pathogen-borne virus that can be introduced into an enemy population and affect brain chemistry. Much of what we know of the therapeutic uses for ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, temazepam, and barbiturates like sodium thiopental and sodium amytal have come from bioweapons and interrogation chemistry research.”
“Okay.”
“Our trips to Cuba and Haiti were intended to deepen that research by using combinations of those drugs along with various neurotoxins, particularly tetrodotoxin, which is found in certain species of puffer fish common to that area. At near-lethal doses tetrodotoxin can leave a person in a state of ‘apparent’ death for several days, while the person continues to be conscious. It was our task to create a bioweapon that would render an enemy population inert but alive.”
“I heard about that stuff,” said Goat. “There was a movie about a guy who went down to Haiti to study it.”
“Yes,” said Volker. “Dr. Wade Davis, another ethonobotanist, though not one of ours. He was the first person to determine that it was tetrodotoxin, along with a few other substances, that was used to put a person into a deathlike trance. So deathlike, in fact, that victims were often declared dead by trained physicians and buried, only to be later ‘raised’ from the grave. It’s cloaked in cultural mumbo jumbo, but I assure you that it is very hard science. Science that we developed to a very high degree of effectiveness. Science I brought with me to the United States and shared with your government. Our government, I suppose. And … science I continued to explore as a doctor in the prison system.” He rubbed his eyes again. “Science that I now fear has slipped the leash … science that may endanger us all.”
Trout stared at him. “Wait a goddamn minute … Wade Davis? Tetrodotoxin? Jesus Christ, Doc, you’re talking about fucking zombies.”
A cold tear broke from the corner of Dr. Volker’s eye. “Yes,” he said in a hollow voice. “God help me, but yes … I am talking about zombies.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Lieutenant Colonel Macklin Dietrich turned to his aides. “Give me a minute.”
The two junior officers saluted and stepped outside to stand in the rain. When the door was closed, Dietrich tapped his headset.
“I’m clear, sir,” he said.
Major General Simeon Zetter sounded tired. “I was just on the horn to the president, Mack. This is bad and they’re looking to us to keep it from turning into a complete clusterfuck.”
“Seems to me this was a clusterfuck from the jump.”
Zetter and Dietrich were old friends who had served together through three wars and had transferred from regular army to the Guard as career moves, taking the promotions and taking to heart their orders to bring the Pennsylvania Guard up to a level of combat readiness second to none. They’d done that, despite having equipment that was mostly post-Iraq hand-me-down crap. The whole line of two-and-a-half-ton troop trucks was ancient, and there was not one of their gunships that would pass a civilian flight safety inspection. The troops were top notch though, and they would need these men to be sharp as knives for what they were about to face. Not just physically tough but emotionally and psychologically tough.
“My teams are in position,” said Dietrich.
“You’re going to need to keep a tight hand on them, Mack.”
Dietrich looked through the streaked windshield as sergeants handed white hazmat suits out of the back of a pair of trucks. Other NCOs walked among the soldiers, overseeing the process of transforming a thousand men in camouflaged BDUs into the cast of a big-budget science fiction movie. Hazmat suits looked scary enough at the best of times; but when the wearer is slinging an M16 and has fragmentation grenades jiggling on his belts, it became dangerously surreal.
“They’re professional soldiers,” said Dietrich, “they’ll do their part.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. This isn’t their ‘part.’ None of them signed on for something like this.”
“Well, hell, Simeon … neither did we.”
Zetter snorted. “And, you’ll love this … the governor wants our assurance that we can guarantee a secure perimeter around Stebbins County.”
“With a thousand troops?” laughed Dietrich. “During a hurricane?”
“I told him that. He authorized me to pull as many men as I needed away from flood control.”
Dietrich was silent for a moment. “That’ll mean married men, too.”
“I know.”
“The press is watching this storm, Simeon. They’ll want to know why.”
“I told the governor that. His people are preparing a story and a statement. Viral outbreak of a type and source unknown. It’s a stalling tactic until they build a prettier pile of bullshit.”
Dietrich grunted sourly.
Zetter said, “And, Mack … the governor’s going to pull the state police out and turn the county completely over to us. That order is being cut right now.”
“We could use the extra boots on the ground—”
“Not for this,” said Zetter tiredly. “A lot of these troopers are local boys. They know the people here.”
“Ah,” said Dietrich. He kept watching the process of transformation that was making spacemen of all of his troops. “So, how do they want us to play this? Containment is problematic under these circumstances and—”
“Mack,” said Zetter, and there was a note of deep sadness in his tone, “we’ve been authorized to go weapons hot. The Q-zone is a no-cross line. No exceptions.”
Mack Dietrich closed his eyes. He knew that this had been a possibility, but it was still absurd on American soil. Obscene.
“God almighty,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Desdemona Fox stood at the edge of the lawn and watched hell itself unfold before her. She knew that the impossibility of the day had now become its defining characteristic, and that all hopes of normalcy had been consumed in a red banquet of unnatural hunger.
“God…” she breathed. A soft whisper, not a prayer.
The state police cars were scattered around, parked on the lawn and in the roundabout, interspersed with county cruisers, emergency apparatus, and unmarked cars. Thirty, forty vehicles. Three news vans. Two of the vehicles were burning, the smashed windows coughing black oil smoke into the still air. Most of the vehicles were pocked with bullet holes or peppered by shotgun pellets.
There was blood everywhere.
On the lawn, splashed high on the front wall of the mortuary, glistening on the driveway gravel. Everywhere.
“They’re dead,” murmured JT in a voice every bit as wooden and lifeless as hers. “They’re all … dead.”
Dez could only nod.
They were all dead.
She knew, though, that JT did not mean the bodies that lay scattered around, their eyes wide, skulls punched in by small arms fire, or skulls smashed by shotgun stocks. He was not speaking about those lifeless corpses molded into the crimson landscape.
No, JT spoke of the others — the black-mouthed, empty-eyed, shambling hulks who had all stopped what they were doing and turned toward them as JT and Dez had gotten out of their car. Their mouths opened and
