the makeshift isolation ward left the captain angry and frustrated. He was depending on Platt to find some answers and find them quickly.
Now as Platt headed over to the lab to participate in the autopsy, he felt a new weight on his shoulders. He hadn't even had a chance to look at the blood samples. Ganz was in a hurry, not just to come up with answers before another soldier collapsed but also to beat the storm. Platt wanted to tell him to slow down. He wanted to tell him that sometimes these things took weeks, months to figure out. But he knew that was exactly why Ganz had requested his presence. The captain was placing all his bets on Platt discovering some hidden virus, some new deadly strain of bacteria. He expected a miracle. And from what Platt had seen in the short amount of time since his arrival, he knew--barring a miracle--there would be no immediate answers.
He kept thinking about the young soldier who died last night. They said he had vomited green liquid just before falling into a coma. By the time Platt saw him, he looked remarkably peaceful. A single groan escaped his lips while his body struggled to get enough oxygen. There had been no swelling around his incision. No fever, though it was apparent from the wet bedsheets that he had perspired immensely in the preceding hours. The pupils of his eyes were not dilated nor had the blood vessels burst. Only in the last hour had his heart rate slowed and his blood pressure plummeted. He never regained consciousness. Whatever had infected these young soldiers was deceitful, clever, and lethal.
CHAPTER 12
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
Gasoline exploded over the top of the can and splattered on Maggie's shoes before she snapped the pump off.
'Damn it, Wurth. Tell me again why the deputy director of Homeland Security is filling gas cans to haul in his SUV. Aren't you supposed to be arranging for trucks and caravans of trucks to deliver things to the hurricane victims?'
'What victims? This is my personal stash. Just put that last can next to the stack of bottled water.'
Maggie slipped off her shoes and threw them in the back with the supplies. The asphalt burned her feet before she got back to the passenger side of the SUV. She opened her window despite the scorching heat. The fumes were already giving her a headache, and by her own calculations they had another three hours on the road.
Wurth slid into the driver's seat and handed her an ice-cold can of Diet Pepsi, his idea of a peace offering. She accepted.
'You'll be thanking me that I got a whole six-pack on ice back there for you. By the time we get down to Pensacola most of the shelves will be picked clean. Gas stations will either have long lines or be sold out. And there is absolutely nothing worse than being stuck in a hurricane area just because you can't get enough gasoline to drive away.'
'I thought you weren't supposed to drive away. I thought you were supposed to be the cavalry.'
Charlie Wurth laughed and shook his head.
'Where do you come up with these ideas, O'Dell?'
'You never did tell me why you're being dispatched to the Florida Panhandle when your home is New Orleans. Isn't New Orleans in this storm's path, too?'
'New Orleans is where all the media is.' He pulled the SUV back into interstate traffic.
When Maggie realized that was the end of his explanation she prodded. 'Yes, so that's where all the media is and ...?'
'You know how this works better than I do. You've been a part of this federal bureaucracy longer than me. Media's all set up in the Big Easy then that's where the director is. Not the deputy director.'
Of course. She couldn't believe she hadn't guessed.
'Which reminds me'--Wurth threw her a glance--'maybe now's a good time for you to tell me how you managed to get yourself smack-dab in the line of fire yesterday.'
'Is that what you heard?'
'That's what I was told.'
She shouldn't have been surprised that Kunze would characterize the incident as her fault.
'What exactly did my boss tell you?'
'I won't tell you his exact words because I don't use that kind of language in front of a lady, but I believe the gist of what he said was that you screwed up. Didn't see it coming.'
'I didn't see it coming?'
Maggie couldn't believe it. How dare Kunze blame her for a killer's unpredictable behavior. And to suggest it publicly to someone outside the bureau. What would be next? Saying that it was her negligence that made him fire his own gun three times into the killer? The first shot had been enough to stop him. Maggie wondered if the head shot that splattered her with the killer's brains had simply been overkill to do just that--splatter her.
'Did he even tell you what happened?'
'Maybe you should tell me what happened.'
'Or my version. Isn't that what you're really saying?'
'Hey, I'm on your side, O'Dell.' He held his hands up in surrender then dropped them back to the steering wheel. 'If I believed anything Kunze said you wouldn't be on this road trip with me.'
'You're right. I'm sorry.'
'You know what, it doesn't even matter what happened. You found the son of a bitch, right? And now he's out of commission. From what I read in last week's newspapers there were a few body parts involved in that case, too.'
She waited for him to make the same inference Tully had--that somehow she'd become an expert in murders that included body parts. Wurth glanced at her.
'As far as I'm concerned,' he said, 'you did us all a favor.'
Maggie settled into the oversize captain seat, tucking a bare foot underneath her, looking out the window, but her mind returned to yesterday's bizarre shooting. They had tracked down and found ... no, that wasn't right. She had tracked down and found the killer's torture chamber--a deserted warehouse near the Potomac.
For Maggie it brought back memories of another killer she had caught many years ago. Sometimes she worried that all the killers she had come in contact with were morphing together. That Assistant Director Kunze had shot and killed this one didn't even bother her. She agreed with Wurth. It meant another monster wouldn't be hurting another innocent victim. That she didn't predict he would be there, who cared?
She had dug deep enough into his psyche to figure out where he hid, where he kept his dirty little secret life. Shouldn't that have been enough? Why had Kunze expected her to read his mind? Didn't Kunze realize that to dig deeper meant inching her way too close to the edge? Or maybe that was exactly what Kunze wanted. To shove her and see if she'd fall.
CHAPTER 13
PENSACOLA BEACH
Liz Bailey downed her second Red Bull. She checked and rechecked the flight equipment then packed it back where it belonged. She had already gone over medical equipment piece by piece, even though they hadn't used anything yesterday. She was bored, only it was worse, waiting and knowing, the calm before the storm. Staying alert while staying put and waiting.
In their briefing this morning they were told to prepare to be on emergency standby for the rest of the week. She could see the waves from her post, churning and bucking against the seawall. Surfers were out before she arrived. She knew they'd be here until authorities made them leave and closed the beach. And they'd grumble about leaving, their eyes glazed over with adrenaline. You just didn't get waves like the ones that came right before a
