I heard something about burns?”
“Yes.” Shadows seemed to drift across his face.
“Rude?”
“Yes, Cowboy?”
“We’re going to get them.”
He said nothing.
“All of them,” I said. “Including that sinister little psychopath.”
He said nothing.
“This may be damage done, brother,” I told him, “but there’s life on the other side.”
“Joe,” he said in a soft but strained voice, “please stop. I don’t need the trash talk. I don’t respond to it the way you do. All it does is make me realize that I am not strong, that I’m not a fighter. Even if you do manage to take down the Kings and Nicodemus, I will carry the memory of that encounter for the rest of my life. And, before you embarrass us both by trying to explain the effects of trauma, please remember that I do know this. The effects I’m feeling are the very things I treat people for. The parasitic part of my mind is shining light on the irony and looking for the hubris that would be the dramatic root cause of my downfall. I understand that I am going through the victim process in textbook fashion. Nothing you can say will help. Truly. No threats against them. Not even a successful victory over them will help. This is mine to resolve with myself and for myself.”
I nodded. “You’re my best friend, Rudy. What can I do?”
He smiled. It was faint but genuine. “Just be my friend. That does more than you might think.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it—very gently, mindful of his burns.
Above us, the San Diego sky was a flawless blue. We took a moment and looked up at it.
Rudy cursed very quietly under his breath. When he wants to, he can conjure the vilest expletives known to the Spanish language.
We went inside.
Chapter One Hundred and One
Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center
Medical Center Court, Chula Vista, California
March 31, 9:06 P.M.
It was and cool inside the hospital. The place seemed deserted, and we were dressed like spacemen.
Rudy shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“I suppose I’m having déjà vu. Have we been in this exact hospital in this same kind of situation?”
We paused, each of us looking around and looking backward into memory.
“Damn,” I said softly. “I know what you mean. Feels like half a dozen times I can name. Maybe more.”
“More,” Rudy agreed, then added. “Too many.”
A door opened down the hall and a doctor came out, spotted us, and came to meet us.
“I’m Doctor Alur,” he said. “Infectious Diseases. They called me in.”
We introduced ourselves.
“Good to meet you, Doctor,” I said.
“Yes,” said Alur, “though I’m sorry it’s under such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Exactly how unfortunate are we talking? What is this? Ebola or—?”
“No,” said Alur, “but I’m not sure we should be relieved. The two victims both exhibit symptoms consistent with a disease that cannot do what it apparently has.”
“You lost me.”
“Please explain,” urged Rudy.
“Disease symptoms follow patterns,” Alur explained. “Even in the cases of mutation, the symptoms are part of a logic chain. We can understand the pathology because we know what diseases of various kinds are likely to do. There isn’t much room for them to do things entirely outside of their symptomatological profiles. Do you follow?”
The question was directed at me, the thug without a medical degree.
“Right,” I said. “If you catch a flu, your ass won’t fall off. Got it.”
He almost smiled. Managed not to. “In cases of extreme mutation, where an unforeseen acceleration of the disease has occurred, we can still look for—and generally find—a chain of cause and effect.”
“But not in this case?” I asked.
“Not so far.”
Rudy frowned. “What disease are we talking about?”
He took a breath. “We believe that this is some kind of extreme or mutated form of necrotizing fasciitis.”
I stared at him. “Necrotizing—? Wait, are you talking about the flesh-eating disease?”
“That’s a misnomer,” said Alur, “but yes. Are you familiar with it?”
“Not really. I know about it, but from a distance.”
“Doctor,” said Rudy, “Captain Ledger has been around weaponized pathogens for some time. Please give him what you have. If he has questions later, I’ll be able to fill in the blanks.”
Alur nodded. “We call it NF, though the press likes to call it the flesh-eating disease or the flesh-eating bacteria syndrome. It’s a very rare infection of the deeper layers of skin and subcutaneous tissues. Even in ordinary cases, it progresses rapidly, having greater risk of developing in patients who are immunocompromised. In patients, say, with cancer or diabetes. Understand: even in ordinary cases, it is known as a severe disease of sudden onset. Treatment usually involves high doses of intravenous antibiotics and debriding of the necrotic flesh. It’s typically fatal when untreated.”
“This is a bacteria, not a virus?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s always more complicated than that,” I muttered.
“This disease agent is a Type One polymicrobial, so, actually, quite a few different types of bacteria can cause NF. Group A streptococcus—Streptococcus pyogenes—Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens, Bacteroides fragilis, Aeromonas hydrophila, and others. And there are other kinds of NF: Type Two, which are triggered by a single kind of bacteria. And since 2001, we’ve cataloged another serious form of monomicrobial necrotizing fasciitis that has been observed with increasing frequency, caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—”
I held up a hand. “Not studying for a test, doc. Hit me with what I need to know.”
He looked momentarily flustered, then nodded. My guess was that this was all so big and scary to him that he was letting his clinical knowledge prop up the rest of him. I’ve seen it a hundred times.
“When we encounter patients presenting with signs of cellulitis, we have several tests we can perform to determine the likelihood of NF. C-reactive protein, total white-blood-cell count, hemoglobin, sodium, creatinine, and glucose. We ran all of those on the deceased, and we hit the right bells each time. This is, without a doubt, necrotizing fasciitis.”
“The police and your own people have determined that the disease was spread through contaminated food. Specifically, some Mexican food that was delivered via one of those drones.”
“NachoCopter,” I said. “It’s one of those five-prop commercial drones. A quintocopter made by Sullivan Airdrop in Pasadena. We’ve got people on there way now, and we had local law shut the place down and quarantine the staff.”
Alur shook his head. “I read about those kinds of companies, about the drone deliveries, but I can’t believe the FAA granted approval.”
“Supreme Court overruled the FAA,” I said. “The corporations that want to use commercial delivery drones swing a lot of political weight.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked or appalled by that.”
“Shocked, no? Appalled—yeah, I think you can run with that. Their ads say that the drone will deliver hot food in under twenty minutes. Domino’s is doing the same thing. So are Papa John’s, McDonald’s, and others. Fact of life that this shit’s happening. However, it doesn’t explain what happened today. How did that happen? Was the NF introduced to the food at the restaurant?”
Rudy consulted a notebook. “From phone records we were able to determine that Mr. Quiñones ordered his food by phone and the drone made the delivery nineteen minutes later.”
“Has anyone talked to the drone operator?” asked Alur. “I read that there’s someone in a room using remote control—?”
“That’s the thing, doc,” I said, “NachoCopter doesn’t use remote pilots. They’re using autonomous piloting software.”
Rudy knew about Regis, but there was no need to explain it to Alur. Not yet, anyway.
“Oh.” Alur looked deeply troubled. “Wa
s that same drone used for other deliveries today?”
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “Seventeen more. And before you ask, our team rolled cars to each location. So far, all of the other customers are okay. No one else is sick. So far, at least. What’s the timetable if someone else was exposed?”
“With this version of NF? I don’t know. I’d be guessing…”
“Guess,” I suggested.
“Under two hours. Mr. Quiñones and Ms. Santa Domingo apparently collapsed after eating the food. Possibly no more than sixty to ninety minutes later. They succumbed to deterioration of their tissues and died shortly after that.”
I whistled. Rudy shook his head, not in refusal of the doctor’s words but because it was like taking another arrow in the chest. Idealism and optimism glow pretty brightly, and that gives the bastards of this world something to aim at.
“Last delivery before we shut it down was four hours ago,” I said. “Give it forty-five minutes’ max time before someone eats something they’ve ordered delivered. That gives us three hours for there to be more dead bodies. Why aren’t we seeing that?”
Rudy nodded to Doctor Alur. “Are we positive the bacteria was in the Mexican food?”
“Yes,” he said. “We were able to analyze the stomach contents.”
“How long should it have taken them to die from exposure under ordinary circumstances?” I asked.
“If left untreated, NF could kill in only a few months. Some cases take years.”
“Big scary question,” I said. “How contagious is this?”
Rudy fielded that. “Generally, not very. However, it’s possible for uninfected people to come into contact with patients with the disease and become infected with an organism that may eventually cause necrotizing fasciitis. Transmission from one person to another usually requires direct contact with a patient or some item that can transfer it to another person’s skin. Infection usually requires a cut or abrasion for the organisms to establish an infection. However, once contracted, mortality rates can be as high as twenty-five percent.”
Alur nodded. “We see about six hundred to a thousand cases each year.”
“Here in Chula Vista?” I asked.