“Amongst other things, Brett. My point is, they brought this upon themselves. It is their problem. There’s no reason that the tax dollars of decent, hard-working Americans—citizens with real values—should pay to salvage Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“But Ms. Vogel,” the host protested, “the disease has spread to many other places. Paris, for instance—”
“Don’t even get me started on the French,” she said. “It only proves my point.”
“But it’s well known that diseases like this spread most quickly in densely populated areas with national and international hubs of transportation. The places you mention are mostly rural—”
“Is it?” Vogel countered. “Is that really ‘well known’? Or is this just more of the same propaganda from the liberal secular scientists who tell us that we came from monkeys? Look, here’s some science, if you dare to hear it. The first warning was AIDS. It was a shot right across our bows, as clear a message as anyone could want. And yet look how it was ignored.” She leaned forward. “AIDS was a retrovirus. The current plague is a retrovirus. This is how God works his will.
“I have it on very good authority,” she continued, “from a prominent archaeologist, that the plague of the firstborn in ancient Egypt was a retrovirus—”
“That’s enough.” David sighed, changing the channel again, this time to a cooking show. He drank his beer and listened to some guy talk about brisket.
Then he sat up.
“Oh, shit,” he said aloud.
RV113.
Retrovirus 113.
Implying there had been a 112. What exactly had been in ALZ112? He knew viruses were sometimes used in gene therapy…
The phone rang, and he jumped. He picked it up, hoping it was Linda, but the number was unfamiliar.
“Hello?” he answered.
There was a long pause.
“Is this David Flynn?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Linda?”
Another pause.
“No,” the woman said. “Linda died. Of the virus.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“She was my sister, Mr. Flynn. May I ask what you wanted to speak to her about?”
“I’m trying to find out some information about a man named Will Rodman.”
“He was Linda’s team leader,” she said. “At Gen Sys.”
He paused, not quite sure what to ask next, but the woman on the other end of the line spoke first.
“I’m just not sure,” she said. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
He took a mental deep breath, and plunged right in.
“Is this about ALZ113?” he asked.
He heard her breathing, and prayed she didn’t hang up.
“Yes,” she said, finally. He waited patiently for her to go on. “I have something I think Linda would have wanted you to have,” she finally said.
He felt his pulse speed up a little.
“Is that so?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Well, can we meet somewhere?”
“I don’t like to go out,” she said. “I’m afraid of the virus. But I’ll meet you in Delores Park. I’ll give it to you there.”
“When?”
“Now, if you can come.” She paused, and then continued. “It scares me to have it.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
“It will take me a little longer,” she said. “I’ll be in a lime-green sweater. I have red hair. I’m, well, thirtyish.”
“I’ll be there,” he said. “I’m tall, with blond hair. I’ll be in jeans and a plaid shirt, I’ll wear a hat—a Forty-Niners cap.”
As he hung up, he felt sort of like someone in a spy novel.
Then it also occurred to him that if this was a spy novel, he might well be walking into some sort of trap.
11
“What happened to the goddamn camera?” Corbin snapped.
“I think we have to assume the chimps got it,” Malakai replied. “One or all of them must have known what it was.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Malakai, Clancy, Corbin and his crew were gathered around the monitors in the command centre.
“Not really,” Clancy said. “A lot of these guys have been monitored by cameras all of their lives.”
“They didn’t notice it when they first found the fruit.”
“No,” she said. “But this might be a different group.”
“It might be the leader, this time,” Malakai added.
“Leader?” Corbin grunted.
“Everything they do is organized,” Malakai said. “Very well organized. That implies a leader—and, furthermore, a leader with superior intelligence. Or perhaps, in fact, human intelligence.”
Corbin looked like he’d eaten something sour.
“There was a guy,” he said. “He followed them out here when they first came. We thought at first he might be leading them. But he wasn’t.”
“How sure are you of that?” Malakai asked.
“Very sure,” a new voice said. Malakai looked up to see that Trumann Phillips had entered the room. “He had been the owner of one of the chimps, that’s all.”
“So you talked to him?”
“He was interviewed, yes.”
“That doesn’t rule out the possibility that they have a human leader,” Malakai said.
“No,” Phillips responded, “I suppose it doesn’t. So how are things going?”
“Some of them found the fruit a while back—six, seven maybe. They ate some of it and left. They didn’t carry any with them, so the tracking chips are still there.”
“Maybe they went and got the rest of the, what, herd?” Phillips said.
“Troop,” Clancy corrected.
“So maybe the troop is gorging on fruit salad even as we speak, every living one of them.”
“That could be,” Clancy said. “Our theory is that there is one large group of them somewhere, and several smaller bands that are foraging. Based on their behavior in the grocery stores in Mills Valley, we assumed that if they found fruit, they would bring it back to the rest—to the slower ones, the infants, the injured.”
“But that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?” Phillips said. Then he turned. “Assemble a strike force, Corbin. Take them to where you dumped the fruit.”
“Hang on,” Corbin said, peering at the screen. “The markers are moving now. All eight of them.”
“Headed where?” Phillips asked.
“Northwest,” the mercenary said.
“They’ve been tracking generally northeast, haven’t they? Based on the bodies you’ve found, the trails, the encounters?”
“We believed they had moved to the north side of Mount Tam,” Corbin affirmed.
“This looks more like they’re going along the steep ridge trail.” Phillips glanced questioningly at Corbin.
“We haven’t searched there,” he admitted.
“I think the trails over Mount Tam were false,” Malakai said. “Deliberate misdirection.”
Phillips took a moment to look astonished before exploding.
“Why haven’t you said anything?” he demanded. “Why hold it back until now, Mr. Youmans?”
“I voiced my opinion to Mr. Corbin, there.”
“Really?” Phillips spun on his employee. “Corbin?”
“It seemed too ridiculous to consider, sir,” Corbin replied.
Phillips stared at him icily for a moment.
“From now on you report everything, do you understand? We hired these people because they know apes. You do not know apes—you are an ape. Your job isn’t to evaluate their recommendations. It’s to report them, and, when in the field, follow them.”