by Gary Glass
Harden signaled someone off screen and a street map of Juneau came up in another viewport on the wall. A series of concentric circles extending as far as the airport marked out distances from a red dot at ground zero, the Purple Pony tavern.
“The main primary care facility is about a mile from city center, outside the effective radius of the outbreak.”
Harden made an X on the screen.
“However, we’ve cut off power throughout the area covered by this map. The hospital is running on their own generators at this point. The local electrical utilities are now operating under military command. We have them restoring power grid by grid, working in toward city center.”
“All right,” Pritzker said. “But no one is going in or out of the main city anyway, right?”
“Yes.”
Harden quickly scratched several more X’s across the main roads leading into the city.
“We’ve set up barricades here, here, and here. The city is isolated. No one goes in or out. The Coast Guard is patrolling the channel and will interdict all water traffic. They’re also providing surveillance. We have other ships en route to provide logistical support if necessary.”
“How did Dr. Marley get out?”
“Colonel Benford was on the bridge where Dr. Marley emerged on foot from the city. She confirmed that he had not succumbed to the disease and let him pass.”
Pritzker’s huge face looked down at Marley again.
“However, the other doctor, who was with you in the saloon today, did not escape?”
Marley was annoyed. Was it really necessary to cover this point again? “That’s what I said.”
“You were there at the very center of the outbreak,” Pritzker said. “How is it that you seem to be immune to IDD?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did you see anyone else who was unaffected?”
“No. But I assume they wouldn’t have been out on the street.”
“Interesting.”
“That’s one of the questions we’d like to have answers to,” Harden said.
Pritzker turned back to Harden. “Yes, I’d say we would.”
“We have an approximate idea of the area of effect,” Harden said. “But we have no idea what percentage of the population within that area have been infected.”
“So what are we going to do to get the situation back under control? Are we in touch with the Juneau city authorities?”
“No, sir. We were in contact with the mayor’s office and the local police up until shortly after the outbreak began. Nothing since. Not even on the civil emergency channels.”
“What about the state government?”
“Nothing. We lost contact with the governor’s office as well. No one is answering our hails on reserved channels. And, of course, we’ve blocked all non-reserved channels.”
“Then are we assuming that all police and governmental personnel in Juneau have succumbed to the disease along with the civilian population?”
“I think we have to assume that is the case. Or else that there has been some kind of coup.”
“Oh, come on,” Marley blurted.
Pritzker glanced at him, but did not respond. He turned back to Harden: “All right. What’s next? The president needs options.”
After the meeting, Benford led Marley to the glass-walled conference room in the control center. Tyminksi trailed after, but she told him to wait outside the room, and closed the door.
“Sit down. I’ve got something to show you,” she said.
Marley fell into the nearest seat.
Benford tapped some icons on the tabletop. The glass walls flashed down, opaque. They needed privacy for this.
“This is a recording from a Wisconsin highway patrol officer’s dashboard camera. They videotape all traffic stops. This one was made yesterday morning.”
The screen at the end of the room flicked on. The camera was following the tail end of a car on an interstate highway. The right turn signal was blinking. The car slowed and pulled off onto the shoulder. The camera followed it to a stop and rolled in closer.
The car was a Mercedes.
“She has it.”
That was the first thing he said after seeing the tape.
Benford stopped the playback. The last frame sat frozen on the screen. The rear of Marley’s Mercedes was small in the distance, speeding away down the highway.
“Yes, and she gave it to the patrolman.”
Marley leaned forward onto his elbows, his head in his hands.
“Are you all right?” Benford said.
“What are they doing in Wisconsin?”
“I assume they’re trying to get here.”
“Where are they now?”
“Unknown.”
He lifted his head now and looked at Benford. “How did you find out about this?”
“Wisconsin police ID’d your car and tracked you to here.”
“This was yesterday morning?”
“Yes.”
“When did you find out about it?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Did you know about it while I was in there talking to Roger?”
“Yes.”
“While I was trying to get him to call Karen?”
“Yes. I got a call from the military police liaison this morning, in the car on the way to your meeting.”
“You knew before I got out of the car?”
“Yes.”
“Well fuck you, colonel.”
“I didn’t tell you because there was nothing either of us could do about it. It would have distracted you from the job you had to do.”
“Fuck you. You didn’t just not tell me about it, you lied to me about it. You told me outside the Pony that you’d only just learned about Karen. And you didn’t say anything about Ally. You knew Ally was with Karen when Roger was trying to call her.”
“I understand you feel manipulated, perhaps betrayed. I had to do it. I’m sorry.”
“Spare me. You’re not sorry.”
“I didn’t tell you about Ally because it would have distracted you from the job you had to do. And I didn’t tell you about Karen because Roger would have smelled it on you. He would have known something was up. You wouldn’t have been able to hide it from him. We can’t hide anything from these people.”
“He knew anyway!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. It’s obvious now from the way he was acting with that ridiculous phone. What was that charade supposed to accomplish anyway?”
“It was supposed to accomplish what I told you. Give you something to bargain with.”
“Well, it didn’t. He knew he was being lied to. Why didn’t we just tell him the truth? That his wife is on the way here to pick him up. That might have been an attractive offer.”
“Because we’re not going to let her pick him up, of course. And he’d know that.”
“Then what’s the point of letting him call her? What if she had answered?”
“We could have traced the call and picked them up.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, colonel! Why the hell do you care where those two women are or what they’re doing?”
Benford gestured toward the video screen down the table. “You just saw the reason, Dr. Marley. Your wife is actively spreading the disease.”
“Just what the hell did you think you were going to do about her? You saw what happened on the tape. Or were you planning to tranquilize her too?”
“I wasn’t planning anything. It’s out of my hands. She’s wanted by the police. I was cooperating.”
“Cooperating with a vengeance.”
Benford punched a finger on the tabletop and the video screen went black. “Dr. Marley, we don’t have time for petty grievances. I didn’t deceive you for personal reasons. Think about what you’ve seen today. An entire city has broken out with IDD in a single day. My little breach of your code of honor doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
> Marley felt so weary and confused. Being around Roger made him feel muddleheaded. As the day wore on, the fog had seemed only to grow thicker. Yet getting away from him, talking to the frightened and powerful bureaucrats in Washington, talking to Benford now, had done nothing but deepen the confusion, the unreality of it all. Where did the bullshit stop? Did it ever stop? Could it? It was self-replicating. It was like a virus. A virtual virus. Infecting the mind. Making the mind think viral thoughts instead of real thoughts.
He suddenly realized Benford was still talking.
“Are you going to be all right?” she said.
Marley leaned forward onto the table, holding his face in his hands. “The maddening thing about talking to Roger,” he said through his hands, “is that everything you say is a lie — everything that I say is a lie. He makes it all feel like a lie. Even when I’m not lying, I’m lying.” He looked up at her again. “Roger knows that most of the things we say are lies. We talk past each other all the time. Most of the things we say to each other on a daily basis are really meaningless. We’re just exchanging conventional phrases with each other, making ritual noises. We don’t think about what we’re saying. We don’t hear what other people are saying. We ignore each other and expect to be ignored. But he doesn’t ignore you, and he won’t let you ignore him.”
“OK. Now—”
“—Let me finish. And he has no guile. None of them do. They are without deceit. They aren’t trying to hide anything. They have no need to disguise themselves in ritualized utterances. Did you really hear what he was saying today? I didn’t. Did anyone? There must have been — how many people were listening in today? — Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’ll bet not one of them really heard what he was saying.”
“On the contrary, there are teams of analysts pouring over those recordings—”
“Analysts? That’s not listening. That’s dissecting. I was right there and I wasn’t really listening. Makes me wonder when was the last time I really did listen to a patient. I was too terrified to hear anything. Too distracted by all the shit running through my head. All the voices in my ear.”
Benford’s little smile flashed for a microsecond. She, of course, had been the only voice in his ear today.
“But here’s what I think he was trying to say,” Marley said. “These people have no selves anymore. At least not what we think of as selves. Not the kind of selves that psychiatrists think normal, healthy people should have. The kind of self-identity that has to be kept shielded by layers and layers of pretense and role-playing. That’s a very fragile kind of a self. So fragile we have to have a vast infrastructure to keep it alive. Psychiatry is a tiny part of it. Religions, entertainment, politics — it all works the way it does to keep your little self and my little self from discovering that we’re both absolutely full of shit. It keeps us dreaming that we’re really strong and healthy. In those terms, our terms, normal terms — bambies are egoless. Their ego-making engine has just completely run out of fuel. And they’re not going back for more. They’ve just decided to cut their losses and leave that worthless heap of junk on the side of the road.”
He stopped talking.
Benford did not respond. She waited a decent interval of three seconds then changed the subject. She punched the tabletop controls again and brought up the street map of Juneau that they’d been looking at earlier. Harden’s X’s marked the city’s choke points; concentric circles defined the containment perimeters.
“OK,” she said, “now let’s talk about what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
Marley stood up.
“No,” he said. “I’m beat. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’m pissed off. I’m going to find some food and go to bed. Good night.”
Benford glanced at her watch. “The President should be speaking shortly.”
“Good night anyway.”
Chapter 37
They failed to charm their way through a Montana border-crossing into Canada. Charm or no charm, Ally had no health certificate, and every border in the world was now closed to certless Americans. So they drove on west across the Idaho panhandle into Washington, where they scouted out a little-used crossing, bought a compass and a topographic map at the local forestry service office, and then Karen presented herself alone at the border gate with a story about being a microbiologist on her way to do some backcountry research, flashed her health card, and drove on through. Two hours later, as it was getting dark, Ally emerged from the trees with the map and the compass, and flagged her down as she drove slowly up and down a two-mile stretch of back road on the Canadian side of the line.
The morning sky was vivid blue. Juneau lay jumbled like a rock slide at the foot of the mountains. Long sinewy streams of water came falling down the dark mountainsides from the snowfields above.
Marley and Benford were back at the barricades in the middle of Douglas Bridge.
Out on the water of the channel, a long lean Coast Guard cutter stood beam on to the city, watching it, waiting. Helicopters thudded in the air, slowly drifting up and down the long waterfront.
The fat white cruise ship still lay there, silent, like a sleeping whale. The whole city slept. No cars moved. The streets had cleared. None of the watchers with their telescopes and surveillance cameras had seen anyone out of doors since first light.
To the left of the bridge lay the marina, full of fishing boats, their tall booms and radio masts slightly swaying. Flocks of gulls milled about the docks, looking for scraps. Not a boat had stirred from its moorings.
Marley put the comm bug in his ear.
“Check one, two.”
The communications operator nodded. A different operator than the night before. That one had not escaped.
Tyminski had started up a Humvee and threaded it out through the barricades. Now he got out and held the door open for Marley.
Marley climbed in behind the wheel. He felt ridiculous in it. Let’s play soldier. But at least he’d convinced Benford to let him wear civilian clothes.
She shut the door and reached over through the window to shake his hand.
“All right,” she said. “Be careful.”
He put the vehicle into gear and rolled down the bridge.
He drove very slowly.
A remotely-controlled video camera on the roof recorded every moment of the scene. Back on the bridge, Benford climbed inside the communications van and watched the feeds from that camera and from the various spy cams and helicopters. A dozen other officers crowded in front of a secondary bank of monitors on the back of the van. Washington eyes were watching too.
In the van with Benford was a local police officer, Sergeant Morris Adams. He’d been off duty the night before and did not live in the city. Consequently, he was now the highest ranking employee of the city government still in contact with state and national authorities.
Most of the state government was gone too. What remained of it had set up an emergency center of operations overnight at the airport north of town.
Only Benford and Adams could send on Marley’s comm channel, but everyone else was listening in. Adams was on because he knew the city.
He directed Marley to proceed directly up 10th Street, toward the mayor’s house.
Benford added: “Take your time.”
Left on C Street. Right on 12th. A few minutes later he was there. Benford told him to leave the engine running. Just in case.
He hadn’t seen a soul on the streets.
He got out in front of the mayor’s little bungalow. A half dozen sparrows were flitting around a birdfeeder on a pole in the front yard. It was a spectacular morning in a sleeping city.
“The mayor’s name is John Olsen,” Adams said. “He’s married. Two kids. Teenagers.”
Controlled by an operator in the communications van on the bridge, the camera atop the Humvee’s cab swiveled and watched Marley walk away, through the yard onto the porch.
He pushed the doorbell.
No response, no sou
nd.
He remembered the power was out, and knocked. His knock was tentative.
“Knock harder,” Benford said in his ear.
He banged on the door.
No response.
“Go ahead and try it,” Benford said.
“Be quiet,” he said.
He peered in through the front windows. The living room was empty. The other side was the dining room. Also empty. He returned to the door and tried the latch. It was unlocked.
He opened the door and pushed it in. It swung open into an empty foyer. There was a stairway going up.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“We should have fitted you with a head cam.”
“Yeah. That’d impress the natives.”
Marley stepped into the foyer, looked up the stair. There were dozens of family photos along the wall. He checked the living room on the right and the dining room on the left. All empty and silent.
He went on down the hall behind the stairs. Kitchen and family room lay at the back of the house, and a half bath and laundry.
“The first floor is empty,” he said, quietly. “I’m going upstairs.”
“OK.”
He returned to the foot of the stairs. The first step creaked under his weight and he jumped back.
Calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
He started up again, proceeding slowly, like something might jump out at him — or like a corpse was waiting to be found.
There were four doors along a short hall at the top of the stair. All the doors were open. He started checking them one by one.
Bedroom, empty.
Bathroom, empty.
Second bedroom, empty.
Master bedroom—
There they all were, the whole family, in bed.
Marley stood in the doorway staring at them.
They were all nude. Their clothes lay strewn all around the room. It was a large bed. The boy and girl lay between the parents. The room was filled with a soft morning light. The window was open and a breeze toyed with the sheer white curtains.
They were all asleep.