“I’ll break it over your head if you don’t tell me why you’ve got every cop in Alaska out looking for you.”
“They are?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Harley — did you kill Eddie? Or Russell?”
“Of course not, I told you, Eddie fell off a cliff, and Russell—”
“—got eaten by wolves. Yeah, yeah. I know what you told me, but I also know nobody ever went to this much trouble just to catch a thief.” Glancing away from the narrow dirt track for a second, he took in Harley’s disheveled appearance and said, “What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why’s the sheriff wearing a mask?”
“What mask?” Harley said, scratching at his thigh again.
“And what the fuck is wrong with your leg?”
“I got cut, on all that crap Eddie stuck in my pocket. A lot of it broke.”
Charlie’d been cut, too, when he’d poked around in Harley’s backpack. “Show me your leg.”
“What?” Harley protested. “I’m not gonna drop my pants for you.”
Charlie stuck out one hand and grabbed his brother by the throat. “Show … me … your … leg.” Ever since the accident, Charlie’s arms had only gotten that much stronger, but he still needed both hands to steer the van and manipulate the levers. He had to let go, as Harley unbuckled the seat belt and worked his jeans down to his knees. Charlie stopped the van, flicked on the cabin light, and saw a small cut, maybe an inch or two long, on Harley’s pale skin. It wasn’t much in itself, but radiating from the wound were raised, ropy lines, like red licorice strips.
He remembered the sheriff warning him not to let his brother get too close. “How long have those lines been there?”
“I don’t know,” Harley said, as if they really weren’t his problem. “They look longer now.” Suddenly doubling over, Harley coughed and a droplet of blood splatted on the dashboard. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled, wiping it off with the sleeve of his coat. “I know how you are about this car.”
“How long has that been happening?”
“Maybe a few hours. I think I got sick sailing that damn boat over here.” He pulled his pants back up and buckled the belt. “I oughta get a medal just for being able to do it.”
Something was going on here — something bad — but Charlie didn’t know what. And sitting in the woods wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Harley needed a doctor, and if anybody would know of a doctor who could keep his mouth shut — for the right price — it was Voynovich. Charlie put the van into gear, and jounced along the logging trail, the wind battering the chassis and snow piling up on the windshield, until he reached the top of a barren crest, where he doused his lights and stopped. Down below on the road, he could see a half dozen guys in National Guard fatigues, setting up highway flares and laying a spike strip across the two lanes.
“Is all that for us?” Harley asked, with a hint of pride.
Charlie angled the van down the other side of the hill and bumped along until he was sure he was well past the roadblock. He’d have continued on through the trees and brush, but he knew there was a series of ravines and gullies coming up, and not even a Humvee could have made it much farther. Besides, while he was heading due southeast, the authorities would still be looking for him northwest of his true location.
With both hands furiously working the gears and gas and brake levers, he maneuvered the van down a long, slick gradient, once or twice nearly losing control.
“You want me to drive?” Harley asked.
“Like you’d know how.”
“I know how. Who drove you back from Dillingham the time you got so shit-faced you couldn’t stand up?”
“In case you forgot, I can’t ever stand up.”
“Well, if you could have.”
Charlie guided the car along a long drainage ditch, then up an embankment and onto the asphalt. For the first time in over an hour, all the tires were on the same level. But considering the fact that an allpoints bulletin was out for Harley, maybe it would be best, he thought, if his brother was just a little less visible to some good citizen with a CB radio.
“Get in the back,” he said, “and use the blanket to cover yourself up.”
“Nobody’s gonna be out in this shit,” Harley complained. “I can just duck down if I have to.”
“Are you gonna argue every single thing with me?”
Grumbling, Harley crawled over the front seat, his muddy boots kicking Charlie’s Bible CDs all over the floor. Rummaging around among the emergency supplies that every driver in Alaska knew to carry — extra gas cans, flares, flashlights, batteries, a spare tire, lug wrench, some beef jerky, bottled water, mosquito repellent, sleeping bag — Harley pulled out a ratty blanket and drew it around his shoulders.
Charlie checked him out in the rearview mirror, huddled behind the driver’s seat, and didn’t like what he saw. Was he shivering?
“Now lie down and try to get some sleep,” he said.
For once, Harley did as he was told.
Driving on into the night, Charlie turned the radio to the local weather station and heard that the storm was only going to get worse. Welcome to Alaska. He pushed the accelerator lever forward, locking in the cruise control at a steady forty-five — any faster than that and he’d spin out for sure — and focused on the road. His headlights illuminated only a narrow slice right down the middle, but he could sense, all around him, the low frozen hills pressing in on him — lonely and empty and dark. A darkness, as Exodus and the Reverend Abercrombie had so aptly put it, that could be felt.
Chapter 50
As the helicopter swept in over the harbor of Port Orlov, Slater could see the Coast Guard vessels bobbing offshore, their spotlights sweeping back and forth across the docks, making sure that nothing came in or went out. Not that it was likely on a night like this. The town itself was largely dark, the snowy streets scoured by the punishing wind.
Dr. Lantos was barely clinging to life, her face beneath the oxygen mask a deep purple, and in Slater’s mind there could no longer be any question about what was wrong. She had a hacking cough, mounting pulmonary problems, and a high fever.
She had come down with the flu.
Which meant it was possible that Nika, pierced by the needle, might have become infected, too. But it wasn’t certain, there were still too many questions. Was it transmissible that way? Had the needle been infected, and more to the point, had it been infected before the puncture wound occurred? Slater clung to the possibility that it had not, even as he tended to Lantos. The last time he had found himself in a position like this, administering to an endangered patient in the bay of a helicopter, the outcome had been bad indeed, but right now, he had to put those fears, and those terrible memories from Afghanistan, aside. This time, he lectured himself, the patient would survive; this time she would get the care she needed before it was too late; this time he would get full cooperation instead of delays and impediments.
As the chopper descended, it skimmed the tops of the evergreen trees, and made for the bright white lights of the hockey rink. It had no sooner settled on the center of the ice, its rotors still winding to a halt, than a refueling truck rumbled toward it. The nearest biohazard-containment facility was hundreds of miles away in the state capital. “Eva,” Slater said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll see you in Juneau.”
But she did not reply, or show any sign of even having heard him.