“Are you in the Core?”
There was a slight hesitation, then Caroline said, “How did you know I was there?”
“A long and ugly story,” he said. “Are you out?” He’d caught the “was.”
“Yes, I’m out. That’s a long story, too. But I’m still in the Tenderloin. I guess I’m going to be here for a while.”
“Have you talked to your mom?”
“Yes, I called home first.”
“Where are you now? Where are you going to stay? Maybe I can get you out.” But he knew even as he said it that it would be impossible. They would not be making any exceptions with the quarantine.
Caroline just laughed. “Forget it, Papa, you can’t get me out. But I’ll be fine. I’m with Cage, and he said I can stay in Nikki’s apartment. He said you knew who she was.”
Again that word. “Yeah. Is she still alive?”
“No.”
He nodded to himself. “Tell Cage I’m sorry.”
“I will, Papa.”
And then he didn’t know what to say. She was out of the Core, she was temporarily safe, but she was still in the Tenderloin, stuck there for the duration of the quarantine.
“It’s so good to hear your voice,” he finally said. “We were…well, you know.”
“I’m fine, Papa. It’ll be strange for a while, but I’ll be okay here. You know how to reach Cage, yes?”
“Yes. Is he there with you?”
A few moments later, Cage came on the line.
“I’m sorry about Nikki,” Carlucci said.
“Thanks.”
“Listen, Cage. The Tenderloin is your home. Caroline doesn’t know it for shit. Take care of her, will you?”
It sounded as if Cage was laughing. Then he said, “You’re her father, all right. She probably doesn’t need it much, but I’ll take care of her, Carlucci. Don’t worry about her.”
Yeah, right. “Thanks, Cage.”
“You bet. Here she is again.”
There was another short pause, then Caroline was back.
“I’ll be okay, Papa.”
“I know. I love you, Caroline.”
“I love you too, Papa. And I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Good-bye.”
“Bye, Papa.”
Carlucci clipped the phone back to his belt, then looked back at the other cops. Vaughn was still watching him. He didn’t want to go back and answer Vaughn’s questions. Besides, he’d seen enough here. He turned away, and walked toward the rooftop stairwell.
30
CAGE AND CAROLINE stood at the edge of Nikki’s apartment rooftop, crowded in on both sides, leaning over the metal pipe railing and gazing down into the Core. The roof edges of all the buildings facing the Core were lined with people, like spectators at a sporting event, except most everyone seemed to realize that only disaster was coming.
The heat was incredible, and the acrid smell of sweat was heavy in the air, almost cloying. Below them, on the outer streets of the Core, the soldiers must have been roasting. Cage was surprised at how many there were, armed and armored, masked and gloved, some patrolling the outer perimeter, others manning the checkpoint processing stations that had been set up at the street boundaries and in the ground floors of a few of the border buildings. In the streets just outside the barriers, military ambulances waited, surrounded by more soldiers. Periodically one would pull away, lights flashing, heading out of the Tenderloin. Medical personnel were nearly invisible. And it was impossible to know what was going on underground—probably just as much activity, if not more.
He wasn’t sure why they were here, watching. No, that really wasn’t true, he realized. He knew why Caroline was here—in the short time she’d been inside, she’d developed an affinity, or at least a concern, for Cancer Cell. Maybe even the other people inside the Core. She wanted to know what was going to happen to them; she wanted to see what was going to happen. And he just wanted to be with her. Her presence helped ease the pain of Nikki’s death. Being alone made everything worse.
It was twelve-thirty, but not much had happened yet. The repeating message blaring out over the speakers had changed, now announcing that the army was granting an extra hour before they went in to remove all remaining people by force.
Movement below them slowed, almost ceased completely, and the soldiers turned to one of the buildings across the street. One of them gestured, and the message broadcast was cut off. Everything got quiet.
“Hey!” It was a voice from inside the building. “Hey, don’t shoot, I’m coming out. No one’s going to shoot, are they?”
“No one’s going to shoot you,” an officer said. “Just come on out and proceed to the checkpoint.”
A few moments later, a tall, skinny man wearing only a tiny racing swimsuit and sunglasses emerged from the building. He stepped gingerly, his bare feet treading lightly across the debris scattered all over the ground. He was a strange-looking man, his face deeply tanned while the rest of his body, from the neck down, was incredibly pale, glistening with an oily substance.
The man walked carefully out into the middle of the street, then stopped. He looked up at all the people on the rooftops, then raised both hands high above his head, grinning. Then he bowed, looked back at the soldiers, and said, “Take me to your leader!”
The soldiers approached, but didn’t get closer than about five feet from the man. They used their rifles to point the way, and escorted him to an open doorway in the building next to the one Cage and Caroline were on. Cage leaned out over the railing, saw the man stop near the door until the arms of people in isolation suits took his arms and pulled him inside.
Cage turned to Caroline and smiled. “Too bad it couldn’t all be like that.”
She didn’t smile back. “I’m worried about them. Rashida and Dr. Mike and the others. I don’t think they’re going to come out. I think they’re going to stay in there as long as possible, and then they’ll fight. And if they do that, they’ll be killed.”
“Probably. But it’s their choice,” he reminded her. “They could come out right now, leave everything behind.”
“Everything is right,” she said, her voice going hard. “Their work, their lives are in there.” She shook her head. “Rashida seemed to think that wiping out Cancer Cell was one of the goals of this whole thing.” She looked at Cage. “Do you think she was paranoid?”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter, does it? They are going to wipe them out.”
“Thanks,” Caroline said. “You’re a real comfort.”
One o’clock approached without further incident, at least not within their sight. They did hear a few scattered gunshots, but they couldn’t tell if they were coming from another part of the Core, or somewhere else altogether.
Then Cage felt a slight tremor. Brief, but noticeable. He looked at Caroline. “Did you feel that?”
She had just started to nod when there came a string of muffled explosions, shaking the building. Then another string, and suddenly, just inside of the street barrier at the end of the block, the road opened up and caved in, sucking in half a dozen or more soldiers. Smoke poured out of the crater, and a third string of explosions went off, these much louder, and more pavement collapsed, catching several more soldiers.
Shouts and gunfire erupted, aimless and pointless as far as Cage could tell. The Core street barrier was right on the edge of the crater, and he could see it shifting, the tall structure of concrete and metal and wood tilting forward. Then the ground beneath it collapsed and it crumbled with crashing sounds and clouds of dust and smoke.
It was getting difficult to tell what was happening, with smoke and dust billowing everywhere, and chaos among the troops, but it looked as if troops from outside the Core were forming across the street just behind where the barrier had been, determined to prevent anyone from escaping through the breach. But it was probably pointless; it was difficult to imagine that anyone could actually climb up out of the crater to make an esca
pe, and that would be the only way to get to the breached barrier without going through the Core troops, who were already pulling together. A group of them surrounded the crater, rifles aimed at the dark and smoking interior. Cage wondered how long it would be before they went in after their comrades.
Several objects came flying out of one of the buildings, hurtling toward one group of soldiers. When the objects hit the ground they burst into streaming sheets of flame. Gunfire followed quickly, which was immediately returned by the soldiers. Two explosions tore out huge chunks of the building. Someone screamed, then two more rockets or mortars struck the building, blowing a hole in the second floor. The gunfire seemed to intensify.
There was a cry on the roof a few feet away from them, and somebody staggered back, arm bleeding. There was another cry on the building next to them, and a woman pitched over the edge, falling five floors to the pavement.
Cage grabbed Caroline by the arm, pulled her back from the railing and down to the ground. “Stay put,” he said. “Don’t try to run yet.”
She nodded, and they lay on the roof together while most everyone panicked around them. Cage watched people stumbling over each other, trampling anyone who fell. When the worst of it was well past them, they crawled a few feet farther back from the edge of the roof and sat up, watching the mad rush. Eight or nine people were lying on the roof, writhing in pain, moaning. Christ.
“You mind helping me?” he asked her. “I’d better start checking them out.”
“Sure, whatever I can do.”
They could still hear gunfire and explosions from the Core, more sporadic now, but not exactly fading away.
“Did I give you the key to Nikki’s?”
She shook her head. He dug around in his pocket for his keys, unhooked Nikki’s from the ring, and handed it to her.
“I want you to go down to Nikki’s apartment. Inside the closet by the front door, up on a shelf, are a couple of med-kits. Those will have to do for now.”
She nodded again. “I’ll get back as quickly as I can.” She got to her feet, staying in a crouch for the first few steps, then standing upright once she was about twenty feet from the edge of the roof. She hurried to the stairwell hatch, and Cage crawled across the roof to the closest victim.
By the time night fell, the worst of the fighting seemed to be over, but the Core was in flames. Cage and Caroline were back on the roof again, watching the buildings burn; gunfire was infrequent and sporadic. It seemed safer now.
The army had announced that everything was under control, the quarantine and the Core secure; there was only a bit of mopping up to do. The CDC, too, had made an announcement, that all residents of the Core, and all those who, in the skirmishes, had risk of exposure to them, were safely tucked away in isolation wards on Treasure Island. Everything was fine.
But there had been no official casualty reports on the broadcast media; all that was reported was that there had been some injuries. There was no mention of fatalities. The street newshawkers, however, were reporting numbers, though they were calling them guesses or approximations. The number of dead soldiers and medical personnel was being given in the thirties and forties, with the number of injured going over a hundred. Unknown numbers of civilian dead and injured in the Core, and small numbers of dead and injured outside the Core from stray gunfire and explosions. The newshawkers had raw footage of bodies being pulled out of the craters, or loaded into ambulances; there was lots of blood.
Now, though, things were quieter. There were few people on the rooftops now. And with the coming of darkness, the army seemed content to maintain the quarantine perimeter, and had ceased their forays into the Core buildings. It was too risky now, anyway, with nearly all of them on fire. It was completely unclear as to how the various fires had begun, or by whom. Fire department trucks and crews surrounded the Core, and though they periodically hosed down the perimeter buildings, they did not do a thing to even slow the fires in the Core buildings.
“They’re going to burn it to the ground,” Caroline said.
“They won’t all burn to the ground,” Cage replied. “We’ll have some good hollow hulks left behind. Scarred and gutted, but with walls intact.”
“But no people.”
“No,” he agreed. “No people.”
“And no more Cancer Cell.”
And no more Cancer Cell. Cage wondered if anyone knew what the real repercussions of that would be. Cancer Cell had been a good source of black market pharmaceuticals, a cleaner and cheaper source than most others.
“Yeah. And all this for nothing,” Cage said.
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “This whole quarantine has been a fiasco from the beginning. This disease, whatever it is, isn’t confined to the Tenderloin, and it sure as hell hasn’t been confined to the Core for a long time, if it ever was.”
“Who said it was?” Caroline asked.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right, you were inside when all this came down. The CDC said it was. They claimed that most cases were confined to the Core, with possibly a few outside but definitely in the Tenderloin. Maybe it started, somehow, in the Core, but none of this,” he said, gesturing at the flames licking up at the night sky, “will do much good.”
“Then why do it?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re ignorant or stupid, or so afraid of the reality that they deny what’s going on. Or public relations, maybe, for when all hell breaks loose. They’ll claim they did what they could as soon as they could.” He gazed steadily into Caroline’s eyes. “And maybe they had other purposes. That’s why I said that maybe Rashida wasn’t being paranoid.” He shook his head. “The whole thing stinks. And they won’t be able to hold it together once word gets out that more and more cases of the disease are showing up outside the quarantine.”
“You’re pretty sure about that, aren’t you? That there are cases outside the Tenderloin.”
He nodded.
“But maybe the quarantine will confine the worst of it, make it easier to deal with the cases outside, keep it from spreading.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. How could he explain it? A gut feeling that was almost a certainty. He turned back to watch the burning buildings. “I wonder how many people are still in there.”
31
THE HEAT WAVE finally broke. Cool ocean air rolled into the city along with dark and heavy clouds, and it rained for two days. Temperatures plummeted, daytime highs finally dropping below eighty.
But the improved weather didn’t improve Carlucci’s disposition. The only thing he could do was his job. And for right now that meant Naomi Katsuda’s murder. Besides, he still believed there were connections between her murder and Cancer Cell and this impending plague.
But the damn case was still a dead end. Santos and Weathers had pretty much stopped working on it, not because of disinterest or even despair, but by default. There was nowhere else to go. The only lead now unexplored was Naomi Katsuda’s mysterious friend, who remained unfound. And that was something he could work on; there was one more way to go with it, and he was the only one who could. He hated to do it, but there was no other way.
And so, at eleven in the morning, with the temperature a pleasant seventy-four degrees, he walked to the stretch of Geary Street that ran between the Financial District and the Tenderloin. He stopped in front of a door inside a small alcove, narrow, carpeted stairs visible through the glass. On the glass, in gold leaf lettering, were two business names: LINDSEY TRAVEL SERVICES and ALICE BASSO, PHILATELIC CONSULTANT. On the right, mounted in the brick, were two intercom buttons, and Carlucci pressed one.
“Yes?” Alice’s distinctive voice, recognizable even through the crackling of the intercom.
“Hi, Alice. It’s Frank. Carlucci.”
“Frankie, my darling boy. Come on in.”
The door buzzed, and he pushed it open. He climbed the worn, dark g
reen carpeted stairs to the second floor, then walked down the short hall to Alice’s office. The door was open, and she had a customer inside with her.
The walls of Alice’s shop were lined with bookcases, and the bookcases were crammed with stamp albums, stock books and binders, and small file drawers. One bookcase was filled with catalogs and other reference books. There were also two long glass display cases, two tables, and several chairs. Alice’s customer, a man in his fifties wearing a business suit, sat at one of the tables, studying a stamp under an illuminated magnifier. Alice was sitting across from him.
She was closing in on eighty, and needed a cane to get around, but she was still a handsome woman. Tall and big-boned, with a beautiful smile and beautiful teeth, and thick silvery hair, she had a strong presence; her face was wrinkled and lined, but it suggested character rather than decay.
“Frankie.” She was the only person he knew who called him that, the only person who had done so since he was fifteen, when he had insisted on being called Frank.
Her customer glanced at him, then returned his attention to the stamps in front of him. Carlucci approached the table, leaned over, and kissed Alice on the cheek. “Hello, Alice.” He walked over to the one armchair in the room and sank into it, waiting for Alice’s customer to finish.
The man stayed another hour, then wrote out a check and left with a small envelope he tucked into a locking leather briefcase. Alice got up with the help of her cane, walked behind the glass cases, and put the check in her safe. Then she limped over to the padded wooden chair beside Carlucci and dropped into it. She never sat in the armchair because it was too hard for her to get up from it.
“I want you to tell me that this is a social visit,” she said to him. “That you’re taking me to lunch and a couple of stiff drinks.” She shook her head, smiling. “But I can tell from your face that this is just business.”
“I need to talk to Istvan,” he said.
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