“How many . . . what?”

“How many trucks? How many loads? Three? Four? Five? Are you going to need special equipment to deliver the troublesome cargo? Or is it something that a couple of guys can manage? I need to know how much, you understand. Things like, is the product biodegradable? Would it benefit from close proximity to say, corrosive chemicals, which failed to find their way out of the city?”

“Perhaps as little as five. Perhaps as many as twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five what?”

“Twenty-five tanker trucks.”

Lee was impressed. “Whoa. Twenty-five loads. Shit. Okay. How long are you going to spread it out? You know, most of these guys, they drop off a load in February, maybe another in March. How do you want to space things out?”

“This will be a one time trip. Twenty-five trucks. Together.” Dr. Reischtal turned to the door. “Spaced around and under downtown Chicago.”

Lee thought of the long tunnel and the explosion. “When?”

“Perhaps days. Perhaps hours.”

Phil waved Lee over. He grasped Lee’s shoulder and bent him close. “Listen to me very carefully. You want to take what he’s offering. Please.”

Lee said, “If this asshole wants to come on my home turf here—”

“Shut up for five seconds and listen. If you want to have any kind of career at this at all, for the love of Christ shut the fuck up and listen.”

Lee swallowed his next sentence.

Phil tapped his chest. “It’s an easy choice. You handle this right, and by God, in ten years, you’re gonna be fucking president.”

The sheriff’s department would only provide three buses. No more.

“Fuck me,” Sam said and spit his gum into the gutter. He’d gone out to check everything out, just to make sure that they wouldn’t be putting federal prisoners on any kind of transport that might prove to be unstable and problematic. He stood at the curb as the three buses drove the wrong way down Clark and lined up along the curb. “Where’s the rest?” he asked the first driver.

The driver shrugged. “All I know is they sent me here. You got a problem, call the sheriff. I drive the bus. That’s all.”

The two other drivers all said the same thing. Sam pulled out his cell and called Ed. “Hate to say it, but this is gonna be all we got.”

Ed, watching the buses on closed circuit video monitors inside the main office, said, “Looks like we got the short end of the stick. Hold tight for a minute. I’ll call Arturo, see if I can’t get some answers.”

Sam didn’t bother to answer. He relayed the message to the drivers, who all sat snug ensconced inside a bulletproof plastic cocoon. This way, if the prisoners ever managed to gain the upper hand over the guards, they couldn’t reach the bus drivers. When Sam delivered the news, each of the three drivers shrugged and shook out a folded newspaper over the giant steering wheel, settling down for a long wait. These guys didn’t give two shits about the situation. The union only said they had to drive the bus, and nothing else.

Sam’s phone rang. It was Ed. Sam answered with, “Any luck?”

“Arturo isn’t answering his phone. So I called the sheriff’s office. Turns out the boys from the CDC have commandeered a number of prisoner buses. Won’t say why. Just that the buses aren’t available. When I pressed the issue, they told me, strictly off the record of course, that the CDC and FEMA and god knows who else had already commandeered the rest of the prisoner transfer buses in Cook County. Sounded to me like they’re anticipating some trouble in the evacuation. Either way, we got three buses, so we’re gonna have to do this in shifts.”

“Figures. Same old story. No help from anybody.”

“You got it, brother. Sit tight out there, and I’ll figure out who gets to ride the first merry-go-round.”

Sam didn’t bother to relay the message to the bus drivers. He didn’t want to interrupt their reading. He wandered over to one of the empty benches, sat down, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the hazy sun for a few minutes. He wished he’d brought his flask along, but he’d left it in the car.

He wondered if he could sleep if he stretched out on the warm bench. If he could just close his eyes for a while, he could pretend that the soldiers behind him, busy setting up more roadblocks along Van Buren, were actually El trains clattering along the tracks. He knew deep down that it wouldn’t work. The sound of the El trains screeching around corners and rumbling into stations was unique, and in that absence, he could never shake the feeling that armed soldiers now patrolled his city.

And so he would never be able to fall asleep.

Not until this was finished, one way or another.

CHAPTER 59

12:39 PM

August 14

Qween and Dr. Menard picked their way through a sub-basement full of old conference chairs, outdated copy machines, and plenty of cobwebs. On the far wall, Qween found a large panel with three long lines scratched in the metal. At first glance, it looked as if it was just regular wear and tear, but if you cocked your head just right, the three scratches eventually arranged themselves into a ragged capital H. Qween pulled it away from the wall, revealing a large vertical air duct. “Old Henry told me about this place. He holes up back here when it gets too cold.”

Dr. Menard peered down into the absolute darkness and sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll fit.”

Qween snorted. “If I can fit, you can fit. I’ll go first, ya big baby.” It was old enough and big enough that she fit without straining too much, using her butt and knees to slow her descent. She looked up at Dr. Menard’s silhouette, framed within a square of dusty light. “Almost there, Doc. Your hospital is on the other side of this wall. You want in quiet, this is how we get there.”

Dr. Menard didn’t say anything, but he climbed inside, blocking the light. She heard him coming down in a shuffling slide. Ten feet down, Qween hit the bottom of the shaft. It stretched away on both sides. She called up, “Head to your left when you get down here.”

She crawled along until a hazy blob of faint light appeared. The light sharpened into a square of horizontal strips as Qween got closer. She pressed her face against the grill, looking at another large, forgotten, filthy storage room, full of discarded furniture, outdated technology, and boxes full of mold.

Something was different about this one, though. It almost looked as if a flood had been flash frozen as it tore through the room, the murky water solidified midsurge. The edges clung to the corners and under conference room tables, and the shadows collected and pooled in the dim light.

She dug around in her cloak and found a tiny flashlight. She clicked it on.

Dr. Menard’s voice was half-surprised, half irritated. “You’ve had a flashlight this whole time and didn’t use it?”

Qween said, “You’re a smart man. Woulda thought you’d know these take batteries. They ain’t free and they ain’t cheap. Ain’t gonna use ’em up when I don’t need to.” She aimed the light down at the material, but still couldn’t figure out what it was. It almost looked like black sand had collected in drifts over the years. She got impatient and gave the grill a solid thump with the bottom of her fist, knocking it out of the way. It hit something hard directly under the airshaft, bounced off into the center of the room, landing in the drifts with a soft thump, sending a cloud of the stuff flying into the air. The debris settled fairly quickly, and Qween decided it wasn’t dust. Too heavy.

She stuck her head out and saw they had gotten lucky; a table had been shoved against the wall directly under the airshaft. She rotated her body and stuck her feet out first, then lowered herself to the table. She kept her flashlight on the whole time, watching to make sure that whatever the material was, it wasn’t moving.