Infected

66.

Dew stared out the Buick’s window, watching the flurry of police activity outside, the big cellular phone pressed to his ear. By the looks of things, he’d arrived maybe ten minutes too late. So close. The missed opportunity made him boil inside.

“It’s a really, really big SNAFU, Murray,” Dew said. “Fucking locals are everywhere, and more on the way.” He could almost see Murray’s face turning red.

“Did the rapid-response teams go in?” Murray asked. “Why don’t they just take over?”

“They didn’t go in at all,” Drew said. “They called me first and I waved them off. You think it’s a bad situation now, try bringing in eight P90-toting goons wearing biosuits and watch the press jizz all over themselves.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Murray said, his voice tired and ragged. “The press is already there?”

“Yeah. The local cops were first on the scene. Press picked it up on a scanner, maybe. We didn’t have a chance at information control. The cops are keeping the media at a distance, but there’s no way we can go in without being seen by at least three network news teams.”

The radio and TV stations had already been buzzing with news of Kiet Nguyen’s murder spree and subsequent suicide. News didn’t get any bigger than that, unless, of course, the cops mounted a manhunt for a former University of Michigan linebacker who’d left a mutilated corpse in his apartment. With those two murder stories flying, coverage of a gas explosion that had killed a mother and son had disappeared completely.

“Remember, the Dawsey kid was a major celebrity in this town,” Dew said. “Bunch of fucking liberals here in the media, they’re giddy to see a football player live up to billing as a creature of violence. This isn’t D.C., Murray, this is Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is a long-haired, pot-smoking little college town. A fugitive killer football player is their story of the decade, and the guv-ment trying to cover it up is icing on their hippie cake.”

“Dew, considering the situation, do you see any way we can bring Dawsey in alive?”

“That’s your call, L.T.,” Dew said. “You have to appreciate just how many cops are looking for him. There’s a dead body in his apartment-they’re not just going to stop looking just because I tell them we’re on the case. They want Dawsey, and they want him bad. If he’s in any kind of advanced state of infection, the cops might see his growths. If they capture him, expect someone to get a camera on him and a boatload of reporters fighting to know why he killed a man. If he’s arrested, and we can’t get to him right away, the triangles might make national news before the night is out. If the reporters see triangles, that SARS bullshit won’t cut it. Cops take Dawsey alive it blows this whole thing wide open.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I recommend we take him out ASAP,” Dew said. “And we get the local cops in on the action. They’re just looking for an excuse to pull the trigger. Maybe we connect Dawsey to Nguyen. I’ll tell them Dawsey probably has an explosive vest, or a biowarfare agent, whatever. I’ll make sure there are clear orders to shoot Dawsey on sight, but to stay away from his body until our crews can remove him.”

“Margaret needs a living victim.”

“So we get the next one,” Dew said. “If you want to keep this secret, I told you what we need to do.”

Dew waited through a long pause. L.T. had a hell of a decision to make.

“No,” Murray said finally. “She needs that kid alive. It’s more important than secrecy. Whatever it takes, bring him in alive.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Dew said. “The locals are really on edge.”

“Then we connect Dawsey to Nguyen. I’ll take care of it from our end. We’ll inform the local cops, you just validate the story.”

“What story?”

“That Dawsey has knowledge of a terrorist bomb, that he absolutely must be taken alive no matter what the cost. Bring him in alive, Top.”

Murray hung up. Dew ground his teeth. Murray’s plan would work, and Dew knew it. The cops would do whatever it took to get Dawsey alive.

Dew alternated his time between looking out the window at the army of police and looking at digital photos of Dawsey that Murray’s people had transferred to the big cell phone. One was Dawsey’s most recent driver’s-license photo. Another was a close-up from Nguyen’s painting of the human arch-where the other faces writhed in terror and agony, Perry’s scrunched in raw rage. Additional photos came from the kid’s college football days.

Dew focused on one such picture, a typical preseason publicity shot from Dawsey’s sophomore year.

“You are a big fucker, ain’t you, kid?”

In the posed picture, late-summer sun blared down on his maize and blue uniform. Most times these shots showed a kid’s best smile, but this one was different. Dawsey smiled, sure, but there was something else, something around the eyes that bespoke a savage intensity. It was almost as if Dawsey’s very being vibrated aggression, as if he couldn’t handle putting on the pads and not hitting something.

Maybe it was the pic, maybe it was the fact that he’d seen the kid play on TV. Dawsey had been a rare one, a veritable beast who dominated the game every time he set foot on the field. Kid played meaner than a bull with a cattle prod up his ass and a rat trap snapped on his nuts. It was a damn shame, really, the knee injury that ended Dawsey’s career. Dew remembered seeing that on TV, too. Dew had watched men blown in half by land mines, men impaled with giant splinters from trees hit by artillery fire, men decapitated and twitching, rotten and bloated, yet there was something about watching the super-slow-mo replay of that kid’s knee bending ninety degrees the wrong way that had made Dew’s stomach almost rebel.

He stared hard at the picture, memorizing every detail of Dawsey’s face. Big boy, sure, big and strong and mean and dangerous, sure, but that’s why man invented guns. Fuck Murray’s orders-being an All-American didn’t make you Superman, and a bullet in the head would bring “Scary” Perry Dawsey down just as it would anyone else.

Someone had to pay for Malcolm’s death. Dawsey was as good a target as any.