“And if it isn’t?”

“Might be a quiet way of getting inside. See if we can’t take a look-see.”

“And Sleeping Beauty?”

Ed glanced at Qween, snoring in the backseat. “Let her rest.”

Sam opened his door, but Ed said in a sharp voice, “Hold up.”

A rumbling reached them. Sam eased back into the car, pulling his door closed in a smooth, unhurried motion. Headlights filled the car. Ed and Sam sank down in their seats. The roar of diesel engines grew louder, shaking Lower Wacker.

A convoy of M939 military trucks thundered past the Crown Vic. They were all painted in gray and black camouflage instead of the usual green and brown. The first truck pulled left, bouncing up over the center divider between the heavy concrete columns, then backed up to the loading dock.

Someone had been waiting for the trucks. The heavy loading dock door rolled up as soon as the brake lights flashed, and four soldiers stepped out and opened the flaps at the back of the truck. Dozens more soldiers hopped out and disappeared inside the dock. As soon as the last soldier left, the first truck pulled away and waited fifty yards up the street. The second truck repeated the process. As did the third and the fourth.

There was no confusion, no hesitation. The entire operation was finished in less than three minutes. Ed counted a dozen trucks. He guess there must have been at least twenty to twenty-five soldiers in each truck. The last truck pulled away and the first four soldiers slammed the loading dock door. When they were once again in a line, the trucks smoothly accelerated toward Congress, leaving nothing but a cloud of diesel exhaust in their wake.

Lower Wacker was silent and still.

“I got two-eighty. Three hundred, tops,” Sam said.

“Same here,” Ed said.

Qween rested her chin on the back of Ed’s seat. “So much for your big plan to sneak inside.”

The grumbling, rhythmic thud of boots in the hall jerked Tommy out of his sleep. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. He remembered a faint sense of being in his parents’ kitchen, the vague memory of sitting in the old vinyl chairs and a whisper of the smell of bacon. It was nothing of particular importance, not really, but for some reason, it all seemed very special. Even as he clung to the image, the smell, the comforting sense of safety, the memory or dream slipped through his grasping fingers, like wisps of fog in the sunlight.

The figure on the bed came into focus and everything came rushing back. The hospital, the rats, Dr. Reischtal, Grace in danger, all of it. Tommy froze, afraid he had awakened Don, and he couldn’t stand to watch his partner writhe and scream anymore.

Don was already awake. His mouth was open, but Tommy couldn’t hear anything.

Don’s mouth was full of black, clotted blood. He vomited, spraying bloody chunks across his right arm and the side of the mattress. His nose bled in a steady stream. It leaked from his eyes.

The blackened tongue tried to push the viscous fluid out of his mouth so he could breathe. He sucked in a gurgling breath, enough to galvanize the oxygen-deprived muscles, and he spewed out more of the thick, rotten glop with a wet, gagging sound.

Globules hit the carpet and quivered like half-digested Jell-O.

Tommy twisted his ankles against the straps and strained to reach the floor. His bare toes managed to graze the plastic. The slick sheet slid against the tile floor underneath, stopping any movement of the wheelchair. He shoved his hips forward, putting more weight on the restraints. This time he gained enough traction to push the wheels backwards an inch.

On the bed, Don continued to shiver and flail. The sad, liquid sound of the expulsion of gas came from underneath him. The unbearable stench of shit and blood and rotten flesh filled the room. An impossible amount of blood kept erupting from his mouth, steadily pumping it out of his body and onto the bed and floor.

Tommy threw his body into pushing himself backward, one squeaking inch at a time. He didn’t think the virus could spread through the air; if that was the case, the whole bar full of Streets and Sans guys would have come down with it. No, the virus probably wasn’t airborne, but he sure as hell didn’t want any infected blood touching his skin.

He heard a soft pop and froze. It felt like one of the leather restraints had torn, just a bit, but he didn’t want to give it away. The problem was, he wasn’t sure which leg might have torn. He looked around, and found he was nearly back against the door. There wasn’t much else he could do. If the virus was now airborne, then he was dead. If it wasn’t, then hopefully he was far enough away from Don to avoid contamination.

He forced himself to concentrate on the wheelchair. He mimed rocking around, still thrashing against his restraints for a while, but he was actually trying to read anything he could off of the wheelchair. He discovered that it had a certification sticker on the arm, and this particular wheelchair’s certification was over fifteen years old. If the leather had not been taken care of properly, it could be brittle by now. That might be what he’d heard. He thought about that faint tearing sound, lingering in the air for a quarter second. Maybe less. Wondered if THEY had heard it. Wondered if it truly had torn something major, something that he could tear completely away, or if it was nothing, just a cruel joke to get his hopes up.

Don flopped against the bed, still vomiting. He was blind now; two pools of blood filled his eye sockets. The thrashing slowed. His fingers fluttered. The legs stopped moving. The chest rose, sank, rose once more, then slowly sank. It did not rise again. Blood bubbled out of the mouth, pulled by gravity, instead of forced out by muscle contraction.

Don was dead.

CHAPTER 47

9:49 PM

August 13

Dr. Reischtal hated meetings. They gave everybody the illusion their opinions were important. That they had some kind of right to be included in making decisions. Especially the slob, Dr. Menard or something. Dr. Reischtal didn’t care if he was one of the top vector-borne virus men in the country. He seemed to still think that he was part of a team.

And he wasn’t the only one. Dr. Halsey had actually had the audacity to challenge his decision regarding Krazinsky, in front of the others, no less. Dr. Reischtal promised himself that she would pay for that deliberate breach of protocol. Once this current situation had been resolved, she would never again work on anything at the federal level.

The insubordination was spreading. Instead of following their orders, some of these doctors seemed to think it was their duty to “think outside the box.” Dr. Reischtal would like to rip out the fingernails of whoever had come up with that asinine phrase, but he had to admit, even he found himself using it on occasion. Nevertheless, it was beyond him why these doctors and scientists couldn’t simply do what they were told.

It was time to remind them who was in charge.

“I would like to begin by clearing away any misconceptions.” Dr. Reischtal glared around the table. Everyone had stopped talking and stared at his biohazard suit when he strode into the room. No one was sure right off if they were supposed to be taking such extreme precautions outside the patients’ rooms. They were dressed in scrubs, mostly because they hadn’t had a chance to change.

Dr. Reischtal drew it out, knowing he had their full attention. “You were brought here because you are expert virologists. To decipher this organism, we need your full cooperation, and that means—”

Dr. Menard raised his hand. “Is this a test or something, doctor?” He gestured at the hazmat suit.