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  At last, she finally stepped away from the car. Rick threw the van into forward. All he wanted to do now was get down there and ram that car. After all he’d gone through to get that SUV, he’d be damned if he’d let that fat bastard drive away with it.

  But Rick’s heart locked up. The guy was escorting Sanchez into the woods.

  “No!” Rick yelled at the top of his lungs. How many more of them were there in the trees? Hell, there could be two, three—more? Jesus, were they hoping for a gang-bang before they cut her up into little pieces? Didn’t that asshole see Rick turning around?

  He hit the accelerator, clipping the guardrail with his left front fender. The Doc disappeared into the trees as Rick barreled back down the highway.

  It all played out in his head. He was heading for a Mexican standoff. Sure, he might get a few rounds off, maybe take out one of them, but if they all had guns, Rick didn’t stand a chance. He’d be gunned down, left to rot out here in the middle of nowhere. Then they’d rape the Doc, leave her battered carcass for the vultures, and take both the car and the van.

  “Goddammit!” he screamed.

  He scanned the stand of pines as he roared past. Nothing. The trees were too spindly for someone to hide behind. They couldn’t be perched up in the branches. What was going on?

  At the end of the trees, Rick dove the van into the median, blasting the horn. Maybe he could scare them into thinking he had reinforcements with him. He caught a glimpse of Sanchez on her knees, with the guy standing right over her. Christ, she was going to take a bullet to the back of the head.

  Skidding to a stop, Rick grabbed the M-16 and leaped out of the van. “Hold it right there!” he yelled.

  Sanchez jumped up and sprinted toward him, her arms waving. What the hell? She didn’t shoot the guy when she had a chance, but she’d taken the time to put on a stupid surgical mask and gloves? And now she was blocking Rick so he couldn’t get a clean shot at the guy.

  “Move!” he yelled at her, then stepped to the side and took aim at the fat—

  Woman? Rick’s eyes jerked wide open. Hell, it was more like a girl. And her belly stuck out like she had a watermelon tucked under her jacket. The sweat on Rick’s back turned cold.

  Sanchez jammed a gloved hand into his chest and pushed him back. “This is a contamination zone,” she barked. “Where’s your mask?”

  His brain just locked up. What? He’d just risked his life for this woman and all she could do was boss him around? His heart was pumping adrenaline so fast he felt woozy.

  “This is a danger zone,” he hissed back. “Where’s your goddamn gun?”

  The Doc shot him the bug-eye before she whipped her Beretta out of the back of her pants—and pointed it at him again! Then she cocked her head to the side in one of those female tilts like she was just waiting for an answer.

  Rick looked past her to the pregnant girl. Her dirty face had streaks from tears that had rolled down her cheeks; long, stringy hair seemed to be weighing down her frail body. And she definitely was scared to death. He caught snatches of a mumbled prayer. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

  Just beyond her, someone lay in the weeds. Rick made a move in that direction, but Sanchez blocked him. She laid a hand on his chest again, but she didn’t push him this time.

  “It’s her husband,” she said softly. “He’s been beaten.”

  She inched her palm up until Rick locked eyes with her.

  Her soothing, doctor-talk kicked in. “Why don’t you go back to the van and get your mask. And maybe grab a couple MREs?”

  He peered over her shoulder again. “Are they sick?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Their lungs are clear. I’m still assessing.”

  Rick’s legs wobbled as he shuffled back to the van. The adrenaline stopped rushing, the hackles on the back of his neck flattened. He tried not to think about how close he’d come to blasting that young girl right in the gut.

  By the time Rick got back with the rations, the Doc was babbling with the strangers like they were one big, happy family. She introduced the couple as Lily and Bobby Ray. The boy didn’t look much older than the girl, maybe sixteen, seventeen. He wore an orange Allis Chalmers hat, with long sideburns halfway down his cheeks. One eye was swollen shut, and his mouth was caked with dried blood.

  The Doc had decided they weren’t contagious, so now she was checking out the boy’s knee. She’d rolled up the pant leg of his overalls, and was poking at skin so swollen you couldn’t even see the kneecap.

  “We come acrosst a crippled man, hobblin’ along the highway on crutches,” Bobby Ray was telling Sanchez. “We couldn’t very well pass him by.”

  “Is that what he hit you with?” Rick asked. “His crutch?”

  Bobby Ray’s eyes darted away. Guess so. Rick fought the urge to call him an idiot.

  The Doc poked the kid’s knee again and he sucked in a painful gulp of air. Then he apologized for jerking!

  He sounded like some coal miner from the hills. And his wife—probably his sister—nodded in agreement, her limp, brown hair swaying around her pregnant belly.

  Lily Belle glossed over their stupidity by telling how they’d come from some podunk town in West Virginia called Gravel Springs. Some infected white trash from a neighboring town had come to Gravel Springs looking for a doctor. There was a Hatfields and McCoys shootout, so Bobby Ray and the missus lit out in his pickup.

  The “crippled man” ended up taking all their supplies and the truck. When Bobby Ray pleaded with the man to leave enough food for pregnant Lily, the guy kneecapped the kid for good measure.

  Rick thought about the Doc’s rant on barbarians. Why couldn’t the guy just take the truck and go? Why did he have to whip this wimpy kid’s ass?

  Rick made a slow turn, scanning the area with his M-16. “When did this happen?”

  “Two days ago,” Lily said. “We tried walking, but Bobby Ray was in so much pain.”

  “So you just camped out here — until what?”

  The Doc glared at him over her shoulder. “How’s the food coming?”

  Yeah, yeah. He’d heard enough anyway. Using the hood of her car, Rick spread out the contents of the MREs. After he glugged some bottled water into the heating pouches, he tucked the vacuum packs of meatloaf underneath and let them warm.

  Bobby Ray raised up on his elbows, and broke into a mini-sermon about how he and Lily had been praying for an answer to their predicament. “God provides for all his children.”

  He stared at Rick with absolute conviction in his eyes.

  “I think you need a new handbook,” Rick said. “The Good Samaritan routine didn’t work out too well for you.”

  “Even Jesus had his moment of doubt and pain,” Bobby Ray said. Funny, the kid didn’t look like a Rolling Stones fan. “But you cain’t let your faith falter.”

  Well, thank God, the Young Christian Coalition was still alive and well.

  Sanchez had tortured the poor boy long enough—or she was tired of his bullshit, too—because she got to her feet to check out Miss Lily. She pressed her stethoscope to the girl’s belly. “The baby’s heart sounds strong. Have you felt movement recently?”

  “Yes’m,” the girl said. She massaged her belly, like she was trying to wake the baby up. “He was kickin’ away when I woke up this mornin’.”

  She told Sanchez her mother died in the “plague”. The local midwife took a bullet to the brain in the Gravel Springs massacre. “We heared they was a hospital in Warshington. Thought maybe I could birth my baby there.”

  “Sorry to ruin your plans,” Rick said, “But the D.C. facility shut down a couple days ago.”

  That little tidbit took a big bite out of Bobby Ray’s faith. And Lily’s mouth trembled as more tears streamed down her face. Sanchez gripped her stethoscope like she wanted to wrap it around Rick’s neck. Hey, what was the point in giving them false hope?

  He turned back to the food, cut open the pouches, and slithered
the tasty gray meat into the foil-lined boxes soldiers used for plates. When he handed a plate to Lily, she dropped to her knees to feed Bobby Ray. But before either of them took a bite, they gave thanks to God for the bountiful feast.

  Sanchez propped the boy up, then took the rations and fed him, urging Lily to eat her own. After a couple more bites, Bobby Ray took the plate, and blessed the Doc before feeding himself.

  When he finished, The Doc eased his head back down, took his empty tray and stood. The kid stared at Rick.

  “You know, Mister, God works in mysterious ways,” Bobby Ray said. “After all, He sent the doctor—and you.”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Rick snorted. “I wondered what all that whispering in my ear was this morning.”

  Sanchez gripped his arm. “Stop it! You can be mad at me all you want, but don’t take it out on these kids.”

  She might as well have slapped him. But she was right. His skin was alive with gnawing anger. He wanted to just rip open his chest and crawl out. He wanted to scream at her and Bobby Ray and Lily. Most of all, he wanted to keep the demons in his head from taking back control.

  Rick tried to concentrate on Bobby Ray, but his eyes kept drifting back to Lily’s belly.

  The nerves in his palm betrayed him, bringing back the sensation of baby kicks through flesh. That rippling and bumping of a child growing inside that made his heart swell. Goddamit.

  He pushed Sanchez toward her car.

  “How soon can he walk?”

  She shrugged. “Hard to say. I need to drain some fluid off the knee to see if its water or blood. That could relieve some of the pressure. But if he puts weight on it, the fluid will probably build up again.”

  Crap! He had to get out of here before it all came crashing down on him.

  “Give me your keys.”

  Her eyebrows cocked like she hadn’t heard him right. She took a step back, her eyes juggling back and forth between his, like she was trying to get the joke.

  “Give me the goddamn keys.”

  What was he doing? This was insane.

  Sanchez reached into her pocket and held them out. He couldn’t see under her mask, but he could tell from her eyes that she was smiling.

  He snatched the keys away and dropped them into Lily’s lap. Then he got his map book from the van and sat down next to the girl, ignoring Sanchez when she hovered over his shoulder.

  “There’s a colony on Cape Charles, just across the bay from Virginia Beach,” Rick explained. “Everyone there is healthy. They have food, medical facilities, a place to live.”

  Sanchez jumped in, giving Lily and Bobby Ray instructions on delivering the baby if they didn’t get to the colony in time.

  “Don’t lie down, squat,” she said. “Use gravity. It makes the pushing easier.”

  Rick tried not to listen when she told Bobby Ray how to cut the cord and tie it off. “And make sure all of the placenta is delivered.” For a split second, Rick heard a woman cry, heard a doctor urging her to push.

  Jumping to his feet, Rick ran to the Doc’s car. He hauled most of her supplies back to the van, leaving Bobby Ray and Lily a case of rations and water. The work eased his panic. And spared him from watching the Doc drain off Bobby Ray’s knee.

  Rick twisted his stiff neck, flexed his clenched fingers. After a couple deep breaths, he felt back in control.

  Sanchez gushed about how great it was that the fluid she sucked out was only water. Then she wrapped Bobby Ray’s knee, and Rick hefted him into the back of the SUV. Once he was settled, Sanchez asked if Rick thought they should give Bobby Ray a gun.

  “Why? So someone can take it away and shoot him with it?”

  Finally back in the van, all the tension Rick had been holding back spewed out. “What the hell were you thinking back there? Did you even stop to think it might be a set-up, like the crippled guy with crutches? That maybe the girl wasn’t even pregnant?”

  Taeya lashed back. “Did she really look like she’d pull a gun on me? Or that Bobby Ray could wrestle me to the ground?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “No, it isn’t. And what exactly is the point?” She twisted in her seat to face him. “You did a good thing. Why are you so embarrassed by that?”

  “I’m not embarrassed.”

  She choked on a laugh. “For a minute back there, I thought you were going to get all misty-eyed about that girl.”

  Shit. The hamster wheel was squeaking in her head.

  “Wait a minute.” She lowered her elbows onto her armrest. “You lost your girlfriend.”

  “No.”

  “Your wife. Was she pregnant?”

  “No!”

  Sanchez’ voice got all soft. “So you had a child. How old?”

  “Shut up!”

  Bam. Just like that, little Richie came toddling into the kitchen like he’d never left. “Dad—dy.”

  His little arms shot straight into the air, waiting to be picked up and buckled in his high chair. “Feed me.”

  Then, like a Chinese fire drill, all these other memories pushed to get out — the doctor gently laying his newborn son in Rick’s arms, Michelle sitting in that second-hand rocker, breast-feeding Richie, Rick standing in the doorway, leaning on the doorjamb for support, dizzy with love, little bitty tennis shoes, stinky diapers, the silky feel of baby hair on his cheek.

  Sanchez reached over and touched Rick’s shoulder, and he realized he had slowed almost to a stop.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  His happy memories drowned in a tidal wave of rage. He squinted his eyes in anger. “Ever hear of Williamsport, Pennsylvania?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Williamsport. The name hit Taeya like a punch.

  “Every summer,” Rick said, “kids gathered there to play their annual World Series Little League Championship. Four teams from the U.S. competed against teams from Canada, Japan, Latin America and Europe.”

  Cupping her hands, Taeya pressed them to her lips. She never heard the name Williamsport without getting a nauseous roil in her stomach. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Everyone was, the officials of the league, the city council, the state government, the feds. Hell, the bastard who wasn’t paying attention to the scumbags hanging around his airplanes even shot himself. Course, he had to before somebody else did. He’s the one who let those pricks fly the banners around the stadium during the tournament. Claimed he never saw the tanks of that shit.”

  Lycoming County, the source of one of Taeya’s most frequent nightmares.

  “Well, we were unfortunate enough to live in that town. My two-year-old son died in the first twenty-four hours.” Rick spoke between gritted teeth. “My wife survived three days.”

  Sounds bombarded Taeya. Wailing mothers, hysterical children writhing in pain, angry confrontations, accusations, death threats, makeshift tents, biohazard suits, doctors and nurses screaming at each other.

  Dear God, had she treated Rick’s wife or son? Had she taken the time to console the woman or had she rushed by, treating her like all the other faceless victims?

  It was months before Taeya stopped smelling the stench of rotting flesh, decaying corpses. How many disinfecting showers had it taken before she felt safe again?

  Rick eased up on the stranglehold he had on the steering wheel. “Well, screw it. It’s been so long, sometimes I can’t even remember his face.”

  “I’m not over it yet,” she said without looking at him.

  “You knew someone there?”

  The fleeting thought that she might need her Beretta ran through her mind. “I was on the first team called in to investigate.”

  Rick’s eyes widened. His lips pinched. Taeya’s hand edged toward the gun stuck in the pouch on the door. “It seems so obvious now,” she said. “But at the time, we just couldn’t figure out what was happening. We recognized the black skin lesions immediately. But then other symptoms occurred that weren’t consistent with anthrax. Some victims had b
listers that looked like smallpox. Others got high fever and internal bleeding.” She sighed. Even the retelling of the story was exhausting. “Every time we thought we had a handle on what we were dealing with, another disease, with a longer incubation, popped up. We could hardly keep up, much less figure out why they were all occurring in Lycoming County.”

  His jaw flexed and she watched the muscles in his arms twitch. Was he thinking of pulling over and putting her out?

  She hurried on. “Then we discovered groups in other states—in other countries—with similar outbreaks. Someone finally found the tanks used to spray the toxic virus over the ball fields. The CDC discovered five different pathogens in the mix.”

  Slowly, Rick leaned his head back against the headrest. He was too caught up in memories to fight.

  “By that time,” she said, “it was too late.”

  Televised broadcasts from around the world condemned the terrorist attack. Everyone voiced the same incredulity. Who would target children? It was months before the assault was linked to Al Qaeda.

  There had been speculation in the past year that the North Koreans had used Williamsport as a model for their own pandemic. They’d learned that even a biologically enhanced virus could not be sufficiently spread from a single location. That’s why they’d gone global.

  She braced herself for more lambasting from Rick. Why didn’t our government act sooner? What good was the CDC if they couldn’t stop an outbreak like Williamsport?

  But Rick had nothing to say. He just drove with his dead eyes staring straight ahead.

  Once Williamsport returned to some semblance of order, a memorial service was held for all who had died. In an act of pure cowardice, Taeya decided not to attend. Had Rick been there? Would he have been one of an angry mob just waiting to tear into her?

  The only consolation to Williamsport was the assurance that after that disaster the CDC was ready for anything. What a joke. No one in the world had been prepared for this Korean flu.