A bug trundled across his white T-shirt. His mom slapped it away. She started sobbing. She ripped the shirt off his back and held it up to the phone. Several more bugs crawled along the seam around the collar. Then she really shrieked and grabbed her son and ran for the door. There were a few more seconds of blurry footage before the network cut back to the anchor, who seemed to be at a loss for words. Maybe the teleprompter wasn’t ready.
He shuffled his papers and cleared his throat. “At this time, we are unable to verify the status of the woman and her son that you have just watched in the video. We are assuming that they were evacuated, along with the rest of downtown Chicago, but we have recently lost contact with our field reporter on the scene. We have been following disturbing reports emerging from within the Soldier Field FEMA decontamination camp.”
Ed switched the TV off. Nobody protested. Ed scratched at his back.
He wasn’t the only one. Sam suddenly felt itching slither all over his body, and a hyperawareness of the bugs began to grow. Sam tried not to scratch anything, because once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Instead, he turned, let his breath out slowly, and started searching out crevices and shadows and under the toaster.
Wordlessly, they began to strip, examining every minute fold and stitch. Eventually, Sam turned his back, stripped bare, and gathered up the handful of clothes and stuffed them in the microwave. He stepped back and bent over, watching as his clothes rotated slowly. The zipper metal sparked, sending flashes bouncing around the inside of the microwave. “That’s right,” he said. “Ride the lightning, bitches.”
Qween laughed. “You got the skinniest white ass I ever seen.”
Sam was the first to take all his clothes off and cook the hell out of them. Qween made them leave the room when she disrobed. When they came back, she was climbing back into her layers. The kitchen smelled like a wet dog that had been rolling in a dead moose.
Qween glared at Sam, daring him to say anything.
Sam raised his hands. “Not one fucking word, I promise. God knows I could, though. . . .”
Ed stepped out of his jeans and threw them in the microwave. “Wish you two would stop flirting and just kiss. Get it over with.”
While Sam and Qween settled into a table along the southern windows, Ed found the light switches and turned most of them off. The lights of downtown snapped into life all around them. They opened the MREs the detectives had taken off the dead soldiers and ate without talking. Sam passed his flask around. For a while, it was rather peaceful, resting in the dim light, silently looking out over the city, with the gunfire, the bugs, the blood, far, far beneath them.
Sam squinted and sat up, peering through the window. He fumbled for his glasses, couldn’t find them. Pointing down at Grant Park, he asked, “What’s that?”
Ed and Qween followed his gaze. The headlights of a vehicle had just left Lake Shore Drive and were now tearing across the baseball diamonds at the southern end of the park. At least two Strykers appeared to be in pursuit. They were too far away to hear the chatter of gunfire, but they all saw the unmistakable flashes of heavy artillery.
Ed dug around in the pack and pulled out one of the soldiers’ walkie-talkies. He couldn’t figure out how to disengage the earpiece, so he stuck it in his own ear and listened for a minute. “Damn,” he said. “It’s Dr. Reischtal himself. He’s pissed. Wants this dude taken alive. No more shooting.” Sam started to ask a question, but Ed held up a finger, listening intently.
Ed met Sam’s eyes. “They’re after one of those rat guys from City Hall. Tommy Krazinsky.”
C
HAPTER
70
8:48
PM
August 14
Dr. Reischtal stared down at the body on the grass. The paramedic’s mouth was open, as if he was still protesting being slashed and bled out. A ripe, foul odor wafted up from his pants; his bowels had emptied in death. Maybe he was pissed about that too.
Dr. Reischtal fought to stop his teeth from grinding together. He could hear his dentist’s admonishments. He was supposed to wear a special mouthpiece at night to stop the gradual demolition of his molars when he was asleep, and he certainly did not want to start wearing it when he was awake.
Tommy Krazinsky had escaped.
Patient 0.2. Gone.
Until he had been interrupted by the president’s phone call, he had been watching that fool Shea attempting to hold a press conference in the middle of a quarantined city. While the current state of affairs was nowhere near as safe as the idiot kept pronouncing, as if saying it enough times would make it true, they were, at least, going according to schedule.
But now, now the situation jerked at his fingertips, threatening to slip out of his grasp, like a pack of wild dogs going crazy on the scent of a bleeding pig. The urge to simply step back and burn everything boiled up inside of him, and he fought it, recognizing the feeling as panic. No. Someone with his control would not panic. Would not.
No matter what.
His voice was barely audible above the soft wind. “I expected this patient to be held until the laboratory was properly prepared. He is a confirmed bioterrorist and his escape is unacceptable.”
The three soldiers surrounding the corpse nodded and grunted in affirmation.
Dr. Reischtal said, “Ready the choppers. I want him delivered, alive and relatively unharmed, in less than thirty minutes.”
Sergeant Reaves said, “Sir, most of the choppers have withdrawn. We only have two Apaches left, and they will be necessary when the squads move out of the secure areas. We have no idea how many infected are still—”
Dr. Reischtal said slowly, deliberately, “My orders are quite clear, Sergeant. Please do not tell me you are suffering some kind of hearing disorder.”
Sergeant Reaves nodded. “No, sir.”
Dr. Reischtal went silent for a moment, thinking back to the press conference. He remembered who had been standing next to the fool. “I know his destination. He will be trying to reach the press conference, at Daley Plaza. He wants his daughter. Cut him off before he gets there. I want him brought back to me. Alive. Nothing else matters. His blood, his brain, may hold the key to this entire pandemic. Nothing else matters. Nothing.”
“Understood, sir.”
“I certainly hope so. I want both Apaches in the air. They can coordinate his location with the Strykers. Bring him back to me in one piece.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dr. Reischtal studied Sergeant Reaves in the bobbing glow of the flashlights and the dim spill of the floodlights that had been erected over the FEMA trailers. He had just come from Soldier Field, watching for their old friend Dr. Menard. Three days of no sleep and constant vigilance had taken its toll on the man. Exhaustion had crinkled lines into his face like an old map, leaving dark hollows and dry, red eyes. “Please do not tell me you are second-guessing my command, Sergeant Reaves.”
“No, sir.”
“Then if you please, go catch that sonofabitch. Every moment we stand here exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen, Mr. Krazinsky is pulling farther and farther away.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Sergeant Reaves turned to bark orders at the three soldiers waiting at attention at the head of the corpse, Dr. Reischtal saw the two little bugs, waiting patiently on Sergeant Reaves’s back.
Dr. Reischtal did not hesitate, did not deliberate, did not think. He simply reacted. His hand flew down to his right hip, curled around the .45 Colt, pulled it out, raised it, settled the muzzle in the narrow groove at the back of Sergeant Reaves’s head, right where the backbone disappeared into the skull, and fired.
The bullet spun through the very top of the spinal column, obliterating the connecting nerves, tumbled through Sergeant Reaves’s mouth, churning his tongue into mush, and exploded through his upper front teeth, spraying blood over the waiting soldiers.
Sergeant Reaves slowly, hesitantly toppled over as if someone had given a sleeping man a gentle shove forward. The soldiers froze, their fatigues spattered in blood. Dr. Reischtal pivoted, raising his pistol slightly. Then he shot all three soldiers in the head. It couldn’t be helped. If Sergeant Reaves was infected, then it was only a matter of time before the virus latched on to those around him.
When the initial blast of the four rounds had faded, leaving Dr. Reischtal alone with five corpses tangled together before him, he holstered his pistol. Two other soldiers came running at the sound of gunshots. They gaped at the pile of bodies.
Dr. Reischtal said, “These men were infected. I want them burned immediately. And hazmat suits are now required for all personnel. The bugs are spreading beyond the confines of the city and the stadium.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “We have reports that our squads are encountering severe resistance, mostly along the Blue Line subway system. We have lost contact with at least three squads. Based on their last transmissions, it appears that they were being overrun.”
Dr. Reischtal nodded. “Tell the remaining squads to redouble their efforts. They must succeed. The future of mankind depends on it. Call my launch. I am now relocating the command center out to the ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dr. Reischtal clasped his hands and stared at the sky. There were no stars, not yet. But he had a feeling they would appear soon, triumphing over the light pollution. He shifted his gaze to the silent city.
There was no denying it now. The situation was officially out of control. The wild dogs had pulled loose, ripped free of their master.
He turned to assess Soldier Field and made his choice in less than three seconds. Again, once the decision had been made, there was no dithering, no second-guessing, no doubt. He would incinerate everything, burn the virus out of existence, wipe Chicago off the map. In a few years, they could start over, if they were so inclined.
He called Reynolds. “Are the trucks in place? Has everything been arranged?”
“No, sir. Three miles down the tunnel, we found a collapse. Looks like they brought it down on purpose. Recently too. We’re digging it out. A couple of hours maybe. Your guy say anything about this?”
Dr. Reischtal ground his molars into each other and this time, he couldn’t stop himself. Lee would suffer for his lies. “Call me when the trucks are ready.” He hung up and walked down to the shore and stepped onto the launch that would ferry him out to the warship.
At least the trucks under Soldier Field were in place and armed.
As the boat skipped across the surface of the lake, he thought about calling and informing the president, but then another, more efficient idea blossomed. He considered the angles briefly, and decided the loss of his men would be acceptable. And only he and the truck drivers knew the truckers were even there, let alone what kind of death they carried.
Yes, he thought. Soldier Field first. Then, when they had the trucks in place under the Loop, in a few hours, then downtown.
As the warship grew closer and the single tower loomed overhead, he called a very specific number and waited for the security system to come online. The launch slowed and stopped at the stern of the Sachsen-class frigate. Collapsible stairs descended from the low deck.
Dr. Reischtal waited until he heard the recorded message, then climbed up to the deck. He gazed back across the moonlit waves at the bright lights of Soldier Field. He spoke his name, slowly and clearly into the mouthpiece, and answered the random question and ended with the date, then waited for the voice-recognition software to access the remotes under each truck. He heard the series of beeps, and knew that the steady yellow lights on the remote receivers were now flashing red.
He keyed in the code and hit
SEND
.
Dr. Menard flipped the jump drive over and over as he shoved it into the USB port on the laptop. His fingers trembled and he couldn’t seem to get the drive to slip into the port. Finally it snapped into place, and a few seconds later, a new icon appeared on the desktop screen.
He steadied the laptop on the steering wheel, then opened the Internet browser, and had to type in the name of his university’s email server three times before he got it right. Sweat dripped off his nose and hit the trackpad. His forefinger smeared it, and the cursor flitted wildly across the screen. “Goddamnit,” he whispered. “Please, please work.” He tried to dry it with his shirt, then tried again.
Someone banged on the bus door.
Dr. Menard flinched and saw a man in a reflective orange IDOT vest outside, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, eyes wild. Blood dripped from his hair. It looked like he had taken a gardening fork to his scalp. The man hit the door again, rattling the plastic windows.
Dr. Menard ignored him and concentrated on attaching the contents of the jump drive to an email. An empty sliding bar popped up, indicating the percentage of information that had been loaded. A blue bar began to eat up the remaining blackness of the gauge in lurching increments.
“C’mon, c’mon!” he shouted.
His voice attracted the attention of an older woman on the other side of the bus. She bounded up the steps on the passenger side and smashed her head into the plastic cocoon, leaving a streak of blood and makeup. She howled and scrabbled at the plastic, enraged at the movement inside, furious that she couldn’t reach him. Her cries brought more of them, like bees swarming to their queen.
The blue band had filled up at least half of the bar.
The infected surrounded the bus and so many were attacking it in a mindless fury it began rock and shake as the suspension shuddered under the onslaught. If too many gathered in one area, they would set each other off in a new frenzy, attacking each other, anything to eliminate the immediate threat. They would use anything close at hand. A backpack, used to choke the other, or a shattered bottle, to slash and jab. Usually it was something big and heavy, and used as a club. Out at Soldier Field, they didn’t have anything really big and heavy. One guy carried a gearshift off one of the older buses and used it to bash away at the bus door.
Dr. Menard didn’t care. He held onto the laptop, eyes never leaving the screen. Seventy-five percent now.
Eighty percent.
Ninety percent.
Then, a flash. A curious floating sensation for the briefest moment, as if everything were suspended, like motes of dust in sunlight. A feeling of intense, horrible heat.
Then, nothing.