Infected (5 page)

He scratched harder, intent on blasting the itch into compliance. The irritation on his forearm acted up again, and he switched his focus to that spot.

“Fleas?” Bill’s voice came from above, unhampered by the divider walls. Perry looked up. Bill’s upper body leaned over the fabric-panel wall that separated the cubicles, his head just inches from the ceiling. He attained this height by a frequent practice of standing on his desk. Bill, as always, looked immaculate despite the fact he’d left the bar the same time as Perry—which meant he couldn’t have had more than four hours’ sleep. With his bright blue eyes, perfectly trimmed brown hair, and a clean-shaven baby face free of even the tiniest blemish, Bill looked like a model for teenage zit cream.

“Just a little bug bite is all,” Perry said.

Bill retreated back behind the divider wall.

Perry stopped scratching, although the skin still itched, and called up the Pullman file on his computer. As he did, he launched his instant-messenger program—even though people were only a few cubes away, instant messaging often proved to be the preferred method of communication within the office. Especially for communication with Bill, in the next cube, who usually had plenty to say that he didn’t want others in the office to overhear. The IMs let them share sophomoric humor that helped to pass the day.

He started off the daily ritual with a message to Bill’s instant-message handle, “StickyFingazWhitey.”

Bleedmaize_n_blue:
Hey. R we doing Monday Night Football tonight?

StickyFingazWhitey:
Does the Pope wear women’s underwear?

Bleedmaize_n_blue:
I thought the phrase was, “does the Pope wear a funny hat” ???

StickyFingazWhitey:
He already wears a big dress, although my sources say he doesn’t deserve to wear white, if ya know what I mean.

Perry snorted back a laugh. He knew he looked like an idiot when he did that, big shoulders bouncing, head down, hand over his mouth to hide laughter.

Bleedmaize_n_blue:
lol. Cut it out, I just got here, I don’t want Sandy to think I’m watching YouTube clips again.

StickyFingazWhitey:
How about you watch Popes Gone Wild™ on your own time, mister, you sick, sick man.

Perry laughed, out loud this time. He’d known Bill for…God, was it almost ten years already? Perry’s freshman year in college had been a tough one, a time when his violent tendencies ran roughshod and unchecked. He’d landed at the University of Michigan courtesy of a full-ride football scholarship. At first they’d roomed him with other football players, but Perry always viewed them as competition even if they didn’t play the same position. A fight inevitably ensued. After his third altercation, the coaches were ready to yank his scholarship.

That crap may float at other schools, like Ohio State,
they told him,
but not at the University of Michigan
.

The last thing they wanted, however, was to lose him—they hadn’t recruited him and given him a full ride for nothing. The coaching staff wanted his ferocity on the field. When Bill heard of the situation, he volunteered to room with Perry. Bill was the nephew of one of the assistant coaches. He and Perry met during freshmen orientation, and the two had hit it off quite well. Perry remembered that the only times he smiled during those first few months were when he was around Bill’s irrepressible humor.

Everyone thought Bill was crazy. Why would a five-foot-eight, 150-pound English major volunteer to room with a six-foot-five, 240-pound linebacker who benched 480 and had already beaten the holy hell out of three roommates, all of whom were Division I football players? But to everyone’s surprise, it worked out perfectly. Bill seemed to have a talent for laughter, laughter that soothed the savage beast. Bill saved not only Perry’s athletic career but his collegiate one as well. Perry had never forgotten that.

Ten years he’d known Bill, and in all that time he’d never heard the man give a straight answer about anything that wasn’t related to work.

Music drifted over from Bill’s cube. Ancient Sonny & Cher ditty, to which Bill cleverly sang “I got scabies, babe” instead of the original lyrics. The IM alert chimed again:

StickyFingazWhitey:
You think Green Bay is going to give the Niners a good game tonight?

Perry didn’t type in an answer, didn’t really even see the question. His face scrunched into a mask of intense concentration that one might mistake for pain. He fought against the urge to scratch yet again, except this time it was far worse than before, and in a far worse place.

He kept his hands frozen on the keyboard, using all his athletic discipline not to scratch furiously at his left testicle.

THE BIG SNAFU

Dew Phillips slumped into the plastic chair next to the pay phone. After this ordeal even a young man would have felt like a week-old dog turd, and at fifty-six, Dew’s youth was far behind him. His wrinkled suit stank of sweat and smoke. Thick smoke, black smoke, the kind that only comes from a house fire. The odor seemed alien in the clean, dirt-free confines of the hospital. Somewhere in his head, he knew he should feel grateful that he was in the waiting room at the Toledo Hospital and not in the airtight quarantine chamber at the CDC in Cincinnati, but he just couldn’t find the energy to count his blessings.

Greasy soot streaked the left side of his weathered, heavily lined face. His bald head also showed streaks, as if flames had danced precariously near his mottled scalp. The small patch of red hair, which ran from ear to ear around the back of his head, had escaped the smoke stain. He looked weak and exhausted, as if he might teeter off the chair at any second.

Dew always carried two cell phones. One was thin and normal. He used that for most communication. The other was bulky and metallic, painted in a flat black finish. It was loaded with the latest encrypting equipment, none of which Dew understood or gave a rat’s ass about. He pulled out the big cell phone and called Murray’s number.

“Good afternoon,” said a cheery but businesslike woman.

“Get Murray.”

The phone clicked once; he was on hold. The Rolling Stones played “Satisfaction” through the tinny connection.
Jesus,
Dew thought,
even super-secret, secure lines have fucking Muzak
. Murray Longworth’s authoritative voice came on the line, cutting off Mick in mid-breath.

“What’s the situation, Dew?”

“It’s a big SNAFU, sir,” Dew said. The military-parlance acronym stood for
Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
He leaned his forehead on the pastel blue wall. Looking down, he noticed for the first time that the soles of his shoes had melted, then cooled all misshapen and embedded with bits of gravel and broken glass. “Johnson’s hurt.”

“How bad?”

“The docs say it’s touch and go.”

“Shit.”

“Yes,” Dew said quietly. “It doesn’t look good.”

Murray waited, perhaps only long enough to give the illusion that Malcolm’s life was more important than the mission, then continued.

“Did you catch him?”

“No,” Dew said. “There was a fire.”

“Remains?”

“Here at the hospital, waiting for your girl.”

“Condition?”

“Somewhere between medium and well-done. I think she’s got something to work with, if that’s what you mean.”

Murray paused a moment. His silence seemed weighted and heavy. “You want to stay with him, or should I have some boys watch over him?”

“You couldn’t drag me away with a team full of mules tied to my balls, sir.”

“I figured as much,” Murray said. “I assume the area was checked and sterilized?”

“As in three-alarm sterilized.”

“Good. Margaret is on the way. Give her whatever help she needs. I’ll get there when I can. You can give me a full report then.”

“Yes sir.” Dew hung up and flopped back into the chair.

Malcolm Johnson, his partner of seven years, was in critical condition. Third-degree burns covered much of Mal’s body. The hatchet wound in his gut wasn’t helping things. Dew had ample experience with horribly wounded men; he wouldn’t take two-to-one odds for Malcolm’s survival.

Dew had seen some crazy shit in his day, more than most, first in ’Nam and then with almost three decades of service to the Agency, but he’d never seen anything like Martin Brewbaker. Those eyes, eyes that swam with madness,
drowned
in it. Martin Brewbaker, legless, covered in fire like some Hollywood stuntman, swinging that hatchet at Malcolm.

Dew let his head fall into his hands. If only he’d reacted faster, if only he’d been just
one second
faster and stopped Mal from trying to put out the fire on Brewbaker. Dew should have known what was coming: Blaine Tanarive, Charlotte Wilson, Gary Leeland—all those cases had ended in violence, in murder. Why had he thought Brewbaker would be any different? But who would have expected the crazy fuck to set his
whole house
on fire?

Dew had one more call to make—Malcolm’s wife. He wondered if Malcolm would still be alive by the time Shamika flew in from D.C.

He doubted it. He doubted it very much.

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT?

At lunchtime Perry sat in the bathroom stall, pants around his ankles, 49ers sweatshirt in a pile on the tile floor. On top of his left forearm, atop his left thigh, and on his right shin were small red rashes about the size of a No. 2 pencil eraser. Three other spots itched just as maddeningly; his fingers told him that similar rashes perched on his right collarbone, on his spine just below his shoulder blades and on his right ass cheek. He also had one on his left testicle—that one he tried not to think about.

Their itching came and went, sometimes fading in and out like a slowly turned volume knob, other times arriving with full-bore force like hitting the “power” button of a maxed-out stereo. Definitely spider bites, he figured. Maybe a centipede; he’d heard they had nasty venom. What amazed him was how he’d slept through such an attack. Whatever it was that had bitten him, it must have hit just before he awoke. That would explain why he saw no marks when he prepared for work—the poison had just entered his system, and his body was slow to react.

They itched and were a touch disconcerting, but all in all it was no big deal. Just a few bug bites. He’d simply have to discipline himself not to scratch, and sooner or later they’d go away. If he left them alone, they’d probably disappear. Trouble was, he had an awful time of leaving skin blemishes alone, whether they be scabs, zits, blisters or anything else, but his bad habit of picking at such blemishes wouldn’t help matters. He’d simply have to focus, have to “play through the pain,” as his high-school football coach used to say.

Perry stood, buttoned his pants and put his sweatshirt back on. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind.
It’s just a test of will,
Perry thought.
A test of discipline, that’s all. You’ve got to have discipline.

He left the bathroom and headed back to his desk, ready to work hard and earn his pay.

PAYIN’ THE COST TO BE THE BOSS

Murray Longworth looked over the list of personnel who had enough security clearance to join Project Tangram. It was a short list. Malcolm Johnson was down for the count. That made Dew a solo operative, which is what Murray had wanted in the first place. But Dew had insisted on bringing in Johnson. Murray shook his head—that decision would fuck with Dew, probably for the rest of his life.

Casualties, unfortunately, were the cost of doing business. You sent flowers to the funeral, you moved on. Murray understood that. Dew, he never did. Dew Phillips made shit personal. That was why Murray was the number-two man in the CIA and Dew Phillips was still a shit-stomping grunt. A grunt in a nice suit, sure, but a grunt nonetheless.

That was also why five presidents had called on Murray to get things done. Secret things. Unsavory things. Things that would never make the history books, but had to get done anyway. And this time the President of the United States of America had asked Murray to find out what the hell was turning normal Americans into crazed murderers. Murray,
from the CIA
, mind you, and
not
the FBI, who should have handled a domestic issue. It was, in fact, illegal for the CIA to run this op on U.S. soil, but the president wanted Murray to handle it—if it was terrorism, it might require some creative tactics. Tactics that just might be just a
smidgen
outside the law.

Five victims to date in a plague that would throw the country into an unparalleled panic, and he had precious little information. So far he’d done a masterful job of keeping the lid on things—he had more than a hundred people at his immediate disposal, yet fewer than ten knew what was actually going on. Not even the Joint Chiefs had the whole story.

When Margaret Montoya had contacted the CIA with that first strange report, the call eventually landed with Murray. She wasn’t just some crank caller or some science-type doom-and-gloomer preaching about yet another pending global-warming catastrophe. She was from the CDC, and she suspected she might have stumbled onto a terrorist bioweapon. Her credentials and her urgency convinced enough people to push her through the phone maze, each level passing the call upward, until it reached Murray.