Contagious

Dew nodded. “Sugar, I’ve done this while people were trying to kill me. I’ve done it to myself while people were trying to kill me. This here is just a little ol’ barroom brawl cut. Where did you learn to punch like that?”

“Boxercise,” Margaret said. “I’ve never actually hit anyone in my life.”

Dew nodded again. “You go over my head and you’re out,” he said as he made the second st.i.tch. “It’s not a threat to say you’ll be put in solitary confinement until this thing is all over. I say it’s not a threat because I know you don’t care about punishment or p.i.s.sing anyone off.”

“I don’t.”

Dew made a third st.i.tch. “Still, that’s what will happen. You’ll be off the case and someone else will take over. Maybe that Doctor Chapman fella, maybe your old buddy Doctor Cheng.”

Dew made the fourth st.i.tch, then looked her in the eyes. His face was only a few inches from hers. She felt his hands moving—he was tying off the st.i.tch by feel alone.

“Whoever it is, they won’t know as much as you, Margaret. They’re going to have to spend time catching up, time we don’t have. And they will probably miss something that could make all the difference.”

She looked away. He was right.

“We don’t know what’s coming through those gates,” Dew said. “But whatever it is, it would already have come through if it wasn’t for you. Thanks to your weather theory, we may even find the source of infection. If it’s a satellite, we might be able to shoot it down. That’s because of you. Margaret—we can’t do this without you.”

“But Dew, that woman... it’s going to he horrible.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, it will. But we need to know. You’re playing in the big leagues now, and part of the game at this level is knowing when you have to make a sacrifice.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Margaret said. “This is what you’re good at, right?”

Dew smiled. It was a smile full of bitterness.

“Among the best, I’m told. Kind of a dubious honor. Look, Doc, no matter what you say, what you do, or who you talk to, Bernadette Smith is going to die. All you can do is put up a useless protest and be pulled off the project. You get to keep your integrity, but at what

She did understand. Any protest would just be ignored, accomplish nothing—the Murray Longworth machine would roll over her. Things would continue, only less effectively. And as much as it made her hate herself, she wasn’t going to let a wasted gesture take her off this project.

“I get it,” she said.

“If you think Gutierrez is making this call on a whim, if you think it’s easy for Otto and me to execute it, then you’re a fool. I hope you never have to make a call like this, Margaret. But if you do, you just remember—is one life worth the lives of hundreds? Of thousands?”

“We don’t know that sacrificing Bernadette Smith is going to save hundreds of lives. Or even one life.”

Dew nodded. “Exactly. We don’t know, and that’s why a decision like this is such a mindf.u.c.k.”

He stood up and started repacking the first-aid kit. Her hand was already bandaged. She hadn’t even felt it. Had a few different cards been dealt, Dew Phillips could have been a world-cla.s.s surgeon.

He started to walk out, then turned to face her. “So shall I get Doctor Chapman to run things, or will you do your job?”

She hated him. She hated him more than she thought it possible to hate a human being, and almost as much as she hated Clarence Otto.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

That bitter smile again.

Dew Phillips walked out of the control room, leaving Margaret alone to think about the coming nightmare.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Colonel Charlie Ogden stood in the command tent, looking over the maps and satellite photos spread across a central table. Corporal Cope sat on a stool. He had the forward-leaning posture of a bird of prey, waiting to pounce on Ogden’s next order.

Ogden wondered if he’d get even his customary four hours of sleep that night. Probably wasn’t time for it. And if he couldn’t sleep, neither could Corporal Cope. Poor guy. But Cope was a young man; he didn’t really need sleep. Sleep was for p.u.s.s.ies.

Ogden checked his watch: 2130.

“Corporal.”

“Yes sir?”

“Any word from Doc Harper about private Climer?”

“Nothing yet, sir,” Cope said.

“How long ago was Harper in here?”

“About twelve hours, Colonel.”

“How long does it take to wake up from being shot in the f.u.c.king shoulder?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Cope said. “I can look it up online if you like.”

“It was a rhetorical question, Corporal.”

“Yes sir.”

Maybe the kid did need some sleep after all.

“Corporal, any hits from the satellite search?”

“No sir,” Cope said. “I’m all over them, as you requested. I’m on a first-name basis with the squints now, sir, although the name they have for me when they take my calls every fifteen minutes isn’t Jeff, if you know what I mean.”

The squints were annoyed with thoroughness? Well, f.u.c.k ’em. They weren’t on the front lines.

Ogden sipped lukewarm coffee, staring, thinking. He’d expanded the search area, applied every available resource, and still no sign of a gate. All the previous outbreaks had resulted in a construct somewhere within about a hundred miles. Granted, a hundred-mile radius made for a huge area, but they had dozens of air a.s.sets and dedicated satellite coverage. If something was there, they should have found it.

What really worried him, however, was the Jewell family. Ogden had no doubt the Jewells were at least partially responsible for the deaths of his men. Thus far the APB hadn’t turned up a thing.