57
Eberhard spoke a clipped order into his chin mike of his Racal biohazard suit and a squad of soldiers in orange spacesuits identical to his entered the inn to begin a sweep of all the rooms.
The hard-plastic of his faceplate had fogged. A fan circulated filtered air through the inflated, rubber-lined suit, but as he sweated, the interior climate felt more and more like the tropics in monsoon season.
His eyes roamed from face to face in the crowd of over a hundred people. Gen was not among them. No report yet from Alpha team sweeping through the inn. The stink of rubber and sweat did not make the wait more bearable. Gen, please be here; don't make me look bad again.
People in the crowd were still shouting questions. "What happens when you get sick? Is there a cure?"
"I cannot answer your questions at this time," he said. "The quarantine lasts twenty-four hours. You will be informed in due course of any other information you may need to know." Then, into his chin mike: "Baker Team, move them out."
A squad of spacesuited men stepped forward.
A burly man in an Evinrude cap and overalls shot Eberhard the middle finger. "You and the governor can kiss my ass," he shouted above the noise. "I done my time in 'Nam, Green Beret, two tours, and I ain't taking orders from you, and I ain't going to no quarantine."
Eberhard nodded to a nearby soldier with his rifle already raised; the soldier fired a tranquilizer dart into the man's chest. A woman cried out. The man jerked backward, teetered a few seconds, then keeled over, knocking down three people next to him like bowling pins. Someone started sobbing.
"Non-cooperation of any kind will not be tolerated," Eberhard said. "You will proceed-"
A voice broke in over his headphones. "Sir, this is Alpha Team Leader. Sweep completed. The house is empty, except for one man. He, uh, appears to be infected, sir."
Eberhard's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean, infected?"
"You'll see. We're coming out the front door now."
A woman shrieked and clapped a hand to her mouth, pointed at the inn's entrance. The crowd turned to stare at a big man who staggered out onto the porch, two soldiers in orange spacesuits following. Blood painted the man's face and shirt crimson. One ruined eyeball dangled from its socket. He dragged a mangled foot.
Eberhard felt a sickening jolt of adrenaline and his pulse began to race. Gen's mitobots did this? The flesh of the man's face looked like bloody ground beef. He was being taken apart, cell by cell.
"It's Eddie," someone shouted, "Fairchild's bodyguard. Look what the virus did to him."
Eddie lurched down the top stairs, stumbled, and pitched forward onto the gravel walkway. The crowd backed away in horror.
Eberhard raised the bullhorn to his helmet's faceplate. "Folks, do not panic." As if he'd given them their cue, people started screaming and fleeing down the hill. Baker Team hurried behind, guiding the rushing herd toward the quarantine units tucked under the heavy-lift helicopters waiting on the beach.
Eddie scrabbled onto his good leg, pushed himself up from the gravel, and hobbled forward. Pebbles stuck to the raw hamburger of his face. His wrecked mouth twisted in pain and rage.
Eberhard had never felt so grateful to be in a stuffy biohazard suit. The guy was a walking infection-a biowarfare weapon. He had to get him isolated from everyone else for at least twenty hours, until the mitobots in his tissues shut down.
"Sir, you must let these soldiers escort you to quarantine," Eberhard said through the bullhorn. Into his chin mike, he said, "Isolate this one, lock him in the BL-4 unit." The two soldiers trailing moved forward to grab the man by his arms. Eddie shouldered them away and lurched toward a Land Rover parked sidewise to the inn. Eberhard noticed a woman and girl standing at the front bumper, restraining a furiously snarling dog. They ducked behind the far side of the car, dragging the dog by its collar. The man kept on coming.
"Okay, give this asshole plenty of room," Eberhard said. "Get ready to trank him." Soldiers scattered well out of the line of fire, keeping their weapons trained on the man. Eberhard said through the bullhorn, "Sir, I order you to halt where you are, and cooperate with the evacuation team."
Eddie halted, wobbled on one leg.
"Good, now just-"
The dog yanked loose and charged around the car at the infected man. The girl leaped after the dog. The woman screamed and flew after the girl. The man raised a handgun and fired twice: bam-bam. A bullet struck the girl and spun her around.
"Gun! Take him out!" Eberhard shouted. A blizzard of bullets from automatic weapons tore Eddie open like a mattress stuffed with chopped meats. He thudded to the ground and bounced.
Eberhard walked over to inspect the scene. "Charlie Team," he said, "get this mess mopped up and into biocontainment bags. And mark the splatter area with paint. If you're not wearing a Racal, do not come anywhere near this hot zone."
The woman knelt beside the girl. Eberhard could see a gaping hole in the girl's chest, below her right collar bone. The dog crouched in the grass nearby, whimpering.
He shouted at the woman through his clouded faceplate. "They can stabilize her in the quarantine center."
The woman looked up and shook her head vigorously. "Can't you see? She needs a hospital."
"No can do, lady. Quarantine first. Twenty-four hours. Nobody leaves the island."
The woman pressed her hand over the bullet hole and bright red blood seeped between her brown fingers. She sobbed and hugged the girl to her bosom. Eberhard noticed the woman's shoulder bleeding from a superficial wound.
"Colonel, this is Baker Team. You might want to hear this," came a voice over the headphones. "Old man over here says he saw Gen." A detachment from Baker Team was gathering up the half-dozen injured or unconscious people sprawled on the ground, placing them on stretchers. One of the soldiers waved a spacesuited arm.
Eberhard hurried across the lawn to find a grizzled man raising himself on his elbows from a stretcher. "I seen the gal, the one ya'll hunting for, 'cept she wasn't deformed-far from it. Virus must've healed her up."
Eberhard bent his face near the man. "Purple eyes?"
"Like morning glories."
"Where did you see her? When?"
The old man pointed. "At the marina down yonder. Maybe three weeks back. Cade and his people walked with her to the end of the dock. She dove into the water. Cade dove in, too. Then Cade and them walked back without her. Don't know where the hell she swum off to, but I never did see her after that."
"Her face was not deformed?"
The old man grinned. "She was as pretty as pretty gets. Had flowers in her hair. Swum away naked, and I caught me an eyeful. Like a poem in the flesh."
"Did she touch you?"
"Nope. But the dog did. That's how I got infected."
"What dog?"
"Lana Seaborne's dog." He jerked a thumb in the direction where Eberhard had just been. "Cade's sister. You was right to blow away that sumbitch shot her little girl. Wasn't her fault the virus did that to him."
Eberhard couldn't swivel the helmet of his suit, so he turned his whole torso. The civilians and the Land Rover were gone. Where the hell did they go? "Where are the gunshot victims?" he said over his chin mike.
"Sir, a soldier in a Racal suit loaded them and the dog into the car and drove them down the hill."
Eberhard turned and started downhill in a shuffling semblance of a run; the fastest he could manage in an puffy biohazard suit.
"The virus helped me," the old man called after him. "Didn't chew away my face. It heals some people. You know that?"
"All evacuation teams, listen up," Eberhard said. "The soldier who is escorting the gunshot victims, stop the car and report your position. I need to interrogate those two immediately. Over."
No answer.
"This is Col. Eberhard. Soldier who is escorting the gunshot victims, report in now."
Nothing came back to his headphones but a fizz of radio static.