"You're doing really well, Sel."
"I've changed my mind."
"You have no choice."
"You do not offer or deny me choices."
"You can beat it."
"Pull over. I want out. Now."
"I won't do that."
"I demand that you do it."
"I won't."
"As a friend."
"A friend would not pull over."
"You're a weak man. It's all you are or ever were."
"Jeanna beat it. You can beat it. There are your parents and friends and Sean and all those things you have in the bags. They're all more reasons for you to be strong."
"Oh, what shit you pretend to believe, Hood. What pathetic, insulting garbage. You know what you are? You're play money. You're a boy. Grow some. You ever use that cock of yours to do anything but pee? Pull over and let me out of here!"
She hit the mesh hard with one fist, then the other. Hood heard the terrific crunch of flesh and bone on steel and when she hit the screen again he saw the blood on her knuckles and the dent in the mesh. She watched him in the glass as she licked her hands; then she wrenched her torso violently and uncoiled her right elbow against the bulletproof window. The impact was heavy. Hood wondered if it would hold. Then again, and again. She flew across the seat and battered the other window and Hood heard her grunting and growling and by the time he got the rearview trained to where he could see her, there were blood smears across the glass.
Hood hit the lights and gunned the Interceptor up tight onto the SUV ahead of him, whose driver quickly signaled and pulled over to let him pass.
30
In the paltry light of an underground security entrance usually reserved for shackled prisoners, five specially trained orderlies in bulky protective suits and visored helmets extracted Seliah from the slickback with long-handled nooses and a large padded blanket. Another stood by with a stun gun. A small gathering of curious doctors and nurses watched. Seliah thrashed and growled, saliva swinging from her chin as she bit at the noose and cursed Hood and her circle of trained tormentors.
It took them almost ten minutes to get her strapped onto a gurney. Not much of her was visible outside the blanket, only one pale arm, the red canvas sneakers at one end, and a flowing platinum cascade of hair at the other. She continued to struggle and spit out muffled curses from inside. A nurse stepped forward with a syringe and two of the orderlies pinned down Seliah's arm. Into the crook of her elbow drove the needle.
Hood watched in shame. A clean-shaven young man in a white coat and athletic shoes hurried over and offered his hand. "I'm Dr. Witt. Did she bite or scratch or injure you in any way?"
Hood identified himself and said no.
"Any transference of body fluids from her to you? Blood, saliva…"
"None."
"Make sure to clean out your car with a strong bleach and water solution. I'll have the custodial staff make up a bucket for you. If you have any wounds or open sores, I can get them to clean the car for you."
"I'll do that."
"We'll do everything in our power to save her life. We're ready." Hood sat in the waiting area of the security floor for half an hour. He checked messages and e-mail but couldn't concentrate. Half an hour after that, Dr. Witt came out and told him they'd stabilized Seliah and were prepping her for the first stage of the protocol, the inducement of therapeutic coma.
"Can I see her?"
The room was spacious and had a freeway view through Plexiglas windows. Three doctors talked quietly in one corner as a nurse injected something into the drip system. Seliah was elaborately strapped to the bed frame but Hood saw that she was sedated and her fight was gone. Her knuckles were bandaged. He stood by the bed and touched the fingers of the hand without the IV needle taped into it. "Hey."
She smiled slightly. "Hey, Charlie."
"Quite the tantrum."
"I was always an extrovert."
"I'll bet you were. You've got even more to show them, Seliah. Go blow their minds."
"You bet I will."
"I hope we can bring Sean in, set him up right here beside you."
"You know he won't let you."
"I know he loves you more than anything in the world."
She looked at him and sighed softly. "Yes. That's a splendid notion. You are such a good man."
"Thank you."
Dr. Wong, the anesthesiologist, was short and pleasant-faced. He came to the other side of the bed and said he was going to administer the first dose of ketamine. Later would come infusions of ketamine, midazolam and "propofol not titrated to burst-suppression pattern on the electroencephalogram." Ribavirin, a rabies antiviral drug, would not be administered, because of delayed and depressed immunological responses noted in previous protocol patients. Dr. Willoughby himself had strongly advised against the ribavirin. Seliah would be intubated for metabolic supplementation as well. She would go into a deep sleep almost immediately. It would be a peaceful sleep. She would not dream and she would not worry. While she slept her immune system would fight the virus with all its strength. The doctor squeezed the powerful drug into the IV feed.
"Mrs. Ozburn," he said. "Can you count backward for me, from one hundred? Start at a hundred, Mrs. Ozburn."
"Later, Charlie."
"We'll all be here waiting for you."
Seliah tapped Hood's hand with a finger and started counting at one hundred. She stopped at eighty-one and Hood watched her eyelids close.
Dr. Wong glanced at his watch, then at the vitals monitor. "No one makes it past ninety-two. Not three-hundred-pound men or professional athletes."
"She's an amazing woman."
He looked at Hood askance. "There's nothing more you can do now, Mr. Ozburn. Go home. Try to rest. She'll be here a long time."
Hood stopped at the nurses' station and introduced himself to the three on-duty nurses. He told them that Seliah's husband, Sean Ozburn, might surprise them with a visit. He described him. Hood told them he could be intimidating but not to be afraid of him. Do as he asked. Hood told them to call nine-one-one immediately if he showed up here, and to call him as soon as they reasonably could. He gave each one a card with his cell number on it, and left two more to be taped up on the station message board.
Nurse Marliss Sharer took the card and looked through the glass at Seliah, then back to Hood. She was young and pretty and Hood wondered how Marliss would stack up against the mad power replicating in Seliah's body.
"We'll take good care of her, Mr. Hood. We're the best around when it comes to therapeutic comas." Hood drove the Interceptor up the ramp from the half-light of the underground entrance into the bright October afternoon. He took the freeway south for Buenavista. He thought about Seliah and how advanced the virus in her was, and he figured if Sean had given it to her, then he must be worse off. Would Sean be more resistant because he outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds? He couldn't get the image of noosed and thrashing Seliah out of his mind. What could possibly lead someone to give one of humankind's most horrific diseases to another human, knowing that he would in turn give it to his wife? Who was the real target? What black motive could underwrite such an act?
The traffic was light and he was through El Centro by early evening. It was cool and clear and the barley and milo and cotton rolled out for miles around him. Then he climbed a few feet in elevation, all it took to bring him into the unforgiving and beautiful desert that would lead him to Buenavista.
A call came through on his cell and he touched the earpiece control.
"Marshal Hood, this is Don August. I'm one of the Desert Flyers. We talked a few days back."