Contagious

Clarence’s face wrinkled in anger, but she didn’t care. In fact, she liked it. She wanted to get a reaction out of this a.s.shole, this goose-stepping a.s.shole. How could she have ever thought she loved a coldhearted machine like this?

“What do you think, Dew?” Margaret screamed. “If you were ordered to do it, that would make it okay, wouldn’t it?”

“Margaret,” Clarence said, “please calm down.”

“Didn’t I tell you it’s Doctor Montoya? Didn’t I, Agent Otto?”

“You don’t understand, we ha—”

Margaret threw a straight right jab. He was still talking when she did. Her fist hit the bottom of his left front tooth. His head snapped back, from pain, not from the force of her punch, and his hands shot to his mouth. She had seen anger on his face before, but his new expression went way beyond that. This was fury. His eyes cut through her rage a bit, made her realize that no matter how mad she got, she was still a small woman and someone his size could hurt her. Hurt her bad, anytime he wanted to . . . or anytime he lost control.

His nostrils flared. He stood up to his full six-foot-three-inch height.

“You broke my tooth,” he said. His voice remained quiet, but it was no longer calm. Agent Clarence Otto, her lover—correction, former lover—was about one ounce shy of knocking her right the f.u.c.k out.

“Leave, Otto,” Dew said.

Clarence’s head snapped to the left and he glared at Dew. For a second, Margaret thought his rage might manifest itself on Dew Phillips.

“That’s an order,” Dew said quietly.

Clarence glared at him for another few seconds, then looked at Margaret, hate in his eyes. He turned and walked out of the trailer.

“You need to get a grip, Doctor Montoya,” Dew said. “We’re in a very bad situation here, and you’re smart enough to understand the big picture. Do you have that first-aid kit in here?”

“Why the f.u.c.k do you need a first-aid kit?”

Dew pointed down to her right fist. “Because you’re bleeding all over the place.”

Margaret felt the hot wetness a second before she lifted her hand. Only when she saw it did she feel the pain. Her right ring finger was split wide open at the base knuckle, cut by a piece of broken tooth wedged between the torn skin and the bone.

With her left hand, she opened a cabinet and pulled out the plastic first-aid kit. One-handed, she lifted its lid and rummaged for a suture needle and some gauze.

Dew held out his left hand, palm up.

“I don’t need your help, Phillips.”

“Yes you do.” His hand was still waiting for hers.

“My left hand is fine,” Margaret said. “I’ll be happy to split that one open on your tooth if you push me.”

“Clarence Otto is a gentleman,” Dew said. “I’m not. I’m a firm believer in equal rights. You hit me and you’ll be spitting up blood. Then, if I know Otto, he’s going to come after me because I hit his girl. He’s bigger than me, so I’ll have to knee him in the b.a.l.l.s and then probably break his right arm to make him stay down.”

Margaret just stared at him. Dew talked in a slow, steady voice. A smooth voice. Even while he was talking about nothing but violence, his voice calmed her. Every degree her temper dropped, the pain in her hand went up correspondingly.

“Do you want to know how I’ll break his right arm, Doctor Montoya?”

Images of Perry Dawsey flashed through her mind, images of the huge man curled up on a hotel-room floor, bleeding from Dew’s handiwork. Her brain superimposed Clarence Otto over Perry Dawsey.

Dew’s left hand was still out, palm up.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to know.” She lifted her b.l.o.o.d.y right hand and put it in his palm.

He picked the tooth out of her knuckle and put it on the computer counter. “Otto might want that back,” he said. “Aren’t you scientist types supposed to be above the fray and all that?”

“I’m not going to let that woman die,” Margaret said. “What just happened doesn’t change anything. I’m going to operate.”

“No you’re not.” Dew pulled gauze on the wound, pressed hard and held it. Margaret hissed at the pain. “What you’re going to do, Doctor Montoya, is what you’re told.”

She started to protest, but he squeezed her hand a little bit harder. The pain made her gasp, cutting off her words.

“The president ordered that we allow that woman’s triangles to hatch,” Dew said. “We can’t locate the next gate; therefore we can’t afford to kill something that might have that information.”

“We can’t sacrifice our own citizens, G.o.ddamit.”

“Wake up, Doctor Montoya. America sacrifices her own all the time. Always has, always will. We sacrificed enough of my friends in Vietnam.”

“We have a volunteer army now, Dew,” Margaret said. “It’s not the same thing. We don’t have the draft anymore.”

“Which will last exactly as long as there are enough troops to fight the engagements we have.” Dew removed the b.l.o.o.d.y gauze and tossed it into a wastebasket. He pressed another batch in place, held it with his left thumb, then pulled out a suture kit with his right hand. He tore it open with his teeth and set it next to the keyboard.

“The very second we face a big enough threat, you know d.a.m.n well that draft will be back,” he said. “The few die so the many can live. That woman in there, she needs to die for that same reason.”

“I don’t give a s.h.i.t,” Margaret said. “I’m not military. I am a doctor, and I do not sacrifice people. I’m going over your head.”

Dew removed the second batch of gauze, which was less b.l.o.o.d.y than the first. He pinched her torn skin together, picked up the pre-threaded needle and slid it through the flesh.

His hands were rough but warm. Gentle. She watched his technique: smooth, experienced.

“You’ve done this before?”