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“Nice work,” Clarence said to the driver. “You can’t see this from up top.”

The driver nodded. “Yes sir, and it’s only a thousand feet from the crime scene.”

“What about the news helicopters?” Margaret asked. “Anyone see the trailers pull in down here?”

“No ma’am,” the driver said. “We called an air-security alert, forced the news choppers to clear out. And your two semis took a pretty roundabout route to get here. We made sure they weren’t followed.”

They parked beneath the deep shade of the overpa.s.s. Snow-speckled trash littered the area. Graffiti-covered walls sloped up either side to support the road above.

“Nice little vacation spot,” Dr. Dan said. “I should bring my girlfriend here. Impress her with my metropolitan style.”

“Not the time for humor,” Margaret said. “Let’s get in there and get samples from Officer Sanchez and the John Doe, ASAP. We need to see if they have crawlers, and if they do, how we can kill the things.”

She hoped her hunch was right, that she could disrupt the cytoskeleton of the crawlers and stop this new infection. She hadn’t been able to save Betty Jewell. She’d lost Amos. She’d stood by while Bernadette Smith screamed for help.

Even though she had yet to see him, she’d be d.a.m.ned if she had to lose Officer Sanchez as well.

CLIMER SPREADS THE FAITH

Private Dustin Climer peeked out of the tent that held Second Platoon. Some of those Whiskey Company guys were lurking around out there. Maybe they knew. Maybe they were spying.

They’d get theirs soon enough.

Climer turned back to look at his handiwork. He was behind schedule, but in a few hours the last of the Exterminators would be ready to roll. Most of them had already been converted. Those who hadn’t were sleeping, sweating, trying to twitch, but they couldn’t move much with their hands and feet zip-tied to their cots.

He turned to look at Private Pickens and Private Abbas. They’d been out on a patrol, filling in for a couple of sick Whiskey Company guys. Climer had had to wait for them to get back. As soon as they did, he ordered them in here, where ten soldiers jumped them, gagged them, tied them down.

Pickens was squinting and blinking, shaking his head, trying to scream through the sock stuffed in his mouth. Looked like he’d just received the smoochies.

Abbas was fighting his a.s.s off. Even with his arms and legs tied down, it took two men sitting on his chest and thighs to control him. A smiling, one-eyed Nurse Brad bent over Abbas’s head. Brad leaned closer for the kiss. Abbas fought even harder. Two sets of hands grabbed his head, pried his mouth open. Brad pulled the sock out of Abbas’s mouth—the bound man made a strange kind of coughing noise, maybe meant to be a scream, and then Brad gave him G.o.d’s love.

That was the last of them. Another five to seven hours and all of X-Ray Company would be ready and able to serve General Ogden and Chelsea.