There was not one soldier, not one police officer, not one doctor, no one from the government on the field itself. After scanning the seats for a while, he finally saw a few soldiers patrolling the upper decks. There was movement behind the windows of the exclusive club levels, the expensive private rooms on the east side of the stadium. But that was all.
They had been abandoned.
He quickly slid down to the hood and climbed back to the grass. He got into the cab of the bus and closed the door firmly behind him. Of course the keys were gone. He slid his shaking fingers along the rubber molding that provided a tight seal against the elements. He kneeled on the driver’s seat, following the seam where the stiff plastic shell had been bolted into the floor. It looked like it was tight enough to keep the bugs out, but he couldn’t be sure. He explored under the dashboard and worried about the gaps between the dash and the steering column.
Hopefully the bugs wouldn’t crawl up into the engine block. And if he was still in there when people started waking up and going berserk, it should hold. It had been designed to withstand potential prisoner hijackings after all. He allowed himself to sit back and look around the stadium once again.
He didn’t understand how tens of thousands of people had been herded into Soldier Field. Why were they keeping everyone here? These people needed doctors. They needed to be decontaminated. They needed help.
The back of his collar rubbed at his neck at again and he pulled at it with irritation. His index finger brushed against something tiny, a speck of gravel or scab-like crust or something. Pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, he brought it around and held the squirming bedbug up to his face.
He watched the legs twist, felt the tiny shell undulate under his fingers, saw how the proboscis reached for his breath, and when it couldn’t have that, it curled around to bite at the strip of soft flesh right up under the thumbnail.
He drove it into the center of the steering wheel. The horn echoed throughout the stadium.
CHAPTER 65
7:27 PM
August 14
As the sun sank behind the Loop skyline, Tommy waited in the darkness of the back of the ambulance.
Ideas, each worse than the last, swam through his head like dying fish trapped in a half-filled aquarium. Some, when he knew he was absolutely positive he was awake, seemed almost plausible. They had forgotten him when the virus had swept through the city, and they had abandoned everything. They were still watching him for any of the symptoms to appear. Or they were simply watching and waiting for his sanity to finally crack and for him to start screaming or drooling on himself.
Some of the worst ideas seemed to uncoil from the cold tendrils of his nightmares. Grace was strapped to an identical wheelchair, watching him on one of the monitors while Dr. Reischtal slid needles full of the virus into her veins. Or Tommy was trapped in a coma, only thinking he was awake, while the world withered away in dust and ashes outside.
But no matter the path of the theory, no matter what ghostly images swam into focus on the blank cellulose acetate of his mind, the utterly banal, inevitable fate waiting at the end of every train of thought was that the universe did not revolve around his problems. It was indifferent. It simply did not care.
The undeniable truth that lay in the darkest depths of his despair was the knowledge that he was going to die. Soon. And when he was gone, he understood now how little it would take, how a tiny ripple in the chaos of the world could hurt his little girl. There were so many ways to snap the life out of a four-year-old girl. Grace could die so easily.
Or maybe even something worse than death.
What would happen if Lee got his hands on her? Tommy kept seeing her in pain, hearing the anguish in her voice, watching those innocent, uncomprehending eyes as strangers touched her. . . .
A guttural cry escaped his clenched teeth.
Either he escaped or Grace died.
PHASE 6
CHAPTER 66
8:36 PM
August 14
Lee had promised her that they would be perfectly safe, but watching all the soldiers rush around all the sandbags and tanks, and listening to the distant shooting, Kimmy wasn’t so sure. The men in the hazmat suits had made Grace cry, so Kimmy now had to keep the girl on her lap. Grace kept burying her head in her mother’s shoulder, and Kimmy just knew that she was getting tears and snot all over her evening dress. But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was the dust getting blown around from all the helicopters landing and taking off across the street, in Daley Plaza. The wind was wreaking havoc with her hair and the dirt was sticking to her makeup.
By the time the press conference started, she would be lucky to look like one of those insulting Bratz dolls that had been buried at the bottom of a trash heap for a few weeks. And with all these reporters standing around, with all their crews, not to mention the big trailers full of generators to run the lights, you’d think that somebody would have a makeup kit around. But no, all the reporters, even the women, seemed to be shedding the air of glamour and embracing the rough-and-tumble effect, as if to remind their viewers that being in the quarantine zone was serious business.
Kimmy wanted to shake them and say, Puh-leeze. You’re on TV, for god’s sake. And those stupid clothes—you’re not on safari here. Try not to look like you’ve been sleeping outside for the last two nights. She shifted Grace to the other shoulder and was thankful that she could at least sit down. Around fifty folding chairs had been set up in orderly rows, facing the stage. Whoever had set them up had been either misled or optimistic; most of the chairs were empty.
The stage itself had been erected in the very middle of Clark Street, between City Hall and Daley Plaza. Two flags bookended the stage, the light blue horizontal bars and four red stars of the City of Chicago flag, and the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag. The solemn walnut podium stood empty in the center.
Kimmy tried to relax. She reminded herself that she was just being catty to the reporters because she was jealous that they finally got to look cool, like those foreign correspondents who were always broadcasting while bombs and bullets burst over their heads.
But not her. Oh, no. Lee had instructed her to look as flawless as possible. So she’d pulled out her best black strapless evening dress. Diamond studded choker. One-carat diamond earrings. Hair upswept, precariously held together with a few hidden hairpins, strong hairspray, and a lot of prayers. Even Grace was wearing her best Sunday dress and the stiff shoes that she hated, because they hurt her feet.
Lee had on one of his most expensive suits. His tie was the color of the red stripes in the American flag, with a matching silk handkerchief in the breast pocket. His hair was slicked back and gleamed in the media lights.
The fear was making her impatient. The press conference was supposed to have finished over an hour ago. She’d overheard some of the reporters talking, and they were apparently all waiting for one of the main guys from the CDC to show up. The CDC could give an assessment of the situation, and then Lee could step forward and take all the credit, offering up Kimmy and Grace as proof that the city was quite safe.
Apart from that, she didn’t know anything else about the press conference. While she certainly didn’t expect Lee to stand at her side the entire time, it would have been nice if he’d come over once in a while to check with her.