“But how do you know?”
He turned to her. His eyes were big, round pools of passion. “From the laws of mutation. It's inevitable,” he said. “Given the nature of mutation. And the span of time.”
“You don't think,” she said, “that we might defend ourselves with science?” She had reached a point, as most of his greeters did, where she wasn't sure if she was conversing out of professional obligation, interest in what he was saying, or personal attraction to him.
“Viruses are always changing. As we learn to fight them better, new ones appear. It's a race between the viruses and us. Viruses mutate and become different and stronger. We have to respond with new defenses. People talk about a supervirus — an unusually resistant virus. Such a virus is bound to appear sooner or later.”
He looked out the window. “Humans are overconfident and short-sighted by nature. We forget that our existence is fragile. What will it be like when the next supervirus comes? Two-thirds of the world will be killed. Or more. It would not be impossible that a virus could kill us all. With a strong enough virus, it could happen in weeks. Poof. The only people left would be tribes on islands. People in the middle of Australia. We would go the way of the dinosaurs.” He raised both eyebrows. “You've heard of the Neanderthals. Do you know they were a different species from humans, and they had the ability to talk? There was an apelike species on this planet before we were, a species that could talk, which went extinct. We aren't even the first ones here.”
She nodded. He had become passionate about what he was saying. He has gorgeous eyes, she thought.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he murmured. “We're more interested in the problems that we ourselves cause, not a supervirus. No one will believe the threat until it has arrived and it's killing us all. The only question is when the next supervirus will appear. Fifty years? Ten years?”
“It doesn't sound crazy to me,” she offered. She envisioned him living all alone in that big house because he was so smart and important, and the idea was so enticing to her that she felt a strong urge to jump him right there in the car.
He smiled, knowing that conversational skills were a part of her job description. His thoughts had floated back to the first thing she had said to him, about the kid. The smartest person alive? Nobody can do those puzzles faster than I can. Definitely not a kid.
THE PRESIDENT'S MAN
Cambridge, MA
19 hrs 24 min to Birth
At 4:40 a.m., Willard dozed off in his truck.
In a dream, he saw himself back at home, in his backyard, in the dark. He was in the same place where he usually sat, by the fire pit. It was dawning. There was no trace of Cartman.
There was a bear, at the edge of the yard, where the cleared part of the yard gave way to the surrounding woods. People always saw bears as vermin or killers. In reality they were neither; they were just animals. Even so, it was hard to look into a bear's eyes and not be scared. You had to remember it was an animal like any other animal. The bear was bigger; Willard was smarter; but they were not so different. Bears weren't so bad. It was nice having some other living beings around.
But it was hard not to feel scared, and he didn't know what the bear was up to. Their eyes met and he was certain that the bear saw him, even in the morning dark. Their eyes met and he thought, That bear could just walk across the yard.
And then he heard a shot. It was loud and close, far too loud for that time of the morning. He heard it and thought, Did I shoot that bear? He was trying to understand the dream as it went along. But he hadn't moved a muscle. So he couldn't have shot it. And he looked at the bear and it was fine. It didn't even run, which was quite unnatural, but he didn't quite notice that. And then he figured, It must have been me who got shot. There he was, staring at the bear like an idiot. He hadn't noticed and someone had shot him. He was dead.
He woke up. He was in his truck. Not dead. There had been no shot. But he had the same feeling he had in his dream, a tense feeling. A feeling that he was not alone.
There was a man across the street, near the house. A large, athletic man in a black suit.
The large man in the suit was looking into the windows of the house. The bottom-floor window was dark now.
Willard swore to himself. Of all the luck. He should have known taking the gamble wouldn't pay off. But you never really know which gambles are the right ones.
The guy looked professional. That indicated a couple possibilities. Maybe the man was a hired hand, like Willard. In that case, the fact that he was wearing a suit hinted that he was a complete idiot. An idiot who thought he was a badass, like in the movies. Unless, by an extremely unlikely turn of events, this guy really was a hired badass.
Go away, Willard thought.
The man turned around suddenly and met eyes with Willard across the street.
It was like his dream. Seeing that man was like seeing a bear in his backyard. It was far away, at the edge of the trees. But the first moment he saw the bear it was looking at him. He was certain the bear saw him, even from across the yard. Their eyes met and he thought, That bear could just walk across the yard. Like that man. That man could just walk on over.
That guy wasn't a bear, but something about him was not human. He was something worse. A machine, Willard thought. A professional in the name of something heartless. A machine. He worked for the government or for money or something...but there was nothing behind those eyes.
Willard's gun was in his hand. I'm not going to shoot him, of course, he thought. But he had to have his gun out, he figured. If he didn't have it ready, the guy could draw his own gun first. And he was stuck in the car.
The man started walking to the street.
“Stop,” he said to the man. His voice cracked, and the word didn't come out as loud as he intended. The man didn't break his stride. “Stop,” he said louder.
He'd have to take his gun out.
The man skirted around the front of a car and started crossing the street. He was close now.
Willard stuck his Glock out of the window at the man.
“Stop,” he said.
But the man jumped toward him, in an arc, like a bullfighter, out of the way of Willard's Glock. The man's arms were up in the air, and they swung down on Willard's wrist above the Glock.
Willard squirmed in his seat, trying to point the Glock at the man. The man's hands crushed Willard's wrist on the windowsill of the car door. Willard was squeezing the trigger on his Glock now. He fired off a few desperate shots into whatever direction the gun was in. With the silencer on, they sounded pathetic and useless. There was a sound of a shot hitting metal.
Willard yelped in pain. His hand opened, and the Glock fell to the ground.
The man came forward into the window. Willard's right arm was pinned under the man's weight. Gritting his teeth, Willard raised his left arm in defense of his head. The man was coming for his neck or face, he figured. This is it, Willard thought. His eyes closed instinctively.
But nothing happened. His face wasn't smashed.
Willard opened his eyes. The man slumped forward over the windowsill, and his face fell forward, almost dropping into Willard's lap. He was spitting and coughing.
As Willard watched, the man's body started to slide down the side of the truck, pulling the top half of the body after it. The body fell onto the pavement with a thud, and the man's head landed with a hollow clap.
Willard looked around. No one else was on the street. No lights were on in the windows. No doors were open. How much noise had they made? He wasn't sure. There had been shots, but only with his silencer. He wasn't sure if he had shouted.
He lifted his right arm off the windowsill and inhaled with pain.
(Oh my God that hurts did he break my hand?!)
With his left hand, he braced the arm and raised it gingerly. He popped the door open and stumbled out.
He almost stepped on the man. The man was facing up, eyes open.
Willard shivered. H
e was a tough guy, but he had never shot a person before. How did this happen?
He bent down. The guy was a big man. Blood on the man's white shirt revealed that Willard had shot him several times in the torso. The man was utterly still. Dead, or dying.
He swore. Crouching over the body, he looked at his watch. Almost five in the morning. People would be leaving for work soon. He had to do something with this body.
He stood up and directed himself to the bed of his truck. There was a lot of crap in the truck bed. I'll put him in here.
But his hand. He looked at it. It looked normal. He tried to squeeze it into a fist. (Oh my God that's broken!) Okay: squeezing into a fist was not happening. He tried rotating it slightly back and forth. He could do that, but it sent shots of pain up his forearm. He wasn't really certain whether it was broken. It felt broken. Perfect timing, he thought. I can take my broken hand to the hospital and drag my dead friend in with me.
He used his left arm to push and toss boxes and bags to the far side of the truck bed, clearing a space. He shook out a big blue tarp and laid it out in the empty space. He tried using his right hand with the tarp but winced with pain. (Broken.)
He turned back to the body and squatted next to it. The pavement was partly covered with ice and snow. Willard slid his left arm under the man's body. Then, with a violent push of his legs and a strain of his lower back, he managed to stand himself up. He sagged under the weight of the man in the suit.
He looked at the truck. The man in the suit had to go up over the side into the truck bed.
With a dramatic spin, Willard gathered momentum and lifted the man in the suit in an arc. He finished at the side of the truck. The man's body smashed into the side of the truck loudly with a THONG, hung in the air against the truck for a long moment, and crumpled back to the ground.
The body was back on the pavement. He swore. Picking up the body was tough with one arm.
He was going to have to use his right hand. He would do it quickly. He inhaled and prepared himself for a world of pain.
He grabbed the body under the shoulders. He roughly hoisted up the body, grunting. His arm buckled under the pain. With a violent push he sent the body over the side of the truck.
(BROKEN! IT'S BROKEN!)
Thud. The body landed in the truck bed. The man's arm was flopped over the side, hanging out. He flipped the arm into the truck bed, hopped in pain, and sat down on the pavement. (Ow ow ow ow ow ow.)
The ice on the street was bloody. He looked over: his truck door was smeared with blood.
He stood up and reached into the truck bed. Flipping the body over a few times as it lay on the blue tarp, he managed to take off the man's jacket. Using the jacket, he wiped down the door to the truck. That worked okay. He tried wiping the ground. That didn't work as well: there was still red ice.
The man's jacket crunched as he used it to wipe. There was something inside the jacket. He looked in the pocket and found a folded sheaf of papers. He took out the papers, tossing the coat back into the truck bed. He unfolded the papers.
CLASSIFIED
Active: December 28
Expires: December 29
OFFICE OF DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS
The Office of Distributed Operations is a clandestine joint operation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the President.
By the authority vested in this operation and its member organizations, it is hereby ordered as follows: the holder of these Documents is to be granted the authority to detain any individual on a temporary basis, up to a maximum of twelve hours.
1. All authority should be granted to the holder of these Documents as required for the completion of his orders of temporary detainment.
2. Authority should be granted upon the presentation of these papers, provided that they are intact with a hologram seal, and the date of presentation is previous to the Expires Date listed above.
3. The temporary detainment shall end at the end of twelve hours or upon the arrival of a representative from a member organization of the Office, who may make a formal charge against the detainee.
4. The detainee has a right to call local law enforcement so that they may validate the authenticity of the papers.
5. Between 24 and 30 hours after the presentation of these documents, individuals presented with these documents are ordered to call the contact number below to give a description of the bearer of the papers and of the encounter. This procedure ensures the integrity of the documents and the mission.
You have got to be kidding me. Are they going to come after me?
6. Anyone finding these Documents separated from their proper owner are ordered to call the contact number below to report the existence of these papers.
7. Public disclosure of the existence of these Documents or of the identity of their holder, as well as misrepresentation of these Documents in any form, shall be punishable as treason.
It was signed and dated by the Director of Distributed Operations.
Willard rubbed his thumb dumbly over the seal on the page. He swore a few times to himself.
I killed a Secret Service agent. Or something like a Secret Service agent. He wasn't sure exactly what he was reading. He scanned the first paragraph again: The Office of Distributed Operations. One of the President's personal buddies. Somehow he had a feeling that a self-defense story for killing one of the President's best friends wasn't going to hold up too well in court. Now he was carrying papers that the White House tracked 24 to 30 hours after the fact.
Headlights lit him up. The side of his white truck was bright in the headlights. A car was driving toward him.
He froze. The car drove by. It turned off the street.
He looked around. He didn't look so unusual, right? He was a guy standing by his truck, reading some papers. Oh yeah, there was the Glock on the ground. He picked up the Glock and tossed it into the truck.
He folded the papers and put them in his pocket.
He looked back in the truck bed. He checked the man's pockets. There were several $100 bills. Looked like about a thousand bucks. And there was a gun. No wallet, no identification.
He folded the sides of the tarp over the man. He grabbed several of his heavier boxes and bags and tossed them on top of the tarp. The man was buried now. He wondered whether the body would smell. It was cold out. Hopefully, it would freeze.
He got back in the passenger seat of the truck and closed the door.
He looked at the house. It was as if nothing had happened. Mission accomplished. Except actually some things had happened. Dawn was coming. Maybe his payoff would show up, and he would get his money. But he had killed a guy and was now a traitor against the United States in a variety of ways apparently. He had gambled big, like he always did, and he had lost big. He had lost really, really big.
I'm going to have to leave the country, he thought. He had to collect his big bonus and get the hell out of the country. He could use these papers if he had trouble at the border. It would explain his large quantities of cash and guns. And he would never come back. Canada. Talk about going off the grid. They'd lag 24 hours behind him, so he had 24 hours to escape. He didn't feel he had any choice.
The payoff was supposed to arrive in two or three hours. After the payoff, he was going to take a road trip.
MEETING FLANNIGAN
Boston, MA
16 hrs 8 min to Birth
The redeye from L.A. pulled into Logan Airport on time. Rob and Jared disembarked in wrinkled business attire. Rob got on his phone with Dee as they proceeded to baggage claim. He was going through his schedule and email with her.
As they entered baggage claim, Rob hung up. “Sarah Flannigan, the psychologist, is going to meet us here and we'll get our car. Then we head to the kid's house. I'll fill in Flannigan on the way. You try to get the kid on chat and get his address.”
“Sounds good.”
“We can go light on
the details at first. No need to get her too excited about the kid.”
They spotted a sign: RICE. It was being held by their driver, a young woman with short spikey red hair and boyish features. They walked up to her.
“Rob Rice?” she asked.
“Yup,” he declared. “Now all we need is Flannigan.”
Jared was intrigued to meet Flannigan. On the plane, Rob had mentioned that he and the psychologist had some personal history. For the moment, as important as the kid was, both of their minds were on a different sort of opportunity.
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