Exit 9

25

I.D. MINUS 51 HOURS

It was amazing what the right set of credentials could do. Authentic or not, if they looked good, they were good, and the Centers for Disease Control credentials Billy was carrying looked great.

After donning a protective suit, he was allowed entry into the now isolated Emergency Care area of Hawkins Hospital. There, he first interviewed Dr. Hayward and Nurse Batista, the people who had been caring for Corey Wilson, patient zero of the current outbreak. There was nothing new the two professionals could give him that he hadn’t learned after a quick perusal of the patient’s file, but if he’d really been from the CDC, they would have been the first people he talked to, so he had to keep up appearances.

Next, he was taken into the patient’s room, but it was clear he would get nothing out of the boy. From the condition he was in, Billy was sure Corey wouldn’t last more than a few hours, a day at most. This, of course, he kept to himself.

“Who found him?” he asked Nurse Batista.

“His girlfriend.”

“And where is she?”

“They’ve sectioned off a part of the hospital that’s connected to our area, and put all the people who needed to be quarantined there.”

“Can you show me?”

They found Jeannie Saunders in a room with several others, staring sullenly at a TV mounted on the wall. As with the other televisions Billy had seen, this one was tuned to the news.

“Jeannie?” the nurse said.

The girl took a second before she looked over, her expression unchanged.

“This is Dr. Grimes from the CDC. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Jeannie stood slowly and shuffled toward him, her arms wrapped around her chest. As she neared, he could see her eyes were red from crying.

“Is there someplace I could speak to her alone?” he asked the nurse.

“Not a lot of private space left, Doctor,” she told him. “There’s a linen closet at the end of the hall that’s fairly roomy. It’s possible no one’s claimed it yet.”

“Thanks.”

She pointed him in the right direction then headed back to Emergency Care.

The linen closet was unoccupied. In the back corner was a folding chair stuffed between shelving units. He pulled it out and opened it for the girl. Once she was sitting, he leaned against the wall so that he wouldn’t tower over her.

“I know this has been a very difficult time for you, and that some of the questions I’m going to ask you’ve already answered. I want you to understand that this is important, and that whatever you can tell me is going to be a big help.”

“Sure, no problem.” She sounded even more defeated than she looked.

“Corey’s your boyfriend?”

She nodded.

“Do you know how he might have gotten sick?”

A headshake, but with a slight hesitation.

“Before you found him, when was the last time you saw him?”

“Uh…the night before. At Old Tom’s.”

“Old Tom’s?”

“It’s a pub. We had a drink and then…he went home.”

“Alone?”

“Of course.”

Billy leaned back. “You’re lying,” he said. There was no time to waste trying to slowly extract what he needed from her.

She looked up, surprised. “What?”

“You’re lying, Jeannie.”

“I’m not.”

“Let me lay it out for you. Your boyfriend is dying. You could very easily be next. Potentially thousands of others could be in danger, too. If you know something and aren’t telling me, their deaths will be due to your inaction. Do you understand what I’m saying? If you think telling me is going to get you into trouble, you’re wrong. I’m just looking for the source so I can stop this as quickly as possible.”

Her eyes shifted to the floor as she clenched her hands to stifle her shaking fingers. “We…we weren’t supposed to be there.”

“Where?”

“It’s some kind of factory, I think,” Billy told Matt over the phone as he made his way to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. “From her description, it sounds similar to the virus factory in the video. She said it looked like the place had been cleared out, though. Corey-patient zero-apparently looked inside one of the vats. She said they appeared empty, but…”

“…but you can’t see a bug,” Matt finished for him.

“Right.”

Two hours later, Billy was in the Chicago area, hunting down the address the girl had given him. When he finally turned down the right street, he wasn’t surprised to see a dozen emergency vehicles parked next to the building he was looking for.

Fire had completely gutted the structure, and while the machinery inside would, no doubt, still be partially intact, there was no way he could get to it with all these people around. Not that he really needed to anymore. The blaze was more than enough confirmation of the girl’s story.

At some point within the last several weeks, this building had been churning out the virus and shipping it off to God-only-knew-where. He was sure of it.

There was a silver lining, though.

“Why were you there?” he’d asked the girl before he left St. Louis.

“Do you really need to know that?”

“It might help.”

She took a breath, then said, “It was Corey’s idea.”

“Same question. Why?”

“He’s writing this paper…was, I guess…oh, Jesus.”

“Stay focused. What paper?”

“He was supposed to write a company profile, only he wasn’t having any luck finding information about the company he chose. Then his friend found an address in Chicago, so…so we decided to go up and check it out.”

“The address you visited.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you know the name of the company?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t remember. Hid-something, I think.”

She coughed. If she realized what that meant, she didn’t show it.

“The other friend you went with, would he know the name?”

“He should.”

Before leaving the hospital, Billy located the kid named Blanton Kirn.

“Sure, I remember. Hidde-Kel Holdings. With a hyphen after the first ‘e.’”

Hidde-Kel.

It was a start.