Final Epidemic

by Earl Merkel

  Both men watched the door close behind her, and heard the sharp click of the lock.

  Cappie stood for a moment as if poleaxed.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. He looked at Orin, a helpless expression on his face. “Fuckin’women. She don’t know shit ’bout it, Orin. Hell—I don’t know shit, either. ’Cept that I’m onyour side, man. You know that.”

  “Somebody tipped the feds,” Orin repeated. “You got any thoughts about that, Cappie?”

  “Yeah, but you ain’t gonna like it. They went to the warehouse because they knewyou was workin’ there. They wasfishin’, man. Somebody pushed a button on some damn computer, and your rap sheet popped up. Uh-uh, Orin. If they’d been tipped guns was there, they’d of sent a lot more than four people.”

  After a moment, Orin’s own features relaxed.

  “The spic guy was ATF,” Orin said finally. The hostility with which he had entered had evaporated, and in its place was an attitude of casual calm. “When I got free of that fed bitch, he was inside on his little-bitty walkie-talkie yelling for help. Shit, I almost run right into him in the dark. Knocked the flashlight right out of his damn hand.”

  “I heard some shooting in there.”

  Orin shook his head in contempt. “I got out the back ’fore he even drew his gun, man. Heard him stumblin’ round in the dark. That musta been when the fucker knocked over the crate with the nerve gas.”

  Cappie forehead furrowed. “I heard he got shot by one of his own.”

  “Maybe. But by then, he was a dead man walkin’.”

  “Damn,” Cappie said. “Think I’d rather catch a bullet.”

  Orin shrugged. “Probably never knew what hit him.”

  “Too bad about the sarin, though. Coulda come in handy with the Denver thing.”

  “Yeah, well. Can’t cry over spilt nerve gas, huh?” Orin chuckled at his own joke. “ ’Sides, gotta figure it took down one fed. And, hell—we still got that other shit the Jap brought. Gets down to brass tacks, a little bit of anthrax goes a long way.”

  “You still good to go?” Cappie asked. “When you want to do it?”

  Orin pulled up a chair and settled into it. “Well, boy—what you say we have some of that beer, first. Maybe get a little shut-eye too. You still workin’ at that movie theater?”

  Cappie nodded. “Damn flu thing’s got it shut down, though. Don’t know how long.”

  “Good. Nobody’ll be around.” Orin thought for a moment. “Okay. We’ll use the movie place as a . . . a rallying point. Need to, that’s where we’ll tell our people to meet. I’m staying here till we do it, and I don’t want nobody to know where I am.” He nodded in the direction of the bedroom. “You keep her shut up about me, hear?”

  Orin put his feet on the kitchen table, and one hand curled into the pocket of his jacket. It came out holding what to Cappie looked like a small red-and-white labeled can. Orin set it on the table carefully.

  “Then—if you think Lubella’lllet you, that is—we’ll saddle up about noon, and go wipe out Denver.”

  Chapter 36

  Tallahassee, Florida

  July 23

  At first, Katie had found it rather exhilarating, racing along graveled roads and two-lane blacktops in a stolen pickup truck. She had driven throughout the night, trusting both to luck and the surprisingly detailed road maps J. L. had found in Carol Mayer’s vehicle. It seemed almost heroic—the two of them on the run, armed with a learner’s permit and dodging whatever authority might still be hunting them. She envisioned herself and J. L. as a latter-day Thelma and Louise, though far younger and more attractive.

  But the closer she got to her objective, the harder it had become to see the situation as anything but what it was. They were alone, possibly infected with some kind of germ that had already killed one of their friends and traveling through what had become a frightening, virtually lawless land. It got worse the closer they got to Tallahassee, when they traded the largely rural Florida landscape for the city’s outskirts. Soon they were motoring through what was an unmistakably urban area, its atmosphere one of tired neglect.

  For Katie, it was unfamiliar territory—progressively tougher-looking neighborhoods populated by progressively harder-looking residents. While few other vehicles were moving on the streets Katie drove, people were. The closer she got to the city center, the more crowds she encountered—first in knots along the sidewalks, gradually in larger numbers that spilled into the street. Some were profoundly drunk, others plainly predatory. One of the latter, a man with dirty blond hair and a Seminole tattoo on his bare shoulder, cupped his hands and shouted an obscene invitation as Katie motored past. Other men had similar notions, also appearing to find a pickup truck occupied by two teenage girls a focus of increasing interest. Katie found herself frequently cutting down side streets and alleys to avoid the growing throngs in the street.

  After a while, Katie no longer knew in which direction she was driving.

  The crowds were getting thicker where she now drove, and angrier. Debris littered the street, and once she had to steer around a brace of tires that had been set afire; sullen orange flames vomited an evil black plume. A bottle arched through the air to shatter on the pavement a few feet in front of her vehicle. A block or so farther down, the crowd had spilled from the sidewalks and completely blocked the street.

  There were no police to be seen.

  “Let’s get away from here,” Katie heard J. L. say in a tight voice.

  She turned left onto a cracked and pitted roadway, and a smile spread on her face.

  There, the distance foreshortened by the low perspective, was the skyline of downtown Tallahassee.

  Katie slowed, her attention momentarily fixed on the target finally before her.

  Distracted, she did not notice anything amiss—not until the chunk of concrete starred her windshield, a shattering supernova that peppered both of them with small rounded fragments and turned the safety glass opaque.

  “J. L.!” she screamed, her heart in sudden tachycardia.

  At the same time, the truck rocked to the side and something, a short length of pipe, smashed through the driver’s window next to her head. More fragments exploded against her, these sharper ones that stung into her face and neck.

  A muscular arm reached through the hole, fingers extended toward the key ring that hung from the ignition switch. Katie struck at it with a closed fist, seeing for the first time the other figures converging toward the slowly moving vehicle. A hailstorm of hard objects noisily dented the hood and sidewalls. She heard shouting from immediately outside her window, angry and demanding words that in her terror did not register as language.

  “Go, go, go!” J. L. screamed from beside her, and Katie jammed her foot hard against the firewall.

  The pickup lurched forward, tires squealing and raising a thick curlicue of smoke. She felt a muffled bang as something substantial hit hard against the passenger door and spun away; she barely heard the curses shrieked in her wake. Through J. L.’s window, Katie saw other figures sprinting toward their vehicle, and she wrenched the wheel back and forth to scatter them.

  The disembodied hand was now clutching frantically at the steering wheel, and Katie fought it for possession. It would not release its desperate grip, not even when the vehicle swerved sharply, bouncing over the curb and speeding toward the lamppost.

  There was a loud screeching noise—possibly the scream of metal scraping against metal, or possibly something more human—and the arm disappeared back out the window with a horrifying abruptness. Katie, too terrified now even to scream, cut hard back toward the street, leaning forward to peer around the spiderweb of the ruined windshield.

  And suddenly she was clear.

  Katie sped on for a few seconds before the realization rose sufficiently to smother the fear. She felt a rush of exhilaration, of triumph even.

  Oh, that dirty bastard,she told herself, her thoughts a disjointed ramble,he thought he could get to the key and h
e won’t try that anymore—

  Oh, God. I think I killed somebody.

  Without knowing why, she stood on the brake pedal, locking the wheels and again raising smoke from the tires. Then she ripped the door open and stood, breathing in rapid gasps and with one foot still in the truck.

  Thirty yards behind her, the milling crowd she had driven through still roiled like an angry storm cloud. People, some burdened by double armloads of clothing or expensive-looking consumer electronics, stumbled along the sidewalks. A tendril of smoke wafted from a shattered display window, and a flickering light fitfully dappled the otherwise darkened interior of the store. In the distance, Katie could hear sirens and the vicious, flat cracks of what might have been gunfire.

  Closer to them, a man lay facedown and spread-eagled on the sidewalk, a few yards past the crumpled half comma of the streetlight stanchion. Aside from a dark pool slowly spreading from under the figure, there was no other movement there.

  Katie stared in horrid fascination, unable to tear her eyes from the scene.

  J. L. was near hysterics.

  “Katie, get back in!” She reached over and pulled hard at her friend’s wrist, tugging until Katie finally climbed back inside the cab.

  “Keep going,” J. L. said. “We’ve got to get away from all this.” Her head swiveled back to her friend, and she saw the streaks of tears on Katie’s face.

  “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  Katie shook her head. She wiped angrily at her cheeks, both sides, with the heel of her hand. To J. L., it appeared that she shook herself physically.

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  Katie pointed to the dashboard.

  Near the fuel gauge, an indicator had flickered to life.LOW FUEL , it said in unequivocal crimson letters.

  “I’m going to try to get as close to downtown as I can,” Katie said. “Maybe there’s no rioting there; it might be safer. We’ll be out of gas soon.”

  “Great,” said J. L., trying to pretend that she had recovered from their experience. “Then what?”

  “Then,” Katie said, frowning in concentration as she peered through the starred windshield, “I guess we walk.”

  Chapter 37

  Columbia Falls, Montana

  July 23

  Carl McGuire was dying for a cigarette.

  At least, that’s what his doctor told him three weeks, five days, two hours and—he checked his watch—eleven minutes ago, following the annual physical examination required of all department heads in the White Bison County Sheriff’s Police.

  “Look at the goddamn numbers, Carl,” Doc Bartfield had told him. “Your lung capacity looks like hell. Another year, and you’ll be at the official disability level. And that is a half step away from having to pull an oxygen bottle behind you.” The physician snorted in disgust. “ ‘Taper off,’ my ass. Listen to me, and listen good. As far as you are concerned, smoke another cigarette and you will die.”

  So he didn’t smoke. For a man who barely remembered his childhood catechism classes, it was as close to a religion as he had had in almost four decades. It had as its central article of faith a simple dictum voiced by a high priest who carried a stethoscope. It had as its primary sacrament the foil-wrapped wafers flavored by Wrigley’s, with which McGuire celebrated communion frequently. It even had a demon bitch-goddess, sold twenty to a pack and omnipresent as a temptress—a profane seductress who was patiently waiting for him to commit the sin that would be, literally, mortal.

  And of course, it had a hell. Every waking minute of every infernally endless day.

  He told himself he could take it, would take it—even if it meant facing the devil of nicotine withdrawal every day for the rest of his life. He had taken it all his life.

  McGuire had grown up a tough kid—not so unusual in backcountry Montana, where the dream of every other teenage boy is to escape to the rodeo circuit as a bullrider. But McGuire had been exceptionally tough, even in that environment.

  A hitch as a Marine, where he had picked up three ounces of shrapnel as well as a three-pack-a-day habit, had only seasoned the already case-hardened leather of his character. He had come back to a job where carrying the badge often required him to exercise a judicious, if unofficial, violence. He could have been elected sheriff, or so it was said, if he had wanted to ride a desk instead of a cruiser.

  By the time that seemed a reasonable compromise, McGuire found himself too settled in his ways for the politics such a move would have required. He settled for an appointment as senior deputy, in charge of investigations, and told people he was waiting to see which would get him first, forced retirement or the cigarettes to which he remained wedded.

  It was a cocky performance, full of the bravura on which he had built a reputation for being a hard-ass. And it had all changed when, after Doc Bartfield’s pronouncement, he found out that he indeed did want to live—even if it meant living with the claws of his devil-monkey sunk deeply into his back.

  But McGuire had not spent a lifetime hiding from any of the devils he had encountered.

  And so it was that every morning of every day, before he settled behind the desk he now rode, McGuire followed a set ritual. Almost solemnly, he would remove an unopened pack of Winston cigarettes from his shirt pocket and place it within easy reach. Then, at the frequent moments of stress throughout the day, he would pick up the pack, think about what was inside, and replace it firmly back on the desktop—a devout act of faith not unlike that of a zealot handling live vipers.

  But his new faith had not brought him peace, a fact he had taken no pains to conceal. Since his Conversion, anyone who had the misfortune to cross his path had been fair game for energetic, sometimes blistering, abuse.

  Hell could not be avoided, but it could be shared.

  “Well, thanks for sharing that with me, Deputy McGuire,” Beck Casey said, looking across the desk at the county officer and wondering what he had done to piss him off so quickly and so thoroughly. “I just thought you may have known this Trippett fellow pretty well at one time or another.”

  “I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you,” McGuire said, not looking sorry at all. “And I apologize for the ‘son of a bitch’ comment, Agent O’Connor. Don’t usually talk like that, ’specially around a lady. Guess I’m a little edgy these days. Anyway, Orin Trippett ain’t from around White Bison County—hell, he ain’t even from Montana. The sorry bastard blew in from out east six, maybe seven years ago. Can’t say I’d be brokenhearted to see him go away on a federal rap.”

  He looked up from under impressive silver eyebrows, thick and untamed. “Agent O’Connor—you gonna be okay?”

  April touched the dressing that wrapped around her forehead. “Mild concussion, the doctors say. I’ve had worse headaches, Deputy.”

  “Glad I could finally get through to you on the phone.” McGuire nodded approvingly. “You sound like a tough lady. Had a helluva week so far, as I understand.” He turned and eyed Casey. “You too, by the look of it. Don’t guess you get much of this kind of thing—’specially since, like you say, you’re just a college teacher.” McGuire’s tone was bland, but his eyes studied Beck carefully as he spoke.

  Beck nodded. He shifted in the chair, his leg throbbing with a dull ache. The hospital had provided him with a cane, an aluminum model that made him feel foolishly conspicuous. He had left it in the Crown Victoria, preferring to limp along under his own power.

  “All of it related to Orin Trippett,” Beck said. “You told her you had a lead on him?”

  “Maybe. Like I said, he’s pretty much a newcomer around here. Fish out of water, so the son of a bitch worked overtime to pretend like he belonged.” McGuire shook his head disgustedly. “For a while, the silly bastard took to wearing an oversized Stetson and a pair of them cow boots with the extra-high heel. ’Bout couldn’t walk without falling.”

  Beck glanced at April, wondering where the conversation was going.

  “Anyway, he got
himself tied in with some good ol’ boys who liked to drink beer and cuss out the IRS. Called themselves a militia. Ever’ so often, they’d go off upcountry to drink and shoot off their damn guns. Pretty harmless bunch of peckerless yahoos, mostly. But not all of ’em.”

  McGuire pushed a file folder, dog-eared and covered with penciled notations, across his desk to his visitors. He opened the folder, revealing a stack of official-looking pages. Stapled to the top sheet were the full-face and profile poses of an arrest photo. McGuire fanned the stack like a deck of oversized cards, revealing other photos and rap sheets underneath.

  “These boys here, they’re the ones I kept an eye on.” He fished two from the pile. “Gil Sweeney. Bobby Touchette. Them two—well, I always figured I’d have to shoot one or the other someday. Bad apples, the both of ’em. They’re the pair that Agent O’Connor kilt two nights ago outside the warehouse. Did everybody a favor, my opinion.”

  McGuire leaned back in his chair. Beck watched him pick up an unopened pack of Winston cigarettes, toy with it for a moment with a thoughtful expression, then place it firmly back on the desktop.

  “So late last night, Agent O’Connor here called me wantin’ to know where maybe Orin Trippett might want to hide out. It’s vacation time, so I was fillin’ in on the late watch. It was comin’ on midnight, and I guess I’m turning into a fat, lazy bachelor. I remembered the damn old trailer Trippett used to own, and I told her how to get out there.”

  Carl McGuire shook his head, and looked as if he wanted to spit. “And then I went home, and had me my TV dinner. Went to bed right afterward,” McGuire said, looking Beck full in the eye. “I got a bad case of the guilts, sending the two of you up to that goddamn trailer alone. Hell, I knowed I should have gone along. And maybe what happened to the two of you wouldn’t have happened. I’m sincerely sorry, the both of you.”

  Before either Beck or April could respond, McGuire pushed a card from the stack. The attached photo showed a heavyset man with what appeared to be a permanent five o’clock shadow blue against his jowls.