Containment (30 page)

"
How about we move on to the next house? I don't think there's anything here."

A thin a
rm shot out of the closet. In the hand was a yearbook.

"
Hey!" Gordon cried. He snatched it. "You found one! It's...a middle school yearbook."

"
He's not in there. I checked."

"
Okay," said Gordon. "So we came close but failed. Let's throw away these cards and draw again."

"
Kids tend to come in bunches," said Cecily. "Where there's one, you'll often find another."

Gordon thought about his own family; they only had one child but he and his wife had often talked about another
—and would have had another and maybe even more, if marital problems hadn't started cropping up at the time.

A voice suddenly came over Cecily
's radio. Gordon recognized it as one of the National Guard troops that he and Cecily had talked into helping them search for a yearbook. Everyone was concerned about the teenager with a machine gun—and where he got it. And how many others have one.

"
We've got a yearbook," said the sergeant. "The local high school. Seems like it's the one you want."

Cecily Sunday erupted from the scattered boxes and books.
"Meet us outside!"

A moment later Cecily sat down unceremoniously on the dirty steps of a porch that hadn
't been dusted in weeks, anxiously flipping through pages of painfully smiling or unsmiling young faces. The high school proved to be a large one with hundreds of students.

Gordon watched her, the knot in his stomach growing tighter.

Then Cecily's eyes widened. She pointed a bony finger at one of the portraits and read off the name. "Got him!"

Bethesda, Maryland / 1:15 p.m.

"Benzodiazepines," said Chet Vernolt. His face filled Kraig's screen, white moustache dead center.

Kraig shook his head
.

"
Sure, it'll work," Chet went on. "They're GABA agonists, aren't they?"

"
Yeah," said Kraig, "but I don't think putting the people in the zone on Valium or Halcion is the answer."

"
Why not?"

"
We've already thought of using chemicals that increase the activity of GABA—on mice, anyway. They don't work."

"
People aren't mice."

"
But the systems and receptors are the same. Our modelers have simulated—"

"
Modelers," snorted Chet. "Leave the computer people out of it, there's nothing like a real live physiological organism for a test."

Kr
aig's words came too quickly for him to censor. "Except when you accidentally kill the real live physiological organism during the test."

"
Valium isn't going to kill anyone."

"
Doesn't sleep exacerbate the problem?"

"
Not if the rhythms are disrupted. And the GABA increase will probably counteract the potentially negative effects of sleep. Talk to me about the logistics. How soon can we pull it off? We're talking about a massive delivery of benzodiazepines—"

"
I don't want to do it, Chet. It'll divert resources from our main effort, which has to be finding and transporting a viable treatment as soon as possible."

"
I think we have the manpower to swing it. Another advantage, in case you haven't thought about it, is that it'll sedate the victims."

"
That's the problem, Chet. The people won't take the drug. They already think we don't care what happens to them, and they'll assume we're just trying to put them to sleep so they won't argue or fight anymore."

"
That's ridiculous. Besides, we don't have to tell the people what's in the pills we give them."

"
That's not ethical."

"
Kraig, this is a crisis. Sometimes you have to bend the rules."

"
Maybe so," said Kraig, "but this isn't the answer. It's like doing something just to be doing something, and that wastes time and resources which we don't have. Furthermore, some of the people in the zone, and maybe a lot of them, won't take the drug because they're so suspicious of the government right now. Unless you tell them...."

Chet smiled.
"That's an idea—we could tell them it's part of the cure."

Kraig exploded.
"You can't do that!"

"
Why not? It seems reasonable. We need people to take the pill, and if they don't trust us, we'll have to give them an incentive. Motivate them to take their medicine."

"
But it's not medicine."

"
That's
your
theory. My theory is that it'll do some good." The director paused, thinking. "Now, let's see...I want you to investigate the logistics and get back to me as soon as possible."

Kraig put on a straight face.
"How about tomorrow, first thing?"

"
Fine."

Chet
's image faded.

After consulting his directory, Kraig called the newest, lowest-ranking, most inexperienced person on the staff.
"Hey," he said, "I've got a job for you....no, there's no rush. No rush at all."

Medburg, Pennsylvania / 1:25 p.m.

Two porcupines pulled up in front of the Loretta Winters house. Among the armed and hazard-suited troops that emerged from the vehicles were two unmasked civilians.

Cecily and Gordon ran up the walkway toward the porch.

"Ma'am!" called out a lieutenant, crouching behind the armor plates of one of the porcupines. "Ma'am! Sir! Halt!"

Gordon stopped, but Cecily kept going.

The lieutenant shouted, "Ma'am, you need to let us handle this!"

Without turning around Cecily cried,
"He's just a boy!"

A boy with a machine gun
, thought Gordon. But he followed Cecily up to the door. Cecily rang the bell repeatedly, while Gordon pounded the door.

The National Guard lieutenant, leading a dozen heavily armed soldiers, stood behind the two civilians. From the lieutenant
's speaker issued a voice that sounded extremely frustrated: "Ma'am, I know you're with the Micro-Investigation Unit, and I know I'm supposed to give you all the support you require. But in military matters I think you need to listen to me."

Cecily sighed.
"No one's answering the door. We have to break in."

"
Fine, ma'am. Suppose you let me and my men handle that."

"
You and your men remember something for me," said Cecily. "This is just a child. A teenager."

"
We'll keep that in mind, ma'am."

"
You swagger in there with your weapons and he's going to get scared. You might provoke something that wouldn't otherwise happen."

"
We'll go in as gingerly as we can, ma'am." The lieutenant broke into the house using his well-practiced routine. "We'll give him every chance to surrender peacefully."

Gordon escorted Cecily out of harm
's way, behind the porcupines. Some of the soldiers entered through the front door and others stationed themselves around the back door of the row home.

"
It's for the best," Gordon said softly. "Let them do their job."

"
As long as their job doesn't consist of gunning down a teenager."

Gordon frowned, thinking of his own son. What would Jeff do in a case like this? Thank God he didn
't have to find out.

Tense minutes passed. Gordon had put his arm around Cecily
's shoulder when he guided her off the porch, and he'd left it there when they reached a safe haven on the other side of the vehicles. Cecily's frame was slender, he noticed, but sinewy, strong. Real strength, grit; inside that small body lived a person of courage and conviction. Smart and resourceful. Bizarre, too; she had a smile that would frighten small dogs and kids and even most adults—Gordon recalled his feelings when he'd first seen it. Yet now, to Gordon, Cecily Sunday's smile seemed to be the most natural thing in the world.

He caught Cecily looking at him
thoughtfully. She held her gaze long enough that Gordon began to fidget. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"
No. No, not really. It's just that...."

Gordon waited. Cecily continued to stare at him, so he said,
"It's just what?"

"
You never told me why you came looking for me after you broke into the zone."

"
I had to do something, didn't I?"

"
No, I mean you never explained how you knew I'd be here and why you tried to find me. Telling me that you don't know isn't good enough."

"
That's right," said Gordon slowly, "I never did tell you, did I? Well, I—"

The captain leaped out of one of the porcupines and gestured to Cecily.

"What happened?" asked Cecily. There'd been no gunfire and she was clearly relieved. "They found him?"

"
No. Just two bodies. You want to come in and take a look at them?"

* * *

Cecily and Gordon hadn't wanted to come in—they'd seen enough bodies—but they obeyed the summons.

They quietly followed the captain and the lieutenant up the stairs of the small house and to a bedroom located at the back end of the second floor
—undoubtedly the master bedroom. On a carefully made bed, covered by a light blue quilt, lay two bodies: a woman and a boy.

The lieutenant
's voice issued from his suit's speaker. "I've called for a couple of body bags."

Cecily approached the bodies. The woman lay face up, eyes closed but the mouth open, locked into place
—a last desperate gasp for air, just before she lost consciousness. The boy lay face down beside her.

"
Is it...?" Gordon couldn't get the whole question out.

Cecily shook her head.

"You sure?" The captain stepped forward. "Let me turn him over for you."

"
No." Cecily held out her hand. "He's too small." She leaned over the body, gently lifting the head. Rigor mortis had not fully developed but the boy's neck and back moved with the head. After a quick look at the face Cecily let the body softly return to its former position.

"
I'm betting this was his brother," said Cecily.

Gordon pointed to the woman.
"And mother?"

"
Most likely." She faced the captain. "No sign of Gary?"

"
No ma'am, no one else is here."

Gordon looked at Cecily.
"Think he knows...about this?"

Cecily shrugged. She kept staring at the bodies.
"Man, this is some kind of bad-news bug. One minute you're hugging your kid, and the next minute...."

The captain reached a suited hand and took Cecily
's shoulder. "Perhaps you should go."

"
No. I need to stay."

"
We'll have men watching the house."

"
If you do he'll never walk up. You think he's stupid?"

The captain paused.
"We'll have men
in
the house."

"
And he'll probably start shooting. What would you do if you found armed men in
your
house?"

"
Listen, ma'am—"

"
How about
you
listening for a minute, Captain. I think I can talk to this kid. Let me stay—alone. You and your men can hunt for him in the zone, and I don't blame you for that. But if the kid shows up here, at his home, then I don't want him gunned down before he gets a chance to talk."

The captain
's expression was visible through his suit's face shield, but offered little insight into his emotions. He gazed at Cecily, his thoughts hidden behind a placid mask.

"
Captain," said the lieutenant, "we've circulated a picture of this Gary Winters kid and there are a lot of men out there looking for him. My guess is, unless the kid's holed up somewhere we'll find him soon."

"
All right, you win," said the captain to Cecily. He glanced at Gordon too. "There'll always be at least one patrol in the area. I want you to contact them if the kid comes here." He gave them the radio code. "You understand me?"

Gordon and Cecily nodded.

The National Guard troops departed. Cecily and Gordon went downstairs, into the living room.

Gordon said,
"If Gary already knows his mother and brother are dead, he might not come back here."