“Not without a tank. You saw the roads — too many cars blocking the way. We need something big, and I didn’t see any semis out there.”
Tim pulled at his lower lip as he thought.
Ramierez gave a halfhearted wave. “Commander, it’s Bosh. He’s got Roth. Coming in now.”
Paulius’s chest swelled with relief, but he tempered the emotion, pushed it down. Bosh could have made that call under duress.
“Otto, get up,” he said. “Come with me.” Paulius gripped Tim’s shoulder, turned him toward Ramierez.
“Ram, you need something to do. Show this man how to use your M4.”
Tim’s eyes went wide? “Me? I’m no good with guns.”
“Yes, you,” Paulius said. “And you’ll learn, right now. Go.”
Tim moved to Ramierez just as Otto walked up, Glock in hand.
“With me,” Paulius said, then walked to the top of the wide stairs.
One flight down, he saw Bosh quietly enter the store along with a big man wearing sweatpants, a red Chicago Bulls knit hat and a white-sleeved Chicago Bears letterman’s jacket. The man might have passed for a civilian were it not for the SCAR-FN rifle in his trembling hands. Roth. The clothes looked cleaner than he did.
Bosh threw a quick salute, then turned back to guard the front doors.
Roth trudged up the stairs, each step an effort.
“Jesus H,” Paulius said. “You look like a pile of spilt fuck.”
Roth nodded. “At least I’m still ticking.”
“And Harrison?”
Roth shook his head. “We tried to hide in an office building. We stumbled onto a bunch of them camping out. It got crazy, sir. One of those giant fucking things threw a file cabinet at him. He went down, they swarmed on him, I… I couldn’t… I should have—”
“Forget it,” Paulius said, perhaps a little too sharply. “Just forget it. He died doing his job.”
Roth looked cashed out, mentally, physically and emotionally.
Paulius tugged the letterman jacket’s faux leather sleeve.
“Thought you were a Bengals fan.”
Roth patted the embroidered orange “C” on his left breast. “This thing kept me alive, sir. From now on, go Bears. Ramierez had the right idea — the bad guys were hunting us based on our uniforms. First store I found after I got away from that office was a fan shop. These clothes made it easier to blend in a little. From a distance, none of them gave me a second glance.”
Paulius slapped the bigger man on the shoulder. “Grab some sack time. We might have to move quick.”
Roth didn’t need to be told twice. He nodded and walked to a rack of sweaters. He didn’t even bother taking the sweaters down for padding, just crawled beneath them, lay on his back, and was out in seconds.
Margaret Montoya coughed, a lung-rattling sound that echoed through the cold store.
Clarence turned and walked toward her.
Paulius wondered what it was like to love a woman so much that you’d abandon reason and logic, let your heart blind you to what your eyes could plainly see. For the first time, he found himself feeling sorry for Clarence Otto.
Tim came at a fast hobble, his face lit up with excitement.
“Klimas, holy shit,” he said. “Remember that firehouse we saw on the way in?”
Where I shot two brave men in cold blood?
“Yeah, I remember.”
“I saw those cops,” Tim said. “I’m not passing judgment, okay? Whatever had to be done had to be done, but I gathered they were guarding the firehouse. Were they?”
Feely seemed far too amped up. And in the fur coat, he did look a little like a pimp.
“Doc, what’s your point?”
Tim tilted his head toward Margaret, did a bad job of trying not to make the motion obvious.
“Argaret-May is inected-fay with eydra-hays,” he said. “She’s oughing-kay. You get me?”
Paulius sighed. “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
“She’s infected. If Cooper’s story is accurate, she’ll be dead in… wait, how long have we been here?”
“About five hours.”
“Then she’ll be dead in nineteen hours,” Tim said. “But that’s not what matters. What matters is the hydras are replicating inside of her right now.”
He looked off. His lips moved like he was counting something, or speaking to himself in a language only he knew.
“I think I have a way to save Ramierez,” he said. “A way that not only gets us north in a hurry, but lets us infect hundreds of those motherfuckers along the way. If any of them radiate out to other areas, it’s very possible that the hydras will spread all over the Midwest. Klimas, if you can pull this off, we might even start a chain reaction that could kill them all.”
Paulius stared down at the man. “If I can pull what off?”
Tim’s eyes shone with a combination of intensity, hope and the dread of a nasty job that had to be done.
“The firehouse,” he said. “And what’s inside… the fire truck.” He nodded toward Margaret. “We’re going to put her in it, so to speak. Margaret Montoya gets to save the world one more time.”
THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
A hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.
“Mister Mitchell, wake up.”
Cooper opened his eyes. Tim Feely, standing over him.
Tim smiled. “How are you doing?”
Was he wearing a fur coat?
“Leg hurts,” Cooper said. The understatement of the year. His right thigh throbbed, stung. “I cut it on something climbing over that poopwall.”
“Poop-wall? You mean that street barricade?”
Cooper nodded. “Yeah. That.”
“Well, whatever caused it, the cut required fifteen stitches. You might have ligament damage as well, so walk carefully. Unfortunately, it was Klimas who did the sewing, as my deft digits are a bit dinged up.”
Tim held up his hands. They were bandaged in a dozen places. Some of the white strips had spots of red.
Cooper remembered the half-face man with the axe. Tim could have kept running, but he’d come back.
He’s not like you, Coop ol’ dawg… Doc Feely doesn’t leave anyone behind…
“Uh, what you did back there… thanks.”
Tim’s smile faded. “I don’t want to think about that. Not ever again.”
He pointed across the store to where Otto and Klimas stood along with two other men. Cooper recognized Bosh, and also that big SEAL — Roth, was it? — who for some reason was decked out in Bears gear. Ramierez sat by himself against a wall. Sleeping, maybe. And that infected lady, watching everything. She had a gag in her mouth and was practically buried in a pile of women’s coats.
“Come join us,” Tim said. “Time to talk about how we’re getting you out of here.”
Cooper listened to Klimas lay out the idea. Tim’s idea, maybe, but Klimas was in charge so it was his no-bullshit voice that outlined what would happen next.
Whoever came up with it, the idea sounded insane.
Everyone looked at Clarence Otto, waited for his response.
The man stayed silent for a moment. His jaw muscles twitched. There was murder in his eyes.
Otto raised a hand, pointed a finger — right at Cooper.
“He’s got the hydras, too,” Otto said. “Why don’t we use him?”
Oh, fuck that. This lovesick idiot wanted to save that diseased whore?