Contagious

“Dew! Dew, are you okay? What the f.u.c.k was that?”

“Grenade,” Dew said, his voice oddly calm. “In the computer center. They’ll throw one in here next.”

Perry saw chlorine gas roiling away from three spots on Dew’s helmet. His faceplate was cracked. Higher-pressure air pushed out from the new holes.

“That’s not good,” Dew said.

“No f.u.c.king s.h.i.t!”

They were both leaking air. The compressors on their suits could only compensate for so long.

“Take the guy outside,” Dew said as he scrambled to his feet. “Hit him or we’re dead.”

Perry saw a gaping bullet hole at the base of the wall. Sunlight poured through, lighting up a beam of green mist. He crawled toward it and forced himself to look out. The guy was on top of a Humvee, shooting a huge gun mounted in a turret. Perry was wearing bulky gloves, spraying mist kept beading up on his visor, he held his right thigh with one hand and someone was shooting at him—but the guy was only about twenty feet away.

Perry rolled to his side and extended his left arm. He aimed Dew’s .45 at the man’s head and pulled the trigger until the slide locked on empty.

The machine-gun fire stopped.

The man went limp and fell sideways. He half-hung off the turret’s right side. He didn’t move.

Perry heard the seven-shot report of another .45.

“Perry, I’m outside!”

Perry scrambled to his feet, a little too fast—he caught another piece of ripped wall on his left arm, and the suit tore again. He didn’t bother looking at it, just ran out of the decontamination room and into the final airlock walkway. The last door hung partly open, bent and twisted, full of small holes. Perry sprinted the last ten feet, shouldered the door without breaking stride and found himself outside in a sunny winter afternoon.

Dew stood in the middle of the burned-out house, crouched in a wide stance, .45 in front of him as he swept it back and forth.

Not knowing what else to do, Perry did the same.

Dew emptied a magazine into the dead man in the Humvee turret. Just to be sure, apparently. He reloaded, then let out a long sigh.

“f.u.c.k,” he said. “This is completely f.u.c.ked, kid.” He took off his helmet and looked at it. Perry saw four or five cracks—the thing was useless.

“At least it served its purpose,” Dew said, and tossed the helmet away. He looked at Perry’s suit. “I don’t think brown sticky tape is going to help that.”

Perry looked at his left arm. Something had hooked the PVC just past his wrist, then torn the fabric almost to the shoulder.

“Perry, you sure that gate opens at one-fifteen?”

Perry nodded. “Yeah, totally.”

They heard engines, heavy vehicles coming down the driveway.

General Charlie Ogden stood in the back of the Winnebago, waiting for Chelsea to say something. She just sat there, petting Fluffy. She no longer looked like an icon of love. She looked flat-out p.i.s.sed, her small face furrowed with anger.

He knows we are here. He is coming.

“Are you sure? Sure they didn’t get him?”

I can sense him. You failed.

“What about the men we sent to attack Whiskey Company?”

They are dead. You failed.

Ogden said nothing. He’d known that all the men would die. Even with the element of surprise, the odds were just too great. But if he’d kept all eighteen men together, they would have crippled Whiskey Company. This was Chelsea’s fault.

Ogden pushed the thought away. Chelsea knew best—he seized that belief and held it, because it was far better than imagining himself suffering the same fate as her mother.

“Chelsea, what now?”

There is nothing we can do to stop the boogeyman from coming. We need more time. Start the contingency plan.

Ogden nodded. “Yes, Chelsea. I’ll begin immediately.”

Dew scanned the Jewells’ yard for a place to hide. The vehicles out on the road sounded like approaching Humvees. More of Ogden’s troops. He holstered his .45 and ran to the man he’d killed outside the computer room. He slung the man’s M4 and pulled at his ammo belt.

The G.o.dd.a.m.n biohazard suit was getting in the way. He couldn’t possibly run through the woods in that. They’d catch him in minutes. He unzipped and started taking it off when Perry called out.

“They’re coming!”

Dew turned and looked. His b.a.l.l.s shriveled up—five Humvees roaring down the long driveway.

He was out of time.

Dew looked for cover. A sagging, charred wreck of a refrigerator. He ran behind it, then aimed his M4 at the lead vehicle.

“Dew, don’t shoot,” Perry said. “I’m not hearing any chatter.”

Dew looked at him, then back to the Humvees that were almost on top of them.

“Well, too late anyway,” Dew said.

The front Hummer slid to a halt behind the two that had brought their attackers. Soldiers pointing M4s poured out, led by the blocky figure of a man almost as big as Perry. A bandage circled his head, bright white against his black skin, a red spot on the left temple. He wore a sergeant major’s chevrons and star. Dew saw that some of the other men also had fresh bandages. The man looked at Perry, then strode toward Dew.

Dew scrambled around the melted fridge. He felt silly standing there in his scrubs, the biohazard suit dangling off at the waist.

The sergeant major snapped a salute so rigid and perfect that it was d.a.m.n near comical. Dew returned the salute, only because he’d seen men like this many times—this guy would hold that ridiculous salute all d.a.m.n day if he had to.

The man lowered the salute and slid into an at-ease stance. “Are you Agent Dew Phillips?”

“I am,” Dew said, wincing at the man’s bellowing voice.

“Sergeant Major Devon Nealson, sir. Domestic Reaction Battalion, Whiskey Company.”