The Hatching: A Novel (29 page)

“America,” the president said, “is under attack.”

Teddie leaned in toward her monitor, but she realized she didn’t have to. She’d never heard such silence at CNN. The only sound in the entire building, as near as she could tell, was coming from banks of television monitors and computer screens, the president’s image and voice beaming in from six hundred miles away.

“A
merica is under attack.”

Manny, standing behind the cameraman, experienced that slight disconnect between watching the president speaking on a screen and in real life at the same time. She let those words sit for a moment. “America is under attack.” They’d gone back and forth on the phrasing. So much was unclear. War and earthquakes, hurricanes and landslides, terrorist attacks and industrial accidents. Those were all things Manny knew how to handle. He already had words for them. They were all things the American public understood. But this was something different. That much was obvious. And that had led them, finally, to the decision to be as clear as possible. There had been some concern in the room about stoking panic, but after a few minutes of debate they all realized they were well past the moment of worrying about stoking panic; panic was already there.

“I don’t use these words lightly,” Stephanie said to the camera. “By now, most of you will have seen the horrifying images coming out of Los Angeles. While it may be hard to comprehend in an age of technology and terrorism, the threat we are facing appears to be a natural one. A little more than three hours ago, at approximately 3:45
P.M.
Eastern Standard Time, a freighter ran aground at the Port of Los Angeles. The ship appears to have been carrying a very aggressive and dangerous species of spiders. We do not know for sure how the spiders got onto the ship, but we believe they must have been among the cargo, perhaps hatching inside a shipping container en route. At least some of the cargo containers came from the same province in China where the nuclear explosion occurred earlier in the week. The Chinese government continues to state that the nuclear incident was an accident, but based on our own intelligence reports, we believe it was a deliberate decision made by the government in an attempt to contain an outbreak of these same spiders. While we cannot confirm with one hundred percent accuracy that they are the same, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that the menace in Los Angeles is connected to the incident in China, and to the reports of the city of Delhi being overwhelmed. The Indian government has been much more helpful, despite their own crisis, and they have been sharing information with us, so we hope to have confirmation within the next twenty-four hours.

“As your president, I say this with a heavy heart: our country is under a real and immediate threat.” Stephanie paused. She looked, Manny thought, both presidential and exhausted. The weight of the world on her shoulders. And he knew why she was pausing: because what she was about to say had been a brutal decision. “If you are in or around the Los Angeles area, you must shelter in place. I have issued an emergency order of quarantine inside a two-hundred-fifty-mile radius of Los Angeles. That means that if you live within two hundred fifty miles of Los Angeles, you are required to remain in that area. The National Guard, local police, and state police, with the assistance of the army, navy, Marines, and air force, will be enforcing this quarantine zone. Again, if you live in Los Angeles or within a two-hundred-fifty-mile radius of it—which
means south of the city all the way to the border of Mexico, east to the state border, and north past Fresno—you are under an order of quarantine. No vehicles or citizens will be allowed to pass beyond this area. I say this with a heavy heart but with hope for the future; to those of you who are within this zone, I want you to understand that you are not alone. The country is with you.”

Manny couldn’t stop himself from grimacing. He’d written the speech, but he hated those two sentences. He hated them because he knew they weren’t true. Maybe they’d get this figured out in the next few days and have soldiers and cops and first responders in there, but all they were doing right now was trying to keep it contained. They were scrambling to get crop dusters and firefighting planes over the city to spray insecticide, but that was going to take at least a few hours, and even then, they had no clue if it was going to work. The bitter truth was that the people in that zone
were
alone. The country was not with them in any sense other than as spectators. The National Guard and the police, the army and the navy, the Marines and the air force weren’t lined up with their guns pointed out, to protect them from some invading army, but rather with their guns pointed in. But as much as he hated those two sentences, he was even less happy about what was coming. Yes, it made sense, and he reluctantly agreed with the national security advisor and the secretary of defense and pretty much everybody else who said it had to be done, but it was still going to be tough to swallow in the polls.

“The news channels and the Internet have been awash in speculation the last few days, and the truth is that the facts of this situation are not entirely clear.” Stephanie leaned in toward the camera, and despite himself, despite knowing the words that were about to come out of her mouth, Manny found himself responding in kind,
leaning toward her. “What I know for sure, however, is that Americans are dying, and my job is to protect this country.” She paused to take a breath. Here it comes, Manny thought. It made him feel sick. He knew it was the wrong thought to have at a moment like this, but he was a political animal and he couldn’t help himself. All he could think of was that she was going to lose the election with the next sentence. “I am declaring the states of California, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada under martial law.”

There was more. Curfews. Pleas for calm. A stern reminder to stay indoors with windows and doors closed, to try to seal any possible entrances. But above all, it was Stephanie sounding presidential. Authoritative. Manny was proud of the speech he’d written, particularly given how short a time he’d had to write it, but it was Stephanie who sold it. She did what the president is supposed to do, which is look into the camera, look into the eyes of the American people, and say, “We’ve got this under control.”

But Manny knew she didn’t believe it any more than he did.

A
quarter past midnight and there was still traffic on the 6. He’d figured there’d be cars and trucks for the two hours up 169 from Minneapolis to Crosby, but they were already twenty-five minutes past Crosby, and the traffic was constant. It worried Mike. He thought he was being overcautious, a little crazy, even, to make Rich and Fanny pack up and head to Rich’s cottage with Annie, but it scared him a little that so many other people had the same idea, that he wasn’t the only person who wanted to get his family away from Minneapolis. He’d fought about it with Fanny for more than twenty minutes before Rich finally came in off the sidelines to say he thought Mike was right. For that, Mike begrudgingly liked his ex-wife’s husband even more than he already did.

“I’ve got the vacation time,” Rich said, “and I don’t have any cases coming up for a few weeks.” Fanny started to protest again, but Rich shook his head. “Maybe he’s wrong, honey, but if Mike’s right, and things get worse?” He shrugged. “It’s not like spending a week or two at the cottage is a real hardship.”

Mike had been at home, already a little anguished, when the president declared martial law out west. And then, five minutes
later, even though he was supposed to be off the next day, he got the e-mail that he was on duty, that everybody was on duty, starting from the moment they read the e-mail until further notice. He hadn’t opened the e-mail. It was enough to read the subject line. Besides, if he opened it, there’d be a record of his reading it. Instead, he dropped his agency phone on the counter—he could argue he didn’t see the e-mail until the next morning—took his personal phone, loaded his truck with all the canned and dried food he had, plus a few other odds and ends, and headed over to Fanny and Rich’s. By the time Rich had come around to the idea and they’d loaded up Rich’s Land Cruiser and hitched up the boat, Annie was asleep. She’d barely woken up when Mike moved her to his truck—he’d left the agency car at home with his agency phone, another step toward deniability—and he was grateful she hadn’t asked why they were heading out of town in the middle of the week, late at night, why she was in Mike’s car instead of with her mother and Rich.

The brake lights on the boat trailer glowed red and then the turn signal came on. Rich had said the BP station in Outing was the last place to get gas before his cottage. Mike turned the radio down a notch. There wasn’t anything new anyway, but what was on the radio was enough: Delhi, Los Angeles, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro for sure. Suspicions in North Korea, but who the fuck knew what was happening there? More unconfirmed reports in rural areas all over the place. Scotland, Egypt, South Africa. But Mike didn’t care if they were confirmed or not. He’d seen that goddamned spider come crawling out of Henderson’s face, and he’d walked that spider into a university lab to find the president of the United States waiting, and then he’d flown home to a country that was on lockdown. Even before Los Angeles and the president’s speech he was feeling antsy.

Rich turned off into the gas station, and Mike pulled his truck up to the pump on the other side of Rich’s Land Cruiser. He tried to be gentle closing the driver’s door so that Annie could keep sleeping, but she didn’t stir at all.

As Fanny went to get them all coffee, Rich said, “You sure about this, Mike?” His tone wasn’t challenging.

Whatever pissing contest there was between them had ended for Rich about the same time he and Fanny got married. For Mike, it had been harder to let go of the animosity. Mike liked to think he was the bigger guy, but it just wasn’t true. He still busted Rich’s balls occasionally, but this wasn’t the time and he knew it. It said something about Rich that he was the kind of guy who would do this, that when his wife’s ex-husband showed up at their house past a decent hour of night and told them it was time to head for the hills, Rich was willing to let himself be swayed, was willing to take Mike’s side against Fanny.

“No, Rich. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure. But I’d rather be wrong about going than about not going.”

Rich nodded, and other than a quiet thank-you to Fanny when she came back with the coffees, neither man said another word. Mike got back into his truck and took a sip while he waited for Rich to also fill the tank on his motor boat and then the two spare gas cans Mike had made him take.

From the gas station, it was twenty-five more minutes of back roads and twists and turns and past one in the morning before they got to the boat launch. Once everything was loaded up, Mike came back to the truck. He thought about just scooping Annie up and carrying her to the boat, but instead, he gave her a gentle shake until she woke up.

“Listen, Annie,” he said. “You awake?” She nodded, and even though Mike wasn’t sure she truly was, he had to trust that she’d
remember. “You stay where you are for a little bit, okay? Stay with your mom and Rich. I’ll come to you. You don’t worry about me. I’ll be back.”

“Promise?”

Her voice was small and full of sleep, and it almost killed him. Two years ago, when an agent was killed in the line of duty and Annie had found out about it, she’d made him promise to wear his bulletproof vest anytime he was out on the job, but it hadn’t felt like anything big to do. Yet for some reason this request made him hesitate. Could he really promise he’d be back? He didn’t really understand what was going on, and it was terrifying him. But he looked at the way Annie was looking at him and he realized none of that really mattered. What mattered was making her feel safe.

“I promise, beautiful. I promise I’ll come back to you. Back
for
you. I’ll come back for you, okay?”

Annie nodded again, and then he walked with her over to the boat.

It was all he could do to let her go.

“Anything else?” Rich said.

“Actually, yeah.” Mike lifted a duffel bag. “My backup pistol is in there.”

“Jesus, Mike. You think that’s really necessary?”

“I hope not.”

“I don’t even know how to shoot a pistol.”

“Fanny does. I taught her. The pistol is for her. It’s a Glock 27. It’s small. There’s two boxes of rounds in there and a spare clip,” he said. “There’s also a shotgun. That’s for you. Go out tomorrow and have Fanny show you how to load it and take a couple of shots to get the feel of it.”

“Mike—”

“Rich.” Mike stepped close, keeping his voice low. “There’s a
quarantine out west. Martial law. I saw one of those fucking things come out of Henderson’s face. You’ve got my daughter with you. Do you understand what I’m asking of you here?”

Instead of answering, Rich looked back over his shoulder at the boat. Annie was leaning into her mother. The light from the truck’s headlights cast odd shadows, but both men could see Fanny and Annie clearly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, Mike.”

“It’s a Mossberg 500. A twelve gauge. There are four boxes of ammunition in there. You learn how to use it. It will take out anything in front of you. Like spraying a hose. The loads will spread. Shit for distance with that ammunition, but for personal defense it will do fine. Just point and shoot.”

Mike handed over the duffel bag. The two men shook hands.

Mike turned to walk back to his truck, but then he heard Annie calling for him. He went back to them.

“How come you aren’t coming with us, Daddy?”

“I’ve got to work baby, okay?” He bent over the rail of the boat and Annie got up and came over to him. She leaned into him and pressed her nose into his neck. “Don’t worry. Your mom and Rich are going to take care of you.”

“I’m not worried about me,” she said.

He tightened his grip on her. “I’ll be fine, beautiful. I’ll be fine. And I’ll come for you soon enough. I promise.”