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He reached for his phone and punched in the number that direct-dialed the White House Situation Room.
The chief of staff, Sylvia Ruddy, answered the phone and then put it on speaker.
“Mr. President,” said General Zetter, “we have contained the outbreak. It’s over.”
CHAPTER FIVE
GOOD-NITES MOTOR COURT
FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Dr. Herman Volker parked his car in one of the vacant slips outside of the small motel. He turned off the engine and sat for nearly ten minutes watching the rain hammer down on the windshield. The sluicing water blurred the glass and transformed the neon sign above the office into an impressionist painting. All pinks and greens.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and then tossed it onto the seat.
Then he opened the door and stepped into the downpour. He wore trousers, a dress shirt, tennis shoes, and a blue sweater, and he looked like the tired, defeated, sad old man that he was. His feet barely lifted from the ground as he shuffled toward the door, pulled it open, and went inside. He carried no suitcase or overnight bag. The only thing he brought with him was his wallet, and it took him a long time to organize his thoughts well enough to fill out the information sheet given to him by the bored night clerk. He paid for the room with his credit card, took the key, and walked outside again. His room was on the same strip where he’d parked.
Volker used the keycard to open the door, went inside, closed the door.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the ugly painting on the wall. An artless mess that was supposed to remind people of Joan Miró, but didn’t. Not in any way that lifted the soul.
The doctor stared at the painting for a long time.
CHAPTER SIX
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
At first they could only sit there, huddled against the wall, locked in each other’s arms, beaten mute by horror, wrapped in their cloak of shared grief.
Time was fractured and each second seemed to expand and stretch, refusing to end, refusing to pass.
Dez kept repeating JT’s name.
Over and over.
Was it a plea or a prayer? Trout couldn’t tell.
Then suddenly Trout felt a change in Dez. It was a subtle thing, but it was there. One moment she was empty of everything except her pain, and then he felt her body change. Her muscles tensed. No, that was wrong. It was more like they somehow remembered their strength. She straightened in his arms and her clutching hands gripped him and pushed him slowly but inexorably back. He resisted for a moment, then let her create that distance between them. A necessary distance for her, he was sure of it. And in that space Dez Fox reclaimed the personal power stolen from her by disease pathogens, guns, and betrayal.
There was a final moment of intimate contact, when their faces were inches apart. Dez was flushed, her face puffy from weeping, her eyes red and filled with pain. Then he saw the blue of those eyes become cold and hard. And unforgiving.
Her full lips compressed into a tight line with just a hint of a snarl. Trout knew that look, and he was fully aware of how dangerous she was when her mouth wore that shape and her eyes were filled with that much ice. So, he eased back, releasing his embrace, shifting his body toward the wall and away from her.
There was one heartbreaking moment, though, where he saw that she was aware of his allowance and acceptance of her power, and how he withheld his own. Dez gave him a single, tiny nod of shared awareness.
Then she got to her feet. It took effort and it took time, but when she was standing Dez towered over him, and he sat there in her shadow, looking up at her.
“We have to make sure the kids are okay,” she said in a voice from which all emotion had been banished. Trout wondered what it cost her to affect that much control.
“Yes,” he said.
“And we have to search the building again.”
“Okay.”
She began to turn.
