“Who?”
Blair gave him the name. “I think you’ll agree that he’s well-suited for this particular assignment. He’s also available and close. I could have him and a small team inside the Q-zone in twenty minutes.”
The president gave him a calculating smile. “He just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
“No, sir. I called him yesterday and told him I needed him in the on-deck circle. Just in case.”
“And he’s there to observe, assess, and report only, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nothing else?”
“No, sir.”
“I would take it amiss, Scott, if I found out that your pet shooter was there to do an end-run around Simeon Zetter. It would pain me to learn that he and his team put so much as a foot inside the Stebbins Little School. You understand me when I say that? We’re clear?”
“As glass, Mr. President.”
They studied each other, both wearing small smiles, both watching the other with cold eyes.
“Very well, Scott,” said the president. “Send him in.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Scott,” said the president with a gentler smile, “take a breath. This is over. We won. We saved the country, and you played your part. Be proud.”
“Yes, sir, I am,” lied Blair.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sylvia Ruddy, the president’s chief of staff, came in as Blair left.
“Scott looks like he’s about to explode,” she observed. “Is he still trying to nuke Pennsylvania?”
“Fire bomb,” corrected the president, “but no. Not at the moment, anyway.” He told her about the flash drives.
“He wanted to send a team after Trout?”
“I nixed the idea.”
“Good.”
“However, I am letting him send a team in to do an independent evaluation of the integrity of the Q-zone.”
Ruddy made a face. “Simeon won’t like it.”
“Simeon works for me. He doesn’t have to like it. Besides, I actually do want to know. Scott’s right about one thing—we have to make sure we don’t spike the ball before we’re in the end zone. I want to believe this is over, but quite frankly, Sylvia, I’m scared out of my mind.”
“So is everyone,” she countered, “but don’t let Scott drive you crazy. He’s such an alarmist. He was an alarmist when he was the national security director and he’s an alarmist now. Maybe more so now. I told you that when you appointed him.”
“Maybe, but he’s been right more than he’s been wrong.”
“Sure. But when he’s wrong he’s all the way wrong. And he’s wrong on this. He’s overreacting to a situation that now requires careful handling and a great deal of subtlety.”
“I know.”
“And yet you gave him permission to release the hounds?”
“Hardly that. Scott will do what he’s told,” the president said firmly. “He may have his issues, but he’s still one of us.”
He handed her Blair’s amended speech. As she read it her face went white and then dark red. “This isn’t a speech,” she snapped, “this is you begging to be impeached and indicted.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“No, Scott doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t have to worry about reelection.”
“There are more important things than winning another four years.”
“Are there?” she asked.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
“Oh, God—there’s another one!”
Billy Trout wheeled around but had no time to get out of the way as half a dozen people came running straight at him. The lead man was one of the teachers and he simply shoved Trout, and as Trout tried to take a step to catch his balance his back flared and his right leg buckled. He collapsed to the floor and half the people running down the hall tripped over him and went sprawling.
It was like a bad comedy routine, except no one was laughing. Most of the people had weapons. Guns, makeshift clubs, and fire axes. Everyone was ragged and dirty, streaked with grime, wild with panic.
Trout scrambled painfully to his feet and grabbed the sleeve of the closest man—Bowers, the art teacher. “What’s happening?” he demanded.
Bowers was a frail, frightened man with eyes that jumped and twitched. “Down in the gym,” he gasped. “I think it’s Mr. Maines.”
Trout didn’t know who Mr. Maines was. A parent of one of the children? A teacher? A refugee trapped in the school?
“Is he infected?”
Bowers’s face, already pale, turned a sickly white. His eyes were jumpy with shock. “They said … they said he bit one of the kids.”
It felt exactly like being punched over the heart. Trout wanted to sag back against the wall, slide down, bury his face in his hands, and weep. He wanted this to end, to go away, to not be real.
“Show me,” he said.
Trout heard himself say the words, felt his body launch into motion, felt his pulse quicken, but he did not want to see this. Not more pain. Not another kid.
No way he wanted to see another infected kid. Another hurt kid.
Another lost kid.
But he heard himself growl as he snatched up a fire axe dropped by one of the men who had fallen.
“Hey!” said the man, grabbing for it, but Billy ignored him and kept the axe.
At first he followed Bowers.
Soon, though, he simply followed the screams.
Billy Trout ran down two flights of stairs. Each step shot an arrow of pain into his back. Earlier, when he and Desdemona Fox had fought their way across the parking lot to the school, Billy had picked up a heavy bag filled with guns and ammunition. He grabbed it the wrong way, though, and something had exploded in his lower back. The pain was awful but it was also useful. It made him grind his teeth on it, to bite down on it to say fuck it to agony and everything else. Fuck it to his rage at what was happening, to his terror, and to his grief.
His fists were locked around the handle of the fire axe as he ran, but already he could feel fear sweat loosen his grip. Rage, he was discovering, was not a constant. It wasn’t armor that he could wear until this was all over.
If it was ever going to be over.
The screams echoed upward from the basement, bouncing off the walls of the fire tower.
Another one.
That’s what Bowers had said. That’s what he was running to see.
Another one.
God.
Another of the dead. And another child with a bite.
The small knot of teachers and other survivors lagged behind him, their determination to reach the source of the screams diminishing with every step. Trout couldn’t fault them. Not one bit. After all, what in their lives had ever prepared them for something like this?
They reached the basement and burst from the stairwell into the gymnasium. A big, damp empty space that Trout remembered from humiliating dodgeball games when he was in the fifth grade. That had been his hell year, before the growth spurt that would give him the length of bone and quality of muscle he’d later use in high school baseball and track. The gym was linked to his memories of being a weird, shy, strange little boy who didn’t have many friends. Dez Fox had been his first real friend. When two older boys tried to pants Billy here in the gym, Dez had beat the shit out of them.
He’d been in love with her ever since.
“In there,” gasped Bowers, pointing.
Only a few lights were on, pale cones of yellow that did little to push back the immense darkness. The screams were constant. High and thin. They tore through an open office door at the far end.
Please, begged Trout. Not another kid. Please, please …
The axe was heavy and he knew he’d have to use it on Mr. Maines—whoever he was. There was no Plan B for dealing with those who were s
o far gone that they had crossed over into—
Into what?
Even now Trout had a hard time calling it what he knew it was.
These people were infected.
These people were also dead.
Technically, dead.
Essentially, dead.
And yet they moved around, some of them shambling, some running awkwardly, all of them chasing, hunting, grabbing, biting.
Eating.
The dead consuming the living.
Zombies.
It was madness and Billy Trout’s orderly mind rebelled at it. Death was death and the dead don’t do this. Can’t do this.
The screams told him otherwise.
Despite the pain in his body and the agony in his soul, Trout ran faster.
He was six steps from the gaping doorway when sudden light and noise exploded within.
The deafening blast of a gun. The eye-hurting flash of shot after shot.
Trout skidded to a sloppy halt, lost his footing in something wet, fell, slid all the way to the mouth of the open door.
There was one last blast, one last flash.
The screams stopped.
Trout lay there on the floor. He could hear Bowers somewhere behind him. Panting, mumbling something. Maybe a prayer. Maybe he’d simply gone fucking nuts. Billy wanted to.
Something moved inside the office.
A shifting of the shadows, the scuff of a shoe.
And then a figure staggered out. Lumbering, uncertain, sagging sideways against the frame, clothes torn and streaked with blood, eyes dark and dead.
Trout looked up into the face.
“Dez…?” he whispered.
Those dead eyes shifted toward him.
Tears broke and fell down her dirty cheeks. The slack expression of shock disintegrated into horror and shame and grief.
“Oh … Billy…”
She sank down to her knees, the gun still held in one hand, but that hand was slack at her side, as if forgotten or disowned.
Trout scrambled to his knees and gathered her in his arms as the first terrible sobs detonated within her. In the bad light Trout could see the leg of a man—Mr. Maines—and the sprawled form of a child, lying tangled together in a pool of black blood. The smell of gun smoke burned in the air.
He wanted to push her away, he wanted to turn away from what she’d just done, what she’d had to do. But he loved this woman.
And this—all of this—was their world now.
So he held her close as she wept.
As they both wept.
“It’s okay,” he lied. “It’s all going to be okay.”
Except they both knew that it wasn’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHAT THE FINKE THINKS
WTLK LIVE TALK RADIO
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
“You’re listening to Gavin Finke and this is What the Finke Thinks, coming to you live from Pittsburgh. It’s the middle of the night but I don’t think anyone within the sound of my voice is sleeping. The eyes of the world are on the town of Stebbins down in Stebbins County, right on the Pennsylvania-Maryland line. And why? Well, my friends, that depends on whom you ask. We all know that Stebbins was ground zero for Superstorm Zelda—a real b-i-t-c-h of a storm that picked up a lot of water from the Three Rivers and dropped it on the Mason Dixon Line.
“Sure, that’s how it started, but then the cow patties hit the windmill, let me tell you. First there were unconfirmed reports of a double homicide in Stebbins. But within minutes there were all sorts of wild rumors about a riot at a funeral home. But buckle up, kids, ’cause it was a fast slide down the crapper from there. The governor released a statement saying that there was an outbreak of a new kind of virus in Stebbins. Then the Internet went—”
Gavin Finke took a long drag of his cigarette and winked at his engineer.
“I tell you, folks, I don’t know what to believe. Tell the Finke what you think is happening on this dark and stormy night.”
He gave the call-in number and before he’d even finished the board lit up like a Christmas tree.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
After Scott Blair left the president he hurried to his office. He blew past three of his aides, growled at his secretary to hold his calls until further notice, and closed his door. As soon as he was alone he took his cell phone from his pocket, punched in a five-digit code to activate a scrambler, and ground his teeth while he waited through five rings before the call was answered.
“How’d it go?” asked the man at the other end.
Blair snorted. “How do you think it went?”
“Jesus,” said the man at the other end. “Did you show him the math? Did he see the projection numbers if this thing breaks the Q-zone?”
“I did, but for all intents and purposes that broadcast from the school cut his balls off. He’s almost afraid to act.”
There was a pause. “Which means what?”
“I gave him an alternative suggestion.”
“Which is?”
“You, Sam,” said Blair. “I told him I wanted to send you in.”
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. “Go in and do what?”
“Find out exactly what’s happening in Stebbins. You and a small team. I want to know how bad things are there. However, you are not to report to General Zetter. He and everyone here in Washington is acting like the Super Bowl is over and we’re all doing postgame chatter.”
“How’s that make sense? Surely they read the same report you forwarded to me. This pathogen isn’t a suitcase nuke. You can’t defuse it and sit back for a victory cigar.”
“Preaching to the choir, Sam.”
“So … what the hell’s happening? Why the shift from ‘move heaven and earth to win this’ to whatever the heck you’d call this shit? Is it that broadcast?”
“Mostly. That was like being hit by a cruise missile. It cut everyone’s balls off. There are people here who think that the attack on the school could be used to do more than bring down the president. They’re afraid it’s done permanent harm to the structure of government as we know it.”
“I watched the president on TV. He did a pretty solid job of pissing on that video. Don’t know if you watched the commentary afterward, but CNN, FOX, and even MSNBC are edging away from belief that Trout’s video was the real deal.”
“I know, but once the storm’s over and the press actually gets into Stebbins, some of what Trout said is going to be verified. The school looks like it was fired on by machine guns. We can’t change that.”
“Unless you blow it up.”
“Hiding the body after a murder isn’t the same as removing doubt about the crime.” Blair blew out is cheeks. “No, Sam, this is doing political damage, there’s no doubt about it.”
“But…?”
“But who the fuck cares?” growled Blair. “How did we ever allow ourselves to get to the point where careers and political agendas matter this much? We are facing a doomsday scenario and they’re acting like it’s the midterm elections. Doomsday, Sam. It’s not even an abstract concept. It’s right there, and we’re handling it all wrong.”
“And you want me to go in and—what? Take photos of the Gates of Hell to prove they’re opening?”
“Pretty much.”
“Jesus.”
“I need irrefutable proof that we’re not on top of this so I can force the president to respond the way we should have responded from the jump. Can you do that?”
“I can try.
“Sam…”
“I’ll do it,” Sam amended.
“How soon can you be on the ground there?”
“Almost right away. I have some assets I can put into play. I … well, I kind of figured this was coming and I tapped some friends who were in the area.”
“You’re already there?”
“Not inside
the Q-zone, but close,” said Sam. “We’re at a motel just outside. Me and four people I can trust.”
“I…”
“I anticipated this, Scott. Don’t act so surprised. If I was off my game we wouldn’t be having this call.”
“I knew I could rely on you.”
“Yeah, yeah, if the world doesn’t end, buy me a beer.”
“I’ll buy you a brewery.”
“Deal. Now,” said Sam, “if we’re done with the bullshit, Scott … tell me why I’m really taking a squad of first-team shooters into the Q-zone.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FARMLANDS SUPER MOTEL
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Sam put down his cell phone and took a long breath, held it until everything inside his mind and body felt steady, then let it out with slow control. Both aspects of the job Scott Blair wanted him to do—the official and unofficial mission—were going to be a real bitch. Although Sam had run with a SpecOps team for a long time, that was years ago. He hadn’t fired a shot in anger in a decade.
His technical skills were still there. On the rifle range he was still one of the two or three top snipers in the U.S. military. But was he still fit and sharp enough to lead men into a situation like this? Had he have lost a step getting to first base?
Possibly.
More important, could he do what Blair wanted him to do? Would he do it? Sam certainly agreed with the NSA advisor’s logic and even, to a degree, with the plan. But it was ugly and it was risky. There were a lot of ways it could go wrong and very few ways it could all work out right.
He took a second calming breath.
And a third.
Then he called the four members of his team waiting in rooms here at the motel. They were all seasoned Special Operatives. None of them were active military. Like Sam, they had retired to contract work, but also like him their only employer had been Uncle Sam. Different groups within the government, and sometimes the agendas didn’t quite mesh, but since they were freelancers they could pick and choose their jobs. None of them ever wanted to follow an order they didn’t like or couldn’t square with their consciences. That adherence to a specific ethical code had earned the team the sobriquet of The Boy Scouts. Nice nickname but far from the truth. People in Special Ops never felt entirely comfortable in, say, a confessional. Certainly not Sam.