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Cooper stared at the woman he’d just killed. “Why are we bringing her?”

The Tall Man smiled. “It’s going to be a long night. Fresh is way better than frozen. Don’t worry — she has enough meat on her bones that we’ll all get to eat our fill. Come on.”

The Tall Man turned and walked toward the front door.

Cooper followed.

BOOK III

DEFCON 1

DAY ELEVEN

IT GETS WORSE

IMMUNIZED: 65%

NOT IMMUNIZED: 29%

UNKNOWN: 6%

FINISHED DOSES EN ROUTE: 56,503,000

DOSES IN PRODUCTION: 38,913,000

INFECTED: 1,488,650 (10,350,000)

CONVERTED: 1,300,000 (1,689,000)

DEATHS: 86,493 (12,250,000)

The Situation Room was starting to stink. Too many meals eaten at the long table, too many people, not enough showers. Murray had left only to go to the bathroom and to sleep a few hours at a time. For once, the burden of age — not being able to sleep for more than four hours at a time — produced fringe benefits.

The rest of the world’s infected estimate had surpa.s.sed the USA’s and was expected to skyrocket in the next few days. While 65 percent of Americans were now immunized, there was no measuring how many people across the globe had received the Feely yeast strain. The best estimate was just 15 percent of the world’s population.

That left six billion potential hosts.

Blackmon slept. While she did, everyone looked to Murray for answers. The disease was the thing, and he knew more about it than anyone else in the room. That meant when Cheng reported in from Black Manitou Island, it was up to Murray to ask the hard questions.

The man whose face stared out from the Situation Room’s monitor was a far cry from the smug, arrogant a.s.s that Cheng had once been. Gone were his illusions of glamour and importance. He wasn’t looked upon as a genius that would save the country. The administration saw it a different way: instead of Cheng getting the credit for every life saved, he got the implied blame for every American death.

“Our models predict that one percent of the Chinese population is actually converted,” he said. “Only ten percent is currently infected.”

“Only ten percent,” Murray echoed. “Doctor Cheng, China has one-point-four billion people. You’re telling me you think a hundred and forty million Chinese people are infected?”