The blue band had filled up at least half of the bar.
The infected surrounded the bus and so many were attacking it in a mindless fury it began rock and shake as the suspension shuddered under the onslaught. If too many gathered in one area, they would set each other off in a new frenzy, attacking each other, anything to eliminate the immediate threat. They would use anything close at hand. A backpack, used to choke the other, or a shattered bottle, to slash and jab. Usually it was something big and heavy, and used as a club. Out at Soldier Field, they didn’t have anything really big and heavy. One guy carried a gearshift off one of the older buses and used it to bash away at the bus door.
Dr. Menard didn’t care. He held onto the laptop, eyes never leaving the screen. Seventy-five percent now.
Eighty percent.
Ninety percent.
Then, a flash. A curious floating sensation for the briefest moment, as if everything were suspended, like motes of dust in sunlight. A feeling of intense, horrible heat.
Then, nothing.
CHAPTER 71
8:53 PM
August 14
At first, Tommy didn’t realize that the Strykers were shooting at him. The road in front of him didn’t erupt in great geysers of smoke and the trees around him didn’t explode in showers of sparks like in the movies. He heard a few dull thuds. That was all.
He raced down Lake Shore Drive, with Lake Michigan off to his right, and the ominous shadow of the warship growing out of the horizon like a tumor. After successfully negotiating his way through the barricade, he didn’t want to think that anything could go wrong. So he ignored the tight, tickling feeling that crawled over his scalp and pushed the thoughts of the bullets singing above his head out of his mind. Then he saw the two Strykers in the rearview mirror, closing fast.
One of the back windows exploded and his passenger mirror disintegrated. Now, through the open back window, he could hear the bursts of automatic gunfire, even if he couldn’t pinpoint the damage. He couldn’t ignore the truth any longer.
Tommy yanked the wheel to the left and jumped the curb and tore across the baseball fields. He tried to keep an eye on his driver’s side mirror and rearview mirror. He noticed that the Strykers couldn’t change direction as fast as the ambulance; they couldn’t navigate as nimbly as he could. Of course, they could smash their way through obstructions like cars and sandbags, but when they had two or three cars caught up on the front, it slowed them down, at least until the pitiless front wedge ground the cars along the asphalt and pushed the crumpled vehicles aside.
The ambulance careened into Columbus, coming close to blowing a tire. Sparks flew as he swerved around the abandoned cars. He veered to his left at the last second and shot over the southern Metra railroad line on Balbo. He reckoned out in the open, it was just a matter of time before they eventually flanked him, trapping the ambulance between them. He’d never reach Grace.
He glanced at the mirror. The Strykers hadn’t managed the turn yet, and hadn’t started across the bridge over the Metra lines. He turned his attention back to the road in front, plotting a course through the low berms of sandbags strewn across Michigan Avenue. If he could just reach the blocks of buildings, he might be able to stay a few blocks ahead of them, twisting and turning, keeping the buildings between the ambulance and the Strykers. After the massive withdrawal of troops and equipment, the streets might be empty enough that he could keep running, and put a little distance between himself and his pursuers. He just hoped they didn’t have anything that could blast through concrete.
He slalomed around the rows of sandbags on Michigan just as the first of the Strykers appeared on the crest of the Balbo Bridge. The windows of the Blackstone Hotel burst into dizzying cracks and shards rained across the sidewalk. It didn’t matter. He was through the sandbags and stomped on the gas. The ambulance grumbled, but it shot forward.
Ahead, the next two blocks were clear. Once he hit State, he’d jog left and see if he couldn’t disappear into the Printers’ Row area.
A great circle of white light stabbed out of the night sky, moving quickly, blowing away any and all shadows as it kept pace with the speeding ambulance. Another slash of bleached-bone luminosity appeared behind him. He leaned forward, craning his neck, and peered up through the windshield.
The tentative hope that had started flickering in his chest when he realized that he might just escape, sizzled and died as he saw quite clearly that he now had not one but two helicopters stalking him, with their immense spotlights burning a trail that a dead man could follow, leading the Strykers right to him.
Ed and Sam prepped for war.
They had the soldier’s pack on the table, loading it with extra clips, boxes of ammunition, even a couple of grenades. Both had climbed back into the suits, figuring they would allow them to blend in with the rest of the soldiers.
Sam slung assault rifles over both shoulders and stuck his Glock back into his shoulder holster, and a Beretta in one of the hazmat pockets. He just wished he could carry more guns.
Qween was still sleeping. She had found a quiet corner to gather herself, curling up and sleeping for a few hours. At first, she listened. Tuned into the rhythms of the building. The quiet hum of the air system. How it swayed slightly in the winds. When she felt like she knew the building, and had gotten comfortable with the muted sounds of the fifty-ninth floor, she curled up on her right side, pulling her cloak over her shoulder and ear. Her breathing stretched, grew slower and slower.
She was the first to feel the shockwave coming.
Ed and Sam saw popping, flashing lights bubble up out of Soldier Field, far to the south, and as the mushroom cloud of smoke roiled up and out of the stadium, the ripples from the explosion burst through the downtown streets, leaving dust and smoke in their wake. The waves rattled the windows and everybody flinched, but the glass held. The entire building swayed in the wash of the blast.
Sam whispered, “Holy fuck me.”
The smoke had an odd, shimmering quality, and they couldn’t tell if the smoke itself had these speckles of color, or it was reflecting something underneath. It had a sickly rainbow glow, like the way an oil slick in a puddle will split light into a filthy prism.
“I think the CDC just cut their losses,” Ed said.
Nobody wanted to mention Dr. Menard.
Tommy was slowing down to make the skidding left turn onto State Street when he thought he heard a sonic boom, as if some huge jumbo jet had just flown way too low over the city. The shockwave made the ambulance bounce a little, but it wasn’t enough to throw him off course.
Tommy took a right instead onto State on two tires, heading north. He straightened it out and the ambulance rocked back down onto all four tires. The damn searchlights wavered and spun away as the Apache pilots fought the unfurling waves from Soldier Field.
Tommy hit the gas and shot north on State, weaving through the sandbags.
CHAPTER 72
8:53 PM
August 14
Lee wished he had a big MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner, something bold and bright they could have hung above the doors on City Hall. Something that would tell people in no uncertain terms that Lee Shea was a man who got things done. Something he could turn and point to, something that would give his speech the big finish it needed. That would have been a shot he could see on the cover of Time.