Contagious

“That’s a lucky guess, Chauncey.”

Then pick your favorite number.

She nodded and closed her eyes. When she thought of the number, she smiled to herself, then concentrated really hard.

Number one.

Chelsea threw her face into the pillow and squealed with delight.

It will get easier them ore you doit.

Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is an important day.

Good night, Chauncey, Chelsea thought, as loud as she could. She rolled over and closed her eyes.

It was so cool to have a special friend.

THE INVASION

Like most jobs, being the president’s go-to, behind-the-scenes man had pros and cons. Black budgets? Pro.Watching the most powerful people in Washington do whatever you told them to do? Pro. Meetings in the Oval Office where you were the center of attention? Pro.

That same meeting at 3:00 A.M. to deliver bad news?

That would be a con. A big con.

“I’m afraid there are new incidents,” Murray said.

The president in his pajamas. Vanessa fully dressed, hair pulled back tight as ever. Maybe, like Murray, she hadn’t even been to bed yet. Or maybe she was a vampire and didn’t need to sleep at all. He wouldn’t have ruled that out.

“With that weather a.n.a.lysis?” Gutierrez asked. “Did Montoya’s idea find this mystery satellite?”

“Not yet, Mister President,” Murray said. “We’re still getting NASA to pull their heads out of their a.s.ses and focus all their energies on it, if you’ll pardon my French, sir.”

“Even in an emergency, bureaucracy is what it is,” Gutierrez said. “Keep me informed on that. So, let’s hear about this new development.”

Murray cleared his throat and stepped into the breach. “Two people infected with the rot were found at a rest stop near Bay City, Michigan.

They did not have triangles. Donald Jewell of Pittsburgh and his teenage daughter, Betty. The father died on the spot. The daughter was being kept in one of the portable labs for observation. We flew Doctor Montoya’s team there, they performed the examination, and in the process the girl became violent and killed Doctor Amos Braun.”

“What?” Gutierrez said. “How? How did it happen?”

“She took his scalpel and stabbed him in the throat, sir. The girl then tried to attack Doctor Montoya. Agent Clarence Otto shot and killed the girl.”

“How is Montoya?” Gutierrez asked. “Is she okay? Was anyone else hurt?”

“No sir,” Murray said. “Doctor Braun was the only casualty.”

Gutierrez slumped into his chair. Vanessa seemed to pick up on this and leaned forward.

“And why wasn’t Otto in the room?” she asked.

Murray felt his face flush red, just a bit. “Montoya and Braun were doing emergency surgery on the girl. Agent Otto was in the computer room monitoring the situation.”

“But he wasn’t inside the room where they were operating?”

“No.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And how, exactly, does that happen in a case where all types of people turn into murderers?”

Murray said nothing. If he’d insisted on proper procedure, Otto would have been inside the room and Amos would probably still be alive. The trailer was cramped and extra bodies got in the way, but that was no excuse to ignore safety.

Vanessa had him dead to rights.

“You said incidents, plural,” Vanessa said. “What else?”

“We have a body in g.a.y.l.o.r.d, Michigan,” Murray said. “Male, Caucasian, found alone in his house. Corpse was black and rotted. Paramedics performed the swab test and got a positive result.”

Gutierrez sat forward again. “When did this happen?”

“About eight hours ago.”

“Eight hours?” Gutierrez said. “Don’t you have an alert system in place for things like this?”

“Yes, Mister President. The paramedics called the hospital, and it seems one of the local doctors wanted to evaluate the body himself. That delayed a call to the CDC, and when that call was made, it took a little while for the information to reach Doctor Cheng.”

“Cheng,” Vanessa said. “He’s the only one outside of Dew Phillips’s team that knows everything about this situation, is that right?”

“Yes ma’am,” Murray said.

Vanessa nodded. “So it’s safe to say that your high level of secrecy is responsible for this delay? If we had a nationwide alert out, we’d have heard about this g.a.y.l.o.r.d corpse much sooner, correct?”

She had his b.a.l.l.s, and she was squeezing.

“That’s possible, ma’am, but we have more pressing issues at the moment. I ran Donald Jewell’s cell-phone and credit-card records. A few days ago, he made multiple calls to a Bobby Jewell in g.a.y.l.o.r.d. Turns out that’s his brother. We also obtained all of Betty Jewell’s cell-phone text messages from the past week. Messages from yesterday described her feeling ill and said that her father and cousin Chelsea Jewell were feeling the same.”

“Wait one second,” Vanessa said. “You read this girl’s private text messages?”

“Yes ma’am,” Murray said. “All cell-phone text messages are recorded in the databases of the phone companies. Every text message ever sent, I’m told, is still stored somewhere. We acquired Betty’s text history.”

“ ‘Acquired,’ ” Vanessa said. “Which is war-against-terrorism lingo for illegally obtained.”

“With all due respect, Miss Colburn,” Murray said without even a shred of respect in his voice, “I think we have more important things to worry about right now.”

“I agree,” Gutierrez said. “What else did you get out of the texts, Murray?”

“We think Chelsea has the same strain as Betty and Donald. We don’t know much, but this strain does not show triangle growth. It’s something new. However, Betty’s texts said Bobby Jewell had some small welts on his arm, and that he was itching. We think that means first-stage triangle growths. This is a chance for us to get the infection at its earliest stage, sir.