Trace sucked in his breath and nodded. He leaned forward and rested his lips on Pete’s cooled forehead, then reached over and gently closed Pete’s eyelids.
Isabella’s scream, once it came, surged. It pulsated. It rocketed around the room, echoing off the walls.
Trace leaned over and pulled Isabella into his arms, holding her back as she tried to throw herself onto Pete.
She tried to push Trace away, but he held on.
Then, just as suddenly as she’d screamed and struggled against Trace’s restraint, she shut down, became silent, collapsing in complete surrender into Trace’s arms.
Trace noticed movement from the corner of his eye, and turned toward it. Nanna stood leaning against the door frame, the knuckles on one hand plugging her mouth.
She looked into Trace’s eyes.
Trace slowly nodded, then looked away.
Nanna groaned. Then she stumbled over to Trace and Isabella and put her arms around them, pulling them close into her. She dropped her head down until her cheek rested on the back of Isabella’s head, cushioned by Isabella’s soft hair.
Nanna cried softly.
Trace and Isabella sat in Pete’s room staring at his corpse. No one said anything. Each kept a personal vigil over Pete’s body.
Trace glanced at Nanna. Her eyes were closed. Tears ran down her cheeks. He turned to Isabella.
“Bella, we need to talk,” he said, nodding his head toward the door. “Let’s go into our bedroom.”
In the bedroom, Trace sat close to Isabella and took her hand. He told her about the strict, unpleasant burial requirements he’d heard about when listening to one of Derek Peterson’s television broadcasts.
Isabella looked at him as if he’d just dropped in from another planet. She shook her head.
“Absolutely not. I won’t allow it,” she said in a quiet, but resolute tone. “Our son will not be cremated and his remains scattered in a mass, anonymous grave. I will not permit it.”
She turned her back to Trace.
Twenty minutes later, when they were back in Pete’s room, Trace knew that time was making inroads into Isabella’s resolve. Her gaze gradually drifted from Pete’s body to Trace, from Trace to Nanna, and from Nanna back to Pete.
Still, she said nothing.
After a while Trace said, “Bella, I don’t want this either, but we have no choice.”
Nanna moved over to her daughter. She took her hand in both hers, and slowly raised them to her heart.
“Bella, Honey,” she said. “Trace is right. He told me about this before. We have no choice. It’s not just us, it’s everyone. Please, Bella, just make the best of this horrible situation. Let Trace make the call to the authorities.”
She squeezed Isabella’s hand. “Please, Bella.”
Isabella didn’t say anything. She pulled her hand away from her mother’s hands and stood up. She looked at Nanna and then at Trace. She turned back to Pete, bent over him and kissed his waxy forehead. Then she straightened up and turned to Trace.
She nodded once, turned away, and walked out of the room.
Trace watched Isabella walk across the hall and into their bedroom. He watched as she closed the door.
“Nanna, go stay with Bella. I’ll make the call.”
CHAPTER 45
Quarantine
Day 16
General Vista stared at the stack of seven manila file folders he’d just finished reading, rereading, sorting, and re-sorting.
Each file contained a dossier on an individual who was present in the Quarantine Zone and who, after having registered, had been profiled and flagged by the Pentagon’s Cray Supercomputer as a person likely to become a leader of some vigilante movement within the Quarantine Zone. This determination was based on the Cray’s profile of the characteristics of such an individual and from other information uncovered by the Cray about each registrant as a result of its data mining efforts.
Of the seven files, two seemed to General Vista to deserve ranking in positions most likely and next most likely, as positions one and two. Or maybe positions one and one, without having a number two slot, he thought.
He couldn’t decide, and the Cray could not help him with this aspect of the process. Instinct, he thought, is what’s needed now, not binary numbers.
He pushed the intercom button and called in his major.
“Take these two files,” he said, “and pick up these men. Bring them in for questioning.”
General Vista thought about the two candidates he’d ordered picked up.
One file described an individual who had led a riot in state prison. The governor later pardoned him because he’d saved many lives, at great personal risk, during a subsequent, unrelated fire following an electrical-caused explosion.
This guy, Vista thought, certainly begs for close scrutiny.
The other file irritated Anthony Vista. It dredged up painful memories of his rejection by the Special Forces.
This file described a man named Trace Austin who had been a member of the elite Navy SEALs, a man who had been decorated for courage demonstrated during OPERATION JUST CAUSE in Panama when his chopper had been shot down and he saved two of his three trapped teammates by pulling them from the burning helicopter. The file also indicated that Austin had unexpectedly quit the SEALs soon after.
Austin, Vista thought, was a man who had abandoned his teammates, his brothers, and his country by quitting the SEALs for some reason not disclosed in his file. This ingrate doesn’t have a clue what he gave up. He isn’t a hero, no matter he was decorated. He’s a quitter. He abandoned his men, his service, and his country.
Vista made a mental note assigning Austin to undisputed first place in the likely vigilante-leader threat assessment pile. He smirked as he thought about meeting this Trace Austin person when the major picked him up and brought him in.
CHAPTER 46
Quarantine
Day 16
The authorities came to Nanna’s condo that afternoon and took away Pete’s body.
The next day a team of ODMC medical technicians showed up unannounced and drew blood from Trace, Nanna and Isabella, ordering them to remain inside the condo until the laboratory results came back and indicated that they did not show evidence of having contracted the illness.
One day later, Trace, Isabella and Nanna received notice they were disease free.
The next morning, Isabella rushed into the bedroom, ran past Trace who was stretched-out asleep on his stomach on the bed, and went directly to the bank of windows. She raised the shades and let the bright early morning sunlight flood in.
She rushed back to the bed and grabbed Trace’s shoulder. She shook him. “Trace, wake up.”
Trace bolted upright into a sitting position, blinking his way out of a dream.
He turned toward Isabella. “What’s wrong?” he said. He blinked hard and shook his head in short, quick lateral sweeps, trying to whisk away the sleep.
“It’s my mother. She’s yelling in her sleep. She’s hot like Pete was.”
Adrenaline kicked in, bringing Trace fully awake. He stood up and breathed deeply.
“Let’s go see,” he said.
Ten minutes later Isabella quietly closed the door to Nanna’s bedroom and stepped out into the hallway. She walked to the living room and sat down on the sofa next to Trace.
“Why’s this happening, Trace? First Pete, now my mother. I can’t take this anymore.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
“I don’t understand it,” she said. “The tests said we didn’t have the disease. How can this be?”
Trace put his arm around Isabella’s shoulder and pulled her in close. He stroked her hair, gently, moving the palm of his hand down toward her shoulder, stroking her over and over. Isabella always found this soothing.
“All I can think of,” he said, “is that for some reason it didn’t show up yet in the blood work. Maybe Nanna was still in the incubation period when they tested us. For all I kn
ow, we might all be infected, still incubating the disease, and will come down with it in the next few days.”
Isabella cried silently now, her head on Trace’s shoulder. Trace could feel her sobs pulsating against him as her chest heaved. He pulled her in closer, leaned back on the sofa, then stretched out holding Isabella against his chest and side, partly on him, partly on the sofa. They fell asleep stretched out this way.
Trace woke fifteen minutes later. Isabella, still sound asleep, had pinned him to the sofa with her body weight.
He eased himself out from under her until he could sit up part way. Isabella opened her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she said. “Is it my mother?” She started to stand up when Trace took her by her wrist and eased her back down onto the sofa beside him.
“You’ve been sleeping, stretched-out on me. I woke up for some reason. I didn’t hear Nanna or anything. I just woke up,” he said. “Let’s check on her.”
A few minutes later they tiptoed out from Nanna’s bedroom and eased the door closed. Isabella returned to the sofa. Trace sat on the floor facing her.
“What should we do?” she said.
Trace took a deep breath. “You stay with Nanna. I know I’ve done it before, but I’m going to call some drugstores. If that doesn’t work, and it probably won’t, I’ll go out again to find one that’s open.”
It was too early to call drugstores so Trace shaved, showered and ate breakfast. When he finished, he rinsed his dishes, filled his coffee mug, and went into the living room.
He picked up the YELLOW PAGES. The book still was open to the pharmacy section, just as he’d left it on the table.
Trace looked at the listings and saw three drugstores he hadn’t yet crossed-out. He picked up his cell phone and dialed.
The first two responded with familiar recorded messages informing him that the pharmacies were closed until they received the promised shipment of medicine from the CDC — any day now, the recorded messages said.
The last call, however, the one to Horvath & Sons Drugstore, arrested Trace’s attention.
At first, Horvath’s recorded message merely reprised the information Trace had just heard on the recorded messages for the other two drugstores he’d just called. But there was one significant difference.
As Trace was about to hang up, the recording stated that although the pharmacy did not yet have the CDC’s promised medicines, the pharmacy was well-stocked with non-prescription OTC medicines that could be used to relieve the discomfort caused by the terrorists’ disease.
Trace listened to the message all the way through. Then he dialed the number again and listened one more time.
Maybe I can learn something about when the CDC’s delivery will be coming, he thought. He decided to visit the drugstore.
Trace wrote down the store’s address and telephone number, put the paper into his shirt pocket, kissed the sleeping Isabella goodbye, and walked to Horvath & Sons Drugstore.
CHAPTER 47
Quarantine
Day 19
The inside of Horvath’s looked like a COSTCO big-box store, but on a smaller scale. It was organized in row after row of metal shelving stretching along parallel aisles. The aisles that Trace could see were each wide enough for three supermarket shopping carts to pass through at the same time without any one of them having to yield to the others.
Trace stood inside the entrance and looked around for the prescription counter. He saw an overhead sign indicating it was across the store, near the back.
That figures, he thought. About as far away as it could be, so you have to pass other items to get your medicine. Good for motivating impulse buying.
Trace walked along the mostly empty shelves, stepping over debris on the floor. He soon reached the prescription counter.
The pharmacist was a thirties-something Hispanic woman with coal black hair pulled back in a bun. She had beige skin, almost creamy almond. She was tall, about 5’ 9”, and was long-distance runner thin.
The woman stood behind the counter, her arms folded across her chest, doing nothing, just staring into space as if she were waiting for the store to open and for customers to arrive with their prescription forms.
Trace stopped about ten feet from the counter so he wouldn’t startle her when he interrupted her musings.
“Good morning,” he said. He smiled to allay any fear she might have of being alone with a male stranger in the empty store’s remote back corner.
In spite of Trace’s good intentions, the woman seemed startled by the sound of his voice.
“I was wondering,” Trace said, “if you’ve received any of the CDC’s promised medicine? My wife’s mother is ill.”
The woman slowly turned her head toward Trace and frowned. She didn’t say anything. She just stared at him, at first, then slowly shook her head.
After a long pause, she said, “There is none and there won’t be any.”
Trace thought she looked angry. He also thought she looked sad.
He took a tentative step toward the counter.
“When do you think you’ll get some, if you know? I understand I won’t need a doctor’s prescription, will I, given what’s going on?”
“You won’t need a prescription because there won’t be any medicine to buy. I just told you that.”
Trace stiffened. He could feel a tension knot beginning to form at the back of his left shoulder.
“What’re you talking about?” he said, keeping his tone friendly and inquisitive, not accusatory, although he felt accusatory, as if the woman’s statement was tantamount to a declaration that the situation she described was her fault.
“There are printed notices all over town. We’ve been counting on it—” he said.
“It’s not coming,” the woman interrupted. “I know what I’m talking about,” she said, speaking quietly, but resolutely.
Trace forced himself to slow down his breathing.
“That’s not possible. Why would the government post signs around town stating that the CDC is going to deliver meds, then not deliver them? It makes no sense.”
“I don’t know why,” the woman said. “I just know that’s the way it is. I checked. You can believe it or not, whatever you want.”
Trace inhaled deeply, held his breath, then slowly let it out. “What do you mean you checked?” He worked to keep his voice friendly.
The woman seemed annoyed that this conversation was still going on, but she answered him, her voice truculent now.
“When our last delivery was late, extremely late, I tried to contact our supplier. They told me to contact the CDC for information. I tried, but got nowhere.
“My phone calls weren’t taken and weren’t returned,” she said, “so I called a friend in Atlanta — he’s also a pharmacist — and asked him to check with his contacts at the CDC. He tried, too, but he also got nowhere. Well, almost nowhere.”
She unfastened her collar button, opening the neck of her white jacket.
“My friend learned that the CDC had rescinded the delivery order to Fort Lauderdale. There was no reason given for it, at least no reason he could find out.”
She stared down a nearby aisle, looking away from Trace. Then she turned back to him.
“Then”, she said, “someone from the Department of Homeland Security visited him at work and interrogated him about why he was asking questions about the meds. They warned my friend to back off and drop his questions or the next visit would be from the FBI to arrest him for interfering in a matter of national security.”
She seemed to lose herself in some thought for a moment. Then she looked back at Trace, but said no more. She shrugged. “That’s how I know.”
“You’re sure?” Trace said. “You’re absolutely sure?”
She nodded and raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure.”
Trace walked back toward the condo thinking about the import of what he’d just learned. None of this made sense.
Why would the governmen
t post signs about making deliveries, then block the deliveries? Maybe the woman didn’t know what she’s talking about in spite of what her friend had told her. Maybe her friend wasn’t reliable or he had an ax to grind against the government, he thought. He couldn’t see the authorities actually doing anything like that.
He was frustrated.
But if the woman was correct — and the evidence he was familiar with suggested she might be — then there seemed to be nothing he could do to help Nanna, just as he had been unable to help Pete and to help his SEAL team member in Panama.
That wouldn’t do. He hadn’t been trained to accept inaction and consequent failure. He’d been trained to face a problem, apply the Rule of Three, then resolve the problem or, at least, fail trying. He had not been trained to become passive in the face of obstacles.
I’ll fall back on my training, he thought. I’ll see if there is some way to put together a team of people so we can help one another as we deal with the quarantine and martial law.
All he had to do now was find these people and quickly train them to think and act like SEALs.
He was five minutes into his walk away from Horvath’s, heading back to Nanna’s condo, when he heard someone call his name.
He spun around and faced the caller.
“Hey, Trace.”
He nodded. “I don’t remember your name,” Trace said, “what with the reception we received from those soldiers the other day.”
“No problem. My name’s Ibrahim.”
The young man looked around, scoping out the street in both directions. Then he turned back to Trace.
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