“Station two, no contact.”
“Station three, same here. We’re not seeing anything.”
And so on, around the perimeter. The line of light began to stretch, though it appeared to come no closer.
“What the hell are they doing?” Apgar said. “They’re just waiting out there.”
“Hang on.” Michael pointed. “Thirty degrees left.”
Peter followed his aim. A second line was forming.
“There’s another,” Apgar said. “Forty right, near the tree line. Looks like a large pod. More coming in from the north, too.”
The main line was now several hundred yards long. Virals were streaming in from all directions, moving toward the central mass.
“This is no scouting party,” Peter said.
Apgar bellowed, “Runners, get ready to move!” He turned to Peter. “Mr. President, we need to get you to safety.”
Peter addressed one of the spotters: “Corporal, hand me that M16.”
“Peter, please, this is not a good idea.”
The soldier passed Peter the weapon. He freed the magazine, blew on the top round to clear any dust, reseated it in the well, and pulled the charging handle. “You know, Gunnar, I think that’s the first time in ten years you’ve called me by my first name.”
The conversation ended there. A low, rumbling sound rolled toward them. With each second, it increased in intensity.
“What am I hearing?” Michael said.
It was the sound of feet striking the earth. The mass continued to thicken, its great, heaving volume barreled toward them. In its wake, a cloud of dust boiled high in the air.
“Holy God,” Peter said. “It’s everyone.”
Apgar lifted his voice over the din: “Hold fire till they reach the perimeter!”
The horde was three hundred yards out and closing fast. It seemed less like an army than some great spectacle of nature—an avalanche, a hurricane, a flood. The platform began to hum, its bolts and rivets vibrating in rhythm to the seismic impact of the virals’ charge.
“Will that gate hold?” Peter asked Apgar. He, too, had given up his binoculars for a rifle.
“Against this?”
Two hundred yards. Peter pressed the stock of the weapon against his clavicle.
“Ready!” Apgar bellowed.
One hundred yards.
“Aim!”
Everything stopped.
The virals had halted just beyond the edge of the lights. Not just halted—they were frozen in place, as if a switch had been thrown.
“What the
hell …
?”
The mass began to divide into halves, creating a corridor. Starting at the rear, it flowed down the middle with a rippling on either side. The motion seemed somehow reverential, as if the virals were making way for a great king to pass among them, bowing as he passed. A dark shape was pushing forward through the heart of the horde. It appeared to be some sort of animal. It approached the city with painstaking slowness, the corridor unfurling before it. All guns were trained on the spot where it would emerge. A hundred feet, fifty, twenty. The front wall of virals separated, opening like a doorway to reveal the shockingly ordinary figure of a person on horseback.
“Is that him?” Apgar said. “Is that Zero?”
The rider moved forward into the lights. Halfway to the gate, he brought his horse to a halt and dismounted. Not “he,” Peter realized.
She.
The glare of the spotlights ricocheted off the lenses of the dark glasses that obscured the upper half of her face. A scabbard containing some kind of weapon, a sword or long gun, lay slantwise across her back; crisscrossing her upper body, she wore a pair of bandoliers.
Bandoliers.
“Holy goddamn,” Michael breathed.
Peter’s mind was tumbling down a hole in time. “Hold your fire!” He raised his arms high and wide above his head. “Everyone stand down!”
Her back erect, the woman angled her face toward the top of the wall. “I am Alicia Donadio, captain of the Expeditionary! Where is Peter Jaxon?”
59
Thirty minutes had passed; everyone was in position. Standing back from the portal, Peter nodded at Henneman.
“Open it, Colonel.”
Henneman turned the wheel and backed away. From inside the tunnel came a slow clop of hooves. A frisson of energy rippled through the line of soldiers facing the portal; all guns were raised, all eyes arrowed over the barrels. A shadow elongated across the wall of the tunnel; then Alicia emerged. One hand held a short rope attached to the horse’s bridle; the second lay easily at her side. Her hair, that distinctive red crown, was pulled tight to her scalp, its length corralled into a densely woven braid that fell midway down her back. On her upper body she wore a T-shirt without sleeves, revealing the muscularity of her arms and shoulders; below, loose trousers, cinched at the waist, and a pair of leather boots. A quick scan of the crowd, the lights of the staging area rebounding off the lenses of her goggles like search beams, another step forward, and there she paused, awaiting instructions.
“Move forward,” Peter said. “Slowly.”
She advanced another twenty feet; Peter ordered her to stop.
“Blades first. Toss them forward.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
He had a sudden feeling of unreality; it was as if he were talking to a ghost. “The blades, Lish.”
She glanced to Peter’s right. “Michael. I didn’t notice you standing there.”
“Hello, Lish.”
“And Colonel Apgar.” Alicia gave a quick nod from the chin. “It’s nice to see you, sir.”
“It’s ‘General’ to you, Donadio.” The man’s arms were folded over his chest; his face was a hard scowl. “Mr. President, say the word and this is done.”
“ ‘Mr. President’?” From Alicia, a wry frown. “You’ve come up in the world, Peter.”
The old banter, the jokey tone: was it a trick? “I said, take them off.”
In a manner that struck him as leisurely, Alicia unbuckled the straps and tossed her bandoliers to the ground.
“Now the sword,” Peter said.
“I’m here to talk, that’s all.”
Peter lifted his voice toward the top of the wall. “Snipers! Target the horse!” Then, to Alicia: “Soldier, isn’t it?”
If he’d rattled her, she didn’t show it. Nevertheless, she drew the scabbard over her head and lobbed it forward.
“Now the goggles,” Peter said.
“I’m no threat, Peter. I’m just the messenger.”
He waited.
“As you like.”
Off they came, revealing her eyes. Their orange color had grown stronger, more piercing. Time had not moved for her; she hadn’t aged a day. Yet something was different, a quality not so much seen as felt, like the prickling of a storm’s approach long before the clouds arrived. Her gaze did not wander but held him straight. A look of challenge, though now that her face was unconcealed, there was something naked about her, almost vulnerable. Her confidence was a ruse; feelings of uncertainty lay beneath.
“Hit the lights.”
Three portable banks of sodium vapor lamps were positioned behind him. They went off like a gun, blasting Alicia in the face. As her hands flew upward, half a dozen soldiers charged forward and shoved her face-first to the ground. With a loud whinny, Soldier reared up on his hind legs and pawed violently at the air. One of the soldiers jammed the barrel of a pistol against the base of Alicia’s skull while the others covered her body.
“Somebody control that animal,” Peter barked. “If it makes any trouble, shoot it.”
“Leave him alone!”
“Colonel Henneman, shackle the prisoner.”
As two soldiers led the horse away, Henneman holstered his pistol, stepped forward, and chained Alicia’s wrists and ankles. A third chain connected the shackles behind her back.
“Rise and face me,” Peter said.
Alicia rocked upright into a kneeling position. Her eyes were clamped shut, her face angled down and away from the harsh glare of the lights, like someone dodging a blow.
“I’m trying to save your lives, Peter.”
“You have an interesting way of showing it.”
“You need to hear what I have to say.”
“So talk.”
A moment passed; then she began: “There’s a man—more than a man, a kind of viral, but he looks like us. His name is Fanning. He’s in New York City, in a building called Grand Central. He’s the one who sent me.”
“So that’s where you’ve been all this time?”
Alicia nodded. “There are things I never told you, Peter. Things I
couldn’t
tell you. The viral part of me was always stronger than I let on. The feeling got worse and worse—I knew I couldn’t control it for long. Right after Iowa, I began to hear Fanning in my head. That’s why I went to New York. I intended to kill him. Or he could kill me. I didn’t really care which. I just wanted it all to be over.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Believe me, I wanted to. I wanted to slice his damn head off. But I couldn’t. The viral that bit me in Colorado wasn’t Babcock’s. It was Fanning’s. It’s his virus I carry. I belong to him, Peter.”
I belong to him
. The phrase was chilling. Peter glanced at Apgar to see if the full meaning had registered. It had.
“Fanning and I had a deal. If I stayed with him, he’d leave you alone.”
“Looks like he changed his mind.”
She shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t have any part in that. By the time I figured out what he was doing, it was too late to stop it. All along he was waiting for you to spread out, your defenses to drop. It’s Amy he wants. If I bring her to him, he’ll call it off.”
So there it was. “What does he want with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you lie to me.”
“Where is she, Peter?”
“I have no idea. Nobody’s seen Amy in over twenty years.”
Alicia’s tone had shifted; all her bluster was gone. “Listen to me,
please.
There’s no stopping this. You’ve seen what he can do. He’s not like the others. The others were
nothing.
”
“We have walls. We have lights. We’ve fought them before. Go back and tell him that.”
“Peter, you don’t get it. He doesn’t have to
do
anything. You have, what, just a few thousand soldiers? And how much food? How much gas? Give him what he wants. It’s your only chance.”
“Private Wilson, step forward please.”
Hollis moved into the lights.
“You remember Hollis, don’t you, Lish? Why don’t you say hello.”
Her head was bowed. “Why do you even ask me that?”
“How about his daughter, Kate? She would have been a little girl the last time you saw her.”
Alicia nodded.
“
Say
it. Say you remember Kate.”
“Yes, I remember her.”
“I’m glad you do. She grew up to be a doctor, just like her mother. Two little girls of her own. Then one of your friends bit her last night. Want to know what happened next?”
Alicia was silent.
“
Do
you?”
“Just get on with it, Peter.”
“All right, I will. That little girl you remember? She shot herself.”
Her silence infuriated him. What had happened to her? What had she become?
“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? You can do what you want with me, but that won’t stop a thing.”
Peter’s pulse was pounding; his hands were clenched. He jabbed a finger at her. “
Look at him.
I’ll get Sara out here, Kate’s daughters, too. You can tell all of them how fucking sorry you are.”
Alicia said nothing.
“Two hundred thousand people, Lish. And you come here and talk about surrender? Like he’s your
friend
?”
Her shoulders shook. Was she crying?
“I’ll ask you again. What does Fanning want with Amy?”
Her head rocked from side to side. “I don’t know.”
“Gunnar, give me your sidearm.”
Apgar drew his pistol, spun it in his hand, and passed it to Peter. Peter released the magazine, checked it, and shoved it back into the well, making a loud show of it.
Michael said, “Peter, what the hell are you doing?”
“This woman is a viral. She’s in league with the enemy.”
“It’s Alicia! She’s one of us!”
Peter strode forward and leveled the barrel at Alicia’s temple. “Tell me, goddamnit.”
“I know she’s here,” Alicia murmured. “I can hear it in your voice.”
He thumbed back the hammer and spoke through gritted teeth. He was running on instinct now, a blind white fury, obliterating all thought. “Answer the question or I am going to put a bullet through your head.”
“Wait.”
He turned. Amy, clutching Greer’s arm for balance, was standing at the edge of the circle.
“Lucius, get her the hell out of here.”
Two soldiers moved to block their path. One pressed a hand against Greer’s chest. The man tensed, then, apparently changing his mind, permitted this.
“Let me talk to her,” Amy said.
The idea was ludicrous. The woman could barely stand; a puff of wind would have knocked her to her knees.
“I mean it, Greer.”
“I understand you’re angry,” Amy said, “but there’s more to this than you know.”
She spoke to him as one might address a dangerous animal or a man poised at the lip of an abyss. Peter was suddenly conscious of the pistol’s slick weight in his hand.
“Lucius can stay where he is,” Amy said, “but if you want answers, you need to let me through.”
Peter looked back at Alicia. The woman’s head hung submission; she seemed small, frail, broken. Had he really been about to shoot her? This seemed impossible, yet in the moment, something had taken him over, beyond his control.
“Please, Peter.”
The moment stretched; everyone was staring.
“All right,” he said. “Let her pass.”
The soldiers stepped back. Amy’s shadow lay long on the ground as she approached Alicia’s cowed figure. Using her body to shield Alicia’s face from the light, Amy crouched before her.
“Hello, sister. It’s good to see you..”
“I’m sorry, Amy.” Her shoulders shook. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Tenderly, Amy lifted Alicia’s chin with the tips of her fingers. “Do you know how proud I am of you? You’ve been so very strong.”