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“No.”
The word was snapped out, sharp and full of cold command.
Then Uriah Piper moved into Dez’s peripheral vision. His face was hard as stone. “Put the gun down,” he said.
Dez and he locked eyes.
“Now,” said Piper.
On the floor, Trout make a sound like a strangling cat.
With great reluctance Dez stepped back and lowered her gun.
“Put it away,” suggested Piper. She did. “Now see to your friend there. He doesn’t look good.”
She slammed her Glock into its holster. Clark, who despite having had a gun pointed at him, managed to sneer with open contempt. Dez sank to her knees and pulled Billy’s head onto her lap. His face was the color of an overripe eggplant and he was only able to breathe in small gasps. He made little yeep sounds. Dez wiped the vomit from his face and held him. Her eyes never left Clark, and she hoped he could read his future in those eyes.
Uriah Piper, his voice and manner calm, stepped between Dez and Clark as if wanting to break that line of communication. But the action forced Clark to shift his attention to the laconic farmer.
“You handle yourself pretty well, Clark. You box?”
“Sure, so what?”
“So did I,” said Piper, and without warning he hit Clark with a short jab that exploded his nose and a right cross that put him on the floor right next to Billy Trout. Both punches were so hard and so fast that they looked and sounded like a single blow.
Everyone stared in sudden, intense shock.
Clark lay there, nose and mouth streaming with bright blood.
Dez Fox gaped. Even Trout focused his bulging eyes on the quiet farmer.
Piper looked at his knuckles, spit on them, rubbed the spit into the calluses, sighed and then seemed to slowly become aware of the crowd. He said nothing to them, but he squatted down next to Clark.
“Here’s the thing, my friend,” he said mildly. “Some people never want to be part of the solution. All they want to do is bitch and whine and create complications for other people. You’ve been like that as long as I’ve known you, and that’s going on twenty years. Since, what? Little League? I don’t remember you ever once stepping up and helping without running your mouth. Mostly that’s okay, that’s people being people, and it didn’t matter much to anyone. Now it does matter. Now we got to work together or we all get hurt or get killed. Now … I’m no fan of Officer Fox and I barely known Mr. Trout outside of what he writes in the papers, so this isn’t me sticking up for my friends. This is me, a farmer and a part of this community saying that if you don’t shut your mouth and work with us, then by the Lord Jesus, when we roll out of here in those buses I will personally tie you to the front grill, cover you with A1 sauce, and use you for bait. Look me in the eye and ask me if I’m joking.”
No one said a word. Certainly not Clark, who stared at him with eyes that were filled with fear and strange lights.
Piper dug a clean tissue out of his pocket and held it out. When Clark made no move to take it, the farmer bent and placed it on his chest, patted it flat, then straightened. He turned and looked down at Dez and Trout.
“My guess is that we don’t have a whole lot of time,” he said. “Probably be best if we got our behinds into gear.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
THE SITUATION ROOM
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Situation Room was crammed with too many people and everyone was shouting. At each other, into phones; some, apparently, at God.
All National Guardsmen in the area had been deployed. Additional troops from joint-use bases were rolling, and the ban on interaction with state and local law enforcement had been lifted. In each of his many phone calls, General Burroughs used the phrase. “This is all boots on the ground.”
The Air Force was actively in play now, as were fighters and helicopters from the Marines and Navy.
Scott Blair took or made more calls than he could count. FEMA and all other disaster-response groups were being pressed to their limits. Teams from the CDC were on the ground, but they were being shunted to the side because there was nothing for them to do. Plenty of samples of living and terminated infected had been collected. They had gallons of the black blood, and more samples were being flown to labs all over the country. Everyone with a microscope was studying Lucifer 113. Nobody had an answer.
Then Blair’s phone rang and the display told him that it was Sam Imura. Blair snatched it up and cupped his other hand over his ear so he could hear. “Tell me some good goddamn news, Sam. Tell me you have the flash drives in your hand. Tell me what I need to hear.”
Sam didn’t. Instead he told the truth.
