The Deep Zone

FORTY-EIGHT

“SO THE NARCOTICS TRAFFICKERS SHOT THE BLACK MAN, AND the big man fell into the water. He might have been shot, too. You’re not sure. But you believe he drowned.” The Homeland Security debriefer glanced down at notes she had been taking. She was a petite woman who’d introduced herself as Rosalind Gurwitz. She had brown hair that framed her face in clusters of natural curls, an apple-cheeked face, and a surprisingly sympathetic, unlawyerly manner. The living, breathing opposite of Rhodes and Rivers.

Hallie thought, No, he did not fall in and he was not shot. I pulled him in. But instead, she nodded and said, as Don Barnard had instructed earlier, “That’s correct.”

Gurwitz, in a navy blue pantsuit, was standing by Hallie’s bedside in the room at Walter Reed. A wallet-sized digital video recorder mounted on a tripod at the foot of the bed was capturing the interview. Barnard, looking official and very directorial in a dark gray three-piece suit, hovered around the room, a glowering presence making sure the debriefer did not overstay her welcome.

“And the drug traffickers who attacked the two men took you prisoner.”

“Yes.”

“And it was when they were taking you back to their camp that you managed to escape.”

“What?” They had given her meds. Her head felt weird, filled with a soft buzzing that would not stop, and thoughts floated around, wispy, hard to grasp. What had Barnard said to say about that?

The lawyer appeared to sense her confusion. She repeated, “The drug traffickers were taking you back to their camp. But you got loose and escaped them. And signaled for the recovery team to pick you up.”

She blinked, rubbed her face, looked at Don Barnard, behind the lawyer. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“That’s right.”

“How were you able to do that?”

“They were drunk and high on drugs. It wasn’t so hard.”

“Really?” Gurwitz looked at her with admiration and astonishment and, just maybe, a hint of disbelief. “Incredible. No—wrong word. I believe you, of course. It’s just… fantastic.”

“Tell me about it.” Hallie took a sip of ginger ale. She thought the hospital straw with its little flexible joint was one of the funniest things she had ever seen, and laughed out loud.

Rosalind Gurwitz stared.

“Sorry. It’s the meds.” Hallie blinked, grinned.

Hallie looked bad, but the meds were helping. The extraction team had lifted her and Bowman out of the meadow two days earlier. At the Reynosa airfield they’d both been transferred to a government jet. Accompanied by a medical team, they’d flown to Washington and had been airlifted to WRAMC. She and Bowman had been separated then, and she had not seen him since.

The doctors here had sutured the cut in her eyebrow from when Cahner punched her, or maybe when he’d kicked her. There was a stitched cut above her right ear, but she couldn’t recall when that one had happened. One eye was plum-colored and swollen half shut. She had to squint through the other eye, because she had still not fully adjusted to bright surface light, let alone the light in a hospital. That would take several more days. They had also sutured the gash in her left hand, the worst wound of all, requiring twenty stitches. It was wrapped in a sterile bandage. Her back was covered with wine-colored bruises from hitting the microbial mat. She had suffered a mild concussion and had lost nine pounds. But she was alive and, as Barnard had assured her, every BARDA lab and a number of others at the CDC were working with the moonmilk she had retrieved.

“Is there anything you’d like to add to your statement, Dr. Leland?”

“No. But if you’ll turn that off, I have a couple of questions.”

“Of course.” The little red light on the camera winked out.

She tried hard to focus. “First, who were those two paramilitary types working for?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Leland. I don’t have that information.”

Hallie asked several more questions, but it became obvious that Gurwitz either didn’t know or wasn’t going to talk about what had happened in Mexico. Then the lawyer said, “One thing I can address: it appears that you may have been the victim of a very sophisticated subterfuge, Dr. Leland. Dr. Barnard will provide full details. I am authorized to tell you that everything possible will be done to make things right, including full reinstatement with back pay and benefits.”

Barnard cleared his throat.

“Oh, yes. And a promotion as well.”

Barnard looked a degree less disturbed, but he clearly wanted the lawyer gone.

“Have you worked in Washington long, Ms. Gurwitz?” Hallie struggled to focus.

The lawyer frowned, puzzled. “Thirteen years, actually.”

“Ah. Then you understand how much this could cost the government, both in dollars and publicity, not to mention rolling heads.”

Gurwitz turned pale. “Dr. Leland…” she began, then just stopped. She was a good enough lawyer to know when the best thing to say was nothing.

Thinking of that time with Rhodes and Rivers, Hallie let the silence linger, feeling the air in the room getting tighter and tighter, watching Gurwitz suffer. But Hallie took no real pleasure in that. Gurwitz had had nothing to do with any of it. She finished the ginger ale, set the glass aside.

“Why don’t you turn that thing back on.” Hallie nodded at the camera.

Gurwitz hesitated but then touched her remote, and the red light glowed.

“For the record, I’m not going to sue the government. And I have no plans to call the Washington Post or 60 Minutes. Al Cahner was very good at what he did. He fooled some very smart people here. Including me, right up to the end. What’s done is done. Case closed.”

Gurwitz regarded Hallie for a moment longer, appeared to realize that her mouth was hanging open, and closed it. This was clearly not the D.C. denouement she was used to seeing. “That seems like a good place to end our interview. Thank you for your time and cooperation, Dr. Leland.”

She clicked the remote, and the red light winked out. When she had packed up and put her coat on, Gurwitz walked to Hallie’s bedside and touched her shoulder.

“Off the record. You got screwed, honey. I’m not sure I could be as forgiving. But I do admire you for it.” She paused, considering, then continued: “I have no children, but my only nephew is in Afghanistan. We are all in your debt, Dr. Leland.”

Hallie gave the lawyer’s small hand on her shoulder a squeeze. “Thank you. But we don’t have the magic bullet just yet.”

“No, but from everything I’ve been told, we will. Thanks in large part to you. Goodbye—and get better soon.”

When she had gone, Barnard moved close to Hallie’s bed. “Can I get you anything, Hallie? A sandwich? Some ice cream?”

She considered, shook her head. “I’m good. But thanks.”

He nodded, but now, with the lawyer gone, she saw something in his face that pulled her back from the medication haze. “What’s wrong, Don?”

“Some things happened while you were away. I didn’t want to say anything until you’d gotten some rest. But you have a right to know.”

“What?”

He told her about David Lathrop and Lew Casey.

For a few moments she was too stunned to speak. “Dead? Both?”

“Yes. Late’s might have been a robbery gone wrong. We’re not sure about that just yet. Lew’s appeared to be an accident.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“No. He would never have messed up his air-supply connections.”

“I am so sorry, Don. I know you were close to both of them.”

Barnard took in a long breath, let it out. He started to reach for his pipe, but his hand stopped halfway to the vest pocket and he let it drop. “I was. I’d almost forgotten how much it hurts to lose men like that.” She saw his eyes go vague. A big hand came up, rubbed his chest, fell again. “Good men.” He blinked, came back to the room, rearranged his face. “That was the very bad news. I also have some very good news.”

“Glad to hear it. I can use some of that just now.”

And then, as if he had been listening just outside the door, it opened and in walked Wil Bowman. He wore jeans and running shoes and a long-sleeved tan shirt with the tail out. A slight bulge was visible under the right sleeve just below his shoulder, where they had bandaged the bullet wound. His right arm was in a sling. The loose shirttail made the bandage on the left side of his waist unnoticeable. Other than the loss of a few pounds, Hallie kept thinking, he looked good. Very good. Better than good.

“Hello there,” he said, grinning. She had not seen him look so happy.

“Hello there, yourself. You look pretty good for a man who got shot twice.”

“Amazing powers of recovery. We Colorado boys are tough as nails.” He walked to the bed, picked up the unbandaged hand, closed it within his own. “You don’t look too bad yourself, all things considered.”

Barnard cleared his throat. “I was just telling Hallie about Lew and Late.”

Bowman nodded, his face hardening for a second. “Any movement in the investigations?”

“Not with Late’s killing. But with Lew, possibly. When something like this happens, they look at any anomaly, no matter how small.”

“Sure.”

“Well, we have an unexplained staff absence.”

“Who?” Hallie and Bowman said at the same time.

“Evelyn Flemmer.”

It meant nothing to Bowman, but Hallie’s eyes widened. “Evvie Flemmer? You don’t think she was involved with this, do you?”

“We can’t be sure of anything at this point, of course. But she hasn’t reported for work since Lew died. Agents went to her apartment yesterday, but she wasn’t there.”

“They can get records of all enplanements,” Bowman said.

“Easily. Already done. She did not leave on a plane, train, bus, or rental car. And her personal vehicle was in the lot at her apartment building.”

“My God, Don,” Hallie said. “If you’d asked me to pick the one person at BARDA least likely to be involved with something like that, I would have named Evvie Flemmer.”

“You know what? Me, too,” Barnard said. “And we don’t really know if she was. But it’s the only blip in our operational procedures we’ve detected.”

Hallie remembered the soldiers, their families. “How have containment efforts been working?”

“We’ve just about run through our colistin stockpile. The more cases we find, the faster we have to use it.”

“How many cases reported so far?”

“Almost seven hundred.”

“Mortality rate?”

“Right around ninety percent. A few survivors. But so disfigured…” He shook his head.

“Any other developments?”

“Fox News sniffed out the story. They’ve agreed to embargo it until noon tomorrow. When it breaks…” He shrugged. “Very bad.”

“If we could at least say a new drug works, it might stave off panic.”

“It could.” Barnard nodded. “If we had one.” There was a clock on the wall, but he pulled out his pocket watch. “I need to get back to BARDA, and you need to rest.”

“Don, before you go…”

“Yes?”

“Whatever happened to the people from the COP? The Z point.”

“Fourteen soldiers dead at this point. And three nurses.”

“What about that doctor?”

“She contracted ACE herself. It was a virtual certainty, with her not wearing a biosuit. But she refused. Said she couldn’t treat the soldiers with one on. For five days she was the only physician at the COP. All the others were dealing with battle casualties. That’s a brave woman.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lenora Stilwell.”

“Say again?”

“Lenora Stilwell. She’s a major with the Florida—”

“I know who she is, Don. Mary’s older sister.”

“Mary who runs the dive shop? Your college friend?”

“My best friend. My God. Don, is Lenora dead?”

“Not yet. Soon, though. She got bad enough that they had to bring her stateside. She’s here at Reed, as a matter of fact.”

“Why would they bring her all this way?”

“Better palliative care, basically. And with an outbreak, you have two options. Contain each cluster individually—put out the small fires. Or aggregate cases. There’s a tipping point after which aggregation becomes safer.”

“Are there others here?”

“About fifty. The worst cases. All in the big iso ward downstairs.”

She yawned, despite herself. Barnard headed for the door.

“I’ll come back tomorrow. I hung a fresh change of clothes in your closet.”

Barnard left, closing the door behind himself, and Hallie and Bowman were alone. The meds were reaching for her, pulling her down, but she would not leave him again.

“How is your arm? And your side?”

He stepped back and took his right arm out of the sling. He snapped off three fast jabs, took a quarter out of his jeans pocket, tossed it in the air, and caught it.

She could do nothing but gape. “How did you do that? I saw your bullet wounds.”

He grinned. “Recall I mentioned that DARPA was working on a way to speed up the body’s healing process? Something called Superheal?”

“Yes. Okay. But why the sling?”

“It’s just for show. DARPA’s not ready to go public with this yet.” He was smiling down at her, eyes alight. He touched her face, just his fingertips, careful of her injuries. “You’re a sight, Doctor.”

“We almost died back there.”

“As close as I’ve ever come.”

“Given what you do, I’d guess that’s saying something.”

“Yes, ma’am. It is. You know, I would have kissed you already except for the bruises. I know love can hurt, but kissing shouldn’t.”

Love? A blossoming in her chest, hot and beautiful.

“Get me some of that fast-healing stuff. Then…”

“Would if I could, believe me. I only got it because…” He trailed off.

“Because?”

“They like to keep me functional.”

“Wil, I have so many questions.”

“You deserve answers. Shoot.”

“Were those paramilitaries working for the same people as Al Cahner?”

“Unclear.”

“Did we find out who Cahner was working for?”

“Possibly. A very shadowy network, multinational, no discernible tracks. But good people are working hard on it right now.”

She yawned again, could feel herself drifting. “I want to hear how you got out. Of the cave. You said you’d tell me later.”

He hesitated, and she saw something behind his eyes, quickly there and gone but sharp enough to wake her up. “What?”

Bowman shifted on his feet, then sat on the edge of her bed. She could tell he was having an internal debate of some kind, and wondered if he had used more DARPA black magic to get himself out. He sighed, pursed his lips, rubbed his face. Made some kind of decision.

“Okay. Cahner shoved me into the river. You know about that.” Shook his head. “I still cannot believe he suckered me so badly.”

“Suckered us. I worked with the man for almost two years, Wil. And he had me fooled completely. You can’t blame yourself for not suspecting him. None of us did. Not even Don Barnard.”

“Yeah. The guy could act, I’ll give him that. So anyway, the river flowed down into a sump for about a hundred yards. There was some air space in the middle where I got a couple of breaths. Then it spit me out like a watermelon seed into a huge room.”

“But you were still by yourself, without a light, no food…”

“I had a light, thanks to you.” He reached out for her hand, held it gently. “Without that, I was a dead man.”

“So that room you were in reconnected with the main route we had followed the whole time?”

“Well, no.”

“But if not, how did you get out? Were you able to follow some air currents?”

“No.” He rubbed his nose, looked perplexed, more uncertain than she had ever seen him.

“Well, what then?”

“The watercourse had a nice, sandy beach in that big chamber. It looked so inviting. Near drowning can beat you up. I basically passed out.”

“And?”

“And I had the strangest dream.” She stared.

“What kind of dream?”

“There was nothing in it but light. As if I had been awake, seeing this incredible light. Nothing else. Just light.” He shook his head, continued. “By my watch, I slept for a couple of hours.”

“And?”

“When I woke up, I knew how to get out of the cave.”

She stared, open-mouthed.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I know it sounds crazy, but… I got out. So something happened.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the door was still closed. She could see that he was disturbed by the way she was staring at him, as if afraid that she suspected him of lying to cover up for DARPA—or for some other, unsuspected reason. He backtracked: “Look, I’m sorry I said anything. But you have to promise me you won’t mention this to anyone. Okay? Promise?”

She was laughing by then. He frowned. She held up her good hand. “I’m not laughing at you, Wil.” And then she told him: “I got lost. I still don’t know how, but completely lost. I was going to try to relocate the route, but it would have been impossible, really. I needed to rest, first. So I curled up and slept. And I had the same dream. As though I were floating in a cloud of light. And when I woke up… I knew how to get out.”

He stared at her as she had been staring at him a moment earlier. “What in God’s name?”

“I think it was in Chi Con Gui-Jao’s name.”

“Arguello’s cave spirit.” Disdain in his voice, disbelief on his face. “No. There must have been some moving air we followed. Or…” His words trailed off. Out of ideas.

“You said, ‘I knew how to get out of the cave.’ When you woke up. It wasn’t moving air, Wil.”

“It was like there was a map in my brain.”

“Exactly.” She thought of something. “Is it still there?”

He concentrated for a moment. “No. Gone. You?”

“No.”

“But… you believe me?”

“Yes.” She nodded, squeezed his hand. “Absolutely.”

“And I believe you. I think I do, anyway. But I also think we might be better off keeping it between ourselves. People who haven’t experienced something like this…”

“Exactly right. We know the truth. That’s enough for me.”

“Me, too.”

She had one more question. “How did you manage to find me and those narcos?”

“I didn’t come out of the cave at the main entrance. Another, a mile or so west. I made it back to the meadow just as they were marching you away. Watched the big one for a while and then dealt with him. You know the rest.”

“I know you saved my life.”

“And you saved mine. We’re even there.” He paused, smiled. “I have never met anyone like you, Hallie.”

That feels good, she thought. Now tell him how you feel about him. “Wil… I…” Her mind lunged, grabbing for the words, but they eluded her like bubbles blown on the wind. She felt the sleep closing over her. She looked up, saw him watching her, grinning. He knows. I can see it. Don’t need words.

She dropped off, came back. “Know wha’?” She was starting to mumble, heard herself, but the best she could do.

“What?”

“I like the way you smell.”

He laughed. “I’m glad you do. It’d be a hell of a thing if you didn’t.”

“Do you like the way I smell?” She giggled, the sleep pulling her.

“That and a whole lot more.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll tell you all of them, every single one, and that will take a long time. But you need to sleep now.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly on the unbruised cheek, then on her forehead, careful, tender, then on the lips, his touch soft as light. He straightened up, still holding her hand, and the last thing she remembered before dropping off was him standing there, towering over her, looking down from what appeared to be a great height, the air around him seeming to glow, and her feeling not only safe, but saved.

FORTY-NINE

SPENDING SO LONG IN THE CAVE HAD DISRUPTED HALLIE’S biorhythms, which would take days to restabilize. She slept for twelve hours after Bowman left and awoke in the middle of the night. The floor was dark. Somewhere down the hall a patient was snoring softly, but that was the only sound.

She tossed and turned and tried to go back to sleep, but her body was still in midday mode. At three A.M. she was still awake, trying to make her mind stop revisiting the things that had happened, when a nurse padded in silently with a stethoscope, digital thermometer, and sphygmomanometer.

“Hey. I’m awake. You don’t need to tiptoe. But if you could leave the light off, I’d appreciate it. Still hurts my eyes.”

“Of course. The night-light is plenty. I’m really sorry to disturb you, Dr. Leland.” The nurse was a short, plump woman in her thirties wearing white pants and a floral-patterned hospital top. Her name tag said, “Placida Dominguez, RN.”

“I can get you something to help you sleep if you like.” She had a slight Latin accent and a velvet-soft voice. Hallie wanted no more befuddling pain meds.

“Thanks. I’ll count sheep or something.”

“Warm milk? That really does work. Tryptophan, you know.”

“No, but I appreciate your concern.”

Hallie sat up and had to be quiet for ten seconds while the nurse took her temperature with the digital thermometer, read it, and said, “Ninety-eight point four.” She took Hallie’s blood pressure, listened to her lungs.

“It’s quiet here tonight,” Hallie said.

“Here, yes. Not so much in other wards, though.”

“No?”

“No. They have activated the Biosecurity Isolation Area. Down in Sublevel Two. We have not been told what is there.” She paused, frowned. “People are thinking maybe smallpox. It’s all soldiers from Afghanistan. You know, germ warfare maybe.”

It’s ACE, Hallie thought. They don’t know yet. “Have they confirmed smallpox?”

The nurse shrugged. “No. It’s just what people are saying. Nobody knows, really.”

Hallie nodded, but did not add anything.

“Your vitals are looking very good, Dr. Leland,” the nurse said. “I think they will discharge you tomorrow.”

“That will be nice. To sleep in my own bed. Yum.”

“Good night, Doctor. Please use your call button for anything at all. Even if you should only want to talk. I am just at the nurses’ station.”

Hallie eased down, then turned onto one side because her bruised back hurt. They had raised the safety bars on her bed, and now she lay there staring through them. She was not thinking about her expedition into the cave. She was thinking, instead, of the footage of the soldier Don Barnard had shown her in his office, back before this all started. The things she’d seen were like the afterimages caused by staring into a bright light, but these would not fade. She closed her eyes, tried to think about other things, to squeeze the horror out of her mind. Then she stopped doing that. Turning away struck her as cowardice. Turning away from the people themselves struck her as worse. Especially from one person. What would she tell Mary, knowing that her sister was right here in the same hospital, and that she could have seen her, and did not? She dropped the safety bars and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Because it was so late, the halls were deserted. It was not hard for Hallie to find a supply closet and exchange her hospital johnny for green doctor’s scrubs. She pulled white Tyvek covers over the running shoes Don Barnard had brought and put a hair cover on, just for good measure.

“I’m Dr. Leland,” she said as she approached the desk by the elevator. She had expected that access to the elevators and stairways would be restricted. The young corporal looked at her, then looked again, transfixed by her damaged face. “Car accident,” she said. “The stupid Beltway. You know how it is. I need to get down to the iso unit to see a patient.”

He examined a clipboard on the desk, running his index finger down a printout with a list of names, the finger stopping beneath each one. His lips moved while he read the names silently. Finally he looked up.

“Uh, I’m sorry, ma’am…”

“Doctor.”

He blushed. “Yes, ma’am, I mean, Doctor, but I don’t got your name here.” He held up the clipboard.

She grabbed it, laid it on the table, picked up one of his pens, and wrote her name between two others. Eyes flashing, she pushed the clipboard toward him.

“Now you do. Open that elevator, soldier.”

After passing into the iso unit’s air lock system, Hallie performed all the BSL-4 procedures, donned a Chemturion suit, and finally walked through an inner air lock into the unit itself, as quiet and dim as the area she had left. Ultraviolet germicidal lights on the ceiling and walls glowed an eerie, radioactive-looking blue, and even with the Chemturion’s filtration system running the air smelled of a chlorine-based aerosol disinfectant.

The nurses’ station was deserted—no surprise with a ward full of critical cases. She turned right and started down the long hall. Most of the rooms had their doors open, privacy curtains drawn around the beds inside. When she was halfway to the corridor’s end, she passed a room where the curtain was not drawn and she could see the person lying in bed. She was sleeping or, more likely, knocked out on meds, on her back. Some of the flesh on the right side of her head had been eaten away, exposing white patches of skull. There was a plum-sized hole in her left cheek, through which Hallie could see jawbone and teeth. There was no eye on this side, just a suppurating empty socket.

Hallie’s stomach churned. It was one thing to look at pictures of this horror, another to actually see—and smell—it. She started down the white corridor again. At its end, she turned left and kept walking. She passed five rooms and then stopped at the door to one. The rectangular metal frame on the wall beside the door held a paper name label: STILWELL, L. MAJ. FLNG.

It was a private room, just the one bed, a perk of rank. Night-lights at the baseboards and wall switches illuminated the room softly. Hallie could see a woman with short brown hair lying in the bed. She had met Lenora only once, at Mary’s parents’ home in Louisiana. Now an oxygen-supplying cannula was inserted into Stilwell’s nostrils. A sheet was pulled up to her chin. Her arms rested on top of the sheet. Both hands were bandaged. And then, as Hallie watched, one came up and waved her in. She walked to the bedside.

“Hey.” Stilwell’s voice was a raw whisper, roughened by pain and throat inflammation. “What’s up, Doc?”

My kind of gal. “Lenora?” she said very softly. Then, remembering the suit, she repeated her question more loudly.

“Yes. You’re early.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Stilwell chuckled. “Not much sleeping going on here, Doc.”

“I’m not a doctor. Not a medical doctor. I’m a microbiologist.”

“I see.” Stilwell did not sound happy to hear that. “Do you really need another biopsy? They’ve already taken about a pound of flesh for tests.”

“No, it’s not that. I…” Now that she was here, she found it difficult to explain to this woman why.

“Take your time, Doctor,” Stilwell rasped. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Neither am I. What’s your name, Doctor?”

“Um, it’s Leland. Hallie Leland. I know your sister, Mary.”

Stilwell did not sit up—could not—but the surprise was clear in her voice. “Hallie Leland. I remember meeting you at our home. What on earth brings you here?”

“I…” What had brought her here? Should she tell Stilwell about the whole Cueva de Luz effort? No. Too complicated. “I learned you were in here yesterday.” Leave it at that.

“So if you’re here, you must know about ACE?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“That surprises me. They’ve been working hard to keep this contained.”

“I work in a government facility that’s been researching countermeasures. For ACE, I mean.”

“What facility?”

“BARDA. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people haven’t.” She hesitated. “What you did. Over there. Incredible.”

Stilwell let out an exasperated sigh. “No big deal. It’s war. Those boys get shot and die every day. I’m going to leave them when things finally get dangerous in my house? Not likely.” She winced, groaned, obviously in sudden pain.

“Should I call someone?” Hallie could see a small area of infection on the left side of Stilwell’s neck, and one the size of a half dollar on her forehead. They looked like third-degree burns, red and raw and oozing.

“No. It passed. Nerve endings flare up when they die, but just for a few seconds.” She got her breath back. “Of course, there are billions of nerve endings, so I have plenty to look forward to.”

“Lenora, maybe I should go. I don’t want to make this worse.” Hallie was damning herself, feeling selfish now, for having interrupted this good woman’s rest.

Stilwell waved a bandaged hand. “Lenny. My friends call me. Stay. Good to talk.”

“All right. I feel stupid in the suit, though.”

“You’d feel stupider if you came down with this stuff. So don’t even think about taking that off. But you can come closer.”

Hallie stepped to the side of the bed.

“How is Mary? She won’t answer my emails or phone calls,” Stilwell said.

“I know. She’s…” Was this the time to tell her big sister about the drinking? No. “She’s doing okay. I’ve spent some time with her recently, down in Florida.”

“She really okay?”

Then again, was this a time to lie? “Not really.”

“The Army treated her like dirt.”

“I know.”

Stilwell did not speak for a while. Then: “Husband know you’re down here?”

“I’m not married.”

“Sorry. Shouldn’t assume. Can’t see your hand, though. Is news about this stuff getting out?”

“Not yet. They fear there will be a panic.”

“My family doesn’t know anything, either.” Real pain of a different kind came into Stilwell’s voice.

Hallie couldn’t believe that. “They haven’t been notified?”

Stilwell shrugged, winced. “Two things you learn about the military. Follow orders. And often they suck.”

“Do you want me to call them? I’ll do it right now.”

“Not just yet, thanks. They couldn’t visit now, anyway. I think it will be easier to wait until I’m a little better.”

The ACE mortality rate thus far was 90 percent. So there was at least a chance. But Stilwell did not look like she was on the road to recovery.

“Tell me about your family.”

“Tampa. Husband’s name is Doug. We met in college. Tall. Looks like Jimmy Stewart. Great dancer. Son Danny. Fifteen. Plays football. Boyfriend?”

Hallie realized it was a question.

“Not just now. Well, maybe.” She smiled at her own confusion. “Time will tell. Danny plays football, you said?”

“Varsity already. Wrestling team, too.”

“College plans?”

“No. Wants to enlist. Day he turns eighteen.”

“Jesus.” Hallie regretted that the moment she said it.

“Exactly.” Stilwell started to say more but coughed violently. At one point she raised a bandaged hand and pointed at the vomit pan on her bedside table. Hallie held it, clumsily with the thick gloves. When the bout finally subsided, Stilwell spit out a volume of red-and-black mucus dotted with solid yellow bits of tissue.

“Should I call someone now?” Hallie put the pan aside.

“Nothing they can do.” Stilwell was gasping, struggling for air. “Pulmonary edema. Body trying to flush itself. Feels like drowning.”

They waited until Stilwell’s breathing settled. She said, “Danny. Terrifies me. But how to discourage? Wants to do his part.”

“A military academy,” Hallie said. “In four years, the war might be over. Or at least winding down.”

Stilwell shook her head. “No. Afghans don’t know anything but war. They need it. Go on forever.” She paused, coughed. “It’s like their baseball.”

They sat in silence for a while. Stilwell’s eyes were closed, her breathing shallow and rapid. Then her eyes opened wide. Her back arched, her mouth stretched, as though readying to scream, but no sound came out. Her body convulsed twice, violently, and she collapsed onto the bed. She did not move. Her chest did not rise and fall. There was no pulse visible in her neck.

It took Hallie a second to react. She searched for the nurse-call button. Because Stilwell could not use it with her bandaged hands, they had secured it on a hook near the top of her bed, on the other side, and Hallie could not see it. She looked at Stilwell, lying there, not breathing, in arrest. She yelled for help, then screamed for it, but the biosuit hood trapped her voice. Hallie grabbed Stilwell’s wrist to check for a pulse, but the heavy gloves kept her from feeling anything.

She could run to the nurses’ station, alert someone. But she could not really run in the damned suit. Without oxygen, Stilwell’s brain was dying right now. That would take too long. Hallie’s mind made a flash calculation, like the one when she had been standing with Kathan by the cenote. Odds and probabilities. This woman has ACE. If I help her, I might get ACE. If I don’t help her, she will die. If I do get ACE, we may be able to kill it.

She ripped the zipper open, threw the hood back over her head, screamed “HELP!” twice as loudly as she could. She pulled back the sheet and did fifteen fast chest compressions, expecting an explosion of pain in her sutured hand, but felt none. Adrenaline, she thought.

Then she tilted Stilwell’s head back, made sure her airway was clear, and blew three breaths into the unconscious woman. Fifteen more compressions, three more breaths. Hallie tasted the blood in Stilwell’s mouth, sour fluid coming from her nose, ignored them, kept compressing and ventilating.

A nurse appeared at the door, saw what was happening, rushed back toward the floor’s main station. The biosuits made running nightmare-slow. Hallie kept working, compressions and breaths, compressions and breaths. She lost track of how much time elapsed before the biosuited code blue team came race-waddling into the room. Someone in a suit pushed her out of the way. More suits kept squeezing in, and soon she was pressed back out into the hall.

No point in putting this back on now. Hallie walked away from Stilwell’s room without resecuring the hood. Presently she came to the nurses’ station. With most of the shift team down in Stilwell’s room, there were only two nurses there, both in biosuits. One was in the dispensary, back turned to Hallie, inventorying the drug stocks. The other was looking down at a stack of paperwork. She heard Hallie approach but did not look up at first. When she did, and saw the tall woman with the white-blond hair and stitched-up, blood-smeared face standing in front of her wearing a biosuit but no hood, she dropped her pen.

“Hey,” Hallie said. “I need a room.”

FIFTY

FOR THIS VISIT, DON BARNARD WAS CLOAKED IN A FULL biosuit. She tried to think of a joke about it, but could not.

“I’m told you saved her life.” The hood and faceplate made him sound like he was talking to her from inside a closet.

“I’m glad to hear that.” Hallie was in a bed herself now in the iso ward. “She deserves to live.”

“How do you feel?”

“I feel fine.” He appeared skeptical. “Really, Don. Look…” She pointed at her lunch tray, where only crumbs remained from the cheeseburger, French fries, and chocolate sundae she had devoured. “Appetite good, no fever, no pains, pulse, BP, respiration, all good.”

He just nodded.

“I know. Incubation period, three to five days. This is just day one.”

He nodded again. Looked at the floor, at the wall, at the ceiling. Through the faceplate, she could see that something was wrong.

“Don, talk to me. Did Lenora die?”

“She’s hanging on. It’s not that.”

“What then?”

He looked directly at her. She could see only his eyes through the faceplate, but they frightened her.

“What, Don?”

“It isn’t working, Hallie.” Strange voice, dead-sounding, flat.

“What isn’t working?”

“The moonmilk. It isn’t working.”

Her body felt as if it had just taken a hard electric shock. Can’t be. He has to be wrong.

“No way, Don. We gave them my research results. And Lew’s work. With the new moonmilk, they can’t miss. We were this close. They have to…” Her voice trailed off as she watched his face.

“No. Not that. We have seven laboratories working on this. They all got the same response. Either this material is different or the samples were contaminated.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“The protein-sequencing conformations—the ones you developed, as a matter of fact—aren’t aligning properly. There’s nothing wrong with the work you did. It’s the new material. It’s as if the keys you’ve always used in a lock suddenly don’t fit. As I said, every lab has encountered the same problem at the same point in their enzyme transfections. It may be that the moonmilk can mutate just as quickly as ACE.”

“Jesus. If you can’t engineer the transfections, the door stays locked. You can’t get in to arrange the furniture.”

“Exactly.” Barnard sounded devastated. “Given time, we may be able to do resequencing—some kind of work-arounds, the computer guys would call it. But what we don’t have is time.”

Neither of them spoke as Barnard’s news settled in her mind. Hallie was off the meds now, her mind sharper, and she understood instantly that she had just received a death sentence. And then she was not seeing Don, or the room, feeling as though she had been hit by a giant wave and was being washed away, pulled deeper and deeper, light fading, sound dying, until nothing was left but a rushing in her ears.

She came back, pulled herself out of the bed, walked around, utterly dazed. “I wish there were some windows in this goddamned room,” she snapped. “It would be nice to see the sun.”

Barnard could only shake his head. “I’m sorry, Hallie. I am so very sorry.” He hesitated. “I suppose now you’ll be wanting to call your family.”

She dreaded doing that more than she had ever dreaded anything in her life. Barnard walked to her and wrapped her in a hug. The suit made it feel like she was being squeezed by a man made of beach balls, but she could see his face through the plastic and that made it feel good. Something let go deep inside her and suddenly she was sobbing so hard her ribs hurt. Barnard held her tight, letting her cry, tears pouring down his own cheeks. A passing nurse paused by the door, saw what was happening, moved on.

Two hours after Barnard left, Hallie watched the newscasts on the television hanging from the ceiling in her room. Fox broke the story, but by then the other news operations had gotten hold of it as well, so wherever she surfed—CNN, MSNBC, local news bulletins—she heard variations of the same theme:

“…interrupt regular programming to bring you this special report. It appears that the nation may be under threat of an epidemic caused by a dangerous new bacteria. Early indications are that the new pathogen may have been brought here by military personnel returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s not clear whether this resulted from germ warfare by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. But the infection is said to be highly contagious and drug-resistant. A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the president told his closest advisers this could be the worst threat to the nation since Pearl Harbor.

“The White House has announced that President O’Neil will hold a special press conference at three P.M. today. We will provide live coverage.

“We now return you to regular programming.”

It’s a whole new game now. She was not old enough to have witnessed the riots that tore Washington, D.C., apart after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, but she had seen film and photographs and read accounts. It could be like that, she thought. No, worse. And not just in D.C. ACE would respect no borders, spare neither the innocent nor the young, would take no prisoners. Every city would erupt sooner or later. She had seen the images that came out of Haiti after the horrible quake of 2010. Chaos. Horror. It could get that bad here.

Europe’s great cities during the plague years came to her mind, oxcarts filled to overflowing with rotting corpses, neighbors murdering neighbors, royalty fleeing, homes being set on fire with whole families locked in. She had a flash of what the future here could hold: the capital’s sidewalks littered with decaying bodies, entire blocks in flames, hospitals under attack by mobs desperate for medicine. Services breaking down as policemen and firefighters and utility workers fled the city to be with their families. Mass suicides as groups chose a death fast and painless rather than days of lingering agony.

“Stop it.” She pulled herself back to the present. The ward already felt different. There were more people bustling back and forth, more televisions playing with the volume too high, telephones ringing at the nurses’ stations, patients calling out from their rooms.

She switched off the television and wandered out into the hall. How odd it feels to know you’re going to die, she thought, but corrected herself. No, that’s not right. We all know we’re going to die. What’s different is that now I know when, and how. That feels different. But don’t forget, there’s a ten percent chance. Right. Her mind was spinning like a spooked horse in a corral, kicking and striking and looking for some way out of a place that had no exit.

Walk, she thought. Put one foot in front of the other. Be here and now. Whatever time you have left, make the most of every moment. I should call Mom. No, I can’t. Not right now. I need a little time. But, God, what about Mom? She’ll be hearing all these news bulletins and wondering what the hell is going on. I have to tell her to get away. But where to go? She’s probably as good on the farm as anywhere. But I have to call her. Just not yet.

Hallie walked down the hall, turned left, moving without thinking, kept going to the end of the corridor, turned left again. She stopped in front of Lenora Stilwell’s room. The door was closed. There was a sign on the door, red with yellow lettering: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

I’m authorized if anyone is.

She pushed through the door, walked to the foot of Stilwell’s bed, stared.

“Oh my God!”

She fled into the hall, where she stood screaming at the top of her lungs for doctors, nurses, anybody, to get down there now.

FIFTY-ONE

THE DOCTOR WAS PANTING FROM HIS SPRINT-WADDLE DOWN the hall in a Chemturion. He stood beside the bed, peering at Stilwell. His heavy breathing had fogged up the faceplate, so he kept tilting his head this way and that, trying to get a decent view. Several nurses in their inflated suits hung back, trying to see around him.

Lenora Stilwell smiled, waved. Weak, but a wave. “Hey there. Think I could get some orange juice?” Her voice was still raspy, but stronger.

Hallie stood and gaped. Stilwell’s color had returned. The lesion on her forehead had shrunk. “Unbelievable. The colistin is working.”

The doctor looked up from Stilwell’s chart. “She hasn’t received colistin since she got here. Wouldn’t take it. Directed it to be used elsewhere.”

More people, staff in biosuits and patients in johnnies, were crowding around outside the door now, peering in, trying to get a glimpse. Word had spread quickly through the ward that something was happening. Now pretty much everybody who could walk was coming toward Stilwell’s room.

“Look at you!” Hallie laughed, sobbed, laughed. She turned to the doctor. “If it wasn’t colistin, what happened?”

“Damned if I know.” He put the clipboard on its hook. “It’s… it’s… hell, I don’t know what it is.”

Hallie was thinking the simplest thought: A miracle, that’s what.

Stilwell let out a laugh of pure joy. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“It’s you.” Stilwell pointed a bandaged hand.

“What?”

“It’s you. Something about you, Hallie. You gave it to me, and now I’m getting better.”

“The CPR.” Hallie remembered the feel of Stilwell’s mouth, the taste of blood, saliva and breaths mixing in their throats. Stilwell’s chest rising. Over and over.

“Had to be. No other way to explain it.”

“What CPR?” The doctor was looking at them.

“I arrested last night. No pulse, no respiration. Hallie was here. Did CPR. Something must have passed from her to me.”

“How…?” Hallie was still trying to understand. She looked down at her bandaged hand and remembered what had happened in the moonmilk chamber.

Was it possible? Could the substance somehow have synthesized, maybe even transfected, in her own immune system? Morphed biochemically?

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. But I tell you one thing, gal. You better come over here and let me give you a hug.”

And that’s what Hallie did.

Then she turned to the doctor, who was still staring, open-mouthed.

“My name is Dr. Hallie Leland. I’m a microbiologist with BARDA at the CDC. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. I need for you to call Dr. Donald Barnard, the director there.” She repeated Barnard’s cell number from memory. “Use any secure line you need to. Use WRAMC’s national security hotline if you need to. But get hold of Dr. Barnard now. Understand?”

The authority in Hallie’s voice took command of the still-stunned doctor. “Yes, sure, I can do that. But… what should I tell him?”

“Tell him he needs my blood. A lot of it.”

FIFTY-TWO

“NOW I KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE A VAMPIRE’S GIRLFRIEND.” Hallie was sitting up in bed, pale but showing no sign of ACE infection.

“It’s a good thing the human body can replace a pint a day.” Barnard had visited often. They had taken four pints of blood, one a day, with a day or two of rest in between each drawing, since the discovery of Lenora Stilwell’s recovery.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Light-headed once in a while. Sleeping more than usual. Otherwise, piece of cake. Are they getting it done?”

“Every government lab with the capability, and those of every major pharmaceutical company, are producing. Close to a hundred thousand doses already deployed. And since it’s government property, which means everybody’s property, every company has access to the drug’s genome.”

“So nobody gets filthy rich from this.”

“Right. How’s your mom? You finally talk to her?”

“She’s relieved. So are Mary and my brothers. They all knew something weird was up, not having heard from me. They just didn’t know what.”

“Are they coming to see you?”

“They were. I told them to stay put until I get out of here.”

“Did you think more about what we discussed?”

“About the lab? Yes. I would like to come back, and I appreciate the offer, Don. Have you found out anything more about all that happened down in Mexico?”

“We identified the two operatives that took you captive initially.”

“You did? Who were they?”

“Their names were Brant Lee Kathan and James David Stikes. Kathan was former Army Special Forces. Dishonorably discharged for torturing prisoners in Iraq. Stikes had been a SEAL. Honorably discharged. Both worked for the security firm Global Force Multiplier.”

“GFM? My God. The same contractor that provides security for VIPs in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“None other.”

“We suspect that they were to kill everyone on the team, including Al Cahner, and retrieve the moonmilk. They knew nothing of its real value.”

“So Cahner would have been double-crossed. And GFM was behind all of this?”

“No.” Barnard frowned, sighed. “We’re not sure yet who was the prime mover. But we do know someone else was involved.”

“Well?”

“Nathan Rathor.”

She gaped. “Rathor? The HHS secretary?”

“None other.”

“Why would Rathor be part of something like this? And what did he do?”

“I’ll take the second question first. We believe he was connected with David Lathrop’s death.”

She could only shake her head. “How about the why?”

“Before he was named HHS secretary, Rathor was the president and CEO of BioChem.”

“Right up there with Johnson & Johnson and Merck.”

“Yes. Biggest of the Big Pharmas. We’re fairly certain that he was part of a larger effort to get the moonmilk directly to BioChem. With your whole team dead and missing, we could only have assumed that the mission failed. BioChem, meanwhile, would have been creating new antibiotics, effective against ACE and maybe other MDRBs as well. Their profits would have been obscene. Rathor’s stock would have increased a hundredfold in value, if not more.”

“Is he going to jail?”

“Sadly, probably not. The evidence is strong but circumstantial. More importantly, a criminal trial of a member of the president’s own cabinet—and in particular one he personally recruited—would be disastrous for him.”

“So what will happen to Rathor?”

“I understand that he was instructed to present a letter of resignation to the president. He did that late yesterday, in fact. His departure will be attributed to health reasons or the need for more personal time or some such. You know how it works here, Hallie.”

“Indeed I do. How’s it playing?”

“The media are chewing on it now, but it’ll be forgotten by next week. They will know the reason given for his departure is bullshit. But they’ll probably figure the real reason was his failure to react quickly to the ACE problem. And many insiders will figure he just pissed off the wrong people, something Rathor was very good at.”

“And Al Cahner?”

“Tougher case, that. He had some very sophisticated software that we were able to track back to people in Ukraine, but not beyond. Turns out he had a secret Caymans bank account, but it had been drained and closed while he was in the cave. It appears that whoever paid him didn’t expect him to be around long after he came out.”

“What are we saying about the antibiotic? How we discovered it, I mean.”

“We’re simply saying that BARDA’s brilliant scientists came up with the drug after working themselves nearly to death.”

“How is Lenora?”

“She’ll be heading back to her family in a couple of weeks, if not sooner.”

“Brave lady, that one. Did anyone discover the infection’s source? How the Z man got it, I mean?”

“You won’t believe this. It was a tampon.” Barnard looked like he still could hardly accept it himself.

“What?”

“They use them for bullet wounds. No one knows exactly when they started doing that, but it’s common practice now.”

“So somebody stuck a tampon in a soldier’s wound and he got the infection from that?”

“Appears to be the case.”

“How would a tampon become contaminated with ACE?”

“A very good question. That tampon was sold by a company called FemTech. Manufactured in China, shipped to the U.S. for distribution to all the big-box discounters. Some found their way into the military supply chain as well.”

“So this whole thing started with an accidentally contaminated batch of tampons?”

“That’s one possibility, certainly.”

“There are others?”

“Someone could have contaminated the tampons intentionally.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“Suppose you could initiate an epidemic against which only one antibiotic on earth would be effective?”

“You mean that old drug, colistin?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody had made it for decades, though.”

“Because there was no market. Suppose you could create a market.”

“You’re suggesting that somebody intentionally infected people with ACE?”

“Here’s what we know. Tampons are not required to be sterile, because the area of the body where they are used is not sterile. At no point in their production are they tested for sterility. So introducing bacteria into them would not be all that difficult.”

“But how would the bacteria live? They need something to feed on.”

“Tampons are mostly cellulose. Perfect bacteria food. Here’s something else. In the year before the first case was diagnosed, one company, MDC Pharmaceuticals, produced a large amount of colistin.”

“Possibly anticipating a sudden need?”

“Possibly.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing probative. But who do you suppose owns FemTech?”

“No idea.”

“BioChem. And who do you suppose owns MDC?”

“BioChem?”

“None other.”

“My God. Will the government prosecute?” She was becoming tired, her eyes drooping, easing toward sleep.

“Who can say? It’s a long and very complicated way from an incident like this to the courtroom. All kinds of things can happen. I think of the ocean. You can see the surface and everything that’s on it. But beneath the surface, there are countless invisible currents and forces at work.”

Neither spoke for a few moments. Hallie’s chin dropped, came back up. Barnard patted her shoulder. “Well, look. You need to rest, and I need to get back to BARDA.”

“Before you go…”

“Yes?”

“I do want to rejoin BARDA, but not as a staff researcher.”

“No? What, then?”

“Field investigator.”

He hesitated only for a second. “Done. A good fit for you. We’ll take care of all the official stuff once you’re up and around.”

He turned to go, but her voice stopped him again, the words soft, some slurred. “Jus’ one more thing, Don?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Need to get in touch with Bowman. Cellphone number? Email?”

He slapped his forehead. “My God. I almost forgot. I am getting old, Hallie. His services were needed elsewhere. He left town last night.”

“Uh-uh. The man was shot, Don. Twice.”

“Apparently he has amazing powers of recovery. With some help from his shadowy friends at DARPA, probably.”

She had forgotten. It came back: him in her room, the fake sling, tossing the coin, catching it. “Where is he?”

“I can’t say, Hallie. I mean, I don’t know. Truly.”

She frowned at Barnard. “Is his name really Wil Bowman?”

“That much I can vouch for. It is.”

“I’ll find him, Don. You know I will.”

“Hallie, I suspect that when this new business is finished, he may find you first.”

She smiled, lifted a hand, let it drop. Her head sank into the pillow. In that dim and soft-edged place between sleep and waking, she drifted out of the hospital and back to the blue house awash in the scent of oranges, opened the door, and saw Bowman, white Florida light flowing around him, around them, carrying her into sleep, a fine thing to dream on.