Part 24 (1/2)

William felt his stomach tighten.

'You don't know nothing,' Jeremiah said. 'We wore masks.'

Rebecca pushed back her chair. 'What kind of masks, Jeremiah? Red bandannas? What about your skin? Were you all vaccinated?'

'We don't believe in that,' Jeremiah said. 'G.o.d protects those who do his work.'

'Oh, really? If you had actually been packing anthrax, you'd all all be dead by now.' be dead by now.'

Jeremiah shook his head violently. 'We cleaned it up. We burned it. You'll never find anything.'

'We haven't found a trace of anthrax. You're the one who's ignorant.'

Rebecca touched William's arm: tag team. He moved in, though he felt lost in the story by now. What was fiction, what was horrible fact?

'We set you up, Jeremiah, all of you. There was never any anthrax. What other whoppers did your father swallow?' William asked.

'You just wait and see,' Jeremiah said. 'I ain't talking any more.' His face twisted in doubt and confusion. 'I don't believe anything you say.' Then he started to wail, 'I'm telling you, some of it I just don't remember! They're putting stuff in my food. This place is making me crazy. Maybe I am am sick. Would they get me help if I was sick? I think I need a doctor. I need a lawyer.' sick. Would they get me help if I was sick? I think I need a doctor. I need a lawyer.'

'We're done here,' the virtual counsel said. The background on the screen began flas.h.i.+ng red. 'Questioning of my a.s.signee must stop, and human counsel must be physically present for any further interviews.'

The guard had put some distance, as much as he could, between himself and the table.

Rebecca stood. 'Get our boy a doctor, then a lawyer,' she suggested. Then, acid, 'Check him for anthrax anthrax.'

Rebecca was on her phone as soon as they had left the detention center. In the parking lot she made three calls: one to Hiram Newsome in Virginia, one to John Keller, and one to a doctor name Bobby Keel. She slipped the slate into her pocket and took out a handkerchief to wipe her face.

'Are you all right?' William asked.

'Right as rain. This is nuts,' she said. 'Pack anthrax for a year in a dusty old barn and live? I don't believe a word of it.'

'Can we afford not to believe?'

'I know know anthrax, William. The anthrax we dealt with back in 2001 graded out at one trillion spores per gram, so fine it acted like a gas. It went anthrax, William. The anthrax we dealt with back in 2001 graded out at one trillion spores per gram, so fine it acted like a gas. It went everywhere everywhere.'

'Maybe he's smarter than he looks. He was having us on, playing back our story and upping the ante.'

Rebecca shook her head. 'They might have been creating a diversion. The farm might have just been a testing station.'

'Who's Bobby Keel?'

'A veterinary epidemiologist,' she said. 'We need to know if any sheep near the farm have come down with anthrax.' She unlocked the driver's side door. 'A tall blond man with one blue eye and one green eye. How about some breakfast?' Her hands worked like an ex-smoker searching for cigarettes, the cop's second drug of choice. Then she turned the key in the ignition and switched on the radio. They caught the tail end of the news: '...no confirmation from the White House that the seismic tremors detected around the world came from a thermonuclear explosion in northern Iran. A State Department spokesperson is quoted as saying that the demolition of large ammunition stores can create a similar signature, but weapons experts disagree.'

Rebecca gripped the steering wheel.

'Kind of puts what we're doing in perspective, doesn't it? Anthrax killed five people in the U.S. I wonder how many are dying out there, in Iran or wherever the Christ it is? wherever the Christ it is?' She pounded the wheel to each shouted word. Then, quieter, 'This will suck up every resource, distract everyone. We're sunk.' She bowed her head over the wheel. 's.h.i.+t.'

After a moment, William said, 'I can drive.'

'Then drive, G.o.ddammit.' G.o.ddammit.'

She turned the car off in the middle of the parking aisle and they exchanged seats. William watched her from the corner of his eye. She was trying not to bite her fingernails. Beneath the chipped polish, they were already down to the quick.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

Silesia, Ohio.

He was about to put decent Americans in peril, make them unknowing sheep before a new American Trinity: and so he came to an inland s.h.i.+pwreck of a town washed up on the midwestern sh.o.r.es of that endless tidal sea of red ink-the young out of work and moved away, the old begging along the highways.

The town he had chosen had once boasted a population of fifteen thousand, too many even for Sam's angry, fanatic heart.

Now, at five thousand, it was just about right.

At seven-thirty, the tavern parking lot was nearly empty. Sam parked the truck and trailer, taking up two s.p.a.ces, then got out and stretched. The moon was up, a crescent hanging one handspan above the low skyline. The dingy neighborhood on the outskirts of town was quiet. The single-story brick-walled tavern made a small pool of friendly light-orange and red neon from beer signs, a golden glow through the small windows-in the general grayness of warehouses and grain elevators.

Sam was hungry but he did not much care if the tavern served food. He had been shoring up against a heavy wave of black doubt. He needed something to distract him. Something to temporarily replace all he had lost-the warm press of willing flesh, a moment of oblivion.

He entered and stood by the door. Four women sat at the bar. They had long ago stopped looking for Mister Right. All they wanted now was what Sam wanted-a night when they weren't too lonely.

Young or middle-aged, it did not really matter. Just as long as he could stop the little machine in his brain and get a good night's sleep.

Tomorrow would be a busy day.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

Seattle.

Griff had his eyes open and his lips-what could be seen of them-were trying to move but speech wasn't on the menu and would not be for days or weeks to come. He could, however, move his arm and hand, and one of the agents standing vigil had set out a legal pad on the bed and taped a large marker to Griff's hand. The markings recovered thus far were taped to the wall beside the medical monitors, showing substantial progress as jibs and jabs settled into single large letters.

Now Griff seemed to have returned in force. He was aware that William was in the room, and he made soft but determined grunting sounds. William held up the pad so that Griff could see it and Griff wrote in large block letters, with so much effort at control that sweat beaded up on his cheeks, WATSON?.

William looked his father in the left eye-the only eye that showed signs of life-and said, 'She's dead, Father.'

Griff looked at the ceiling and blinked. William knew that even had his father's face been capable of showing emotion, Griff would have tried to suppress it, to let it out in private later when no one could see him.

Griff again looked at his son. William flipped to a new page. Griff wrote two words with no s.p.a.ce between: WHATFIND.

'Fireworks makings, bags of yeast, inkjet printers,' William said.

Then, VID?.

'We got video, and we've all seen it, if that's what you mean,' William said.

WHYYUO.