Moving slowly, like someone awakening after surgery, she got to her feet, closed the door, crossed to the teacher’s desk, pulled out the chair, and crawled into the footwell. It was a tight, dark space that smelled of shoe polish, crayons, and old coffee. Dez pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and laid her head down. Sobs shuddered through her whole body and tears steamed hot and thick down her face.
“Oh, God,” she wept. “JT.”
The shakes began then.
Dez crammed a fist into her mouth to block the scream that tried to tear its way out of her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The president returned to his office and there received an endless flow of advisors, including generals of different wattage; planners from FEMA; senators from Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio; scientific advisors; the senior members of his staff; and Scott Blair. Over and over again, Scott Blair.
His desk began piling up with reports on everything from estimated casualties—the current guess was more than nine thousand—to letters from heads of state expressing sympathy and offering assistance. The offers were rote lip service that carried as little actual weight as people at a funeral suggesting the bereaved call on them if there’s anything they can do. Most people wouldn’t want to take that call, and that was doubly so in global politics. Besides, the quickest way for his administration to look even weaker than it was would be to ask for help from another country.
However, that was secondary.
When he was alone for a few minutes, the document that caught and held the president’s attention was the estimated loss of life. He read the numbers, then closed his eyes and winced as if each digit gouged a fishing hook under his skin.
Nine thousand people.
Three times as many people than died in the fall of the Twin Towers.
Nearly twice as many as died during the Iraq War; more than twice the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Nine thousand. All in one day, on American soil.
On his watch.
During 9/11 he’d been a junior senator from a midwestern state, and he’d been at home when the tragedy happened. He met with dozens of groups of citizens, from a few dozen at a Rotary Club to tens of thousands at a memorial service in a baseball stadium. He saw something in each one of them, something that connected them, one to another, while also binding them to that moment in time. It was a pervasive, shared wound that would never really heal. The scar itself would hurt, and it would continue to hurt for years, possibly for the lifetime of each person who’d lived through that terrible day. Even now, so many years later, if you mentioned the Towers or 9/11, there was a flicker behind the eyes. Not exactly pain, but a memory of pain, an awareness of that scar gouged into the national soul.
Now this.
Nine thousand people dead. Not from a foreign enemy or fanatics prosecuting a radical ideology, but from within the U.S. government. Illegal bioweapons research. Military action against civilians.
It wouldn’t matter that the research was initiated before his presidency and conducted without his knowledge. He would still be blamed.
It didn’t matter that the Colonel Dietrich’s attack on Stebbins and the school were desperate measures to prevent the pathogen from spreading and killing millions. If your dog gets out of the yard and bites people, you get no sympathy. You’re still to blame.
Which meant that in the eyes of the public he was the villain of this piece.
It would destroy him. His career, his credibility, and his legacy.
The only chance he had, the only way he could imagine to save some shred of his presidency, would be to prove that Volker acted alone and without sanction, that the man was mentally unstable, and that all actions taken were the only ones left.
All of which was true.
But none of which could be proved.
Without the flash drives.
As the night wore on, he began to regret Blair’s suggestion that they label Billy Trout as an anarchist hacker and cyber-terrorist. That was useful in the heat of the crisis, but if this thing was truly over, then the truth about Trout would come out and he’d become the hero opposing the big, bad villain in the White House.
“Shit,” he muttered. He decided that it was Scott Blair’s problem to fix.
His intercom buzzed. “Mr. President, the secretary of state is here.”
The president rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Okay. Send him in.”
He listened to that aide, and others, and still others; hearing what they said, interacting, pretending to give his full attention, while all the time waiting for General Zetter’s call. Waiting to be told that the drives had been obtained.
Waiting for a lifeline.
Then he got a call from Scott Blair.
“Mr. President,” said Blair, “the FBI have located Dr. Volker…”
CHAPTER THIRTY
GOOD-NITES MOTOR COURT
FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
The two FBI agents who parked in front of the motel were named Smith and Jones. Actual names, and the pairing was done by random chance rather than due to some supervisory sense of humor. Adam Smith and Miriam Jones were both of average height, average build, early thirties, with good hair and off-the-rack suits. They carried the same model handgun, wore identical wires behind their ears, and worked out at the same gym.
And they liked each other.
Smith privately thought that Jones was a closet liberal who was probably using the job as a way to leverage herself into the much higher-paying world of corporate security. Jones thought that Smith was a semiliterate mouth-breathing Hawk who yearned for the chance to shoot someone.
They were both entirely correct about the other.
Neither ever expressed their opinions to anyone, and certainly not to their partners. On the job they were clinically precise, appropriately efficient, and entirely humorless.
Smith nodded to one of the units whose door opened to the parking lot. A Toyota Rav4 was parked outside.
“Credit card trace says Volker booked that room,” he said.
Jones consulted her iPhone. “Tags match.”
As one they looked from Volker’s car to the one parked next to it, a Crown Victoria nearly identical to theirs. There were no other cars in that part of the lot. Sodium vapor lamps painted the falling downpour a chemical orange. Winds blew the rain across the lot in serpentine waves.
They got out of their car and Jones placed a hand on the hood of Volker’s Toyota.
“Cold,” she said. Neither of them wore hats or used umbrellas, and they were immediately soaked. Neither of them cared.
Smith felt the hood of the Crown Vic. “Warm.”
“Federal tags,” said Jones.
Smith cocked an eyebrow. “CIA?”
“They weren’t scheduled for this pickup,” said Jones, frowning his disapproval. “Not that I heard.”
The agents unbuttoned their jackets to facilitate reaching their guns, crossed to the motel unit’s door, and knocked. It was opened almost at once by a man dressed in a business suit very much like the one Smith wore. He had an ID wallet open to show them his credentials.
“Saunders,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Jones.
“Volker’s one of ours.”
“We know that,” said Smith. “But we were assigned to pick him up. The Agency doesn’t have jurisdiction here.”
Saunders was a tired-looking man in his fifties. Probably a former field agent relegated to scut work on the downslope of his career track. “Moot now,” he said, and he stepped back to open the door.
Smith and Jones gave him hard looks as they entered the motel room of the man who had created Lucifer 113.
They stopped just inside the door.
There were two other men in the room. One was Saunders’s partner, a gap-toothed and freckle-
faced young man who looked like Alfred E. Newman, except he wasn’t wearing a goofy smile. Instead he was staring up at the second man.
Dr. Volker’s shoes swung slowly back and forth ten inches above the carpeted floor. His arms and legs were slack, head tilted to one side, eyes wide, and tongue bulging from between his parted lips. A length of heavy-duty orange extension cord was affixed to the neck of the ceiling fan and cinched tight around Volker’s throat.
A handwritten note was affixed to his chest with a safety pin.
I gave my research notes to the reporter, Mr. Trout.
This is all my fault.
I hope there is a hell so that
I may burn in it for all eternity.
“Ah, shit,” said Smith.
“Fuck,” said Jones.
“Yeah,” said Saunders.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
WHAT THE FINKE THINKS
WTLK LIVE TALK RADIO
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Gavin Finke’s producer and engineer were screening a huge number of calls and putting them in queue.
“Okay,” said Gavin, “we have Ron from Fayette County. Thanks for calling.”
“Hey, Gavin, big fan of the show. Been listening for years.”
“Thanks, my man. So tell me, what do you think is happening in Stebbins?”
“It’s all a big government cover-up,” said Ron. “I heard they were testing some kind of bioweapon on the people in Stebbins County and it got out of control.”
“That’s quite a claim, Ron. What makes you think that?”
“It was on the Internet.”
“And if it’s on the Net it has to be real?”
“Well … no, but I saw a video by a reporter from Stebbins. Billy Trout. You know the guy, he does that Fishing for News with Billy Trout thing. Did all those stories about Homer Gibbon all the way up to the execution and all. He’s a real reporter.”
“Not sure there are any real reporters anymore, Ron, but sure, Billy Trout’s a friend of the show. We had him on with the Yardley Yeti story.”
“I heard that show. I think that was a chupacabra and—”
“Keeping on point here. Why do you think Billy has his finger on the pulse of a government conspiracy?”
“Well, c’mon, man … why else would they have tried to kill him?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHECKPOINT #43
STEBBINS COUNTY LINE
The young sergeant stepped into the muddy road and made that air-slapping gesture that meant to slow down and stop.
Without turning to the captain, the driver said, “We good here, boss?”
“I got this,” said Imura. “Put on your poker faces and don’t say shit.”
The four members of his team—three men and a woman—said nothing, but they each removed credentials from their pockets and held them on their laps. The sergeant was a thin Latino with a precisely trimmed mustache and absolutely no air of authority. New to his stripes, thought Imura.
“Identification, please,” said the sergeant. He wore a white combat hazmat suit over which were gun and equipment belts. His protective hood was pulled off, though, and hung behind ears that stood out at right angles to his head. The sergeant looked cold, wet, far too young, and completely terrified. The rain had slowed to a steady, depressing drizzle and the two small all-weather camp lanterns set on either side of the road did little to push back the darkness. Lightning flashed behind the trees but the thunder was miles off.
Another storm was coming, though. The National Weather Service was calling for nearly five inches of rain over the next sixteen hours. The levees were going to fail, no doubt about it. And that would be proof that God or the Devil was using Stebbins as a urinal. Just like Scott thought.
The sergeant studied the ID, then handed it back and went through the process with everyone in the car. The credentials said that Sam Imura was a captain, which was true, but it identified the others as lieutenants, which they were not. All four of Imura’s group had once been sergeants of significant rank, from the former master sergeant at the wheel to the gunnery sergeant seated directly behind Imura. Sergeant was the most common rank among shooters in U.S. Special Forces. Each of them was certainly sharper, more knowledgeable, and more competent than most officers of any rank, and Sam Imura knew that was no exaggeration. But staying as an enlisted man kept them out of military politics. A nice, safe, sane place to be.
None of them, however, currently held rank in the United States military. Nor did Captain Imura. They were all officially retired, though because they were private contractors working for the government, their ranks clung to them like comfortable clothes.
The sergeant glanced at the other man working the roadblock. He was an even less authoritative slice of local white bread, stood on the far side of a sawhorse barrier that would provide no real defense against a determined intrusion. He held an M16 at port arms and tried to look like G.I. Joe because there was a Humvee filled with officers.
Imura accepted his ID case back. “How are you doing out here, Sergeant?”
“All quiet and secure, sir.”
An answer that meant nothing.
The young man gave the “officers” a crisp salute, which was returned in the casual manner used by career officers. Nice theater.
Imura said, “This should be a four-man post, Sergeant. Where are your other men?”
The young sergeant took a moment on that. “Sir, we’re pretty thin on the ground. As far as I know there are two men on every road.” He paused as if uncertain he should have said that. “They have four-man teams on some of the bigger roads.”
That last part sounded like a lie to Imura. He figured there were only two men on every road. Maybe fewer on some. Between main road, side roads, farm roads, fire access roads, and walking paths, there were ninety-seven ways to leave the town of Stebbins by wheeled vehicle. That was a minimum of one hundred and ninety-four men per shift. Figure twelve-hour shifts and that’s roughly four hundred men just working roadblocks. That didn’t cover supervisory personnel, reconnaissance, the men needed for reinforcing the levees, the men guarding the survivors at the Little School, and patrols hunting down stray infected.
It also didn’t really address all of the ways out of Stebbins on foot.
And the infected don’t drive, he thought.
There was no point in discussing this further with someone at the sergeant’s pay grade.
“Stay sharp, Sergeant,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
The white boy picked up the sawhorse and walked it to the side of the road. The Humvee began rolling through the mud into the town of Stebbins.
Imura caught the driver looking in the rearview mirror. “What?” he asked.
When alone, there was always a speak-up and speak-plain policy with Imura’s team.
The driver, whose name was Alex Foster but who was known on the job as Boxer, said, “You realize that if anything really comes out of the woods those two kids are a late-night snack.” It wasn’t a question.
“Can’t all be that bad,” said Rachel Bloom, combat call sign Gypsy. She was second in command of the Boy Scouts. A tough woman with five full tours under her belt, running special operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many more since signing with Sam.
The man seated behind Boxer, DeNeille Shoopman, known as Shortstop, said what they were all thinking. He was a pragmatic man who preferred maintaining a big-picture view of everything. “It only takes one hole.”
“These infected sonsabitches aren’t armed,” said Bud Hollister—Moonshiner, the rowdy former biker-turned-soldier. “You see the footage from the school? They walked right into the bullets and didn’t give much of a wet shit.”
“Headshots put ’em down,” observed Shortstop.
“Yeah?” Moonshiner snorted. “And how many soldiers do you know who can reliably get a headshot in a combat situation? In the dark? In the rain? In a running firefight? Please.”
No one answered. Everyone cursed quietly. Gypsy and Shortstop turned to look back at the small glow of lantern light that was quickly being consumed by darkness and distance.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Scott Blair put down the phone and sat there staring at it. Wanting to smash it. Wanting to burn his office down just so the damn thing wouldn’t ring again.
Dr. Herman Volker was dead.
God almighty.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BORDENTOWN STARBUCKS ON ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
A bloody hand shot out and clamped around the throat of the zombie a split second before those teeth could snap shut on Goat’s flesh.
“Hold on a minute, slick,” said Homer Gibbon. He was smiling and there was a crooked playfulness in his voice. “I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
The zombie tried to pull free. It clawed at Homer with its fingernails and squirmed around, attempting to bite the wrist of the hand that held it. Goat shrank back from it, and then he saw the look in Homer’s face. There was no trace of fear. Nothing. The man squatted there, his face and body covered with fresh blood, maggots wriggling in open wounds in his skin, and yet his mouth wore a smile of curious wonder like that of a child watching a butterfly. Homer’s eyes were filled with dark lights.
“I know you,” he said softly, directed his words to the struggling zombie. “I see you with the Black Eye, yes I do. I see all the way into your soul. Do you believe me?”
The creature writhed and snapped, but he was helpless in Homer’s powerful grip.
“The Red Mouth has whispered to you, hasn’t it? You understand its secrets now, don’t you, boy? Yes … I can see that you do. And that Red Mouth is screaming so loud inside your head that you have to do something. You have to let it speak through you. You have to feed it because it’s so goddamn hungry, tell me if I’m lying.”
The zombie did not respond, though Goat turned to look at it, to seek for something in its eyes. Was there something there? Was there a flicker of something deep in those dark wells?