Final Epidemic

by Earl Merkel

  It was a realization that might have depressed him, simply as a mature man; as a father of a teenage daughter, it left him feeling more than a bit like the worst kind of dirty old man. He was certain that he did not desire the romantic attentions of a girl-child, and not simply because he recognized both the complications and the inevitable embarrassment it would entail.

  His relationships with real women had been difficult enough, he knew; he had not lied when he told Alexi Malenkov that he did not believe himself a divorced man. After the decree, Beck had been surprised to discover that casual sex held no appeal to him; on the rare occasions he had engaged in it, the experience had left him empty and morose. In alarm, he had realized that celibacy was possible—perhaps even preferable.

  He needed no further complications to an issue that was, to Beck, already nothing less than perplexing. Having been unable to share his life, his secrets, his fears with Deborah, he found little hope that he could craft a bridge to any other woman.

  All this he knew. And still he looked, a bittersweet affirmation of something in himself that he had half believed was dead, or dying.

  A part of him envied the boys who attended these young goddesses—envied them the freshness and wonder and even the pain that each young Venus represented. But most of him simply wished them all well, hoped for them a fortunate journey to what a lethal virus suddenly had turned into an uncertain future.

  “They’re too young for you,” April O’Connor said, materializing as a dark silhouette standing next to his chair.

  “No kidding,” Beck replied. “You’retoo young for me, and some of those kids could be your—”

  “Sister,” April warned. “Kid sister, of course.”

  “Of course,” Beck agreed. “But they’re all the age of my daughter. Maybe a little younger.”

  April nodded, suddenly serious. “Have you heard anything?”

  “Haveyou ?”

  April colored. “I called Frank Ellis, Beck. He was not happy I’m in Alabama, but I guess we’ll deal with that later.”

  “Can he use FBI resources and pass the information to us?”

  “He’s agreed to do what he can. Katie is not on any of the quarantine zone lists, Beck. It’s pretty chaotic in there; she may have gotten out before the quarantine was declared. Or—I’m sorry. You’ve already thought about all the possibilities.”

  “Yes,” Beck said. “I have.”

  “By the way, you might have told me you were tight with the Russian government,” she said. “Ellis says that earlier today the State Department routed one General Alexi Ivanovich Malenkov—he is director of Russian state security, as if you didn’t already know—through Washington to Montgomery, Alabama.”

  “He’s still in the restaurant,” Beck said, “trying to decide between sweet and regular iced tea. He thinks we’re an item. I think he’s just eager to meet a G-woman.”

  As if on cue, an electronic buzz rose from the bag April carried loosely over her shoulder. She reached inside and snapped open a cellular phone.

  “O’Connor,” she said brusquely. She listened for a moment. “Thank you. No—I’ll come there, if you don’t mind. There’s a General Malenkov in your restaurant. Would you ask him to join Dr. Casey and me in your office?”

  She folded the phone and looked at Beck.

  “No rest for the wicked,” she said. “Looks like CDC’s tracked you down, and they know I’m here too. There’s a package of stuff waiting for us in the hotel office, so I guess we better look at it. You want to see what they sent, or stay here and leer at the young girls?”

  Before he could answer, he saw April’s eyes flicker upward and look past his shoulder.

  “I think you have company,” she muttered. “Somebody’s coming straight your way, and seems upset—the look you’re getting, you might want to borrow my pistol.”

  Beck twisted in the lounge chair, and looked up into the face of his former spouse.

  “Hello, Deborah,” he said evenly. He was determined she not see his surprise—nor the rush of pleasure that, to his astonishment, he felt at her presence.

  “You son of a bitch,” she replied. “Where is my daughter?”

  Her face was flushed and animated, belying the long hours of driving that had brought her to this place. She glared daggers at Beck, and for a moment it appeared she was about to strike him.

  “I don’t know—not yet,” Beck said. “You shouldn’t be here, do you understand that? You’re not going to do Katie any good by catching this virus.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Beck flared. “And that’s helpful too. Look—you can’t go into the Quarantine Region, Deborah. Even if they let you pass through the cordon, you don’t know where to look. There are people already there, trying to locate Katie. Let them do their job.”

  “I am going to find Katie,” Deborah said. “You can either help, or stay out of my way. Make up your mind, Beck. I don’t care either way.”

  Deborah walked away, her normally loose-limbed stride now stiff and angry.

  “I probably should keep my mouth shut,” April said, watching Deborah disappear into the hotel. “But nobody gets that angry if theyreally don’t care.”

  “I don’t know,” Beck said. “She looks pretty uninterested to me.”

  April shrugged. “It’s an act.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, she’sreally good at it.”

  April went ahead alone into the hotel manager’s office—a glass-fronted cubicle, really, though it had a door for the privacy she needed; Beck lingered in the outer office to await a tardy Alexi. The manager, unaccustomed to the ways of federal agencies, was eager to please: before leaving, he pointed April to a shipping box the size of a ream of paper, addressed to her and Beck and prominently hand-markedCDC :CONFIDENTIAL MATERIALS.

  The box was sealed, reinforced with strips of cellophane tape along the seams of the flap. April looked at it curiously. As Beck watched idly, April produced a small penknife, working the blade under the flap and neatly slicing the tape along the top seam. Then, seizing the loosened flap, she pulled upward.

  Through the glass of the window, Beck saw it happen.

  April stiffened, her eyes suddenly wide and staring. The box fell from hands suddenly clenched into claws. And then the convulsions began, even as April O’Connor’s legs collapsed beneath her and her body fell to the carpet as if poleaxed. A mad St. Vitus’s dance flung her limbs akimbo, and her head violently twisted from side to side.

  Beck rushed forward, had his hand on the doorknob when he was seized from behind.

  “Stop!” Alexi held him in a tight embrace, both hands locked against Beck’s chest. “Listen to me! We must get outside!” Alexi’s voice sounded peculiar, almost strangled. “Quickly!”

  “Let me go, Alexi. We have to—”

  He lifted Beck bodily and staggered backward until the far wall was against his back. Only then did he loosen his grip, and only long enough to push the door behind him open. Then he half pulled, half carried Beck through.

  In the hallway, Alexi slammed the door shut. “Your jacket,” he demanded, in the same tight voice. He ripped the light coat from Beck, tugging it violently off his arms. Then Alexi bent and stuffed it, hard, against the bottom of the closed door.

  “You cannot help her, my friend. And if you try to do so, you too will die in there.”

  The Russian gestured at the closed door with his head; to Beck, the movement appeared callous and impersonal.

  “Do not act the fool, Beck. You recognize the signs as well as I. It is sarin gas.”

  Chapter 43

  Montgomery, Alabama

  July 23

  Beck sat in the dark of the suite, trying not to think. His right hand held a plastic tumbler filled with vodka and crushed ice in roughly equal proportions. The minibar in his room, at least, was performing its task competently; it stood at the ready, waiting to fulfill any need he might encounter in himself.

  Hours before, after the FBI haz
ardous-materials team had finally decided the sarin had dissipated sufficiently to allow April’s body to be removed, he had stood in silent impotence as the double-sealed body bag was wheeled to the waiting ambulance. He had talked with Billy Carson three times, and Larry Krewell double that number. Neither man had anything to add or ask, nor orders to guide Beck. Both had now refocused their concentration on the larger decisions and actions yet to be taken.

  For the moment at least, Beck was on his own.

  The package, of course, was a fake. Beck had not been allowed to examine it—the concentration of sarin absorbed by the cardboard was much too high for him to handle it safely, they had told him—but the photographs provided by the FBI technicians had been sufficient. The pressurized tank, remarkably similar to a CO2cartridge for an air pistol and no larger than a Bic lighter, had been rigged with a simple linkage to the box lid. Both his name and April’s were block-lettered in heavy black marker on the otherwise unlabeled carton; the hotel’s address was accurate, even to the ZIP code. But there had been no postage affixed, nor any of the various labels that would have indicated a delivery by messenger.

  Alexi, peering over his shoulder at the photos, had said it first.

  “He was here, Beck—this man Ilya. He has tracked you to this place.”

  But for what reason, neither he nor Beck himself could envision.

  Unbidden, an image of April came to his mind’s eye: the gas hitting her, the sudden, horrible realization in her expression, if only for the split second before the convulsions began.

  He shook the picture from his mind, and drank deeply.

  Deborah had not answered his call to her room; like the majority of the other terrified guests, she might have checked out, left his life as abruptly as she had reentered it. He was surprised, then dismayed, at his automatic reaction to that possibility; he had not realized how much he still cared.

  Maybe,he thought,I ought to have another drink.

  As if to answer him, there was a quiet tapping at the door. Beck frowned. It was too late for a call by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and none of his neighbors had the appearance of people who socialized easily or well. He had half decided to ignore it when a voice, low and tentative, spoke his name.

  He opened the door. Even in the dim light, Beck recognized the figure who stood there.

  “All the lights were off,” said a voice that had once been familiar to him. “I wasn’t sure you were here. I’m glad you’re still awake. Or have you started sleeping in your clothes?”

  “Hello, Deborah,” he said. “Come in.”

  Deborah was dressed in a blue oxford shirt that was too large for her slight form. He wondered if it was one of his, though a darker corner of his mind suspected it was not. She had rolled the sleeves to just below her elbows. The shirttail was tucked into a pair of white shorts that emphasized her trim thighs. Many women might have pulled their hair into a ponytail to match the gamine look of the outfit. Not Deborah; hers fell in a fine ashen cascade that emphasized the compact beauty of her face. It made Beck remember how soft her hair had felt beneath his hands.

  She walked directly to the sofa and sat in a way that invited Beck to sit beside her. Instead, he drew a chair from the suite’s dinette set. He settled across from her at what he hoped was a safe distance for both of them.

  They sat in silence for a long moment as Deborah surveyed his lodgings. Before she could speak, he did.

  “Motel decor,” Beck said, trying to make a joke of it. “I’ve always wondered where they found decorators psychotic enough to take on the job.”

  She nodded. Beck wondered if she had noticed the vodka on his breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your . . . friend.”

  “I met her two days ago,” he said. “But yes. She was my friend.”

  There was a silence between the two of them that was not unfamiliar, but neither was it uncomfortable. Then Beck said the words both of them had been thinking.

  “We’ll find Katie,” he said. “I promise you.”

  “You’ve heard about this VIX thing.” It was not a question.

  Beck nodded.

  He had listened to the President’s speech from the hallway outside the motel manager’s office, while the technicians were still preparing to move April’s body. The chief executive had not tried to moderate the facts of the Hobson’s choice, nor attempted to sugarcoat the probable results: one in every twenty Americans would likely die if VIX was used, compared to at least eight in ten if it was not. He was, the President said, in consultation with other world leaders to discuss the international repercussions involved. But, he insisted, the decision would be his and his alone—and he would make it soon. Possibly, it had been rumored, within the next six hours.

  The message chilled Beck. There was nothing to say: it would either work or it would not. Either way, it sounded like less a plan than a desperate gamble—one that was guaranteed to cost millions of human lives. It redefined “acceptable losses” in a horrifying manner. VIX would intentionally create a lethal pandemic in its own right, “acceptable” only relative to the horror it was meant to combat. By any other definition, in any other circumstances, it would constitute mass murder on an unprecedented scale.

  “And those are the people you’ve chosen to return to,” Deborah said, and her voice was bitter.

  Beck felt his anger rise.

  “It’s not that simple,” he began.

  Her voice was mocking. “It never is, Beck. It never was.”

  He felt trapped, cornered—and furious, struck back.

  “Let’s talk about you, shall we? You look well—or is it ‘you look good’?” Beck leaned back, and pretended to ponder. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve always looked great, as I remember. Of course, I haven’t seen you in more than twelve months. Not since the divorce hearing.” Beck drew in a breath. “For a year, we’ve only communicated through lawyers. Suddenly, here you are, in my room. I have to wonder why.”

  She was flushed, and silent for a moment.

  “I want to apologize,” Deborah said suddenly.

  “For what?”

  “When I discovered that Katie was missing, my first reaction was to blame you. I had convinced myself that you were somehow at fault—that the whole damn escapade was something the two of you had planned.”

  Beck frowned, puzzled. “Why would we do that?”

  “To spite me,” she answered. “To keep me outside, both of you.”

  “I would never—”

  “I know, Beck. I know. But I don’t understand why she did this. Katie and I . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “What?” Beck pressed.

  “We’re all either of us have. And I think she hates that fact.”

  “She has me, Deborah. She has both of us.”

  “You think so, Beck. But both your daughter and I know it is not true. Especially . . . afterward. When they brought you back.”

  He felt it: the choking feeling he had whenever the horrific memories rose inside him.

  She looked up at him, and a sudden defiance was in her voice. “But it was only a matter of degree, Beck. Nothing was really new about it. For years, I watched you pull everything inside. Everything but me. Me, you pushed away.

  “Before Katie was born, I thought it was another woman. I wish it had been. Even that I could have understood. But do you understand what it was like for me to play second chair to . . . to adamn job ? I raised Katie alone, Beck.

  “When you disappeared over there, I was frantic. But I had a daughter whose father was suddenly missing. I had to be strong, even when no one would tell me anything. We didn’t know if you were still alive. Then, when you came back more dead than alive, I tried to stand by you—I did. But you still wouldn’t bring me inside.”

  “Deborah, there had to be areas I couldn’t discuss, secrets that—”

  “It was alwaysyour secret, Beck. They were all your secrets. Well, congratulations. Your secrets destroyed everything. They
destroyed us.”

  “When I came home, I—”

  “You never came home, Beck.”

  Deborah’s voice broke. She bent her head and dissolved in a paroxysm of wrenching sobs.

  It’s true,Beck thought, and the shame and horror again washed through him.Whatever love we had for each other had not, could not have, survived that collapse.

  He had no excuses, and understood that she needed none of her own.

  When she looked up, she had stopped crying. But the marks of her tears still glistened on her face.

  “I wanted to come here tonight,” Deborah said, “to tell you that. And to be with you.”

  She rose from the sofa, and stood over Beck.

  “This virus—don’t lie, Beck. There’s not much hope, is there? For Katie, or for any of us.”

  His silence was her answer.

  “We were in love once,” she whispered. “We were a family. Remember?”

  His voice was hoarse. “Deborah,” he said.

  “I need to know,” she said. “If there’s anything left for us.Of us.”

  Her hands dropped to her waist. In a moment, the shorts fell to the floor. Her body was as he remembered: fine and delicate as a girl, but unmistakably a woman.

  With her thumbs, she eased the remaining scrap of fabric past her hips, down her legs. When they reached her ankles, she stepped lightly out of them. The movement revealed her inner thigh, and more. The shadows and textures of her directed Beck’s gaze to her secret places, full and moist. He could feel the heat rise within him, and he swallowed with a throat suddenly dry.

  The cloth of Deborah’s shirt had pulled tight against her chest, vividly outlining her excitement. Her hands worked at the tiny buttons, impatient in her own need. Before Beck could speak, the blouse came away. Her breasts were small, rising and falling with each breath, and tipped with nipples that were hard and erect.