The woman turned away from the man and spoke to the camera.
“You heard it yourself. Dr. Ramachutran is an esteemed volcanologist and the author of numerous books on the subject. With the increased interest surrounding the explosion at Yellowstone National Park only days ago, and of course the terrible virus that is spreading throughout the United States that is believed to have been initiated by that same explosion, we wanted to bring you a special edition feature for tonight’s newscast that examined the Yellowstone Caldera.
“In a moment, we will return to your regularly scheduled programming after a brief update from our disaster relief team regarding the enigma strain virus.”
The woman’s face was replaced by a handsome man in his mid-fifties, with perfectly combed salt-and-pepper hair. He was smiling, but Officer Wardley had worked with people long enough to know the man on the television was holding in a certain amount of fear. Possibly panic.
“The enigma strain virus is still eluding the nation’s best researchers, though we are told that a breakthrough is imminent. As you have no doubt already heard, please stay indoors, lock your house, and do not venture out for any reason. Stay isolated, and do not physically interact with anyone other than your immediate family…”
Wardley scoffed at the man on TV. The anchor was stuck at work, just like him. How many others were out there, stuck at their jobs, explaining their own demise to the rest of their species? Wardley had already fielded calls from three of his fellow officers — two accounts of looting and one small riot gang making its way up and down the main street of town. Even for a small city, the crazies somehow seemed to be the majority.
He got up to refill his coffee — he’d need another pot of it before the night was over — when the phone rang.
He growled, then sat back down. “Officer Wardley, Sheridon County Police, how may I assist you?”
He frowned as he heard the explanation on the other end of the line. “Excuse me, you’re going to need to slow down. You said you’re in Yellowstone right now?”
The voice yammered on. “Son,” Wardley said. “You need to get out of the park. There’s a virus —”
But the voice continued. Wardley’s heartbeat rose slightly. He was not fond of being yelled at, especially by a civilian. “Listen, Bennett, I don’t care if you’re a park ranger or not — you need to get out of that area.”
He started to explain their protocol regarding a refugee from a disease-infected area as he pulled out a regional map that had the quarantine checkpoints and stations marked in highlighter, but the man on the phone interrupted him again.
He was starting to get really angry.
“Bennett, I’m not going to ask you —”
He paused.
“Sorry, what?”
Bennett spoke again.
“There’s another bomb? And you’re sure of it?” He listened to Bennett explain, for the third time, what he wanted Wardley to do, and then he slammed the phone down onto the receiver.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Officer Darryl Wardley’s police cruiser, a 2006 Dodge Charger, raced down the highway at ninety miles an hour. He would have gone faster if it wasn’t for the handful of stray vehicles disobeying the now government-mandated house arrest for every citizen spread out on the open road.
Wardley’s comm had squawked out just about every excuse in the book as he’d listened in on his fellow officers’ 11-95s. Most of the civilians were heading to and from the supermarkets for last-minute supplies, or checking in on family and friends who hadn’t responded to their phone calls. One deranged man had even admitted he was on a joyride; he’d never seen so little traffic on the highway, and he wanted to take advantage of it.
Most of the civilians, with the exception of the wannabe race car driver, were let off with nothing but a warning and a stern reminder that they were supposed to be inside. The federal government, after all, hadn’t issued a formalized process notice explaining what the local officers were supposed to do with 11-95s out and about against mandate. Wardley’s comrades were driving blind, simply pulling people over, asking them for their license and registration — nothing but a formality these days, anyway — and then letting them go after they heard the driver’s excuse.
Wardley was glad he wasn’t on patrol duty tonight. Nothing but a bunch of crazies and nut jobs taking advantage of the fact that most of the United States government was busy trying to figure out this virus.
Still, driving ninety miles an hour down an almost-abandoned highway felt an awful lot like being on duty, and he sighed as he checked his reflection in the rearview mirror.
Disheveled salt-and-pepper hair, deep-set brown eyes, and eyebrows that could use a trim were part of the face staring back at him. Wardley tried to understand why he looked so exhausted. Maybe it was age. He’d slept just before his shift, no more than five hours ago. But he felt physically, emotionally, and mentally drained.
After the call from Bennett at Yellowstone, he’d called a few of his superiors at the station, including two that were out on patrol already. He told them what he’d learned from Bennett, explaining that he had no proof that any of it was true, then waited for the inevitable tongue-lashing as his commanding officers showed him all of the reasons why the madman in the park was just looking to start a fight, and there was no bomb.
Surprisingly, however, Wardley met little resistance. It seemed as though the officers wanted to do something other than drive around the area, looking for idiot grocery shoppers and insane joyriders. They all agreed to meet him at the park, and one told him to place a general wide-band call to ask for even more backup.
It must be the solitude, Wardley thought. The virus was all anyone was talking about lately, and they all knew that driving around the area just outside the infection zone was the equivalent to suicide, whether it was part of their job description or not. Maybe playing a more active role in figuring out what all of this mess was helped assuage their fears.
Or maybe it was just their ego, their testosterone-laden desire to do something, even if that something was guided by a guy they never met, begging for help at a park they had no jurisdiction entering.
Five miles later, Wardley was entering that exact park. He slowed the cruiser a bit and caught up to another officer in his department, rolling down his window as he pulled up.
“Think we’ll get sick going in here?” Hector Garcia asked, before Wardley even stopped.
“If we were, we’d have gotten it thirty miles ago. The radius is growing, even this far north.”
“Yeah, I’ve been listening. Crazy stuff, man. I guess we’d better hope this Bennett guy wasn’t messing around.”
Wardley nodded, then looked down the road at the park. He wondered if Bennett was right. It could be that easy. Wardley realized that an easy answer was probably the real reason his fellow policemen had jumped at the opportunity to get their hands dirty. They’d all signed on for different reasons, but one they all had in common was the simple desire to right wrongs.
And finding the viral payload delivered by a second bomb was certainly in the category of “righting wrongs.”
“I don’t think he is,” Wardley said. “I had Jones pull a background check on anyone matching the ID he gave, along with his job title at the park. It’s a long shot, but if the match he found is, in fact, our guy, he’s clean as a whistle. Pretty much off the grid as long as he’s been alive.”