Dogs (32 page)

“Hasn't worked in most evacuations. There's always some who refuse to leave for a hurricane or flood or whatever, so I imagine they'll be some here, too. Maybe a lot.”

He'd kept his tone mild, uninvolved. Linda gazed at him, nodded, and poured his coffee. “You want eggs?”

He'd passed the test. At other tables, conversation resumed. While eating his breakfast, Jess listened. That was why he'd come.

“—prob'ly carried by mosquitoes. You know, like malaria.”

“Isn't neither. This is a terrorist act, Bill. It's plain as the nose on your face.”

“Don't matter where the plague comes from, only matters where it goes. The government's going to try to put all the infected people in internment camps, like the Japs in the war. And then, just watch, they'll go for everybody who was even exposed to plague.”

“Not internment camps. More like leprosy colonies.”

“You're both full of it. Won't ever happen.”

“You're too naïve, Vern. Always were. Might be the Army wants our land, build a supplement to Fort Detrick. This is a good way to just clear us out.”

“—heard on the radio that it's Cubans in league with the Mafia. Like with JFK.”

“—read on the Internet that the old KGB—”

“—Arab terrorists—”

“—Greenpeace and those environmental crazies—”

“—Aryan Nation—”

“—North Korea—”

Jess sipped his coffee. Rumors, conspiracy theories, hate reactions…People would seize on anything to make sense of the unthinkable. They—

“Hey,” Billy said, settling into the chair opposite Jess. “Saw your truck outside.”

Jess stared at the left side of Billy's head, which was covered with a dressing the size of a toaster. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Accident. Gunshot.”

"Gunshot?"

“Yeah. I was trying to clean my gun with my left hand and the sucker went off. I forgot it was loaded. Bullet just gazed my head. A lot of blood but no real damage and a few stitches just closed it right up.”

Jess stared at him. Billy's lies were never smooth but usually they were vaguely plausible. There was no way that Billy, arm in a sling or not, had shot himself in the head. Like all good marksmen, he always knew the state of his guns and handled them with respect. Even drunk, Billy was deft with weapons, if with nothing else.

“You shot yourself?”

“Yup.” Billy stared stonily, and Jess knew to drop it. He would never find out what had really happened. “You heard about the dog and the window?”

“It was on TV at the hospital. I been sitting with Cami all night.”

“How is she?” Jess said. He'd never seen that expression on Billy's face before and it took him a moment to find the word for it: tenderness.

“Her fever broke and she's sleeping. Actually, it's more like a coma. The docs said the rest of them, the ones that got bit earlier than Cami, come out of the coma after a while, but nobody knows what's still in their brains.”

Or in their saliva.
Joe Latkin had told Jess that mutations in the virus could be tracked through differences in the dogs' saliva. What would happen if Billy kissed Cami? Could she infect him?

Billy said, “They're planning on evacuating the hospital patients when they get a plan together. I'll stay, Jess, till this thing's over, 'cause I know you need me. But the reason I come in here to see you is that something good happened yesterday.”

“I'll listen to anything good,” Jess said, wondering why Billy thought Jess needed a one-armed man who had supposedly shot himself in the head. “What is it?”

“They found a dog like we been hunting for, with anti…annie…those things that will help cure the plague. A dog with milky film in its eyes but no aggression.”

“They did!”

“Yup. Actually, I found it. Right here in Tyler. The owner, a little kid Cami made friends with, has been hiding it and giving it his mother's sleeping pills to keep it quiet. I brought the dog to Doc Latkin.”

Billy beamed. Jess saw where his thoughts were going. “That's great, but you know it takes a long time for science to make any kind of vaccine or cure for anything, and Joe Latkin only said that a dog with natural immunity might be useful to their research.
Might
. So don't count too much on them coming up with something right away for Cami's—”

“I got to go sleep,” Billy said. “I been up all night.”

“Okay. Bye. And Billy—”

“What?”

Jess hesitated. He wanted to mention the strange silence outside, the absence of howling and barking, but Billy looked so exhausted, so worried about Cami, so lopsided with his arm in a sling and his head in a bandage, that Jess let it go. All he said was, “Don't nap too long, Billy.”

“Catch you later, dude.”

Jess finished his cold coffee. When he left, he heard a single dog bark in the distance. The loose dog reassured him, which was messed-up all by itself. Everything had somehow gotten turned inside out. He listened to the dog for a long moment.

Why only one?

Ed Dormund got into his car in the closed garage without looking at the rust-colored stains on the floor. The medics had taken away Cora's body two days ago and Ed had thrown a few buckets of soapy water onto the floor, but blood did a real job on concrete. However, he had no time to think about that. Enough beers and he didn't think about Cora at all, but right now he was sober. There was a job to do.

He picked up Tom, Sam, and Leo at their doors. “How do we get past the Guards checkpoint?” Leo asked.

“We don't,” Ed said. He was the only one in the car who knew the whole plan; Dennis had explained it to him last night. It wasn't that Dennis was any better than Ed—he didn't even own his own house, just rented—but whoever was running the bigger show had told Dennis what to do. And Dennis told Ed, which was fine with Ed as long as they got it done. The guys at the top were smart and organized.

He explained everything to the others, drove into the supermarket lot on Jamison Road, and waited for the other cars. The lot was full of cars from people stocking up on things either to evacuate or to resist evacuating. A driver would pull up as close to the door as possible, a passenger would jump out dash inside, and the driver would wait for a cell call to crowd the doorway again. Somebody told Ed that morning that the supermarket windows were reinforced against looters and so no dog could ever shatter them.

His cell phone rang twice, stopped, rang twice again. The signal. Ed said, “Let's go!”

Cars began to leave the parking lot. Ed watched the dashboard clock carefully. Everybody had to arrive at the same time. Over his shoulder he said, “None of you guys brought guns, right? Not for this part?”

“I don't like that,” Tom said, “but, yeah, they're at home until tonight.”

“Good.”

They drove in silence to a point where the highway from the south turned sharply west around a thick stand of pine. The place was well inside the Maryland Guard checkpoint. Four cars already formed a barricade across the road, with more cars parked beyond the trees. Ed joined these and the four men pulled on ski masks. A few minutes later Leo said, “There they are! Go!”

That was for Ed to say, not Leo, but there was no time to argue. Forty people jumped out of cars and trucks and rushed the van as it stopped for the barricade. Everyone yelled and screamed, smashing the snowy silence.

The van coming from Fort Detrick in Frederick held a driver and a single Guard holding a rifle. The soldier raised his weapon and shouted something Ed couldn't hear. A few men hit the ground or ducked behind vehicles, but the majority kept going. In the red and black and orange ski masks Ed couldn't tell where Dennis or Brad were. A single shot rang out and someone screamed.

Ed's heart pounded and his blood raced. Then they were on the van, all of them, rocking it until it fell over, doors still locked. It took less than a minute. The driver and his passenger, Ed glimpsed briefly, struggled sideways in their seatbelts. He lost track of what happened up front as he joined the crowd in the back. Another minute and someone had blown open the lock—with what? Dennis hadn't told him.

Sixteen sealed cardboard boxes with the four-circle symbols for “Biohazard” on them. People grabbed. Ed actually got a box and ran with it full speed back to his car. “Get in! Get in!” he cried to the others. They were peeling out onto the road like kids, all of the other vehicles speeding off in every direction. The van, lying on its side with its trapped men, was alone on the highway.

“We did it!” Sam cried, ripping off his ski mask. He and Tom high-fived and then they were all laughing and talking and slapping each other on the shoulders, even Ed, who was driving.

Tom opened the box on the back seat. “Look at all these loaded needles!”

“They're called ‘syringes,' dumb-ass,” Sam said and Tom socked him playfully.

“Stuff would have killed our dogs,” Leo said. “Just murdered them.”

Leo was right. Ed thought of Petey and Rex and Jake…Jake tearing at Cora's flesh…
no, don't think of that
. Leo was right. Bastards wanted to kill his Jake, plus Tom's boxer and Leo's pug and Sam's Newfie. Ed had heard all about the others' dogs, at their first meeting. And now Ed had protected them all, and he didn't even have to go home to Cora. Life was different now, and Ed could get anything he wanted.

They continued to laugh and shout, reliving the glory, as Ed pulled into his driveway and the garage door rose majestically. Everybody tumbled out.

“What about the
syringes?
” Tom said. “What do we do with them?”

“Stick ‘em in the president's ass!” Leo cried.

“I'll hide them,” Ed said, “but keep your voices down! And hey, anybody want a beer?”

Del Lassiter helped Brenda out of the car at the evacuation checkpoint. Thank heavens this was one of her good days. Swelling from the radiation treatments had gone down with the increased steroids, and she could walk.

“Wait in that tent over there, sir,” said the polite young soldier. “Wait is about two hours, I'm afraid.”

“Why so long? My wife—”

“I'm sorry, sir, it's necessary.”

“I'm fine, Del,” Brenda said, taking his arm and smiling up at him. “Truly. And they have that whole enormous long line of cars to search.”

The line of a few hundred cars had already backed far down the road. Del hoped it wasn't going to rain; clouds had rolled in overnight and the temperature risen to above freezing. He noticed that the evacuation buses whizzed right on through the checkpoint. But, then, he'd heard that those people and their luggage had been thoroughly searched as they were picked up at their homes. It was just wonderful how quickly FEMA had organized all this. And Del felt quite safe, even crossing the open stretch between his car and the tent, because many, many sharp shooters looked perfectly ready to stop any stray dog.

Although come to think of it, Del hadn't heard much howling or barking this morning.

The evacuation tent was large and warm, equipped with lawn chairs and volunteers serving coffee and bagels. Now, that was thoughtful! Del got Brenda settled in a chair. She winced as she lowered her poor body, but Brenda never complained. She was the bravest person he knew.

A large woman in a pink down coat sat down next to Brenda. “First they say we can't leave Tyler, then they say we can't stay. Be easier on all of us if they'd make up their damn minds.”

Brenda laughed and the woman grinned. She said, “You going to kin?”

“Oh, yes, our daughter Chrissy in Frederick,” Brenda said. “This is a good opportunity, really.”

“I got my son in Hagerstown, going to meet me right after we clear the checkpoint. He's a CPA.”

Del left them chatting and went to get coffee. It took him a moment to recognize the man behind the coffee urn: Officer Harper, who'd come to the house a few times when Del had called about noise from Ed Dormund's dogs. But why was a police officer serving coffee instead of out patrolling? Del decided it would be tactless to ask. Officer Harper didn't look good. He'd lost weight and anger radiated from him, like heat. Del could see it in the set of the young man's shoulders, the jerky way he poured coffee. Not really a good choice to aid shaky evacuees.

But perhaps a good choice for what nagged at Del's mind.

“Officer Harper?”

“Yeah.” He looked sharply at Del. “Lassiter, right?”

“You have a good memory. Look, I'd like to report something that—”

“I can't help you.” Harper scowled.

“Oh, I see,” said Del, who didn't. “Then is there someone else here I can talk to? That I can report something to? It might be nothing, but I think…” He hesitated. Was this fair? But if it
was
connected… “I think I saw something that might be connected to that robbery this morning. Of the van carrying the euthanasia things for infected dogs.”