Contagious (13 page)

Perry did the sniff test and found the least offensive T-shirt, sweatshirt, underwear and jeans. The only score was one pair of clean athletic socks. He carried the clothes into the steam-filled bathroom.
First a shower, then he’d track down Dew.
SIR DICK SICKLE
The probe wasn’t made of solid material. Not permanently solid, anyway. The whole thing was a collection of tiny particles, each smaller than a grain of sand. A special locking shape combined with a static charge made the individual particles act like a solid sheet of material. It was even airtight. Depending on where the bonds were applied to each particle, any shape could be made. This included moving parts like ailerons, containers to hold fuel and nozzles to direct the force created by igniting that fuel. These parts combined to drive the soda-can-size probe through the upper atmosphere and into a thick cloud layer. High winds pulled the probe first in one direction, then the next. It rode with the wind, using the engines more for guidance than for directed flight.
At 6,250 feet the probe passed through the cloud layer. It identified a target zone and shot northwest. To the Orbital and the probe, one place was the same as the next. On human maps, however, this place had a name.
It was called Gaylord.
At 1,500 feet the probe completed its final instruction. It sent a charge through every particle that turned off the static bonds.
The probe didn’t explode. It disintegrated, changing from a solid machine one second to a cloud of grains the next, grains that would spread as they fell and never draw an ounce of attention. The disintegration also released the seeds.
Over a billion of them.
A light southwesterly wind dispersed the seeds like a trail of thin smoke. Each breathy gust spread them farther, some sailing off on a lone journey, some driven in clusters like translucent contrails or intangible ghost-snakes.
The seeds spread.
The seeds fell.
The vast majority of them would land on ground, water or snow. They would sit there until the elements damaged their delicate internal machinery and they simply became lumps of inanimate matter. A few might get lucky and sit around long enough to wind up on a host, but the odds were against them. Of course, that was kind of the point in releasing a
billion
seeds at a time—even with shit odds, a few were still going to land in a suitable place.
One of the expanding, ethereal seed trails drifted near a house on the outskirts of Gaylord, close to Highway 32. This house was the home of the Jewell family.
The Jewells had had their fill of snowmobiles and basketball, it seemed. Bobby, Candice, Chelsea, Donald and Betty were hard at work on the winter ritual of building a snowman.
Donald even made Bobby promise not to give the snowman a boner, something Bobby had done since they were kids. He always sculpted a prodigious member and called the snowman “Sir Dicksickle.” Funny? Hell yes. But hardly appropriate now that Betty was sixteen. Besides, Chelsea was well into the age where Bobby would have to start acting like a grown man rather than a kid trapped in an adult’s body.
The strand of seeds rose and fell on the light breeze. Dipping to the ground, half of them hit the snow and stuck, doomed to a frigid end. The other half caught the wind coming off the snow and cruised along almost horizontally with the ground.
Donald finished rolling up the snowman head and had Betty help him lift it. It was packed pretty tight, but you never knew if these things would hold when they came off the ground. Besides, Betty was being “too cool” to wear mittens, so having her pick up a big block of ice and snow seemed rather fitting. Bobby wore only a T-shirt and jeans, which didn’t really help show Betty the need for proper winter clothing. They’d probably both catch a cold, and Donald would have the last laugh. The only problem with that was that Chelsea wanted to be like her cousin and had also tossed her gloves aside. If Chelsea caught a cold, Donald would be pretty pissed at Betty.
They successfully set the head on top as Chelsea danced in place, hands clutching a big orange carrot. Her puffy baby-blue snowsuit made her look quite chubby. The carrot was the final stroke in the annual snowman masterpiece (who, sadly, would be Sir Dicksickle only in spirit this year), so naturally the honor fell to the youngest.
Just as Bobby reached down to pick up Chelsea and lift her so she could place the snowman’s carrot nose, the invisible cloud of microscopic seeds whipped through the Jewell family.
They missed Candice entirely.
Bobby’s T-shirt proved to be a disastrous choice—he caught seven on his left arm.
Donald was turned just so and inhaled three of them into his nose. Two more landed on his left hand.
Betty’s hat and thick black hair acted as a defense of sorts, trapping the seeds in the wool or amid her hair-sprayed locks. The wind whipped around her head, however, and four landed on her left cheek. One fell off as soon as it hit, but she would still have to deal with the three that stuck fast. If she
had
been wearing gloves, she would have at least avoided the one that stuck on her left hand.
Little Chelsea had the worst luck of all. She made a hole in the snowman’s head with her left thumb, then jammed the carrot in with her right hand. As she twisted the carrot, driving it deeper, setting it in real good so it wouldn’t fall off,
fifteen
seeds landed on her clammy, exposed skin, sticking fast to the backs of her hands, her palms and her fingers.
Still laughing, the family finished the snowman and applauded. Chelsea made everyone give her smoochies.
Mmmmm-ahhhh! Mmmmm-ahhhh!
Then they all went inside.
LAYIN’ DOWN THE LAW
Room 207 had become the de facto ops center for the Glidden/Marinesco installment of Project Tangram. A little extra money and hotel management magically made the bed disappear, replacing it with a wooden table and chairs from the restaurant. Add a smaller table for a row of four briefcases that opened up to be computer/phone stations, and you had an instant office. At the moment the office contained Dew, Baumgartner, Milner and Amos. They were handling various cleanup aspects of the McMillian situation. Amos was only there for the free doughnuts, but that was to be expected.
The really sensitive communications still took place in the Margo-Mobile, but there was only so much room in there. Dew wanted to finish debriefing everyone, make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He also had to keep tabs on local law enforcement and the media.
Local police were almost always a snap. Despite jurisdictional squabbles, cops were all in the game for pretty much the same reason, and it wasn’t to get rich. If you told city cops, county cops or even state police that there was some shit going down, shit you couldn’t actually talk about, but it was
real
serious and that it was
over,
people were
safe
. . . well, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’d let it go. And for that one-in-a-hundred liberal prick who wouldn’t let something slide? He always had superiors who would play ball, put pressure on the guy to let things lie. Sometimes not even that worked. In those cases Dew would give a last warning, a final face-to-face chat. He’d tell the guy that his whole life was about to turn into a steaming pile of donkey shit, that his reputation was about to be trashed, and if push came to shove he’d be facing some trumped-up charge that would end his career in law enforcement.
If
that
didn’t work, Dew pitched it to Murray and washed his hands of the whole situation. Murray Longworth made problems go away. Sucked balls for the guy with the burr under his saddle, but every war has collateral damage.
This time, however, Dew wasn’t having any problems. Reports of domestic terrorists, army troops, gunfire and a ground-shaking bomb in Marinesco gobbled up attention. Not that people weren’t interested in the sad story of Thad McMillian Sr. going nuts and killing his wife, his daughter and his little boy. A tragedy, that’s what it was. A shame he was running a meth lab in that house, a real shame, but it explained the sightings of men in hazmat suits carrying guns, and it explained the two big semi trucks parked in the McMillians’ driveway. It also explained the absence of Tad Jr. and the baby. Witness-protection plan. Just for a short time as the feds in town worked through the meth-lab case. The boys were safe, although no one could say when or if they’d be back in town. Seems their grandmother (on the wife’s side) lived in Washington State, and the boys were eventually going to go live with her. The local media bought the story hook, line and sinker. METHED-OUT FATHER MURDERS FAMILY would be in area headlines for another few days, sure. Glidden was so small it didn’t even have its own newspaper. Soon it would all die down. This was America. People got killed. Such is life. What time is the game on?
So Dew Phillips was in as good a mood as could be expected for a man trying to deal with a bizarre parasitical invasion. He had helped shut down the fourth gate. He had dry clothes. He was warm again. The media and local police were playing ball. He had a full belly, and room service kept bringing pots of coffee and boxes of doughnuts from Bob’s Breakfast Shack.
Everything was going great guns, right up to the moment when the door opened and Perry Dawsey stepped inside.
Four heads turned to stare at him. Milner’s hand went to the grip of his pistol and stayed there. Baumgartner’s hands locked down on the back of a wooden chair. Amos backed up against a wall, a chocolate doughnut with nuts still hanging in his mouth.
“Dew, I need to talk to you,” Perry said. “Right now.”
“So talk.”
“Get these faggots out of here,” Perry said.
“I’d be happy to vacate the premises,” Amos said. “If you’d be so kind as to remove your substantial bulk from the doorway, I’ll be gone forthwith.”
Perry stepped aside. Amos shot out of the room like a world-class sprinter coming off the blocks.
“Kid,” Dew said. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it. These guys are part of the team.”
“They’re fucking peons,” Perry said. “Don’t make me beat their asses again, old man.”
Dew Phillips nodded. Yes, that was just about enough of this shit. It most certainly was.
“Milner, Baumgartner,” Dew said. “Take a walk.”
Baumgartner seemed uncertain and looked at Dew. Milner kept staring at Perry and kept his hand on the gun. He wasn’t taking his eyes off the big man for even a second.
“Sir,” Baumgartner said, “I think we should stay here.” His metal nose brace glinted in the hotel room’s light. Between the brace and the mustache, he couldn’t possibly look any dumber.
“I said take a walk,” Dew said.
“Sir,” Baum said. “Uh . . . you being alone with Dawsey, maybe it’s not—”
“Take a motherfucking
walk,
boys,” Dew said. “Get out. I want to have a private discussion with Citizen Dawsey.”
Baumgartner let go of the chair. He walked out, patting Milner on the back as he did. Milner managed to follow Baum out the door without taking his eyes off Dawsey and without taking his hand off the gun.
Perry shut the door. “Listen, Dew, something’s up.”
“We’ll get to that in a second,” Dew said. “First I’ve got a pesky little agenda item that we need to address.”
“Dew, you don’t understand.”
“Is there a new gate?”
Perry thought for a second, then shook his head.
“Are you hearing new voices?”
Perry thought again. “Kind of. Yeah, voices, but they aren’t saying any words.”
“No words,” Dew said. “So you’re
sure
they’re not talking about a gate, then?”
Perry nodded.
“Good,” Dew said. “Then we’ll table the discussion for a few minutes and address my topic of conversation.”
“But Dew, I—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, you little shithead.”
Perry stared for a second, then smiled. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Are we going to have a lecture about my behavior?”
“That’s right,” Dew said. “I don’t give a fuck how loony tunes you are, Dawsey. I’m sick of your shit. You’re going to start playing ball, you got me?”
Perry leaned forward and put his hands on the wooden table. It was the only thing that stood between the two men.
“I call you when I need you,” Perry said. “I can’t roll out a bunch of army assholes with guns and helicopters. You can. Other than that, your services aren’t required, so just keep being a good little bitch and go where I tell you to go.”
Dew felt his temper slip into the bad place. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered if he’d come out of this alive.
“Say,” Perry said. “I didn’t see a new Mustang parked in front of my room. What’s the holdup?”
“You’re just a little bastard trapped in a big boy’s body,” Dew said.
“There’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”
“
Boo-hoo-hoo,
” Dew said. “So you had a rough time, and now the world owes you a lollipop?”
“You’re goddamned right the world owes me a lollipop. At least my government does. Where the fuck was my government when I was going through hell, huh? Where the fuck were you when those things were eating me up from the inside?”
“You survived,” Dew said.
“I’m the
only one
who survived,” Perry said. “Because I fought. Because I’ve got discipline. You’ve
got
to have discipline.”
Dew laughed. “You want discipline? I’d like to give you some discipline.”
Perry smiled. “You want to shoot me? Shoot me. It’s the only way you can put me down. You ain’t jack shit without that gun, old man.”
Dew had him. A fight was a foregone conclusion at this point. He just had to keep pushing buttons, get Dawsey out of control. Put him in a rage.
“You mean this gun?” Dew pulled his old .45 from his shoulder holster. He ejected the magazine, cocked back the slide and held up the gun to show there was no bullet in the chamber. He set the gun between them on the table. He held up the magazine with his right hand and used his thumb to flick out the first bullet. Then the second. He stared straight into Perry’s eyes as he emptied all seven rounds. He held the final bullet, then tossed the magazine away and bounced the bullet up and down in his palm.
“So now I don’t have a gun,” Dew said. “What do you have to say now,
boy
?”
“Right,” Perry said. “Like that’s the only piece you’ve got.”
Dew gave an exaggerated nod. The kid was smarter than he looked. Dew pulled up his right pant leg and drew his Taurus Model 85 .38 revolver from his ankle holster. He emptied the five-round cylinder and dropped the gun on the floor. From his left leg, he took a steel telescoping baton and tossed it across the room into a wastebasket. As soon as he did, he wished he’d kept it. A flick of the wrist would expand the baton from six inches to sixteen inches—instant steel billy club. The cat was out of the bag, though; he couldn’t exactly go back and get it. Dew then reached to the small of his back and extracted his Ka-Bar from its horizontal sheath. Finally he slid his hands into his crotch and removed a black switchblade. The switchblade and the Ka-Bar followed the baton into the wastebasket.