Paul got to his feet and Kate took both his hands in hers. ‘I wish you could come with me, but it sounds as if I’m going to be working all hours. I won’t get to see you anyway.’
‘But I want to help.’
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Harley said firmly.
Paul opened his mouth to argue, but McCarthy stepped forward to usher her away: ‘Let’s get going. Dr Maddox, you’re coming with me and Agent Thompson. Harley, you should wait for further instructions. Agent DiFranco will drive you and Mr Wilson.’
He smiled grimly at Paul’s expression. ‘Don’t look so frightened, my friend. We’re not taking you to Los Angeles.’
8
The old man knew death was coming. He felt it stirring deep within his bones, in the way they creaked when he heaved himself out of his bunk each morning. He heard it in the pleading of his heartbeat whenever he got excited or did anything strenuous. Sometimes, when he looked out at what all the guards told him was ‘the best view in the prison’ – over yonder at the bay, the flat horizon a taunt for the men held in this Federal Correctional Institute – he thought he could see death coming for him, a dark shape in the distance, creeping closer every day.
Well, screw death. He wasn’t afraid. Just as long as he got to do one more thing – that thing he’d been waiting all these years to do – before he shuffled off this mortal coil.
He stood at the window now. For the last fifteen years, this room in the low-security wing of the prison had been his home. Once, before he was betrayed, before that bastard took a large sharp rod and fucked him with it, he had lived in a beautiful house, the kind of place his father could only have dreamed of. His brains had taken him a long way. He was a Mexican immigrant who’d been living the American Dream. He’d had a great job doing important work – OK, so some of it was illegal, but that did not make it any less vital. In his spare time there had been stunning women, luxury yachts, fine wines. The only ones who wanted his attention in this godforsaken shithole were a lot more hairy and a little less tender than the women who had never even written him in prison.
He clenched his teeth, waiting for the tremors of anger to subside, his hand resting on the cool surface of the microscope they allowed him to keep. It was not much better than a child’s microscope, pitifully inadequate. Still, it was better than nothing. Beside it, he had placed his reading material, the Journal of Virology and The Infectious Disease Review at the top of the pile. He liked to keep up with what was happening. There had been so many advances, so many fascinating new diseases, since his incarceration.
He picked up a copy of Immunology Today and leafed through it, but couldn’t concentrate. For weeks now he’d been on edge, more desperate than ever to get out of this shithole. Since he’d been here, both his parents had died; his sisters had married and remarried and spawned children he’d never seen. He’d missed the chance to become a father. And the men who put him here had made it clear there would be no parole, even though he had never murdered anyone with these hands, never robbed a bank or tried to blow anything up.
He was a sacrificial goat. The man who knew too much.
He switched on the TV and channel-hopped, a little flutter of anticipation in his belly. Prisoners were only allowed a few channels: ESPN, CNN and Fox News, the Weather Channel, and a handful of Christian channels on which preachers hectored and begged for money. He had pleaded for the Discovery Channel, for the occasional documentary about his favourite subject, but the bastards would not listen.
Now, he settled on Fox News, and the presenter’s words immediately grabbed him.
‘… Indian Flu, a deadly new virus that is sweeping through Los Angeles …’
The old man sat on his bunk and stared, rapt, at the TV.
‘… symptoms are similar to a bad case of flu: fever, head cold … Victims describe it as being like the worst case of flu you’ve ever had, multiplied by ten …’
He leaned forward. It was happening.
‘… and then the victim is killed by what appears to be a seizure …’
They showed footage of people waiting, shivering, in a hospital, dozens of them lined up. He could almost picture the virus particles swirling and leaping through the air around them.
‘… the CDC reports that this particular flu virus has not been seen before, but denies that it is a new strain of swine or bird flu. Sufferers are being advised to stay at home and drink plenty of fluids. Do not go to the hospital. A special helpline has been set up …’
For the next two hours, the old man continued to stare at the TV.
This was it. The one. For many years, he and scientists like him had issued warnings that one day a mighty plague would sweep the earth. The authorities – the CDC and the WHO and all those other government motherfuckers – pretended they were prepared for it.
But he was the only man in America who knew what it was and how to stop it.
He called for the guard. After a few minutes, one of the older guards arrived. Officer Hillier. He looked tired.
‘What’s up, Doc?’ he asked wearily.
In the prison, people always said this to him. It drove him nuts, but he ignored it.
‘Is anyone in the prison sick?’
Hillier raised an eyebrow. ‘What kinda question is that?’
‘A perfectly reasonable question. I just want to know if anyone in the prison has contracted this virus they’re talking about.’
Hillier looked over the old man’s shoulder at the TV. ‘Oh, that. Just a buncha people with a bad cold. Yeah, a few people here have got sick. Why you asking? Want to experiment on them, huh?’
The old man grinned at him. ‘You’re an asshole, Hillier.’
‘And you just lost your privileges for a week, Doc. And that includes using the phone and the internet. And the TV.’
He hadn’t expected that. ‘No, please, Hillier, I need—’
The big guard stuck a broad finger in his face. ‘Shut the fuck up. I’ll send someone to take away your TV later. Enjoy it while you can.’
The old man watched the guard retreat from the cell, banging the door shut behind him, and shook his head, the thinnest of smiles on his lips.
Let them take away his TV, his internet, his phone. They’d all be dead soon. If they knew what he knew, Hillier and the rest of them would be offering him all their money, their houses, their fucking wives in return for his help. Hillier was one of the people whose slow, hideous death he’d buy a ticket to watch.
He knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.
9
‘So, Dr Maddox,’ said Agent McCarthy, leaning back in the seat and stretching his arms over his head, linking his fingers together, palms facing the car roof. The leather underneath his buttocks complained noisily. ‘Been to Sequoia before?’
He was a big man, particularly when stretching, and his bulk seemed to fill the back of the car. His flesh had the compacted appearance of someone who works out a lot but who also loves his food a little too much.
‘Sequoia?’ Kate looked out of the window. All she could make out was the faint outline of bare rocky peaks rising against the deepening blue of the evening sky. ‘The big tree?’
‘The national park,’ said McCarthy, making a face at her.