Carlucci walked through the main room, his footsteps nearly silent on the carpeting, then sounding quite loud on the vinyl floor of the kitchen. He pulled out a chair across the table from Monk and sat.
“Do you want something to drink?” Monk asked. “You’ll have to get it yourself, my manservant doesn’t come on until six. The refrigerator is well stocked.”
Carlucci shook his head, remembering now an aged, thin Asian man in a black suit who had served him coffee. “Why no Wizard of Oz effects this time?” he asked.
Monk made a hacking sound that Carlucci assumed was a laugh. “Not much point to it. It didn’t impress you last time, did it?”
“No.”
“No. I wasn’t going to waste your time or mine.” Monk laid his black-coated arms on the table, gloved fingers wriggling like short, fat snakes. “It’s been a long time since that session.”
Not long enough. He wondered what Monk’s face looked like under that strange helmet, what his eyes looked like behind the tinted goggles.
“You’re here about your daughter,” Monk said. “Caroline.”
Carlucci didn’t reply, too stunned. He shouldn’t have been. He tried to remind himself of what Brendan had said about the slugs, and Monk in particular, three years ago that they would regularly surprise you with the intuitive leaps they made, that they processed so much information so quickly from so many different sources, and were always well prepared for their sessions. Monk would have spent the past several hours trying to figure out why Carlucci had called for this crash session. He would know that word had gone out throughout the department about Caroline, that she was missing, that people were searching for her.
“You’re also here to ask me about what’s going on in the Tenderloin, about the possibility of a disease outbreak. Or you should be.”
Carlucci leaned back in the chair, a sharp headache beginning already. He should have known.
“Why don’t I just sit back and listen, then?” he said. “I don’t need to ask you any questions. I can just listen to your answers.”
“This is not a sideshow,” Monk said. “I’m not performing like some huckster, trying to impress the rubes. This is my job. This is what the city pays me for. This is why you’re here.”
“Of course it’s a sideshow,” Carlucci replied.
“Is this your way of trying to charm me so I’ll help you find your daughter?”
Carlucci slowly shook his head, sighing. He was being stupid. But it was hard, trying to talk to this thing across the table from him that looked like some mutant freak from a bad late-night movie.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was unfair. It’s four-thirty in the morning, I haven’t slept, and I’m worried about her.”
Monk nodded. He adjusted his position, making a strange squishing and slithering sound.
“You know she’s missing,” Carlucci said.
“She’s not missing,” Monk replied. “I know where she is.”
Carlucci could feel his heart start racing, but he tried to stay calm, tried not get excited, afraid this was some bizarre joke from Monk.
“Where?” he asked.
“In the Tenderloin. In the Core. With Cancer Cell.” Carlucci didn’t know what to say. Too many questions rose, all at once.
“Are you sure?”
Monk made a gesture that might have been a shrug. “I’m fairly confident in my analysis, but of course I can’t be sure.”
“Why?”
Monk shook his head. “I don’t know.”
It was like the last time. Every time Monk had said “I don’t know,” Carlucci had been fairly certain that the slug did know, or at least could make a pretty good guess. He felt exactly that way right now, and the frustration ate at his stomach, because he knew there was nothing he could do to force Monk to come clean.
“How do you know?”
This time it was Monk who sighed. “You know I can’t answer that kind of question.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t. I rarely know exactly what information leads me to what conclusions. I can only tell you with a fair degree of certainty that she has, somehow, contacted Cancer Cell, and that she is with them, in the Core.”
“Alive?”
That shruglike gesture again. “Presumably. You will just have to wait to find out.”
“Or go in and get her.”
Monk threw his head back and laughed, a hacking bray that grated on Carlucci. He wanted to strangle the freaky bastard. It was an absurd notion, going into the Core, he knew that, but what did Monk know? It wasn’t his daughter who was missing.
“What do you know about Cancer Cell?” Carlucci asked, keeping his anger in check.
Monk shook his head. “Nothing. I even requested a session with Kelly in CID, hoping he might know something, but he didn’t.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Information is my blood. I don’t like not knowing about something that may one day become important.”
There was something wrong about all this, too, Carlucci could smell it.
“You said I was here to ask about Caroline, which was right. And that I was here to ask about this disease thing, or should be. Why didn’t you say anything about the Naomi Katsuda murder investigation? That, too, is going nowhere. Shouldn’t I be asking you about that as well?”
“Yes, of course. That, it seemed to me, was a given. It didn’t seem worth mentioning. Besides, I have nothing to offer concerning that case.” He paused, glancing down at the table, then back up at Carlucci. “Her death is a complete mystery to me.”
A lie. Carlucci was certain. There was something, he believed, to be learned from Monk’s lies and omissions as well as from what he actually offered. The difficulty lay in deciphering them.
“How did you know I was interested in this ‘disease thing’?”
“Tito Moraleja’s body in the temporary morgue.” Monk snorted with a twisted grin. “There’s no connection between Moraleja’s death and Naomi Katsuda’s murder your official rationale for holding the body with an autopsy request. So your interest had to lie elsewhere.”
“And?”
Monk’s expression, what little of it Carlucci could see, appeared to take on real gravity.
“You are right to be concerned. There is a very deadly disease that is preparing to break out of the Tenderloin. Caused by a virus, contagious, and with a mortality rate nearing one hundred percent. A disease with no preventative vaccine and no treatment. How’s that for a fucking nightmare, Lieutenant?”
Once again, Carlucci didn’t know how to respond. Monk seemed both so certain and so sincere. No fooling around, no deception, no showmanship. As if he knew.
He knew.
“What the hell is going on?” Carlucci finally asked.
“There’s even a name for the disease, now,” Monk said. “Core Fever.”
“Monk—”
“Let’s go over by the windows, and you’ll be able to see firsthand.”
“See what?”
Monk’s only response was to struggle upright with his canes. Breathing heavily, he dragged himself out of the kitchen, then across the carpet toward the large picture windows. Carlucci remained at the table, watching until he reached one of the armchairs and dropped into it. He laid the canes on the floor at his feet, then craned his neck around to look at him. “Come on, Lieutenant. The answer to your questions.”
Carlucci got up and walked over to the windows, keeping away from Monk. He remained standing, and looked out.
They had a fairly good view of the Tenderloin from here. Lights were going crazy all around it, bright floods and flares, spinning colored lights on emergency vehicles, blinking barrier lights. Looking down between two buildings, to the perimeter of the Tenderloin itself, he could see what appeared to be the beginning of a military cordon.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked again.
Suddenly a whole fleet of helicopters appeared, headed into th
e heart of the Tenderloin. They moved in quickly, and began landing on rooftops deep inside, and then he realized they were landing on buildings that roughly enclosed the Core. Where Caroline was.
He turned to look at Monk, who was actually grinning. He stared at the slug, waiting for an answer. Monk finally gave it to him.
“Quarantine.”
ISABEL
It had begun.
Isabel didn’t know what was happening, but she knew it was time to go. Things were even crazier now, people running and screaming, loud bangs, the smell of smoke. There would be nothing for a time, almost dead silence, and then it would start up again, different, but somehow feeling all the same. It was too crazy, and she was afraid. Anything could happen.
She worked her way toward the opening she had found earlier, moving quickly and quietly along the passages, sinking back into shadows and alcoves whenever someone appeared.
A small fire burned within a circle of stones at one intersection of corridors. Isabel hung back, watching closely, waiting, but no one seemed to be near, and she quickly skirted the flames. A terrible smell came from within them.
There was a body, a dead fat man lying belly up, his throat cut and his eyes open.
Farther on, a woman squatted in front of a small pit dug out of the dirt floor, rocking on her haunches and humming, flanked by burning candles. Water glistened in the pit, and there was movement in the water. There was no other way, so Isabel slowly crept past, on the side of the pit opposite the woman. As she passed, the woman looked up and gazed at Isabel; the woman smiled, but continued humming and rocking, and made no other move. Isabel pushed on.
Finally she reached the short dead-end passage and entered it. The grate was still on the ground, the opening clear. She checked the main corridor once more to make sure there was no one nearby, then returned to the opening and pulled herself up and into it.
She squirmed forward as quickly as she could manage, afraid of being exposed. Her way was a little easier this time, since she knew what to expect. When she entered the wider duct, she took the right branch again, then right once more at the next chance, and before long she was emerging into the dark passage on the other side.
Isabel dropped to the floor. She stood unmoving for a long time, listening. Faint sounds came to her through the opening, but nothing from the passage around her. She moved forward to the rectangle of light at the far end, the window in the door. At the bottom of the steps she hesitated for a moment, then climbed them and put her face to the glass.
The room on the other side was the same, except that this time there were no people inside. Careful as always, she remained at the window for quite a while, watching. No one entered the room. Feeling safe, she took hold of the doorknob and tried to turn it.
The doorknob wouldn’t budge. She tightened her grip, and turned harder. Still nothing. The door was locked, or the knob rusted shut. Once more with both hands gripping the knob, but again it wouldn’t turn.
She was trapped.
PART FOUR
OUARANTINE
CHAPTER 28
Rashida came into Caroline’s room, flushed and breathing hard. She was- wearing a surgical mask and gloves, and carrying a flashlight and a small leather bag.
“Come on,” she said. “We have to go. You have to go.”
“Go where? What’s going on?”
“Quarantine.”
“Quarantine? Where?”
“The Tenderloin. The Core. There’s not much time. Let’s go.” Then she shook her head. “Don’t bring anything with you. I’ll give you the only thing you’ll take out of here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Later. Let’s go.”
She followed Rashida out of the room and down the corridor. Tension and a sense of urgency infected the air, extra bursts of it exploding whenever someone rushed by, or she saw frantic activity in one of the open rooms they passed. They stopped for a few moments when they ran into Dr. Mike, who passed a silent message to Rashida, his eyes saddened. Then Dr. Mike went one way, and they went another.
“What’s happening?” Caroline asked again.
They turned into an empty, narrow corridor, which ended at one of the Core gates. Rashida checked the security panel, unlocked the door, and pushed Caroline through. She stumbled forward in the dim light, then Rashida came through after her and sealed the door, bringing complete darkness.
Caroline didn’t move, waiting for Rashida. Rashida’s hand gripped her arm; the gloved fingers felt cold on her skin.
“Don’t lose me now,” Rashida said, her voice just above a whisper.
“Don’t lose me,” Caroline answered.
Rashida quietly laughed. Then, before they went any farther, she said, “The CDC and the military have quarantined the Tenderloin. They’ve announced the impending outbreak of a fatal disease whose source is the experimental laboratories of a medical terrorist group called Cancer Cell.”
“How can they say that?”
“Hell, they can say any damn thing they want to, can’t they? They’re calling it Core Fever. They’ve announced that Cancer Cell’s labs are in the Core, and they’ve sent in special troops and equipment to establish a second quarantine around the Core itself.”
“Is that possible?” Caroline asked.
“Not completely,” Rashida answered. “But they’ve done extremely well, far better than I would ever have imagined they could do.” She paused. “They have very good intelligence.” There was something about the way she’d said that last thing that implied betrayal. “They’re going to destroy us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. They’ve given us until noon to come out through one of their quarantine stations, and that means everyone in the Core. There are teams in isolation suits ready to process us, then they’re going to transfer all of us to isolation wards somewhere until we either get sick or stay healthy long enough to convince them that we haven’t been infected. And then after we’re all out, they’re going to come through and sterilize the entire Core. But of course we won’t all come out, and it’s going to be a fucking disaster.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Forget about Cancer Cell. All the other people here in the Core, the social misfits, the psychopaths, you think they’re all going to surrender themselves in a nice quiet and orderly manner? You think they’re going to surrender themselves in any kind of manner? Shit. A few of them will, probably, but most of them won’t. A lot of them will actively resist, with any means they have. Hell, even some of my colleagues will probably resist.” She sighed heavily. “There will be bloodshed. And there will be a lot of it.”
“And Cancer Cell will be destroyed,” Caroline added. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could faintly make out Rashida’s features, enough to see her nod in reply.
“Wiped out. They’ll destroy the labs, they’ll burn and sterilize everything, they’ll wipe out all records, they’ll destroy whatever they can get their hands on.” There was another pause. “But they won’t get their hands on everything. We’re getting you out of here.”
“Through the quarantine?”
“Yes. There’s a way they won’t know about. A way that won’t be blocked.”
“How can you be sure?” Caroline asked. “What about the source of all their good intelligence?”
“Only four of us know about it. The four remaining original founders.” She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. If one of the four of us is a weasel, then none of it matters anyway.”
“Why me? Why not you, or one of the others?”
Rashida didn’t answer right away. “We trust you,” she finally said. “And one or all of us may need to go into isolation wards.”
So that’s what the mask and gloves were all about. Caroline didn’t know what to say. She wanted to ask for more details, but decided it was better to let it go.
“Here,” Rashida said, handing her the small leather bag. “You take these
with you. That’s our price for getting you out.”
“What is it?”
“Backup modules of all of our most important records, all of our research. We’re trying to transmit the same data out of the Tenderloin, but the military’s managed to cut off almost every single transmission cable. We’ve got one left, but we don’t know if it’s getting through. And they’re flying jammers in the air above the Core, blocking all air transmissions. And you better believe they’re not going to let any of us take a damn thing with us when we leave.”
Caroline looked down at the bag, feeling a strong sense of responsibility. She looked back up at Rashida. “What do I do with it once I’m out?”
“Hang on to it. Someone will get in touch with you. I’m not sure who it will be. That depends on who survives all this crap without being blown. But, this is important. It will be a woman who gets in touch with you. If a man approaches you, claiming to be one of us and asks for these, don’t turn them over. Claim ignorance, run, brain the bastard, whatever. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“Okay. Any other questions? No? Good; let’s go.”
Rashida didn’t use the flashlight. The light was dim, but got brighter in spots, and there was usually enough to see ten or fifteen feet ahead. She seemed to know exactly where she was going.
They made a lot of stops and starts, sometimes retreating whenever someone appeared. Several loud echoing cracks sounded together, gunshots perhaps. At one point a hand reached out from a hollow in the wall, grabbing at Caroline, but Rashida smashed the hand with her flashlight, bringing out a brief cry. A figure shot out of the hollow and scurried down the passage in the direction from which they had come.
More sounds came from overhead, sometimes muffled, sometimes sharp and clear if Caroline and Rashida were near one of the stairwells leading up to the buildings above banging sounds, grunting, music, loud hisses, a steady whap! whap! whap!, whimpering and hushed conversations and cackling laughter.
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