Clarence’s stomach churned. Margaret already had to autopsy the infected bodies. If Yasaka’s divers succeeded, Margaret would also have to deal with the object that had started this whole slaughterfest.
The captain stood. Clarence rose immediately. Margaret stood as well.
“I have to get back to my crew,” Yasaka said. “Doctor Tim Feely is waiting for you in the research facility, belowdecks.”
“He’s an M.D.?” Margaret asked.
“Degrees in genetics and bioinformatics, actually,” the captain said. “But the man sure as hell knows his medicine. He saved a lot of lives in the battle’s aftermath. He’s a civilian researcher from Special Threats, Doctor Montoya, like you. Hopefully you’ll get along, because you’re going to be here for a while. I’ve been told Walker and Petrovsky — and the object, if we find it — are too risky to ship to the mainland.”
Margaret nodded. “That’s right. Every bit of travel, every exchange, there is a small chance that something will go wrong. A plane crash, a car wreck, a helicopter’s emergency landing… if even the tiniest speck of the pathogen gets out, it could spread too fast to contain.”
Yasaka sighed. “And then we start dropping nukes.”
Clarence saw Margaret look down. Her face flushed. He knew she’d taken that the wrong way, that she thought Yasaka was blaming her for Detroit, blaming her just like the rest of the world blamed her.
“Right,” Margaret said. “If it gets out, we start dropping nukes again.” She looked up, stared back at Captain Yasaka. “It’s been five years. If the disease had the ability to swim away from this location, it would have done so by now. This task force is a floating isolation lab. We have to make sure nothing leaves.”
Yasaka nodded, slowly and grimly. She knew the stakes. Clarence recognized the look in her eyes — Yasaka didn’t think she would ever set foot on land again.
Clarence hoped she was wrong.
If she wasn’t, he and Margaret would die right along with her.
CASA DE FEELY
Margaret thought the lower areas of the Carl Brashear were much like the top floor — or deck, or whatever they called it — a lot of gray paint, a lot of metal, neatly printed warning signs all over the place.
After the meeting with Captain Yasaka, a twentysomething lieutenant had been waiting for her and Clarence. The lieutenant had led them out of Yasaka’s stateroom, past the wounded packed into every available space, and had taken them amidships to a door guarded by two young men with rifles. The men carefully checked her ID, Clarence’s and even the lieutenant’s, someone they clearly already knew.
Very meticulous, very disciplined.
The lieutenant held the door open for them.
“Doctor Feely will take it from here,” he said. “Just go down the stairs.”
Clarence thanked the man. Margaret said nothing. Clarence went down first. Even on a secure ship, he wanted to make sure it was safe for her.
The steep, switchback flights were more ladder than stairs. The same gray walls, but no wounded here because there was nowhere to put them. Margaret found the descent eerily silent.
The last flight opened up to a small room. Gray walls lined three of its sides. A white airlock door made up the fourth. Through a thick window in the middle of the door, Margaret saw a short man reach out and press an unseen button. She heard his voice through speakers mounted on top of the airlock.
“Welcome-welcome-welcome,” he said. “Casa de Feely is happy to have you, Doctor Montoya.”
Feely had thick, blond hair that seemed instantly out of place in a military setting, although judging from the way it stuck up in unkempt bunches he clearly hadn’t washed it in days. Maybe he had a pair of holey sweatpants just like she did. If not, hers would have fit him: they were the same height, although she probably weighed a bit more than he did. His brand of skinny came from lack of sleep and lack of food rather than exercise. The thing that really caught her attention, though, were his eyes — alert but hollow and bloodshot.
She’d seen eyes like that many times, when looking in the mirror after a forty-eight-hour on-call stint from her doctor days, or during the marathon sessions she and Amos had put in when they’d tried to cure the infection.
Clarence rapped his knuckles against the glass.
“You going to let us in?”
“Absolutely,” Feely said. “Just as soon as you take my little prick.”
Clarence scowled. “Excuse me?”
Tim pointed down. “At your feet,” he said. “Cellulose test. Be a pair of dears, won’t you?”
At the base of the door were two small, white boxes, each about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Clarence picked one up and opened it. He looked, then showed the contents to Margaret: sealed alcohol swabs and a metal foil envelope.
She opened the envelope, expecting to see the cheek-swab analysis device she and Amos had invented. Instead, she saw a simple, six-inch plastic tube, white, with three colored LEDs built into it: yellow, green and red.
Margaret held it up. “You don’t use the swab test anymore?”
“You’ve been on vacay for a while, I take it,” Tim said. “Yours was susceptible to false-positives if the test subject had recently eaten plant material. Considering the level of concern in this joint, I didn’t want some guy getting shot because he had a piece of spinach stuck in his teeth. The one you’re holding is a blood test. Spring-loaded needle. Just press it against your fingertip.”
Clarence huffed. “Are you serious? We just got here.”
Tim nodded. “While I may have the natural good looks of a late-night TV host, I assure you I’m serious. I’m negative and I mean to stay that way.”
Smart thinking. Margaret thought of a line she’d read in a book once: perfect paranoia is perfect awareness. She liked Tim already.
Margaret opened an alcohol swab, rubbed down the pad of her thumb, then pressed the tube’s tip against it. She heard a tiny click, felt a sharp poke. She lifted the tube, looked at it: the needle had retracted. A small smear of her blood remained on the unit’s flat end.
The yellow light started to flash. She had a brief, intense flash of fear… what if she’d already caught the disease? What if the light turned red? The yellow flashing slowed. The tiniest mistake could make her change, turn her into a killer, it could—
The green light blinked on.
Margaret let out a long breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She was right back in it again, dead center in the hot zone.
Clarence picked up the second box, repeated Margaret’s actions. In seconds, his test flashed green.
The airlock door slid open with a light hiss of air. The blond man stepped out. He all but ignored Clarence in his rush to offer Margaret an overly excited handshake.
“I’m Tim Feely,” he said. “Biology, mostly, but also regular-old doctorin’ when it’s needed.”
His hands felt soft.
“I’m Margaret Montoya.”
He threw his head back and laughed. A genuine, I don’t care what anybody thinks laugh. In a bar or on a date, this one would be quite the charmer.
“I know who you are,” he said. He turned to Clarence. “As if I don’t know who she is, right?” He turned back to Margaret, his moves twitchy, like a bird’s. “Everyone knows. You’re the woman who saved the world. Thanks for that, by the way.”