His secretary tapped on the door, poked her head in, and waggled a sheaf of papers at him. “Mr. Blair? The speechwriters have a draft of POTUS’s address. They want you to take a look at it.”
“Good, let me see it.”
She crossed to his desk and handed him the speech. “This is unusual. Asking for your input on a speech.”
“‘Usual’ was last week, Cindy.” He bent over the speech.
But Cindy lingered. “Sir … the word is that they stopped this thing. That’s true, right? I mean, this is just winding down now?”
Blair raised his head and looked at her for a long time, saying nothing. She finally retreated from him and fled. He wished he had something comforting to say to Cindy. However, he liked the woman and didn’t want to lie to her.
Blair read through the speech, making disgusted sounds at the end of nearly every paragraph. The speech—written by well-intentioned people who lacked a clear perspective on the problem—took the wrong tack, focusing on a response to Billy Trout’s impassioned and ill-considered Internet tirade. Blair felt the president needed to go in a radically different direction. And not only in terms of the speech. General Zetter in Pennsylvania kept trying to convince the president that the devil was back on the leash, that the situation was contained. Which, as Blair viewed it, was a criminally distorted view of the facts. He grabbed a red pencil and began hastily redrafting it.
CHAPTER NINE
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
Billy Trout went to the auditorium to find his camera. It lay on its side among the debris. Less than an hour ago the big multipane windows that lined the east wall had been obliterated by machine-gun fire as attack helicopters fired on the school.
Trout looked at the damage and shivered.
Tens of thousands of rounds had torn the window frames apart, showering the big hall with millions of fragments of glittering glass and jagged wood. The bullets had carved away at the bricks, leaving a gaping maw through which cold winds blew the relentless rain.
The kids were all gone now, moved to other rooms so their wounds could be tended to. It was a freak of happenstance—the only real luck Trout could remember in that long, bad day—that none of these kids had been shot. He couldn’t even work out a scenario that explained it. A quirk of physics, a bizarre collision of angle, the storm winds, uncertain targeting, the slanted floor with its rows of seats, and who knew what else.
But the kids were alive.
Not okay, not all right. Merely alive.
Trout skirted the main floor, which was nothing but bullet-pocked detritus, and made his way to the stage, where he’d left his camera and satellite phone. They were beaded with rain, but when he tested them they still worked.
Another stroke of luck, and it made him wonder about the perversity of whatever gods there were that small luck was afforded them while on the whole the fortunes of Stebbins County seemed to have gone bad in the worst possible way.
Shaking his head, he took his gear backstage and found a small office with a desk. Trout cleaned the camera lens, wiped off every last trace of moisture, and set the camera’s tripod on the desk. He tested the mike and the signal.
Then he called Goat to make sure that this message would go out as smoothly as the others. The satellite phone was routed directly to Goat’s Skype account.
The phone rang and rang.
Goat never answered.
Trout checked all of the connections. Everything seemed to be in order.
He called again.
Nothing, just the meaningless ring with no answer.
Screw it, he thought. He’d record an update anyway and send it to Goat. Maybe his friend was ordering a refill at that nice, warm, safe goddamn Starbucks. Or he was in the nice, warm, safe bathroom taking a leak.
“I am going to let Dez kick your bony ass,” Trout promised as he clipped on his lavaliere mike. He hit the record button and set himself in front of the camera.
“This is Billy Trout, reporting live from the apocalypse,” he began, then shook his head. “I know how that must sound. If you’re anywhere but here it’s probably pretentious and corny. But not from where I’m sitting. Right now I’m in a small office near where the military fired on six hundred children a few minutes ago. Since then we’ve reached a kind of détente with the National Guard. They offered us a deal. We had to gather all of the sick and wounded people—anyone who showed any signs of infection from Lucifer 113—and we had to take them outside. That’s right, out where the monsters are. And we had to leave them there. Men and women, and children.” He paused and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Children. I … still can’t believe that we did it. Does that make me a war criminal, too? Did I help staunch the spread of a deadly pathogen or did I participate in a heinous act of brutality. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know.”
The camera kept recording, but Trout had to take a moment to collect himself.
“One of the people who went out there was a good man. A good friend. A Stebbins County police officer named JT Hammond. I want to tell you about him. I want you all to know about him. About how decent and kind he was; how strong he was. How courageous he was.”
Trout then told the camera about what JT did, about how he was infected and how he made a stand with the children. By the time he was done, tears were streaming down his face and there was a tremolo in his voice.
He sniffed and collected himself.
“And now what, America? We have eight hundred people in this building. Two hundred adults, the rest kids ranging from kindergarten through middle school. We have a few guns and some ammunition. Probably not enough. This place is the town’s emergency shelter, so we have food, water, cots and blankets, first-aid equipment, and other basic necessities. Enough to provide for three hundred people for two weeks. Yeah, stop for a moment and do the math.”
He had to control his anger because rage wanted to make him say the wrong things and Trout needed to get this right.
“I don’t know if this message will ever get out. I don’t know if the government is now coming clear about Lucifer 113 or not. All I know is that this plague is immoral and illegal and it’s killing people. I know how and why it was created. The man who invented this gave me all the science. The question now, I suppose, is what happens next. With us here in the Stebbins Little School. With what’s left of the Town of Stebbins and, really, all of Stebbins County. And with this monster that they’ve let loose. You tell me, folks … what now?”
He sighed, reached over and switched off the camera, then punched the buttons to send it to Goat. Technically, Goat should have been streaming it straight out to the Net, but Trout wasn’t sure. He tried calling him again and once more got nothing. He thumped the phone down in frustration.
And that’s when he saw her standing there.
Dez.
She was pale and ghostly in the shadowy hallway, her blond hair hanging in rattails, her uniform torn and dirty, her blue eyes filled with pain and tears.
But her mouth.
Despite everything, Dez was smiling.
“Thank you,” she said so softly that he almost didn’t hear her.
“For what? I don’t know if that even got out.”
Dez shook her head and stepped into the room. “I heard what you said about him. About JT.”
“I…” Trout began, then said simply, “He was my friend, too.”
Dez reached for him and he took her into his arms. They kissed for a long time. It was hot and wrong and her lips tasted of tears. But he absolutely did not want to let her go.
Then she leaned back and looked at him, studying his face with eyes that were filled with questions.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He did not dare ask for what. There was so much wreckage behind them. Years of trying to make a relationship work, and years of failure. Sometimes spectacular failures.
Like the last time.
For now, he didn’t care
what she was sorry for, or if it really related to him at all. He nodded and kissed her again.
Then, after a long, sweet, oddly gentle time, Dez pushed him back, turned, and walked away.
Once she was gone, Trout leaned against the doorframe and stared at the empty hallway.
“I love you,” he said to the shadows. “And I’m pretty damn sorry, too.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE SITUATION ROOM
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
No one spoke while Billy Trout talked about the slaughter of the infected, the devil’s bargain made with General Zetter, and the death of JT Hammond. When it was over, the president rubbed his hands over his face.
“Well, that should pretty much bury all of us,” he said.
“Actually,” said Scott Blair, “we’re the only people who have seen that video. The only ones who ever will.”
The president stared at him. “What?”
Blair cleared his throat. “We shut down the cell and landlines and are doing focused jamming operations on satellite phone service. Our guerrilla newsman isn’t talking to anyone anymore.”
“Did I authorize that?”
Blair spread his hands. “I believe it falls under the umbrella of national security, sir.”
The chief of staff, Sylvia Ruddy, leaned close to the president. “We’d better run this past the attorney general. We may be on thin constitutional ice here.”
“National security,” repeated Blair very slowly, focusing it on Ruddy so even she could grasp the concept.
“Cutting Trout off could backfire on us,” said Ruddy. “The public already thinks we’re killing citizens—”
“We are,” said the president.
“—but a blackout would heighten paranoia and throw gasoline on the public outcry.”
“Let it,” said Blair. “We’ve already been vilified. That damage is done and when the president addresses the nation we’ll be able to manage a great deal of what the public perceives. Without Trout being able to release fresh messages his veracity will collapse. We’ll make sure that happens. What we have to do now is manage the official information we need to release regarding Stebbins and regain the public’s trust.”
“There’s no trust left,” said Ruddy. “Trout pretty much killed it with his first ‘live from the apocalypse’ speech. And he has Dietrich on tape making threats.”
“Trust is fickle, Sylvia,” said Blair dismissively. “We’re in a crisis. We need control not friendly smiles.”
Ruddy leaned close to the president again. “A blackout now would drive the last nail into your credibility.”
The president drummed his fingers very slowly, one fingertip at a time, on the table. His presidency already teetered on the edge, and he doubted there was enough spin control left in the world to repair the damage done. If that was the case, then all he had left was his legacy. So, how did he want to be remembered?
He cleared his throat and glanced at Scott. “It’s my understanding that Trout was using a satellite to get his messages out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“To whom? Was he streaming directly to the Net or—”
“We believe he had outside help. Someone on the other side of the Q-zone. Whoever that person is, he’s very clever, and it’s likely he has either background as a hacker or has hacker friends.”
“What are we doing to find this person?”
Blair smiled. “Every agency in the alphabet is looking. We will find him. Or them.”
“And what about Dr. Volker? Trout mentioned that the doctor gave him the research notes.”
“Yes, sir. Dr. Volker confirmed that when he spoke with Oscar Price, his CIA handler. He put everything on a set of flash drives and gave them to Trout.”
“Jesus,” said Ruddy.
“As protocol blunders go,” said Blair, “it boggles the mind. Naturally we are looking for Dr. Volker. Forensics teams are tearing apart his office at the prison where he worked and his home.”
“Where is he?” asked the president. “Can’t we find the man?”
“We are looking, Mr. President. Every possible resource is in play.”
“Will we find him?”
“I have no doubt we’ll find him,” said Blair. “However, we should consider the obvious alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Getting those drives from Billy Trout,” said Blair. “By any means necessary.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BORDENTOWN STARBUCKS ON ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Goat looked through the windows at the storm. The night sky was still black but the rain had slowed to a gentle drizzle. From where he sat he could see the lines of red taillights and white headlights on the highway. He wondered how many of those travelers knew what was happening?
Probably all of them by now.
The story was everywhere. It was the only story on the news right now, and Goat suspected that half of those oncoming headlights were reporters trying to get to Stebbins while the story was still breaking. He had already seen ABC, CBS, and CNN vans come through.
He trolled the online real-time news. FOX was the first to pull the word “zombie” out of the info dump of the Volker interview.
Zombie Plague in Pennsylvania.
Goat snorted. It sounded like an SNL skit.
Wasn’t funny at all.
He looked down at the clock on his laptop. Ten minutes to one in the morning. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours since this thing started. It felt like a year. The night had been so goddamn long.
As soon he’d gotten to the Starbucks, the first thing Goat did was to download the files from the flash drives Volker had given Billy and emailed the contents to himself at several accounts. He copied the email to Trout and their editor, Murray Klein. He wanted to send the stuff directly to the other media. Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, all the others. But Billy had suggested holding off on that. It was their only hole card in case the feds tried something.
Which they would inevitably do, mused Goat. He wondered what he would do if he was in their place. Would he kill to make the situation go away, to hide the blame. Would that protect the public and prevent a panic? Goat wasn’t sure. Ethical issues like that seemed clear until you were standing up close, then all perspective became skewed. He hoped he would have the moral courage to do the right thing, but that opened a door to concepts of “greater good” and what that might actually mean.
It was so hard to think it through and come up with a workable plan.
The president was scheduled to speak soon. Originally the word was that POTUS would address the nation at three thirty in the morning, but the speech was moved up to one thirty. On any other day that alone would be highly weird for a presidential address. A lot of people here on the East Coast would be asleep; the West Coast would be in the last hour of prime time. However Goat didn’t think anyone but the most abjectly stupid, indifferent, or uninformed would be sleeping or watching sitcoms. And it wasn’t just the nation watching this story. The Net proved that the whole world was watching.
A couple of hours ago most of the world—hell, most of the state—had never heard of Stebbins. Now Goat knew that it would become a part of the common language. You’d be able to say “Stebbins” the way you said “the Towers” or the “Boston Marathon” and everyone would know what you meant.
Stories like this changed the world. If not in fact then in perception, by gouging a marker into a page of history. Days like this, events like this, were hinge-points on which history turned.
This story was about to blow up even bigger. The president and everyone in his circle had one chance to win this thing back and that was to own it, take the bullet, and while they were still in office do what they could to prevent further spread of Lucifer 113. Essentially, they could save the world without filtering that through their own political self-interest.
Goat didn’t believe in Bigfoot or the Easter Bunny, either,
so he figured that wouldn’t be the way the White House would play it. It made him wonder where the line was between cynicism and clarity of vision.
Goat sipped his coffee and smiled at what was about to happen. Despite all of the pain and loss, and the deaths of so many people he knew, there was a dark and dirty part of Goat’s mind that murmured disappointment that things didn’t go completely south at the Stebbins Little School. Billy’s previous speech, which Goat had streamed live to all of the news services, had made it impossible for POTUS to allow the National Guard to destroy the school and sterilize the town with fuel-air bombs. From here on, the story would roll forward on wheels greased by the political blood of everyone whose head would roll, and on the public outpouring of grief over the thousands who’d died from the infection. But the story was becoming past tense. The kids at the school, now rescued, would become a symbol, a talking point, a voting influence at the next election. On the other hand, a couple of hundred kids being shot to death and then burned on national TV—that story would keep going, keep running, keep shouting for everyone to pay attention and react. And he, Goat, would be the conduit for that story to get out to the world. He was already part of the story, but if they wiped Stebbins off the map, then he would be the story. The only survivor. The fearless cameraman who’d gotten the truth out, getting footage while the world burned around him.
He would be the most famous journalist on earth. Immediately and irrevocably.
Had the story gone that way, gone that far.
Now it looked like it would break in a different way. There were already posts claiming that the Stebbins thing was another Internet hoax, that Billy Trout was a liar, that he was some kind of grandstanding fruitcake, and even that he was a cyber-terrorist.
Goat wondered how much of that was genuine disbelief or White House spin doctoring. Maybe a fifty-fifty split? Either way, this was brewing into a mother of a story. He murmured the words “impeachment” and “Pulitzer,” and he liked how each of them tasted on his tongue.
But then he felt a flash of guilt. He hated that he thought about this thing. That he wanted it, on some level. He’d wanted it then and he wanted it now. And there was a flicker of remorse nibbling at his soul that he knew he would always secretly regret the way it had played out.