Dr. Reischtal said, “These men were infected. I want them burned immediately. And hazmat suits are now required for all personnel. The bugs are spreading beyond the confines of the city and the stadium.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “We have reports that our squads are encountering severe resistance, mostly along the Blue Line subway system. We have lost contact with at least three squads. Based on their last transmissions, it appears that they were being overrun.”
Dr. Reischtal nodded. “Tell the remaining squads to redouble their efforts. They must succeed. The future of mankind depends on it. Call my launch. I am now relocating the command center out to the ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dr. Reischtal clasped his hands and stared at the sky. There were no stars, not yet. But he had a feeling they would appear soon, triumphing over the light pollution. He shifted his gaze to the silent city.
There was no denying it now. The situation was officially out of control. The wild dogs had pulled loose, ripped free of their master.
He turned to assess Soldier Field and made his choice in less than three seconds. Again, once the decision had been made, there was no dithering, no second-guessing, no doubt. He would incinerate everything, burn the virus out of existence, wipe Chicago off the map. In a few years, they could start over, if they were so inclined.
He called Reynolds. “Are the trucks in place? Has everything been arranged?”
“No, sir. Three miles down the tunnel, we found a collapse. Looks like they brought it down on purpose. Recently too. We’re digging it out. A couple of hours maybe. Your guy say anything about this?”
Dr. Reischtal ground his molars into each other and this time, he couldn’t stop himself. Lee would suffer for his lies. “Call me when the trucks are ready.” He hung up and walked down to the shore and stepped onto the launch that would ferry him out to the warship.
At least the trucks under Soldier Field were in place and armed.
As the boat skipped across the surface of the lake, he thought about calling and informing the president, but then another, more efficient idea blossomed. He considered the angles briefly, and decided the loss of his men would be acceptable. And only he and the truck drivers knew the truckers were even there, let alone what kind of death they carried.
Yes, he thought. Soldier Field first. Then, when they had the trucks in place under the Loop, in a few hours, then downtown.
As the warship grew closer and the single tower loomed overhead, he called a very specific number and waited for the security system to come online. The launch slowed and stopped at the stern of the Sachsen-class frigate. Collapsible stairs descended from the low deck.
Dr. Reischtal waited until he heard the recorded message, then climbed up to the deck. He gazed back across the moonlit waves at the bright lights of Soldier Field. He spoke his name, slowly and clearly into the mouthpiece, and answered the random question and ended with the date, then waited for the voice-recognition software to access the remotes under each truck. He heard the series of beeps, and knew that the steady yellow lights on the remote receivers were now flashing red.
He keyed in the code and hit SEND.
Dr. Menard flipped the jump drive over and over as he shoved it into the USB port on the laptop. His fingers trembled and he couldn’t seem to get the drive to slip into the port. Finally it snapped into place, and a few seconds later, a new icon appeared on the desktop screen.
He steadied the laptop on the steering wheel, then opened the Internet browser, and had to type in the name of his university’s email server three times before he got it right. Sweat dripped off his nose and hit the trackpad. His forefinger smeared it, and the cursor flitted wildly across the screen. “Goddamnit,” he whispered. “Please, please work.” He tried to dry it with his shirt, then tried again.
Someone banged on the bus door.
Dr. Menard flinched and saw a man in a reflective orange IDOT vest outside, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, eyes wild. Blood dripped from his hair. It looked like he had taken a gardening fork to his scalp. The man hit the door again, rattling the plastic windows.
Dr. Menard ignored him and concentrated on attaching the contents of the jump drive to an email. An empty sliding bar popped up, indicating the percentage of information that had been loaded. A blue bar began to eat up the remaining blackness of the gauge in lurching increments.
“C’mon, c’mon!” he shouted.
His voice attracted the attention of an older woman on the other side of the bus. She bounded up the steps on the passenger side and smashed her head into the plastic cocoon, leaving a streak of blood and makeup. She howled and scrabbled at the plastic, enraged at the movement inside, furious that she couldn’t reach him. Her cries brought more of them, like bees swarming to their queen.
The blue band had filled up at least half of the bar.
The infected surrounded the bus and so many were attacking it in a mindless fury it began rock and shake as the suspension shuddered under the onslaught. If too many gathered in one area, they would set each other off in a new frenzy, attacking each other, anything to eliminate the immediate threat. They would use anything close at hand. A backpack, used to choke the other, or a shattered bottle, to slash and jab. Usually it was something big and heavy, and used as a club. Out at Soldier Field, they didn’t have anything really big and heavy. One guy carried a gearshift off one of the older buses and used it to bash away at the bus door.
Dr. Menard didn’t care. He held onto the laptop, eyes never leaving the screen. Seventy-five percent now.
Eighty percent.
Ninety percent.
Then, a flash. A curious floating sensation for the briefest moment, as if everything were suspended, like motes of dust in sunlight. A feeling of intense, horrible heat.
Then, nothing.
CHAPTER 71
8:53 PM
August 14
At first, Tommy didn’t realize that the Strykers were shooting at him. The road in front of him didn’t erupt in great geysers of smoke and the trees around him didn’t explode in showers of sparks like in the movies. He heard a few dull thuds. That was all.
He raced down Lake Shore Drive, with Lake Michigan off to his right, and the ominous shadow of the warship growing out of the horizon like a tumor. After successfully negotiating his way through the barricade, he didn’t want to think that anything could go wrong. So he ignored the tight, tickling feeling that crawled over his scalp and pushed the thoughts of the bullets singing above his head out of his mind. Then he saw the two Strykers in the rearview mirror, closing fast.
One of the back windows exploded and his passenger mirror disintegrated. Now, through the open back window, he could hear the bursts of automatic gunfire, even if he couldn’t pinpoint the damage. He couldn’t ignore the truth any longer.
Tommy yanked the wheel to the left and jumped the curb and tore across the baseball fields. He tried to keep an eye on his driver’s side mirror and rearview mirror. He noticed that the Strykers couldn’t change direction as fast as the ambulance; they couldn’t navigate as nimbly as he could. Of course, they could smash their way through obstructions like cars and sandbags, but when they had two or three cars caught up on the front, it slowed them down, at least until the pitiless front wedge ground the cars along the asphalt and pushed the crumpled vehicles aside.
The ambulance careened into Columbus, coming close to blowing a tire. Sparks flew as he swerved around the abandoned cars. He veered to his left at the last second and shot over the southern Metra railroad line on Balbo. He reckoned out in the open, it was just a matter of time before they eventually flanked him, trapping the ambulance between them. He’d never reach Grace.
He glanced at the mirror. The Strykers hadn’t managed the turn yet, and hadn’t started across the bridge over the Metra lines. He turned his attention back to the road in front, plotting a course through the low berms of sandbags strewn across Michigan Avenue. If he could
just reach the blocks of buildings, he might be able to stay a few blocks ahead of them, twisting and turning, keeping the buildings between the ambulance and the Strykers. After the massive withdrawal of troops and equipment, the streets might be empty enough that he could keep running, and put a little distance between himself and his pursuers. He just hoped they didn’t have anything that could blast through concrete.
He slalomed around the rows of sandbags on Michigan just as the first of the Strykers appeared on the crest of the Balbo Bridge. The windows of the Blackstone Hotel burst into dizzying cracks and shards rained across the sidewalk. It didn’t matter. He was through the sandbags and stomped on the gas. The ambulance grumbled, but it shot forward.
Ahead, the next two blocks were clear. Once he hit State, he’d jog left and see if he couldn’t disappear into the Printers’ Row area.
A great circle of white light stabbed out of the night sky, moving quickly, blowing away any and all shadows as it kept pace with the speeding ambulance. Another slash of bleached-bone luminosity appeared behind him. He leaned forward, craning his neck, and peered up through the windshield.
The tentative hope that had started flickering in his chest when he realized that he might just escape, sizzled and died as he saw quite clearly that he now had not one but two helicopters stalking him, with their immense spotlights burning a trail that a dead man could follow, leading the Strykers right to him.
Ed and Sam prepped for war.
They had the soldier’s pack on the table, loading it with extra clips, boxes of ammunition, even a couple of grenades. Both had climbed back into the suits, figuring they would allow them to blend in with the rest of the soldiers.
Sam slung assault rifles over both shoulders and stuck his Glock back into his shoulder holster, and a Beretta in one of the hazmat pockets. He just wished he could carry more guns.
Qween was still sleeping. She had found a quiet corner to gather herself, curling up and sleeping for a few hours. At first, she listened. Tuned into the rhythms of the building. The quiet hum of the air system. How it swayed slightly in the winds. When she felt like she knew the building, and had gotten comfortable with the muted sounds of the fifty-ninth floor, she curled up on her right side, pulling her cloak over her shoulder and ear. Her breathing stretched, grew slower and slower.
She was the first to feel the shockwave coming.
Ed and Sam saw popping, flashing lights bubble up out of Soldier Field, far to the south, and as the mushroom cloud of smoke roiled up and out of the stadium, the ripples from the explosion burst through the downtown streets, leaving dust and smoke in their wake. The waves rattled the windows and everybody flinched, but the glass held. The entire building swayed in the wash of the blast.
Sam whispered, “Holy fuck me.”
The smoke had an odd, shimmering quality, and they couldn’t tell if the smoke itself had these speckles of color, or it was reflecting something underneath. It had a sickly rainbow glow, like the way an oil slick in a puddle will split light into a filthy prism.
“I think the CDC just cut their losses,” Ed said.
Nobody wanted to mention Dr. Menard.
Tommy was slowing down to make the skidding left turn onto State Street when he thought he heard a sonic boom, as if some huge jumbo jet had just flown way too low over the city. The shockwave made the ambulance bounce a little, but it wasn’t enough to throw him off course.
Tommy took a right instead onto State on two tires, heading north. He straightened it out and the ambulance rocked back down onto all four tires. The damn searchlights wavered and spun away as the Apache pilots fought the unfurling waves from Soldier Field.
Tommy hit the gas and shot north on State, weaving through the sandbags.
CHAPTER 72
8:53 PM
August 14
Lee wished he had a big MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner, something bold and bright they could have hung above the doors on City Hall. Something that would tell people in no uncertain terms that Lee Shea was a man who got things done. Something he could turn and point to, something that would give his speech the big finish it needed. That would have been a shot he could see on the cover of Time.
He tried not to dwell on it. Phil had told him that giving the speech out in the middle of Clark would look fantastic on TV. He didn’t need the banner. “It’s a hell of an image,” Phil had said. “You in the middle of the goddamn street, with City Hall all lit up behind you. Now’s that’s a fucking shot.”
Phil had only written a ten-minute speech. They’d been planning on plenty of government officials wanting to share the spotlight, lined up to lap at the trough of success and show their face to the media. But nobody else had the balls to show up. Those assholes in the CDC. And the rest of the feds, shit, they’d pulled out at least half, maybe more, of the soldiers. And good riddance, as far as Lee was concerned. Every time you turned on the TV, all you got were those endless shots of the hazmat suits going underground, the soldiers standing around behind the sandbags, with blank expressions as they rode around on the top of those tank things.
In a way, Lee was glad nobody else had showed up to give any other speeches. He didn’t have to share the spotlight with anyone. It made the whole thing that much more fucking dramatic. Like it was just him, the only politician who cared about his city, his people. His face would be on the front of newspapers. He had been building to this moment his whole life, practicing in front of the mirror, answering all those shouted questions amidst the dazzling flashes.
And let’s face it, the only people who mattered at a press conference were the media. Especially the TV folks. Nobody read newspapers anymore. So when Lee decided it was time to get to the questions, he would start calling on them by name. He’d gotten to the end of Phil’s speech a while ago, but since the spotlight was on Lee and Lee alone, he had simply kept going. The spirit of the situation had moved him, and he was giving the people what they wanted. His words would inspire the citizens of Chicago. His words would give them hope.
Phil, the asshole, had been walking behind the cameras, making increasingly violent gestures to wrap it up.
It figured. Here was Lee’s chance to seize the moment, to spin the entire pandemic in his favor, and Phil wanted him to quit. Sometimes Lee wondered if Phil was a little jealous of his looks, of his success.
Kimmy was still standing next to Lee at the podium, still smiling, still keeping her brat under control, but he could tell she was getting tired of his speech. Bitch.
He was right in the middle of telling an utterly bullshit story about when he was a young boy on the family farm, and his grandfather was gently explaining the realities about the circle of life, when a deep BOOM reverberated through the streets and a sudden wind kicked up the dust and smoke almost as bad as all the choppers.
Lee stopped talking for a moment and wiped at his eyes, trying to dig the grit out of them. He couldn’t help himself and patted his hair, just to make sure it hadn’t been affected. Then, to camouflage the gesture, he touched his ear, as if he had a hidden receiver. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm. It is unclear at this time what we have just experienced, but I am being told that it is nothing to worry about.”
Phil was making angry slashing motions across his throat, but Lee ignored him and plunged ahead with his story. “As I was saying, my grandfather was a wise, wise man. He—”
Someone’s phone rang. One of the reporters answered it. Her hand went to the round oval of her mouth. She looked to her fellow reporters and said, “Soldier Field just exploded.”
Lee said into the microphone, “We have no confirmed reports at this time. I think we should all stay put until we receive some kind of confirmation or something. . . .”
But the media people weren’t listening. Everyone was packing up, hoping to get to Grant Park and get a shot of the devastation.
The Apache pilots asked no questions. No matter how they felt about the explosion at Soldier Field, they had orders. Bot
h of them regrouped in the turbulent skies above Chicago, then dove back down, using their FLIR systems to zero in on the ambulance. One of the gunners had everything lined up, both he and the pilot watching a bobbing, bright white vehicle in a high-res sea of green of the forward-looking infrared system. The images were projected directly into a monocular lens attached the pilots’ helmets. Aiming was achieved by simply moving their heads as they followed the target. The crosshairs smoothly tracked the ambulance, bouncing a laser off the target to guide the Hellfire missiles.
The gunners wanted to simply unleash hell on Tommy Krazinsky, whoever the hell he was, carpet-bombing the streets with everything they had, but the pilots had been given strict instructions to merely locate the target, and nothing else. And nobody wanted to defy Dr. Reischtal’s orders.
So they roared back down into the concrete and steel valleys, following the ninety-degree grid pattern of the streets and blocks, until they spotted the ambulance, and gave his location to the Strykers. “Target is fleeing up South Plymouth Court, on the east side of the library. Disable vehicle. Keep damage to target to an absolute minimum.”
The Strykers responded, “Affirmative. Six, two, out.”
As the Strykers rammed their way down parallel streets to cut Tommy off, both choppers noticed activity in the FLIR systems. A flailing mass of bodies spewed out of some of the buildings. The sea green screens flared with spastic, violent movement.
“That . . . that ain’t our guys,” one of the gunners said.
The pilots pulled back, and the rotors slapped against the humid, smoky air, dragging the choppers above the buildings to get a better view. All along the path of the ambulance, the streets were coming alive with lurching, running figures, as if Tommy was some kind of Pied Piper, calling to the infected.
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