A fuselage of shots slammed into the Honda.
Robert Morton was gone.
I dropped behind the car, shouting that they shouldn’t shoot, that I was a Marine, that I’d dropped the gun and if they stopped firing, I’d come out.
But they were coming at me from two sides. Maybe they’d not seen me throw the gun away in the dark. Maybe they’d seen but they were angry or scared or didn’t care. I shouted that I was giving up. I started to stand but someone fired and I dropped down again. There was something glinting in the snow, which had fallen from the Honda. It was one of Robert Morton’s music cassettes. I shoved it into my parka pocket. It might have his fingerprints on it, if I get out of this alive.
I crawled backward, keeping low.
The angle of the shots hitting the Honda changed. The police were on two sides now, coming through the yards. They were tired and scared and on triple-shift duty and the woman in the doorway kept screaming, “He shot him!”
I scrambled back but the woman was pointing at me. She could see me clearly from her vantage point. I reached some bushes as behind me I heard her high-pitched screeching, “He shot my husband! He shot Larry!”
“That man murdered my husband!” she screamed. “He’s getting away!”
FOURTEEN
Chris Vekey hated herself at that moment. She could hardly believe that she had phoned Burke’s office, turned in Joe Rush, telling the assistant that Rush was AWOL. Now she sat at a fifth-floor window in the Georgetown campus dorm given over to medical personnel and families, hearing Aya typing on her Mac in the other bedroom of the suite. Outside, the storm had worsened. Moments ago, through the open window, she’d shuddered as she heard gunshots from beyond campus, in the residential neighborhood nearby. People out there were starting to fight. The flood of incoming patients was increasing. She saw a copter in the sky and a stabbing searchlight. The campus was an island of order, but increasingly, she knew, if a cure wasn’t found, that island would become more isolated, the city around it more barbaric, the sense of order mere memory. Stunned by the speed of the deterioration, she thanked Burke in her mind for his foresight in ordering medical personnel to safe places.
I had no choice, Joe. If I hadn’t told Burke that you left, he would have punished me, too, when he found out. I warned you. You’re crazy if you think I’d do anything to separate myself from Aya.
But she felt wretched for doing it.
She was freshly showered and dressed in clothing that Aya — thinking ahead — had brought from their condo when the admiral fetched her: gray wool pantsuit, white blouse, flat-heeled shoes, all under the white lab coat and new ID designating her as complex staff. The clothing would reassure patients and families. She no longer had access to Burke but now it was time to go help people. She’d be planning space use on campus, food distribution, bed assignments, and decontamination procedure when staffers exposed to the sick went back to their families in the dorms.
Knock… knock…
Ray Havlicek stood in the hallway outside. Surprise!
“I’m on campus checking security. We’ve got some VIPs checking in. Thought I’d drop by, see if you and Aya are okay.”
She’d always liked him. Dating him had been a mistake, but he was smart and athletic and handsome, attributes she liked in a man. Unfortunately she’d felt no chemistry. He’d made it plain that he felt otherwise but had been a good sport when she told him after several dates — a movie, a Kennedy Center play, kayak day on the Potomac — that she’d prefer to stay friends.
“Thanks, Ray. Want a tour? Two pretty big bedrooms here, kitchenette. These students live in a hotel. It’s not like when I went to school.”
“The Hilton!”
“I’m about to make rounds, Ray.”
“Heard from Joe, by the way?”
She started. Havlicek said, “Yeah, Burke told me about it. I sent some agents over to the cathedral, to pick him up. He’s in trouble.”
“Don’t you need your people elsewhere?”
Havlicek shrugged. “Burke doesn’t want people to think they can just walk off. You know. Make an example of Joe.”
She felt hot. “Oh.”
She needed to stop thinking about Rush and concentrate on her job. She was here to calm people by systemizing their fear, giving them the illusion that order meant control. She’d expected to see lots of patients but still had been shocked by long lines at the gate, by all the people waiting for triage. The obviously sick ones would be sent to Building A, possibly infected to Building B, families turned away but names, addresses, and phone numbers recorded for the FBI. Go home and wait. If your loved one is sick, people will come for you, too.
“Mind if I make the rounds with you?” Ray said. “Might as well do the tour together.”
“I’m glad of the company, Ray.”
Burke’s aide had told her, Thank you for the warning on Colonel Rush.
The praise burned in her stomach.
Chris Vekey asked Ray to wait one last moment, put a benign expression on her face for Aya, and crossed the shared living room to say good-bye. She knocked at Aya’s bedroom door. The girl sat at a desk by the window, where students had once solved chemistry problems. Aya even looked like she was doing homework, leaning forward, concentrating so hard that she’d not registered that Chris stood behind her. Then she saw Chris’s reflection in the window. She turned and moved the laptop sideways. In the light of the desk lamp, her face was alarmed. Aya tried to smooth it away. Chris knew the expression. Aya was up to something. She hadn’t been doing homework.
“I have to go to work, Aya. Be back in a few hours.”
“Where’s your mask, Mom?”
“I’ll put it on when I get outside. Ray is here. Want to say hi?”
“No.”
“What are you doing, Aya?”
“Just reading…”
But the panic was unmistakable. Aya was an honest kid, so when you questioned her about legitimate activity, she got angry. When you caught her doing something wrong, the wide-open eyes gave her away. Chris bent over the computer. There was no time for Aya to change what was on-screen. But when Chris saw what was there, she frowned, because it did not explain Aya’s look of guilt.
Chris looked down on an eight-year-old article from the AP wire.
Cult leader says group will leave Vermont after Animal Rights activists force closure of basement lab.
The caption read, Is research torture?
“Aya, what is this?”
“I was just scrolling around.”
Chris stared at Aya, who had showered and had a towel around her head and was barefoot on the carpet. She wore an overstuffed bathrobe with a Moose logo on the left side. The normal cute expression was back, the light blue eyes innocent. The girl’s posture was forced casual, arm thrown over the back of the chair. Aya had a habit, when nervous, of tucking in her upper lip, and she did it now. She’d be a lousy poker player, Ray Havlicek had once said, back when Chris dated him. Aya’s face was one constant tell.
“You’re chewing that lip, Aya.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, just turn on the electricity, Mom. Get out the water board.”
Chris told Aya to get up and she sat down at the computer. She hit Previous and the article disappeared and now she saw a six-year-old article titled, “Cult Charged with Animal Torture.”
She hit Previous again.
“What is this, Aya?”
The girl’s face was set. “It was an assignment we got before the outbreak. Ms. Jefertson is such an animal rights activist. Like, she was always going on about them. Like, I think she likes animals more than people. Like, she’s not like married you know. I bet it’s a substitute!”