Sergeant Reaves finally said, “Dr. Reischtal has given instructions to transfer you to a more secure location. This building . . . is no longer safe.”
Tommy didn’t know what to say. He stayed quiet as they dropped. The doors opened on the first floor with a happy ding. They came out behind the front desk and beyond it, Tommy could see that the waiting room was empty. Sergeant Reaves pushed him out a back door into the thick summer air that hung over the river. The tables between the hospital and Chicago River were vacant. Even the benches stood alone.
Tommy watched a bus push over the Madison Bridge; then, as if this was the last CTA bus in the city, the bridge split in half and began rising. From the wheelchair, every bridge he could see had been opened, as if the stitches on a fresh wound had been popped, that black thread cut in a hurry with a bone saw, sparing the clean flesh from the infection.
An ambulance was waiting on the sidewalk. Two more soldiers, completely encased in hazmat suits, rolled Tommy up a ramp into an ambulance. They locked his wheels. He hoped they couldn’t make out fine details with their plastic faceplates and wouldn’t notice the broken strap around his right ankle. One sat in the back on the opposite bench and stared at Tommy.
Sergeant Reaves stood a ways from the ambulance, his back to the river, and watched without expression as the other soldier slammed the back doors. He didn’t move. Tommy hoped it was the last time he ever got close to the man.
The other soldier climbed into the front and started the engine. He turned the lights on and drove through the sandbags until joining the parade of buses. Through the back windows, across the Chicago River, all along the river walk, Tommy could see trucks pulling massive tankers, arranging them into place next to the river, and more figures in hazmat suits uncoiling long hoses into the river. The ambulance turned onto Upper Wacker and the image was lost.
Tommy glanced at the soldier in the back with him. The man’s eyes, encased behind protective plastic, were blank and dead. Tommy might as well have been looking into the eyes of some deep water shark, something that went blind in the light and hunted by some kind of primitive, almost supernatural sense.
The buses pulled to the side for the lights and siren, allowing the ambulance to streak through downtown. They flew down Madison, and turned right on Michigan. When they hit Monroe, they turned left, heading into Grant Park, toward the Lake. As they broke free of the shadows of all the buildings, Tommy again turned to the back windows, looking at the afternoon sun. It was the first time he’d seen true sunlight in two days. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine he could feel the rays on his face, and that somehow the warmth and security of the sun could pass through the thick glass of the back windows.
They followed Monroe all the way to Lake Shore Drive and turned south, where they joined a convoy of CTA buses, all merging into one lane, the only lane through the blockade on Roosevelt, next to the Field Museum. Tommy leaned forward and could see the line of buses snaking along Lake Shore Drive past the parks, past the baseball fields, past Buckingham Fountain, and once they were through the roadblock, the buses turned east once more onto short McFetridge Drive, and curled down into the Soldier Field underground parking lot.
While the buses descended beneath the stadium, the ambulance left the line and continued east, toward Adler Planetarium. They turned south and pushed through the clustered knots of trailers, trucks, and military vehicles strung out across Northerly Island Park. The narrow strip used to be a landing strip called Meigs Field, until Daley Junior had a bunch of bulldozers rip up the runway in the middle of the night back in 2003. Now it was a flat, grassy field, full of emergency equipment. Everything was pushed back as far as it could go, their backs against the water, as though they wanted to get as far as possible from the stadium.
The ambulance driver pulled around and backed into a narrow spot among a group of FEMA trailers. The soldier in the back didn’t move and never took his eyes off Tommy. Out of the front windows, beyond summer docks and small boats, Tommy could see the line of buses disappearing under the northern end of Soldier Field. Out of the back windows, nothing but the endless blue expanse of Lake Michigan.
He heard voices outside, but couldn’t make out any specific words. There was a muffled knock at the back doors, and the soldier in the back with Tommy got up and unlatched the doors, swung them wide open.
Dr. Reischtal stood there. The sun was not kind to his skin. “Good afternoon, Mr. Krazinsky. Sergeant Reaves has assured me that, for some unknown reason, you have not only survived the night with Mr. Wycza but as of yet, there is no sign of infection.” His lips pulled back into a thin grimace that may have been a smile. “We shall soon discover why. A proper laboratory is en route. When it arrives, I will see for myself exactly what secrets live inside you.”
The soldiers slammed the doors, leaving Tommy alone in the ambulance.
CHAPTER 61
2:47 PM
August 14
The hospital lobby was empty. It made Qween nervous. The waiting room was silent. The nurses’ station had been abandoned. The phones did not ring. The computers were dark.
But the old building didn’t quite feel empty. This was why she was nervous. Something in the air, something just out of the range of her hearing, some kind of vibration through the molecules that her conscious brain couldn’t pick up, something set off ominous warnings in her subconscious, the lizard part of her mind, as Sam would say. Somewhere, there was life inside the hospital.
Dr. Menard checked the computers at the nurses’ station. He shook his head. “They aren’t connected to the system that we used.” He headed for the elevators. “We have to go up to the third floor. There’s a central computer where I can access all the files.” He didn’t seem worried about the vibe of the place; he just looked relieved they hadn’t encountered any soldiers.
“You sure this is worth it, Doc?” Qween followed, the reluctant one now. “Smart money says there’s a damn good reason ain’t nobody here.”
The elevator doors opened immediately, as if it had been waiting for them, and they stepped inside. “Five minutes, tops,” Dr. Menard said. He fished a little plastic stick out of his pocket. “Just long enough to dump whatever I can find on this jump drive.”
Qween looked at it skeptically. “You be quick, or I’ll up and leave your ass here.”
The third floor was just as empty as the first. Great plastic sheets had been stretched over every surface, and while they may have been tight at the beginning, now they hung in tatters, as if a violent wind had ripped through the third floor. Dr. Menard moved quickly to the bank of computers at the nurses’ station in the center of the room. Cubicles with light blue curtains surrounded the area, beyond which, a long corridor stretched out. The end of the corridor was obscured with strips of shredded plastic hanging from the ceiling. It was impossible to tell if anyone was down there or not.
Dr. Menard tapped a few keys. While the system booted up, he dragged over a chair and then inserted his jump drive. “I’ll be surprised if they didn’t wipe these machines clean, but maybe we’ll get lucky if they left in a hurry.”
Qween said, “It’s the leaving in a hurry that makes me worry. We got no business being in here.” The plastic whispered under her feet, unnaturally loud in the empty area. She found herself wishing she had her cart up here; she missed the familiar bulk and weight. She had all kinds of weapons stashed inside, sure, but it had also been surprisingly versatile in a fight, all by itself. She had used it as battering ram, a shield, even an escape vehicle once, rolling away down the low hill on West Division over Goose Island.