The Twelve

by Justin Cronin

  The corridor ended at an elevator. A camera was poised above it. Whoever was on the other side knew they were coming; they’d been observed since they’d entered the hall.

  Hollis tilted his face upward to the lens, then pressed a button on the wall adjacent to a tiny speaker. “It’s all right,” he said. “They’re with me.”

  A crackle of static, then: “Hollis, what the fuck.”

  “Everyone’s unarmed. They’re friends of mine. I’ll vouch for them.”

  “What do they want?”

  “We need to see Tifty.”

  A pause, as if the voice on the other end of the intercom was conferring with somebody else; then: “You can’t just bring them here like this. Are you out of your mind?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Just open the door, Dunk.”

  An empty moment followed. Then the doors slid open.

  “It’s your ass,” the voice said.

  They entered; the elevator commenced its downward creep. “Okay, I’ll bite,” Michael ventured. “What is this place?”

  “You’re in an old USAMRIID station. It’s an annex to the main facility in Maryland, activated during the epidemic.”

  “What’s USAMRIID?” asked Lore.

  It was Michael who answered. “It stands for ‘United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.’ ” He frowned at Hollis. “I don’t get it. What’s Tifty doing here?”

  And then the doors of the elevator opened to the sound of weapons being cocked, and each of them was staring down the barrel of a gun.

  * * *

  “All of you, on your knees.”

  There were six. The youngest appeared to be no more than twenty, the oldest in his forties. Scruffy beards and greasy hair and teeth clotted with grime: this was more like it. One of them, a giant of a man with a great bald head and ridges of soft fat folded at the base of his neck, had bluish tattoos all over his face and the exposed flesh of his arms. This, apparently, was Dunk.

  “I told you,” Hollis said, kneeling on the floor like the rest of them, hands on top of his head, “they’re friends of mine.”

  “Quiet.” His clothing was a hodgepodge of different uniforms, both military and DS. He holstered his revolver and crouched in front of Peter, sizing him up with his intense gray eyes. Viewed up close, the images on his face and arms became clear. Virals. Viral hands, viral faces, viral teeth. Peter had no doubt that beneath his clothes, the man’s body was covered with them.

  “Expeditionary,” Dunk drawled, nodding gravely. “Tifty’s going to like this. What’s your name, Lieutenant?”

  “Jaxon.”

  “Peter Jaxon?”

  “That’s right.”

  Maintaining his crouch, Dunk swiveled on the heels of his boots toward the others. “How about that, gentlemen. It’s not every day we get such distinguished visitors.” He focused on Peter again. “We don’t get visitors at all, actually. Which is a bit of a problem. This isn’t what you’d call a tourist destination.”

  “I need to see Tifty.”

  “So I hear. Tifty, I’m afraid, is indisposed at the moment. A very private fellow, our Tifty.”

  “Cut the bullshit,” Hollis said. “I told you, I’ll vouch for them. Tifty needs to hear what they have to say.”

  “This is your mess, my friend. I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to be making demands. And what about you two?” he asked, addressing Lore and Michael. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

  “We’re oilers,” Michael replied.

  “Interesting. Did you bring us any oil?” His gaze narrowed on Lore; a smile, bright with menace, flickered over his face. “Now, you I think I know. Poker, wasn’t it? Or dice. Probably you don’t remember.”

  “With a mug like yours, how could I forget?”

  Grinning, Dunk rose and rubbed his meaty hands together. “Well, it’s been very nice meeting all of you. A real pleasure. Before we kill you, does anyone have anything else to say? Goodbye, maybe?”

  “Tell Tifty it’s about the field,” said Hollis.

  Something changed; Peter could sense it at once. The words fell over Dunk’s face like a shadow.

  “Tell him,” Hollis said.

  The man appeared stunned into inaction. Then he drew his pistol.

  “Let’s go.”

  Dunk and his men escorted them down a long corridor. Peter took stock of their surroundings, though there wasn’t much to see, just more halls and closed doors. Many of the doors had keypads on the walls beside them like the one beneath the pool. Dunk brought them to a halt before one such door and gave it three hard raps.

  “Enter.”

  The great gangster Tifty Lamont. Once again Peter found his expectations overturned. He was a physically compact man, with glasses perched on the tip of his long, hooked nose. His pale hair flowed over his neck, thin at the top with a crown of pink scalp beneath. Seated behind a large metal desk, he was performing the improbable act of constructing a tower out of wooden sticks.

  “Yes, Dunk?” he said, not looking up. “What is it?”

  “We’ve captured three intruders, sir. Hollis brought them in.”

  “I see.” He continued with his patient stacking. “And you did not kill them because …?”

  Dunk cleared his throat. “It’s about the field, sir. They say they know something.”

  Tifty’s hands halted over the model. After several seconds, he lifted his face, peering at them over his glasses.

  “Who says?”

  Peter stepped forward. “I do.”

  Tifty studied him a moment. “And the others? What do they know?”

  “They were with me when I saw her.”

  “Saw who, exactly?”

  “The woman.”

  Tifty said nothing. His face was as rigid as a blind man’s. Then: “Everyone out. Except for you …” He wagged a finger toward Peter. “What’s your name?”

  “Peter Jaxon.”

  “Except for Mr. Jaxon.”

  “What do you want me to do with the others?” Dunk asked.

  “Use your imagination. They look hungry—why don’t you give them something to eat?”

  “What about Hollis?”

  “I’m sorry, did I mishear you? Didn’t you say he brought them in?”

  “That’s the thing. He showed them where we are.”

  Tifty sighed heavily. “Well, that is a wrinkle. Hollis, what am I going to do with you? There are rules. There’s a code. Honor among thieves. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “I’m sorry, Tifty. I thought you needed to hear what he had to say.”

  “Well, sorry doesn’t cut it. This is a very awkward position you’ve put me in.” He cast his eyes wearily around the room, as if his next sentence could be found somewhere among its shelves and files. “Very well. Where are you on the roster?”

  “Number four.”

  “Not anymore. You’re suspended from the cage until I say otherwise. I know how much you like it. I’m being generous here.”

  Hollis’s face showed nothing. What was the cage? Peter thought.

  “Thank you, Tifty,” Hollis said. “Now all of you get the hell out.”

  The door sealed behind them. Peter waited for Tifty to speak first. The man rose from behind his desk and stepped to a small table with a pitcher of water. He poured himself a glass and drank it down. Just when the silence had begun to strain, he addressed Peter with his back turned.

  “What was she wearing?”

  “A dark cloak and glasses.”

  “What else did you see? Was there a truck?”

  Peter recounted the events on the Oil Road. Tifty let him talk. When Peter had concluded, the man moved back to his desk.

  “Let me show you something.”

  He opened the top drawer, removed a sheet of paper, and slid it across the desktop. A charcoal drawing, the paper stiffened and slightly discolored, of a woman and two little girls.

&nbs
p; “You’ve seen one of these before, haven’t you? I can tell.”

  Peter nodded. The picture wasn’t anything he could easily pull his eyes from. It possessed an overwhelming hauntedness, as if the woman and her children were gazing out of the page from someplace beyond the ordinary parameters of time and space. Like looking at a ghost, three ghosts.

  “Yes, in Colorado. Greer showed it to me, after Vorhees was killed. A big stack of them.” He lifted his eyes to find Tifty watching him keenly, like a teacher giving a test. “Why do you have a copy?”

  “Because I loved them,” Tifty replied. “Vor and I had our difficulties, but he always knew how I felt. They were my family, too. That’s why he gave this to me.”

  “They died in the field.”

  “Dee, yes, and the little one, Siri. Both were killed outright. It was fast, though you know the saying: Make it quick, but not today. The older girl, Nitia, was never found.” He frowned. “You’re surprised by all this? Not quite what you expected?”

  Peter couldn’t even begin to answer.

  “I’m telling you these things so you understand who and what we are. All these men have lost someone. I give them a home, a place to put their anger. Take Dunk, for instance. He may be imposing now, but when I look at him, do you know what I see? An eleven-year-old kid. He was in the field, too. Father, mother, sister, all gone.”

  “I don’t see what running the trade has to do with that.”

  “That’s because it’s only part of what we do. A way of paying the bills, if you like. The Civilian Authority tolerates us because it has to. In a way, it needs us as much as we need it. We’re not so very different from your Expeditionary, just the other side of the same coin.”

  Tifty’s logic felt too convenient, a way to justify his crimes; on the other hand, Peter could not deny the meaning of the picture.

  “Colonel Apgar said you were an officer. A scout sniper.”

  Tifty’s face lit with a quick smile; there was a story there. “I should have known Gunnar would have something to do with this. What did he tell you?”

  “That you made captain before you busted out. He called you the best S2 there ever was.”

  “Did he? Well, he’s being kind, but only a little.”

  “Why did you resign?”

  Tifty shrugged carelessly. “Many reasons. You could say that military life didn’t suit me on the whole. Your presence here makes me think it may not suit you particularly well, either. My guess would be you’ve gone off the reservation, Lieutenant. How many days are you AWOL?”

  Peter felt caught. “Just a couple.”

  “AWOL is AWOL. Believe me, I know all about that. But in answer to your question, I left the Expeditionary because of the woman in the field. More specifically, because I told Command where she came from, and they refused to do anything about it.”

  Peter was dumbstruck. “You know where she comes from?”

  “Of course I know. So does Command. Why do you think Gunnar sent you here? Fifteen years ago, I was part of a squad of three sent north to locate the source of a radio signal somewhere in Iowa. Very faint, just little scratches of noise, but enough to catch it with an RDF. We didn’t know why, the Exped wasn’t in the business of chasing down every random squeak, but it was all very hush-hush, very top-down. Our orders were to scout it out and report back, nothing more. What we found was a city at least two, maybe three times the size of Kerrville. But it had no walls, no lights. By any reckoning, it shouldn’t have existed at all. And you know what we saw? Trucks like the one I saw in the field just before the attack. Like the one you saw three days ago.”

  “So what did Command say?”

  “They ordered us never to tell anyone.”

  “Why would they do that?” Though, of course, they had told Peter exactly the same thing.

  “Who knows? But my guess would be the order came from the Civilian Authority, not the military. They were scared. Whoever those people were, they had a weapon we couldn’t match.”

  “The virals.”

  The man nodded evenly. “Stick your fingers in your ears and hope they never came back. Maybe not wrong, but it wasn’t anything I could sit with. That was the day I resigned my commission.”

  “Did you ever go back?”

  “To Iowa? Why would I do that?”

  Peter felt a mounting urgency. “Vorhees’s daughter could be there. Sara, too. You saw those trucks.”

  “I’m sorry. Sara. Do I know this person?”

  “She’s Hollis’s wife. Or would have been. She was lost at Roswell.”

  A look of regret eased across the man’s face. “Of course. My mistake. I believe I knew that, though I don’t think he ever mentioned her name. Nevertheless, this changes nothing, Lieutenant.”

  “But they could still be alive.”

  “I don’t think it’s likely. A lot of time has passed. Either way, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Not then and not now. You’d need an army. Which the CA more or less guaranteed we didn’t have. And in the leadership’s defense, these people, whoever they are, never returned. At least until now, if what you’re saying is true.”

  Something was missing, Peter thought, a detail lurking at the edge of his awareness. “Who else was with you?”

  “On the scouting party? The officer in charge was Nate Crukshank. The third man was a young lieutenant named Lucius Greer.”

  The information passed through Peter like a current.

  “Take me there. Show me where it is.”

  “And what would we do when we got there?”

  “Find our people. Get them out somehow.”

  “Are you listening, Lieutenant? These aren’t just survivors. They’re in league with the virals. More than that—the woman can control them. Both of us have seen it happen.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should. All you’ll accomplish is getting yourself killed. Or taken. My guess is, that would be a good deal worse.”

  “Then just tell me how to find it. I’ll go on my own.”

  Tifty rose from behind his desk, returned to the table in the corner, and poured himself another glass of water. He drank it slowly, sip by sip. As the silence lengthened, Peter got the distinct impression that the man’s mind had taken him elsewhere. He wondered if the meeting was over.

  “Tell me something, Mr. Jaxon. Do you have children?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Indulge me.”

  Peter shook his head. “No.”

  “No family at all?”

  “I have a nephew.”

  “And where is he now?”

  The questions were uncomfortably probing. And yet Tifty’s tone was so disarming, the answers seemed to spring forth of their own accord. “He’s with the sisters. His parents were killed at Roswell.”

  “Are you close? Do you matter to him?”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  Tifty ignored the question. He placed his empty glass on the table and returned to his desk.

  “I suspect he admires you a great deal. The great Peter Jaxon. Don’t be so modest—I know just who you are, and more than the official account. This girl of yours, Amy, and this business with the Twelve. And don’t blame Hollis. He’s not my source.”

  “Who then?”

  Tifty grinned. “Perhaps another time. Our subject at hand is your nephew. What did you say his name was?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Caleb.”

  “Are you a father to Caleb, is what I’m asking. Despite your gallivanting around the territories, trying to rid the world of the great viral menace, would you say that’s true?”

  Suddenly Peter had the sense of having been perfectly maneuvered. It reminded him of playing chess with the boy: one minute he was drifting in the current of the game; the next he was boxed in, the end had come.

  “It’s a simple question, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tifty regarded him a
nother moment, then said, with a note of finality, “Thank you for your honesty. My advice to you would be to forget about all of this and go home and raise your boy. For his sake, as much as your own, I’m willing to give you a pass and let you and your friends go free, with the warning that speaking of our whereabouts will not, how shall I put this, bring happy things your way.”

  Checkmate. “That’s it? You’re not going to do anything?”

  “Consider it the greatest favor anybody’s ever done you. Go home, Mr. Jaxon. Live your life. You can thank me later.”

  Peter’s mind scrambled for something to say that might convince the man otherwise. He gestured toward the drawing on the desk. “Those girls. You said you loved them.”

  “I did. I do. That’s why I’m not going to help you. Call me sentimental, but I won’t have your death on my conscience.”

  “Your conscience?”

  “I do have one, yes.”

  “You surprise me, you know that?” Peter said.

  “Really? How do I surprise you?”

  “I never thought Tifty Lamont would be a coward.”

  If Peter had expected to get a rise, he saw none. Tifty rocked back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers together, and looked at him coolly over the tops of his spectacles. “And you were thinking maybe that if you pissed me off, I’d tell you what you want to know?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Then you mistake me for somebody who cares what others think. Nice try, Lieutenant.”

  “You said one of them was never found. I don’t see how you can sit here if she could still be alive.”

  Tifty sighed indulgently. “Perhaps you didn’t get the news, but this isn’t a what-if world, Mr. Jaxon. Too many what-ifs are just a way to keep yourself up at night, and there’s not enough decent sleep to go around. Don’t get me wrong, I admire your optimism. Well, maybe not admire—that might be too strong a word. But I do understand it. There was a time when I wasn’t so very different. But those days are passed. What I have is this picture. I look at it every day. For now, that’s what I have to content myself with.”