Feely seemed far too amped up. And in the fur coat, he did look a little like a pimp.
“Doc, what’s your point?”
Tim tilted his head toward Margaret, did a bad job of trying not to make the motion obvious.
“Argaret-May is inected-fay with eydra-hays,” he said. “She’s oughing-kay. You get me?”
Paulius sighed. “I have no f.u.c.king idea what you’re talking about.”
“She’s infected. If Cooper’s story is accurate, she’ll be dead in … wait, how long have we been here?”
“About five hours.”
“Then she’ll be dead in nineteen hours,” Tim said. “But that’s not what matters. What matters is the hydras are replicating inside of her right now.”
He looked off. His lips moved like he was counting something, or speaking to himself in a language only he knew.
“I think I have a way to save Ramierez,” he said. “A way that not only gets us north in a hurry, but lets us infect hundreds of those motherf.u.c.kers along the way. If any of them radiate out to other areas, it’s very possible that the hydras will spread all over the Midwest. Klimas, if you can pull this off, we might even start a chain reaction that could kill them all.”
Paulius stared down at the man. “If I can pull what off?”
Tim’s eyes shone with a combination of intensity, hope and the dread of a nasty job that had to be done.
“The firehouse,” he said. “And what’s inside … the fire truck.” He nodded toward Margaret. “We’re going to put her in it, so to speak. Margaret Montoya gets to save the world one more time.”
THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
A hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.
“Mister Mitch.e.l.l, wake up.”
Cooper opened his eyes. Tim Feely, standing over him.
Tim smiled. “How are you doing?”
Was he wearing a fur coat?
“Leg hurts,” Cooper said. The understatement of the year. His right thigh throbbed, stung. “I cut it on something climbing over that p.o.o.pwall.”
“p.o.o.p-wall? You mean that street barricade?”
Cooper nodded. “Yeah. That.”
“Well, whatever caused it, the cut required fifteen st.i.tches. You might have ligament damage as well, so walk carefully. Unfortunately, it was Klimas who did the sewing, as my deft digits are a bit dinged up.”
Tim held up his hands. They were bandaged in a dozen places. Some of the white strips had spots of red.
Cooper remembered the half-face man with the axe. Tim could have kept running, but he’d come back.
He’s not like you, Coop ol’ dawg … Doc Feely doesn’t leave anyone behind …
“Uh, what you did back there … thanks.”
Tim’s smile faded. “I don’t want to think about that. Not ever again.”
He pointed across the store to where Otto and Klimas stood along with two other men. Cooper recognized Bosh, and also that big SEAL — Roth, was it? — who for some reason was decked out in Bears gear. Ramierez sat by himself against a wall. Sleeping, maybe. And that infected lady, watching everything. She had a gag in her mouth and was practically buried in a pile of women’s coats.
“Come join us,” Tim said. “Time to talk about how we’re getting you out of here.”
• • •
Cooper listened to Klimas lay out the idea. Tim’s idea, maybe, but Klimas was in charge so it was his no-bulls.h.i.t voice that outlined what would happen next.
Whoever came up with it, the idea sounded insane.
Everyone looked at Clarence Otto, waited for his response.
The man stayed silent for a moment. His jaw muscles twitched. There was murder in his eyes.
Otto raised a hand, pointed a finger — right at Cooper.
“He’s got the hydras, too,” Otto said. “Why don’t we use him?”
Oh, f.u.c.k that. This lovesick idiot wanted to save that diseased wh.o.r.e?
“Because I’m not one of them,” Cooper said. “Your wife is. Deal with it.”
He stared at Otto until the bigger man looked away.
Tim sniffed. “Margaret’s already lost. We can’t save her.”
Otto stared at the floor. “She’ll get those blisters, right? Isn’t that enough? Between her and Cooper, isn’t that enough?”
“It’s not,” Tim said. “Based on what we learned from Candice Walker, it will be another day, maybe two, before the pustules form on Margaret’s skin — if they form at all, because she’ll be dead by then. We just don’t know. What we do know is she already has the hydras in her blood. I know this is hard, but you … we don’t …”
Tim ran out of words. He looked at Klimas, maybe trying to get help. Cooper noticed that the SEAL had his pistol in his hand, down low against his thigh — subtle, but ready to go if Clarence got crazy.
“Using Cooper isn’t an option,” Klimas said. “We’re not putting him at risk so he can pop his zits on the bad guys. The weapon we need is inside of Margaret. We need her blood. All of it.”
Otto looked up. He was a man destroyed, a man gutted.
“Can’t you all hear how insane this sounds? This is barbaric. You want to put my wife’s blood into a fire truck? What the f.u.c.k are we, vampires?”
Tim pulled his fur coat tighter.
“Call it what you will,” he said. “If we do this, then even if we don’t get Cooper out alive, we can still start a plague that might kill them all.”