Tim reached up, grabbed Clarence’s arm.
“Otto, stay here, goddamit! Don’t you fucking leave us alone!”
Cooper Mitchell tried to roll to his hands and knees but lost his balance, fell back down to his side. He looked around, eyes blinking and unfocused.
Clarence grabbed Tim’s wrist, pulled the hand free.
“I’m going to get my wife,” he said. “Stay here with Cooper. The Rangers will protect you.”
He sprinted for the elevator.
Tim felt lost. He looked at Cooper Mitchell, who was again trying to get to his hands and knees. Cooper… it was all about Cooper, about the microorganism he had in his body, in his blood.
Tim pressed his “talk” button. “Klimas, this is Feely, come in! Come in, Klimas!”
Klimas came back instantly, both his voice and the sound of gunfire painfully loud.
“Goddamit, Feely, stay off this channel!”
“Margaret’s infected. Otto went to get her. I’m alone with Mitchell. Get us out of here!”
A bullet ripped through the portable table’s metal leg — the table leaned to the right and fell on its edge.
“Feely,” Klimas said, “do you have a weapon?”
“No.”
“Then find one. Right now Mitchell is your responsibility. Protect him. The lobby is the safest place we have. That reception counter is decent cover, so stay behind it. I’ll get someone to you as soon as I can. Klimas, out.”
The frequency clicked off.
I am so screwed, so screwed…
A crash of glass, a whuff of billowing fire so close Tim felt the heat through his suit. He threw himself on top of Cooper to protect him from the flames.
So screwed, so screwed…
FREEDOM
Margaret paused on the stairwell landing of the fifteenth floor. She carefully checked her suit for tears and cuts: she couldn’t take any chances now.
She had killed Bogdana, blown his brains all over that rotted corpse. To pull the trigger, to know she was the one to end that subcreature’s miserable existence… it felt glorious.
Humans had pissed away their chance to live on this world. War, hatred, pollution, genocide… the true legacy of humankind. She hadn’t taken a life; she had simply exterminated a pest.
After she’d killed Bogdana, she’d heard the battle erupt in the streets. A look out the window gave her all the motivation she needed to keep fighting — as far down Chicago Avenue as she could see, waves and waves of people hiding behind barriers, waiting to advance. The Converted, coming to save her.
But Cooper Mitchell was downstairs. The Antichrist. If her kind poured in like a tidal wave of blessed bodies, overwhelming the Rangers and SEALS, they might come into contact with that diseased piece of garbage; they might be exposed. If as few as four or five of them contracted his hydras and then faded into the night, mingled with others, that was enough to start an unstoppable plague. Margaret’s people might be wiped out forever, leaving God’s will unfulfilled. The humans could keep developing, keep building, until someday they reached the stars.
She had to stop that from happening. She had to kill Cooper Mitchell before her people could reach him. She had the gun. D’Shawn Bosh had shown her how to use it, how to take a shooter’s stance, how to breathe out slowly, how to squeeze the trigger, never pull it.
Margaret didn’t have to get close to Cooper to kill him: she just needed a clean shot.
A clean shot, and a distraction.
That fucker Feely had probably already told Clarence and the others that she was infected — they wouldn’t trust her now, might even kill her on sight. She had to be careful, but she also had to move fast. The Converted onslaught would provide her the needed distraction. Everyone would be busy trying to repel the attack.
Kill Cooper Mitchell, then get to her people: that was all that mattered.
Afterward, she could figure out how to defuse humanity’s last weapon. She had discovered the hydras; she could also find a way to destroy them. Chicago had universities, hospitals — she could cobble together a working lab. She’d saved humanity three times over, so why couldn’t she do the same for her new tribe?
But first, Cooper had to die.
Margaret started down the steps.
THE EVIDENCE
Clarence sprinted down the hallway of the eighteenth floor, Glock 19 in hand, heading for the room where they’d found Cooper Mitchell. He leaned left to turn the corner without slowing, booted feet digging into the hallway carpet. He came around to the sight of a pair of M4s pointed his way. He tried to stop suddenly, knew in that moment bullets would rip him to shreds, but he was moving too fast — his forward momentum slammed him into the far wall.
He fell to the floor.
“Drop the weapon!” Ramierez screamed.
Clarence let the Glock fall from his hand to thump on the hallway’s carpet.
Ramierez stayed in place, black M4 tight to his shoulder and aimed at Clarence’s chest.
D’Shawn Bosh ran up, grabbed Clarence’s sidearm, took two steps back.
“Montoya,” Bosh said. “Where is she? She killed Bogdana.”
That couldn’t be true, couldn’t be; there had to be hostiles in the building.
“You guys got it all wrong,” Clarence said. “Margaret didn’t kill anyone.”
“Get your ass up,” Bosh said.
Clarence stood.
Ramierez’s aim didn’t waver. He seethed with visible fury — if Clarence gave him a reason, he knew Ramierez would put him down.
Bosh pushed Clarence down the hall.
“Move,” Bosh said. “See for yourself.”
Clarence felt so lost, so disoriented. He didn’t resist.
Another push on his back as he stumbled into Room 1812.
Clarence saw two bodies: the bloated thing that Cooper had hid beneath and, sprawled on top of it, Bogdana. A small hole in his CBRN suit, right at the back of his head, told the story.
“Point blank,” Bosh said. “Bogdana’s a SEAL, asshole — you think one of those gibbering idiots could have gotten that close to him?”
Clarence shook his head. No… not Margaret… she was immune, Clarence had seen her take the tests.
“We have to find her,” he said. “She… she’s in danger.”
The words rang hollow, even to him.
Bosh tossed Clarence’s pistol onto the bed.
“Ram and I are going to the fifth floor,” he said. “Setting up a sniper position. Look for her if you want. But when you see her, if you don’t shoot first, it was real nice knowing you.”
The two SEALs ran off down the hall.
Clarence thumbed his “talk” button.
“Margaret, answer me.”
He waited. No response.
“Margaret, please, please answer me!”
Nothing.
Clarence stared at Bogdana.
Bosh was right. Tim was right.
Margaret had done this.
She was infected.
The brutal reality hit home. He leaned against the wall. His wife, his love, the mother of his child… she was one of them.
The noise of the battle seemed to hit him all at once, the sounds of gunfire filtering up from the street. And not that far off, the pounding of helicopter rotors.
Why had she revealed herself now? Had she known this attack was coming, somehow? More of that infected telepathy, their hive-mind making them all move as one? Or was it simply because she realized that Tim had discovered her secret, that he was about to out her? But if that was the case, Margaret could have denied it — she tested negative, Tim would have had no proof.