Bob did not move as he listened to Cochran gather his things and leave the house. He waited until he heard the rented car gather speed as it went down the driveway, then went to the foot of the stairs, listening up at the bedroom. His wife had stopped crying. The house was silent, save for the ticking grandfather clock in the front room.
He found the right keys on the hooks next to the back door and went out in the fading light to the huge shed where he kept the combine harvesters. It was too early to harvest the crop, but he’d be damned if he let those bastards take his son’s corn.
CHAPTER 17
“How sure are you, Mr. Cochran?” The voice on the other end of the phone might have been discussing the weather.
Cochran said, “Ninety percent. He’s sick. It’s not the flu. Don’t know how to diagnose it. He’s trying to hide it, but something’s going on.” He’d pulled the car over in the Korner Kafe’s parking lot and called the private number he’d been asked to memorize. They didn’t want it written down anywhere.
The men at the other end were quiet for a while. Cochran wasn’t sure if they were discussing the situation or merely thinking. He’d worked for them long enough to know that he should remain silent until they reached a decision. Eventually, one of them spoke. “What is your recommendation?”
“If he is indeed growing the strain, then there is no choice.”
A new voice spoke. “Rectifying the situation on the island was one thing. Rectifying a situation like that on American soil is quite another.”
Cochran said, “It may be our only chance to contain the situation.”
“And if you are wrong?” The voice let the question hang for several seconds. “The consequences could be catastrophic.”
“For the organization, yes,” Cochran agreed. “However, if nothing is done, the consequences could be catastrophic for the entire northern hemisphere.” He let them chew on that for a while.
The first voice spoke. “It would appear then, that we cannot make an informed decision at this time.”
Cochran saw where this was headed. “Look, I’m telling you. It’s here. I have no doubt.”
“You claimed you had ten percent of doubt.”
Cochran shook his head. “I’m ninety-five percent positive, okay? Hell, after seeing the man tonight, I’d say I’m ninety-nine percent absolutely sure.”
“I, for one, would feel better if you called us back when you were one hundred percent certain.”
Cochran bared his teeth at the phone. Then he collected himself, and said in the most even voice he could manage, “Fine. I only hope that we aren’t too late.” He hit the END button and it was all he could do not to start swearing and throw the goddamn phone out the window. He reminded himself that they probably had his car bugged, as well as tagged with a GPS tracker.
One of these days. One of these days he was going to mail in his resignation letter from some country far, far away, and then he would quietly disappear to a beach in Mexico somewhere. When he had enough stashed away, hidden even from their eyes.
Soon. But not yet.
He pulled the complimentary road atlas out of the rental car’s glove box and traced Road G until it dead-ended against I-72. He pulled out into the quiet streets, still not used to how people simply vanished from the streets once the sun went down. It was like a goddamn ghost town or something.
He followed Road G up until the pavement stopped and parked next to the NO OUTLET sign. He pulled out his penlight and unfolded the papers he’d stolen from Bob’s house. The two acres should be straight ahead. Cochran clicked off the light, made sure his handgun was secure in its holster, and got out of the car.
He listened for a moment to the wind, then went back to the trunk. His employers had equipped him with the latest biohazard gear, just in case. Cochran slipped into a white Tyvek biohazard suit, thick rubber gloves, and thick-soled rubber boots. He fitted a riot-control gas mask over his face, tugging the straps tight, then pulled the hood over his head and started into the darkness.
The gas mask had an open faceplate, giving him a decent field of vision, but it was too damn dark out there in the middle of nowhere. The penlight worked just fine when going through files in a dark room but didn’t illuminate much of anything in a cornfield at night when there was no moon. He stabbed the narrow needle of white light into the rows, making the shadows lurch and sway.
Cochran could see the occasional headlights of a truck flying down the nearby expressway, and it bothered him that he couldn’t hear as well as he wanted, not with the hood snug over his ears and his dry, amplified breathing through the respirator. Still, it was better than the alternative.
Breathing the spores.
Cochran recognized that he was just nervous. Better to get this finished, then get the hell out. He headed deeper into the field, stopping every ten or fifteen feet to sweep the light in a slow circle, just to make sure nothing was creeping up on him. He stopped again, trying to peer over the corn. He’d lost all sense of distance. Was the car a hundred feet behind him? Two hundred? Goddamnit. After years of working for Allagro and standing around cornfields, he couldn’t believe he still wasn’t used to being alone in the endless rows. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of direction. As long as he kept the expressway to his right, he would be fine.
He caught movement out at the end of the penlight’s beam. It was low to the ground and scuttled out of sight before he could pin it down with the light. It was too big to be one of the insects the scientists had been so worried about. A cat, maybe? Possum? He hoped it wasn’t a skunk; even though he was fully protected, and wouldn’t smell a damn thing, he still had to get out of the suit eventually, and he’d have to deal with it then.
Cochran took a few steps forward, leaned into the row where he thought he’d seen it. Nothing but wisps of cobwebs. He pushed through two more rows, sweeping the light back and forth.
There. A glimpse of gray fur. Possum, most likely. He almost laughed, then got angry. At the thing. At the cornfield. At himself. Maybe his employers were right and he was getting too old for the job. Scared of a goddamn possum. If he didn’t have to unzip the biohazard suit to get at his gun, he would have shot the thing.
He followed it, pushing through another row, and stopped cold.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t a possum.
Cochran willed himself to hold the light steady. It was almost the size of a small cat, but there was no body exactly, just six or seven legs jutting awkwardly in all directions, like some mutant crab with a tiny body and fur. The thing froze in the light. At first, he told himself it had to be some poor animal that had been hit by a truck, pulverizing the body, splitting and cracking the legs, and it had crawled into the corn to die.
But as he got a better look, he knew damn well this wasn’t an animal that had been hit by a car. There was no head. No ears. No eyes. All the legs gave it away. They were from different animals. Some of the fur was gray, like a possum. Some of the legs were shorter, with black fur. They were glued to a kind of exposed backbone, short, maybe three inches long, riddled with ropy gray tendrils. In fact, he was now close enough to the creature that he could see more of the tendrils, some nearly as big around as his pinkie, some so tiny they were almost hairlike, wrapped around the center like some horrible biological net.
The thing didn’t like the light. It scuttled sideways, heading for the deeper shadows. Its movements were tentative and uncoordinated, as if the legs weren’t used to working together. The fact that it was moving at all stirred a wave of revulsion deep within his stomach.